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Sinclair Opts for 'Fair and Balanced' After All

New York Times reports: "After stirring up protest over its plans to broadcast a documentary critical of Senator John Kerry, the Sinclair Broadcast Group presented a program last night that gave short shrift to that film and offered instead a measured analysis of the debate over Mr. Kerry's Vietnam War record. The hourlong special program, produced by the news department at Sinclair, a major financial supporter of Republican candidates and which regularly features conservative commentary on its newscasts, included as many backers of Mr. Kerry as critics.

No Evidence of Election Terror Plot

CNN is reporting that talk about an election terrorist plot is overblown: "U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials say they have found no direct evidence of plans for an election-related terror attack after a five-week investigation, the Washington Post reported in its Saturday edition. Citing unnamed officials in an article on the newspaper's Web site, the Post said a key CIA source who claimed knowledge of such plans has since been discredited, casting doubt on earlier pieces of evidence pointing to an attack. [...] But even after hundreds of interviews, immigration arrests and other efforts, law enforcement officials said they have been unable to detect signs of a plot in the U.S., nor have they identified specific targets, dates or methods that might be used, the paper reported."

Rapper Eminem Slams Bush in Rolling Stone

First American Conservative, now Eminem. This excerpt is from the issue of Rolling Stone that hits the streets the first week of November:

American Conservative Magazine ‘Endorses' Kerry

Are you sitting down? American Conservative magazine just 'endorsed' John Kerry:"Bush has behaved like a caricature of what a right-wing president is supposed to be, and his continuation in office will discredit any sort of conservatism for generations. The launching of an invasion against a country that posed no threat to the U.S., the doling out of war profits and concessions to politically favored corporations, the financing of the war by ballooning the deficit to be passed on to the nation's children, the ceaseless drive to cut taxes for those outside the middle class and working poor: it is as if Bush sought to resurrect every false 1960s-era left-wing cliché about predatory imperialism and turn it into administration policy. Add to this his nation-breaking immigration proposal—Bush has laid out a mad scheme to import immigrants to fill any job where the wage is so low that an American can't be found to do it—and you have a presidency that combines imperialist Right and open-borders Left in a uniquely noxious cocktail." [...]

Factcheck.org needs your help

[verbatim] We are looking for examples of false or misleading political mail regarding the presidential campaign. If you receive any, please send them to us. We promise not to use your name without your permission, but we won't be able to return the material you send. Please do include your name and a telephone number or email address where we might contact you in case we have questions.

Factcheck.org: $8 Million Worth Of Distortions

Two Bush ads full of misleading and false statements ran more than 9,000 times in 45 cities last week.

Is the White House ‘Scrubbing' Its Web site?

The blogosphere is presenting evidence, or at least arguments, that the White House is throwing potentially damning transcripts, audio and video down the memory hole. Read more here.

[Lott] Iraq: Neither ‘Wrong' Nor ‘Distracting'

It's inconsistent for any songressman or senator to wake up one day and say our troops don't have enough equipment or that the reconstruction of Iraq isn't going well, when they've voted against paying for these things. And it's surely strange to say Saddam Hussein was an evil killer, and in the same breath to say America should have let him go. Yet, these are precisely the positions some are struggling with in the height of this political season, trying to find neutral ground in what should be a not-so-neutral War on Terror. I believe most Americans see through it, as do our military men and women. I hope the terrorists see it that way, too, and are not somehow falsely emboldened by the shallow side of America's internal politics.

Factcheck.org: An Avalanche of Misinformation

With election day approaching the tempo of ads is increasing, but not the level of factual accuracy. Both sides are making false or misleading claims in their ads.

Two More Factchecks re: Kerry

How Liberal is John Kerry?

A new RNC ad claims Kerry is "the most liberal man in the Senate." Actually, his lifetime rating is 11th or lower, depending.

GOP-Funded Firm Accused of Destroying Dem Ballots, More

Salon today has a piece about Sproul, the RNC-funded firm under fire for doing all sorts of things to squelch the Democratic vote:

Health Care

October 21, 2004 Of all the issues in this presidential campaign, health care is probably the most confusing. But a few facts are clear: 45 million Americans (including children) do not have health insurance, prescription drug costs are through the roof, and seniors aren't getting what they need. Both Bush and Kerry have extensive plans to reform most every aspect of health care in an attempt to provide more coverage to more Americans. President Bush's first plan, if re-elected, is to "Cover the Kids," which will include a nationwide campaign. Many states, including Mississippi, are participants in CHIP (Child Health Insurance Programs), which allows coverage for children, but numbers of applicants are not as high as the number eligible.

Welfare and Poverty

October 21, 2004 The public hasn't heard the word "welfare" as often as it did in the last three presidential elections, perhaps due to the bipartisan Welfare Act of 1996 signed by President Bill Clinton. However, the topic remains important because it addresses the needs of Americans with lower incomes or no incomes at all. Mississippians should take special interest. The state's poverty level, nearly 20 percent of the population, is the highest in the nation. During the last presidential debate in Tempe, Ariz., moderator Bob Schieffer asked Sen. Kerry if it is time to raise the minimum wage. Kerry replied saying, "It's long overdue time to raise the minimum wage. And, America, this is one of those issues that separates the president and myself. We have fought to try to raise the minimum wage in the last years. But the Republican leadership of the House and Senate won't even let us have a vote on it. We're not allowed to vote on it. They don't want to raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage is the lowest minimum wage value it has been in our nation in 50 years. If we raise the minimum wage, which I will do, to $7 an hour, 9.2 million women who are trying to raise their families would earn another $3,800 a year."

Public Education

Illustration by Ken Patterson In all four presidential/vice presidential debates, the moderators failed to ask a single question about public education and the candidates' views on President Bush's "No Child Left Behind" education reform act, passed in January 2001. The candidates themselves tried to insert points about NCLB in answers to other questions—Bush, for instance, said his education plan was an alternative to raising the minimum wage—but no substantive discussion of public education, and how the presidential candidates differ, occurred. Perhaps this means that the candidates either agree on the need for NCLB—after all, Kerry voted for it—or that Kerry does not have substantially different ideas about public education. Not exactly.

Kerry Has Wide Support Among Blacks

AP is reporting:

Blacks prefer Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry over President Bush by a nearly 4-to-1 margin, though their support for the Democrat is down slightly from the backing Al Gore received in 2000, according to a poll released Tuesday.

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