First Amendment Repealed For Students

Posted by on July 30, 2007 at 3:04 pm. NO Comments :

A report in the Chronicle of Higher Education states that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the former editors of the student newspaper at Kansas State University in a First Amendment case:

“The students asserted that the university had violated their First Amendment rights by removing their faculty adviser from the newspaper staff following criticism of the Collegian’s coverage of minority issues.

The judges ruled that the plaintiffs’ status as graduates made their claims moot because, as alumni, they are not subject to censorship by the university.”

What an atrocious ruling. How can a First Amendment violation be wiped away just because the victim’s academic status has changed? There was still a violation. This ruling would effectively repeal the First Amendment for students because in almost every case the student will have graduated before the case comes to trial. Knowing that, the university would be able to censor students with impunity.

Would this ruling extend to victims of racial discrimination who graduate before the court rules? Would it extend to employees of a company whose rights were violated if they no longer worked for the company when the trial took place? Would every violation of the Constitution be rendered moot just because the relationship between the victim and the violator had changed?

This ruling by a three member panel of the 10th Circuit is nothing but an unconstitutional constriction of long-held civil liberties. It is an attempt to repeal the Bill of Rights. It must be struck down by the full court, or the Supreme Court, without ambiguity.

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C-SPAN Supports Shooting Michael Moore

Posted by on July 29, 2007 at 1:32 am. 4 Comments :

This Sunday, C-SPAN is airing an interview with Kevin Leffler, the director of a film called “Shooting Michael Moore.” According to C-SPAN:

Mr. Leffler says he knew Michael Moore as a young adult and attended high school with him in Michigan. In his film, Mr. Leffler examines Michael Moore’s work while utilizing some of Moore’s well known production techniques.

Leffler appears to be a pathetic character who is consumed with envy that his high school chum has so far out-classed him. The credibility for which he grasps is built upon the claim that he knows the real Michael Moore. But even in his own trailer for the film, we see him re-introducing himself to Moore, who, at first, doesn’t seem to recognize Leffler. Then when pressed, Moore says, “Oh yeah, I remember you.” That doesn’t strike me as a greeting between two old friends who were ever very close. There goes the foundation for his credibility.

On a more humorous note, the web site for the homicidely-titled crockumentary includes a description of its contents. At one point it reads…

“Shooting Michael Moore is neither mean-spirited nor deceptive, like so much of the namesake’s work.”

That’s nice to hear. Unfortunately, in the very next paragraph, it says…

“Once we learn Iran and Osama Bin Laden praised Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11, we also question his patriotism.”

I guess in the view of Leffler, saying that Bin Laden praised Fahrenheit 9/11 when that never happened isn’t considered deceptive, and questioning someone’s patriotism doesn’t qualify as mean-spirited.

Not having seen the film, I don’t really want to critique it because, unlike so many rightist pods, I don’t believe in judging something I haven’t seen. It’s not as if there hasn’t been opportunity, because the film is over two years old. In that time it has failed to either rise from obscurity or find corroboration. So I am curious as to why C-SPAN would drudge up this interview with a director of such an undistinguished film that is plainly biased and outdated. What’s up with that, C-SPAN?


TVNewser Turning Into Drudge?

Posted by on July 27, 2007 at 1:41 pm. 3 Comments :

People who are in the television news business, or are interested in following the inside machinations of the media, have come to rely on a spunky little site called TVNewser. Recently, its founder, a college student at the time, Brian Stelter, graduated and was hired by the New York Times.

Well, it’s only been a week and there are already signs of trouble, as seen in this excerpt from an item about newsman Bob Franken:

“…his cousin, ex-Saturday Night Live star Al Franken, a rabid leftie, is running for the Senate in Minnesota.”

This is a disturbing and inauspicious beginning for new TVNewser, Chris Ariens. It exhibits the kind of juvenile disparagement one might expect from Matt Drudge. You could have reasonably described Franken as Liberal or Progressive, but “leftie” is a deliberately pejorative abbreviation. And what exactly is “rabid” about Franken’s positions, which fit squarely within the mainstream of America that is overwhelming against the war in Iraq, in favor of universal health care, worried about global warming, and disapproving of Bush and Cheney?

The next day, TVNewser had an item about liberal groups pressuring FNC advertisers. However they never reported on Bill O’Reilly’s targeting of liberal bloggers and their sponsors, which is what motivated the liberal groups to respond in kind.

This isn’t the first instance of a dubious omission. A couple of weeks ago, Glenn Beck filled in for Paula Zahn on CNN. He bombed in the ratings, but TVNewser, whose mission it is to report on such ratings performance, never mentioned it.

Jupiter Media purchased TVNewser’s parent, Media Bistro, earlier this year. While I have no reason to criticize Jupiter, I believe it is worth noting that the spunky little web site is now part of an expansive, publicly traded, Internet conglomerate.

Whether or not these changes are responsible for the recent degradation in tone at TVNewser, I can’t say with certainty. However, I can say that if this is what I can expect from TVNewser in the wake of Stelter’s departure, I will certainly not consider it a useful resource in the future, and I suspect that many others will agree with me.

Feel free to email your thoughts to TVNewser.


Random O’Reilly Ramblings

Posted by on July 27, 2007 at 1:26 pm. 2 Comments :

The Fester: “This [raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy] would result in assets being moved offshore to places like Curacao, which (sic) ironically far left financier George Soros has a base.”

I’m sure O’Reilly just forgot to mention the U.S. companies based offshore like Accenture, Tyco, Transocean, etc. And it probably just slipped his mind that Republicans in the House are opposing, and Bush has threatened to veto, legislation that would rein in such activity.

The Fester: “One of our competitors, CNN’s Paula Zahn, leaving that network. And I’d just like to say, Ms. Zahn did a nice job with the program. It was very professional. CNN, in stark contrast to the dishonest (sic) at NBC News, is generally a classy outfit. And we enjoy the competition because it is honest. I hope good things happen to Paula Zahn.”

This uncharacteristic fawning couldn’t have anything to do with Zahn’s future employment, could it? Fox is launching their new business network October 15, and they are going to need on-air personnel. Zahn’s friend and former colleague, Liz Claman, recently left CNBC with a non-compete clause that expires on … October 15. Wouldn’t it be an amazing coincidence if the woman O’Reilly just lavished praise upon ended up at his boss’ new network?


Republicans Are Afraid Of YouTube

Posted by on July 27, 2007 at 12:35 pm. 3 Comments :

News Corpse readers are aware that I was not impressed with the Democratic debate co-sponsored by CNN and YouTube (see The Two Hour YouTube Commercial On CNN and We Report. CNN/YouTube Decides). But my objections were based on execution, not on YouTube or the introduction of citizen participation in the electoral process. Despite it’s shortcomings, there is merit in venturing out into new constituencies and the broadcast did attract a record number of 18-34 year olds.

Republicans, however, are shrinking from the ghastly specter of pajama-clad netizens. So far, only John McCain and Ron Paul have RSVP’d. The others have not actually sent their regrets and they may yet agree to attend. But Mitt Romney was overtly dismissive, saying…


“I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer questions from a snowman.”

Perhaps so. But the real question is, “If you can’t stand up to a snowman on YouTube, how can you stand up to Al Qaeda?”

Update: A coalition of Republican bloggers has mounted an Internet campaign to Save The Debate. From their web site:

“Republicans cannot write off the Internet […] If you approach the Internet from a position of paralyzing fear, you will be out-gunned, out-manned, and out-raised at every turn. It is fundamentally unacceptable to surrender to the Democrats on one of the most important battlefronts of this election.”

This online petition has the potential to be effective, except for one thing: It’s online and Republicans are afraid of that.


The Not Issuing Orders Guy

Posted by on July 27, 2007 at 3:29 am. NO Comments :

After having endured years of the comedy stylings of a bumbling War President who variously describes himself the Decider Guy or the Commander Guy, the circle has finally closed around an alter ego that is a far more believable persona for our little chameleon.

Aboard Air Force One, the President’s press secretary, Tony Snow, presided over what he called a “speed gaggle.” Near the end, a reporter managed to squeeze out a probing question:

Question: “Tony, if the President can order the U.S. attorney in the District of Columbia not to pursue criminal contempt charges, doesn’t that sort of put him in the position of being able to determine unilaterally what executive privilege is?”

That seems like a nicely pointed question that reasonably seeks an explanation for an apparent overreaching on the part of the White House. Let’s see how Tony handles it.

Mr. Snow: “Well, the President can assert executive privilege, but you’ve misstated the way this works. In fact, the Department of Justice has the responsibility — the Department of Justice has already published an opinion; furthermore, there is a longstanding series of opinions out of the Department of Justice from Democratic and Republican administrations that talk about the inapplicability of criminal contempt of Congress citations when it comes to people asserting executive privilege.

So, number one, the President is not issuing orders; this is something that falls under the purview of the Department of Justice. And number two, legal precedent all points in one way and it would not be the way contemplated by the House Judiciary Committee.”

Holy Transformer, Batman! The Deciding Commander Guy has turned into the Not Issuing Orders Guy. What makes this even more fantabulous is that it is wholly untrue that the Department of Justice has responsibility for asserting executive privilege. That is an authority reserved for the President. But even if the DoJ did have jurisdiction, it would be just a tiny bit unseemly for them to exercise it when the subject of the investigation is the Attorney General himself.

However, things may not be quite as bad as they appear when you consider that this Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, is uniquely qualified to assert a privilege he doesn’t have and then conveniently forget that he had done so.

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Fox Attacks! O’Reilly Cracks

Posted by on July 26, 2007 at 3:06 pm. 3 Comments :

Over the past few days (years, really), Bill O’Reilly has been exhibiting the classic symptoms of a persecuted paranoiac. His utterly irrational fixation on what he calls the “vicious hate site,” DailyKos, is a hauntingly disturbing window into his deranged soul.



Video from FoxAttacks.

 
 
It began with an attack on JetBlue for daring to be a sponsor of the YearlyKos conference next month. By taking the coward’s way out and caving in to O’Reilly’s bullying, JetBlue only threw jet fuel on the fire.

O’Reilly’s pretense is that the “far left” DailyKos is not an appropriate host for a forum in which all of the Democratic candidates have agreed to appear. The truth is, he’s just angry and jealous because the same candidates declined to participate in a Fox Noise sponsored debate.

Just to set the record straight on who is the hate-monger, yesterday O’Reilly chastised the controversial Colorado professor, Ward Churchill, for describing others as Nazis and declaring that that,

“…instantly disqualified Churchill from any serious teaching role.”

This caused me to wonder if doing the same thing disqualifies one from being a TV commentator. Because O’Reilly had this to say about DailyKos just six days earlier:

“The hate this Web site traffics in rivals the KKK and Nazi Web sites.”

An even better example occurred on December 13, 2005, when the peace advocacy group, World Can’t Wait (WCW) published an ad protesting Mr. Bush and the war in Iraq. Here is how O’Reilly reported this news and his response:

The ad goes on to say, “People look at [the Bush administration’s policies] and think of Hitler – and they are right to do so. The Bush regime is setting out to radically remake society very quickly, in a fascist way, and for generations to come.”

Now that kind of extremism is just stupid. But the Third Reich allusions are interesting, because early in Hitler’s rise to power, Nazi brown shirts did the same thing that World Can’t Way (sic) and other radical extremists are doing now, disrupting speeches, denying opposing points of view.

I’m impressed, frankly. O’Reilly just managed to condemn WCW as stupid for alluding to Bush as a Nazi and in the very same paragraph he alluded to the WCW as Nazis (without calling himself stupid). And his complaint about “denying opposing points of view,” runs a little thin since his original complaint about DailyKos was that it was allowing opposing points of view.

If there were an Irony Olympics, O’Reilly would sweep the Gold.


We Report. CNN/YouTube Decides

Posted by on July 25, 2007 at 1:53 pm. 2 Comments :

The one clearly positive aspect of this “ground-breaking” experiment in television journalism, is that watching cutesy citizens asking evasive candidates questions that hunky moderators won’t follow-up on, is still better than watching washed-up reporters asking the same questions even more boringly.

Many in the media have declared the experiment a success. The Washington Post proclaimed that, “The debate underscored the arrival of the Internet as a force in politics.” That’s if you don’t count Howard Dean’s campaign in 2004; or MoveOn.org; or George Allen’s “macaca moment” last year; and the list goes on.

What they might be touting as success is how effectively the debate did achieve one of its goals: They got young people to watch. With a total audience of 2.6 million, it was a notable showing for a debate so far in advance of an election. Also, CNN reported getting 45.5 million page views on its Web site. But the real coup is that 407,000 of those viewers were in the coveted 18-34 year old demographic. The CNN broadcast was the 9th most viewed (pdf) debate in history in that demo. Of the top ten, it was the only one broadcast this electoral season (the others were in 2004). It was also the only primary debate. And all nine of the others aired within five weeks of an election. That would have to be considered a respectable performance.


 
However, the performance of the editors at CNN leaves something to be desired. While they found the time to include a talking snowman and a singing inquirer, for some reason they chose not to present YouTube’s top question as determined by the YouTube community. Could it be because the question dared to raise the specter of (gasp) IMPEACHMENT?


We report. CNN/YouTube Decides


The Two Hour YouTube Commercial On CNN

Posted by on July 23, 2007 at 7:00 pm. 11 Comments :

Now that the first ever YouTube debate is completed, can we please promise not to have any more?

If you separate out the candidate’s answers and overlay the questions in text, the debate was no better or worse than any other debate. The participation of YouTube added nothing positive to the format or the content.

Since all of the videos broadcast were pre-selected by CNN, this could hardly be characterized as promoting the voice of the people. There were probably considerations by the CNN judges that included such irrelevancies as humor, entertainment value, charisma, and controversy. That is not an appropriate basis for engaging prospective occupants of the White House.

What’s worse, the gimmickry of this format is notable for whom it excludes. For instance:

  • Any questioner that doesn’t have a video camera or video skills.
  • Anyone who is uncomfortable performing on video or lacks public speaking skills.
  • All of those without Internet access or who don’t know how to upload files.
  • Internet users who are not registered with YouTube and don’t want to be.

This doesn’t seem like a format that encourages participation from a cross-section of America. If it was their purpose to produce a debate that was representative of the population, they failed.

What they succeeded at was promoting YouTube and it’s corporate parent, Google. The program was a two hour American Idol style commercial for a business that has a broad portfolio of vested interests in media and politics. CNN is partnered with Google who’s search engine is featured on their web site. And all of the political players on the stage have potential for benefiting Google’s regulatory agenda.

A far better experiment along these lines would have been a blog powered debate hosted by a broad-based and open site that allowed for more diverse and less moderated (or community moderated) participation. If CNN had such a site, I would not have objected to them using it. But since they don’t, something along the lines of the Huffington Post might be interesting.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much hope that that will occur. It’s a little too far off the radar of old media players like CNN. So we’ll have to endure these spectacles for some time to come. And of course, the Republicans are going to get the YouTube treatment next.


The Next American Fuhrer

Posted by on July 23, 2007 at 4:43 pm. 9 Comments :

Befitting a nation that prides itself on its entrepreneurial creativity, the United States is preparing the way for a uniquely American innovation in governance: a democratically elected dictator. And neither politicians, nor judges, nor journalists, are rising to oppose the coming tyranny.

This ominous prophecy of political thralldom is not a product of party or partisanship. Personalities are irrelevant. The threat hovers over the office of the presidency as it has been defined by the current occupant.

George Bush, aided by puppet master, Dick Cheney, has blazed a trail of executive power that is unprecedented. Together they have reshaped the presidency into a virtual monarchy. The founding fathers strove mightily to craft an executive that was accountable and vulnerable to the counterbalancing of coequal branches of government. They would certainly not approve of the measures that Bush has employed to demolish their long enduring work.

By consolidating power in the White House, BushCo is advancing an interpretation of American government that is openly hostile to the Constitution. This is more than a theoretical exercise. The principles advocated by all the President’s men and women have already been put into practice and their issue reads like a draft for Articles of Impeachment. As the founding fathers might say…

“Let Facts Be Submitted To A Candid World.”

  • Falsifying evidence of weapons of mass destruction to justify an unlawful war of aggression.
  • Directing the exposure of a covert CIA agent in time of war.
  • Using presidential signing statements to circumvent laws passed by Congress.
  • Illegal wiretapping and surveillance conducted against American citizens.
  • Extraordinary rendition and torture of detainees in violation of the Geneva Conventions.
  • Illegal suspension of the right of habeas corpus.
  • Destruction of executive branch records whose preservation is required by law.
  • Unlawfully terminating U.S. attorneys for political purposes.
  • Employing executive privilege for the purpose of obstructing justice.
  • Suborning perjury by administration officials.
  • Threatening to prosecute journalists under the Espionage Act for reporting government wrongdoing.
  • Dereliction of duty and failure to faithfully execute the office of President and to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.

This administration behaves as if there are no other branches of government, and no public opinion either. They espouse a philosophy that views the President as a “unitary executive.” In this view the President is not subject to Congressional oversight; laws are complied with on a voluntary basis; every act or document produced by the executive branch is regarded as privileged and secret; and the courts function as rubber stamps for the de facto despot.

This behavior is contrary to the values of a free, democratic society. Left unchecked it will lower the bar of governance and serve as a precedent for future administrations. The one sure way to vacate that precedent is to vacate the president – that is, to impeach Bush and/or Cheney. Many people may consider that to be a fanciful pipe dream. Congressional leaders have all but rejected the notion. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has said that impeachment is “off the table.” Harry Reid, majority leader in the Senate, says that even a censure would be a waste of time.

Do you favor or oppose the US House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush?
7/5/07 Favor Oppose Undecided
All Adults 45% 46% 9%
Voters 46% 44% 10%
Democrats 69% 22% 9%
Republicans 13% 86% 1%
Independents 50% 30% 20%

The American people, however, have a completely different take on the matter, as reported in a new poll by the American Research Group. When asked if they favor or oppose the US House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against President George W. Bush, 45% are in favor, 46% oppose. Those numbers include wide majorities of Democrats and Independents. The results are even worse for Cheney for whom there is an outright majority in favor of impeachment (54%/40%). In either case, there is clearly a sufficient measure of dissatisfaction to warrant the commencement of committee hearings to ascertain whether credible grounds for impeachment exist. Not to do so would be a dereliction of duty and failure of representative government.

The foregoing notwithstanding, Congress may well neglect their duty, ignore the public will, and decline to initiate hearings. Should that occur, the injury to the Constitution would still be an open and festering wound. While remedies like censure would be better than nothing, there is another path that ought to be explored which, as yet, has not been discussed in broad-based media.
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