mjh's blog

A Trying Spring, Indeed

ABQjournal: Gila Wolf Killed By Feds By Tania Soussan, Journal Staff Writer

The alpha male of the Ring Pack wolves was killed by a federal sharpshooter in the Gila National Forest on Sunday, the third endangered wolf shot to death by the government since an effort to restore the species started in 1998.

The wolf, which had been blamed for four confirmed cattle killings and was suspected by ranchers of several more, was shot from a helicopter in the Collins Park area of the Gila in southwestern New Mexico.

“We’re very disturbed,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity in Pinos Altos. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is out of control.”

“Any relief we can get certainly helps,” said Gila rancher Fred Galley, who says he has lost cows and calves to wolves this year. “This has been an extremely trying spring.”

A trying spring, indeed. One alpha male is dead, another had his leg amputated and will be in captivity for the rest of his life (probably not as alpha). The alpha female who was the poster wolf for the program will never be free again. Countless wolves have been trapped — a traumatic and potentially fatal act — and removed from the wild.

Wolf opponents have gotten everything they want; wolf opponents mourn. And still, the victor whines. Where have we heard this before, those with power complaining about everything? It’s hard work!

What a job title: federal sharpshooter. He goes in the woods to slaughter a magnificent wild creature so that a few dumb domesticated cows won’t die as prey but on an assembly line. Now he’s sitting at a bar in Reserve bragging to the locals. Mama must be proud. mjh

The loss of the Francisco and Ring packs reduces the number of breeding pairs in the wild to seven ….

Kill orders have been issued for other wolves, including the Francisco Pack.

Federal agents shot a male wolf last July after it killed five cattle in Arizona. A female wolf was shot in 2003 for killing five calves in New Mexico. In 2002, the service approved killing two wolves implicated in a number of livestock deaths in Arizona, but those wolves were never found.

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Which Side Are You On?

Bill O’Reilly: The limits of dissent

No country can win a conflict the way the USA is fighting the war on terror. Every move the Bush administration makes is scrutinized, criticized and roundly chastised by dissenters who firmly believe the president, himself, is responsible for much of the anti-American hatred around the world. The chorus is deafening. Bush “lied” about Iraq. Bush is violating civil liberties by supporting the Patriot Act. The president sanctions torture and is a major human rights violator. Every day there is another page one story telling Americans we are the bad guys.

The dissenters claim that what they’re doing is patriotic, that they love America and just want to improve it. They claim that loyal dissent is one of the finest traditions of democracy.

But there is a difference between dissenting from a war and trying to undermine a war….

It is time for Americans to decide exactly who is looking out for them. The government and military, both of which are trying to defeat vicious killers, or those who are on a jihad to undermine the war on terror in the name of patriotism? The battle lines are clearly drawn. Which side are you on?

Which side are you on? In support of a fallible adminstration that has, in absolute fact, lied and certainly made tremendous errors. How dare you speak your mind! mjh

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GOPublic TV

The Armstrong Williams NewsHour – New York Times By FRANK RICH

That doesn’t mean the right’s new assault on public broadcasting is toothless, far from it. But this time the game is far more insidious and ingenious. The intent is not to kill off PBS and NPR but to castrate them by quietly annexing their news and public affairs operations to the larger state propaganda machine that the Bush White House has been steadily constructing at taxpayers’ expense. If you liked the fake government news videos that ended up on local stations – or thrilled to the “journalism” of Armstrong Williams and other columnists who were covertly paid to promote administration policies – you’ll love the brave new world this crowd envisions for public TV and radio. …

[In a secret study,] guests were rated either L for liberal or C for conservative, and “anti-administration” was affixed to any segment raising questions about the Bush presidency. Thus was the conservative Republican Senator Chuck Hagel given the same L as Bill Clinton simply because he expressed doubts about Iraq in a discussion mainly devoted to praising Ronald Reagan. Three of The Washington Post’s star beat reporters (none of whom covers the White House or politics or writes opinion pieces) were similarly singled out simply for doing their job as journalists by asking questions about administration policies.

“It’s pretty scary stuff to judge media, particularly public media, by whether it’s pro or anti the president,” Senator Dorgan said. “It’s unbelievable.”

Not from this gang. …

Then, on Thursday, a Rove dream came true: Patricia Harrison, a former co-chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, ascended to the CPB presidency. In her last job, as an assistant secretary of state, Ms. Harrison publicly praised the department’s production of faux-news segments – she called them “good news” segments – promoting American success in Afghanistan and Iraq. As The Times reported in March, one of those fake news videos ended up being broadcast as real news on the Fox affiliate in Memphis.

Mr. Tomlinson has maintained that his goal at CPB is to strengthen public broadcasting by restoring “balance” and stamping out “liberal bias.” But Mr. Moyers left “Now” six months ago. Mr. Tomlinson’s real, not-so-hidden agenda is to enforce a conservative bias or, more specifically, a Bush bias. To this end, he has not only turned CPB into a full-service employment program for apparatchiks but also helped initiate “The Journal Editorial Report,” the only public broadcasting show ever devoted to a single newspaper’s editorial page, that of the zealously pro-Bush Wall Street Journal. Unlike Mr. Moyers’s “Now” – which routinely balanced its host’s liberalism with conservative guests like Ralph Reed, Grover Norquist, Paul Gigot and Cal Thomas – The Journal’s program does not include liberals of comparable stature.

THIS is all in keeping with Mr. Tomlinson’s long career as a professional propagandist. During the Reagan administration he ran Voice of America. Then he moved on to edit Reader’s Digest, where, according to Peter Canning’s 1996 history of the magazine, “American Dreamers,” he was rumored to be “a kind of ‘Manchurian Candidate’ ” because of the ensuing spike in pro-C.I.A. spin in Digest articles. Today Mr. Tomlinson is chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the federal body that supervises all nonmilitary international United States propaganda outlets, Voice of America included. That the administration’s foremost propagandist would also be chairman of the board of CPB, the very organization meant to shield public broadcasting from government interference, is astonishing. But perhaps no more so than a White House press secretary month after month turning for softball questions to “Jeff Gannon,” a fake reporter for a fake news organization ultimately unmasked as a G.O.P. activist’s propaganda site. …

Forget the pledge drive. What’s most likely to save the independent voice of public broadcasting from these thugs is a rising chorus of Deep Throats.

Outcry grows over public TV, radio
By Matea Gold and Jube Shiver Jr.
Times Staff Writers

The consultant, Fred Mann, categorized segments as “pro-Bush” and “anti-Bush,” according to copies of the reports obtained by Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a frequent White House critic, was labeled “liberal” because he questioned Bush’s policy in Iraq.

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