It's still not just Imus

From Media Matters. Visit them at: http://mediamatters.org/index

Media Matters for America usually takes the opportunity at the end of the year to name a Misinformer of the Year, an individual or media entity who in that year has made a noteworthy "contribution" to the advancement of conservative misinformation. This year -- a year in which Don Imus was removed from his decades-long radio program following a reference to the Rutgers women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos" (Imus returned to the air in December) -- Media Matters has decided to change the focus of the year-end item. The Imus controversy resulted in intense media attention to the subject of speech concerning race and gender. At the time, Media Matters thought it necessary to remind the media that "It's not just Imus" -- that speech targeting, among other characteristics, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity permeates the airwaves, through personalities including Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Savage. But offensive and degrading speech is not limited to conservative media personalities and "shock jocks," although they are, of course, well-represented on any such list. As Media Matters has documented throughout this year, speech that targets or casts in a negative light race, gender, religion, ethnicity, national origin, and sexual orientation can be found throughout the media, and it often bears directly on politics and policy. That speech has earned the title of Misinformation of the Year 2007.

Race or national origin

• Fox News host John Gibson, discussing events surrounding the so-called Jena Six during the September 21 broadcast of his nationally syndicated Fox News Radio show, asserted that the demonstrators who had gathered the previous week in Jena, Louisiana, "wanna fight the white devil." Gibson aired news coverage of the Jena 6 protests and challenged protestors' claims that the incidents in Jena were representative of ongoing racism in this country. He said: "[W]hat they're worried about is a mirage of 1950s-style American segregation, racism from the South. They wanna fight the white devil. ... [T]here's no -- can't go fight the black devil. Black devils stalking their streets every night gunning down their own people -- can't go fight that. That would be snitchin'."
  
  Gibson also stated during the October 10 broadcast of his radio show, while discussing an incident in which a student shot four people at his Cleveland high school before killing himself, that "I know the shooter was white. I knew it as soon as he shot himself. Hip-hoppers don't do that. They shoot and move on to shoot again."
• Nationally syndicated radio host Michael Savage claimed on Martin Luther King Day (January 15) that "civil rights" has become a "con" and asserted, "It's a racket that is used to exploit primarily heterosexual, Christian, white males' birthright and steal from them what is their birthright and give it to people who didn't qualify for it."
• On the February 7 edition of the Christian Broadcasting Network's 700 Club, host Pat Robertson said that people who have received too much plastic surgery "got the eyes like they're Oriental" while he put his fingers up to the side of his face.
• Discussing a dinner with Rev. Al Sharpton at the Harlem restaurant Sylvia's, during the September 19 edition of his nationally syndicated radio program, Bill O'Reilly stated that he "couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship." Later, during a discussion with National Public Radio senior correspondent and Fox News contributor Juan Williams about the effect of rap on culture, O'Reilly said: "There wasn't one person in Sylvia's who was screaming, 'M-Fer, I want more iced tea.' You know, I mean, everybody was -- it was like going into an Italian restaurant in an all-white suburb in the sense of people were sitting there, and they were ordering and having fun. And there wasn't any kind of craziness at all." O'Reilly also stated: "I think black Americans are starting to think more and more for themselves. They're getting away from the Sharptons and the [Rev. Jesse] Jacksons and the people trying to lead them into a race-based culture. They're just trying to figure it out. 'Look, I can make it. If I work hard and get educated, I can make it.'"
• On the June 18 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Neal Boortz advocated building a "double fence along the Mexican border, and stop the damn invasion." Boortz continued: "I don't care if Mexicans pile up against that fence like tumbleweeds in the Santa Ana winds in Southern California. Let 'em. You know, then just run a couple of taco trucks up and down the line, and somebody's gonna be a millionaire out of that."
  
  On the June 11 edition of his show, a caller asked, "Why can't we just load them on planes and keep on loading them until they're back?" Boortz later responded, "We're not gonna throw these people out of airplanes with taco-shaped parachutes."
  
  During his June 21 show, Boortz offered a suggestion he said he got from a listener's email: "When we defeat this illegal alien amnesty bill, and when we yank out the welcome mat, and they all start going back to Mexico, as a going away gift let's all give them a box of nuclear waste." Boortz continued: "Give 'em all a little nuclear waste and let 'em take it on down there to Mexico. Tell 'em it can -- it'll heat tortillas."
• In his book Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology, and Greed Are Tearing America Apart (Thomas Dunne Books, November 2007), MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan writes that America is "on a path to national suicide" and later asks: "How is America committing suicide?" answering: "Every way a nation can." He proceeds to claim that "[t]he American majority is not reproducing itself. ... Forty-five million of its young have been destroyed in the womb since Roe v. Wade, as Asian, African, and Latin American children come to inherit the estate the lost generation of American children never got to see." On the November 26 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Buchanan asserted: "You've got a wholesale invasion, the greatest invasion in human history, coming across your southern border, changing the composition and character of your country. You've got the melting pot that once welded us all together, which has broken down."
• On the May 17 edition of his radio program, Savage labeled Hispanic advocacy group the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) "the Ku Klux Klan of the Hispanic people." Savage also said of NCLR, "This is the most stone racist group I've ever seen in this country!" despite noting, "It's true they haven't hung anybody."
• During his July 5 radio show, Savage discussed a hunger strike organized by five students in the San Francisco area to show their support for The DREAM Act, a provision of the 2007 comprehensive immigration bill that was blocked in the Senate on June 28 (S.1639). The DREAM (or Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) Act would provide a pathway to citizenship and other benefits for certain illegal immigrants who entered the United States before the age of 16 if they graduate from high school and enroll in either college or the military. In discussing the students, Savage stated: "I would say, let them fast until they starve to death then that solves the problem. Because then we won't have a problem about giving them green cards because they're illegal aliens, they don't belong here to begin with." The DREAM Act was later brought up in the Senate as a stand-alone bill (S.2205). That bill was also blocked.
• On the January 16 broadcast of his radio show, O'Reilly agreed with a caller's assertion that illegal immigrants "bring corrupting influences" to the United States, including "a third-world value system" that "can corrupt the education system." O'Reilly replied: "Absolutely. And that's why the dropout rate is so high."

Gender

• During the December 17 edition of MSNBC's Hardball, while discussing endorsements Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) received for her presidential campaign, host Chris Matthews claimed: "Every day I pick up the paper and there's another quote out there from somebody who's a wannabe, saying whatever the Clinton people told them to say apparently." Moments later, Matthews asked Financial Times U.S. managing editor Chrystia Freeland: "[A]ren't you appalled at the willingness of these people to become castratos in the eunuch chorus here or whatever they are?"
• On the March 20 edition of MSNBC show, Tucker Carlson said of Hillary Clinton: "[T]here's just something about her that feels castrating, overbearing, and scary." Carlson has also said: "[W]hen she comes on television, I involuntarily cross my legs."
• Nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh repeatedly used the expression "testicle lockbox," suggesting that Clinton has one.
• On the March 15 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Glenn Beck said: "Hillary Clinton cannot be elected president because ... there's something about her vocal range." He went on to say, "There's something about her voice that just drives me -- it's not what she says, it's how she says it," adding, "She is like the stereotypical -- excuse the expression, but this is the way to -- she's the stereotypical bitch, you know what I mean?" Beck also asked: "[A]fter four years, don't you think every man in America will go insane?" and pleaded, "I'm sorry for being such a pig. But please, America. Please. I don't think I could do it for four years. I mean, sure the country is going to go to hell in a handbasket, but could we make this about me for a second? I just don't think I could take it from her." He also said that "there is a range in women's voices that experts say is just the chalk, I mean, the fingernails on the blackboard."
• On November 12, Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (AZ) fielded a question from a woman who asked, "How do we beat the bitch?" On the November 14 edition of CNN's American Morning, during a discussion with co-anchor Kiran Chetry about McCain's response to the question, Politico chief political correspondent Mike Allen said, "[W]hat Republican voter hasn't thought that? What voter in general hasn't thought that?"
• On the October 15 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, Carlson asserted that "the Clinton campaign says: 'Hillary isn't running as a woman.' ...Well, that's actually completely false, considering the Hillary campaign -- and I get their emails -- relentlessly pushes the glass ceiling argument. 'You should vote for her because she's a woman.' They say that all the time." Guest Cliff May, president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, responded: "At least call her a Vaginal-American."
• Discussing Rep. Nancy Pelosi's (D-CA) speech following her election as the nation's first female Speaker of the House, Limbaugh noted on the January 5 broadcast of his show that Rep. Heath Shuler (D-NC) said that, in Limbaugh's words, "his 2-year-old daughter ... is inspired by Nancy Pelosi's ascension to the speakership." Limbaugh then commented, "His 2-year-old can't possibly know who Pelosi is other than as a cartoon figure on television. Maybe Pelosi breastfed him, I don't know, when the kid was pregnant. Who knows? She's capable of doing everything else." Limbaugh later added: "[L]ook at Ms. Pelosi. Why, she can multitask. She can breastfeed, she can clip her toenails, she can direct the House, all while the kids are sitting on her lap at the same time."
• On the December 12 broadcast of his radio show, Savage referred to Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA), Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), and Pelosi as "yentas," said Harman should "[g]o home and cook verenikis," and suggested that the three were in office because they "have rich husbands who put them in power with their money, so they could have a little hobby in between getting their nails done." Savage later asked his "board operator" if he would rather "be waterboarded for 30 seconds or eat Jane Harman's ravioli" and whether he'd rather "be waterboarded or eat Nancy Pelosi's tortellini."

Religion

False attacks on Obama

• On January 17, the conservative online news magazine InsightMag.com published an article headlined "Hillary's team has questions about Obama's Muslim background." The article alleged that "researchers" connected to Clinton's campaign had "discovered" that Obama "was raised as a Muslim by his stepfather in Indonesia," and "spent at least four years in a so-called Madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia." The article cited only unnamed "[s]ources close to the background check" on Obama. The story was quickly debunked by CNN and others, who found that the Indonesian school Obama attended as a child was not a "madrassa," and that claims of Obama's "Muslim background" were based largely on incomplete and inaccurate reporting. After investigating these claims, the Chicago Tribune reported that "Obama was not a regular practicing Muslim when he was in Indonesia." Moreover, as ABC News chief political correspondent Jake Tapper noted in a January 25 ABCNews.com post, the allegation that the Clinton campaign was behind the Obama smear was a "charge that remains unproven and unsubstantiated." Despite the Insight article's thin sourcing and the fact that it was quickly debunked, the article became a flash point for a smear against Obama that has persisted in the media.
• On January 23, KSFO Morning Show hosts Melanie Morgan and Lee Rodgers repeated the accusation that "researchers connected to" Clinton have said that Obama "spent at least four years in a so-called madrassa, or Muslim seminary, in Indonesia." Rodgers stated that Obama "went to a Muslim school, a madrassa they call it ... those things are funded by Saudi Arabia," adding, "It's basically a school for terrorists." Morgan noted that there was "controversy" surrounding the InsightMag.com story, but that "Insight magazine is standing by its story," and also charged that the story came from the presidential campaign of former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC).
• On the June 25 broadcast of his radio show, Savage said that Obama was "indoctrinated" by a "Muslim madrassa in Indonesia."
• In the April 12 edition of her "Notebook" video blog, CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric asked, "Is America ready to elect a president who grew up praying in a mosque?" and proceeded to repeat debunked rumors surrounding Obama's childhood years in Indonesia. Couric claimed that Obama's "background sparked rumors that he had studied at a radical madrassa, or Quranic school -- rumors his campaign denied, declaring that Obama is now a practicing Christian." But Couric did not note in her initial posting that the rumors had been debunked. Couric's "Notebook" was later updated to note that the madrassa "rumors [were] later disproved" and that the source for the claim that Obama "grew up praying in a mosque" later backed off that assertion.

Smearing Obama's church

• During the "Obameter" segment on the February 7 edition of MSNBC's Tucker, Carlson claimed the church "sounds separatist to me" and "contradicts the basic tenets of Christianity," a subject Carlson said he was "actually qualified to discuss." Carlson pointed to the "disavowal of the pursuit of 'middleclassness' " in the church's tenets, calling the church's mission a "racially exclusive theology" and "a theology that ministers to one group of people, based on race." Carlson claimed that Trinity's theology is "racially exclusive" and "wrong," adding that "it's hard to call that Christianity."
• On the February 28 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, Hannity stated that "many" call Trinity "separatist," adding that "in some cases, even drawing comparisons to a cult." Guest Erik Rush, a columnist for the conservative website WorldNetDaily, said that the church's "scary doctrine" is "something that you'd see in more like a cult or an Aryan Brethren Church or something like that." Hannity has also repeatedly accused Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright -- Trinity's pastor -- of holding "these black-separatist views, about the Black Value System" without mentioning Wright's explicit denial on the March 1 edition of Hannity & Colmes that his church embraces separatism. And on the December 19 edition of Hannity & Colmes, Hannity said: "You know, Barack Obama's pastor... has this whole list of the Black Value System. It seems like he's supporting a segregated church."

Coulter's comments about Jews

• During the October 8 edition of CNBC's The Big Idea, host Donny Deutsch asked right-wing pundit Ann Coulter: "If you had your way ... and your dreams, which are genuine, came true ... what would this country look like?" Coulter responded, "It would look like New York City during the [2004] Republican National Convention. In fact, that's what I think heaven is going to look like." She described the convention as follows: "People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America." Deutsch then asked, "It would be better if we were all Christian?" to which Coulter responded, "Yes." Later in the discussion, Deutsch said to her: "[Y]ou said we should throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians," and Coulter again replied, "Yes." When pressed by Deutsch regarding whether she wanted to be like "the head of Iran" and "wipe Israel off the Earth," Coulter stated: "No, we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say. ... That's what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws."
  
  After a commercial break, Deutsch said that "Ann said she wanted to explain her last comment," and asked her, "So you don't think that was offensive?" Coulter responded: "No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be. I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews. We believe the Old Testament. As you know from the Old Testament, God was constantly getting fed up with humans for not being able to live up to all the laws. What Christians believe -- this is just a statement of what the New Testament is -- is that that's why Christ came and died for our sins. Christians believe the Old Testament. You don't believe our testament." Coulter later said: "We consider ourselves perfected Christians. For me to say that for you to become a Christian is to become a perfected Christian is not offensive at all."

Attacks on Islam or Muslims

• On the March 14 edition of Fox News' Your World With Neil Cavuto, Richard "Bo" Dietl, a private investigator and former New York City Police Department detective, discussed a lawsuit filed by six imams who were removed from a US Airways flight in 2006 and suggested that instead of flying, passengers such as the aforementioned imams should "call their cousin up there, Ali Baba Boo, and go by cab."
• On the June 12 edition of The 700 Club, following a report on Muslims in Minneapolis seeking religious accommodations at school and work, Robertson stated, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have to recognize that Islam is not a religion. It is a worldwide political movement meant on domination of the world. And it is meant to subjugate all people under Islamic law." He characterized the American Muslim community as "Islam light" and went on to say Muslims "want to take over and we want to impose Sharia on you. And before long, ladies are going to be dressed in burqas and whatever garments they would put on them, and next thing you know, men are going to be allowed to have wife-beating and you'll be beheading adulterers and so on and so forth."
• On the October 4 edition of his CNN Headline News show, Beck hosted Sharida McKenzie, a Muslim American who had recently organized the Muslim Peace March, to discuss a report that a Toronto mosque's website "says that Muslims should stay completely away from Halloween, Christmas, New Year's, anniversaries, birthdays, and Earth Day." During the discussion, Beck asked: "But how do we know the difference -- I mean, you're reasonable. How do we know the difference between you and those that are trying to kill us?"

Sexual identity or orientation

• During a March 2 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Coulter said she "can't really talk about" Democratic presidential candidate and former Sen. John Edwards (NC) because "you have to go into rehab if you use the word 'faggot' " -- a comment that drew loud applause from the CPAC audience. Then on the March 6 broadcast of Hannity's nationally syndicated radio show, Coulter defended her comment, explaining: "I don't think there's anything offensive about any variation of faggy, faggotry, faggot, fag. It's a schoolyard taunt. It means -- it means wussy." She went on to conclude that "faggot" is a "totally excellent word."
• In 2007, Savage claimed that same-sex marriage "makes me want to puke" and that same-sex parenting is "child abuse"; blamed sexual reassignment surgery for the Columbine massacre; pointed to sexual reassignment surgery and lesbian fertility clinics in claiming that the September 11 terrorist attacks "was God speaking"; referred to Media Matters as "a gay smear sheet," the "homosexual mafia," and the "gay Mafioso"; and declared that a "loving, kind lesbian" is "the type that stuffed ovens in Hitler's concentration camps."
• On the July 11 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, O'Reilly objected to the San Diego Padres' decision to host a gay pride night and a children's hat giveaway promotion during the same July 8 baseball game, claiming that "cluster[ing]" gays near children is "insane" and "inappropriate." After a viewer challenged him by noting that "kids are around gays every day, O'Reilly elaborated on his position on the July 12 edition of The O'Reilly Factor, saying that "thousands" of gays in one place "can be confusing to children."
• In an August 21 post on his CBNnews.com blog, Christian Broadcasting Network senior national correspondent David Brody addressed a federal complaint filed against then-presumptive Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson by blogger Lane Hudson, writing: "Well, now Fred Thompson has an angry girlfriend. His name (don't go there) is Lane Hudson." Since then, Brody had appeared three times on NBC's Meet the Press and four times on MSNBC's Hardball to discuss the 2008 presidential race. Despite referring to a male blogger as Thompson's "angry girlfriend," Brody was invited to appear on the September 9 broadcast of Meet the Press to discuss the election.

Congress's Bullying Pulpit

By Sally Quinn
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Washington Post

As a child, I went to a small school in rural Alabama near an Army post where my father was stationed. It was a very Christian town, and our teacher was "born again."

This was decades ago, but I remember clearly how she used to tell us that we must accept Jesus Christ as our personal savior. Then she would ask for hands to see who had. By age 11 I had become a nonbeliever. My father was in the Army and had fought in World War II and Korea; I concluded quickly that no loving God could have allowed those atrocities to be committed.

But we had all seen our teacher, when crossed, call an unlucky member of our class up to the front of the room, make the student lie down on her desk and be paddled. The humiliation was worse than the pain. So, when she called on us to admit that we had accepted Jesus as our savior, I dutifully raised my hand.

Thank goodness, those days are over, you might be thinking. Nothing like that could happen in this country today.

Well, think again. It happened this month, right here in Washington.

On Dec. 11, H.R. 847 was passed in the House of Representatives. Just listen to what our lawmakers have resolved:

"Whereas Christmas, a holiday of great significance to Americans," it begins, "is celebrated annually by Christians throughout the United States. . . ." It goes on to state, among other things, that "Christianity [is] the religion of over three-fourths of the American population," that "American Christians observe Christmas, the holiday celebrating the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ," and that "Christmas is celebrated as a recognition of God's redemption, mercy, and Grace."

"Now, therefore be it Resolved, that the House of Representatives . . . expresses continued support for Christians in the United States . . . acknowledges and supports the role played by Christians and Christianity in the founding of the United States . . . rejects bigotry and persecution directed against Christians, both in the United States and worldwide; and expresses its deepest respect to American Christians."

For brevity, I have omitted the resolution's references to Christianity around the world.

This resolution passed with 195 Democratic yea votes, 177 Republican yeas and nine Democratic nays. No Republicans voted against it. Ten House members voted "present." Forty were not there, including the bill's sponsor, Rep. Steve King of Iowa.

Among those voting for the resolution was a Jewish member of Congress who has asked me not to print his name. He was outraged and appalled by the bill, he told me. But he was also afraid. He thought it would hurt him with his mostly Christian constituency if he voted against it. He told some of his colleagues about his anguish. They advised him not to be stupid. It would be better for him politically if he voted for it.

It's possible that the 10 who voted "present" also had problems with the bill but decided it was safer not to vote against it. One could also assume that some of those who were absent were not there so as not to have to deal with the problem.

Earlier this year the House also passed resolutions honoring Islamic and Indian holidays but nothing that so equated a single faith with America and Americans.

How could this happen, in what will soon be 2008, in a pluralistic, multicultural, multireligious society, a society based on the concepts of religious freedom and separation of church and state? What were they thinking?

This resolution was as anti-American as anything Congress has ever passed. It disenfranchised and marginalized millions and millions of men and women, reducing them to second-class citizens.

How about this next time around: "Whereas all holidays have great significance to some Americans, be it resolved that the House of Representatives expresses its deepest respect to Americans of all faiths and non-faith alike."

The writer is a co-moderator, with Jon Meacham, of On Faith, an online conversation on religion at http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith.

Some other points of view:


Posted by one of the many bloggers who picked up the 12/21/07 "Military Evangelism Deeper, Wider Than First Thought" article from truthout.org


Posted in the comments on the 12/19/07 "'God's Basic Training' Coming under Fire" article on Military.com

Closer to Home:

Claim says Fort Riley violates freedom: Ongoing lawsuit adds evidence to bolster religious freedom charge

By John Milburn

The Associated Press

Published Wednesday, December 19, 2007

A religious freedom foundation has uncovered evidence it says bolsters its federal lawsuit claiming that the military is permitting widespread violations of religious freedom at installations across the country, including Fort Riley.

The evidence is part of a lawsuit filed by Army Spc. Jeremy Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation against Maj. Freddy J. Welborn and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

The evidence disclosed Tuesday includes several photos and videos of religious materials and activities at Fort Riley, the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and Fort Jackson, S.C.

Examples at Fort Riley, where Hall is stationed, included a display outside his military police battalion's office with a quote from conservative columnist Ann Coulter saying, "We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."

Another photo from Fort Riley shows the book "A Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam" for sale at the post exchange.

"These astonishing and saddening evidence which our foundation is making public today only further buttress our lawsuit filed in federal district court," said Mike Weinstein, an attorney in Albuquerque, N.M., and president of the foundation who graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1977.

Fort Riley spokesman Maj. Nathan Bond said the matter was being referred to post commanders for investigation. He said it is the Army's policy to accommodate all religious beliefs to the extent they don't conflict with military missions.

"We do take this seriously," Bond said. "The things you have mentioned to me, if they are true, do not seem in line with the Army values of respect, and we will look into it."

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., in September, alleges Welborn threatened to file military charges against Hall and to block his reenlistment for trying to hold a meeting of atheists and non-Christians in Iraq.

Hall was serving his second tour in Iraq and has since returned to the United States. He is with the 97th Military Police Battalion out of Fort Riley.

The suit also alleges Gates permits a military culture in which officers are encouraged to pressure soldiers to adopt and espouse fundamentalist Christian beliefs. It also alleges Gates allows a culture that sanctions activities by Christian organizations, including providing personnel and equipment.

It also says the military permits proselytizing by soldiers, tolerates anti-Semitism and the placing of religious symbols on military equipment, and allows the use of military e-mail accounts to send religious rhetoric.

The Pentagon has said that the military values and respects religious freedoms but that accommodating religious practices shouldn't interfere with unit cohesion, readiness, standards or discipline.

Evidence Weinstein made public Tuesday included a video, reportedly from Campus Crusade for Christ International, that shows Air Force cadets participating in religious gatherings at the Colorado installation. In interviews, cadets say the ministry allows them to network and combat the isolation that they feel once the arrive as freshmen.

Weinstein also said that Military Ministry, part of Campus Crusade for Christ International, was active at Fort Jackson with an effort called "God's Basic Training." Included in the evidence were photographs of soldiers posing with a rifle in one hand and a Bible in the other.

Weinstein said the materials for the ministry's Bible studies teach soldiers that the U.S. military and government are instruments to spread the word of God.

A spokeswoman for Campus Crusade for Christ International said officials with the ministry hadn't had a chance to review the evidence and declined to comment.

Weinstein previously has sued the Air Force for acts he said illegally imposed Christianity on its students at the academy. A federal judge threw out that lawsuit in 2006.

Doctors Without Borders Lists Top 10 Most Underrated HumanitarianStories of 2007

From Doctors Without Borders, December 20, 2007

Displaced Fleeing War in Somalia Face Humanitarian Crisis

As violence in Somalia escalated this year to some of the worst levels in over 15 years, both assistance for and attention to one of the most challenging and acute humanitarian situations in the world seemed to wane. Ethiopian troops and Transitional Federal Government forces, supported by international partners such as the United States and the European Union, clashed with a range of armed groups, including remnants of the Islamic Courts Union. The fighting caused an unknown number of civilian casualties and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people from the capital, Mogadishu.

In 2007, MSF increased its presence in Mogadishu in different locations and opened an emergency response program in Afgooye, just outside the capital, where an estimated 200,000 internally displaced persons sought refuge, living in extremely harsh conditions with little access to food, water, and shelter. Many of those remaining in Mogadishu are staying in makeshift camps with little more than ripped cloth and plastic sheeting for shelter and are exposed to a high degree of violence.

In a country where a 16-year conflict has resulted in some of the world’s worst health indicators, with an estimated life expectancy of 47 years, few international aid organizations managed to run effective independent aid programs. Present since 1991, MSF increased its operations in 2007 and is now running projects in 10 out of the 11 regions of south and central Somalia. Nevertheless in many areas, especially in the Mogadishu area, MSF is extremely frustrated by its inability to reach more patients due to security concerns.

In August, MSF called upon all parties to the conflict to respect the safety of medical workers and allow access to medical care in and around Mogadishu. Throughout MSF hospitals, from Kismayo to Galcayo, the medical services provided range from primary and maternal to surgical care, with nurses and doctors treating malnutrition, tuberculosis, kala azar, cholera, and war-related trauma on a daily basis.


Political and Economic Turmoil Sparks Health-Care Crisis in Zimbabwe

Women queue to collect water from a spring outside the capital city of Harare. Zimbabweans, especially those in high-density areas, are facing massive water shortages.

Rampant unemployment, skyrocketing inflation, food shortages, and political instability continued to wrack Zimbabwe in 2007. Up to 3 million people are believed to have fled to neighboring countries in recent years among a population of 12 million.

The national health-care system, once viewed as one of the strongest in southern Africa, now threatens to collapse under the weight of this political and economic turmoil with the most acute consequences potentially for the estimated 1.8 million Zimbabweans living with HIV/AIDS. Currently, less than one-fourth of the people in urgent need of life-extending antiretroviral (ARV) treatment receive it. This translates into an average of 3,000 deaths every week. And the prospects for a further scale up of the national AIDS program are dim.

Trained medical professionals are leaving the country, the government program for HIV/AIDS treatment is oversubscribed, and the lack of ARV supplies has stifled further expansion. Patients often face obstacles to reach hospitals or clinics because of high fuel and transport prices.

Through programs in Bulawayo, Tshlotsho, Gweru, Epworth, and various locations in Manicaland province, MSF provides free medical care to 33,000 people living with HIV/AIDS, 12,000 of whom are receiving ARV treatment—nearly one tenth of all people on treatment. However, MSF’s ability to care for more people in need is hindered by the lack of trained health workers, restrictions on which staff can prescribe ARV drugs, and stricter administrative requirements for international staff to work in the country.

At the same time, Zimbabweans are feeling the health impact of degraded or nonexistent water-and-sanitation systems. During the year, outbreaks of diarrhea affected people living in the capital, Harare, and Bulawayo, the second largest city. Fleeing the country is also a dangerous enterprise as evidenced by the reports of refugees being beaten and raped along the South African border, and those who do make it across may be destined to live in the shadows with little or no access to health care.

Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis Spreads As New Drugs Go Untested

Every year, tuberculosis (TB) kills an estimated two million people and another nine million develop the disease. In spite of the rising human toll, there have been no advances in treatment since the 1960s and the most commonly used diagnostic test—sputum smear microscopy—was developed in 1882 and only detects TB in half of the cases. An estimated $900 million is needed annually for research and development for TB, but only $206 million is invested worldwide.

Existing treatments and diagnostics are even less adapted for people living with HIV/AIDS, the easiest prey for the TB bacilli. And for those who become infected with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB)—more than 450,000 people every year—or develop it as a result of incomplete treatment, the prospects for survival are even bleaker. The only guarantee for the few who are able to access treatment for MDR-TB is up to 24 months of ingesting a daily cocktail of highly toxic and expensive drugs that often trigger violent side effects.

In MSF programs in Armenia, Abkhazia, Georgia, Cambodia, Kenya, Thailand, Uganda, and Uzbekistan, even under the best conditions, only 55 percent of MDR-TB patients completed the 18 to 24 month treatment. The remaining proportion died, did not improve, or stopped treatment altogether because of side effects.

Adding to the frustration for medical staff on the TB pandemic’s front line is the fact that not all new drugs are being tested in the neediest patients—those with MDR-TB. A recent article authored by international experts and published in the open-source medical journal PLoS Medicine, called for the testing of new drugs in patients whose TB is resistant to standard treatment. This approach could make it easier to detect anti-TB activity of new drugs and ultimately accelerate drug development.


Expanded Use of Nutrient Dense Ready-to-Use Foods Crucial for Reducing Childhood Malnutrition

Mothers feed their children a ready-to-use food (RUF) product called Plumpy’Doz at an MSF outpatient nutrition center in Maradi.

Acute malnutrition in early childhood is common in large areas of the Horn of Africa, the Sahel, and South Asia—the world’s “malnutrition hotspots.” Every year, malnutrition is associated with the deaths of five million children under the age of five.

Recently, an effective response has emerged in the form of nutrient dense ready-to-use foods (RUFs) that can save the lives of acutely malnourished children. These products come in the form of milk- and peanut-based pastes enriched with all the vitamins and nutrients needed for rapid recovery. And they do not require refrigeration or preparation, allowing most malnourished children to be treated with RUF at home. But so far these products are only available to a tiny fraction of the severely malnourished children who need them.

MSF urges international donors to support systematic purchasing and use of RUF in countries where it’s needed. RUF also has the potential to prevent children from becoming acutely malnourished by treating at earlier stages. This means international food aid programs targeting young children must incorporate RUFs to treat less severe forms of malnutrition and to prevent acute malnutrition from developing in areas of high prevalence.

In Niger in 2007, MSF launched a pilot program using a modified RUF as a supplement to prevent some 62,000 children from becoming malnourished during the period of seasonal food shortages. The program has helped to stanch a rise in acute malnutrition in one of the country’s high prevalence districts.

In addition to calling for urgent scale up of RUF for children most in need, MSF is urging further efforts to use supplemental RUF to prevent children from becoming dangerously malnourished in the first place.


Civilians Increasingly Under Fire in Sri Lankan Conflict

A wounded woman and child receive treatment at MSF’s surgical program in Vavuniya, a town close to the front lines of the ongoing conflict between government and rebel forces.

Caught in the middle of fighting between government forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eeelam (LTTE), civilians in Sri Lanka’s eastern and northern regions live in terror. Sri Lanka has been in the grips of this fighting on and off for nearly 25 years, but the conflict has received very little attention, especially in terms of the toll it has taken on civilians living in the conflict zone.

Targeted bombings, killings, mine attacks, suicide bombings, abductions, forced recruitment, extortion, restrictions on movement, and arbitrary arrests make day-to-day life in Sri Lanka increasingly precarious. Hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans in need of humanitarian assistance have been displaced since the resumption of major fighting in August 2006.

The dire nature of the situation is compounded by a general climate of hostility and suspicion toward humanitarian aid organizations. As a result, humanitarian aid is increasingly restricted and civilians suffer from the resulting lack of access to lifesaving emergency assistance. This lack of respect for humanitarian aid comes at a time when areas near the front line of fighting have lost nearly all of their medical specialists and hospitals no longer have the human resources to treat the wounded.

After having to evacuate in late 2006, MSF is now providing medical, obstetrical, and surgical care in Point Pedro, Vavuniya, Kilinochchi, and Mannar.


Conditions Worsen in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

A displaced woman recovers after amputation surgery in MSF’s Rutshuru Hospital in North Kivu province.

The headlines emerging from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in 2007 paid scant attention to the humanitarian crisis currently unfolding in the eastern province of North Kivu. More than a year after the first democratic elections in decades were supposed to bring stability to this conflict-ridden region, fighting between armed groups has continued in North Kivu.

Supported by MONUC, the UN force, the government is now in open combat with the forces of rebel leader Laurent Nkunda. A number of different groups such as the Mai Mai and the Rwandan Hutu rebels of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) are involved in the fighting.

Hundreds of thousands of people have fled their homes in the past year, many of whom have been displaced multiple times. The displaced are often forced to hide in the forest, with little access to food or basic health care and under constant threat of attack from the various armed groups. With few avenues to receive health care, displaced Congolese are increasingly vulnerable to easily treatable diseases and conditions such as malnutrition, malaria, respiratory infections, and obstetrical complications. Outbreaks of cholera have struck Rutshuru and Goma, the provincial capital of North Kivu.

MSF teams have reinforced their activities to try to meet the increasing medical needs, but fighting and insecurity make it difficult for humanitarian workers to deliver assistance to the population. Large areas remain inaccessible, with many roads simply cut off by the insecurity.

One particularly disturbing aspect of DRC’s conflict is the alarmingly high rate of sexual violence. In North Kivu, MSF cared for more than 2,375 victims of sexual violence from January through October 2007. In the DRC’s Ituri district, the setting of conflict between different armed groups from those operating in North Kivu, 150,000 internally displaced people are still unable to return home. In a state of utter destitution, they remain vulnerable to exploitation and assaults.

Through the Bon Marché hospital in Bunia, capital of the Ituri region, MSF has treated 7,400 rape victims over the last four years. More than one-third of these people were admitted over the last 18 months. MSF also responded this year to a number of disease outbreaks in other provinces, including an epidemic of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in southern West Kasai province.


Living Precariously in Colombia’s Conflict Zones

Graciela and her family are a few of the millions of Colombians who have had to flee their homes to escape fighting between government, rebel, and paramilitary forces over control of the country’s narcotics trade.

Largely fuelled by a fight over control of the narcotics trade, Colombia’s decades-old civil war often makes headlines, but its impact on the civilian population of the country is rarely the focus of attention.

Over the years, as many as 3.8 million people have been driven from their homes by violence brought on by government troops, paramilitary, and rebel forces battling for territorial control, ranking Colombia third in the world after Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo for the largest number of internally displaced people.

Armed groups have a stranglehold on roughly half of Colombia’s rural areas, depriving civilians of access to health care by making roads impassable, forcibly conscripting children into militias, and murdering those suspected of collaborating with rivals. These civilians are equally treated with suspicion of potentially “collaborating” with armed groups by Colombia’s armed forces and often face harsh reprisals as a result.

In desperation, families flee their homes for urban slums with little more than the clothes on their backs; and when they arrive, looking for work and shelter, they often find conditions that are as threatening as those they fled. Their new homes are overcrowded shacks without adequate facilities. The living conditions can lead to respiratory infections and diarrheal disease, but there is little access to health care. There are also very few internally displaced persons who have the option of returning safely to the homes they were forced to abandon.

MSF has a presence in 13 of Colombia’s 32 departments, working in isolated rural areas through mobile and stationary clinics and in urban areas where displaced families have gathered. Teams provide medical care ranging from vaccinations to reproductive care and emergency services, and offer psychological care to victims of violence. As the conflict in Colombia rolls into its sixth decade and armed groups continue to target civilians in their war for control, many Colombians do not remember a time when daily life was not ruled by guns and terror.


Humanitarian Aid Restricted in Myanmar

A father waits with his son to receive health care at an MSF clinic.

Isolated from the outside world since the ruling military junta came to power in 1962, the people of Myanmar (formerly named Burma) suffer from the consequences of repression and neglect.

The crackdown on monks marching for democracy in September brought international attention to this long-suffering population, but it did not expose what ordinary Burmese go through every day. Faced with high malaria and HIV rates, the impoverished population is provided with little assistance—only 1.4 percent of the regime’s budget supports health-care services.

In spite of the overwhelming need, there are few humanitarian aid groups working in the country and, for those on the ground, operating in an independent and impartial manner is difficult. Moreover, donor governments and agencies are reluctant to fund programs that might support the regime. Travel inside the country can require time-consuming visas, which can make responding to emergencies impossible and needs assessments challenging. In some regions, such as those gripped by armed conflict involving Karen and Mon rebels along the eastern border with Thailand, government restrictions have stymied humanitarian aid efforts, including MSF’s.

Some of the largest gaps in health services are in the western Rakhine state, where MSF treated 210,000 people for malaria in 2006. Muslims from Rakhine state, known as Rohingyas, live in particularly precarious circumstances. Denied citizenship rights by the state, this group suffers numerous forms of abuse. MSF provides basic medical care and HIV/AIDS treatment to Rohingyas.

The slow response to the country’s HIV/AIDS epidemic has fueled the spread of the disease. In Yangon, Rakhine, Kachin, and Shan states, MSF offers comprehensive HIV/AIDS programs, but these meet just a fraction of the need. While there is little independent information to shed light on the number of Burmese in clinical need of life-prolonging antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, of the UN-estimated 360,000 people who are living with HIV, only 10,000 are believed to be receiving ARVs. MSF provides ARV therapy to 8,000 of them. And even fewer have access to care for complicating diseases like tuberculosis. As a result, the UN estimates that 20,000 people die annually from HIV/AIDS.


Civilians Caught Between Armed Groups in Central African Republic

A mother sits with her child in Massabiou, a village that was attacked by armed militia in April, causing thousands to flee. Those who have returned are now destitute, struggling to survive without food, water, or shelter.

Fighting between government forces and various rebel groups in northern Central African Republic (CAR), which started in late 2005, has caused significant displacement of the population. In the northwest, villages have been attacked, pillaged, and burned, forcing people to flee into the surrounding, inhospitable forest, and severely restricting their access to health care. Civilians are also the victims of violence at the hands of roadside bandits.

In 2007, MSF supported health structures and provided primary and secondary health care in and around Kabo, Batangafo, Paoua, Kaga Bandoro, Markounda, and Boguila in the northwest, and Birao and Gordil in the northeast. In the first eight months of the year, more than 100,000 consultations were carried out and tens of thousands of people—many of them children under five years of age—were treated for malaria and other infectious diseases often associated with poor living conditions.

Acts of harassment and general insecurity frequently forced MSF to stop its mobile clinics on short notice, which sometimes left people without access to health care for up to eight weeks. In June, MSF aid worker Elsa Serfass was shot and killed by rebel gunfire, leading to a lengthy reduction of MSF operations in northwestern CAR. The violence in the northwest has also forced close to 30,000 people into neighboring Cameroon, where they have suffered from a lack of shelter, food, and medical assistance.

During the year, MSF carried out a nutrition intervention after alarming rates of malnutrition were discovered among children within this refugee population. Affected children were treated and MSF also carried out distributions of supplementary food rations. More than 45,000 CAR refugees also gathered in southern Chad, where MSF works in a district hospital and provides assistance to refugees in camps and local residents.

In parts of Vakaga province in northeastern CAR, home to approximately 45,000 people, violence between rebel groups and government troops has forced thousands of people to flee their destroyed homes and villages. Many sought safety in the nearby forest. The region suffers from a near-total lack of health care and MSF provided assistance to the beleaguered population through mobile and fixed clinics in Birao and Gordil.


As Chechen Conflict Ebbs, Critical Humanitarian Needs Still Remain

It has been nearly four years since the most intense fighting subsided between Russian government and rebel forces in the North Caucasus republic of Chechnya. Tens of thousands of internally displaced persons (IDPs), who had fled to the neighboring republics of Ingushetia and Dagestan, have returned to Chechnya. At the same time, reconstruction has increased in the Chechen capital, Grozny, the scene of indiscriminate bombing less than a decade ago, and the republic’s airport has been reopened.

Yet the Caucasus region remains highly volatile. Fighting outside Chechnya has increased and a large military presence still inhabits the region. Abductions, disappearances, assassinations, and bombings continue in Ingushetia, North Ossetia, and Dagestan. Inside Chechnya, the security situation is still precarious for civilians. Dangers may range from being caught in the middle of sporadic gunfire to getting into a car accident involving heavy military vehicles, the latter recently having become a common cause of trauma.

Basic health services, particularly in the areas of obstetrical and gynecological care, are woefully lacking and, when available, remain out of reach for many impoverished returnees. Through clinics in and around Grozny, MSF and local Chechen doctors see a population with high levels of chronic illness, including lung, kidney, and cardiovascular diseases.

Furthermore, the MSF teams also witness widespread needs for psychosocial care, caused by years of exposure to violence and displacement. An MSF survey of IDPs living in temporary accommodation centers in Ingushetia and Chechnya found that nearly all the people interviewed were suffering from anxiety, insomnia, or depression.

Chechnya’s wars also took their toll on the republic’s tuberculosis (TB) control system. As a result, MSF supports TB hospitals serving a population of 400,000. And many survivors of the wars still need care for crippling injuries. MSF has tried to meet some of this need by operating a reconstructive surgery program in Grozny hospital No. 9 since 2006.

This article is from Doctors Without Borders. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their Web site and register an account, if necessary, to view all their articles on the Web. Support quality journalism.

• 

Impeach Cheney

Rep. Robert Wexler (FL-19) and two other Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee - Luis Gutierrez (IL-04) and Tammy Baldwin (WI-02) - today called on the committee to begin impeachment hearings for Vice President Cheney.

They declared, "The charges are too serious to ignore. There is credible evidence that the Vice President abused the power of his office, and not only brought us into an unneccesary war but violated the civil liberties and privacy of American citizens. It is the constitutional duty of Congress to hold impeachment hearings."

The three Democrats wrote an op-ed to announce their position, but none of the nation's leading newspapers would publish it - just as they refuse to include impeachment in their polls, and just as they refuse to publish their own investigations of the crimes of the Bush Administration. Why? Because the Corporate Media is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Republican Party, as it has been since the Reagan Revolution of 1980.

You can read the full op-ed at Rep. Wexler's new site - http://wexlerwantshearings.com - where you can also watch a powerful video by Wexler.

Rep. Wexler needs to collect 50,000 signatures to convince his Democratic colleagues that the American people truly support impeachment hearings. So please sign his petition:
http://wexlerwantshearings.com

More Holiday Gift Ideas

Here's some holiday ideas at a special Holiday price: Buy more than one, pay only to ship one. From now till the 18th of December!
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Researchers Say Kansas Minimum Wage Increase a Plus for Businesses, Workers and Communities

(Dec 10, 2007) Topeka, KS – The nonpartisan, ad astra inst logo not-for-profit Ad Astra Institute (AAI) has released a 40- page report suggesting that the economic impact of minimum wage increases in Kansas would likely be positive for workers, businesses, employment and economic development. The report, "Impacts of Minimum Wage Increases in Kansas: A Background Report," estimates the number of Kansas workers likely to be affected by increases in the minimum wage, summarizes theories of economic impact and reviews actual effects of minimum wage increases in other states and cities.

The Kansas minimum wage of $2.65 per hour applies to workers in job categories not protected by the Federal minimum wage ($5.85). The study documents this under -examined category of workers at the lowest end of the wage spectrum. To help determine how minimum wage increases would affect Kansas businesses and local economies, the study draws on evidence from states and cities that have raised their minimum wages above the Federal level.

Among the findings of the report are:

• Kansas has the lowest minimum wage in the nation. The Kansas law has no effect on workers covered by the federal law, but covers certain employees exempt from the federal law. These include childcare workers, companions to the elderly or infirm, and employees of private firms grossing less than $500,000/year and not engaged in interstate commerce.
• A total of 17,000 Kansas workers received less than the $5.15 minimum wage in 2006. Researchers note that this figure will have risen as a result of the recent Federal minimum wage increase. There are an unknown number of workers not covered by federal law who received between $5.15 and $5.85 an hour.
• A minimum wage increase would have no substantial long-term effects on output, employment or profits. Short-run adjustments in prices, made by businesses reliant on low-wage workers, are likely to be much too small to have significant impacts on the overall price levels, and will not cause an ongoing inflationary spiral. The long-term benefits of greater consumer purchasing power, higher sales tax revenue, less turnover and absenteeism, a more productive workforce and a higher overall cash flow in the local economy are likely to compensate for a modest wage increase among the lowest paid workers in the Kansas economy.

More http://www.ksworkbeat.org/Issues/2007-55/2007-55.html

Download the report http://www.raisethewagekansas.org/wichita/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/report-12-3-07-kan.pdf

New Study - Same Verdict: Abstinence-Only Programs Don't Work!

In November, the release of Emerging Answers 2007: Research Findings on Programs to Reduce Teen Pregnancy and Sexually Transmitted Diseases, a report authored by Douglas Kirby, PhD, a leading researcher in adolescent health, confirmed, once again, that the $1.5 billion federal and state investment in abstinence-only-until-marriage programs is a waste of taxpayer money.

The report, commissioned by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, examined both comprehensive sex education and abstinence-only programs. Of the 48 programs included in the study, the only programs that delayed sexual initiation were comprehensive sex education programs. Moreover, the report clearly states "there does not exist any strong evidence that any abstinence program delays the initiation of sex, hastens the return to abstinence, or reduces the number of sexual partners."

To read the full press release, please visit:
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/news/press/110707.htm

For more on abstinence-only-until-marriage programs, please visit:
http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/abstinenceonly.htm

The Fakest Time of the Year: The 2007 Falsies Awards

From Center for Media and Democracy, December 7, 2007
By Diane Farsetta

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the year that the Falsies Awards have truly arrived!

Here at the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD), we’ve dearly treasured our Falsies since we gave the first awards out in 2004. After 12 months of reporting on the cynical, manipulative and just plain anti-democratic pollution of our information environment, we love adding an extra dash of humor to our work. But this year’s Falsies Awards are extra super special.

Why, you ask? Well, more people responded to our Falsies Awards survey than ever before. Thanks to the more than 1,400 people who took part! Our Falsies are your Falsies, too. In addition, this year marks the first time there was an organized campaign in favor of one of our Falsies Awards nominees. To find out who was stuffing our Falsies survey, read on.

As always, Falsies Awards winners must stop by CMD’s office in Madison, Wisconsin, to collect their prizes. This year’s winners will receive a pair of Groucho Marx glasses, to obscure your real identity; the Online Deception Kit, comprised of a sock, buttons and thread, to make your own puppet; and a five-gallon bucket of Mr. Flack’s Special Greenwash Paint (warning: may not look green upon closer examination)!

With so many stellar nominees and few clear trends in the survey results, deciding on this year’s winners was no easy task. Our panel of judges awarded the coveted Gold Falsie to two belligerent groups. The Silver and Bronze Falsies recognize spinners of environmental and health issues, respectively. Dishonorable mentions go to drug pushers, troop users and reporter wanna-be’s. And thanks to the survey participants for nominating many worthy recipients for our Readers’ Choice and Win Against Spin Awards!

Draw up your chair and prepare to be both amused and dismayed. The winners of the 2007 Falsies Awards are…

Golden Falsie: “War More Years” and “For More Wars”

The only thing worse than failing to end a long, bloody and increasingly unpopular war might be trying to start a new one. All we are saying is that the joint winners of this year’s Gold Falsie should give peace a chance.

Half of this year’s Gold Falsie goes to the leadership of the U.S. Democratic Party. By all accounts, growing opposition to the Iraq war was a major factor in the Democrats’ November 2006 election victories, which gave them control of both houses of Congress. What have they done with that mandate? Not much. The tension between the public’s anti-war sentiment and the Democrats’ political wrangling came to a head in early 2007, when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promoted a “compromise” war funding bill with no specific timetables, no binding measures and no chance of becoming law. As CMD’s John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton wrote at the time, a stronger Iraq amendment by members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus was deep-sixed by the Democratic leadership and ignored by the Democrat-aligned online advocacy group MoveOn.

The Iraq war funding triangulation continues today. In early December, the Wall Street Journal reported that Democratic leaders, in order to avoid being seen either as capitulating to Bush on Iraq or as under-funding the military, “are looking at the option of advancing more money for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.” Meanwhile, “responsible” war critics are being encouraged to wait for General David Petraeus’s spring 2008 report, much as they were previously for Petraeus’s September 2007 report. It reminds us of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman’s infamous, never-ending six month timeframe for evaluating progress in Iraq.

No wonder that Congress’s approval ratings have sunk even lower than President Bush’s, or that Speaker Pelosi felt compelled to launch a PR campaign this autumn, touting the Democratic Congress’s accomplishments. At least now they can say they’ve won an award!

The other cup of the Gold Falsie goes to Freedom’s Watch, an influential Republican-associated lobbying group that advocates “peace through strength,” as described by its spokesman, former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer. In August 2007, the group launched a multi-million dollar advertising campaign encouraging continued support for the “troop surge” in Iraq. The Freedom’s Watch print and television ads alleged a connection between Iraq and 9/11, without directly claiming that Iraq was responsible for the terrorist attacks — the same approach used by the Bush administration in the lead up to the March 2003 invasion.

More recently, Freedom’s Watch has been pushing for war with Iran. In September 2007, the group’s president Bradley Blakeman (a former assistant to President Bush) ominously stated, “If Hitler’s warnings were heeded when he wrote Mein Kampf he could have been stopped.” Just before Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s U.S. visit, Freedom’s Watch ran a full-page New York Times ad that called him a “terrorist.” In October, the group organized a forum with several American Enterprise Institute fellows, designed to prove that Iran poses a significant security threat to the United States. The following month, news of a focus group apparently funded by Freedom’s Watch surfaced. “The basis of the whole thing was, ‘we’re going to go into Iran and what do we have to do to get you guys to go along with it,’” according to one participant.

In early December, when U.S. intelligence agencies reported that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program more than four years ago, Freedom’s Watch ignored the news for several days. Finally, one of their blog posts approvingly pointed to an editorial which, in their words, argued that the intelligence report showed “we must continue to pressure Iran on their weapons program.” That’s right — the weapons program that doesn’t exist. Why let reality get in the way of well-funded war mongering? With that chutzpah, FreedomWatch truly deserves the most false of Falsies!

Silver Falsie: “Deleting Heating”

Speaking of alternate realities, this year’s Silver Falsie goes to determined global warming skeptics who, when faced with evidence of climate change, simply remove it. Exhibit A is Philip A. Cooney, who headed the White House Council on Environmental Quality in between lobbying gigs for the American Petroleum Institute and Exxon Mobil. In March 2007, the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released documents detailing “hundreds of instances” where Cooney had edited government reports to downplay the human contribution to and impacts of global warming. Cooney has no scientific credentials.

Exhibit B is the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB), whose “heavy-handed” editing “eviscerated” the October 2007 Congressional testimony of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s director on the likely health impacts of global warming. Her original testimony described “how many people might be adversely affected because of increased warming and the scientific basis for some of the CDC’s analysis on what kinds of diseases might be spread in a warmer climate and rising sea levels.” The OMB edits removed these details, cutting her testimony to less than half of its original length.

Exhibit C is the U.S. negotiators for the global warming statement released by the Group of Eight (G-8) industrial countries at their June 2007 summit. Draft documents revealed that the U.S. pressured other G-8 countries to remove commitments to reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, as well as an assessment that “tackling climate change is an imperative, not a choice.”

These climate change cancelers have helped stymie attempts to address global warming for so long that hundreds of the world’s most prestigious climate scientists recently issued an impassioned cry for action. Of course, the skeptics would not be so effective were it not for a larger network that funds, develops and promotes their brand of Flat Earth-ism: companies like Exxon Mobil; think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, American Enterprise Institute and Cato Institute (whose Jerry Taylor claims that “scientists are in no position to intelligently guide public policy on climate change”); and celebrities like Bjorn Lomborg and Czech president Vaclav Klaus. Take a bow, everyone!

Bronze Falsie: “Impeding Breastfeeding”

Awarding a Falsie to groups spinning breastfeeding issues seems … well, especially appropriate. Apparently the folks at Ban the Bags, a campaign against formula company marketing in maternity hospitals, agree. They posted a call for their members to participate in our Falsies Awards survey, and votes for the formula industry came pouring in. Is this spinning a survey on spin? Our judges were divided on that question, but ultimately decided to discount survey responses where people only voted on the formula industry nominee.

There’s no question that the formula industry, represented by the International Formula Council (IFC), deserves the Bronze Falsie. The September / October issue of Mothering Magazine reported on “stealth” websites that “appear to be grassroots advocacy sites, but are actually mouthpieces for the formula industry.” They include MomsFeedingFreedom.com, an IFC website that opposes restrictions on formula marketing in hospitals as attacks on “women’s access to information to make a legitimate choice.”

In August 2007, the Washington Post reported on an IFC lobbying campaign that succeeded in getting the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to pull ads that dramatically illustrated the increased health risks faced by babies who do not breastfeed. The IFC portrayed the ads as “scaring expectant mothers into breast-feeding,” and hired a former Republican National Committee chair and former Food and Drug Administration official to lobby HHS. It probably didn’t hurt that most formula companies are “divisions of large pharmaceutical companies that are among the most generous campaign donors in the nation.”

For portraying accurate health information as alarmism and intrusive marketing campaigns as “freedom” — not to mention helping to keep U.S. breastfeeding rates well below those of European countries — this Falsie’s for you, IFC!

Dishonorable Mentions

The level of deception throughout 2007 simply can’t be adequately conveyed by our top Falsies Awards recipients. So we hope that you have some indignation left for the following winners of Dishonorable Mentions:

The Vaccine for Cancer: The pharmaceutical company Merck got more than it bargained for when it embarked on a high-pressure lobbying and PR campaign to get U.S. states to mandate the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for schoolgirls. Coincidentally, the only approved HPV vaccine at the time was Merck’s Gardasil. Working with the PR giant Edelman, and with help from Women in Government and other non-profit organizations that it funds, Merck succeeded in getting dozens of states to consider mandating the brand-new vaccine. After widespread criticism, Merck agreed to stop “lobbying” state governments, though it continues to “educate” them.

Support Our Dupes: What’s wrong with supporting U.S. troops? Nothing, per se, though a Pentagon program with multi-million dollar PR contracts, events seemingly geared to increase public support for the Iraq war, with questionable spending and fundraising practices, and ties to Christian evangelical groups trying to convert soldiers and Iraqis is another thing altogether. That’s America Supports You (ASY), which is currently under investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general. In October 2007, the investigation widened to include hundreds of thousands of dollars in ASY contacts run through the military newspaper Stars and Stripes. The paper’s editors have called on the acting publisher to resign, after he refused to release information on the paper’s involvement with ASY.

To Thine Own Self Be Falsie: For many, the incident summed up the various “fake news” practices of the Bush administration, from video news releases to press conference plants to payola pundits. In late October, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) held a press conference on the California wildfires, giving reporters only 15 minutes’ notice and offering a phone line that reporters could use to listen but not ask questions. Instead, the questions came from FEMA staffers playing reporter. Two of the staffers involved lost their jobs, but two later received promotions. The Homeland Security Department’s investigation of FEMA’s fakery (which will not be made public) turned up a similar incident, where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement official asked questions during a February 2006 agency press conference.

Readers’ Choice Awards

As usual, our readers had their own list of Falsie-worth people, groups and institutions, ranging from Fox News to PBS, from Rudy Giuliani to Hillary Rodham Clinton. Survey participants made an especially good case for the following Readers’ Choice Award winners:

• Alexis Debat, a former ABC News consultant / reporter and “terrorism analyst” exposed in September 2007 for having padded his resume and published fake interviews with Barack Obama, Alan Greenspan and others. Debat also sought work with the Lincoln Group, the PR firm that planted stories in Iraqi newspapers, and had affiliations with think tanks and lobbying firms. “Seems Debat was good enough at saying the ‘right’ words in that paranoid climate [five years ago] to get a high-paying job” at ABC, wrote his nominator, who also criticized the lack of media coverage of Debat’s fall from grace.


• TV4US, an astroturf group funded by the telecom company AT&T. In May 2007, the Wisconsin branch of TV4US (which is headed by a Milwaukee PR and political consultant) delivered to all 132 state legislators binders listing what it said were supporters of a controversial cable franchise bill. Several people who opposed the bill, including two lawmakers, were stunned to find out that they were erroneously listed in the TV4US binders. Still, the franchise bill passed both houses of the Wisconsin legislature, helped along by AT&T’s many lobbyists and copious political donations.


• Edelman, the public relations firm for such clients as the American Petroleum Institute, Diebold, Microsoft and the pharmaceutical industry lobby group PhRMA. Edelman “deserves a special ‘life time achievement’ award for repeated boneheaded duplicity,” wrote its nominator, listing such deviousness as its “fake blogging campaign” for Wal-Mart and its “Ecomagination” campaign, “claiming General Electric is ‘green.’” Not surprisingly, a recent analysis of the Ecomagination campaign concluded that GE’s environmental initiatives leave something to be desired.

We couldn’t help but note the absence of a formerly perennial nominee — us, the Center for Media and Democracy! Should we take that as a compliment, or as a sign that we may have been a bit too agreeable over the past year? We’re not sure, but we firmly promise to do better in 2008.

Win Against Spin Awards

If PR were as effective as its practitioners make it out to be, we’d all be in deep trouble. Luckily, savvy reporters, citizen journalists and other media watchdogs have been effective at debunking spin and spreading media literacy. We would like to take a snark-free moment to honor the following Wins Against Spin, which were also nominated by our readers.

• WikiScanner, an innovative program by self-described “disruptive technologist” Virgil Griffith, which maps anonymous edits to Wikipedia, the popular online collaborative encyclopedia. WikiScanner caught several PR firms whitewashing entries on themselves and their clients, such as Hill & Knowton’s deleting passages on human rights abuses by the Maldives government. “WikiScanner is one of the few positive things to come out of this year’s War On Spin,” wrote one reader.


• Democracy Now!, the independent daily television and radio news program hosted by Amy Goodman. “In my opinion,” wrote its nominator, Democracy Now! “is the best anti-spin … news available in the media to a mass audience.” The multiple award-winning show currently airs on more than 650 stations and describes itself as “the largest public media collaboration in the U.S.”


• The Center for Media and Democracy — oh, here’s where we got nominated! Thanks to the reader who suggested CMD “pat yourselves on the back for progress at the FCC,” referring to our research into video news releases (VNRs) or “fake TV news,” and our work with the media reform group Free Press in support of VNR disclosure. In September 2007, the Federal Communications Commission proposed its first-ever fines for undisclosed VNR broadcasts. Comcast, the media company that may be fined, is currently appealing to the FCC.

See You in 2008!
If you would like to play with our Falsies survey numbers, see “Falsies 2007: Reader Responses.” While the Falsies Awards happen but once a year, CMD reports on deceptive PR and propaganda campaigns all the time. Keep informed on media issues by signing up for our Weekly Spin email and subscribing to our new Weekly Radio Spin podcast (XML feed here). Better yet, get involved! Our SourceWatch website is a collaborative encyclopedia of the “people, organizations and issues shaping the public agenda.” SourceWatch is housing a growing number of projects focused on everything from the U.S. Congress to the worldwide tobacco and nuclear power and weapons industries. Help us track the key players in whatever area interests you!

To our friends in the PR world, you can’t say that we never gave you anything. To our readers, citizen journalist colleagues and other supporters, a sincere thanks from all of us here at CMD.

This article is from Center for Media and Democracy. If you found it informative and valuable, we strongly encourage you to visit their Web site and register an account, if necessary, to view all their articles on the Web. Support quality journalism.

Points to Remember on the Downtown Redevelopment Project

The Downtown Project has a current estimated cost of $194 million.

Dial Realty is set to invest $87 million in construction of all the retail, restaurants and residential units within the North and South Project Areas.

No public tax dollars will assist construction of any private business or residential development.

Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is estimated to contribute $25 million towards land assembly, public infrastructure within the project areas such as roads, sidewalks, lighting, water lines, sewer, stormwater, etc. TIF dollars are generated exclusively in the North and South Project areas. TIF includes the increase in property taxes and City sales tax generated from the new development. The City, County and School District continue to receive the "base" amount established in 2005, when the TIF district was created. Anything generated above and beyond this "base" is pledged towards the land acquisition and public infrastructure necessary to facilitate the North and South project areas.

There are two other "public" sources included in the Downtown project. The State of Kansas has dedicated their 5.3% in State sales tax generated within the North and South Project areas. The State has agreed to invest $50 million in the South Project area, specifically in the Flint Hills Discovery Center construction, and the South Project area land acquisition and public infrastructure.

The City will also implement Transportation Development Districts (TDD) that will generate an additional 1/2 cent sales tax on top of the total sales tax rate to help assist with the public infrastructure improvements. In total the TDD will generate another $7 million to the project. A flowchart of sources and uses is available for your review.

The City of Manhattan is scheduled to invest an additional $25 million - or roughly 13% of the total project - towards other public improvements in both the North and South project areas. Projects significant to the benefit to the community have been identified for this investment. These include 4th Street construction- north and south, opening up Leavenworth Street at 3rd Street (connection to the Mall), creating an intersection at 3rd Street and Pierre Street, purchasing the furniture, fixtures, exhibits and equipment for the Discovery Center, financing the construction of the Conference Center, and a portion of the 400-stall parking garage. It is also envisioned in the event excess property and sales tax are generated within the North and South project areas, the City would be reimbursed for these expenses and financed by the incremental dollars generated in the project.

Flint Hills Regional Growth Plan

Our show on 29 November looked at the Flint Hills Regional Growth Plan (FHRGP). The purpose of the FHRGP is to look at the impact the expansion of Ft. Riley will have on the area as it adds over 9,000 active personnel and nearly 2,000 new civilian positions to the Fort's existing infrastructure

The report looks at a broad array of topics concerning the quality of life in the region: public safety, housing, environmental impact, transportation, child care, health care, the economy, social services, etc. You can download a copy of the Executive Summary or the Draft Report at City of Manhattan Website:

http://www.ci.manhattan.ks.us/

Click on the link entitled: Learn More About the Flint Hills Regional Growth Plan

Weekly Radio Spin

On this show we also heard "Weekly Radio Spin," by the Center for Media and Democracy. This program is an audio report on the stories behind the news. In addition to Media Minute by Free Press, I am considering it as a regular feature to the Spring line-up for the show. Your comments are most appreciated.

City should fire Dial and change direction
By Christopher E. Renner
An edited version of this opinion column appeared in the 2 December 2007 Manhattan Mercury.

Dear Editor:
Since work prevents me from being able to attend the Planning Board meeting Monday, I want to publicly express my opinion of the Dial Reality’s modified proposal for our downtown: it's wrong, wrong, wrong! It is time the City fired Dial; admit that we have gone in the wrong direction; and, start over before we have a suburban mall in a urban setting, totally destroying our downtown.

Since beginning in 2006 I have hosted numerous programs on downtown redevelopment on Community Bridge, the talk show I host each Thursday on KSDB 91.9 FM. In preparing for these shows I have done a fair share of research on the subject and what I keep finding is that we have made and continue to make mistakes in our redevelopment plan. Every other downtown redevelopment project I have studied for comparable communities in population size and economic base have begun their redevelopment by forming a not-for-profit corporation to carry out the redevelopment project. This entity has worked closely with the local stakeholders and has enjoyed broad community support. Those who gave their downtowns to a private corporation, as we have, encountered the same problems we are facing that ended in lawsuits, abandoned projects and deep community divisions. Is this the future we want for Manhattan?

Some years ago, when I attended public meetings in which we discussed what we wanted for our downtown redevelopment, common themes emerged: people friendly, diverse, interconnected to the existing grid of roads and neighborhoods, supportive of locally own businesses, and a “destination” where we could enjoy a broad array of restaurants (not just a bunch of fast food outlets), the arts, and venues for cultural events. Where in the current proposal from Dial are those themes? They are not present because we have the wrong people in charge of our downtown redevelopment. What we are getting is asphalt and sprawl, not a cohesive area that will provide a stimulus for economic development.

Research repeatedly shows: in order to have a viable downtown requires having people live in the downtown area which has a broad array of shops and services that are able to turn a profit. Apparently Dial doesn’t read the same research that I have, but why should they? They have consistently demonstrated they do not want the same downtown that most of us who were part of the planning process wanted and still want. Have their executives even been to downtown Lawrence, Lincoln, Austin or Iowa City? Or Wichita’s Old Town for that matter where new development fits with the existing structures? None of these communities have suburban malls in their downtowns and neither should we! Manhattanites deserves a place where we can walk along streets lined with shops, restaurants, and sidewalk cafes that gives our community a place to call “home.”

As a community, we cannot afford to allow the redevelopment of our downtown to end in failure. Moreover, we cannot afford to put locally owned businesses out of business. Their investment in our community far out-strips anything a big box store will contribute. So why aren’t local businesses being encouraged to relocate to this area instead of bringing in national chain stores? Because Dial doesn’t know our community.

It is time that we took back our community and its future from Dial before we get an unsustainable city center, which is full of empty buildings in ten years. My plea to the Planning Board is to reject Dial’s proposal and give them the following directions: either they return to our original concept of an interconnected block-grid structured area with lots of housing options and parking garages instead of acres of asphalt, or it is time they admit they cannot deliver what was promised and we as a community begin working on our future by starting with a not-for-profit corporate to take over and correct the mistakes Dial has made; take back the land and sell it to local businesses making our downtown redevelopment right before any more time is lost.