What would Sarah Palin want with Rhode Island?

Note from Greetings: Please! Alaska! KEEP HER! We do not need her disinformation, dishonesty, and her willingness to incite people to the brink of riot. We have a happy, peaceful state... AND NO POLAR BEARS!

She is not needed for public office either, based on her previous lies, and... besides.. she quit her last post! We don't need to be another stepping stone.

By Matthew Shaer 08.20.09, The Christian Science Monitor

The latest rumor wending its way around the Interwebs – and it’s a doozy – has Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin ditching Anchorage for the suburbs of the Rhode Island. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin would fund the move to blue state America “with $7 million from her book and a contract with FOX. And, oh yes, she’s never running for office again.”

Silly, right? After all, just a month ago, Palin was using Twitter to wax poetic on the enduring beauties of her home state: I’m “tasting a nibble of AK’s bounty,knowing AKns are never bored;so much to do & discover [sic],” she tweeted. The gossip, for now, is just gossip — the Palin team has remained mum. Still, the Providence Journal thought enough of the rumors to run its own article.

The Journal’s Randal Edgar even tracked down Rhode Island Republican Party Chairman Giovanni Cicione for a quote. Cicione, a conservative marooned in a very blue New England state, wondered what would compel Palin to choose the Ocean State. “Anyone who wants to move to Rhode Island, we would have to question their sanity,” he said.

So what would Palin find if she moved to Rhode Island? A whole lot of Democrats, for starters. As Tabassum Zakaria of Reuters notes, Rhode Island has gone for the Democratic candidate in all but four presidential elections since 1928. According to RI.gov, the state went blue in a major way in 2008 — some 63 percent of the ballots were cast for Barack Obama. Compare that to the 35 percent of Rhode Islanders who voted for the John McCain and Sarah Palin ticket.

On the plus side, compared to the harsh winds of Alaska, the New England winters will feel positively balmy.

Anti-Terrorism Expert Praises New Film About LNG

Anti-terrorism expert gives high praises to new film, The Risks and Danger of LNG, and says, "The detail in your film of the dangers of LNG should leave no doubt in anyone's mind that we are facing a crisis when an LNG facility is sited in populated areas. It should be mandatory for every first responder to view this film." The LNG movie is now available at www.LngDANGER.com.

Colonel David Gavigan, a nationally and internationally recognized specialist in terrorism, has praised filmmakers Tim and Hayden Riley and their film, The Risks and Danger of LNG. Gavigan is a graduate of the Army War College, the chairman of Massachusetts Bristol County Homeland Security Task Force, a member of the U.S. Attorney's Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council (ATAC), Boston, MA, and is the military and terrorism analyst for FOX 25 TV, Boston.

"Let me start by congratulating you both on the outstanding DVD I just received entitled The Risks and Danger of LNG. This has to be an award winner. When I watched the film it gave me more insight into the dangers that communities face by the greed of large companies to site dangerous materials in populated areas. I feel that your work should set an example for others who wish to protect the public. The detail in your film of the dangers of LNG should leave no doubt in anyone's mind that we are facing a crisis when an LNG facility is sited in populated areas. It should be mandatory for every first responder to view this film," said Colonel Gavigan.

The film highlights the many hazards of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) tankers, facilities, and pipelines; and reveals LNG's vulnerability to accidental disaster, terrorism, and demonstrates how massive its destruction can be to our American communities.

The Risks and Danger of LNG was an Official Selection of the Malibu Film Festival, and had its World Premiere screening on September 18, 2004, at the festival.

"Naturally, we were honored that our film has been recognized as an official selection in the Malibu Film Festival, and the fact that it has received such meaningful praises from an anti-terrorist expert such as Colonel Gavigan, is additional validation of our film," said co-producer Tim Riley.

"We did not try to make a slick Hollywood popcorn movie, nor was a film festival even on our radar screen," says co-producer Hayden Riley, "We made the movie to provide vital information to all Americans about the real hazards of LNG by focusing on the actual risks and dangers of LNG which are routinely minimized by the energy industry, LNG proponents, LNG investors, political allies and their internet blogging friends."

"The energy industry and its friends don't like our film, and they don't want Americans to see it, because our film provides information they prefer you didn't know," says Tim Riley, who also co-wrote the film.

"We are at war with terrorism. Vice President Cheney recently mentioned a few times during his debate with Senator Edwards that he is concerned about a nuclear weapon being unleashed in one of our residential communities. Well, so are we, and that is why we warn Americans in our film, that a loaded LNG tanker has the energy equivalent of 55 Hiroshima bombs. Terrorists could unleash that tremendous amount of energy for mass destruction of an American community without the need of a nuclear weapon. LNG proponents dont like that we are alerting America to LNG's vulnerability to terrorism and compare its devastating power to its nuclear equivalent, however, we are not alone in that regard," said Tim Riley.

On September 21, 2004, The Providence Journal, in an article entitled, "Lloyd's Executive Likens LNG Attack to Nuclear Explosion," that paper reported that a Lloyd's of London Insurance executive likened an LNG attack to a nuclear explosion. "The assertion, which is contested by industry experts, was in a speech that the chairman, Peter Levene, delivered last night to business leaders in Houston."

"Gas carriers too, whether at sea or in ports, make obvious targets," said Levene. "Specialists reckon that a terrorist attack on an LNG tanker would have the force of a small nuclear explosion."

According to documentary co-writer Hayden Riley, "Not only will LNG endanger our residential communities and make them vulnerable to devastation by terrorist sabotage, it will make America's economy weaker by exporting more American dollars for more imported fossil fuel. It also makes Americas economy more vulnerable to energy market manipulation by the foreign energy nations of the Middle East and Pacific Rim. It is time for America to abandon its age old reliance on foreign fossil fuel, and it is now time to invest the same billions of dollars into America and American ingenuity, and create American jobs to develop safe renewable energy sources for Americas future."

The more people that see our movie and learn the truth about LNG, the safer the American public will be. LNG proponents label me a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) philosopher, well America is my backyard, so in a sense they are correct; however, the more appropriate label is NIABY - Not In America's Back Yard," said Tim Riley.

In the film the Rileys maintain, A sound, safe American energy plan requires solutions that make America stronger not weaker, make America more self-sufficient not more dependent, make America safer not more vulnerable, and make America fossil free not more polluted."

"We thank those on the front lines like Colonel Gavigan who are protecting America from terrorism, and we are grateful that he feels so strongly about our movie. His praises of our film are very meaningful," said Hayden Riley.

To preview a short trailer and to buy a DVD or VHS copy of the film, go to www.LngDanger.com .

Also visit the Riley's informational websites: http://TimRileyLaw.com and http://TimRileyLaw.com/LNG.htm

Jamestown officials outline LNG concerns

A NOTE FROM GREETINGS: This has no upside. One tanker explosions can cause the damage of 5 Hiroshima bombs, with a major bay being closed at will by a private corporation, with the aid of the U.S. Government. The areas of concern are (immediately) terrorism, in that it's near a naval base; area of a blast with such a large population on both sides of the bay; a major bridge to an island community closed when the tankers ferry up the bay; unannounced closings of the bay; the danger of the permanent storage facility inland to an even larger population, such as Providence; costs to local municipalities (who cannot afford it) of police escorts; the closing down of a vibrant bay community to business and recreation for all others.

By Phil Zahodiakin , Jamestown, RI Press, 09 13 09

As a long-standing proposal to ship liquefied natural gas (LNG) up the East Passage gains momentum, so does concern about potential disruptions in and around Jamestown. A recent Coast Guard conclusion that an LNG terminal would not pose navigational risks if it were sited in Mt. Hope Bay has increased the possibility that the project will win a federal permit.

Under the proposal from Weaver’s Cove Energy, LNG tankers would use the East Passage for the journey to the terminal, which would be built a mile from the Fall River shoreline. Whenever a loaded tanker steamed north, both the Pell and Mt. Hope bridges would have to be closed as the ships approached and departed.

“First and foremost are the safety concerns about the volatility of the cargo, and the risk of either an accident or terrorist activity that could ignite the ship, which would have devastating consequences for any nearby communities,” said Town Administrator Bruce Keiser.

“In addition to the safety issues,” Keiser said, “we are also concerned about [navigational prohibitions when loaded LNG tankers steam north] because the East Passage is very heavily trafficked by recreational boaters throughout the course of the summer, and any restrictions on the free and unfettered use of our waters is something that we strenuously object to. We don’t think those waters should be reserved for commercial interests, which would deprive recreational boaters of the opportunity to use the bay during our few short months of favorable boating weather.”

Moreover, due to security concerns, the schedule for LNG shipments would not be announced in advance – which means that long-planned events would inevitably be disrupted shortly before, or even after, they start. All loaded LNG tankers sailing through busy waters are surrounded by exclusion zones, which typically prohibit boat traffi c from coming any closer than a mile astern, two miles ahead and 1,000 feet to port and starboard.

Consequently, the flotilla of boats anchored off Ft. Adams during music festivals would presumably be ordered to immediately disperse if a LNG tanker was approaching the East Passage within 1,000 feet of the fort. In addition, “We have numerous sailing regattas during the course of the summer and they could be substantially curtailed or disrupted without notice,” Keiser said.

Dave Blydenburg, dockmaster for Conanicut Marine Services, is concerned about the exclusion zones as well. Providing a host of services to boaters in Jamestown harbor, Conanicut Marine also offers moorings, and Blydenburg suspects that the outer edge of exclusion zones established for Weaver’s Cove tankers “could cross our moorings.

“If they do,” Blydenburg said, “then anyone requesting a launch to bring them ashore would obviously have to wait out the tanker. But [the exclusion zones] could have other impacts [on recreational boaters]; for example, if someone was trying to duck into harbor ahead of a storm, and there was a tanker coming into the bay, they would have to wait, too. Or, if there were some emergency out in the passage while a tanker was passing, we wouldn’t be allowed to go out there.”

Blydenburg wondered if “the [Coast Guard] and [the Department of Environmental Management] will have the manpower to strictly enforce the exclusion zone.” However, all of the details involving security for LNG shipments passing through Narragansett Bay remain unknown. None has been publicly revealed, and all such information was redacted from the Coast Guard letter announcing its conclusions on an off-shore terminal.

Because the security details remain cloaked in secrecy, it was difficult for Jamestown Police Chief Thomas Tighe to predict the impacts of LNG shipments on his force. During Pell Bridge closures for shipments of compressed natural gas, “Basically, the state police comes in and closes the bridge while the tanker is passing below and we haven’t been asked to do anything other than assisting them with closing the bridge.”

Chief Tighe has had an opportunity to observe a LNG tanker steaming away from another U.S. port, and, during that visit, “The only security we were seeing was that the police from two communities would ride along the shoreline as close as they could to the water to make sure everything was okay. But, I haven’t seen any plans as to what would be entailed for our department and what kind of shoreline security they would ask for.”

Currently, the Jamestown police force has 15 officers, including the chief.

“At any given time, if no one is out sick, we have three people involved with our regular patrols: two cars and the dispatcher,” he said. Would the allocation of additional officers to shoreline security as many as four times a week place a significant personnel burden on the force? Chief Tighe declined to speculate because, he said, “I just don’t know what our role in shoreline security would be.”

Opportunities to comment on the LNG proposal

The next significant opportunity to comment on the Weaver’s Cove proposal for a LNG terminal in Mt. Hope Bay will come when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission publishes a draft environmental impact statement for the project. The EIS, which is expected in September, will be available at the e-library page of the FERC web site at http:// www.ferc.gov/docs-filing/elibrary.asp. To view public comments and other documents relating to the previous Weaver’s Cove proposal, go to the FERC site, click on “advanced search,” type “Weaver’s Cove” into “text search” and click submit.

Comments on the proposal can also be sent to members of the Rhode Island and Jamestown congressional delegation by calling or emailing Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, (202) 224-2921, http://whitehouse. senate.gov/contact/; Sen. Jack Reed, (202) 224-4642, http://reed.senate.gov/contact/contactshare. cfm or Rep. Patrick Kennedy (202) 225-4911, https://forms.house.gov/formpatrickkennedy/IMA/ contact.htm.

John McCain Says the Town Hall Meetings Should be More Civil

This just in from DownWithTyranny! Blog... and very nice to hear some common sense from at least one Republican.

McCain vs GOP tactics.RT: @SenJohnMcCain Town hall mtngs are Am. tradition- we should allow everyone to express their views w/out disruption

You're Not the First, But You're Quite Welcome!

I just added the Bravenet counter.. or, re-added it, as it was counting my old blog site "Greetings From Pennsylvania! Out of the Blue State", which has been defunct for about a year, with pointers to this site.

I welcome my old readers from Pennsylvania, and look forward to my new readers in Rhode Island. Thanks.. and.. if not happy reading! .. then Provocative reading!

GE's silencing of Olbermann and MSNBC's sleazy use of Richard Wolffe

Note from Greetings: So.. the corporations DO determine the news that finally gets to you.. in content, in delivery, and in how to craft your opinions.

Glenn Greenwald, Salon.com, Saturday, August 1st

(updated below - Update II)

The New York Times this morning has a remarkable story, and incredibly, the article's author, Brian Stelter, doesn't even acknowledge, let alone examine, what makes the story so significant. In essence, the chairman of General Electric (which owns MSNBC), Jeffrey Immelt, and the chairman of News Corporation (which owns Fox News), Rupert Murdoch, were brought into a room at a "summit meeting" for CEOs in May, where Charlie Rose tried to engineer an end to the "feud" between MSNBC's Keith Olbermann and Fox's Bill O'Reilly. According to the NYT, both CEOs agreed that the dispute was bad for the interests of the corporate parents, and thus agreed to order their news employees to cease attacking each other's news organizations and employees.

Most notably, the deal wasn't engineered because of a perception that it was hurting either Olbermann or O'Reilly's show, or even that it was hurting MSNBC. To the contrary, as Olbermann himself has acknowledged, his battles with O'Reilly have substantially boosted his ratings. The agreement of the corporate CEOs to cease criticizing each other was motivated by the belief that such criticism was hurting the unrelated corporate interests of GE and News Corp:

The reconciliation -- not acknowledged by the parties until now -- showcased how a personal and commercial battle between two men could create real consequences for their parent corporations. A G.E. shareholders' meeting, for instance, was overrun by critics of MSNBC (and one of Mr. O’Reilly's producers) last April. . . .

In late 2007, Mr. O’Reilly had a young producer, Jesse Watters, ambush Mr. Immelt and ask about G.E.'s business in Iran, which is legal, and which includes sales of energy and medical technology. G.E. says it no longer does business in Iran.

Mr. O’Reilly continued to pour pressure on its corporate leaders, even saying on one program last year that "If my child were killed in Iraq, I would blame the likes of Jeffrey Immelt." The resulting e-mail to G.E. from Mr. O’Reilly's viewers was scathing. . .

Over time, G.E. and the News Corporation concluded that the fighting "wasn’t good for either parent," said an NBC employee with direct knowledge of the situation. But the session hosted by Mr. Rose provided an opportunity for a reconciliation, sealed with a handshake between Mr. Immelt and Mr. Murdoch.

Though Olbermann denies he was part of any deal, the NYT says that there has been virtually no criticism of Fox by Olbermman, or MSNBC by O'Reilly, since June 1 when the deal took effect. That's mostly but not entirely true. On June 17, after President Obama accused Fox News of fomenting hostility towards his agenda, and Fox responded by saying that the "other networks" were pure pro-Obama outlets, Olbermann did voice fairly stinging criticisms of Fox as "more of a political entity than is the Republican National Committee right now, only it's fraudulently disguised as some sort of news organization."

But a review of all of Olbermann's post-June 1 shows does reveal that he has not ever criticized (or even mentioned) Bill O'Reilly since then and barely ever mentions Fox News any longer. And on June 1 -- the last time Olbermann mentioned O'Reilly -- Olbermann claimed at the end of his broadcast that he would cease referring to O'Reilly in the future because ignoring him (and "quarantining" Fox) would supposedly help get O'Reilly off the air ("So as of this show‘s end, I will retire the name, the photograph, and the caricature").

So here we have yet another example -- perhaps the most glaring yet -- of the corporations that own our largest media outlets controlling and censoring the content of their news organizations based on the unrelated interests of the parent corporation. In light of that, just marvel at what the supreme establishment-power-worshiper Charlie Rose said dismissively in March, 2003, when he had Amy Goodman on his show as a condescending example of someone who opposed the Iraq War, after Goodman touted the vital importance of "independent media" in America:

ROSE: I don't know what "independent" means -- "independent" in contrast to what?

GOODMAN: It means not being sponsored by the corporations, the networks -- like NBC, CBS, ABC: NBC owned by General Electric, CBS owned by Viacom, or ABC owned by Disney --

ROSE: My point in response to that would be that we do need you . . . . Having said that, I promise you, CBS News and ABC News and NBC News are not influenced by the corporations that may own those companies. Since I know one of them very well and worked for one of them.

That's the very same Charlie Rose who sat there with the CEO of GE and the CEO of News Corp. as an agreement was reached to order their news employees to stop criticizing the activities of Fox and GE in order to protect the corporate interests of those parents.

It makes no difference what one thinks of O'Reilly's attacks on the corporate activities of GE or Olbermann's criticisms of O'Reilly and Fox News. Whatever one's views on that are -- and I watch neither show very often -- those are perfectly legitimate subjects for news reporting and commentary, and the corporate decree to stop commenting on those topics is nothing less than corporate censorship. A reader last night put it this way by email:

It's interesting and somewhat shocking to me that a NYT article wouldn't even mention the effect on the hosts' journalistic freedom. . . . I assume that both Olbermann and O'Reilly would not have agreed to the truce, as the battle is ratings gold for both of them, and I'm sure they frankly hate each other and enjoy it.

The sad truth is that what Olbermann and O'Reilly were doing in this particular instance was one of the rare examples of good journalism on these types of shows. Olbermann was holding O'Reilly's feet to the fire about his repeated falsehoods and embarrassing positions. In turn, O'Reilly was giving the public accurate and disturbing information about General Electric, including extensive technology dealings with Iran. In my personal opinion, this was one of the rare useful pieces of information O'Reilly ever presented to his audience, and Olbermann was there to show how lousy the rest of O'Reilly's information was. Though it was in the context of a bitter feud, the two men were actually engaging in real journalism, at least in this case.

So now GE is using its control of NBC and MSNBC to ensure that there is no more reporting by Fox of its business activities in Iran or other embarrassing corporate activities, while News Corp. is ensuring that the lies spewed regularly by its top-rated commodity on Fox News are no longer reported by MSNBC. You don't have to agree with the reader's view of the value of this reporting to be highly disturbed that it is being censored.

This is hardly the first time evidence of corporate control over the content of NBC and MSNBC has surfaced. Last May, CNN's Jessica Yellin said that when she was at MSNBC, "the press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this [the Iraq War] was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation"; "the higher the president's approval ratings, the more pressure I had from news executives ... to put on positive stories about the president"; and "they would turn down stories that were more critical and try to put on pieces that were more positive." Katie Couric said that when she was at NBC, "there was a lot of undercurrent of pressure not to rock the boat for a variety of reasons, where it was corporate reasons or other considerations" not to be too critical of the Bush administration. MSNBC's rising star, Ashleigh Banfield, was demoted and then fired after she criticized news media organizations generally, and Fox News specifically, for distorting their war coverage to appear more pro-government. And, of course, when MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue's show in the run-up to the Iraq war despite its being that network's highest-rated program, a corporate memo surfaced indicating that the company had fears of being associated with an anti-war and anti-government message.

And now we have an example of GE's forcibly silencing the top-rated commentator on MSNBC -- ordering him not to hold Fox News accountable any longer -- because, in return, News Corp. has agreed to silence its own commentators from criticizing GE. The corporations that own our largest news organizations have extensive relationships with the federal government. Anyone (like Charlie Rose) who denies that those relationships influence how these news organizations "report" on the government -- driven by the desire which corporate executives have to avoid alienating the government officials on whom their corporate interests depend, or avoid alienating potential customer bases for their products -- is completely delusional. GE's forcing Keith Olbermann to cease his criticism of Fox News and Bill O'Reilly is a clear and vivid example of how that works.

* * * * *

On a very related note: this week, former Newsweek reporter Richard Wolffe was a guest-host on MSNBC's Countdown while Keith Olbermann is on vacation. When Olbermann is there, Wolffe is a very frequent guest on Countdown, where he is called an "MSNBC political analyst" and comments on political news. All of this, despite the fact that Wolffe left Newsweek last March in order to join "Public Strategies, Inc.," the corporate communications firm run by former Bush White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett, its President and CEO. According to the Press Release they issued to announce Wolffe's joining the company:

Wolffe, most recently Newsweek's senior White House correspondent, officially assumes his new position as a senior strategist on April 13, 2009. He will be based in the firm's Washington office, where he will advise several of its top clients. . . .

Public Strategies, Inc. is a business advisory firm that serves a diverse clientele including some of the world's largest and best-known corporations, nonprofit organizations, associations and professional firms. Public Strategies helps forward-thinking organizations assess public opinion and risk, and develops strategies for managing corporate reputation and uncertainty. Much of its practice involves managing high-stakes campaigns for corporate clients, anticipating and responding to crises.

Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program -- or serving as an almost daily "political analyst" -- is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist. Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, including corporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover. Yet MSNBC is putting him on as a guest-host and "political analyst" on one of its prime-time political shows. What makes that even more appalling is that, as Ana Marie Cox first noted, neither MSNBC nor Wolffe even disclose any of this.

This is a conflict so severe that it's incurable by disclosure: who wouldn't realize that you can't present paid corporate hacks as objective political commentators? But the fact that they don't even bother to disclose that just serves to illustrate how non-existent is the line between corporate interests and "news reporting" in the United States. Then again, Wolffe himself -- when it was previously revealed that he was exploiting his position as a Newsweek reporter covering the Obama campaign to leverage access to Obama in order to write a glowing book about him -- said this:

And [Wolffe] suggested he’s not that different from other reporters in an era in which the business and the profession of journalism have gotten closer and closer.

"The idea that journalists are somehow not engaged in corporate activities is not really in touch with what's going on. Every conversation with journalists is about business models and advertisers," he said, recalling that, on the day after the 2008 election, Newsweek sent him to Detroit to deliver a speech to advertisers.

"You tell me where the line is between business and journalism," he said.

That's who MSNBC is presenting as a host and "political analyst" on one of its news commentary programs: someone who is paid by large corporations to propagandize the public and who explicitly says that "journalists are engaged in corporate activities." Then again, MSNBC itself is censored by its corporate executives to ensure that the parent company's corporate interests are advanced by its "news reporting," so in many ways, Wolffe's sleaze and corporate whoredom are the perfect face for this network.

These dual stories of GE/Olbermann and Wolffe reveal what NBC and MSNBC really are about as vividly as anything since the "military analyst" scandal. Remember that indescribably informative NBC News/MSNBC scandal: when it was revealed that both news outlets (along with most other major television outlets) were presenting as "independent military analysts" a whole slew of former Generals with substantial, undisclosed corporate interests in the policies they were promoting and doing so in coordination with a secret Pentagon propaganda program? Despite front-page NYT promotion, Congressional investigations, and even a Pulitzer Prize awarded to the NYT's David Barstow for uncovering all of that, NBC's Brian Williams (like virtually every other news outlet) to this day has never so much as informed his viewers of this story, and they continue to use some of those very same former generals as "analysts."

There are many reasons why our establishment press exists to do little other than serve the interests of the political and financial establishment and to mindlessly amplify government claims. The virtual disapparance of the line between large corporate interests and journalism (as Richard Wolffe himself noted) is certainly one of the leading factors.

UPDATE: On Richard Wolffe's bio page at Public Strategies, Inc., the role he plays on MSNBC and NBC News is actually touted to the firm's corporate clients and potential clients:

In addition, Wolffe is an NBC political analyst. He provides political commentary on several MSNBC programs, Meet The Press, and TODAY.

They're basically telling their clients and prospective clients: if you hire us to control and disseminate your political messaging, you'll have someone working for you -- Richard Wolffe -- who has a regular platform on MSNBC and NBC News, where he's presented as an independent "political analyst." And this is how they describe what he does for the firm: "Wolffe provides high-level counsel and insight to our clients on how to manage their reputations in a complex public environment." How much more blatantly sleazy could that be?

UPDATE II: More on GE's control of MSNBC and NBC here.

Nelson: If Reformers Keep Attacking Me, Health Care May Be Dead By End Of August

Note from Greetings: Nelson is one of the biggest recipients of health care dollars from the industry. Perhaps it would be better to run MORE ads, to let the people of his state know where he stands on their personal well being, as opposed to his pocketbook. He's likely to try to kill it anyway.

Talking Points Memo, By Brian Beutler - July 31, 2009, 5:40PM

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) sure doesn't like being called out by health care reformers. Here's an ad that's been running in Nebraska, criticizing him for slowing down the legislative process.

In response, Nelson's spokesman says he's "looking to support bipartisan legislation that reduces health care costs, boosts the quality of care and expands coverage to people who can't obtain it now." But: "If this is an indication of the politics going into August, then health care reform may be dead by the end of August."

Shorter version: Critics should shut up about me and my fellow centrists or we'll kill health care reform. You can read the entire statement below the fold.

"Nebraskans don't need outside special interest groups telling them what to think. Senator Nelson has nothing but praise for Nebraska groups working toward health care reform. Unfortunately, he says, these outside groups undermine the sincere and dedicated efforts of people in our state.

"Recently, similar ads have run in Nebraska. Those ads by other special interests prompted hundreds of Nebraskans to call our offices, with 9 to 1 urging Senator Nelson to do exactly the opposite of what the special interest group wanted. In short, the ads backfired.

"If the impact is the same this time, Howard Dean's Democracy for America will be sorely disappointed. Further, these scare tactics are certain to further divide the public on health care reform, make it less likely Congress will pass real reform and call into question the motives of those who say they want reform, but use the issue to raise money to try to buy influence inside the Beltway.

"Senator Nelson believes that while most Nebraskans want health care reform, they don't want it rushed; they want it done right. He has said he will consider a "public plan" as long as it doesn't undermine the health coverage 200 million Americans have now. He supports Medicare, TRICARE and S-CHIP, and each is a public plan. He also helped establish Kids Connection, Nebraska's public-plan health insurance for children.

"In the Washington debate, various 'public plans' are still being considered, but no single plan has emerged. So, it's ridiculous to suggest that Senator Nelson is "leading the charge" --as the ad says--against something that doesn't exist.

"Nebraskans know Ben Nelson is an independent thinker. He also has a long record in the governor's office and the U.S. Senate of bringing people together and working constructively so important legislation becomes law. Today, he's looking to support bipartisan legislation that reduces health care costs, boosts the quality of care and expands coverage to people who can't obtain it now.

"If this is an indication of the politics going into August, then health care reform may be dead by the end of August."