Year: 2006

Stunning Announcement! Ward Churchill appointed to Hoover Institution!

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We all remember Ward Churchill, poster boy for the “blame America first” crowd, who basically wrote about the September 11, 2001, attacks that “we (Americans) had it coming to us.” In particular he slandered the actual dead who had worked in the World Trade Towers as “little Eichmans.”

His invitation to speak at Hamilton College caused a national stink (google can tell you all about it), even though he had been invited to speak on another topic and the person who invited him had no prior knowledge of his controversial opinions about September 11th. (I paid some attention to this stink because I’m a Hamilton alumnus, and also because the person who invited him to Hamilton is a good friend and former professor of my sister Muggs, who is also an alum.)

Well as anybody who has spent any time at wetmachine at all knows, I’m a left-leaning liberal pinko Christo-athiest from Massachusetts; you can hardly get any further away from Bill O’Reilly and the other torchbearers who kept Churchill from speaking at Hamilton (the death threats which the State Police deemed ‘credible’ kind of forced the college president’s hand, according to her letter to the community). Yet even I am no defender of Ward Churchill, and I find his remarks scandalous and cruel. ANYWHO, imagine, then, my surprise, upon learning that the conservative Hoover Institution, a right wing “think tank” closely associated with Stanford University, had appointed this hate-filled, blame-America nut job, Ward Churchill, to its prestigious faculty! Ward “Blame America First” Churchhill on the faculty of the Hoover Institution!

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Weimar Washington: Republican Christian Homosexual Predators in the Halls of Congress–So What Else is New?

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Child rapists roam the halls of congress, protected by the Powers that Be, powers such as the People’s Representative Dennis Hastert and his live-in “chief of staff” Scott Palmer (um, incidentally, Scott, can you define “staff” for us, please?). Surprise, surprise, the corporate media (the same guardians of our democracy who created the pan-channel “All Monica All the Time” monocourse) somehow did not think that sexual predation on adolescents by congressmen was even back page news. Katie Couric is no Einstein, but even she knows that blowjobs are newsworthy when performed by adult women on Democratic men, not when boys and Republicans are involved.

For as anyone who pays attention to this kind of thing would expect, the predators in this case are men who rape boys, and they’re Republicans.

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“Updating” Media Ownership Rules — Is That Like Boiling a Frog?

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It’s an old cliche that it’s easy to boil a frog. Don’t drop the frog in the boiling water — he’ll just climb out. Drop him in the pot and raise the temperature a little at a time. Before he knows it, he’ll be dead.

We have that with media consolidation and the non-stop relaxation of the rules. But instead of calling it “boiling,” proponents of consolidation call it “updating.” This attempt to describe relaxing the ownership rules to allow more consolidation as “updating,” when the evidence shows that the last round of consolidation kicked off by the 1996 deregulation has been a disaster for the industry and a disaster for democracy, came up again at yesterday’s media ownership hearings.

Powell tried to frame it as a debate about evidence v. “emotionalism.” He lost because the evidence did not justify his efforts to relax the rules. Now FCC Chairman Martin is trying to frame this as “updating” the rules, when a real “update” would mean forcing the biggest companies to sell off assets to scale back to a healthier size.

My analysis below . . .

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FCC Hearings and Home Court Advantage?

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The FCC has now announced the schedule for the first of six public hearings on media ownership to take place outside of Washington DC. According to the official announcement, the FCC will hold two separate hearings in the Los Angeles area next Tuesday, October 3. One at USC from 1:30- 4:30 p.m. and the other at El Segundo High School in El Segundo from 6:30-10:30 p.m.

Of possible interest is the fact that the Mayor of El Segundo, Kelly McDowell, is the brother of Republican FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. As Commissioner McDowell remarked at his confirmation hearing last spring:

> “My oldest brother, Kelly McDowell, is the mayor of El Segundo, California. And if you’ve ever flown
> into Los Angeles Airport, you’ve flown into my brother’s town.“

It certainly makes sense for McDowell to want to have a hearing in his brother’s home town, and for Martin to acquiesce. For one thing, it will certainly raise the visibility of the hearing for El Segundo residents and local press. It makes getting a community location and local coordination easier. Heck, if my brother were mayor somewhere, I’d want to have a hearing in his town. And, as Robert McDowell observed, it’s close to the airport. Given that the Commissioners will be on red-eye flights going home, that has to be convenient.

On the other hand, it raises obvious concerns about giving pro-consolidation folks a ”home court“ advantage. As Mayor, Kelly McDowell is uniquely positioned to encourage witnesses who will support the current FCC’s policy of relaxing ownership rules while subtly discouraging attendance by folks who might challenge accepted FCC positions.

This puts the pressure on Martin to ensure not merely impartiality, but the appearance of impartiality. After the recent reports that — prior to Martin becoming chair — the FCC suppresed studies demonstrating the negative impacts of media consolidation, public trust for the FCC as an institution interested in an impartial investigation and analysis of the facts is at an all-time low.

Martin has already taken a good first step in neutralizing any accusation of bias. The FCC will have a hearing at the USC in Los Angeles before going out to El Segundo. This same location recently hosted a media ownership event sponsored by media activists and attended by FCC Commissioners Copps and Adelstein, neutralizing any ”home court advantage“ for indusry on at least the first hearing.

But the FCC has yet to announce how it will assign seats or provide ”open microphone“ opportunities at either hearing. Nor has the FCC yet announced its witness lists. A highly suspicious audience will look carefully to see if the ”local leader“ pool is stacked with pro-consolidation witnesses, while local leaders, local business folks and residents opposed to consolidation don’t make the list. It is essential to any appearance of fairness that the FCC announce procedures for getting seats and signing up for speaking opportunities well in advance, and adopt procedures that give as many people as possible a chance to speak.

Martin has repeatedly proven himself a man who plays hardball, but an honest game of hardball. He has demonstrated sophisticated political skills while navigating highly controversial issues. Unlike his predecessor Michael Powell, Kevin Martin has proven time and again that he recognizes the value of meeting with people with whom he disagrees, and actually listening to what they have to say.

But real public hearings that foster genuine public input provide challenges for even the most skilled. That’s why Republicans in this administration have assidulously avoided them, preferring ”town meetings“ filled with supporters and lackeys. The media ownership hearings provide an opportunity for Kevin Martin to show his commitment to real openness — if he can resist the urge to use a ”home court” advanatge.

Stay tuned . . . .

Brilliant Indictment of Bush and His Proxies from MSNBC

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See Keith Oberman give a passionate, well spoken condemnation of the efforts by Bush, the folks at Fox News, and the rest of the Republican “noise machine” to rewrite history. Ten minutes long, but well worth it. Click here.

Would that we could find such willingness to challenge the powers that be on broadcast networks.

Stay tuned . . .

My Day With the Reps, or Today I Am A Wonk.

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Every profession has its little milestones. As a confirmed Washington policy wonk, I’ve always wanted to testify before Congress (in a situation where I did not have to take the Fifth). Well, TODAY I AM A WONK. (Actually, it was Thursday, September 21.) I testified at the House hearing on ICANN. You can read some of the (very light) news coverage here, and my official testimony here (executive summary here), and you can listen to an audio of the hearing by going here and clicking on the relevant link.

For my personal observations and comments, see below….

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Kosmic Karma Waves & update

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I keep a kind of random, desultory diary on a place called HuSi, “Hulver’s Site”. This is where I put more personal stuff and things I deem “not in keeping with the spirit of Wetmachine”, however nebulously defined that concept may be.

Recently I posted a diary entry on Husi, a reminiscence from nearly thirty years ago, that includes some of my own kosmik karmik philosophy. Or if not philosophy, at least data points. The story, which is true, is mildly pornographic, so if you don’t like that kind of thing, don’t click the link. Anyway I like it, so maybe you will too.

In the “update” department, I hope to soon undertake a few improvements to this site. I’ll post a few more chapters from “The Pains,” and I’ll make it easier to find, read, and order my books. There will be better, and easier to find, information about each of the primary wetmachiners, (me, Harold, Howard and Gary) and perhaps some more “Web 2.0” style goodness. If you have any suggestions or requests, please pass them on, either in the comments or in mail to “mail” at this website.

Network Neutrality In Last Throes! Nationally Franchised Bells to Be Greeted As Liberators!

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The signs of increasing desperation in the war of words over the Stevens Bill reached a new low. As reported by Matt Stoller Stevens has released the results of this push poll purporting to show that the majority of voters are interested in cable, not network neutrality, and would prefer to get the Bell video franchising bill passed without net neutrality provisions attached.

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Update: I may owe Powell an apology

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As I said last night, the refusal to look at new evidence is what makes the difference between religious conviction and mere operating bias. More recent stories now quote the only FCC source to go on the record (as opposed to unnamed sources) as saying the suppression of the report was ordered by “a senior official,” rather than definitively going up to Powell. Powell denies he ever saw the report or ordered it destroyed.

All the more reason for Martin to conduct an investigation and get this matter resolved. Because I’ve read the study and run it past an economist and, as far as he and I can determine, it is sound methodologically and valuable in the debate on ownership. It should have been published when it came out. If there is a “senior official” at the FCC who ordered it destroyed who is still there, that “senior official” needs to get removed from the process.

So I will start with an apology to Powell for rushing to judgment. It is entirely possible that some “senior official,” entirely unknown to Michael Powell, killed the report to avoid giving Powell news he thought Powell would not want to see. I will add that I wish I lived in a world where my first thought was not “that is just so typical of this administration.” And no, it’s not Powell’s fault that after admant denials that the administration was spying on Americans, it turned out they were, and after adamant denials that the administration did not keep prisoners in secret prisons in Europe, we did, etc. But Powell deserves to have his chance to reply and deserves an investigation at the FCC to resolve the matter once and for all.

Stay tuned.