Hollywood Reporter: "The Democratic Party and 18 senators are seeking a pair of federal investigations into Sinclair Broadcast Group's plans to preempt network primetime programing on its 62 TV stations nationwide later this month to air a documentary critical of Sen. John Kerry's antiwar activities. The Democratic National Committee plans to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission that alleges that the documentary 'Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal' is an illegal in-kind contribution to President Bush's campaign. Many of the stations the Baltimore-based company owns are in critical 'battleground states.' Meanwhile, the Democratic senators have asked the FCC to investigate whether Sinclair's plan was an improper use of public airwaves.' "

Atrios posts a 8/17/96 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette report: "The president of Baltimore-based Sinclair Broadcast Group Inc., which owns the local Fox television affiliate, was arrested Tuesday night and charged with committing a perverted sex act in a company-owned Mercedes, city police said. David Deniston Smith, 45,... who also is Sinclair's chief executive, was arrested in an undercover sting at Read and St. Paul streets, a downtown corner frequented by prostitutes, Baltimore police said yesterday. Smith and Mary DiPaulo, 31, were charged with committing unnatural and perverted sex act. Smith was held overnight at the Central Booking and Intake Center and released on personal recognizance at 2 p.m. yesterday. DiPaulo's bail status was not available."

"The conservative-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group... is ordering its stations to preempt regular programming just days before the Nov. 2 election to air a film that attacks Sen. John F. Kerry's activism against the Vietnam War." As a result of this report, Boycott Sinclair has been established. From the site: "When CBS tried to air 'The Reagans' on their network, conservatives across the country threatened to boycott CBS advertisers if the movie ran. CBS caved and yanked the film. When Michael Moore tried to place advertising for the F-9/11 dvd, CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox refused to take the ads. Those networks are represented among Sinclair's affiliates. When 'Nightline' aired the names and information of all US soldiers who have been killed in Iraq, Sinclair pulled 'Nightline' off their affiliates for the night. Now, it's our turn. Airing a blatantly partisan film, as scheduled content, over PUBLIC AIRWAYS is against FCC regulations and FEC election law." Join the boycott campaign!

DailyHowler howls, "So let's go to the scoreboard again, the one we toted on Monday. Every crewman on Kerry's boat says they were under hostile fire. Rassmann, the man whose life was saved, says there was hostile fire too. And now, three different crewmen from two other boats have also come forward to describe hostile fire... Readers, isn't it time for America's 'journalists' to conduct a damage assessment? More specifically, isn't it time for the lords and ladies to confront the slander campaign against Kerry-a campaign that is changing America's White House election? Given the Swift Boat Vets' endless clowning-their phony affidavits; their changing stories; their blatant misstatements; their unavailable 'witnesses'-can America's somnolent press fail to see that a problem exists? Can they catch the smell of a hoax in the air? Are they able to care about hoaxes?"

If Bush had been for real in his "outrage" over the anti-Kerry 'Swfit Boat' smear, he would have spoken up over a month ago. Instead, he waited until the maximum damage could be done by the ad - and by the media's nearly across-the-board refusal to do its job and expose the fraud. Even now, the media is letting Bush use the incident for political gain, giving more headlining coverage to his bogus "denunciation" and call for an end to ALL "third party" ads (including honest groups like MoveOn.org) than to exposing the fraud. This spinelessness/Bush collusion has only empowered the fraud-perpetrators, who now say they plan to widen their scurrilous attacks on Kerry. After all, the media has made it clear that, aside from a few honest men and women, most news editors are corporate shills indifferent to the ideals of journalism.

The NY Times has written an OUTRAGEOUS editorial attacking John Kerry over Iraq. The Times has suddenly decided that Bush's conquest of Iraq was "flawed." We agree - and that's why Democrats.com organized one of the first anti-war protests in front of the UN on 9-12-02. Of course, our protest - and the many huge protests that followed - were utterly ignored or marginalized by the Times, which NEVER opposed the war. Indeed, the front page of the Times was a crucial part of Bush's march to war, especially the infamous disinformation articles by Judith Miller, who remains a Times reporter and an unrepentent war supporter. If the Times believes we should pull out of Iraq, then they should have the guts to say so themselves - rather than whining about Kerry. Write letters@nytimes.com and public@nytimes.com

On 7-25-04, on the eve of the Democratic convention, NBC News In-Depth with Brian Williams took a microscope to John Kerry's activities in 1972, when he returned from Vietnam and helped lead veterans in a powerful protest against Richard Nixon's War. NBC plays up every accusation against Kerry - yet we see that Richard Nixon and his top aides personally conspired in the White House to destroy Kerry! But what was George W. Bush doing in 1972? In May 1972, Bush went AWOL for at least five months. He claims he then reported for duty in Alabama, but no one ever saw him there. In 1973, he claims he reported in Texas, but no one saw him there either. We DEMAND an equally microscopic analysis of Bush's activities in 1972!

Stephen Crockett and Al Lawrence write, "the Associated Press ran a story that was widely published in newspapers and on the Internet titled, 'Bush Leads Kerry In Electoral Votes' that could have been written by the Bush campaign. The assignment of states to candidates, the headline and the conclusions were all simply wrong. The Associated Press should print a retraction and work to see that it is widely published... Using their numbers, the solid Bush states (even including the faulty assignment of Tennessee) have only 144 electoral votes. The solid Kerry states (even without adding Pennsylvania) give Kerry 168 electoral votes. The Associated Press owes the American people an apology for this sloppy story that gives a distorted view of the current Presidential race. Kerry has a definite advantage at this point in the campaign in terms of the Electoral College!"

Daily Howler: "It never stops at the great NY Times! Yesterday, Sheryl Gay Stolberg described John Edwards' first week on the trail. Without wasting time, the petulant pundit came up with a typical simile: STOLBERG: 'From the Statehouse in Des Moines to an ornate ballroom in Chicago to a modest front porch in New Orleans to a gathering of Hispanics here, Mr. Edwards has been talking up Senator Kerry this week like a used-car salesman urging his customers to look past the dents. While vice-presidential candidates have traditionally been assigned to tear down the opposition, Mr. Edwards, in a kind of role reversal, has been deployed to build Mr. Kerry up'.... Edwards is acting like 'a used-car salesman' because Kerry can't peddle himself. Of course, there's nothing new in this kind of typing at the hapless Times. Last month, Jodi Wilgoren began a front-page profile by comparing Kerry to 'a caged hamster' ... Now, Edwards is a 'used car salesman.' He's out there selling the hamster."

On June 11, Ron Fournier, an AP writer known for his not-so-subtle sniping at Democrats, did a completely unsubstantiated story (McCain has denied the story, in fact) about how Kerry had offered McCain the VP slot and McCain had rejected him. AP plastered this story EVERYWHERE. Then , on June 12, Fournier did a second story suggesting Edwards is favored in polls as Kerry's VP. ( http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apelection_story.asp?category=1131&slug=Kerry%20Veepstakes) So why the back to back stories, with the first one all but fudged? Easy! To make Kerry look weakened - rightwing talk shows are already calling him "reject" and to undercut John Edwards by making it look as if he were a second choice. In an earlier story last month, Fournier tried to smear Edwards by stating that he and Kerry "don't like each other much" - another completely unsubstantiated statement.

Howie Kurtz writes, "When Bush delivered a routine stump speech to a group of New Mexico homeowners on March 26, CNN and Fox News each carried his appearance for 35 minutes, and MSNBC for 33 minutes. When John Kerry gave what was billed as a major address on national security at GWU on March 17, he was knocked off the screen by a large explosion in Baghdad. CNN and Fox each dropped Kerry (who had been reduced to small box) after three minutes, and MSNBC never picked him up. But as the Iraq coverage continued, all three networks carried Cheney in CA attacking Kerry as weak on national security -- Fox for 28 minutes, MSNBC for 23 and CNN for 13. In the daily battle for airtime, Bush has drawn more than three times as much live cable coverage as his Democratic challenger, yet another example of the advantages of incumbency. A review by The Washington Post, using a video monitoring service, finds that the cable news networks have covered more Bush events and stayed with them longer."

"The Republican National Committee on Friday asked about 250 television stations to pull a liberal group's ads critical of President Bush. 'The RNC sent the stations a letter Friday suggesting the outlets may be complicit in breaking campaign finance laws if they air the MoveOn.org Voter Fund ads. It asked them to decline to broadcast the ads. The RNC argues that the group, financed by so-called 'soft money,' is spending it on ads to influence a federal election." Can you believe the arrogance and hypocrisy of these Repugs? Their 1996 takeover of the House was financed in large part by Newt Gingrich's Abraham Lincoln Fund money laundering operation and other corporate fronts. And, most of those PR stunts Bush is pulling lately - the NASCAR appearance, for example - are all being financed by TAXPAYERS. Oh, and speaking of ethics - whatever happened to the Bush promise to 9/11 families not to exploit their tragedy?

From CJR's blog: "'Fox & Friends' co-host Brian Kilmeade spent the weekend in Houston enjoying the Super Bowl. On Sunday, he tracked down General Peter Pace, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who recently returned from Iraq, for an interview. Staged on the sidelines of the playing field, the interview aired on Monday's edition of 'Fox & Friends.' And Fox News tossed 'fair and balanced' out the window with this little stunt: As a video montage flashed across the screen displaying images of the Democratic Presidential frontrunners Gen. Wes Clark, Sen. John Kerry, Sen. John Edwards, and Gov. Howard Dean, Kilmeade asked Pace this loaded question: 'On some level when you hear from a candidate that the threat is overstated of terrorism and the threat on the American people, what's your reaction?' Cute. But there's one problem with Fox's presentation: Not one of the Democratic Presidential candidates in question has ever made such a charge."

ABC News: "It was the scream Howard Dean says became famous after the media played it nearly 700 times in a few days. Not only that, his camp adds, what we heard on the air was not a reflection of the way it sounded in the room." Diane Sawyer: "We collected some other tapes from Dean's speech including one from a documentary filmmaker, tapes that do carry the sound of the crowd, not just the microphone he held on stage... Dean's boisterous countdown of the upcoming primaries as we all heard it on TV was isolated, when in fact he was shouting over the roaring crowd. And what about the scream as we all heard it? In the room, the so-called scream couldn't really be heard at all."

From approximately 5:15 PM to 5:20 PM on CBS, G. W. Bush was given a FREE publicity spot on pre-Superbowl coverage. The slot was obviously a "look at me! look at me!" campaign ad - Bush got in as much "Gosh, shucks, I'm just a good ole boy family man" schmooze as the FREE TIME would permit. Considering the fact that PAID Superbowl coverage ads start at $2 million for about 30 seconds (as revealed in a story on 2/1 on "Sunday Morning" about Superbowl ads), Bush's five-minutes amounts to a campaign donation by CBS of about $20 MILLION. Meanwhile, CBS REFUSED to run Moveon's anti-Bush campaign ad - which would have been paid for in full in honest cash.

"MediaChannel.org today launched 'Media for Democracy 2004,' its election-year initiative to tame the convulsive media circus that swirls around our democratic process. Media for Democracy 2004 (http://www.mediafordemocracy.us/) is a non-partisan initiative that mobilizes MediaChannel's 125,000 users in an Internet activism campaign for more democratic and issues-oriented standards of reporting.... The project was sparked in part by this frustration, and also by the media's duplicity in the democratic -- with a small 'd' -- failures of the 2000 presidential election. This time around we're putting in place a citizen-powered tool that will monitor the media bus as it careens down the campaign trail. We see in the wreckage of 2000, an opportunity in 2004 to change media for the better, encouraging coverage of the issues over the 'horse race' and substance over spectacle."

"Howard Dean has joined the list of victims of U.S. corporate media consolidation. Dean share this distinction with Dennis Kucinich and the people of the formerly sovereign state of Iraq, among many others. Dean was stripped of half his popular support in the space of two weeks in January while John Kerry -- tied in the polls with Carol Moseley-Braun at seven percent just two months earlier -- rose like a genie from a bottle to become the overnight presidential frontrunner. Both candidates were shocked and disoriented by the dizzying turns of fortune, and for good reason. Neither Dean nor Kerry had done anything on their own that could have so dramatically altered the race. Corporate America decided that Dean must be savaged, and the corporate media sector made it happen."

We'll keep saying it until Election Day: the NY Times helped steal the White House for Bush in 2000 and then lied about the recount. They printed front-page lies by Judith Miller about Iraqi WMD's to push the US into War, and scrubbed the anti-war protests. So what RIGHT do they have to tell Democrats how to campaign - especially the two Democrats who most strongly denounce the Stolen Election of 2000 and the Iraq War of Lies? "Dennis Kucinich has every right to keep campaigning despite his minuscule vote tallies, but he should not be allowed to take up time in future candidate debates. Neither should the Rev. Al Sharpton." E-mail publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. (publisher@nytimes.com) and the Public-dismissing Editor Daniel Okrent (public@nytimes.com) and tell them to let the VOTERS choose the Democratic nominee - and the next President!

On behalf of the 250,000 readers of Democrats.com News, I am writing to find out why CNN refuses to report the results of YOUR OWN latest poll, which shows Bush's lead over Howard Dean dropping to only 5% (51%-46%), down from 12% in November. Since this poll has a margin of error of +/- 4%, Dean is nearly tied with Bush. The obvious headline should be: "Howard Dean is Nearly Tied with Bush." But reporting this clear and simple fact would incur the wrath of Karl Rove, who wants you to convince the American people that Howard Dean is "unelectable" - in direct contradiction to the truth. The fact that you refuse to report the results of your OWN poll confirms what all Democrats know - that CNN is a propaganda arm of the Republican Party, barely distinguishable from FOX News. If you believe this criticism is unjust, we would welcome a meeting with your political editors to discuss your coverage of the Democratic Party. Sincerely, Bob Fertik, Co-founder, Democrats.com