Open Left - media

On Murdoch And Google, Or, Hey, Rupert, Where's My Check?

fake consultant — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:14:17 GMT

Our favorite irascible media tyrant is in the news once again, and once again it's time for me to bring you a story of doing one thing while wishing for another.

In a November 6th interview, Sky News Australia's David Speers spent about 35 minutes with the CEO of NewsCorp, Rupert Murdoch; the conversation covering topics as diverse as software piracy, world economics, the role of Fox News (and Fox NewsPinion©) in American politics, a strange defense of Glenn Beck, and, not very long afterwards, an even stranger defense of immigration.

We have heard a lot about the...how can I put this politely...challenges Murdoch seems to face associating factual reality with his reality, and we could have lots of fun going through his factual misstatements-but instead, I want to take on one specific issue today:

Rupert Murdoch says he hates it when people steal his content from the Internet to draw readers to their sites...which is funny, if you think about it, because he has no problem at all stealing my content (and lots of yours, as well) for his sites.
(To begin, a quick note: all the Rupert Murdoch quotes you'll see today came from the YouTube, specifically the Sky News Australia interview, which is there posted in its entirety. Although each quote presents Mr. Murdoch's words exactly, they aren't necessarily in their original order; that's so we don't go jumping around from topic to topic too much in this story. When that happens the quotes will be split into separate paragraphs, each with their own set of quotation marks. Words in italics were words Mr. Murdoch himself emphasized.)

David Speers began the interview by asking Murdoch about the concept of public access to free news content online:

"Well they shouldn't have had it free all the time, I think we've been asleep, ar, and, it costs a lot of money to put together good newspapers, good content, and you know they're very happy to pay for it when they're buying a newspaper...and I think when they read it elsewhere they're going to have to pay..."

And it's not just the public, either. Murdoch is particularly incensed at the idea that one news organization would intentionally steal content from another:

"Well...the people who just simply pick up everything and run with it...and steal our stories, ahh, we say they steal our stories they just take them, ummm, without payment..."

"...if you look at them, most of their stuff is stolen from the newspapers now, and we'll be suing them for copyright. Ummm, they'll have to spend a lot more money on reporters, to cover the world...when they can't steal from newspapers..."

Mr. Murdoch is, after all, running a business...but beyond that, he acknowledges that the News Corporation "experience" is also critical, and that creating that experience requires him to deploy top-notch talent.

For that reason he is dismissive of the suggestion that he might establish a free site augmented by a "premium" site that charges for...well, premium content:

"...there's also, in in a newspaper, uh we got a newspaper, or a news service, there's a thing called editorial judgment, there's a thing called quality of writing, um, quality of reporting, and, ah just to say you know we'll take what's average stuff that comes from an agency and uh, not charge for that, it's okay but I think you're really degrading the whole experience if you do that..."

And this is the part of the story where I come in.

It was with great surprise that I heard Mr. Murdoch saying all this, because, for the longest time, Murdoch's own newspaper, "The Wall Street Journal", has been carrying my stories (along with hundreds of others daily) on their WSJ.com website. In fact, my most recent story, "On Determining Impact, Or, How Stimulative Is Stimulus?" ran on their site just a couple of days ago, on November 18th.

Now don't get me wrong: in contrast to Mr. Murdoch, I like being carried in as many places as possible, even if I don't always know about it, and I'm glad the WSJ likes the work, so I am surely not complaining...it's just that I was surprised to discover that News Corporation's editors, exercising on a regular basis what can only be considered fine judgment, had apparently recognized the "quality of writing, um, quality of reporting" that I bring to the table, and, in an effort to enhance the experience they provide their clientele, have been regularly posting that writing...and Mr. Murdoch hates news organizations that steal content...and yet, despite all that, News Corporation never seems to send me a check.

So, Rupert...where's my money?

But it's not just bloggers and the WSJ: the movie review site Rotten Tomatoes is owned by IGN Entertainment, which is owned by FIM, which is part of...wait for it...News Corporation.

And what is the Rotten Tomatoes business model, exactly?

That would be to be the website that gathers movie reviews from a community of reviewers, posting them all in one space, and to use those reviews as the basis for the "Tomatometer" ratings they apply to movies...the Tomatometer being the central brand identity around which the entire franchise is built.

What's not included in the business model?

Paying money for those reviews, a fact I was able to confirm after an exchange of email today with the folks at Rotten Tomatoes.

So, Rupert...where's their money?

We could end this story right here, but there is one other quote from the Sky News interview that deserves to be put in the record, not only because it's a comment on Murdoch's view of the newspaper business, but also because it may be instructive as to how he views television as well:

"...people who have been buying papers for 20 years, um, even bad newspapers, it's hard to see them, um...can't stop buying all papers or even changing newspapers..."

(For the record, I attempted to obtain a comment for this story from Dan Berger, who is News Corporation's primary press contact, but that effort was not successful as of the time this went to print.)

And with that, we come to the "wrap it up" part of the story:

Murdoch is quite upset at the idea that other news organizations will steal the stories that he invests time and effort and money into creating, and yet at the same time he's absolutely dependent on acquiring content for his own sites that he doesn't pay for-and my guess is that virtually every one of the people who have been providing him this content, myself included, are at least reasonably happy with the process that got us here...but we'd be even happier if he would get those checks out to us in time for a bit of extra Christmas shopping.

Oh, yeah, and one other thing: when it comes to news, Murdoch believes that brand loyalty is apparently capable of trumping quality of content in the eyes of at least some beholders...and in truth, I think he's right.

At 50th Birthday Party, Geov Parrish Announces New Lobbying Career

fake consultant — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 01:20:00 GMT

SEATTLE (FNS)--Longtime activist Geov Parrish unexpectedly revealed to the crowd gathered to celebrate his 50th birthday Friday evening his impending plans to end his decades-long career as a public issues advocate in exchange for new opportunities in the field of corporate communications management and image development.

The announcement appeared to be even more shocking to the glitterati gathered for Parrish's 50th birthday extravaganza at Seattle's tony Rainier Club than the fact that the event was sponsored by longtime Parrish nemesis Frank Blethen, publisher of the "Seattle Times" and a frequent target of Parrish's acerbic criticism regarding the state of corporatocracy and its negative impact upon the state of the Nation.

A new commercial venture and three new business relationships were unveiled: a corporate communications consultancy, tentatively to be named "I Am The State!", is to be opened in the next few weeks, after suitable office space is located, with the United States Chamber of Commerce and The Seattle Times Company as the first two business associates; additionally, Parrish will be joining the Board of Directors of the Strangelove Foundation, an organization devoted to maintaining the purity and essence of our precious bodily fluids.
A book deal was also announced.

Parrish, who among his other work was a founder of Seattle's alternative newspaper "Eat The State!", was in an ebullient mood as he explained the thought process behind his decision:

"After spending so many years fighting for affordable, high-quality health care for all Americans-all to no avail-I've decided to focus my efforts on getting myself high-quality health care, no matter what the cost...and considering, on the one hand, that my projected income next year from just the US Chamber of Commerce and Seattle Times operations are going to be somewhere in the range of $2.5 million dollars, and, on the other hand, that when my company pays for my new gold-plated executive health insurance plan it's fully tax-deductible, I'm thinking the cost of health care is probably not going to be a problem for me going forward.

And then I thought: what better day to make the announcement...than Friday the 13th?"

Apparently channeling Dave Chappell, Parrish then offered the crowd a certain single-fingered gesture before shouting:

"I'm rich, bitchaaas!"

In an exclusive interview, Frank Blethen explained to me the rationale behind the surprising new relationship:

"There was a time when we could afford to ignore publications like "Eat the State!", but as conditions for traditional publishers continued to deteriorate we found ourselves having to face the uncomfortable reality that last year Parrish's paper was actually more profitable than "The Seattle Times", and it was at that point that the Board and I decided to approach Parrish with an offer of employment."

Parrish declined the offer, citing his unwillingness to be anyone's employee. Blethen, however, would not be dissuaded:

"...we were determined to have him, in whatever capacity we could, and finally we hit upon the idea of hiring him as a consultant. We still couldn't come up with enough of an annual retainer for Parrish to be fully persuaded, so I made a quick call to Tom Donohue at the Chamber, which is how we came up with the proposal to have him advise not just The Seattle Times Company on media outreach and branding strategies, but, through the auspices of the Chamber, to provide those same services to other companies that could use 'the Parrish Touch'."

As the Obama Administration's plans for a new energy policy begin to become more certain Parrish's I Am The State! is also expected to provide services to companies outside the media community.

I was able to confirm this with a quick call to Exxon/Mobil spokesman Harry Paratestes, who told me that:

"...we are one of several companies that are seeking to reinvigorate our corporate image ahead of any new energy legislation that might be forthcoming from this and future Administrations.

Parrish's ability to successfully position his own media property while simultaneously destroying three competing papers-first, the "Seattle Weekly", then, Hearst's "Seattle Post-Intelligencer", and finally, the "Seattle Times"-gives us the confidence we need to invest in his ideas and every expectation of a profitable and mutually satisfying outcome."

Based on a recommendation from Tom Donohue, Center Street Publishers is rumored to have offered a $3.5 million advance for the rights to Parrish's new book documenting his change of circumstances, "The State Can Eat Me!"; it is anticipated that distribution will be not only through traditional retail channels, but also through Conservative websites such as Human Events, which is currently offering books by Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin at deep discounts to entice new website subscribers.

A number of times during the evening I attempted to obtain a comment directly from Mr. Parrish regarding these developments, but due to my inability to penetrate either the cordon of sunglass-wearing security personnel or the ever-present entourage that now surrounds him that effort proved to be impossible.

In a written statement, Parrish's people informed us that his next move will be to visit the Columbia Tower, Carillon Point, and the South Lake Union area to identify a suite of offices that can be redesigned to meet his specific requirements (which, I'm told, include an indoor shooting range, a cafeteria operated by the local "Popeye's" chicken franchisee, and the largest organ in the State of Washington); during the period of construction, we were informed, he will be in residence in either the other Washington, at the Hay-Adams Hotel, or Atlanta, Georgia, at the Omni Hotel at CNN Center, where, despite the fact that he was initially recruited by the "Times'" Blethen, he will be doing his first consulting work for other members of the Chamber.

On the National House Ballot

Chris Bowers — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:23:07 GMT

Of all the various ways that people complain about national media suckitude, there is no type of political media coverage that sucks more than election coverage.

I bet this could be proven as an objective fact. There is an entire cottage industry of useful, accurate election coverage that has sprouted online over the last few years entirely because national political media coverage of election analysis is so downright sucky. Large websites such as Real Clear Politics, Pollster, 538, Electoral-Vote, Daily Kos, MyDD and even Open Left would be a shadow of their current size if not for the abject incompetence in election horserace coverage provided by larger news outlets. And this isn't even to mention the "professional" electoral forecasts provided by CQ, Cook, Rothenberg and others.

What the larger news media primarily lacks compared to the online electoral analysis cottage is context and detail. That is, the broad range of polls and other electoral factors and rarely discussed by media outlets that pay for their own polls, and the drill-down detail on individual states and congressional campaigns.

A perfect case in point came yesterday, when the Gallup poll showed Republicans ahead by 4% in the national House ballot for 2010. This individual poll generated hundreds of news stories across the national media, almost all of them claiming that Republicans were now ahead in the race for the House in 2010. However, what this crappy media coverage failed to tell readers is that the Gallup poll was one of only 18 national house ballot polls produced over the last month, 13 of which still showed Democrats ahead.

(More in the extended entry)
One poll, taken on its own, has much more inaccuracy than polling averages. A study conducted by the National Council on Public Polls after the 2008 election indicated that, on average, the 507 polls taken during the last 20 days of the election missed the final margin of the campaign they surveyed by 4.0% (see the candidate margin, and multiply it by two). However, if someone--say, an enterprising online, amateur analyst--had just averaged the polls in each campaign over the last 20 days of the election, they could have produced a mean error of only 2.6%.

Empirical evidence demonstrates that poll averaging reduces error, no matter what deductive arguments against poll averaging are given from time to time. As such, providing the broad context on all polling would mean more accurate election horserace coverage. However, given that many news outlets are paying for their own polls, and that more dramatic headlines are viewed as a means to increase audience share, many new outlets simply will not provide this broader context. Had they done so for the National House Ballot, they would have been forced to tell readers that Republicans have gained ground, but that Democrats still hold a substantial, roughly 4.2% advantage. Like so:

Nov 12: Democrats +4.17

Poll Sponsor	Poll Mid-Date	Democrats	Republicans
Total	Nov 12	42.50	38.33
Gallup	Nov 07	44	48
Rasmussen	Nov 05	37	43
Daily Kos	Nov 04	35	30
Pew	Nov 03	47	42
Economist	Nov 02	46	37
AP	Oct 31	48	41
CNN	Oct 31	50	44
Rasmussen	Oct 29	38	42
Daily Kos	Oct 28	36	28
Economist	Oct 26	47	41
NBC / WSJ	Oct 24	46	38
Rasmussen	Oct 22	38	42
Daily Kos	Oct 21	37	28
Economist	Oct 19	45	36
PPP	Oct 18	48	40
ABC / WaPo	Oct 17	51	39
Rasmussen	Oct 15	37	42
Daily Kos	Oct 14	35	29

The complete methodology behind this table can be found here. Also, I update the numbers every time a new national House ballot appears. You can see the topline result in the button in the middle column of Open Left.

Republicans have gained, but they are still behind. Further, worries about Republicans outperforming their poll numbers in the national House ballot are unfounded. Across the 150 campaigns for which I have looked at polling averages since 2004, Democrats, not Republicans, actually gain a couple tenths of percent from the final poll to the final result on average.

Since polling methodologies for the National House Ballot are the same as they are for other campaigns, there is no reason why Republicans would perform better from the final poll to the final result in that specific campaign, but not in other campaigns. It a conclusion is akin to flipping a coin seven times, having it come up heads six times, and then concluding that heads is the result on 80% of coin flips. To date, the better performance of Republicans from the final poll to the final result in the House ballot is simply a statistical fluke from a too small data set. When only a dozen or so polling averages are examined, such a fluke can easily occur. However, over time, the results will even out.

I am somewhat torn about pointing this all out. On the one hand, I would actually like it if national election horserace coverage provided more context and detail in an attempt to improve accuracy. On the other hand, as long as they keep sucking, the more likely it is that I am able to make a living.

Speaking of which, our fundraiser is still ongoing. Tim Tagaris and Robert Greenwald have each pledged to give $1 to Open Left for every new follower they have on Twitter, up to $250 each. So, not only will it help Open Left, but you will have two new must reads on your Twitter feed. Please, start following Tim and Robert and Twitter now!

White House sure did a heckuva job on FOX

Adam Bink — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Well, that was quick. Yesterday was the announcement that White House interim Communications Director Anita Dunn, who started this fight with FOX, would be leaving. Today is this:

President Obama will give an interview to Fox News' Major Garrett, Drudge reports.
The interview will take place in China next week and comes just one day after it was reported that Obama Communications Director Anita Dunn the so-called general in the administration's war against Fox News will be stepping down.
[...]
Fox News executive Michael Clemente met recently at the White House with Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and since then the tensions between the two parties have cooled; senior adviser David Axelrod granted an interview to Garrett last week.

In response, Glenn Beck cackles and calls Anita Dunn a Communist. So, heckuva job, White House! Things have really changed.

I don't have any place to speculate that Dunn was forced out or this is some gesture to FOX or whatever, but it certainly doesn't look good. And how exactly have tensions cooled? Like I wrote back when this first started, this is akin to spanking FOX, sending them to their room, and expecting things to change. They are, and always will be, either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party (and those aren't even mine, those are Dunn's words, speaking for the White House!). They were before Obama came. They will be after Obama leaves. This is a long-term issue, which doesn't justify the White House's "FOX is being mean to us so we spanked them and they'll do better" mindset.

And by the way, what about the rest of us out here? FOX's hosts will continue to smear ACORN, Alan Grayson, Democrats in Congress, SEIU, and on and on and on. Even if the White House argues that FOX will play nice with them from now on, the rest of us still get thrown under the bus.

So I said it before, and I'll say it again. This was a job half-assed.

Markets Cheer Republican Victories

tremayne — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:40:53 GMT

Here's the lead from a CNN money story this morning (not an editorial):

U.S. stocks were poised to open higher Wednesday, as Wall Street cheered a number of Republican election wins ahead of the Federal Reserve's latest policy meeting decision.

And later in the story:

But positive market momentum appeared as investors were encouraged by several Republicans victories, including the governor races in both New Jersey and Virginia.
More broadly, the wins reflect a sharp rebuke by Americans of current policies in Washington, including massive spending programs that have helped grow the federal deficit.
"The election results suggest that perhaps the referendum of the Democratic Party, more specifically President Obama, is being challenged in the marketplace," said Mark Luschini, chief investment strategist at Janney Montgomery Scott.

So the stock market, which has been going mostly up for 8 months (apparently cheering uh...something), is set to go up some more this morning. And this is proof that investors are happy about the races for Governor in NJ and Virginia. Nevermind that a lot of investors, like Warren Buffet, George Soros, etc. are Democrats, apparently it is just a given that:

1. Investors are Republicans

2. Happy political results for Republicans = market goes up

Of course the market has been going up and down for the last month. I guess that's because, on some days, Republicans are feeling happy and confident and on other days they are feeling sad.

Obviously this is just as ridiculous as the "markets hate Obama" meme from last February which mysteriously faded away when the markets began moving upward. Amazingly this story is not posted as an editorial but asa front page story on CNN Money.

Anyway, even if you accept the premise, what does that say about the markets? "We like it when Democrats lose because then the gap between the rich and poor widens and we can buy another chateau."

That MSNBC Follow-Up is Sooo Tricky

Adam Bink — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 18:41:37 GMT

Via Aravosis, here's a video of Jon Stewart last night ripping FOX. The part I really want to focus on starts at the 9:55 minute mark with Valerie Jarrett.

Stewart nails it such that I'll even transcribe it for you.

Interviewer: Do you think FOX News is biased?
Valerie Jarrett: Well of course they're biased, of course they are...

Excellent job. Right on message. But watch her retreat into her shell when asked...

Interviewer: Do you also think MSNBC is biased?
Jarrett: Well, you know what, this is, this is the thing, I don't want, actually, I don't want to just generalize all FOX is biased, or another station is biased...

Wow, that was a train wreck. Jon Stewart dissects:

Stewart: Just say of course MSNBC is biased, but they agree with us! So we're not fighting with them! And by the way, MSNBC wishes they were as good as FOX. They're the Toledo Mud Hens to the FOX's Yankees. MSNBC doesn't even realize their morning show is hosted by a conservative. Obama administration, do you even know your role in all of this?
Jarrett: What the administration has said very clearly is, we're going to speak truth to power...
Stewart: What the %!$@?! Truth to power! You're the White House! You're the power! Here's how it goes in the truth to power statement: it's your job to %!$@ up power, it's FOX's job to %!$@up truth!

One of the interesting elements of the battle with FOX- which I think the Administration is running half-assed, so far- is how people immediately get tripped up when asked about MSNBC. Some say yes, some say no, some say yes but not the same way FOX is. I've never seen anyone be able to answer that dreaded MSNBC follow-up. But this isn't rocket science.

Here's my advice to the Administration. First, sit down together and get yourselves a single set of talking points on this issue. Second, they should say the following: "Every cable news show invites on people with opinion. What makes FOX different is that every element of their show is biased opinion, from their anchors to their commentators to the stories they choose to cover. That's why they're not a news channel, they're an opinion channel that operates as an arm of the Republican Party, and that's why the White House is treating them we do any other biased opinion channel."

It's as simple as that.

And for the rest of us out here, let's keep pushing members of Congress to stay off FOX, and to support ACORN against FOX's attacks.

What "Liberal" Media? Study Shows Manipulation of Press to Serve Right-Wing Agenda

project vote — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 04:00:00 GMT

Cross-posted to Project Vote's Voting Matters Blog

Media manipulation by the right-wing to influence public perception has been a decade-long tactic to undermine voter registration in America. While the current media frenzy surrounding the community organization ACORN is only partly related to voter registration efforts, it is important to note that the attacks have been built on a foundation of misinformation and media manipulation by the right-wing over several years, largely surrounding the myth of "voter fraud."
How this strategy has played out was the subject of a recent independent academic study, "Manipulating the Public Agenda: Why Acorn was the News, and What the News Got Wrong." Conducted by Peter Dreier, director of the Urban and Environmental Policy Center at Occidental College and Christopher Martin, professor of journalism at the University of Northern Iowa, the report examines how "the little-known community organization became the subject of a major news story in the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, to the point where 82% of the respondents in an October 2008 national survey reported they had heard about ACORN."

In a press release, the authors say that "...repetition of unverified allegations and distortions was the rule in national reporting of a purported 'voter fraud' scandal involving the community organizing group ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) during the 2008 presidential campaign."

According to the study, 647 ACORN-related news stories published in 15 news outlets between 2007 and 2008, many of which parroted a plethora of unverified allegations from conservative parties.

"The academic study found that news-media coverage of the voter-fraud charges failed to distinguish between problems with registering voters and actual voting irregularities, which are rare," wrote Chronicle of Philanthropy writer Suzanne Perry, who recently covered "Manipulating the Public Agenda."

"It also found that 80 percent of the stories failed to mention that Acorn was reporting registration irregularities to the authorities; 85 percent failed to report that the group was acting to stop incidents of registration problems; and 96 percent failed to provide deeper context, especially about efforts by Republican Party officials to use voter-fraud allegations to dampen voting by low-income and minority Americans."

A prime example of conservative framing coloring the news, the study notes, is the widely reported August 2009 release of White House and Republican National Committee transcripts and emails. All major news outlet reports on the transcripts - which revealed that former Bush senior advisor, Karl Rove, helped orchestrate the firing of former New Mexico U.S Attorney David Iglesias "for failing to help Republican election prospects by prosecuting alleged instances of voter fraud by ACORN" - failed to discuss Rove's overt plan to attack ACORN's voter registration efforts in New Mexico and other states.

According to the study, this "demonstrates that there are indeed intensive political efforts to influence the national news agenda and to frame news stories by special interest groups."

In the study, Dreier and Martin note that, while the current frenzy is about ACORN, the pattern of manipulation has important ramifications for organizations across the country. "Although the 2008 presidential election is long over, conservative opinion entrepreneurs and the conservative media echo chamber remain fixated on ACORN,and poised to inject their frame about ACORN as an issue in the 2010 and 2012 national elections."

"Were this simply an isolated example of media complicity (witting or unwitting) with political organizations, the attack on ACORN would be of interest only to ACORN, its allies and detractors. But this case has wider implications. Our analysis of the narrative framing of the ACORN stories demonstrates that-despite long-standing charges from conservatives that the news media are determinedly liberal and ignore conservative ideas-the news media agenda is easily permeated by a persistent media campaign, even when there is little or no truth to the story."

In an Oct. 21 feature, the San Francisco Bay Guardian outlined the conservative agenda of using the mainstream media and playing on the public's psyche to promote the Party and its special interests. Bryant Welch, a clinical psychologist, author, and expert on political manipulation, tells the Guardian that "the right-wing commentators' success lies partly in their ability to harness core human emotions such as paranoia or envy."

"This is very, very sophisticated propaganda," says Welch. "I don't think progressives really get it that it's a technique being used all the time."

Republicans approach issues as a marketing challenge, according to George Lakoff, a professor of linguistics at UC Berkeley and author of Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. In the Guardian, Lakoff says that to "counter this tactic...the left would do well to learn how to frame things in moral terms instead of playing defense against right-wing spin masters."

According to the Guardian, Lakoff's advice is to "define the moral imperative behind empowering the people and their government to create a better world, then aggressively push a campaign to do so."

"It's the 'this is the right thing to do' approach," he says.

Politico Retracts

Chris Bowers — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:21:21 GMT

Now, despite their history of ethical and accurate journalism, Politico is now reporting that Pelosi is still whipping for the Medicare +5% public option:

HAPPENING NOW -- Pelosi publicly whipping on robust public option
After Democratic sources told POLITICO that there are not the votes for a robust public option, party leaders have their rank-and-file behind closed doors in the Capitol basement and are going through every name to see where they stand on a Medicare plus-five public option, the so-called robust plan. It's a public whip, often used to shame the outliers into backing their preferred plan.

Kind of tough to still be whipping on a Medicare +5% public option when you have given up on that public option. Pretty awesome reporting there.

Join in the whip. Call a key member of Congress

I Heard A Rumor That The Obama Administration Hates You

Chris Bowers — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 14:28:35 GMT

Quick Hits was buzzing last night with rumors that President Obama had supported the trigger in a meeting with Senate Democratic leaders. CNN:

In recent days, two administration officials have told CNN that the prevailing White House opinion is for the Senate health care bill to include a so-called "trigger" mechanism proposed by Snowe that would bring a public option in the future if thresholds for expanding coverage and lowering costs go unmet in coming years.

The source familiar with Thursday evening's meeting said Obama "pushed for a so-called trigger, because it's the more bipartisan way to go," due to Snowe's support for the concept. A critical White House goal in passing a health care bill is the ability to call it bipartisan, so Obama officials are wary of doing anything to alienate Snowe.

Then again, CNN's anonymous "administration officials" are countered by the anonymous "Democratic aide" in the New York Times:

Mr. Reid met with President Obama at the White House Thursday to inform him of his inclination to add the public option to the bill, but did not specifically ask the president to endorse that approach, a Democratic aide said. Mr. Obama asked questions, but did not express a preference at the meeting, a White House official said.

So, did President Obama push for the trigger, or did he not state a preference? It probably depends on what you are inclined to believe even before you heard these anonymous sources. If you thought the White House was pushing the trigger beforehand, you will probably read this as confirmation. If you thought it was largely staying neutral and leaving it up to Congress, you will probably read this as confirmation of that.

Personally, I am inclined to believe that the right-leaning source in the Obama administration and on Capitol Hill use these anonymous leaks try and make their positions look more popular with President Obama and the Democratic leadership than they really are. In this case, a trigger-happy administration official wants to make it look like Obama is on his side.

Anonymous Democratic sources are far more frequently used as bludgeons against progressives than not. For that reason, and because there is a conflicting source in this case, I am inclined not to believe that Obama was pushing triggers in the meeting.

But wait--the rumors didn't end there! Next up, Politico claimed this morning that Speaker Pelosi had concluded she did not have the votes for Medicare +5%, based entirely on anonymous source. And you know the source is doing this to spread the truth, rather than to attack progressives, given that the article only has one actual quote:

"Votes aren't there," a top official said. "The progressives are always more optimistic than reality."

Yep--not looking to attack progressives at all with this anonymous quote. The story was immediately contradicted by eponymous sources from Pelosi's office (more in the extended entry):

Politico's Mike Allen has a splashy story up this morning claiming, among other things, that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has concluded that she can't pass the robust public option. But is it accurate? Not according to Pelosi's spokesman Nadeam Elshami:

"Speculation that a final decision has been made about the public option are not accurate," Elshami tells TPMDC. "We continue to work with all the members of the caucus to build consensus."

And, for what it is worth based on my anonymous top Democratic sources, that is what I am hearing is well. No decision has been made. There is a caucus meeting taking place this morning. There is, certainly, a struggle to find the votes for the Medicare +5% public option, but the fight is not over.

Call a key member of Congress near you now.

Update: More on the Politico's air-tight and widely confirmed story this morning:

"It makes no sense that she'd count votes, come up a few short, and just call it a day," said one Democratic health care strategist. "The debate in the House is over either a national public option, available everywhere, that pays Medicare +5 rates or a national public option available everywhere that has to negotiate rates. And that's only if the horse-trading doesn't come up with votes. [Pelosi] probably only needs at most a dozen - and the horse trading could involve other issues besides health care or the public option... the idea that the compromise will be a trigger is nuts."

Secondly, the Senate itself doesn't seem inclined to go for the trigger approach either. According to several sources, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stands just a few votes short (one or two, really) of the 60 needed to pass a public plan with an opt-out clause. The work right now is to get those remaining votes not, necessarily, to scrap the work already done in favor of pushing a trigger proposal (which, it should be noted, is the preference of the lone Republican on board -- Sen. Olympia Snowe).

EXCLUSIVE!

The Village and its Idiots

Adam Bink — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 23:30:00 GMT

So the Villagers have circled their wagons around FOX in the name of respect, comity and High Broderism. Why their don't actually join in the fun and report on FOX's biased coverage, since it might ultimately help their own ratings, is beyond me, but that's what we get. Ruth Marcus published an absurd piece in the WaPo on Monday, which Eric Boehlert takes apart, and yesterday ABC's Jake Tapper called FOX a "sister organization" and attacked Robert Gibbs over the White House's position. Other talking heads have taken up the banner. The Village doesn't actually recognize its Idiots, and has become them.

Or, what Digby said:

It's all very heartwarming to see all the little media Villagers gather around their wealthy potential future employer, Fox News, and defend it from the big bad White House, but seriously, is there any real doubt that Fox News (not the gasbags ---but Fox News itself) is biased? (As Boehlert asks here --- has Ruth Marcus ever watched Fox News?) There are so many examples that it seems ridiculous to have to make the case, but evidently the villagers are so brainwashed they can't even see what's before their very eyes.
[...]
But just as it took nearly 25 years for the villagers to grok that even though he was invited to dinner parties by important people, Rush Limbaugh is actually a malignant blight on humanity, those who don't watch Fox News (and therefore agree with it) simply assume they must be ok because they hire lots of credentialed journalists and are invited to all the important social events. It would be downright unseemly if it turns out that right wing fascists are walking among them.

The whole thing reminds me of when Dana Milbank called HuffPo's Nico Pitney a "planted questioner" and a "dick", jealously upset that a new media outlet like HuffPo actually got a question in a live White House press conference. It's Villagers guarding their corridors of power, whether the people trying to come in is the HuffPo or the Obama administration.

I'm watching for the reaction of congressional Democrats, which I haven't seen much of. FOX gets elected Dems, former elected Dems, and Dem strategists on their network as their bread and butter, and a key to their legitimization and continued existence.

In something of a win, FOX was told that they should not "expect" Obama to appear on their network for the rest of the year. MoveOn launched a petition yesterday asking Democrats to follow his lead and stay off the network. It's a start towards "fringe-ifying" FOX by taking away those that gets it legitimization and viewership.

Sign here to ask Democrats to follow Obama's lead, post the link on Facebook, and if you're on Twitter, retweet:

RT @MoveOn: @BarackObama will not go on FOX for the rest of this year. Ask Democrats to stand with him and stay off FOX: http://bit.ly/sLmTz

White House to Fox: "I Wish I Knew How To Quit You"

Adam Bink — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 20:15:00 GMT

Last week, in the midst of the Obama Administration's smacking of all of us as "internet left fringe", they gave me some Hope^TM when Anita Dunn decided to engage in something of a war against Fox. I wrote at the time:

Simultaneously, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn has engaged in something of a week-long war this past week against FOX News, on the record. Earlier she said FOX is "opinion journalism masquerading as news" to TIME Magazine, then followed up on CNN yesterday, saying FOX is "either the research arm or the communications arm of the Republican Party", then did an interview with the New York Times published today, saying "We're going to treat them the way we would treat an opponent... As they are undertaking a war against Barack Obama and the White House, we don't need to pretend that this is the way that legitimate news organizations behave."

And here's the real money quote from a NYTimes interview she did:

Ms. Dunn [...] stressed that administration officials would still talk to Fox, and that Mr. Obama was likely to be interviewed on the network in the future. But, she added, "we're not going to legitimize them as a news organization."

Then, yesterday, Axelrod and Emanuel, appearing on the Sunday talk shows, confirmed they would allow WH officials to continue to appear on FOX.

The whole thing seems rather akin to spanking FOX and sending them to their room. As a strategic matter, is this effective? FOX's senior vice president for programming, as well as Roger Ailes, both have said they like it when the White House attacks them, in terms of how it helps their ratings and appeal among their demographic, which voted 88% for Bush in 2004. I actually believe them. On the other hand, there are other Americans who listen to the White House's comments and tune out FOX. It might be a little of both.

But what this comes across to me as akin to is not finishing what you started. Does the White House actually believe that if they send FOX to their room, FOX will ask fewer biased questions, Glenn Beck will talk about how the stimulus is working, etc.? And if my theory is right, and the White House's comments get Democrats and independents to stop watching FOX, and get hard-core Republicans to watch FOX even more... then, um, in terms of their audience, aren't they even more of what Dunn called an opponent, a research/communications arm of the Republican Party? And if that's the case, then why continue going on? Hell, why doesn't Obama start going to state Republican conventions? Same demographic, same biased questions, same communications arm of the Party. I have trouble finding the difference, with the exception that Obama might get booed. On the other hand, that might play into his team's brilliant strategy to not appear as a captive of the movement left or movement right.

Dunn said "we're not going to legitimize them as a news organization." What doesn't make sense about that statement and then today's news is that legitimizing is appearing on FOX. If I formed a liberal talk cable TV station from scratch today, my legitimacy would only go up if I got a White House official to appear for an interview on my program. Otherwise I would just be considered fringe.

Now, you can argue that FOX is already considered "mainstream". The objective, then, is to fringe-ify FOX, which is what Dunn was trying to do. Either Axelrod and Emanuel undercut her altogether, or this White House is doing a job half-assed.

The Politico's Close Ties to Roman Polanski

tremayne — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 10:00:00 GMT

Open Left has learned that political news website The Politico has a cozy relationship with controversial film director Roman Polanski. Polanski pled guilty to unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor in 1977 and is currently being held in Switzerland for extradition to the U.S.

Here's the connection to The Politico: the site's Executive Editor is Jim VandeHei who is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh where former XFL promoter Shane Schutz also matriculated. Shutz is friends with Jeff Dowd, real life inspiration for The Big Lebowski. Actor Steve Buscemi appeared in that film and also appeared in New York Stories with then little known Adrien Brody. Brody later starred in The Pianist directed by, you guessed it, Roman Polanski. To recap:

The Politico --> Jim VandeHei --> UW-Oshkosh --> Shane Shutz --> Jeff Dowd --> Big Lebowski --> Steve Buscemi --> Adrien Brody --> Roman Polanski

No word yet from the Politico about this sordid relationship. However, they would like you to know that some Polanski supporters contributed, last year, to the DNC and the Obama campaign.

Being More Civil Won't Solve Anything

Chris Bowers — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 15:30:00 GMT

I was on MSNBC this morning talking about the Obama administration's difficulties in passing their agenda. There were three other guests on for a five minute segment, so I only ended up getting in one line. That is very frustrating, because there is something I really wanted to day: being more civil won't solve any of our problems.

All three of the other guests, and the host, at least partly blamed increasing in our political discourse for the problems we face. Pardon my French, but that doesn't make any fucking sense.

Being more civil won't create a single job.
It won't prevent a single home from being foreclosed.
It won't give a single person health insurance.
It won't lower the cost of health care by one cent.
It won't take a single molecule of greenhouse gas out of the atmosphere.
It won't stop a single soldier or civilian from dying in Afghanistan or Iraq.

Incivility is not the source of our problems. However, thinking that our problems are caused by things like incivility is a major problem we face. If we keep suggesting fake, bullshit solutions to serious problems, then we will never get to the actual source of those serious problems and thus have no chance of solving them.

Even when Democrats are in charge, our government has becoming overwhelmingly responsive to corporate, moneyed interests. That is the problem. That is why real income for the bottom 90% of Americans hasn't increased in 30 years. That is why health care costs so much. That is why we are unable to address climate change. That is why we are funneling hundreds of billions of dollars to Wall Street even after they crashed the economy. Just becoming more civil won't change any of that. Thinking otherwise is akin to just sticking your fingers in your ears and singing "lalalalalalala."

What we need are Democratic leaders who are as willing to take on these corporate interests-and their lackeys in Congress--as they are willing to take on the lack of civility in our political discourse. We don't have that right now. The Democratic leadership in the White House and Congress are much more interested in coddling the conservative, corporate Democrats who are a barrier to even modest reforms. They help them avoid key votes, close off primary challenges, and even work to shut down progressive advertising campaigns that seek to hold them accountable. We should be holding these corporate Democrats accountable with every political means at our disposal instead of talking about being more civil. Until we do, don't expect any change from the status quo.

More Americans Paying Close Attention to News

Chris Bowers — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 13:12:19 GMT

Gallup has some polling data that should provide a bit of optimism about the state of the country. Over the past decade, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of Americans reporting that they are paying "very close" attention to the news:

Even adjusting for the peaks around Presidential elections, that is clearly an upward trend. Just guessing, but some factors involved in this increase include:

New technologies and media that make it easier to follow the news
Political and economic turbulence
An aging population

It is also worth noting that Democrats actually pay less attention to the news than do Republicans:

Reasons for this gap are largely demographic. According to Gallup, there is a correlation between high income, older age and paying close attention to the news, which favors Republicans. Also, according to Gallup's data, men (42%) pay significantly closer attention to the news than women (30%), which also favor Republicans.

The Republican advantage shows that while there is an increase in civic engagement taking place in America, that engagement does not necessarily favor progressives. More people are paying attention to the news, but not necessarily the lower-income, largely younger people who have been most severely hurt by the economy of the past decade. No matter how successful Democrats have been in wooing and increasing turnout among young people, there is still a lot of work to be done.

I'm Going to Hold You To That

Adam Bink — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:45:00 GMT

Yesterday, President Obama went on five Sunday talk shows. FOX was not among them, thankfully. In reading about his coverage yesterday, I came across this:

But Mr. Obama chose to make a statement - and raise a distracting fuss on Fox News - by declining to speak.
And Fox milked it. When he was not talking about Acorn, Mr. Wallace bemoaned the presidential slight, asking, "Whatever happened to reaching out to all Americans?" He told Bill O'Reilly that the White House aides were "a bunch of crybabies."
Apparently, the feeling is mutual. "We figured Fox would rather show 'So You Think You Can Dance' than broadcast an honest discussion about health insurance reform," a White House deputy press secretary told ABC News on Saturday. "Fox is an ideological outlet where the president has been interviewed before and will likely be interviewed again; not that the whining particularly strengthens their case for participation any time soon."

The WH deputy press secretary was Josh Earnest. I like the feistiness from him, especially the reference to FOX's decision to show an entertainment show rather than Obama's address to Congress. In response, Bill O and Chris Wallace admitted Glenn Beck and Hannity have an ideological point of view, claimed they themselves aren't ideological at all, called the Administration crybabies, childish and immature, and claimed every other major outlet is irrelevant. Kind of emphasizes Earnest's point.

So my question is whether the White House position with FOX will continue, or whether this is a one-time punishment of FOX for refusing to air Obama's speech. I have long thought no serious progressive should go on a TV show where the game is fixed, where each question is structured from a "so when did you stop beating your wife" standpoint, and where each big name they have helps their ratings. When Hillary Clinton opted to go on Bill O's show during last year's campaign, a lot of my die-hard movement FOX-hating friends gleefully rubbed their hands and said "ooooh, the belly of the beast! I'm getting popcorn!" Hillary drew a ton of viewers that night. Viewers equals ad revenue, ad revenue equals Bill O, Bill O's success leads to new ventures like the FOX Business Channel. I'm not saying such appearances are entirely responsible for FOX's continued existence. Right-wing donors will always support their own, and FOX is at the top of the heap.

But if you're looking for someone to blame in part for the continued existence of FOX, blame progressives who continue to go on, blindly thinking "surely among that viewer demographic that voted for Bush in 2004 by an 88%-7% margin, there must be a moderate I can speak to." Or "surely, we have to reach out to everyone." Or "I have to build my media profile and brag to all my friends I went on teevee." Then they turn around and whine about FOX for twisted lies and not firing Glenn Beck after he said the President hated white people and wishing Beck would disappear after hit jobs on Van Jones, Yosi Sergant and ACORN.

You can't have it both ways, my friends. I am glad the White House press operation realizes FOX is an arm of the GOP message machine, an ideologically opposed, no-win game. I am glad the deputy press secretary attacked FOX for whining and for being more interested in entertainment than arguably the most important issue currently facing our nation. My question is whether they'll stand their ground when Chris Wallace starts a "Where's Obama" clock or Bill O complains about not reaching out to everybody or whatever.

Major Net Neutrality Victory Coming Today

Chris Bowers — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 15:45:00 GMT

In the midst of ongoing legislative struggles over health care and climate change, today comes the first victory on a progressive feedback loop under the Obama administration: Net Neutrality.

At long last, the FCC will pass a rule requiring network neutrality--a provision that makes it illegal for internet service providers to block or slow individual websites based on their content, format, or ownership. To put it a different way, ATT&T, Comcast and Verizon can't block or slow access to your website just because they don't like you, what you publish online, or that you are not giving them a kickback to publish it:

FCC Will Get Passing Votes for Net Neutrality
The Federal Communications Commission's proposal of new rules to prevent companies such as AT&T, Verizon and Comcast from deliberately blocking or slowing certain Web traffic is expected to receive a passing three votes out of the five-member agency, according to sources.

The proposal, to be announced Monday by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, will include an additional guideline for carriers that they make public the way they manage traffic on their network, according to sources at the agency. The additional guideline would be a "sixth principle" to four existing guidelines adopted in 2005 on Internet network operations. A fifth principle is expected to be announced by Genachowski on Monday during a speech at the Brookings Institute that would prohibit the discrimination of applications and services on telecommunications, cable and wireless Internet networks.

There had been some question about whether there were three votes in favor of Net Neutrality. The fifth and final commissioner, Mignon Clyburn, was appointed back in the spring. Her record on open media issues was thin and worrisome. Her father, Representative James Clyburn, had voted against Net Neutrality in 2006, and telecommunication companies were ecstatic about her appointment. Not a promising appointment, but victory on Net Neutrality at the FCC appears imminent nonetheless.

This sets in motion a 7-8 month process before Net Neutrality comes to pass:

The FCC is expected to vote on the proposed rulemaking of so-called net neutrality regulations at its October meeting. That vote will set off a series of regulatory procedures, and a final rule is expected to be introduced in the spring.

In addition to the FCC ruling, it would be best to have Congress pass a law enshrining Net Neutrality as well. That way, there would be multiple roadblocks to undoing Net Neutrality, once administration change.

Net Neutrality doesn't garner the headlines of health care or climate change, and can often seem like a niche issue. However, giving everyone with access to the Internet equal ability to publish content online is a major victory for democracy. Total cultural output has increased exponentially since the rise of the Internet, as have the total number of people who can participate in that production. Without Net Neutrality, it was always possible for the corporations that provide Internet access to simply seize control of all content, dictating both what can be produced and who can produce it. That would have put an end to the biggest cultural explosion in all of human history, and would have also reversed the profoundly democratic trend of that cultural production.

This is also a victory for progressives and progressivism. Partly, that is made clear by the Republicans on the FCC opposing this rule, and the Democrats supporting it. Partly, this is because it reducing the power of corporations over our cultural production, and corporate power has almost invariably worked to push the country to the right. Partly, this is because progressives have an organizing edge online, at least for now. Mainly, it is a victory for progressives because Net Neutrality makes it a lot more difficult to impose values on other people. It is an important step toward a more pluralistic and user-generated culture.

Thinking about America at the end of the decade...

btchakir — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 14:24:37 GMT

The past decade, which allowed the Bush Administration, American corporations and the great financial giants to turn the country into a dispeptic ulcer, which was mostly Bush and some Obama administered, has left us in a slump. It has taken so much energy to try and turn things around that we wonder if we can summon up more just to keep going.
I am amazed that so many people can protest the absolute need to control the economy by first bringing the rapidly increasing costs of health care under control while realizing that it is a common right for all of us and not merely a profit source for the greedy insurance ogres. And I mean that potentially sick people are pointing guns at their own heads with the encouragement of the Dick Armeys and Glenn Becks whose actual goals are financial returns from industry or big TV ratings.

When I ran the post yesterday about the educational poll of Oklahoma High School students, and thought about how many of them would fail the basic citizenship exam given to immigrants becoming Americans, it made me look around the blogs, especially the more right-leaning blogs, to see if anyone on the other side was concerned with the massive change in national intelligence that was occurring. I didn't find much, although there was a rather heavy reliance on an upper class versus lower class standard that was forcefully being promoted (and I was very upset with the amount of it which centered on the kind of racial epithets I haven't heard since the late fifties and early sixties.)

And I looked at the "Tea Party" events as pushed by Fox News and the several organizations put together by the same rich folk who tried (and actually succeeded) in "Swift Boating", that is Destroying, John Kerry's service contribution to the country in Viet Nam, and found them reinforcing the educational plummet of average Americans. It is obviously too easy to make people work against their own best interests... and extremely difficult to turn them around once they are trapped in all the brouhaha.

I am hoping that Obama's cross network push on the Sunday Morning News Shows (even on Fox) will be the start of a potential turn around... but I also know they will not focus on what's good for America when they can focus on Jimmy Carter bringing up the Race Issue as the major controversy, which it is not... definitely not. Television news tracks to the most dramatic crap, whether actually important or not, because it brings in viewers for corporate sponsors (and on the Sunday Morning shows, so many of these sponsors are Insurance or Financial players, or big industry types like ADM or Northrup-Grumman.) In a twelve or fifteen minute appearance, Obama will lose six minutes on this garbage without even blinking. Most likely, we will be right where we started when the day is through.

What is amazing is how influenced people will be by the news media's inability to handle real issues while pushing garbage. Pew Research notes in a recent poll that the media is headed more towards inaccuracy and unfairness as seen by citizens who are swayed by their broadcasts:

Does this mean people KNOW they are being pressed by inaccurate news as they are MANIPULATED by it? And does it matter?

I have been signing more and more petitions to get Congress to move in the direction I thought, after the 2008 elections, they were going to move anyway. Many I have put on this blog and encouraged readers to respond to as well. Has it made a difference? I don't think so, but I remain hopeful.

The 2010 elections are going to be the results indicator of all of this. We see the Congressional competition going on now with tremendous effort by the right to regain a foothold no matter what they say or do. One would hope that wisdom might prevail. In reality, we will continue to fear what is coming and think about the possibility of ducking it all and moving to Canada.

Under The LobsterScope

The Bad News? The Senate Finance Bill is Horrendous. The Good News?

Mike Lux — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 14:30:00 GMT

It's not even close to the final bill.

I have written several times of the media's fixation with the bill that comes out of the Senate Finance Committee on health care. It's finally starting to move now, creaking its way up the track like a half-dead carcass. Traditional media will act like whatever is in the Senate Finance bill will be the bill, that the deal is done. Not even close, folks.

Here's why the Senate Finance markup that will come out next week is nowhere close to what will be in the final legislation:

1. Finance chair Max Baucus has already messed up by not consulting with a half-dozen of the more progressive members of the committee. I am hearing numerous reports, some of which have surfaced publicly, that some of them are rebelling at the awful piece of mangled legislation being thrust in front of them. Given that Snowe is the only Republican that there is even a ghost of a chance of voting for the bill, Baucus has to get all or at least most of the Democrats on board, and I believe if the committee progressives work together, they can force some changes for the better.

2. The bill that makes it out of Finance will be so convoluted, contradictory, distorted, held-together-with-duct-tape because of all the compromises Baucus is making that Democrats will have to remake it in later stages even if they don't want to- and a great many of them want to.

3. Harry Reid still needs to marry the Finance bill and the HELP committee bill. Tom Harkin, who took over the chairmanship of the HELP Committee after Ted Kennedy passed away, is from what I hear bound and determined to make a major push to have the language of the HELP bill be a major part of the package that goes to the floor, including on the big issues like the public option and affordability for the middle class. He is being supported not only by the Democratic members of his committee but by outside progressive forces.

4. The floor fight will be wild and wooly, but I suspect that progressive forces may have an advantage in adding positive amendments to the mix in the light of day in a floor fight. The Republicans will offer all kinds of goofy amendments designed to mess up the bill, but they have two problems: they only have 40 votes, and the public polling on the GOP's actual health care proposals are very bad. Given that, Republican efforts to worsen the bill have little chance to succeed. Progressives, on the other hand, want to improve the bill by doing things that are actually popular: the public option (consistently polls in the 60s and 70s); taxing the wealthy instead of middle class workers with good insurance plans; making health insurance more affordable to the middle class. All of these are going to be pretty hard to vote against on the Senate floor.

5. Finally, to return to a theme I have been rather repetitive about in recent months, it is abundantly clear that House progressives, if they stay strong and stay together, have the negotiating power to block a bad bill. If they don't wilt, if they don't let themselves get picked off one by one, they can negotiate for a good health care bill, one that has a public option, one that is affordable for the middle class, one that forces insurers and providers to do real cost containment.

The traditional media will fall all over themselves to pronounce whatever Senate Finance does to be chiseled in stone. But progressives, if they work together and negotiate tough, can write a bill that will work, a bill on comprehensive health reform that we can all look back on as one of the greatest accomplishments of the era.

FCC Hires Industry Shill to Develop US National Broadband Plan

Chris Bowers — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 20:28:19 GMT

The FCC's broadband task force is tasked with developing our national broadband policy. This is a project that FCC Commissioner Michael Copps ranks of the highest importance:

"I'm enthused as I can be that this country is finally, finally going to develop a national broadband plan," Copps said Wednesday in an interview for C-SPAN's "The Communicators" series.(...)

"We're way behind in broadband," he said. "There is a need to do something now."

Copps said he is not underestimating the importance of the FCC's task: "It's the biggest thing that's come to the FCC since I've been there," he said.

And so, because our government is run by corporations and for corporations even when it is controlled by Democrats, a telecom industry shill, Scott Wallsten, was named as economics director of that task force. From a source close to the process, in the extended entry I proivde a thorough background on Wallstein's industry connections and long history of fighting against American consumers:

Wallsten is a guy who:
Has spent the last five years at three different coin-operated think tanks.
Most recently with the Technology Policy Institute whose supporters include AT&T, Comcast, T-Mobile, Time Warner Cable, Verizon
He previously worked for the Progress and Freedom Foundation whose primary funders include AT&T, Comcast, Cox, NCTA, Time Warner Cable, Verizon. (Source)
Before that he worked for the American Enterprise Institute/Brookings Institution whose funders include AT&T, SBC, Verizon. ((Source)

Doesn't believe there is a broadband problem in America . Point 1 would explain this belief, Here's some of the industry and GOP-friendly positions he's taken
"... the U.S. does not have a broadband problem. The remarkable investment in broadband infrastructure and rapid increases in subscribership that have taken place suggest the market is working well. Any policy or regulation intended to further accelerate deployment should clearly identify and target the market failure it is intended to mitigate:"
(Source)
"The wireless industry exhibits no evidence of a market failure, and regulations - especially sweeping ones of the type [Tim] Wu would like us to consider - are likely to impose significant costs on society and ultimately harm consumers." (Source)
He frequently uses long discredited FCC data to state the broadband market is full of competition and advocates for the fingers-crossed approach to competition. (Source and source).

Has published numerous editorials and papers that have rejected Net Neutrality and Open Access, in direct opposition to both President Obama's and FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski's positions on the issue. For ex:
here and here.
Has lectured across Washington frequently using a PowerPoint presentation that parrots every GOP and industry talking point regarding the U.S. Int'l Rankings. (Source)
Given his loyalty to the industry agenda, Wallsten is a frequent choice of GOP members of Congress when assembling witnesses to testify in committee. He is also routinely cited by industry in their comments to the FCC:
Comments of AT&T, 07-45 (706) (May 16, 2007)
Comments of Verizon&VZW, 07-45 (706) (May 16, 2007)
Comment of NCTA, 07-45 (706) (May 16, 2007)
Comments of Verizon&VZW, 07-52 (NN) (June 15, 2007)
Comments of AT&T, 07-52 (NN) (June 15, 2007)
Reply Comments of Verizon & VZW, 07-52 (NN) (July 16, 2007)
Opposition to Pet. for Recon. of NCTA, 07-45 (706) (Sept. 17, 2008)
Comments of Comcast, 09-51 (NBP) (June 8, 2009)
Comments of Verizon & VZW, 09-51 (NBP) (June 8, 2009)
Comments of AT&T, 09-51 (NBP) (June 8, 2009)
Comments of NCTA, 09-51 (NBP) (June 8, 2009)
Reply Comments of AT&T, 09-51 (NBP) (July 21, 2009)
Reply Comments of Verizon & VZW, 09-51 (NBP) (July 21, 2009)
Reply Comments of Comcast, 09-51 (NBP) (July 21, 2009)
Reply Comments of Time Warner Cable, 09-51 (NBP) (July 21, 2009)

Has advocated for a return to metered billing in opposition to Rep. Eric Massa's recently introduced legislation Source)
Has opposed the openness conditions on the 700 MHz spectrum. (Source)

In a way this is actually a relief. Given that our financial policy, climate change policy, and health care policy are all working to reward the same companies that were responsible for the crises we face in those areas, it would be a shame if our plan to catch up to the rest of the world on telecommunications wasn't also designed by lobbyists from the industry that helped us fall behind. Otherwise, stockholders might lose their constitutionally guaranteed rights to run the country.

Snark aside, WTF?! Too many Democrats keep letting foxes into the henhouse. How many of our policies have to be dominated by bad-faith industry negotiators before we realize that continuing to give industry a seat at the policy table will never allow us to break away from our corporate kleptocracy? There better be a huge policy pay-off for consumers coming from this, but I am not holding my breath.

The legislative happenings of 2009 have brought the need for publicly financed elections and severe lobbying restrictions much closer to the forefront of my political thinking. I don't know how much support publicly financed elections might have in Congress, but there are good reasons to think that the situation will get worse before it gets better. The Supreme Court recently heard a case that could strike down the ban on corporate contributions to federal candidates. As a party, we really need to start dumping bipartisanship and adopting a more populist attitude.

Defeating the Coalition to Kill Health Care Reform

Mike Lux — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 17:30:00 GMT

For those of us continuing to fight for the President's proposals on health care- including covering everyone at a price they can afford, strong regulations on insurers, tough cost containment measures, and a public option to keep insurers honest- it can get discouraging sometimes. I continue to be concerned by the number of progressive friends I have who have become convinced that we cannot win this fight, and are on the verge of giving up. I believe that we are very much in this fight, that there is a clear path to victory, and that it would be a tragedy for those of you who have been fighting for this moment for so long to give up now.

It is easy to get discouraged. The array of forces in outright opposition- insurance companies, somewhere between 98% and 100% of Republicans in Congress, the massive right-wing attack machines- is huge and very loud. Traditional media is so relentlessly negative and cynical that it frequently seems as if they have just joined the coalition mentioned in the previous sentence- I guess they prefer covering a train wreck to seeing something substantive done. And the conventional wisdom/establishment-oriented Democrats who are all too ready to give up the fight for really comprehensive reform and just take the easier path of not really taking on the powerful insurance industry are perhaps the most discouraging of all- they have probably done more to undermine enthusiasm for the President's goals than anyone.

But for those of us fighting this battle in the trenches every day, it is clear that there is a path to victory. It's far from a lock, it will require work and backbone by progressives, but the path is in front of us. And my sense is that more and more people are seeing it as a real possibility- David Sirota had a column today on it, Chris Bowers has been writing about it, Digby and many others as well. And progressive groups and the Congressional Progressive Caucus are doing meetings every day, continuing to work the strategy.

So how do we win this fight?

Hold the progressives in the House to only vote for a public option. So far, so good. They've signed multiple letters, taken multiple pledges, sent a very clear message about their determination. They need to stay strong.
Get the Democrats in the Senate to accept that this will have to be a Democrats-only bill. This seems to be moving in the right direction. Schumer sent exactly the right message over the weekend, and it's clear things are beginning to head that way.
Split the bill into two parts in the Senate, with the public option and the financing going through the reconciliation process. Democats are sending signals that they are moving in that direction as well.
Get enough Senators on board for the public option. The whip count DFA and we at OpenLeft have been running shows us at 45. We need five more, and there are several Democrats I think are prime possibilities to come along if this is the path we go down.
Above all, don't panic. There will be some rough days ahead. Certain Senators will keep saying we can't get this done, and pundits will continue to shed the worst possible light on each day's events. But we just need to hang tough, hold strong, and keep working.

We are within range of a truly historic victory. Right now is exactly the wrong time for conventional wisdom Dems, or progressive activists, to throw in the towel.

When I was in the Clinton White House, our biggest victory was the 1993 budget fight. At a dozen points along the way, the media pronounced us dead, and some staffers in the White House had pretty much given up as well. But we kept fighting, and we ended up with the most progressive budget bill in the 43 years between 1965 and today. We raised taxes on the wealthy, cut them on the poor, and gave much-needed money to job training, education, environment, low-income folks, and other important domestic priorities. And we did it without a single Republican vote in the House or Senate.

We are now on the verge of a much greater achievement, but only if we don't lose our will and lose our nerve. If we keep fighting until the fight is done, we can make history.

Send a fax to Max Baucus, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Mark Begich, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Tom Carper, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Kent Conrad, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Mary Landrieu, asking her if she supports the public option
Send a fax to Blanche Lincoln, asking her if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Ben Nelson, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Bill Nelson, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Mark Pryor, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Jon Tester, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Mark Warner, asking him if he supports the public option
Send a fax to Ron Wyden, asking him if he supports the public option