Senior slimefest: "[W]elcome, seniors, to the world of Republican slime throwing," says an editorial in today's Star Tribune, introducing the already much-blogged story of the Swift Boat-style smear campaign orchestrated against the AARP. But the piece adds new facts:

Get this: When Jarvis was asked to explain the ad, he said that AARP hasn't taken a position supporting benefits for the military while USA Next has. So AARP hates the military? As for gay marriage, an AARP affiliate in Ohio did oppose a ballot measure banning gay marriage, but only because it also prohibited any recognition of any relationship that in some way mimics marriage, including those of unmarried heterosexuals who live together.

The military/gay marriage ad generated a considerable amount of attention, which was its purpose. In one interview, Jarvis said the ad was a "test" to see if liberals (in this context anyone who opposes President Bush's plan to dissolve Social Security) would go ballistic over it. When they did, he said, it just showed that they wouldn't focus on the real issue: Social Security.

Full story here.

Me-First Media: More on Sinclair Broadcast: Some developments to my recent Alternet article on the Sinclair Broadcast Group. The article lead off with a story about how the company's flagship Baltimore affiliate pulled out the stops in 2001 to report on river pollution in western Maryland--way out of the station's "designated market area" and in a region where its signal reportedly can't reach. One reason why they'd send the company helicopter and a news crew to report a distant story: company VP Duncan Smith owns property in the area. Smith allegedly told reporter Craig Demchak, "Craig, we need this story, it's affecting my property. We've got to slam these people... This is destroying my property, we've got to stop it."

Demchak denied that Smith said any such thing, just as he denied knowledge that Smith had property in the area and knowledge of any link between Sinclair and Safe Waterways in Maryland, a group whose director he interviewed for the broadcast. A Sinclair contact I just spoke with says Demchak--a "usually ethical guy"--is lying. He discussed the story with this source on several occasions, admitting such knowledge. But beyond he-said, she-said, a more curious fact is that SWIM--a group founded by Duncan Smith that counts a handful of other Smiths as its trustees--is housed in Sinclair's Cockeysville, Maryland offices.

Whistleblowers? Any current or former Sinclair employees who wish to tip Sinclair Action off on abuses within the company, contact SinclairTips@gmail.com or email me directly. Confidentiality assured.

Duping America: ThinkProgress ponders a 160-page playbook written by conservative strategist Frank Luntz on how GOPers should talk about the economy. Appalling, but not surprising:

In his memo on how to manipulate American perception on the economy, right-wing spinmeister Frank Luntz advises conservatives to “resist the temptation’ to use facts and figures about the economy. (You know, all those pesky statistics about lower wages, unemployment, skyrocketing deficits, etc.) Instead, he advises, you can’t go wrong if you continuosly remind people about the terrorist attacks of 9/11. “This is the context that explains and justifies why we have $500 billion deficits, why the stock market tanked, why unemployment climbed to 6%.”

---snip---

Finally, Luntz advises, 9/11 is the perfect way to dodge responsibility for sinking the country in red ink. In a section headed “Without the context of 9-11, you will be blamed for the deficit,” he points out “supporters are inherently turned off to the idea of fiscal irresponsibility.” The best way to counter that fact? “The trick then is to contextualize the deficit inside of 9/11.”

More here.

Kiss my Ashcroft! According to the Washington Post, a certain rump-related swear word has been replaced with the name of our attorney general in in-flight screenings of the film Sideways. Is Ashcroft, perchance, getting Santorum'd?

Bits and pieces...

Why they fought: Update 02.24: The Strib more or less confirms Indymedia's reporting. Thanks to the local chapter of the American Legion, a Bloomington, Minnesota, high school has banned peace activists from setting up counter-recruitment tables, while military recruiters get unfettered access to the school's students, according to TC Indymedia. The activists had planned their tabling for weeks, going through official channels, but superintendent Gary Prest allegedly changed his mind when Legion representatives threatened to stop donations if the school allowed such a brash display of free speech.

AARP on USA Next: After looking into USA Next--that's United Seniors Association, a group led by neo-con direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie --the AARP blog offers a reasonable response to that group's attacks: "judge critically the motivations behind statements made against AARP."

Civility, due North: Newswired runs the full text of Canadian prime minister Paul Martin's support for the Civil Marriage Act. His sensible thinking debunks the main arguments used in this country to decry same-sex union. "The Charter was enshrined to ensure that the rights of minorities are not subjected, are never subjected, to the will of the majority. The rights of Canadians who belong to a minority group must always be protected by virtue of their status as citizens, regardless of their numbers. These rights must never be left vulnerable to the impulses of the majority," he said. "We embrace freedom and equality in theory, Mr. Speaker. We must also embrace them in fact."

eBooks on iPods: Engadget reports that a New York state library is offering iPod Shuffles pre-loaded with audio books. It's almost as good as free--which is what it'll cost you to download Kembrew McLeod's new book (if you agree to the terms of a Creative Commons license, that is), a new look at intellectual property by the University of Iowa professor who trademarked the term "freedom of expression." (Don't miss Kembrew's "pranks" page.)

Rummyvision: Arianna Huffington suggests programs for the Pentagon Channel--"Real World: Fallujah," "Pimp My Humvee"--while making a serious point: if the White House is behind GannonGuckertgate, pro-Bush VNRs, pay-per-view reporting by Armstrong Williams and his ilk, and the constructed news of Pvt. Jessica Lynch--can we trust them to run a TV channel?

DoD television execs (there's a new phrase) say Pentagon Channel viewers can expect programming that is "a mix between CNN and C-SPAN"--combining military news and lifestyle shows with live coverage of military briefings, speeches by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Congressional appearances by The Man himself, Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld.

So fire up those TiVos, disinformation fans; Rummy TV is coming soon to a flat screen near you. "If you hate the truth, you'll love DoD TV!"

We're number ____! Michael Ventura, running the numbers of the U S of A, writes, "We're an 'empire,' ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function." So just how number-one are we?

The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).

The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).

"The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens" (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a "developed" country? Anyway, that's the company we're keeping.

Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That's six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)

The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).

The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).

As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).

Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn't show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That's more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don't show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.

One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).

"Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined" (The European Dream, p.28).

"Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable" (The European Dream, p.32).

Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).

"Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available" (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).

With such resources here, seems like we could be doing better, eh?

How wide is America? Exactly 3,304 photos wide, according to Matt Frondorf, who took one shot for every mile driven, from the Statue of Liberty to the Golden Gate Bridge. (Via Digg.)

More war? Scott Ritter, ex-Marine turned UNSCOM weapons inspector, said Friday that George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005, and claimed the U.S. manipulated the results of the recent Jan. 30 elections in Iraq. Full story here. (Via Sivacracy.) Plus: Cursor searches Ritter's track record. And: Is the Pentagon also cooking the death toll in Iraq?

RIP HST: Hunter S. Thompson street-art obituary, via The Wooster Collective (via reBlog).

GOP's anti-gay agenda: According to DailyKos, the smear has begun: this animated gif appeared on the website of the conservative American Spectator yesterday (although I don't see it today). With the headline "the REAL AARP agenda," the animation shows a red X that appears over a US serviceman, then a green-is-for-go checkmark is slapped over the smooching gay men. What does the AARP have to do with gay marriage or not supporting troops? I dunno, because if you click on the ad, it takes you to the general site for the GOP-funded USA Next, mentioned in this post as the engine behind the utterly discredited Swift Boat Vets anti-Kerry campaign. A pathetic (and unsupported) ad hominem attack. Remember, this ad is part of the Republicans' plan to remove the AARP as a roadblock to the prez's Social Security privatization plan.

Rethinking the "good book" in Nigeria: Shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Purple Hibiscus, novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie writes on why nobody reads in her native Nigeria--or, rather, why no one reads fiction:

In all the bookshops I have visited, the shelves are overwhelmingly stocked with Christian and business self-help books, God's Plan for You, The Richest Man in Babylon. This suggests, then, that our economy has not prevented us from reading; it has only prevented us from reading literature. The real reason for this may not be the economy itself, however, but what we have turned to in response to the economy: a scarcity-driven brand of religion where pastors in sleek churches assure you that God wants you to have that new Mercedes-Benz.

Islam, a stronger force in Nigeria than Christianity, has had its own scarcity-driven mutations, but Christian religiosity exploded in the early 1990s, when Nigeria was passed from one dictator to the other, amid the trauma of an annulled democratic election. Things had never been so bad and, in the face of a brutal government and an effete civil society, Nigerians turned to a new brand of Christianity. It was vibrant; it was intensely focused on material progress, with pastors quoting scripture that portrayed wealth as a spiritual virtue; and it was loud. People were required to talk up God all the time. Government officials were required to be publicly holy, as if this would assuage their corruption. So my former state governor, who did not pay teachers' salaries, held public prayer meetings every week. Fraudsters gave interviews where they attributed their wealth to God. Our remarkably unpopular president said he was chosen by God. Religion has become our answer to a failed economy; "My God is a rich God" and "Only God can save Nigeria" are popular expressions.

Christian and business self-help books sell, then, because they sustain the status quo: the former affirm that God wants you to make money while the latter teach you how to go about it. They are disquieting in their obviousness and seem informed by a rudimentary utilitarianism: what practical and immediate benefit will I get from this book? Even the fiction and poetry used as textbooks are approached in the same way: students read them alongside pamphlets such as Sample Questions and Answers and they are only a means of making up the required subjects for O-levels. There is no room for real literature and perhaps this is why there seems to be no room for subtlety in Nigerian public life. Because we are not literary, we are too literal. Because our religiosity is individualistic, we have neglected social consciousness.

Kunstler's prophecy: James Howard Kunstler, the author of The Geography of Nowhere, updates his occasional blog, "Clusterfuck Nation," with a howling screed against environment- trashing, Second Coming-prophesying, Almighty Dollar- worshipping evangelicals. Unlike many of us, he's hopeful about a coming backlash:

Soon, the problems this nation faces will be so obvious and grave that George W. Bush and the Republicans and the WalMartians, and all the moneygrubbing TV preachers, and the people who can't imagine an hour of leisure without engines ringing in their ears, and the offspring of all the bug-eyed lynch-mob cretins of yore will stand naked in discredit. The rest of the nation, the non-stupid, non-selfish, non-childish, non-believers in the idea that it is possible to get something for nothing will take a stand. It won't be the end of the world, but it will be a political convulsion against a background of fire, proving that the future belongs to those who believe in the future.

[Image by Seattle photographer Chris Jordan; Kunstler link via Project for Public Spaces.]

Anatomy of a free-speech backlash: How did it come to pass that a little-read 2001 essay by Ward Churchill simmered undetected for years until his opinion that the victims of the 9/11 attacks were complicit "little Eichmanns" ended his teaching career at UC-Boulder last month? The Chronicle of Higher Education untangles a series of events that begins with a 1981 armored car robbery and picks up steam with conservative blogs, Bill O'Reilly, and thousands of angry rightwingers. And here's the essay at the heart of it all, Churchill's "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens." The title invokes Malcolm X--killed 40 years ago today-- who said the assassination of JFK was merely "chickens coming home to roost." (Via Arts & Letters Daily.)

Also: Speaking on Democracy Now!, Churchill explains his "little Eichmanns" comment:

Well it goes to Hannah Arendt's notion of Eichmann, the thesis that he embodied the banality of evil. That she had gone to the Eichmann trial to confront the epitome of evil in her mind and expected to encounter something monstrous, and what she encountered instead was this nondescript little man, a bureaucrat, a technocrat, a guy who arranged train schedules, who, as it turned out, ultimately didn't even agree with the policy that he was implementing, but performed the technical functions that made the holocaust possible, at least in the efficient manner that it occurred, in a totally amoral and soulless way, purely on the basis of excelling at the function and getting ahead within the system that he found himself. He was a good family man, in his way. He was loved by his children, participated in civic activities, was in essence the good German. And she [Arendt] said, therein lies the evil. It wasn't that Eichmann was a Nazi or a high official within Nazidom, although he was in fact a Nazi and a relatively highly placed official, but it was exactly the reverse: that given his actual nomenclature, the actuality of Eichmann was that anyone in this sort of mindless, faceless, bureaucratic capacity could be the Nazi.

On Bullshit: Princeton's Harry Frankfurt offers a timely reflection on the nature of BS, which he defines as a "lack of connection to a concern with truth — this indifference to how things really are — that I regard as of the essence of bullshit." So begins his essay:

One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize bullshit and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, or attracted much sustained inquiry. In consequence, we have no clear understanding of what bullshit is, why there is so much of it, or what functions it serves. And we lack a conscientiously developed appreciation of what it means to us. In other words, we have no theory. I propose to begin the development of a theoretical understanding of bullshit, mainly by providing some tentative and exploratory philosophical analysis...

Full essay here. (Via Cursor.)

Swift Boat Veterans for (your Republican cause here): Look for more Swift Boat-style mudslinging orchestrated by the Republicans and aimed at... the AARP? Republican lobbying group USA Next will be purchasing upwards of $10 million in TV commercials assailing the AARP, the largest group opposing Bush's efforts to privatize--er, create private investment accounts--Social Security. As the New York Times reports, USA Next is hiring the brains behind the recently disbanded anti-Kerry Swift Boat vets group to be the "dynamite to remove" the AARP from obstructing Bush's plans to rework the federal retirement insurance program:

The group has hired Chris LaCivita, an enthusiastic former marine who advised Swift Vets and P.O.W.'s for Truth, formerly known as Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, on its media campaign and helped write its potent commercials. He earned more than $30,000 for his work, campaign finance filings show.

Officials said the group is also seeking to hire Rick Reed, a partner at Stevens Reed Curcio & Potholm, a firm that was hired by Swift Vets and was paid more than $276,000 to do media production, records show.

For public relations, USA Next has turned to Creative Response Concepts, a Virginia firm that represented both Swift Vets - the company was paid more than $165,000 - and Regnery Publishing, the publisher of "Unfit for Command," a book about Senator John Kerry's military service whose co-author was John E. O'Neill, one of the primary leaders of Swift Vets.

More at Talking Points Memo.

"Poor people stuff": Last week's quote-of-the-week form Sojourners:

"From tax cuts to Medicare, the White House gets what the White House really wants. It never really wanted the 'poor people stuff.'"

--David Kuo, former deputy director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives

Targeting Chavez? Condi calls this democratically elected Latin American leader a "negative force" in the region. CIA chief Porter Goss says his country, one of the world's leading oil exporters, is a possible source of "instability." And Fidel Castro--no stranger to US murder attempts--tells him to look out for American killers. So is Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez on America's hit list?

Rocket-fuel cocktail: With the rocket-fuel derivative perchlorate showing up in the majority of America's milk and lettuce supplies, the EPA has finally set standards for how much of the stuff can be in our drinking water--and it's 25 times higher than what they thought we could tolerate. Not very reassuring...

Father of "gonzo journalism" dead: New Journalism pioneer Hunter S. Thompson, 67-year old author of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and others, was found dead tonight of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound at his Aspen, Colorado home. Read more at Gonzo.org.

"Lost dollar bill. If found please return to..." Earl Vickers has, apparently for years, been doing rubber-stamp conceptual art projects with US currency. This one asks people to return a lost bill with a given serial number; some people have actually done it, looking to get a reward. Also: Among the other oddities on Vickers site is "Things Other People Accomplished When They Were Your Age." By my age, "Matthias Jakob Schleiden, a German botanist, formulated the cell theory of physiology."

Up is Down: Another Unlikey Promotion:

Update 02.23: As FAIR issues a comprehensive rundown of mainstream media's omissions on Negroponte's record, "Dr. Fallon" writes in to correct my typo below: it's JOHN Negroponte, not Nicholas, Wired columnist, author, and director of MIT's excellent Media Lab. Deepest apologies.

Bush again dazzles with this morning's nomination of Nicholas Negroponte as director of national intelligence. Dazzle in a bad way. As Andres Conteris of Nonviolence International said when Negroponte was up for the UN ambassadorship in Iraq in 2004, a "man who we considered to be a state terrorist is about to be confirmed to the largest diplomatic post in U.S. history." Harsh words, yes, but fitting Negroponte's track record. A key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal, he was credited with "carrying out the covert strategy of the Reagan administration to crush the Sandinista government in Nicaragua," according to the New York Times--that is, his hands were likely as dirty as Oliver North's and Elliot Abrams'. As US ambassador to Honduras in the early '80s, Negroponte was nicknamed "the ostrich ambassador" for either willfully or through ignorance remaining blind to killings being done under his nose by the CIA-trained Battalion 316 death squad lead by Gen. Gustavo Alvarez Martines. Of course, this is all history you'd never know if you tuned into Fox News' coverage of the nomination. As Media Matters reports, this exchange took place 45 minutes after Bush's announcement today:

BRIGITTE QUINN (FOX News Live anchor): I really haven't heard anything negative about John Negroponte for the hour that I've been sitting here.

MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN (editor-in-chief of U.S. News & World Report): Well, I doubt if you will ...

Meanwhile, Negroponte's sordid past got sucked down the memory hold by other rightwing pundits. Rush says, " He's a good guy, he's been in government service for 40 years." Rev. Moon's Washington Times in 2004 only hinted at Negroponte's dark side by calling him, A man with renowned taste and rumored connections with key CIA operatives. " In its brief post, rightwing blog Power Line only says that Negroponte "seems like a good choice." If anyone finds a rightwing voice that's critical of Negroponte, please let me know.

The Puppetmasters:
My new AlterNet story on the Sinclair Broadcast Group digs into allegations that personal interests of Sinclair execs --not public service--guide the company's news gathering.

On the surface, nothing in the April 17, 2001 evening news broadcast on Baltimore’s WBFF-TV was atypical. A reporter from the Fox affiliate covered efforts by environmental groups to clean up the North Branch of the Potomac River in western Maryland. It featured visuals of factory crud in the river, interviews with canoeing enthusiasts, and a shot of the Westvaco Paper Mill, the apparent cause of the river's contamination.

But there was one oddity: The station devoted its resources--use of the corporate helicopter, a news crew and valuable air time--to a story 160 miles from its headquarters. So far away, in fact, that locals can't even tune into the broadcast. So far away that there's another major national market, Washington DC, in between.

So why did this particular station reach beyond its service area to report on an apparent act of philanthropy? Because this Fox affiliate is owned by the Sinclair Broadcast Group, Inc., where such efforts are green-lighted when the station's corporate owners are personally, financially, or politically affected by the news, according to current and former staffers who spoke to AlterNet only on condition of anonymity.

One such staffer says that Sinclair Vice President J. Duncan Smith asked Craig Demchak to take on the story. "Duncan comes in and says: 'Craig, we need this story, it's affecting my property. We've got to slam these people,’" recalls that person. "He was told 'This is destroying my property, we've got to stop it.' If it had been anybody else's property, would they be sending the helicopter there to see it? No way in hell."

In its story on the Westvaco pollution, the Baltimore Sun describes Smith as a "landowner on the Potomac," and the Allegany County clerk's office shows at least one Smith property in the area--a 3.65-acre parcel near Rawlings-- owned by Smith's mother. The newscast didn't disclose Smith's alleged connection to the story, nor did it refrain from interviewing a representative of Safe Waterways in Maryland (SWIM), an advocacy group founded by Smith.

"We did the story because it was a worthwhile story," says Demchak, denying knowledge of Smith's property and Sinclair's relationship to SWIM, a surprising oversight given that the organization counts six Smiths among its 11 trustees--including Sinclair CEO David, vice presidents Frederick and J. Duncan, and mother Carolyn. Repeated calls to Smith's office and WBFF's news director were not returned, but Demchak insists that the personal interests of the Smith family had nothing to do with the story. A newsroom staffer disagrees: "They don't care about news. They care about moving their agenda, whether it's clearing up their property in Western Maryland or moving their political candidates to the forefront."

Read the full story