The Road of Bones

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

On May 22, Jeff Low received notice that his homestead exemption, the only protection a taxpayer has against large increases in value, had been removed from part of his property. As of May 31, he has not received a notice of appraisal, unlike every other home owner in the county. However, website records show that his value went up 29 percent in one year; from $214,320 to $272,167 – an increase of $57,847. And just like the last five years, he is filing a protest.

Last year, Jeff staged a campaign for a seat on the DCAD’s Board of Directors. He tirelessly wrote letters to legislators, made appearances before the Commissioners Court, and spoke in front of school boards and city councils in an effort to obtain the votes from the taxing entities necessary to oversee the district’s Chief Appraiser, Joe Rogers.

Initially, he had a shot. Since the board is not publicly elected he had to lobby officials, and earned the early support of the Commissioners Court. Or so he thought. When it came down to the wire, the court cut him out of the race, adjusting their votes just so, eliminating him from the running by less than 10 votes. This time, he says, he’s the subject of direct harassment; a charge the appraisal district vehemently denies.

Walking into the district’s offices, a friendly woman named Swany Agular asked if she could be of any assistance. Low requested to see an appraiser, and asked if she could find out if the district had sent out his appraisal letter yet. She placed a phone call to her supervisor, then came back saying it had been sent that morning. Low was given a number and told to wait an hour.

The office was full of taxpayers seeking to protest their new appraisal. They had set up a series of waiting rooms through the halls. This reporter counted five uniformed police officers meandering around the entrance, public access computers and hearing rooms. After an hour and a half Low’s number was up, and he made his way into the office of appraiser Deborah Rasmussen.

“How can I help you today?” she asked.

“Well, you can maybe explain why I haven’t gotten my appraisal notice yet, and why my homestead cap has been removed when the [appraisal review board] made your office apply it to my full property last year.”

She sighed again and adjusted her glasses, pecking away at her keyboard. “You didn’t get a notice of value?”

“Nope,” said Jeff.

“Hm. Let me see … Okay,” she said. “It looks like your notice actually … Oh, it has not gone out yet. That’s weird.”

“Yeah. Especially because the girl in the front told me it went out today,” snapped Low.

“Oh, um, I don’t know about that. Maybe she misspoke,” said Rasmussen. “So, you want to homestead the whole property?”

“It was homesteaded. Last year,” said Jeff. “Every year for the last five years you guys have played with my exemption and this is the first time I’ve ever gotten notice of it before the protest deadline.”

“Oh. Oh yes. I see,” she said. “Uh, I removed your homestead.”

“Can you tell me why?” asked Jeff.

“Yes. Ah … Because the law requires that you maintain it and landscape it as a yard,” she replied.

“It’s mowed. I keep it up nicely,” said Jeff. Just hours earlier Low had taken this reporter to his home to pick up some related paperwork. His assessment of the lawn is indeed true.

“I drove past it earlier today, Mr. Low. It wasn’t mowed,” said Rasmussen. “I’m very familiar with your lawn. I drove by your house on my way back from lunch.”

“Well, I’ll go home and take a picture, just to prove you wrong,” said Jeff.

“Actually, that is all up to the appraiser,” she said. “And, um, it’s not really maintained as home, ah, yard. And the building on it is a commercial class building. So that would not be something that we would allow under a homestead either.”

However, Low does not own a business, nor is there any commercial activity on his property at all. Rasmussen was referring to his metal storage shed, which Low has fought with the district about for years. In 1997 he owned a cabinet shop, housed in this particular structure. But he closed it not even a year later, and has since used it as a garage and personal storage shed.

“Look, we’re obviously not getting anywhere with this,” said Jeff. “Could I just speak with your supervisor?”

Rasmussen frowned. “Okay. Please come out front with me.”

Walking back to the front of the building, she stopped near the public access area, queering the district’s network in an effort to print some of Jeff’s property data. “Just a minute. I’ll be right back. I’m going to get someone to help you,” she said. She returned about 20 minutes later holding an appraisal card.

“Mr. Low, [Chief and Deputy Chief Appraisers] Mr. Rogers and Mr. Durham are out to lunch. They will be back any moment,” she claimed. “They left at 2 p.m., and it is three now, so they’ll be here soon. I’ll go and find another appraiser in the mean time. Maybe someone else could assist you.” Rasmussen never returned, and nobody else came to assist Low. Shortly after she departed, the district’s network stopped functioning altogether, much to the ire of the taxpayers spending most of their work day researching their properties in the public access area.

At 3:43 p.m., Rogers and Durham finally arrived. “Mr. Low, I understand you want to see me,” said Rogers.

“Yep, that’s right. Hey Steve,” said Jeff, motioning for me to join him.

“Oh, uh. No. No, I don’t need him,” said Rogers, eyeing this reporter warily.

“Too bad,” said Jeff with a grin.

They walked into a large office and sat on opposite sides of a round table. Rogers, a short, wide, excitable-looking fellow, crossed his arms over his belly and narrowed his eyes at Jeff.

“I’ve come today because I didn’t receive a notice of value,” began Low.

“Oh, you didn’t?” asked Rogers. “Well, we mailed ‘em all.”

“The girl in the front said that it was mailed today,” said Low.

“Not to my knowledge,” replied Rogers. “We mailed personal property notices today. No real estate. You didn’t have any personal property.”

“I didn’t think so,” said Low. “I asked for my notice earlier so I could get a date that I need to file my protest by. Well, Ms. Rasmussen disappeared a while ago and she ain’t come back. She said she would get someone to help me and she just vanished.”

“Well, I’ll look into that for you,” said Rogers. “What else is bothering you?”

“Well,” said Low, “I also lost my homestead again.”

“I told you last year,” said Rogers. “I don’t think you deserve a homestead cap on that building of yours. It shouldn’t have been done last year. I made that statement from the very beginning that the ARB made a mistake when they gave you a homestead on that commercial building. … We can raise property more than 10 percent if we want to. We’ll raise it to whatever we think market value is.”

“Maybe you ought to try doing that to some of the local politicians,” said Low.

“We do it to everybody, sir,” retorted Rogers. “We treat everybody the same way.”

“I don’t think so,” said Low. “I’ve pulled records for countless …” Rogers cut him off.

“Its all in your mind. We don’t single anybody out or anything like what you think. You’re just mad at the world and you don’t know what to do with yourself. … We appraise the same way Dallas does.”

“I would like to know how the average politician and the average employee of this district rec …”

Rogers cut him off again. “They don’t. They don’t. That’s all in your mind. You’re wrong and I can’t explain it to you. I tried last year to explain it to you but you didn’t believe a word I said. But you’re wrong. Just wrong. That’s a fact.”

“Has your property, in the last five years, gone up 155-200 percent?” asked Low.

“Nope,” said Rogers. “Mine was at market value, and it went up according to the market. It’s gone up, but it hasn’t gone up that much. Ninety-nine percent of the people probably haven’t gone up that much, but if they weren’t at market then they did. I’m sure there’s some that have gone up more than that ‘cause they weren’t at market. With mass appraisal, it is easy to miss something. It is easy to leave something out. Then, when you find it, you correct it. You know that,” he concluded, leveling his index finger at Jeff.

“Look, Mr. Rogers,” said Low. “Ms. Rasmussen said the reason my homestead was removed was because my grass wasn’t mowed.” Rogers cocked his head back and grinned. “Ms. Rasmussen doesn’t know,” he said.

“She told me she is very familiar with my property,” claimed Low.

“Ms. Rasmussen doesn’t even appraise agricultural property. She is a residential appraiser,” said Rogers, failing to note that Low has no agriculture on his land, nor was that the issue at hand. “If she said that, she misspoke,” said Rogers. “She doesn’t appraise agricultural property. She looks at houses. I think you need to look at yourself for once,” said Rogers.

“The problem is, I’m being singled out,” said Low, to which Rogers quickly replied, “No you’re not. You are not being singled out. Didn’t you say last year your property was worth more than $300,000? You did, didn’t you? You said that to the Commissioners Court.”

Jeff looked confused, shaking his head. “I never said anything like that!”

Rogers chuckled. “Yes, you did.”

“No I didn’t,” said Low.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

They went on like this for about two minutes. It should be noted that The News Connection has Low’s appearances before the commissioners on audio, and at no point did he claim his property was worth over $300,000.

You know,” said Low, “I presented a lot of stuff to you last year, and I …”

“No you didn’t,” said Rogers, cutting him off again. “The stuff you presented wasn’t even worth looking at. There was nothing wrong with those properties.”

“You mean to tell me that one of my neighbors is at $8,000 an acre and I’m up over $63,000?”

“There was nothing wrong,” said Rogers. “Nothing at all. It’s all in your mind, Mr. Low. You’re just mad at the world.”

Finally, Low gave up. “There is no point talking to you, Joe! I hope you don’t treat everyone like this!”

“Well, I’m done talking to you too,” said Rogers. “Just get out of my office, right now.”

This reporter stuck a hand up. “May I ask a question? I mean, I just came to observe, but I’m curious about one thing.”

Rogers paused, looked down and sighed. “What’s that?”

I referenced an article published by TNC on Dec. 16, 2005, revealing the two chiefs at the district had accrued nearly $26,000 of illegal paid vacation time; time the Department of Labor and the district’s own policies and procedures handbook claimed they are not eligible for.

“What ever happened to all that compensatory time you and Mr. Durham racked up?” I kept a straight face.

Rogers, clearly annoyed by this question, swatted at the air with his right hand, keeping his left hand crossed over his belly. “Bah. That was from the 1980’s, and, uh, I also sent you a copy of the manual that said you could get that time …”

I cut him off. “Actually, it said you couldn’t.”

“Oh no it didn’t! said Rogers, his face growing increasingly red. “It said you could!”

“I spoke with the Texas Auditor’s Office, and the Department of Labor,” I replied. “You are not allowed that time.”

“Well, you read what ever you want to read. I’ve read all your articles. You just say what you want to say and do what you want to do and you make things look however you want ‘em to look. So it was done. I’m through with it! Out! Let’s go!”

I stood and took two steps toward the door, eyeing Jeff as he stood in the hallway laughing to himself. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Rogers. I didn’t mean to …”

“Yeah, you are sorry,” he said. “You’re real sorry, you …”

“Well, I don’t mean I’m sorry,” I said. “I mean, I did not intend to agitate you so much …”

Rogers’ eyes widened and he took four large steps toward me, grasping his door by its side. His breathing had become much more rapid; his face, a darkening shade of pink.

“Get out. Get out now before I have a police man take you out! Go!”

“Um, okay,” I said. “I didn’t know I was causing any trouble.”

“Yes. Yes you are,” he said, slamming the door behind us.

Tax appraisal protest season is upon the taxpayers of Denton County, and our lawmakers are missing.

“Thanks a lot, Governor Perry,” said Low as he left the district’s office. “A tax cut without reform is meaningless. They cut taxes on the surface, and then just raise the values up before it even goes into effect. Hell of a lot of help it is to me. Meaningless. Simply meaningless. I hope people don’t fall for it.”

The tax appraisal protest season is upon Denton County homeowners, and their lawmakers are missing. To share your story of unfair, illogical, or otherwise illegal appraisal, contact Bob Weir, TNC’s Executive Editor at bobweir@thenewsconnection.com.

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

2 Iraqi women killed by coalition troops
By KIM GAMEL

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Two Iraqi women were shot to death north of Baghdad after coalition forces fired on a vehicle that failed to stop at an observation post, the U.S. military said Wednesday. Iraqi police and relatives said one of the women was about to give birth.

A car entered a clearly marked prohibited area near coalition troops at an observation post but failed to stop despite repeated visual and auditory warnings, the U.S. military said in a statement e-mailed to The Associated Press.

"Shots were fired to disable the vehicle," the statement said. "Coalition forces later received reports from Iraqi police that two women had died from gunshot wounds ... and one of the females may have been pregnant."

The statement said the incident was being investigated.

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Wednesday, May 31, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Shadows of My Lai

We’ll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgment of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song
-- The Who, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”

Welcome to Iraq
Photo by Chris Floyd

March 16, 1968; North Vietnam. Charlie Company’s 11^th Brigade was ordered into Son My village, divided up into four areas by U.S. military intelligence: My Lai 1, 2, 3 and 4. The civilians would be away from their homes by 7 a.m. at the latest. Everyone remaining was Viet Cong or a sympathizer, or so they said. The men of Charlie Company’s 11^th were to destroy the entire village with extreme prejudice.

Unfortunately, the Viet Cong was not there. U.S. soldiers so mentally fractured by their time in the war had to either kill innocent civilians or face years of court-martial. Most of the men went ballistic, blindly slaughtering en masse. Various accounts put the total number of dead between 347 and 504. The victims were old men, women, children and babies. The gruesome details of the attack are spine-chilling. An American gunship saved a small group when it landed between the last remaining encampment of Vietnamese civilians and U.S. soldiers. The pilot, Hugh Thompson, Jr., later known as “The Hero of My Lai,” claimed that he would open fire on American soldiers if they did not halt their attack. It was three years before the truth came out.

The cover-up of this terrible bloodletting – a war crime, by all definitions – was swift and absolute. Colonel Oran Henderson took up the investigation and concluded 22 innocents died that day; unavoidable deaths in what was otherwise a successful attack that snuffed out the lives of over 120 “insurgents.” But that is not what happened. In response to written reports from soldiers who refused to take part in the massacre, Colon Powell, then a Major in the Army, whitewashed it, claiming that relations between Vietnamese civilians and American soldiers were “excellent.”

It took a journalist, Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh, now with The New Yorker Magazine, to break the painful truth. Within days it was all over the national media. By the time the military trials had finished, America’s heart had changed. It was the single most important turning point of the Vietnam War, jarring those who simply did not want to know the truth into opening their eyes to the ugly, brutal reality of America’s blood-soaked foreign policy.

On November 19, 2005, Marine Lance Cpl. Miguel Terrazas of El Paso, Texas, died just outside of Haditha, Iraq after an improvised explosive device detonated near his convoy. He was just 20 years old. His unit, many of whom were on their third or fourth tours in Iraq, simply snapped. They went on a rampage through the small Sunni Muslim city of Haditha, killing over 25 civilians that we know of. Old men, women, children, even babies were murdered in cold blood. The only witness to this was a nine year old girl.

In a video captured by a local student, the girl looks like any other innocent child. She is wearing a pink shirt with a smiling bunny rabbit adorning the front. But the expression on her face is simply haunting. She tells the cameraman how her grandmother died, on her knees in prayer, shot in the back of the head. Then, she says, soldiers went into her grandfather’s room and shot him as he lay in bed. They stepped out and hurled a grenade into the room. Then they killed her brother. Then her baby sister. They lined them up in a row, execution-style, and shot them one by one. The children were wearing pajamas. Their blood and tears stain the walls and floor, caught on a tape that will rock your sheltered, Conservative-Christian reality.

Now the mainstream U.S. media is paying attention, thanks to the efforts of Congressman John Murtha, a former Marine and well-known Democratic war hawk. Once a trusted advisor to Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan and Bush Sr., he is persona non grata with Dubya’s administration, having called for a withdraw from Iraq last year.

We can only wish the Haditha massacre were an isolated incident. The reality is far more terrible.

This past April I spoke with Geoff Reymillard, a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. He recounted a story of how a mother, father and their two children, both under the age of five, were killed at a roadside checkpoint in Baghdad. The report went up the chain of command, and a meeting was called. That night, a crowd of soldiers gathered to listen to their superiors address the matter. “If those [expletive] Hajis would just learn how to drive,” said one Colonel, “that [expletive] wouldn’t happen.”

“What we are seeing here is an Iraqi no longer being a human,” said Reymillard. “They become this Haji, just like they became Gooks in Vietnam, they have become Haji’s to our soldiers. Their deaths are not reported at all. They are all just chalked up to being insurgents. That is what happens over and over again. All the Iraqis being killed just ‘become’ insurgents. I just … I don’t know how you can be in favor of that at all.”

This time, we were lucky. Haditha was but a shadow of My Lai. This is the consequence of waging an unprovoked war with a currency of lies. Putting young men fresh out of high school into the middle of a civil war is no strategy for victory; it is a recipe for massacre. The Bush Administration has run out of white paint. Wake up and smell the truth.

U.S. out of Iraq. Now.

Stephen Webster is an Investigative Reporter with North-Texas weekly The News Connection, a Staff Writer with Peace Journalism Magazine and George W. Bush's hometown paper The Lone Star Iconoclast, a former contributor to The Dallas Morning News' Science & Technology section and the former Editor-in-Chief of Binary Culture.

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Tuesday, May 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

First of all, no, we are not on psychedelic drugs. This column’s title, Mushroom Kingdom, is derivative of a land which many remember fondly. Most members of the under-35 generation(s) will hearken back to sitting in front of a television in the early 80’s, nodding their heads to electronic beeps and boops, jumping on Goombas’ heads in an effort to save a kidnapped princess. Of course, I’m talking about that cultural flashpoint; an iconographic mainstay of my own childhood: Super Mario, who lived in the Mushroom Kingdom and conquered an entire decade of this, the “lost” generation.

Ah, the memories.

Perhaps it is ironic that such a title was chosen for this new column, for our first subject Nintendo’s latest and greatest, coming soon to a living room near you. Unlike mainstream competitors Sony and Microsoft, who are prepared to saturate the market with expensive, high-powered, “media center” machines, Nintendo seems to have sidestepped this battle all-together. If Bill Gates is a four-star technology general, then Nintendo’s genius game creator Shigeru Miyamoto is a pied-piper savant, happily skipping right out of town square and taking the strategist’s soldiers with him.

I am talking about the Nintendo Wii (pronounced “We”), the most unusual game machine the world has yet to see. No rhyme intended. Last month the gaming world converged on the Los Angeles Convention Center for the Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3), the largest showcase of coming-soon software known to man. Nintendo came out of this week-long electronics marathon sitting pretty, boasting five-hour lines around their booth and more playable games than Sony and Microsoft. The appeal of this new machine is unique, and its execution, thus far, has been flawless.

For starters, the Wii will appeal to current gamers and reach out to those who write off the pastime as pointless or too complicated. The key here is simplicity. When the company’s press conference opened, famed Mario creator Miyamoto stood stage-right, holding a television-style, single-hand remote. Behind him, a massive screen depicting an orchestra comprised of simple, cartoonish characters. He raised his hands to signal the start of the melody, and then proceeded to conduct a Nintendo-themed symphony with simple flicks of his wrist, as though he were holding a conductor’s baton.

The audience was in awe of what was otherwise a simple technology demonstration.

Other games showcased were Wii Sports, where up to four players can join in on a game of golf, baseball, tennis or air-sports. Participants hold the motion-sensitive controller like they would any sporting accessory. Swing the bat to hit the ball. Pull off a backhand stroke to volley back across the net. Smack a drive with a digital nine-iron, just like you would on the green. In air-sports, players pilot a variety of flying craft by holding the controller like a paper airplane. It is so simple, your grandmother could do it; yet fun enough that even your uber-gamer nephew will get in on the action.

The company also plans to have their latest Legend of Zelda title, Twilight Princess, available at system launch. It too will have Wii functionality. Imagine swinging the Hero of Time’s sword as though you were holding it; or firing off an arrow, only to hear it (via the controller’s internal speaker) fly from your hand, right into the television screen. Nintendo also showed off a new Mario game, called Super Mario Galaxy, a new Super Smash Brothers game with online multiplayer, a new Metroid title and a handful of other old franchises renewed for Wii. Third-party developers were also on-board in droves, as the company has made it their goal to reduce development costs for their new system to just one-third of what Xbox 360 or PS3 development costs.

It may have a funny name, but where would modern America be without Google or Ikea? Wii may yet take over the world. The new PlayStation set to debut in November at $599, giving Nintendo a shot at a huge victory this Christmas. The company has pledged to launch their system at or below $249. It plays GameCube games and works with the old controllers, runs DVDs, and even has a free online service for multiplayer, and sports a new content delivery method called “Virtual Console,” which allows players to download and play any of Nintendo’s games from the last 20 years.

I’m just not sure how it will feel asking my mother to put the controller down so I can take my video games home. Wii will see.

Stephen Webster is an Investigative Reporter with North-Texas weekly The News Connection, a Staff Writer with Peace Journalism Magazine and George W. Bush's hometown paper The Lone Star Iconoclast, a former contributor to The Dallas Morning News' Science & Technology section and the former Editor-in-Chief of Binary Culture.

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Tuesday, May 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Monday, May 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Bush 'planted fake news stories on American TV'
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
29 May 2006

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

"We know we only had partial access to these VNRs and yet we found 77 stations using them," said Diana Farsetta, one of the group's researchers. "I would say it's pretty extraordinary. The picture we found was much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."

Ms Farsetta said the public relations companies commissioned to produce these segments by corporations had become increasingly sophisticated in their techniques in order to get the VNRs broadcast. "They have got very good at mimicking what a real, independently produced television report would look like," she said.

The FCC has declined to comment on the investigation but investigators from the commission's enforcement unit recently approached Ms Farsetta for a copy of her group's report.

The range of VNR is wide. Among items provided by the Bush administration to news stations was one in which an Iraqi-American in Kansas City was seen saying "Thank you Bush. Thank you USA" in response to the 2003 fall of Baghdad. The footage was actually produced by the State Department, one of 20 federal agencies that have produced and distributed such items.

Many of the corporate reports, produced by drugs manufacturers such as Pfizer, focus on health issues and promote the manufacturer's product. One example cited by the report was a Hallowe'en segment produced by the confectionery giant Mars, which featured Snickers, M&Ms and other company brands. While the original VNR disclosed that it was produced by Mars, such information was removed when it was broadcast by the television channel - in this case a Fox-owned station in St Louis, Missouri.

Bloomberg news service said that other companies that sponsored the promotions included General Motors, the world's largest car maker, and Intel, the biggest maker of semi-conductors. All of the companies said they included full disclosure of their involvement in the VNRs. "We in no way attempt to hide that we are providing the video," said Chuck Mulloy, a spokesman for Intel. "In fact, we bend over backward to make this disclosure."

The FCC was urged to act by a lobbying campaign organised by Free Press, another non-profit group that focuses on media policy. Spokesman Craig Aaron said more than 25,000 people had written to the FCC about the VNRs. "Essentially it's corporate advertising or propaganda masquerading as news," he said. "The public obviously expects their news reports are going to be based on real reporting and real information. If they are watching an advertisement for a company or a government policy, they need to be told."

The controversy over the use of VNRs by television stations first erupted last spring. At the time the FCC issued a public notice warning broadcasters that they were obliged to inform viewers if items were sponsored. The maximum fine for each violation is $32,500 (£17,500).

Federal authorities are actively investigating dozens of American television stations for broadcasting items produced by the Bush administration and major corporations, and passing them off as normal news. Some of the fake news segments talked up success in the war in Iraq, or promoted the companies' products.

Investigators from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are seeking information about stations across the country after a report produced by a campaign group detailed the extraordinary extent of the use of such items.

The report, by the non-profit group Centre for Media and Democracy, found that over a 10-month period at least 77 television stations were making use of the faux news broadcasts, known as Video News Releases (VNRs). Not one told viewers who had produced the items.

"We know we only had partial access to these VNRs and yet we found 77 stations using them," said Diana Farsetta, one of the group's researchers. "I would say it's pretty extraordinary. The picture we found was much worse than we expected going into the investigation in terms of just how widely these get played and how frequently these pre-packaged segments are put on the air."

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Monday, May 29, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Friday, May 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

This is priceless.Click here for Episode One of Conspiracy Theory Rock!
(.MOV format -- From CrooksandLiars.com)

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Friday, May 26, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

House Judiciary Committee backs Net Neutrality effort

A bipartisan bill brought to the House Judiciary Committee that sought to derail a proposed 'two-tier' Internet plan in which telecommunications companies would charge Internet sites fees to ensure their site was delivered faster than other sites passed the House Judiciary Committee today by a 20-13 vote, RAW STORY has learned.

"This is an amazing turnaround, from a bipartisan stance against net neutrality, to a bipartisan stance for net neutrality," Matt Stoller, who led part of the blogger coalition against the telecommunications plan. "The battle isn't over, but enjoy this victory."

Democrats Conyers - yes Berman - yes Boucher - yes Nadler - yes Scott - yes Watt - not voting Lofgren - yes Jackson-Lee - yes Waters - yes Meehan - not voting Delahunt - present Wexler - yes Weiner - yes Schiff - yes Sanchez, Linda - yes Van Hollen - yes Wasserman Schultz - yes

Republicans Sensenbrenner - yes Hyde - didn't vote Coble - no Smith - no Gallegly - no Goodlate - yes Chabot - no Lungren - yes Jenkins - yes Cannon - yes Bachus - no Inglis - yes Hostetler - no Green - no Keller - no Flake - not voting Pence - not voting Forbes - no King - no Feeney - no Frank - no Gohmert - not voting

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Thursday, May 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Federal officials say the Congressional bribery investigation now includes Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, based on information from convicted lobbyists who are now cooperating with the government.

Part of the investigation involves a letter Hastert wrote three years ago, urging the Secretary of the Interior to block a casino on an Indian reservation that would have competed with other tribes.

The other tribes were represented by convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff who reportedly has provided details of his dealings with Hastert as part of his plea agreement with the government.

The letter was written shortly after a fund-raiser for Hastert at a restaurant owned by Abramoff. Abramoff and his clients contributed more than $26,000 at the time.

Posted by The Gonzo Muckraker at Thursday, May 25, 2006 | Permalink | Comments

Part Two in a series

(Click here for part one)