As big media faces a more public-interest oriented Congress, some public policy battles are moving to state legislatures. Phone giants interested in entering the video market want to get rid of local franchising, the locale-by-locale permission to use public right-of-ways that cable companies have had to secure.

A community with enough foresight to take advantage of franchising--and Columbus, regrettably, has not--has been able to leverage Public, Educational and Government (PEG) channels with budgets to run them, to provide high-speed governmental and civic sector networks, to require services in low-income communities, and to generate other benefits, services and local income.

As the third of four members of the Cuyahoga (Cleveland) County Board of Elections resigns under pressure from Ohio's new Secretary of State, additional potential illegalities in Hocking County have resurfaced with new weight against a GOP executive director already under serious fire.

The four members of the Cuyahoga BOE have been asked to resign by Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat elected in November, 2006. Brunner has issued a stinging five-point complaint, much of which derives from the report done by U.S. Congressman John Conyers in the wake of the 2004 presidential election, and on reporting done at http://www.freepress.org/ and research by grassroots election protection activists.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is right to point Unitary Executive George W. Bush toward a copy of the Constitution.  The President (should Bush care to resume that legal role) is permitted to veto bills but not to write them.  In particular, the President cannot rewrite legislation after it has been voted on and before he signs it.  Nor can any member of Congress.

Bush's longstanding habit, of course, has been to rewrite laws after he signs them, by the use of "signing statements."  This is also completely unconstitutional.  And it is, I think, his most likely course of action with the "supplemental" war bill – assuming the Democrats don't weaken it.  He wants the money without delay, and he knows the Democrats and the media will avert their eyes from any signing statement.  However, he does not want the media to report that he signed a bill containing a withdrawal deadline – even an unenforceable one.  So, he may veto as promised.

Someday the Democrats may learn an important lesson about the collective wisdom of the media in the nation's capital: On important questions of policy and politics, the Washington press corps is almost always wrong. They are full of firm opinions about everything from clothing, haircuts and marital problems to political tactics, but the safest course is to ignore their advice.

            At the moment, the most popular line among the certified pundits is that the congressional Democrats are too zealous in probing Bush administration corruption -- and specifically the apparent politicization of the federal law-enforcement system by the White House and the Justice Department.

            On television and in print, Washington's wise folk warn that if the Democrats insist on dragging Bush deputy Karl Rove up to Capitol Hill to testify about the purging of eight United States attorneys, the public will turn on them. These finger-wagging journalists insist that Democrats must "legislate" rather than "investigate."

"If my competitor were drowning, I’d stick a hose in his mouth and turn on the water."
--Ray Kroc

"…a funny, jowly, canny, barbarous guy who lives in a multimillion-dollar condo on Park Avenue in Manhattan and conveys himself about the planet in a corporate jet and a private yacht. At sixty-seven, he is unrepentant in the face of criticism. He describes himself as a "tough man in a tough business"….."The animal-rights people," he once said, "want to impose a vegetarian's society on the U.S. Most vegetarians I know are neurotic.""

--Jeff Tietz’s description of meat processing magnate, Joseph Luter III (from his Rolling Stone article, "Boss Hog")