archived: 27 July - 2 August, 2003 Back Next
JULY 31, 2003 UPDATE
DEMS STAND AND WIN ONE!!
Dems are a minority in both houses of Congress. The Republicans have excelled in holding their members in line on committee and floor votes. But not this time!
The Dems achieved a victory on the floor of the House in repealing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules permitting media conglomerates to dominate ownership of news outlets. The FCC recently adopted highly controversial rules that would permit a single entity to own and control:
45% of the television market in a given area (it had been 35%); and
television, radio, newspapers and cable systems in the same city.
One just has to watch Fox “news” or listen to Clear Channel news to know that domination of the media sources in the United States is a danger to the civic politic.
The FCC rules permitting “deregulation” of media ownership were the brain child of the Bush administration and Michael K. Powell (Colin Powell’s son) in particular. “When Michael K. Powell took over as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission three years ago he was considered a young star of the Republican Party. His deregulatory agenda was regarded as a breath of fresh air by the nation's biggest media and telecommunications companies.” – Washington Post Powell’s leadership of the FCC has been highly divisive however:
But Powell's . . . approach has not served him well at an agency guided by three Republicans and two Democrats. Colleagues at the commission complain that Powell often refuses to consider their points of view or incorporate their ideas into final regulations. The result is a badly divided agency in which Powell has alienated Martin, one of his two Republican colleagues, and has chilly relations with the two Democrats, Jonathan S. Adelstein and Michael J. Copps.
. . .
Powell pushed through the media ownership decision despite a request from the two Democrats that he postpone the vote. It is a longstanding FCC tradition to honor such requests, but Powell refused, saying a delay was not likely to result in any changes to long-held views.
Finally, Powell also moved forward with the media ownership rule over the protests of a broad coalition of liberal and conservative public-interest groups. Sources said the FCC received more than 2 million e-mails and comments protesting the decision.
Conservative groups argued that the largest media companies have a corrupting influence on the nation's moral values and that allowing them to get bigger would only embolden more licentious programming. Liberal groups argued that the nation's largest media companies already have too much control over the flow of ideas in the United States. – Washington Post
“In an unprecedented rebuff to the agenda of big media, the House of Representatives on Wednesday approved by a 400-21 vote an appropriations bill that includes language blocking implementation of a Federal Communications Commission rule change designed to allow a single corporation to own television stations that reach up to 45 percent of American viewers.” – The Nation William Sapphire, certainly no liberal, cogently observed:
People are beginning to grasp and resent the attempt by the Federal Communications Commission to allow the Four Horsemen of Big Media — Viacom (CBS, UPN), Disney (ABC), Murdoch's News Corporation (Fox) and G.E. (NBC) — to gobble up every independent station in sight. Couch potatoes throughout the land see plenty wrong in concentrating the power to produce the content we see and hear in the same hands that transmit those broadcasts. This is especially true when the same Four Horsemen own many satellite and cable providers and already influence key sites on the Internet. – New York Times
The “Four Horsemen of Big Media, the Republican leadership in the
House and even several key Democrat leaders sought to support the FCC’s rules.
On the 45% cap, Bush and the Republican leadership were clearly defeated. In
fact, “[b]efore the House vote, the White House threatened to veto any final
bill that contains language rolling back the TV ownership cap.” –
Washington Post
Dem Rep. David Price, 4th District – NC, who serves on the House Appropriations Committee, was a leader in attaching the rule “roll back” in an appropriations bill that came to the House floor and leading Dems to victory on this issue in the House.
“The most troubling rewrite of the rules by the [FCC] is a measure that allows a single company to own television and radio stations, the local daily newspaper and the cable system in the same city. The FCC's move to lift limits on "cross-ownership" poses a genuine threat to competition, diversity and local programming and it is opposed by religious, labor, civil rights and community groups, as well as conservatives . . . .” – The Nation
“Representatives Maurice Hinchey, D-New York, a leading figure in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and David Price, D-North Carolina, a member of the Appropriations Committee, introduced a resolution to roll back the cross-ownership rule change. Opposed not just by top Republicans but two of the most powerful Democrats in the House, Michigan's John Dingell and Wisconsin's David Obey, the assault on the high-priority agenda item for big-media lobbies was not expected to win a significant number of votes. A decision by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, D-Texas, to schedule an earlier than expected vote on the amendment dimmed its prospects further.
But, on Tuesday, a strong push from the activist networks of MoveOn.org, Consumers Union, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, Free Press and labor groups, as well as deft strategic moves by Hinchey, Price and Representative Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, pulled together an unexpected bipartisan coalition that suggests it may yet be possible to reverse the cross-ownership rule. With phones in House offices ringing off their hooks -- many members estimated that they received as many as 100 calls an hour urging support for the Hinchey amendment -- a bipartisan cross-section of members trooped to the floor to condemn media monopoly.
. . .
Faced with powerful arguments for the Hinchey-Price amendment, Obey, who wrote the spending bill provision rolling back the ownership cap to 35 percent, said he agreed with "every word" of the arguments from foes of the cross-ownership rule change, But he expressed his fear that adding the Hinchey-Price amendment to the appropriations bill would guarantee a Bush veto that Congress probably could not override. "We have a tactical disagreement," said Obey, who indicated support for alternative moves to block the cross-ownership rule. But, noting the public pressure on the issue, other members argued that Obey had made a tactical error by not throwing his support behind the Hinchey-Price amendment.
. . .
In the end, pressure from DeLay, Dingell and Obey, as well as big-media lobbyists, was sufficient to block the Hinchey-Price amendment. But the vote was a far closer than expected 254-174 -- a margin Senate foes of the FCC rule changes say will strengthen their hand in negotiations with the House. Significantly, the 139 Democrats who backed the Hinchey-Price amendment were joined by 34 Republicans, including House Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wisconsin. That means that, on the committee charged with examining anti-trust and monopoly issues, the ranking Republican and the ranking Democrat, Michigan's John Conyers, have expressed their opposition to cross-ownership.” – The Nation
The Dems lost this vote? Yes, but perhaps not in the final analysis. That the Dems got 34 Republicans to defy their leadership is a first on any “core” Republican issue. Second, the FCC rules are even more unpopular in the US Senate than the House. As one observer cogently observed, the close vote in the House embolden the Dem effort in the Senate. Just days after the House vote:
Senate critics of sweeping media ownership changes approved by the Federal Communication Commission said Tuesday they have enough support to force a vote on rolling back the decision. A resolution of disapproval for the rules changes, a seldom-used maneuver also called a ``congressional veto,'' could go straight to the Senate floor for a vote as early as the first week of September, said Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., one of 20 senators sponsoring the measure. – New York Times
“Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, told reporters Tuesday that he backs placing the same language restoring the 35 percent limit in a spending bill his panel will write this fall. Since spending legislation must be approved by Congress, this route might force a showdown on the issue.” – New York Times With key Republican support in the Senate, the Dems have a chance yet to defeat the media ownership “cross over” rule.
As to Bush’s threat to veto any legislation rolling back the FCC rules, William Sapphire writes,
To turn what we used to call "public airwaves" into private fiefs, to undermine diversity of opinion and — in its anti-federalist homogenization of our varied culture — to sweep aside local interests and community standards of taste. This would be Bush's first veto. Is this the misbegotten principle on which he wants to take a stand? . . . If Bush wishes to carry out the veto threat, he'll pick up a bunch of diehards (now called "dead-enders"), but he will risk suffering an unnecessary humiliation. . . . Sometimes you put the veto gun back in the holster. The way out: a president can always decide to turn down the recommendation of his senior advisers. – New York Times
Rep. Price vows that the fight to “roll back” cross over media ownership will continue:
We took a critical step forward last night in our fight against the relaxation of media ownership rules. The Hinchey-Price amendment may have been defeated, but the strong bipartisan support shown for our measure shows that this battle is far from over. – Rep. Price
Rep. Price’s full statement to the House in offering his amendment is compelling and well worth the read. His statement can be found here. – Rep. Price
It is instructive to look at how the Dems won. Rep. Price and other Dems offered leadership. They were supported by grassroots organizations across the United States. These groups flooded Congress with telephone calls that obviously had an impact. A simple formula for victory is it not: Good policy, leadership and organization.
As an endnote, TPJ wishes to point out an interesting fact. Guess who was one of the first prominent Democrats to warn Americans about the Republican rules favoring the Four Horsemen of the Media? Al Gore on September 11, 2002 told a group of students at a lecture: -- Gore: Democracy Under Media Siege
Al Gore warned yesterday that American democracy is facing a dangerous threat from media conglomerates.
The lecture, delivered to an overflowing room of students and professors in the John Bragg Mass Communication Building, focused on upcoming Federal Communications Commission commentary regarding the dismantling of media ownership regulations.
"The FCC proposal to eliminate all of the restrictions on highly concentrated ownership of multiple news outlets is a dire threat to the survival of democracy in the United States of America," Gore said.
The FCC is investigating the merit of keeping its regulations in place regarding how many television and radio stations any one individual or corporation can own in any given media market. The current limit is three.
"They are not asking for comments on why the limits should be removed," Gore said, "they're asking for comments why they shouldn't be removed."
According to Gore, there is a two-fold danger when one group owns a substantial portion of a region's media outlets.
First, politicians will naturally cater to that group's interest in order to gain favorable press coverage for their campaign or cause.
"Look at the ability that television has to grab people's attention and hold their attention. And you think about a single individual owning all of the major broadcasting stations in Nashville, Tennessee, and what would the attitude of the elected official representing Nashville be toward the individual owning all of the broadcast news and cable news outlets in Tennessee? Might it be obsequious?" asked Gore.
Profit motive is the force behind the second danger, Gore explained.
"When there is too much concentration of ownership, the potential for expansion and the opportunity to continue earning profits tends to depend more and more on government policy. What's that person's policy concerning the governmental body that has to make those decisions? Might it be fawning?" Gore asked.
This relationship of obsequiousness and fawning will be responsible for an eventual blandness that threatens the democratic process. "It has already created a timid media that refuses to question governmental decisions," Gore challenged.
Gore’s insight nearly a year ago is astounding. Do we not have a “timid” media today? Just consider the media’s unwillingness to question Bush’s decision to go to war!
Perhaps Dems are waking up to the fact that Gore, as disappointing as the 2000 election was, is a true Dem leader. Tonight, articles are starting to appear that “[f]ormer Vice-President Al Gore is coming under pressure from political supporters and friends to jump into the 2004 presidential campaign even though he ruled himself out in December.” -- The Hill
_____________________________________________
JULY 29, 2003 UPDATE
THE ENVIRONMENT – A WEAPON OF MASS DESTRUCTION
TPJ has been observing for months that Bush is determined remove as many governmental regulations protecting the environment as possible – despite the growing body of scientific evidence that global warming is threatening. The Repubs have, since at least March, 2003, developed a specific strategy to deal with the political “blowback:” – TPJ, “Double Talk, March, Week 2
“The US Republican party is changing tactics on the environment, avoiding ‘frightening’ phrases such as global warming, after a confidential party memo warned that it is the domestic issue on which George Bush is most vulnerable. The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has ‘lost the environmental communications battle’ and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases. ‘The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science,’ Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organization. ‘Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming within the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate. The phrase ‘global warming’ should be abandoned in favor of ‘climate change’, Mr Luntz says, and the party should describe its policies as ‘conservationist’ instead of ‘environmentalist’, because ‘most people’ think environmentalists are ‘extremists’ who indulge in "some pretty bizarre behavior... that turns off many voters’.” -- Guardian Unlimited
According to the Luntz’ “game plan,” Bush ordered sections of an EPA report “scrubbed” of references to global warming – even conclusions in scientific reports sponsored by Bush. Public reports in June 2003 document the White House’s involvement: -- TPJ, “A Blind Eye – Deadly Ignorance” June, Week 3
“The Environmental Protection Agency is preparing to publish a draft report next week on the state of the environment, but after editing by the White House, a long section describing risks from rising global temperatures has been whittled to a few noncommittal paragraphs.
Agency officials said it [the report] was tentatively scheduled to be released early next week, before Mrs. Whitman steps down on June 27, ending a troubled time in office that often put her at odds with President Bush. Drafts of the climate section, with changes sought by the White House, were given to The New York Times yesterday by a former E.P.A. official, along with earlier drafts and an internal memorandum in which some officials protested the changes. Two agency officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the documents were authentic.
The editing eliminated references to many studies concluding that warming is at least partly caused by rising concentrations of smokestack and tail-pipe emissions and could threaten health and ecosystems.
Among the deletions were conclusions about the likely human contribution to warming from a 2001 report on climate by the National Research Council that the White House had commissioned and that President Bush had endorsed in speeches that year. White House officials also deleted a reference to a 1999 study showing that global temperatures had risen sharply in the previous decade compared with the last 1,000 years. In its place, administration officials added a reference to a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute, questioning that conclusion. – New York Times [Junkie: Another reason Whitman is stepping down.]
At the same time that Bush was “scrubbing” references to global warming from the report of his own administration, TPJ noted Blair’s government was releasing an alarming report on global warming: -- TPJ, “A Blind Eye – Deadly Ignorance” June, Week 3
At the same time that TW is removing references to global warming from official reports by our scientists; the British government publishes a report from its scientists warning that global warming threatens the survival of our planet. “Rising global temperatures over the next century could trigger a catastrophe to rival the worst mass extinction in the history of the planet, leading British scientists warned today.
Researchers at Bristol University say their studies show that six degrees of global warming was enough to wipe out up to 95% of the species which were alive on earth at the end of the Permian period, 250 million years ago.
Up to six degrees of warming is now predicted for the next 100 years by United Nations scientists from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if nothing is done about emissions of greenhouse gases, principally carbon dioxide, the chief cause of global warming.
This compares with a 0.6C rise over the last century, according to the IPCC.” – Guardian Unlimited
Yesterday, Sir John Houghton, England’s leading expert on the environment, lambasted Bush and Blair – calling global warming “a weapon of mass destruction.” An extreme statement? Consider that “Sir John Houghton was formerly chief executive of the Meteorological Office and co-chair of the scientific assessment working group of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. He is the author of Global Warming: the Complete Briefing.” – Guardian Unlimited
Houghton writes:
I have no hesitation in describing it as a "weapon of mass destruction".
Like terrorism, this weapon knows no boundaries. It can strike anywhere, in any form - a heat wave in one place, a drought or a flood or a storm surge in another. Nor is this just a problem for the future. The 1990s were probably the warmest decade in the last 1,000 years, and 1998 the warmest year. Global warming is already upon us.
The World Meteorological Organization warned this month that extreme weather events already seem to be becoming more frequent as a result. The US mainland was struck by 562 tornados in May (which incidentally saw the highest land temperatures globally since records began in 1880), killing 41 people. The developing world is the hardest hit: extremes of climate tend to be more intense at low latitudes and poorer countries are less able to cope with disasters. Pre-monsoon temperatures this year in India reached a blistering 49C (120F) - 5C (9F) above normal.
. . .
Any successful international negotiation for reducing emissions must be based on four principles: the precautionary principle, the principle of sustainable development, the polluter-pays principle and the principle of equity. The strength of "contraction and convergence" is that it satisfies all these principles. But it also means facing up to some difficult questions.
First, world leaders have to agree on a target for the stabilization of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a sufficiently low level to stave off dangerous climate change. Second, this target, and the global greenhouse gas budget it implies, has to form the framework for an equitable global distribution of emissions permits, assigned to different countries on a per-capita basis. Countries with the largest populations will therefore get the most permits, but for the sake of efficiency and to achieve economic convergence these permits will need to be internationally tradable.
Nowadays everyone knows that the US is the world's biggest polluter, and that with only one 20th of the world's population it produces a quarter of its greenhouse gas emissions. But the US government, in an abdication of leadership of epic proportions, is refusing to take the problem seriously - and Britain, presumably because Blair wishes not to offend George Bush - is beginning to fall behind too. Emissions from the US are up 14% on those in 1990 and are projected to rise by a further 12% over the next decade.
. . . But while the US refuses to cooperate, it is difficult to see how the rest of the world can make much progress on the much tougher longer-term agreements that will be necessary after Kyoto's mandate runs out in 2012.
. . .
So Blair has a challenge. . . . He is also uniquely placed to persuade Bush to join in this effort, given their joint commitment to making the world safe from "weapons of mass destruction".
But even if he fails to persuade him, there are other allies who would still respond to his leadership - even if this means opposing the US until such time as it no longer has an oilman for president. If Blair were to assume this mantle, history might not only forgive him, but will also endorse Britain's contribution to long-term global security. – Guardian Unlimited
On the heels of Houghton’s statements, “scientists at Britain's Hadley Centre [have] found that the tell-tale signature of global warming is significantly stronger in Africa than in other continents such as Europe and America. . . . The latest research by the Hadley Centre, which is part of the Meteorological Office in Bracknell, Berkshire, has shown that the signals of global warming are now so strong that they can be measured over individual continents as opposed to being detectable solely over the entire globe. . . . Dr Stott said that the latest findings support the view of the majority of climate researchers who believe that global warming is both real and the result of rising levels of carbon dioxide pollution. ‘The continental warming of the past few decades cannot be explained by natural factors such as solar changes, volcanoes or natural variability,’ Dr Stott said. ‘But once we factor in the effects of human activity, we find we can explain the warming of the past few decades is largely due to emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.’ He added: ‘Now we have gone a stage further and shown that the same thing is happening on the scale of continents.’” – The Independent
Paul Krugman observed in April 2003, “George Bush has, in general, reneged on the environmental promises of his 2000 campaign. Most notably, he broke his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, offering instead a purely voluntary — and therefore, one might have thought, meaningless — plan to limit global warming. But even this, it turns out, was too much for Mr. Bush's party. The energy bill passed by House Republicans last week didn't include any plan, even a voluntary one, to limit greenhouse emissions. Why? The answer, I believe, has to do with an aversion to all things global.” – NYT
Perhaps Krugman is correct. But carefully note that the few “vague” references to global warming included in the EPA report by the White House were came from “a new study, partly financed by the American Petroleum Institute . . . .”
"’Today we're counting the number of days until elections,’ said Deb Callahan, president of the League of Conservation Voters. ‘Americans have watched the Bush administration dismantle environmental laws that have improved the health and security of families for decades. And Americans are not happy.’ But translating supposed environmental discontent into ballot box success may prove difficult. The annual Gallup/Earth Day Poll found that while the percentage of Americans holding a negative view of the environment's condition jumped from 38 percent in 2002 to 47 percent this year, a declining percentage of voters favor protection of the environment over economic growth -- 47 percent as opposed to 54 percent last year.” – Washington Post TPJ, “Conservationists Assail TW,” April, Week 5
In more recent polling, Democracy Corps suggested that Dems approach the environment from the perspective of the enormous sums of money Bush has raised from the special interests:
One of the most important findings in the survey is the power of the attack on the president and the Republicans for the money they are raising from special interests. Historically, these attacks have been uneven in their effectiveness. But now, with the president raising so much money and with special interests so visibly getting their way, it is possible to make an explicit and persuasive link to people’s lives. The two most effective link coal company support for Bush to Bush administration policies on air and water pollution and link pharmaceutical companies support to administration policies barring the government from negotiating lower prices for seniors. This may be the first election where our attack can actually offset their money and possibly use their own advertising against them.
Luntz has developed the Republican strategy. Democracy Corps has given Dems a game plan that is sound on the policy and is ripe.