Amy you are always so right on with your attention to the most important details. What's happening with our airwaves is shameful and that people have been so dumbed down that they sit sat silently and watch the deals being made for big media is the most discouraging and frightening of all.

Can you just imagine if all the money spent on campaigns were spent on the US infrastructure...

Be aware that there was a major discrepancy between the pre-vote polls and the final Diebold voting machine count in the New Hampshire Democratic primary. Anyone smell more electoral fraud?

Hi Citizens. I wated to mention a couple of recent things in the realm of history of the CIA with particular reference to US domestic media.
The first is the publication of a new book by Harvard U. Press called The Mighty Wurlitzer: How the CIA Played America. It is about CIA domestic front groups in general, but also confirms many of the things on the following site, relating to the CIA's involvement in our domestic media.
The site is called spartacus. It is great for many reasons one of which is at the bottom of each thread there are many different sources, so you are not confined to just one point of view. Of course this does not guarantee objectivity, but many historians write for this site, and they are not reductive in theier analysis.
Also at the related Education Forum Site, you can discuss whatever the spartacus site thread was about. you can click easily from the Spartacus site to Education Forum. THIS SITE SHOULD NOT BE SEEN AS REDUCTIVELY JFK, BUT RATHER IS ABOUT COLD WAR HISTORY, INTELLIGENCE HISTORY AND MEDIA HISTORY.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKmockingbird.htm?http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=5142
For extreme added fun see THIS THREAD ABOUT BEN BRADLEE WHO MANAGED THE WATERGATE STORY FOR WASHINGTON POST. FOR THAT MATTER THE PHILLIP GRAHAM THREAD IS ALSO TREMENDOUSLY FUN AND WELL RESEARCHED.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKbradleeB.htm
http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=3541

Has anyone else noticed that starting in 2009 there won't be any "airwaves" anymore? It's all going digital, the era of the rabbit ears will be over. There's a funny commercial with an old rich white southern women telling old people while she sits in front of a 1970's television that anyone with cable will still get service, but if you are still picking up the "big three" from the public airwaves, you will be out of luck in '09.

-Tony,

I noticed that as well, scary shit. Hillary is obviously in cahoots with Diebold. Again, in a state where voting machines were used, the pre-polls, and exit polls, vary from the actuall result. And they actively block efforts to verify results, such as a paper trail, or hand recounts.
What is really scary is that it is not being talked about, even here on commondreams

I only wish the media and corporate industries were scared of Kucinich and Paul! Sadly it appears to me that they aren't even a little scared - they have made the decision to sideline such campaigns and marginalize such messages with all the powers they have at their disposal - not out of fear but because they CAN!
They own the networks: they easily squelch any public appearance by candidates they don't want seen/heard. Then they simply use their "pundits" to denigrate whatever pieces of such messages squeeze through.
As long as America is complacent enough to get their NEWS from corporate owned media, they will have corporate approved candidacy(s). It's not like MSM is upholding factchecking or qualifying their sources anymore - so what makes them trustworthy?
Just check out the alternative candidate support blogs if you want to see how pervasive MSM's affect on our national conversation is… I consistently read about how "Whacko", "nutjob", "deluded" and "unelectable" all but Clinton and Obama are - people read and regurgitate these absurdities as a sideaffect of the shortsighted sophomoric pap that now passes as journalism in our MSM.
Where are the great investigators and journalists of old? Where are the men and women who's own need to know triumphed their need for inter-corporate awards and pay raises? Freedom of speech is nothing if those wielding the pens and microphones of the media are simply corporate hacks.
Perhaps this is how excellence is born… from the ashes of deceit and mediocrity rise the strong new voices who actually believe in something.
We the People need to have one National network on our airwaves and one National news outlet where all candidates have an equally accessible weekly forum, where there is no advertising and NO outside commentary. Candidates can provide their own links to the resources they want to use as reference and Americans can simply make their own choices sans any spin (and with the work of having discovered it for themselves). And… to take it one extreme further - ALL Politics should be banned from any of the corporate channels and newspapers. Let them earn their money actually reporting NEWS!

It occurs to me that, in light of the recently reported surprise victories in New Hampshire, where the Democratic polls which were conducted appeared to be so far off of the actual election results,we may have an example of the new generation of rigged elections. The strategy is two fold, 1.) to divert a win to Hillary in order to have a lesser popular candidate appear to be the front runner; thus once the general election is held she will lose of her own accord, based on false primary results. and 2.) to discredit or cast doubt on polling in general so that when exit polls predict a winner/loser they can be more easily discredited as being unreliable, or out of touch with the general populus.
New Hampshire did use electronic, paperless voting machines, did they not.... ???
There may be no way to prove the rigging of elections in the future, other than to provide a verifiable paper trail which can be compared to actual votes cast, and which scientific polls can be compared to and determine the cause of such wide and otherwise unexplained variations between poll results and actual election results.
Polls when conducted carefully are very good predictors of human behavior. That is why we buy cornflakes. Electronic voting machines which offer no verifiable evidence of actual data input have been shown to be suseptible to a variety of incursions which can alter the results of an election without leaving an obvious forensic trail.

KCT

Hillary, Obama and the rest of corporate America's candidates are all enemies of democracy.

I stopped watching TV 12 years ago because of the warped ideology of consumerism, a phoney war on terror and the general dumbing down of its viewers. People were fed O.J. Simpson 24-seven while news worthy stories were shelved. If anything, TV has gotten worse today.... but at least the internet gives us options.

Meanwhile corporate America is spending millions of dollars in closed-door sessions trying to figure out how to eliminate the Internet threat to their domination. I'm sure any of the mainstream candidates (from either party) will be all too willing to comply once the plan is presented to them. That's why Dennis Kucinich is so necessary at this point in time. This may be our last opportunity to get the word out via the Internet to prevent the stifling of relevant information.

The media company owners are some of the richest and most powerful people in America. Because they are so endowed they have the obligation, if not the right, to promulgate their vision, their desires for American. Obviously, their success, and probably their kids' success, is the model and thinking that Americans should simply follow.

This notion of public airwaves is a quaint, ancient idea that belongs on the garbage pile of liberal ideas.

(Political discourse in America)

I too believe that Diebold needs to be investigated before the primary elections are concluded. The American People have accepted two fraudulent elections and the expectation is that they will accept another. We appear to be moving into a Democracy in name only.

Regarding possible election fraud in the New Hampshire primary, OpEd News has an article that compares the results from the Diebold Accuvote Optical Scan to the hand counted paper ballots. Clinton apparently "won" by means of Diebold. Go to http://www.opednews.com/opedne_ron_corv_080109_new_hampshire_electi.htm

Tony, your link doesn't work.

If infact the digital revolution is going to make all network feeds digital in the near future, what is to stop those same airwaves from being reclaimed by and for the people? As networks move to digital delivery, states and regions, could utilize those now empty bandwidths for archived features, weather and news programing. Profits of networks are through advertising and merchandising celebrity - but the actual cost of producing and airing programs is a pittance in comparison. If the airwaves were reclaimed as informational media, those too poor for cable, satellite, and pay-per-view in HD could still have free access to news, weather, and educational programs through the local/state/regional use of the "no-longer-needed-by-the-networks" airwaves. Just imagine instead of hundreds of thousands of postage paid mailings and capsulized sound-bites, our political candidates and elected representatives could use these public pathways to anyone interested in their opinions and progress. Each department of Government could have a weekly program, each locality a local news platform, and no corporate sponsorship would spin or censor any of the information. The operational budgets could be made up of the millions spent on postage and mailings, and all the outside advertising and the publicity expenses now required of our officials and candidates.
Colleges and small towns have been manning local radio stations like this for decades. Perhaps it will be the true gift of digital media - the return of Free Speech to the people's airwaves!

As for paperless voting - How could anyone think it was anything but a way to seamlessly tamper with elections? It is not a huge effort to count votes by hand - and if it is a burden in the larger cities than they need to create smaller concentrations - have more voting locations - like the local schools! Worked when I was a kid!

I certainly don't dismiss the Diebold tampering theory.
But, if such improprieties occurred in the NH primary, wouldn't the close vote margin throughout the evening tally reporting (as more precincts came in) argue that a whole lot of individual machines would have to be rigged by "a little, not a lot"? The general election goal for liberals is a blowout for Democrats that exceeds any undetectable margin of tampering.

As for primaries, there is always a chance, too, that NV and SC results will be more like Iowa, less like NH. We'll soon know.

Thanks Amy, more than 10 years on air every morning with Juan Gonzales 6am & 9am on Pacifica Radio - the morning litany of murder, conspiracy, war, abomination, AND THE CALCULATED DECEIT & DISENFRANCHISEMENT OF THE VASSALS BY THEIR MASTERS.

Nice to be well informed on our slow tour of hell. Will being 'well informed' help you when the food's gone? But do vote for the candidates that Master has chosen for you. Master WANTS "the meat" to feel it has a role to play.

The Tyranny of the Minority cloaked in the mask of the majority.

Keep the last round for yourself. This Empire takes no prisoners. No change here. It's just that for the last 30 years Sauron has turned his eye on you. He wants to eat you and your children, just like he ate the rest of the world.

Munch Munch. Buy buy buy, eat eat eat, work work work.

Requiescat en pace.

Before the two major parties insisted on debate rules that it could not accept, the League of Women Voters prepared for and moderated all the debates. The current debates, moderated by network spokespeople for huge corporations like Viacom and Disney, have been anything but fair. As a result, the public has been denied this opportunity to learn about any candidates except those favored by those corporations.

With the League in charge all candidates were asked their positions on all the issues. No one was denied the right to participate or ignored for half an hour while everyone else was asked questions.

It's time for the Democratic Party to go crawling to the League to beg them to again take over this crucial, democratic-small-d task upon which so much depends. Let the Repubs have Murdoch and Mickey Mouse. Let America have the League!

Actual content if link still doesn't work...

2008 New Hampshire Democratic Primary Results --Total Democratic Votes: 286,139 - Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Hillary Clinton, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 39.618%
Clinton, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 34.908%
Barack Obama, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 36.309%
Obama, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 38.617%
Machine vs Hand:
Clinton: 4.709% (13,475 votes)
Obama: -2.308% (-6,604 votes)

2008 New Hampshire Republican Primary Results --Total Republican Votes: 236,378 Machine vs Hand (RonRox.com) 09 Jan 2008
Mitt Romney, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 33.075%
Romney, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 25.483%
Ron Paul, Diebold Accuvote optical scan: 7.109%
Paul, Hand Counted Paper Ballots: 9.221%
Machine vs Hand:
Romney: 7.592% (17,946 votes)
Paul: -2.112% (-4,991 votes)

or from Blackbox:
By Percentages

Method Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
Diebold Machines 53.23% 46.77%
Hand Count 47.47% 52.53%

By Votes

Method Hillary Clinton Barack Obama
Diebold Machines 82860 72807
Hand Count 18898 20912

seems a little off when compared to the exit polls...

"Has anyone else noticed that starting in 2009 there won't be any "airwaves" anymore? It's all going digital, the era of the rabbit ears will be over. There's a funny commercial with an old rich white southern women telling old people while she sits in front of a 1970's television that anyone with cable will still get service, but if you are still picking up the "big three" from the public airwaves, you will be out of luck in '09."

Sorry "scaredhippie", these are still public airwaves. They are now just going to be delivered using a different scheme. Sony and the rest of the industry are making a pile of money, and the weasely broadcasters will as well by "piggybacking" all kinds of "side" channels, that, btw, will take away the best hi-def signal. Just exactly like cell phones: They used to have a great signal--until they started "piggy-backing" video and other material that takes away from the voice "allotment" if you will.

As for me, when that day arrives, instead of getting a free "coupon" for a converter for my 32" Sony, I'll be either; giving it away on Craigslist or, turning it off forever & sending it to the trash.

Be positive! Take the Date for "turnoff" and take back your life from them by not buying a new and improved "vehicle" that lets them into your life -- the TV set. Its a GREAT opportunity to be rid of them forever.

Dear Mainstay, Gracias

Dear RichM, Long, hard experience brings on what you perceive to be screeching. Why do you seem to assume that the Clinton camp is incapable of such fraud to gain a much-needed victory? By the way, I gave up dispair in the Reagan era, what I wouldn't give for a little good old dispair again!

Progressives are so used to screaming "vote fraud" EVERY stinking time they lose an election that it has become second nature. I have read, at different times, that Sarkozy in France, the Conservatives in Canada, Calderon in Mexico, Uribe in Columbia, Arnold in California and many others ALL won through vote fraud. It is a world wide conspiracy, apparently.

However, Fidel in Cuba, Mugabe in Zimbabwe, Lukashenko in Belarus, and Putin in Russia are all very democratically elected presidents...

Sure.

And, when it really happens, as it might have in NH, just like the boy who cried wolf, no one is listening anymore.

Thanks Mainstay for the link. The lack of effort to recount the votes by the Democratic candidates with the exception of Kucinich suggests that the rest of the field of Democrats are in the mold of Nancy Pelosi, the recount is off the table. Do we really want to vote for an "off the table" candidate. Not me.

I did like the one suggestion that Oprah should be the driving wheel in this investigation. She does have the audience to make the bells ring across this Nation. It makes sense that she could lead this effort. Will she?

I saw something happen in Ohio in 2004. I saw a turnout so overwhelming that current polling places COULD NOT ACCOMODATE THE NEW VOTERS. LET US CHANGE THIS AND BE PREPARED FOR THE NEW VOTER TURNOUT. This upcomming general election marks a new opportunity for a reinvigorated process. Millions of new voters will be swarming the polls. How are we to accomodate this?

I will tell you how. By implementing new polling places, twice as many per district. And these new polling places will have PAPER BALLOTS COUNTED BY HUMAN BEINGS. Therefore, this election will be one of the more accurate and fraud free elections in some many years.

My argument is thus, due to the increased voter turnout as already seen in Iowa and New Hampshire, Independents and Democrats can argue for the instatement of new polling places.
Because however, these new polling places must be instated on such short notice, the local councils and state governments will have no choice but to use PAPER BALLOTS.

Dear RichM, That the Diebold machine can be hacked is beyond dispute, this has repeatedly been demonstrated. As far as "trusting" Democrats is concerned, I lost that in the mid-sixties. I finally dropped out of the party in 1996, when the Clinton administration betrayed everything that party was supposed to have stood for.

It is not about Democrats or Republicans rigging elections, it is about big corporations rigging elections. The class struggle is not Dems, vs. Repugs, it is rich corporate intrests maintaining cheap and subserveant labor. To some, politics is like a religion... To Marx, religion was the opiate of the disenfranchised... or have we all become just too "comfortably numb" to notice... Something's happening here... what it is aint exactly clear... there's a man with a gun over there, tellin' me I got to beware.....

KCT

Its easy turn off your TV refuse to participate or pay for cable.

Most all news I watch, listen to, or read comes from alternative sources, democracynow, free speech radio news, link tv, commondreams, etc. Every once in a while I'll watch MSM and am always shocked at it's shallow, banal, sensationalist nonsense. It's like spending most of my time in the forest with the natural world then walking into a Disneyworld theme park version of the forest. It sort of looks and sounds like a forest but it's missing so much genuine substance.

These alternative voices must be supported and kept alive at all costs.

We will not change the media until the people quit watching the crap news, and revolt. It will probably not happen in our lifetimes unless there is a tragedy of epic proportions. Hurricane Katrina wasn't big enough, so what it will take is unthinkable.

Oddly enough, our backward state has one of the most accurate, honest voting systems in the country. Both Republicans and Democrats love it. It was set up in the early 1990s. Recounts by hand have proved it accurate several times.

Our state election board Secretary was offered money by the Feds to update to a new system and he said something like "We will take your money but you ain't touching our machines."

Why doesn't the rest of the country look at a place where voting actually is believed to be accurate by everyone? It is a simple counter method that works.

But, then, I guess that might just be too damn easy.

Not that the Evilcrats would not do the right thing and pull their support from the ABC debate that excluded Kucinich. Isn't it embarrassing when the Evilcrats have even less integrity than the Rethugs?

To okiegal... the problem is you are looking for one big act to change things. It don't work that way.

Instead, you work at it slowly, person by person. You teach people not to trust this crap. You use this as a 'teaching moment'. You find someone who earlier this week was believing the propaganda, and you go right back to them and point out how they were conned. You keep it up. You do it with friends and family members and neighbors and acquaintences.

There is no magic wand. It doesn't happen overnite. It happens by slow work and organizing. It happens by constantly pointing out how the media misleads and lies, and by not forgeting it later. You go back to the Iraq war and the ludicrous claims that preceded it and which have all been proven false. You keep pointing out there's 4000 dead Americans because of this, more than who died on 9-11.

Too many people just want the magic wand and instant change. It takes a long haul and work instead. But its entirely possible that we can get the American people completely mis-believing the corporate media, and it can easily happen long before we are gone.

Its easy to keep your TV and not watch this crap. I used the 'parental blocking' features on my TV system to block all the US corporate propaganda channels years ago.

That way I still get Democracy Now and Free Speech TV and World Link and the other stuff that's out there that's useful and beneficial.

Democrats = Rebublicans = big corporations

Saying that Dems rig elections or that Republicans rig elections or that big corporations rig elections is all just different ways to say the same thing.

Besides, the Dems were rigging elections a long, long time before our current corporatocracy form of government. Just thing of the first Mayor Daley in Chicago, or Tammany Hall. The Nixon campaign was convinced that the Daley machine had rigged Illinois in their favor in the very close 1960 election that put JFK in the White House. Its very possible that JFK was just as illegitimate a President as GWB is today.

Heck, remember that Al Gore tried to rig the Florida recount in his favor by trying to only to get them to recount the counties where he thought he'd gain votes. Its a different issue technically, but it shows the Evilcrat belief that winning and gaining power is all that counts. The correct answer, which Bush and Gore both failed to give, would have been to say the day after the 2000 election that the most important thing was that the will of the Florida voters be determined and both parties should have joined together to do that. Instead, both parties, with equal lack of integrity and respect for our democracy just tried to tilt the recounts their directions.

One key note was always to note the lack of Dem response to the recent Republican riggings of 2000 and 2004. One explanation for how quiet the Dems were in trying to object to that was that they knew they were doing plenty of cheating and rigging of their own.

Both parties do this, and have been doing it for a long, long time. And if that helps convince you that the Evilcrats have no integrity and should not ever be trusted into positions of power, that's a step in the right direction.

IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN! NBC just informed Dennis Kucinich that it's un-inviting him to the Las Vegas Presidential debate on January 15th. Source: www.dennis4president.com:

NBC un-plugs Kucinich from Presidential debate

Excerpt:

Re-writes criteria to exclude candidate with 'dissenting' positions

Less than 44 hours after NBC sent a congratulatory note and an invitation to Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich to participate in the Jan. 15 Democratic Presidential debate in Las Vegas, the network notified the campaign this morning it was changing it announced criteria, rescinding its invitation, and excluding Kucinich from the debate.

NBC Political Director Chuck Todd notified the Kucinich campaign this morning that, although Kucinich had met the qualification criteria publicly announced on December 28, the network was "re-doing" the criteria, excluding Kucinich, and planning to invite only Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and former senator John Edwards.

(You can read the rest at www.dennis4president.com).

I don't know how much more I can take of this.

Did they really say 'dissenting positions'? And I mean did NBC really say that, not the DK campaign.

Like I said above, the position of integrity would be for both the Evilcrat party and for the invited campaigns to withdraw their support and participation in the debate.

For the campaigns, its a clear test of what's important to them. Is the integrity and basic structure of our democracy and our election important to them? It should be. If you believe in America and freedom and democracy, there's nothing more important than the very basic fundamentals of our democracy.

But for the Evilcrats, they've clearly said over and over that winning is the most important thing. Heck, they've killed 1000 American soldiers in the last year by keeping the Iraq war going because they think it will help them win later this year. If that doesn't show you how immoral and unethical the Evilcrats are, then maybe their willingness to unfairly rig the debates and exclude other voices because they think that might help them win will open a few eyes.

BTW, I don't see this at all at http://www.dennis4president.com/home/. Why wouldn't this be on their web page. And like I said, what I'd really want to see is exactly what NBC said.

"I certainly don't dismiss the Diebold tampering theory.
But, if such improprieties occurred in the NH primary, wouldn't the close vote margin throughout the evening tally reporting (as more precincts came in) argue that a whole lot of individual machines would have to be rigged by "a little, not a lot"? The general election goal for liberals is a blowout for Democrats that exceeds any undetectable margin of tampering."

People focus way too much on the voting machines. Much more critical are the central vote counting computers. You just have to rig a few of those.

And the classic vote rigging scheme is to see an important area be very late in seeing numbers come in from other areas, then once they know that, then dump in from the this area the votes you need to win. You just need to control the vote counting in some areas with enough population that you can tilt the numbers enough to win when you dump that in late.

Ah, there it is. Instead of just posting stuff they got fancy and have some thing that rotates several stories in one part of the web page. So http://www.dennis4president.com/home/ does indeed have this.

But I still can't find any text from NBC with the 'dissenting positions' language. That would still be interesting to see if they really said that

D e M O C K E R Y a c y

Was previously confused with historic references to the founding father's foolhardy ideas of democracy, but that problem is being handled.

every four years, at election time, guatemalan front running candidates make a pilgrimage to miami to pay their respects and ask for the blessing of ángel gonzález, the owner of most of the TV stations here. the US is quickly becoming a banana republic. next, we will stage a coup to oust your president, though at this time it would feel like we are doing the world a favor!!!

NPR is dying. When was the last time they reported on single-payer, progressive politics or activism? Anything besides Israel/Iraq/Iran or lengthy segments on trivial cultural ephemera? NPR the past decade or so increasingly quotes conservative think-tanks as gospel truth.

The airwaves our "ours" until "we" lease them - then, unless the terms of the lease are violated, we no longer control the lessee's actions. Just as when you lease a car - the leasing company still owns the car, but, unless lease terms are violated, they cannot tell you how fast to drive, which roads to drive on, or what kind of gas to use.

Easily solved: all debates on PBS only.

stevieray: when you speak about "us liberals" as if that was something negative, you give evidence of your ignorance of the meaning, which is "having political or social views favoring reform and progress...
tolerant of change; not bound by authoritarianism, orthodoxy, or tradition
a person who favors a political philosophy of progress and reform and the protection of civil liberties."
Which particular aspect bothers you? Tolerance? Protection of civil liberties? I have heard the 'liberal' rant before, when I decided to listen to rush limbaugh so that I could know for myself what his orientation was. It is almost as ridiculous to use the word as you do, as it would be for someone to say that knowledge is unnecessary, and education should be banned.
With regards to NH election irregularities, Dennis Kucinich did pay the required fee and as a candidate who does have the right to request a manual recount, he requested one. Diebold has been implicated in more chicanery than any one company should be allowed to be involved in; the firm that managed the counting of the machine votes has sole access to the central memory card, which BlackBox voting has shown can easily be hacked. Why would anyone do that? I don't have a clue. But something doesn't seem right when polls just hours ahead of the election gave Obama a double digit lead, and exit polls did the same; yet Clinton won by about 2%. I am a liberal and proud of it. Liberalism became a philosophy during the Age of Enlightenment, promoting extensive freedom of thought and speech, limitations on the power of governments, the rule of law, the free exchange of ideas, a market or mixed economy, and a transparent system of government. Maybe you would prefer a Feudal society?

Stevieray,

It's possible to test this objectively. Go to their web site and search for various terms (1996-present):

Some progressive issues:
Single-payer - 105 hits
'Green Party' - 317
Populism - 781
Solar - 1,310

Neocon:
Israel - 11,177
Brookings - 4,072. Check out their funding sources: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Brookings_Institution#Funding

Do some creative searching on any media outlet's web site. You'll find very quickly which topics they are interested in, which sources the rely on (without questioning them), and which topics slip through the cracks.

You love Bush like I love beer.

Stevieray, I don't think I've ever heard of someone who voted for Jimmy Carter and then for George W. Bush. What planet are you from?

Arguably the most important gift ever donated by private industry to the cause of democracy in America: C-SPAN, the Cable Satellite Public Affairs Network. Brian Lamb referred to eleven of its founding CEO's including Gene Schneider of United Cable: "Put C-SPAN 1 & 2, leave it, and don't touch it." Lamb took the mission and ran with it: 3 C-SPAN channels, radio, podcasting, In the Schools, The Amos Hostetter Direct Learning Program; In the Courts; The yellow bus De Tocqueville in America Tour, still criss-crossing the states hihglighting some aspect of history and democracy; Booknotes, American Presidents; Amerian Writers; 3-hour iterviews the daily 3 hour Washington Journal call-in program; and the most consistent in-depth coverage of the presidental campaign - Road to the White House. While not a mandated must-carry on the basic tiers of cable systems, most of it is now accessible from the website. All events aired unexpurgated!

I think stevieray has made it clear from what planet he derives his drivel.

To the rest of you all out there, don't feed the trolls. I was just about to comment on what an interesting and informative discussion has been taking place when a troll leaped into the midst of us and some became distracted from the topic at hand.

I entirely agree with the yearning for the League of Women Voters to return to sponsoring debates. Maybe if we asked nicely? But I believe they would not be able to find a venue. The Ministry of Information isn't interested.