Bush Admin. worse than our Nightmares

Impeach Bush and Cheney, impeach them now!

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Back in the bad old days of Bush's corrupt gang, we on the left were pilloried for suggesting that the administration was manipulating terrorism-related news in order to win the 2004 elections. But when Tom Ridge says it . . .In fact, I argued in summer, 2004, that when Ridge did raise the terrorism alert, it had the unfortunate effect of outing an al-Qaeda double agent who had been turned by the Pakistani government and was helping set a trap for al-Qaeda in the UK. In turn, that caused the British government to have to move against the people it had under surveillance prematurely, harming the case.

[..]The horrible thing is that Wolf Blitzer on CNN assembled David Frum and Frances Townsend, former members of the Bush administration, to sit around on his afternoon news and analysis program on Thursday afternoon and more or less either call Ridge a liar or pooh-pooh the significance of what he is saying. There wasn't a single centrist or left of center voice to show any outrage. I mean, I know that Time Warner is not made up of people who necessarily care about the little person or social justice or anything. But a little bit of shame?

It isn't enough that the corporate media lied to us for Bush for 8 years, they are continuing to do it. Give money to Amy Goodman.

via Informed Comment: Bush Admin. worse than our Nightmares.

7 Ways We Can Fight Back Against the Rising Fascist Threat

AlterNet

First: The teabaggers must not win this one....

Second: Think nationally, fight locally....

Third: Brush up on our nonviolent resistance -- but leave the heavy lifting and rough enforcement to the cops....

Fourth: We need to make absolutely sure that the media get the story right....

Fifth: Support legislators who don't show fear....

Sixth: Shut down the hate talkers....

Finally: Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty....

More here.

Pentagon Furious at Fox News Analyst for Calling For Execution of Captured Soldier

Image via Wikipedia

AlterNet

Fox News analyst Ralph Peters said on July 19 that the Taliban should murder 23-year-old Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl.
According to NBC's top Pentagon correspondent, the Department of Defense is furious with Fox News analyst Ralph Peters, who said on July 19 that the Taliban should murder 23-year-old Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, captured after he strayed from his post, to save the Army "legal hassles and legal bills."
Peters, a well-known Neoconservative and frequent Fox News guest, attempted to clarify his shocking statement on Tuesday night's O'Reilly Factor, telling right-wing host Bill O'Reilly he believes that Bergdahl had "deserted" his unit and deserved no sympathy. He did not apologize. O'Reilly added that Bergdahl must be "crazy."
However, Wednesday night MSNBC's Rachel Maddow fired back, interviewing Jim Miklaszewski, NBC's top Pentagon correspondent, who said the Department of Defense is furious with Peters and Fox News, adding there is no evidence that Bergdahl is a deserter.
Peters' and O'Reilly's insidious comments drew a sharp reaction from a bipartisan group of 22 veteran members of Congress, who all signed a letter demanding Fox News CEO Roger Ailes apologize to Bergdahl's family for allowing a guest on his network to provide "aid and comfort" to America's enemies.
"Mr. Peters' indefensible comments call into question, without any supporting evidence whatsoever, PFC Bergdahl's patriotism and commitment to his country, and suggest in a non-subtle way that he deserved to be captured," they wrote. "The truth is that Mr. Peters' words give more aid and comfort to the enemy...and put PFC Bergdahl at additional risk of harm."
Congressman Eric Massa (D-NY), a former Navy commander who joined the 22 members of Congress in signing the letter, went a step further and called on Fox News to fire both O'Reilly and Peters.
"Their comments aid and abet our enemies during a time of war and the burden is on Fox News to prove that they reject this by taking the tangible action of issuing an apology and firing both of them," he wrote.
Jim Miklaszewski, NBC's Pentagon correspondent, told Maddow on Wednesday night that Bergdahl "came off patrol on June 30th, dropped off his weapon, his body armor, grabbed up a bottle of water, a compass and a knife and took off out on his own. It was sometime after that, apparently, that some local militants grabbed him and turned him over to the Taliban."
"Should he have left the post alone?" Miklaszewski asked. "Of course not. But that doesn't make him a deserter."
He continued: "Military officials I talked to are quite outraged at Peters' comments, not just the idea perhaps that he suggested that the Taliban should execute Bergdahl, but because it's totally irresponsible. Here you have a kid, 23-years-old, in custody. He's got to be terrified. And now, these Peters comments could actually be used by his captors to get even deeper inside Bergdahl's mind and further erode any confidence that he may have that he will ever come out alive."
"I suspect my fellow Americans might really bail out of the FOX viewership over this one," opined former war reporter and photographer Tim King, who edits Oregon-based Web site Salem-News.
"If this insolent wicked little man named Peters at FOX manages to turn people against this American who volunteered to serve in the military, fully aware that almost anyone in the Army can be deployed overseas, he should be arrested and tossed in prison," King continued. "When does FOX News cross the line? This is a new age, a new time, and there is no way in Hell that Peters or FOX can cry 'free speech' now."

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Walter Cronkite: Definitional Journalist Saw Big Media's Flaws

The Nation

The most trusted name in news worried a great deal in the last years of his life about the collapse of journalistic responsibility that came with the increasing dominance of American media by a handful of corporations.
"I think it is absolutely essential in a democracy to have competition in the media, a lot of competition, and we seem to be moving away from that," Walter Cronkite told me the last time we spoke about media issues.
The definitional CBS News anchorman, who has died at age 92, recognized that Americans needed diverse and competing media outlets, with the resources and the skills to examine issues from a variety of perspectives -- and to challenge entrenched power.
Cronkite was, almost by definition, an "old-media" man. He covered World War II, the Nuremberg trials, the Cold War, the civil rights movement, the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the space race and the first moon landing and Watergate in a career that his successor in the CBS anchor chair, Dan Rather, said was defined by a passion for reporting and journalism.
Yet, in his last years, Cronkite made common cause with media reformers who objected to corporate monopolies and the dumbed-down discourse fostered by big media outlets that were more concerned with commerce and entertainment than with civics and democracy.
Speaking of the relationship between media and democracy, Cronkite told me several years ago: "The way that works is to have multiple owners, with the hope that the owners will have different viewpoints, and with the hope that the debate will help to air all sides, or at least most sides of the issues. But right now I think we're moving away from that approach."
The reporter, editor and anchorman from 1962 to 1981, whose name remained synonymous with American journalism to the day he died, fretted in particular about a 2003 move by the Federal Communications Commission to relax media ownership rules. After the commission approved proposals that would permit a single media company to own television stations that reach up to 45 percent of American households, and that would permit a single media company to own the daily newspaper, several television stations and up to eight radio stations in the same community, Cronkite said, "I think they made a mistake, I do indeed. It seems to me that the rule change was negotiated and promulgated with the goal of creating even larger monopolies in the news-gathering business."
The veteran television journalist was especially concerned about monopolies developing at the local level.
"We are coming closer to that (monopoly situations) today, even without the relaxation of the rules," Cronkite said. "In many communities, we have seen a lot of mergers already and that is disturbing. We have more and more one-newspaper towns, and that troubles me. I think that the failure of newspaper competition in a community is a very serious handicap to the dissemination of the knowledge that the citizens need to participate in a democracy."
Cronkite stepped down as the CBS anchor in 1981. But he remained active as a journalist well into the 21st century, writing a nationally syndicated column that appeared weekly newspapers across the country until just a few years ago.
It was as he was preparing that column that Cronkite and I got to know one another and began an ongoing conversation about the state of the media.
Much had changed since his days at the anchor desk, Cronkite said. And while he shied away from suggesting that everything was better in the good old days, he admitted that he was deeply troubled by the timidity of broadcast media when it came to questioning those in power.
In 1968, Cronkite stunned the nation when, after reporting from Vietnam on the Tet offensive and events that followed it, he went on air and openly questioned whether the U.S. military would ever prevail in that conflict.
"It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is a stalemate,"Cronkite told his national audience. The anchorman went on to call for the government to open negotiations with the North Vietnamese.
Bill Moyers, who was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary, has speculated that Cronkite's blunt assessment of the war contributed significantly to Johnson's decision to propose negotiations and to drop out of the 1968 presidential race. (Moyers and Cronkite tangled in the 1960s, when the younger man was President Lyndon Johnson's press secretary. But they eventually became so close that, when Moyers was honored for his lifetime of achievement as a broadcaster at the 2006 Emmy Awards, it was Cronkite who led the cheers.)
As the war in Iraq went horribly awry, I asked Cronkite whether a network anchorman would dare speak out in the same way that he had?
"I think it could happen, yes. I don't think it's likely to happen," he said with an audible sigh. "I think the three networks are still hewing pretty much to that theory. They don't even do analysis anymore, which I think is a shame. They don't even do background. They just seem to do headlines, and the less important it seems the more likely they are to get on the air."
In an era of increasing globalization and speed of communications, Cronkite frequently suggested in our conversations that the networks should be airing hour-long evening news programs. "For a country this big and this powerful and this diverse, a full hour is necessary," he explained. "To try to cover that in 19 minutes is simply impossible."
Cronkite also argued that the networks needed to get more comfortable with criticism. He believed that, after years of battering by conservative media critics, the networks were too averse to taking risks. During the discussion about whether a network anchor might question the wisdom of the Iraq war, he said, "If they (the networks) didn't do it, I think it would be because they are afraid to get in an ideological fight - or that doing so might lose them some viewers. ... I think that is a bad thing, a bad way to decide how to approach a story."
But what about Cronkite? Did he think that, if he were an anchorman today, he would have spoken out against the Iraq war?
"Yes, yes I do. I think that right now it would be critical to do so," he told me a few months after the invasion in 2003. "I think that right now we are in one of the most dangerous periods in our existence. Not since the Civil War has the state of our democracy been so doubtful. Our foreign policy has taken a very strange turn. And I do think I would try to say something about that."
What exactly would Cronkite have told America from the CBS anchor desk?
He said he would have suggested that the Bush administration had "confused" aggressive with defense and force with democracy.
"The policy we're following has involved us in a very expensive set of projects trying to export democracy at the end of a bayonet," he said. "That has caused a great deal of concern around the world and I think Americans need to understand this."
In particular, Cronkite said, he would have bluntly discussed his concerns about Bush's view of when it is appropriate to make war.
"Preventive war is a theory, a policy, that was put forth by the president in his policy address," Cronkite observed. "It upsets all of our previous concepts about the use of power. It is particularly worrying when our power is almost unchallenged around the world. It seems to me that this preventive action is a terrible policy to put forth to other nations. If we are viewed as a pacesetter by other nations, this is a policy that could lead to eternal war around the world. If every small nation with a border dispute believes they can go ahead and launch a pre-emptive war and that it will be approved by the greatest power, that is a very dangerous thing."
To Cronkite's view, Bush was a distinctly aggressive president. "I actually knew Herbert Hoover, believe it or not. And my time as a journalist goes back to Franklin Roosevelt. In my time, I don't think we have had any president as aggressive, except possibly Roosevelt. With Roosevelt, there was in his time a call for leadership, which he gave us. With this White House, they are aggressive on all fronts, whether there is a call for leadership or not."
At the same time, Cronkite said, the U.S. Congress had grown too pliant. Asked about the congressional debate on the Iraq war, he asked rhetorically, "What debate?"
Cronkite was heartened as the years passed and more members of Congress challenged the executive branch. He delighted when younger journalists, many of them working in new media, began to ask tougher questions and make blunter statements. He appreciated bloggers and independent media producers who used documentaries and YouTubes to hold the powerful to account.
Still, he recognized the lingering power of television in our society. And Cronkite continued to worry that broadcast news -- his medium -- had grown too deferrent to power, too stenographic, too consolidated.
"I don't know if I am in a position to encourage Congress one way or another," the old anchorman said. "However, if I were going to offer my opinion on the thing, I would certainly express my feeling that it would be better to have multiple ownership."
Walter Cronkite said he would, as well, remind the powerful that the role of journalism is not to tell Americans what they want to hear but what they need to know as citizens -- because, he said, "journalism is what we need to make democracy work."

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Slain American Nazi Millionaire Had Dirty Bomb Ingredients, Was 'Very Upset' About Obama

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Look what never made it to the mass media outside of Bangor Maine.
AlterNet

James G. Cummings of Belfast, Maine, a trust fund millionaire who had ties to American Nazi groups, was murdered by his wife two months ago. But, as the FBI found out when investigating James' murder, a history of domestic abuse, nazi-sympathizing, and money was just the tip of the iceberg.
From the Bangor Daily News:

According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings' home after his shooting death on Dec. 9.
The report posted on the WikiLeaks Web site states that "On 9 December 2008, radiological dispersal device components and literature, and radioactive materials, were discovered at the Maine residence of an identified deceased [person] James Cummings."
The section referring to Cummings can be read here.
It says that four 1-gallon containers of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium, lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium, boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon were found in the home.
Also found was literature on how to build "dirty bombs" and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, radioactive materials. The FBI report also stated there was evidence linking James Cummings to white supremacist groups. This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memorabilia around the house, including a prominently displayed flag with swastika. Cummings claimed to have pieces of Hitler's personal silverware and place settings, painter Mike Robbins said a few days after the shooting.
An application for membership in the National Socialist Movement filled out by Cummings also was found in the residence, according to the report. Cummings' wife, Amber B. Cummings, 31, told investigators that her husband spoke of "dirty bombs," according to the report, and mixed chemicals in her kitchen sink. She allegedly told police that Cummings subjected her to years of mental, physical and sexual abuse. She also said that Cummings was "very upset" when Barack Obama was elected president.

The Bangor Daily News has more on this story.
According to Raw Story, "Public safety officials were quick to claim there was no threat."
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/130959/

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Slain American Nazi Millionaire Had Dirty Bomb Ingredients, Was 'Very Upset' About Obama

Image via Wikipedia

Look what never made it to the mass media outside of Bangor Maine.
AlterNet

James G. Cummings of Belfast, Maine, a trust fund millionaire who had ties to American Nazi groups, was murdered by his wife two months ago. But, as the FBI found out when investigating James' murder, a history of domestic abuse, nazi-sympathizing, and money was just the tip of the iceberg.
From the Bangor Daily News:

According to an FBI field intelligence report from the Washington Regional Threat and Analysis Center posted online by WikiLeaks, an organization that posts leaked documents, an investigation into the case revealed that radioactive materials were removed from Cummings' home after his shooting death on Dec. 9.
The report posted on the WikiLeaks Web site states that "On 9 December 2008, radiological dispersal device components and literature, and radioactive materials, were discovered at the Maine residence of an identified deceased [person] James Cummings."
The section referring to Cummings can be read here.
It says that four 1-gallon containers of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide, uranium, thorium, lithium metal, thermite, aluminum powder, beryllium, boron, black iron oxide and magnesium ribbon were found in the home.
Also found was literature on how to build "dirty bombs" and information about cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60, radioactive materials. The FBI report also stated there was evidence linking James Cummings to white supremacist groups. This would seem to confirm observations by local tradesmen who worked at the Cummings home that he was an ardent admirer of Adolf Hitler and had a collection of Nazi memorabilia around the house, including a prominently displayed flag with swastika. Cummings claimed to have pieces of Hitler's personal silverware and place settings, painter Mike Robbins said a few days after the shooting.
An application for membership in the National Socialist Movement filled out by Cummings also was found in the residence, according to the report. Cummings' wife, Amber B. Cummings, 31, told investigators that her husband spoke of "dirty bombs," according to the report, and mixed chemicals in her kitchen sink. She allegedly told police that Cummings subjected her to years of mental, physical and sexual abuse. She also said that Cummings was "very upset" when Barack Obama was elected president.

The Bangor Daily News has more on this story.
According to Raw Story, "Public safety officials were quick to claim there was no threat."
© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/www.alternet.org/130959/

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• More Extreme than Rush Limbaugh? (blogs.cqpolitics.com)

Comcast Guilty of Net Neutrality Violations

eWeek.com

FCC holds nation's second largest broadband provider broke network neutrality principles when it throttled P2P traffic from BitTorrent. FCC rejects Comcast contention that network throttling is part of routine network management by broadband service providers.
In the first major test of the FCC's (Federal Communications Commission) network neutrality principles, the agency found Comcast guilty Aug. 1 of secretly degrading network traffic. On a 3-2 vote, the FCC ordered Comcast to stop blocking traffic, disclose to the FCC the full extent of the cable giant's traffic practices and to keep the public informed of its future network management plans.
The FCC said Comcast violated the agency's Internet policy when it blocked P2P traffic by BitTorrent. The agency also found that Comcast misled consumers when it did not properly disclose its P2P policy.
Voting for the sanctions were Republican Chairman Kevin Martin and Democratic Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein. Republicans Robert McDowell and Deborah Taylor Tate opposed the measure.
"Comcast was delaying subscribers' downloads and blocking their uploads," Martin said. "It was doing so 24/7, regardless of the amount of congestion on the network or how small the file might be."

New Yorker Caracature of Obama and Wife Backfires in Poor Taste/Bad Judgment

Alternet

It's easy to say "my work means what I mean it to mean, and if you don't get it, that's your problem" -- but it's never that simple. If you're approaching an assignment from a position of incredible privilege, say as a cover cartoonist for the New Yorker, you can't just write off the unintended consequences of your expression. If you insist on doing so, maybe that is racist.

Want the Truth from the Middle East? Try Mosaic from Link TV

Here is an outstanding source of news from all view points. You'll never hear much of this stuff on the network news in the US.

Quick, Progressives Have to Become Players in the Global Media Game Before Corporations Control the Whole Thing

AlterNet

As progressives gather in Minneapolis for the fourth annual National Conference for Media Reform, the fast-moving digital media marketplace should be high on their agenda. A record wave of mergers, acquisitions and significant investment from venture capitalists is raising alarms about the impact these new players will have on a long-term social and political reform agenda. Since there's no evidence these investors are interested in anything but profit, it's up to progressive organizations to become players in the global media game.


Corporate giants are on a global digital shopping spree. Google, Microsoft, and Time Warner are gobbling up leading digital media companies (the current fight between Microsoft and Google for control over troubled Yahoo is an example of this trend). Venture capitalist investment in new media start-ups, including mobile social networks and broadband video platforms, is staggering. It reflects a keen corporate awareness about how a global generation of young people now communicate and promises to have a profound influence on the future of the Internet and other digital services.


Progressives should be especially concerned about how corporate investments affect the diversity of digital ownership. The time is right for progressive organizations to develop sustainable, revenue-generating broadband news and entertainment services. This would enable media reformers, long relegated to the sidelines, to join the game and "counter-program" the mainstream informational culture.

Fox News contributor jokes about assassinating Obama.

Think Progress

Today on Fox News, the former New York bureau chief of the Washington Times, Liz Trotta, discussed Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) recent remarks about Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. After mistakenly calling Obama "€œOsama",€ Trotta joked that it would be nice to see them both killed:

TROTTA: And now we have what some are reading as a suggestion that sombody knock off Osama — Obama. Well, both, if we could.


HOST: Talk about how you really feel.

Propaganda Story Still Squelched by Big Media

AlterNet

Eight thousand pages of documents related to the Pentagon's illegal propaganda campaign, known as the Pentagon military analyst program, are now online for the world to see, although in a format that makes it impossible to easily search them and therefore difficult to read and dissect. This trove includes the documents pried out of the Pentagon by David Barstow and used as the basis for his stunning investigation that appeared in the New York Times on April 20, 2008.


The Pentagon program, which clearly violated U.S. law against covert government propaganda, embedded more than 75 retired military officers -- most of them with financial ties to war contractors -- into the TV networks as "message surrogates" for the Bush Administration. To date, every major commercial TV network has failed to report this story, covering up their complicity and keeping the existence of this scandal from their audiences.

FOX ATTACKS! Obama Part 2: Spreading the virus

Fox is a Republican mouthpiece, not a legitimate news organization. Real news organizations must reject Fox's smears of Barack Obama, not parrot them.

Do Something!

Preserve Internet Liberty, Prevent Corporate Monopoly

A great article from Juan Cole at Informed Comment.

We all know the drawbacks of corporate news outlets, and the great blessing that the internet represents for grassroots organizing and information sharing. But of course, the big corporations are very unhappy about losing some control of these matters, and have been pushing for legislation to end internet liberty and make it into the Corporate Monopoly Internet (CMI), cutting out individuals and small groups.


Some may think the word "monopoly" an exaggeration. But all private television news broadcasts are owned by only five corporations in the United States. Five is too little for healthy competition, and all five disallow centrist and progressive points of view as most Americans would define them (i.e. the range of acceptable opinion on the US airwaves is from center-right to far right). Opinion polling decisively shows that the American public is very substantially to the left of virtually all television broadcasts with a social or political content. Yet of the three cable news networks, 2 are center-right and 1 is far right!


[..]Save the Internet is a key site for organizing to stop the imposition of a Corporate Monopoly on the Internet.

CNN Dem Debate Fixed for Clinton

Gateway Pundit

It's hard to have a bad debate performance when:

** The audience is planted in your favor
** The questions are planted in your favor
** The questioners are your supporters
** The after debate spin room includes 2 former staff members and 1 current campaign analyst

The post debate was as Clinton-friendly as the actual debate. The CNN debate may have been pre-planned and censored every step of the way, but CNN did not have to worry about a Clinton-friendly environment in the post debate.

CNN took care of that when hired the debate analysts. Two of the three debate analysts worked for the Clintons.

FOX Attacks Decency

Sign the Petition
Tell the FCC you should not be forced to pay for FOX's smut.

Hope For Free Speech in America

Has there ever been freedom of speech in America? It seems to me that there has always been a risk of social-political consequences for expressing an opinion. But when that prohibition prevents us from looking at the wisdom of some of our central assumptions and values in foreign policy, the risk of not discussing is akin to abdicating policy to a hidden agenda. This is exactly what has happened in US policy towards Israel. Anyone who dares disagree with Israel is a candidate for the label of "anti-Semite".
What do you think? Does Jimmy Carter hate Jews? Henry Ford did, and he got away with helping build the German war machine before war broke out. Jimmy just spoke out in public.
Newsweek.com

If it weren't for that single word, apartheid, Carter's book would likely not have become a best seller. "I devised the title myself," he told an audience of former aides and supporters after a screening Tuesday evening in Washington. "I wanted to precipitate a debate that has been totally absent and is still totally absent." It was the first time he had seen the film on the big screen, and he felt it had turned out well despite his initial trepidation. He commended Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for convening a Mideast summit in Annapolis, Md., next month, but decried what he called "a complete dearth" of leadership among the presidential candidates for a balanced approach in the Middle East. In Carter's view, the pro-Israel lobby has made an open discussion "political suicide."

ATT Demonstrates the Need for Net Neutrality

Scholars and Rogues

Slashdot broke the news on Saturday that AT&T's updated terms of service for its high-speed Internet packages essentially forbid you from criticizing the company on pain of cancellation. The full terms of service are here, and here's the offending passage highlighted, courtesy of Ars Technica:

AT&T may immediately terminate or suspend all or a portion of your Service, any Member ID, electronic mail address, IP address, Universal Resource Locator or domain name used by you, without notice, for conduct that AT&T believes (a) violates the Acceptable Use Policy; (b) constitutes a violation of any law, regulation or tariff (including, without limitation, copyright and intellectual property laws) or a violation of these TOS, or any applicable policies or guidelines, or (c) tends to damage the name or reputation of AT&T, or its parents, affiliates and subsidiaries.

This is the exact kind of overbroad legalese that gets companies in trouble in ways they probably never thought of. If I am an AT&T subscriber, for example, and I post derogatory comments about AT&T on a site they own, does this give them leave to terminate my service? What if I post or send a complaint about AT&T to a complaint site or consumer news site, like ConsumerAffairs.Com (whom I write for), and they publish said complaint? Am I liable if I was using my AT&T ISP while writing said complaint? What if I did so while using my laptop at a Wi-Fi hotspot? The mind boggles.


This goes well beyond the already-vast power companies exert over customers through TOS, EULAs, and other such agreements. This isn't pointed at a customer who's using AT&T's service to download copyrighted content, bandwith hog, or hack other users - no, this is deliberately designed to punish customers simply for speaking out against the company. You wouldn't tolerate that from the government, so why should you tolerate it from a corporation? I think this Ars commenter has it right:

This is another step in the codification of corporate behavior of the every day lives of Americans. Increasingly, we are being forced to behave in private as we would at work. This simply won't work. I do not serve the board of directors as a paying customer of a system. What AT&T is doing might not be a violation of the letter of the law, but it certainly is a raping of the spirit of free speech and a free society. Corporations are slowly becoming proxies for governments to do things governments couldn't otherwise do.

What amazes me about this is the sheer gall with which AT&T thought it could get away with such an egregious jab in the eye to its customers. The company has already gotten itself in hot water over censoring Pearl Jam for criticizing Bush - are they going to claim this was a "mistake" or "glitch" as well? And coming on the heels of Verizon's about-face after blocking text messages from NARAL, does AT&T really think it'll be able to defend or justify this kind of abrogation of its customers' rights without some kind of backlash?


Needless to say, this is yet another reason why we need net neutrality as codified law. AT&T's lawyers may have written this just to enforce its rules against hate sites, spammers, and such, but they've written it so broadly that it could easily be interpreted as a "chiller" against legitimate criticism of a company. Not to mention that this is the same company that gleefully assisted the NSA in spying on Americans without warrants or oversight for years. Like I said, what utter gall.


Corporations do not have the right to control what you say or think any more than governments do, and the idea that we can excuse abrogations of these rights if they come from business is a slippery slope indeed.

Iraq War Vet to Limbaugh: You're the Phony

AlterNet: Jon Stolz

As Media Matters reported today, Rush Limbaugh, on his show said that those troops who come home and want to get America out of the middle of the religious civil war in Iraq are "phony soldiers." I'd love for you, Rush, to have me on your show and tell that to me to my face.


Where to begin?


First, in what universe is a guy who never served even close to being qualified to judge those who have worn the uniform? Rush Limbaugh has never worn a uniform in his life -- not even one at Mickey D's -- and somehow he's got the moral standing to pass judgment on the men and women who risked their lives for this nation, and his right to blather smears on the airwaves?


Second, maybe Rush doesn't much care, but the majority of troops on the ground in Iraq, and those who have returned, do not back the President's failed policy. If you go to our "Did You Get the Memo" page at VoteVets.org, there's a good collection of stories, polls, and surveys, which all show American's troops believe we are on the wrong track, not the right one, in Iraq.


Does Rush believe, then, that the majority of the US Armed Forces are "phony?"


Third, the polls and stories don't even take into account the former brass who commanded in Iraq, who are incredibly critical of the Bush administration, and it's steadfast refusal to listen to those commanders on the ground who have sent up warning after warning. Major Generals John Batiste and Paul Eaton left the military and joined VoteVets.org for that very reason.


Does Rush believe that highly decorated Major Generals are "phony soldiers?"


Finally, as Media Matters notes, just recently, members of the 82nd Airborne in Iraq wrote a New York Times op-ed, very critical of the course in Iraq, and suggesting it was time to figure out the exit strategy. Two of them just died. Will Rush call up their grieving parents and tell them that they should stop crying, because they were just "phony soldiers?"


Get the point here, Rush?


You weren't just flat out wrong, you offended a majority of those of us who actually had the courage to go to Iraq and serve, while you sat back in your nice studio, coming up with crap like this.


My challenge to you, then, is to have me on the show and say all of this again, right to the face of someone who served in Iraq. I'll come on any day, any time. Not only will I once again explain why your comments were so wrong, but I will completely school you on why your refusal to seek a way out of Iraq is only aiding Al Qaeda and crippling American security.


Ball's in your court.

Don't Let TV Kill the Internet

The issue of access to the Internet is more important than most people know. It's about retain our freedom of speech, our freedom of information free from the censorship of the tel com companies. Vice President Gore has been warning us about this struggle since 2005. They have demonstrated their willingness to censure. It's all about money and monopoly over the news, what we see for sale, and what information we can get access to.
Free Press

What if I told you we could use empty TV channels to connect millions of Americans to the Internet?

New technology would do just that. But the powerful TV broadcast lobby is standing in the way with a multimillion-dollar misinformation campaign.

The Federal Communications Commission is about to make a critical choice: support innovation or side with the broadcasters and let the United State slide further behind the rest of the world in Internet access.

Tell the FCC: Open the Internet for Everyone

The fight for universal Internet access is now being waged over "white spaces" -- empty frequencies between television channels on the public airwaves. New devices can use these vacant airwaves to connect millions to the information superhighway, including many people still stuck on dial-up -- or without any service at all.

Here's the problem. The National Association of Broadcasters wants to keep white spaces for themselves. This week, they're blitzing Washington with television ads and lobbyists. They're making outright false claims that any new devices will interfere with over-the-air TV broadcasts.

Their scare tactics are aimed at convincing the FCC and Congress to stifle new technologies that can revolutionize our airwaves. Unless we act now, the FCC could side with the broadcasters and deny us one of our last opportunities to deliver a better Internet to more people.

Take Action: Open White Spaces for Everyone

It's a familiar story. Big media companies will use any means to squash new ideas that threaten their control. For too long, our policymakers put the narrow interests of a few conglomerates before innovation, competition and the public good.

Last year we sent 1.5 million letters to Congress and halted the phone and cable industry efforts to kill Net Neutrality. This year, we're fighting to make the Internet available and affordable to everyone. Opening up white spaces is key to creating the healthy competition, consumer choices and technological innovation we need to provide an open Internet to all.

We can win this fight. Take action to open white spaces today.

Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
www.freepress.net
www.savetheinternet.com