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Mildly Defensive

ArchPundit July 14, 2005 1 Comment

Me upon reading it, not the author

People don’t like us much, but then, they never really have. Hence, there’s not much risk in b-slapping reporters. It’s a good business model.

Here is how it goes in modern media:

“Those of you who dislike journalism, come to me! I, too, dislike journalism and I’m going to tell you, endlessly, exactly how much. Then, once you have gathered, I am going to sell you diet supplements and lots of other things because I am in show business and the bigger and more loyal my audience, the better.”

Don’t be misled. If you get all your news from these people, surprise, it’s not news. It is just endless clouds of gas. The same is true of “liberal” talk radio, a relatively recent arrival. It’s not news.

Even worse on the left, it’s derivative gas, an imitation of what is happening in talk radio on the right, except on the right, it works because the audience is in lockstep with the message and the people on the right are real pros.

If you want to hear masterful timing at work, listen to Rush Limbaugh. The man is a genius.

Bloggers love bashing news, too, to the point that it is becoming a career for some of them. It seems a little parasitic to me, waiting around for news to criticize. It gives them something to do, I suspect.

I hope that my criticism of the media isn’t that poorly done. I think there is a lot to criticize, but at the same time many things to praise. Madigan’s column is in the latter category. What has stricken me in the last 48 hours is the amount of invective hurled at reporters and news organizations by people who have never tried to get multiple sources to agree on what a school funding formula means to the average kid in a school district.

That may sound trivial to many of those with big bylines and those with popular nationally focused blogs, but the reality is that such a story is one of the most practicial and important issues to most families. It is also one of the most complex stories one can try and tell because it involves a set of facts that are especially hard to deterimine..

Understanding that while a formula may benefit most citizens, there are inevitably losers is an importan lesson for those trying to report ‘reality’. ‘Reality’ is seldom a set of facts that are clear, but a set of conditions that make certain outcomes likely. What I find most disturbing about the reporting of the last few days isn’t the issue of whether both sides are being presented equally, but a fundamental lack of reporing on what the facts of the case are.

Facts are often misunderstood to be biased and so unstrustworthy. The reality is that because the facts are biased towards logical conclusions is exactly why they are trustwrohty. For some reason, many confuse determining facts with bias which is a confusion about the order. Determining facts allows one then to make conclusions that are reliable.

And way too often, all media outlets (meaning bloggers too) forget the above.

I Can Honestly Say

ArchPundit July 12, 2005 4 Comments

I’ve never heard of anyone trying to convince another that the other was born to be gay, but apparently it was a common occurence to A.D. Stonecipher.

Oh NO! I could Jib Jab!

ArchPundit July 12, 2005 No Comments

Sigh, in discussing the role of bloggers as press, the nutty one at the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University argues:

“Bloggers want it both ways,” said Carol Darr, head of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet at George Washington University. “They want to preserve their rights as political activists, donors and even fundraisers — activities regulated by campaign finance laws — yet, at the same time, enjoy the broad exemptions from the campaign finance laws afforded to traditional journalists.”

She and others said they fear that giving bloggers those protections would create a legal loophole that corporations, unions and wealthy individuals could use to pour big money into politics. A company or union, for example, would be able to create or subsidize elaborate blogs attacking political candidates. Or it could create hard-hitting Web videos that, as the popular “Jib Jab” video ridiculing both President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) indicated last year, can attract large audiences

Bunkum. Pure bunkum.

First, the term traditional media is horribly abused by this woman and I sentence her to a Political Science 101 class where at least one week will discuss the role of the press in politics and Yellow Journalism. It was protected by the First Amendment as was the partisan press at the time of the founders. Originally, journalists were essentially activists and there is a long history of activist and advocacy journalism.

It’s friggen’ shocking that someone at Georgetown is this ignorant of history and the development of the press. There is not an astrisk in the First Amendment that exempts partisan press outlets largely because the press when it was passed, was partisan.

Second, Buckley v. Valeo guarantees that wealthy individuals can pour money into political campaigns. This is a point that virtually nobody understands. A single individual can spend as much money as they want as an individual to promote causes or candidates as they so wish. The one thing they cannot do is coordinate those expenditures with others. Wealthy individuals can spend as much as they like so that’s a really friggen’ stupid objection.

Third, unions are able to create blogs now. There are two examples to your right. Corporations can too.

The issue she seems to be getting at, but doesn’t really know how to get to is that theoretically a campaign or a campaign committee could pay an individual to blog and do so about specific races such as the Thune bloggers in South Dakota. The thing is–that has to be disclosed by the campaign if it’s over $100. Just like a TV Commentator or “analyst” on Fox News or MSNBC or CNN, someone receiving money from the campaign has that relationship disclosed by campaign finance reports (unfortunately not by the cable news channels).

If I’m fundraising for candidates, I’m not doing anything, but sending individual donors to a page. If you want to claim that a hypertext link has value then I guess one could claim I’m making an inkind donation, but then so would the Nation when it publishes a candidate’s web site address or says a candidate is worth supporting. The money is still disclosed by the campaign and there is then transparency.

The one issue that could creep up is if a blogger is paid by a media consultant second hand. My reading is that such a relationship is currently a violation of the law, but I could certainly be wrong. Even if I am wrong, one doesn’t have to eliminate the media exemption for all blogs, one can simply require that such a relationship be explicitly disclosed in campaign finance filings.

So activists are often journalists and so covered by a media exemption if it’s in print. What’s different about electrons?

Nothing.

So fundraisers often suggest you donate to campaigns–what’s different if that is on-line instead of in person at barbeque?

Nothing.

So I can donate to a campaign as a blogger. A member of the media can donate (depending on employer rules) to a campaign. What’s the difference?

Nothing.

Now, how would I spend money if I’m a corporation if I want to get my message across? A cool web site or a subsidize a talking head at a think tank? Ohhhhhhh…wait, corporations already do the second, but it doesn’t concern Ms. Darr.

I hate to tell you this, but Exxon Mobile can create a news magazine tomorrow and it’ll be covered by the media exemption. It’s just that it’ll be ineffective because no one will take it seriously and there are more effective means of advocacy for them.

Finally, she’s worried about Jib Jab? The horrors of political satire. Can you imagine a political writer who uses satire to skewer politicians–the horrors.

Via Atrios

New Advertiser

ArchPundit July 12, 2005 No Comments

StemPac comes in and gives me an ad for which I have something to ad.

Washington, DC ? In an effort to wage a national campaign against extremist elected officials who have been holding up stem cell research, a bipartisan team of industry leading grassroots mobilizers, political consultants, and private sector stem cell research supporters today officially launched ?StemPAC.? StemPac, anchored by its namesake web site StemPac.com , is a 527 organization that will unite and mobilize pro-stem cell research activists and millions of Americans who are clamoring for the United States to take a leadership role in stem cell research.

?StemPac will hold accountable any elected or appointed official who holds up the promise of stem cell research based on their own personal ideology or outright ignorance,? explained John Hlinko, a leader of the effort, and VP at the political consulting firm Grassroots Enterprise. ?The will of the majority has been ignored, hope for millions with debilitating illnesses has been needlessly delayed, and this promising industry of the future is being gradually outsourced to other nations with each passing day. It?s time to fight back.?

In coming weeks, StemPAC plans to aggressively work on behalf of pro-stem cell legislation being considered right now in the U.S. Senate (H.R. 810 specifically, without amendment ? see www.StemPAC.com for details). Thereafter, it plans to go on the offense, fighting for stem cell funding on the federal level, and for more sensible regulations and legislation in the states as well.

Although StemPac officially launches today, its website has been live since late May. In the mere six weeks since StemPac.com went live it has already become one of the highest trafficked websites in support of stem cell research, has spurred thousands of letters to President Bush and members of Congress, and collected hundreds of stories from real life Americans with Cancer, Alzheimer?s, Parkinson?s, spinal cord injuries, and other conditions for which stem cell research holds promise (see www.StemPAC.com for stories, sortable by state and city).

The StemPaC Team

The StemPAC team is headed by John Hlinko, who helped lead MoveOn.org in its early days, and who founded and led DraftWesleyClark.com, a shoestring effort that engaged tens of thousands of supporters, gained national media attention, and raised nearly $2 million in pledges for a Wesley Clark candidacy.

National Democratic strategist and award-winning media consultant Bud Jackson (www.jacksongroupmedia.com ) has also been retained as a Stem Pac team member. Jackson will produce paid media on behalf of StemPac, including television advertising targeting stem cell research opponents.

The rest of the core team includes:

Kevin McCann: Founder of the Fair Deal for Newfoundland campaign

Allyson Kapin: Online marketing specialist, who has worked with a range of national activist organizations

Sabrina Cohen: Associate Director of the Genetics Policy Institute

The core team is being assisted by a range of advisors, including:

Scientists, such as Evan Snyder of the Burnhan Institute;

Grassroots visionaries, including Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the founder of DailyKos.com;

Longtime political professionals, such as Bill Romjue;

Patient advocates, including Frank L. Cocozzelli;

For more information on the StemPAC team and advisors, please see www.StemPAC.com.

StemPac has stories from Illinois citizens

Utterly Without Merit, but Pretty Funny

ArchPundit July 12, 2005 1 Comment

From Capitol Fax comments

Rauschenberger’s DUI Lost Interest about 10 years ago

ArchPundit July 12, 2005 1 Comment

Steve Rauschenberger did a dumb thing in 1994 and got behind the wheel of a car drunk. He was arrested, pled guilty, paid the fine and went through the required counseling. It’s time to put the whole thing to bed.

One stupid act deserves what Steve got–the legal remedy. One stupid career as a hack and political opportunist as Bob Kjellander has had is unforgivable.

Kjellander tried to differentiate between Rauschenberger and Bush by claiming that Bush was young when he got his—Bush was 30, Rauschenberger was 37. Both were old enough to know better. They both screwed up and they both took responsibility.

Rich isn’t sure if it was a good move. I see the point, but I tend to think it was–it got him into a high profile fight with Kjellander which is red meat to Republican social conservatives. The DUI is now pretty much off limits for the campaign as a bonus.

And double points for using Kjellander against Kjellander.

So Much Confusion On School Funding

ArchPundit July 11, 2005 10 Comments

Tom Roeser pulls out the 65% Instructional spending proposal again in praising Joe Birkett’s idea to adopt a proposal from Arizona that requires 65% of school funding be spent on instruction.

Now the wording is different in the Roeser column.

Under a Gov. Birkett, legislation would be prepared to require every Illinois school district to spend at least 65 percent of expenditures directly on K-12 classroom instruction, a marked increase from the 58.4 percent now expended. Educational reformers have long been critical of the bureaucratic overload that hobbles teaching because of top-heavy administrative staffs. Illinois has 881 school districts, each with a superintendent, assistant superintendent, principal and assistant principal. Some administrators in Illinois are earning as much as $300,000 a year along with lavish pensions. It’s amazing when you consider that almost half of the 881 districts have fewer than 150 students.

I have a slightly different calculation using the 2004 numbers for the state–59.2%, but close enough to know we are using similar numbers.

I made a bad prediction previously, but I think after going through several districts I’m familiar with that no one has thought through the implications of what such a rule would do.

In suburban schools, classroom instruction % would increase and in larger districts in areas with rural areas that transport students the percentage would increase as well.

However, in smaller districts, the ones that haven’t merged, the percentages are already close or above 65% and yet these are the districts facing some of the biggest problems.

In other words, simply forcing 65% of expenditures to be on classroom instruction would do little to nothing to solve the financial problems in those districts. Roeser tries to imply that administrators are making $300,000 in those districts and that is pure bunk. The areas that pay high administrative salaries are suburban districts in relatively wealthy areas.

Furthermore, such a restriction would hit hard on merged school districts. Those are districts that spend significantly more proprotionally on transportation than do suburban districts. By increasing the amount of travel students have to be bused, the districts have to spend more–and that isn’t accounted for in the formula.

If you look at general administrative costs, the highest proportion of costs are in relatively small districts that must have a certain positions filled, but do not have as large of a budget. No district can go without a superintendent obviously. Illinois already caps the percentage of these costs at 5% as well.

Where the higher proportion of funds is spent outside the classroom are in relatively well off districts where one observes higher support service or higher other costs. Those can include all sorts of differences including transportation, libraries, and other non-classroom programs.

The essential problem of such a plan is that it doesn’t address those districts that are most in need of help. It would make well off suburban and larger districts that have a decent tax base reduce extras offered in the districts. In districts that are small and in financial need, no changes will be made continuing to leave them in financial need. In districts that are merged districts where spending is below 65% for classroom instruction, the reason is because of higher than average transportation costs.

The ‘solution’ doesn’t actually address any of underlying problems of the Illinois educational system. The money being moved from other costs to direct classroom costs would stay in the districts that are relatively well off. It isn’t redistributed to financially strapped districts that are generally within or close to the cap.

Making the situation worse is that if those small districts were to merge, their non-classroom based costs will be higher due to transportation giving them an incentive not to merge–one of the worst decisions in many rural areas.

If one wants to solve school finance problems without a tax increase, one has to redistribute from wealthy districts to poor districts. There is simply no other way to do it. Those who attempt to throw a pithy catch phrase at the public are only going to continue the crisis and reinforce the decline of our rural communities and inner ring suburbs.

The larger issue of what is the exact right amount of non-classroom expenditures is hard to answer. For some communities, they need to spend more on transportation. Others wish to spend money on instructional support of have to if they have a high needs population. Other districts simply wish to spend more so their students have the ability to have more experiences.

The question for the state is what minimum level does it guarantee to all students? From there local districts can tax themselves and provide the service level the citizens want. The problem of capping non-classroom expenses is it doesn’t actually address where need is in Illinois.

All that said, it’s an incredibly good issue to run on in terms of how people perceive it so Birkett gets credit for picking a winning issue, even if the idea is flawed.

But Richard, I like Seeing Anderson Cooper in Pain

ArchPundit July 11, 2005 No Comments

Making fun of CNN

You know, you can put cameras out there and record the magnitude of a storm without sticking Anderson Cooper on a balcony in Panama City Beach, telling us how much flying sand hurts when it’s hitting you at 135 mph.

Hence, I keep hoping for a Category 5 where it’s hitting him at 150 mph.

Eric Zorn Dismisses 100 years of cycling

ArchPundit July 11, 2005 No Comments

Sigh,

This would make it difficult to impossible for ?teams? of riders to work together to help their best rider, but who cares? Teams are antithetical to all forms of racing except relays.

Somewhere after 50 years of tradition you quickly overcome objections that teams are antithetical to rall forms of racing except relays.

And the Chicago Marathon would have to be more like a bunch of 10 mile races over 21 days with steep climbs, sprints and cobblestones.

Only Americans would diss a legendary race that has more history than any major sports event in the US with the possible exception of the World Series.

Return the Contributions Governor

ArchPundit July 11, 2005 2 Comments

I don’t get very upset that the Governor raised money under the current rules, but proposed stricter rules–that’s the history of campaign finance reform and unilateral disarmament never won anything in Illinois–just ask Glen Poshard. Russ Feingold and Jim Leach (R-IA 02are the only two I know of who have abided by such unilateral rules and even Leach’s last tough race included outside expenditures.

That said, the legitimate issue to criticizes the Blagojevich Administration for is that they’ve held onto donations from those shown to be corrupt. Tony Rezko’s Crucial, Inc. was just decertified as a minority owned business and declared a front company for Rezko.

And yesterday we find that another major donor to the Blagojevich administration has identified as running a front company and the City has decertified his business.

An executive working for a politically connected restaurant owner has been accused of operating as a front for a Latino food concession at O’Hare International Airport to secure a lucrative minority business contract for her boss, city officials said Saturday.

Jennifer Tremblay, an assistant vice president for restaurant management at O’Brien’s Restaurant, participated in name only in Camino Latino, which is owned by a company controlled by the O’Brien family, said Breelyn Pete, spokeswoman for the city’s Procurement Services Department.

The company–MADO Management–may have to shut down Camino Latino and its principals could lose their right to operate in O’Hare, Pete said.

Peter O’Brien, vice president of the restaurant chain and a frequent campaign contributor to Gov. Rod Blagojevich and other Democrats, did not return phone calls Saturday for comment. He is the brother of Daniel O’Brien Jr., a prominent Chicago politician during the 1970s and ’80s before he was killed in a 1989 car accident. Daniel O’Brien Sr., who died in 1990, also was a heavy Democratic campaign contributor for decades.

Under MADO Management, the firm has given Blagojevich $20,000 since 2003 with owner Peter O’Brien giving another $2000. Dan Hynes has also received several contributions from MADO and should return those as well.

The key issue here is that a core Democratic value is ensuring equality of opportunity for all citizens. Minority contracting is a key tool to ensure that small business holders with disadvantaged backgrounds have opportunity for contracts that public entities issue. It is a core value of the party and those that attempt to subvert that process do not share the Democratic Party’s values. To accept money from them is wrong because the individuals in question aren’t donating to promote the Party, but themselves.

Return the money.

Extra Credit for Cynicism: How does Jackson Jr. attack Daley for it while defending Blagojevich?