Blackout of Winter Soldier Hearings Exposes Weakness of Indy Media

By Sam Husseini, AlterNet
Jeff Cohen -- full disclosure: he used to be my boss and is a friend -- makes some very valid and important points in "Iraq Winter Soldier Hearings: Victory for Independent Media."

But there is another way of looking at this.

The fact that the mainstream paid so little attention to Winter Soldier -- as well countless other worthy stories -- is itself a failure of independent media to propel those stories into the mainstream.

Jeff writes that "these Iraq veterans had little but scorn for U.S. corporate media whose journalistic failures helped sell the war five years ago, and whose sanitized coverage helps sell the troop 'surge' today. But thanks to the Internet and the growing capacity of independent TV, radio and web outlets, a significant minority of Americans had access to these proceedings. And the archived hearings are now available to anyone anytime with computer access."

Read on

Corporate Media's Virtual Blackout on Iraq Atrocity Hearings

by FAIR
Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland last weekend for the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings (3/13/08-3/16/08), where they offered harrowing testimony about atrocities they had witnessed or participated in directly. The BBC predicted that the event, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, "could be dominating the headlines around the world this week" (3/7/08). The hearings were covered as far afield as the U.K. (Guardian, 3/17/08), Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 3/14/08), Croatia (Javno, 3/16/08), and Iran (Press TV, 3/14/08). Yet there has been an almost complete media blackout on this historic news event in the U.S. corporate media.

Read on

Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan War Veterans Speak Out Photo essay
Hundreds of veterans are testifying against war crimes this weekend in Washington, DC. Nina Berman shares their stories. HERE   http://warcomeshome.org/

10. Responding to a student who criticized his remark about our staying in Iraq for 100 years, McCain quipped, "No American argues against our military presence in Korea or Japan or Germany or Kuwait or other places, or Turkey, because America is not receiving casualties."

Read on

Forget the YouTube election. For the first time, Americans can now run their own political advertising campaigns on television, thanks to VoterVoter.com, a new business unit of a major advertising firm.

Starting around $1,000, the site lets people purchase broadcast time in any market across the country, target specific demographics, and choose an ad for their candidate or cause -- or even make their own.

Then the company,WideOrbit, which currently manages about $10 billion in advertising across 900 television stations, places the ads and takes a standard 15 percent cut of sales. "This is the first focused political site that enables the purchase of air time," CEO Eric Mathewson told me. WideOrbit's current clients include NBC Universal, Hearst and Gannett. Operating as a nonpartisan business, it will run political ads from across the political spectrum. Mathewson says he already has early orders for "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in ads for one of the presidential candidates, and he expects a full range of buyers once the site goes live on Thursday. Current users kept their names private, for now, but FEC law requires that buyers' names are listed at the end of the ads when they air.

Read on

The Al Franken for U.S. Senate campaign held a rally on March 25th at the Capitol. Al was joined by DFL and labor leaders to announce exciting new endorsements and delivered a major speech defining the issues of this campaign. 

Watch the video here and please donate

There are openings in the Codepink DC house this spring - would you like to get involved ? Please email Des below to find out how you can apply.

Many opportunities to have your voices heard in DC are coming up during the months of April and May. Please let us know if you are interested in coming to the PINK house for any of the following:

*Petraeus hearings April 8 & 9 /Supplemental vote TBA second week of April?

Mother's Day weekend May 9-12 ? / Summer trainings June & July

*Just respond by commenting to the above if you are planning on being in DC for any of the above dates. This is a very informal survey to help us here at the PINK HOUSE plan our spring cleaning and organize for the next urgent push to peace. Looking forward to hearing from you!

House Mamactivistas Des & Liz "Desiree Fairooz" desiree.fairooz@gmail.com

By David Neiwert, Firedoglake
A number of folks -- notably Ezra Klein and Glenn Greenwald-- have already pointed out quite adroitly that while the media have had little compunction about whipping up a phony controversy about Barack Obama's "pastor problem", there's almost nothing that white evangelical pastors can say that might bring down similar approbation. John McCain's "spiritual advisers" Rod Parsley and John Hagee really are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this

Read on

Senatorial primaries were held this weekend and we had a number of Dallas Air America members who were delegates and they acted as roving reporters for us and shared these thoughts with us

I was an alternate in SD 9, upgraded to a delegate.  What a day--very tiring.  Our precinct was evenly divided between Obama and Clinton supporters, so we had to flip a coin and the Hilary delegate will go to Austin, with the Obama delegate as alternate.  I will have to say that everyone was friendly and cordial.  We are, after all, on the same side.  There is too much at stake--including Supreme Court appointments--to sit this one out.  We have to get a Democrat in the White House.  Yes, I want Obama; but I can and will vote for Hillary if necessary.

JanetJ

The Credentials Certification took from 8am till 6pm.It was very difficult circumstances, but all went unchallenged after we presented the committee report.SD23 is a huge 5700 delegate Senatorial District. Even though Clinton is being predicted at 61% so far, the Obama Districts are the largest and had not been reported as of 6pm today. At SD23 Obama may have shut Clinton out of the threshold for At Large Delegates. Obama probably took 70% of SD 23 at least. I am very tired and got to meet many wonderful people and a few, all I can say, idiots. But it was quite an experience and I will not soon forget it. I am an alternate to the State Convention in June for PCT 4421 and may be elected as an At Large Delegate which elevates me to voting status. I got to have Fried Chicken with Royce West and Eddy Bernice Johnson aat lunch time and that was quite a good time. I also, got to meet Judge Molbergs entire family, who are my neighbors and are very cool people and will be going to Austin with me, their 28 yong son as our precinct elected delegate.

Don

I'll give you an update for rural Johnson County.The attendee percentage matched the popular for vote JOHNSON County: 65% Clinton and 35% Obama. The initial delegate count went overwhelmingly to Clinton. With the At Large distribution to even the percentage, Obama came out with 11 of the 36 delegates. I was fortunate to be selected to go to State as a delegate for Obama.

JanetM

I too attended the SD23 Convention. My wife was a delegate from De Soto 3613. I didn't get to be a delegate because I was working the polls in Cedar Hill on Election Day so I volunteered --Our precinct is small so that we were combined with an even smaller Lancaster precinct to name one state delegate and one alternate. Out of our two precincts only two delegates were Clinton supporters. The rest of us were Obama supporters. Both our state delegate and alternate are Obama supporters. I gotta agree with Don that both camps were civil & friendly. Everyone seemed to realize that whoever is nominated by the Democratic Party, we have to be sure that the Republicans are soundly defeated - or else.

Our small delegation was really frustrated by the credentials process because although we had done everything correctly, -- democracy won out in the end and our delegates were seated just fine - and did their job well -- yesterday was a jolly great pain in the ass but there were probably over 5,000 delegates and volunteers who were absolutely dedicated to making democracy work - and you just can't stop that kind of momentum.
Gerald

~~~~~

Burnt Orange Report - Results from County Conventions* with 46% conventions reporting

COUNTY-BY-COUNTY BREAKDOWN - Here is the link to the county by county results (really, convention by convention) so you can see how each county/convention is voting. We'll update this every 30-45 minutes.

Folks from all over Texas are also blogging their convention experiences HERE

Obama Handily Wins Dallas County Conventions- Gromer Jeffers of The Dallas Morning News writes: "Barack Obama cruised to victory over Hillary Rodham Clinton in Dallas County's Senate district conventions Saturday, as Texas Democrats continued their arduous and sometimes frustrating process of choosing national convention delegates."

video from the 23rd district convention from DMN

video from Tarrant county with Sean Astin

Video from Houston where Shelia Jackson Lee is booed by her constituents

Let AAR know what you think here : http://www.airamerica.com/contact   

Let Sammy know what you think here : samsedershow@gmail.com

We've re-launched! All new content, Premium is now called OnDemand and more!

By SEDER

NASA

We have launched. As you can see AirAmerica.com has had a face lift. What you can't see is that we have streamlined our OnDemand (formerly Premium) service, rebuilt our site infrastructure and starting later this week, offering a new podcast product. We've added an hour long High Lights podcast of all our shows, perfect for your commute, the gym or any other time you can't listen to an entire show. Best of all, if you are an All Access member (formerly Premium Gold) or a Single Show Access member- this ad free High Lights podcast is free for you!  

In addition to the changes in our OnDemand service, we are now offering some great new content available to you on our home page. As you can see we feature 9 new columns:  

AirAmerica Newswire: News from the most prestigious news outlets available with your comments.  

Guest Blogger: Every week we'll be inviting a blogger from the left bloggersphere that you may never have read before and we hope you'll continue reading once their week-long stint has ended.  

As Heard On AAR: Clips from your favorite shows and shows that may soon become your favorite - freshly updated on our front page.  

Host Posts: Posts from your favorite hosts and show producers on topics of the day, topics important to all of us or topics that they just can't get off their minds!  

Editor Posts: Here I'll be posting site news, Air America news, Action alerts and anything else I'm thinking you'd like to know.  

Culture: Contributors from on and off-line offering film reviews, music reviews, culture comments, sports, theater all from a left perspective!  

Finance: Contributors from on and off-line providing you posts from everything from economic policy to how to manage your money.  

Ask A Liberal: Satire alert-if you can't laugh, because of a sense of humor deficiency or a medical condition- don't click on these posts! Liberals, answering your questions and balance provided by the most heterosexual, theocratic, war loving, conservative on-line.  

And that's not all- check out the videos we offer from GoLeft, Air America and from around the web!  

Come visit me in the Editor Posts sections with your questions!

Young Turks: People are baffled by Hillary Clinton's determination to stay in the race.  Is she calculating for 2012?

McCain's Achilles Heel
The Democrats are missing a big opportunity to strike early at John McCain's Achilles heel -- his lockstep support for an extremely unpopular war.

Hundreds of Protesters 'Foreclose' on Bear Stearns HQ

Cops bail out lobby of Bear Stearns

Perfected! I wanna be just like Ann Coulter!

Noam Chomsky: Why Don't We Ask What's Best For the Iraqis?
As Chomsky bluntly states, aggressors have no rights. Our occupation is criminal. What Americans want for Iraq is irrelevant.

Transcript: Mark McKinnon On Why He'll Leave The McCain Campaign If Obama Is The Democratic Nominee National Journal's Linda Douglass sat down with Mark McKinnon for the March 28 edition of "National Journal On Air." This is a transcript of their conversation. Audio of the full show

rationalradio.org

 

-------------------------------------

Get Out the Vote!: Campaigning for the U.S. Presidency Companion to a 2004 exhibit that "examines the process of campaigning and electioneering through partisan artifacts, symbols and ballots." Features annotated images of items from selected elections back to 1840, such as the Civil War election of 1864, the three-way race of 1912, and television and candidates in 1960. Also includes galleries of tickets and ballots, third party candidate materials, and symbols and mascots. From the Cornell University Library, Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections.