Kos, “Raw Data,” and the Mainstream Media
by Michael Collins

When DailyKos publisher and owner Markos Moulitsas demanded that his pollster produce raw data from the polls Moulitsas purchased, he established a principle of election polling transparency that could open up the checkered history of presidential elections in the United States.

The controversy erupted when Moulitsas (kos) fired his polling company. He was unhappy with their results and demanded that his pollster, Research 2000 (R2000), turn over raw data for review. Moulitsas said:

“Early in this process, I asked for and they offered to provide us with their raw data for independent analysis — which could potentially exculpate them. That was two weeks ago, and despite repeated promises to provide us that data, Research 2000 ultimately refused to do so.” kos

Read more.

John Paulson’s $20MM gift to New York University is to endow a chair in Economics named after Alan Greenspan. This might have slipped by our notice over the holiday weekend, but for the intrepid eye of Dan B:

“The Stern School will apply $5 million of John Paulson’s gift to support two endowed faculty chairs. The first chair is named for alumnus Alan Greenspan (BS ’48, MA ‘50, PhD ’77), leading economist and former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Dr. Greenspan was Chairman from 1987-2006, and was the first person to be appointed to five consecutive terms through a period covering four presidential administrations. He has also held a number of board positions. Dr. Greenspan is the author of The New York Times best-selling book, “The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World” (Penguin Group, 2007) and works as a private advisor providing consulting through his company, Greenspan Associates LLC.”

Read more.

Gulf Seafood Gets Chemically Tested for Oil, Not Dispersant
by Marian Wang

NOAA, the FDA and the Gulf states have been rigorously testing Gulf seafood for oil-doing smell tests with teams of human sniffers, and performing chemical tests for the harmful polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, found naturally in crude oil.

But they’re not chemically testing-at least, not yet-for the presence of oil dispersant. BP has thus far applied more than 1.7 million gallons of one chemical dispersant, Corexit, to the Gulf. (The lack of dispersant testing for seafood has been mentioned by The Palm Beach Post and CNN, but we first noticed toward the end of this Los Angeles Times piece.)

Read more.

John McTiernan is the man who made the must-see documentary, The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove (as well as such big-budget hits as Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October).

MCM

From Andrew Kreig:

I’d like to share with you my article yesterday “Feds Bully ‘Die Hard’ John McTiernan Into Plea for False Statements” describing the heavy-handed prosecution of the filmmaker, who last year made the documentary, “The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove.” Here is the version on OpEdNews: http://www.opednews.com/articles/Feds-Bully-Die-Hard-Movi-by-Andrew-Kreig-100713-303.html

The same story was published also by outlets with differing political perspectives:

Huffington Post, Feds Bully ‘Die Hard’ McTiernan Into Plea for False Statements, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kreig/feds-bully-die-hard-mctie_b_644462.html

Connecticut Watchdog, http://ctwatchdog.com/2010/07/13/feds-bully-%e2%80%98die-hard%e2%80%99-moviemaker-mctiernan-into-plea-for-false-statements

American Daughter Magazine, http://forum.americandaughter.org/

Andrew Kreig
Executive Director, Justice Integrity Project
Washington, DC 20004
www.justice-integrity.org

Fox’s Chief Legal Analyst: Bush and Cheney Should Have Been Indicted for “Torturing, for Spying, for Arresting Without Warrant”
By David Edwards, Raw Story
Posted on July 12, 2010, Printed on July 14, 2010

Fox News’ senior judicial analyst made some surprising remarks Saturday that may go against the grain at his conservative network.

In a interview with Ralph Nader on C-SPAN’s Book TV to promote his book Lies the Government Told You, Judge Andrew Napolitano said that President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney should have been indicted for “torturing, for spying, for arresting without warrant.”

The judge believes that it is a fallacy to say that the US treats suspects as innocent until proven guilty. “The government acts as if a defendant is guilty merely on the basis of an accusation,” said Napolitano.

Read more.

Tell Secretary Vilsack: No Genetically Modified Alfalfa!

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/monsanto_alfalfa_vilsack

“They Just Don’t Know Who They’re Messing With”
An ex-BP media wrangler in the Gulf blows the whistle on the company’s information stranglehold.
By Kate Sheppard

If you’ve been reading Mother Jones lately, you’ve heard about BP’s stranglehold on media access [1] in the Gulf, which has included preventing reporters from visting oil-soaked public beaches and barring its spill cleanup workers from talking to the press [2]. Now, one of BP’s ex-media enforcers is speaking out.

Read more.

Poll: Texans Fed Up with Education Wars
By TFN

Today the Texas Freedom Network Education Fund released results from a statewide survey of what Texans think about the intersection of politics and religion with public schools. We released results from two questions back in May. One showed overwhelming support for putting teachers and scholars, instead of politicians on the State Board of Education, in charge of writing curriculum and textbook requirements. Another revealed that nearly 7 in 10 Texans agree that separation of church and state is a key principle of the Constitution.

Read more.

Coast Guard Changes Its Mind About Media Access to Safety Zones
by Marian Wang

Two weeks after it issued new rules requiring journalists to apply for access to cleanup operations [1], the Coast Guard has changed its mind about the 65-foot “safety zones.”

It’s now changing the procedures to allow for more media access, after several news organizations [2] protested the rule’s restrictions on reporting. The public, however, continues to face the same restrictions.

Read more.

From Albert Jongewaard:

The following link will take you to an interesting blog I came across. The author does a decent job of covering the spill in each of the affected states, although he doesn’t touch much on FL.

Take a moment to read through the captions and the author’s notes. He sums up a lot of the reality of the situation–plus the pictures are well taken.

http://davidseaverphotography.blogspot.com