Republican Values in California

California’s Republicans would reach into the brains of children and steal their ability to read before raising taxes.

posted by greg via Twitter on July 21, 2009 @ 5:19 pm

Greg Saunders, The Talent Show

KSFO host Lee Rodgers wants to massacre all Iraqis. Citadel Broadcasting approves!

6:24 am 6-30-2009

Lee Rodgers on the Iraq people. "You people do what ever you want to each other and this country just don't give us a reason to come back or we'll massacre every last damn one of you."

Audio link Short Windows

Audio link Short MP3


Audio link longer MP3

I think that it is important for the Iraqi people in America and in Iraqi to know what Lee Rodgers has to say about them. I want as many people as possible to hear this. The talk radio right seems to think that we want to silence them. I want MORE people to hear them, especially the people who are paying for it and the people that he wants dead.

But I think it is really most important for KSFO advertisers to know this. Because they are the only ones who have any say about what goes on at KSFO.

Dear Bay Area BMW. Are you aware you are sponsoring someone who is calling for America to massacre the Iraqi people? If you don't want to support this serious suggestion of genocide, please stop advertising on KSFO.

Dear Bay Area Mercedes dealers. Will you sell a car to an Iraqi? Or do you, like Lee Rodgers, want to kill all of them? It seems bad for business to call for all of your future Iraqi customers to be massacred. Please advise me of your views on massacring Iraqis. Are you for or against it?

If you don't want to support serious suggestions of genocide, please stop advertising on KSFO.

Dear Toyota Repair Centers. Would you print an ad in a paper saying, "Toyota supports the future massacre of every last damn Iraqi. We sponsor Lee Rodgers, the KSFO host who said that. Come and get your car tuned up! Iraqis need not schedule an appointment."

If you won't do that with a print ad, then why do you do it with your radio ads?

Advertisers don't know he says this stuff. The management of Citadel Broadcasting, ABC Radio and KSFO do. Since they don't distance themselves from Rodgers they give tacit approval to his views. He's not going to walk back his comments, he's not going to apologize, he's not going to be fired. They see him as an asset and will never do anything about his violent eliminationist rhetoric.

KSFO's anti-gay rights host Brian Sussman: The New Anita Bryant!

Beach Blanket Babylon
Jo Schuman Silver, President, Steve Silver Productions Inc.

Dear Jo:

Are you aware that you advertise on KSFO, where host Brian Sussman attacks gay activists on the air and actively works to deny gays equal rights? Sussman has stated that gay rights activists are out to "completely destroy and pervert this country". On July 10th a caller, Steve in Fairfield, asked this question:

"Brian, can I marry the person I’m in love with?" Sussman responded,

NO YOU CAN’T YOU JERK! Now listen to me! No you can’t jerk! Now listen to me right now. Don’t play this game with me Steve. What if you’re in love with two people? My guess is as a homosexual man you’ve been in love with a hundred how many are you in love with right now Steve? HOW MANY!?

SIF: Here comes the name calling.

BS: Can you marry all of them Steve? No. You. Can’t. You have to marry somebody of the opposite sex they have to be over the age of 18 you cannot marry somebody of family and you can only marry one at a time. We all have the same rules and regulations Steve, that’s where it stands. You lose the argument and you’re going to lose at life my friend with that kind of an attitude because your particular kind can’t reproduce! Get him off the line.

808-5600 on KSFO.
(Audio link mp3) (Audio link Windows)

(complete call Audio link MP3) (complete transcript link)

A host shouting someone down on right-wing talk-radio may seem business as usual, but Sussman also actively uses the power of his microphone to attack advertisers whose views don't match his.

Last November when KSFO advertiser PG&E donated money to support the right for gays to marry, Sussman "outed" them on the radio and told his listeners to purchase the services of another vendor. Listen to him tell listeners how to leave PG&E for another company (audio Windows mp3).

When Beach Blanket Babylon was advertising last November Sussman fortunately missed the donation made by David Lincoln King, your General Manager. If he had spotted it, would King have been lumped in with others Sussman believes are out to "destroy and pervert this country"?

Sussman says that gays are not equal to straights because they "can't perform the marriage act that we call the union." (audio links short long)

Sussman attacks gays in other areas as well. Sussman believes that "billions of dollars are wasted to fight AIDS" (audio link) . I believe your late husband and BBB founder, Steve Silver, would have disagreed.

Knowing his shouted views and financially damaging actions to advertisers, do you still choose to advertise on the show? But wait, there's more!

The host who often reads your commercials is traffic and weather man "Officer Vic", (audio link). Listen as Sussman and "Officer Vic" mock and denigrate members of the GLBT community and their fight for equal rights. (audio link)

As an organization that uses satire and knows what's funny and what crosses the line, I think you can see both the failure of humor and the offensiveness in that banter. Is this who you want as the voice of Beach Blanket Babylon?

And if you consider moving to other programs on KSFO please note the other people in their line up, do you really want to be associated with Dr. Laura, Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity?

When it comes to political speech the First Amendment talks about what the government can and can't do, but as Matt Zimmerman from the Electronic Frontier Foundation said, "While such radio personalities certainly have a right to air their views, the First Amendment says nothing about a right to advertiser-subsidized speech."

When you sponsor this show you are giving your tacit approval to these views. You are an advertiser, not the government. You can choose to withdraw your financial support, which is your right and it doesn't limit their speech.

I recently watched the movie "Milk" about assassinated gay activist Harvey Milk. Listen to Sussman on a proposed Harvey Milk Day: "That's how we should probably commemorate Harvey Milk Day, pooper scooper day." (audio link)

That is his idea of humor, but what is not funny is that the new Anita Bryant is broadcasting out of San Francisco on a station with SF in the call sign and it is all financed by local San Francisco sponsors who are unaware of his comments. Now that you are aware, I urge you to reconsider your advertising on KSFO. Please let me know what action you choose to take regarding future advertising on KSFO.

Sincerely,


cc
Gary Peden, Treasurer, Steve Silver Productions Inc.
David King, Secretary, Steve Silver Productions Inc.
Kate Kendell, Executive Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights
Calla Devlin, Communications Director, National Center for Lesbian Rights
Kevin Kopjak, Charles Zukow Associates

Joyful Wedding Video

Thanks to GradeSchoolTeach who know about my love of joyful dancing videos

Caller says "Bulls**t" on KSFO. Sussman Show. Alert the FCC!

(I'm reposting this from when I wrote it on 6/29/09 because I didn't have access to the audio clips then, they are now included.)

Dear FCC:

Below is a profanity complaint:

On 06/22/2009 at 06:15 pm on the Citadel Broadcasting Corporation (Public, OTC:CTDB) on radio station KSFO, 560 AM in San Francisco, CA on the Brian Sussman show starting at approximately 6:15 pm a regular caller, "Farra" uttered a profanity during a conversation with host Brian Sussman. The caller was talking about people in Iran:

"They want to be part of the structure of the whole world, that want to another country. They want to communicate they don't want isolation. And the whole thing is not between Mousavi or Ahmadinejad is just people being tired of this bulls**t mullah business for three decades."

Sussman: Farrah I appreciate your call here on KSFO, thanks for being with us at 18 minutes past six o'clock.

Here is the short audio link of the specific phrase. It is stored here in two formats
MP3 short link
WMA short link

Here is the audio clip of the entire call.
MP3 long link
WMA long link

All the material above can be filled in directly with the FCC online form (link)
Or you may email your completed complaint form and supporting documents to fccinfo@fcc.gov.
Here are other ways to file (link)

Please take this information and file a complaint.

LLAP,
Spocko

-----------

Conservative talk radio is always talking about their desire for people to follow the rule of law. This is their opportunity to put their money where their mouth is.

As I said in more detail here

These are THEIR rules. I'm just asking that they follow them. This isn't about me, this is about them. The religious right worked overtime to make those rules have financial teeth. Not 6k fines like in the old days, but $350,000 or $550,000 (the hosts should remember that the unions, which the right hates, ensured that those fines wouldn't be levied to the host personally. Be sure to thank your union rep next time you see him.)

Broadcast Radio and TV people love to go on about how profane bloggers are, I remind them that for the most part we are NOT writing or podcasting in a regulated environment. They are. Their industry is the one that is regulated in exchange for the use of the public's airwaves. If they want to fight for the option to say profane words go right ahead. Of course you will be arguing against the Christian Right and their guy, Justice Scalia, who remembers the rules that were put into place that they agreed to:

"Programming replete with one-word indecent expletives will tend to produce children" who use them, Justice Scalia wrote.

For decades the rules have been the same and the broadcast industry have established protocols and tools to protect themselves. They use seven second delays, tape delays, call screeners, producers or engineers with the ability to dump profanity. It's not as if they didn't know this might happen or didn't have the tools. This is just the cost of doing business in the environment that they created.

I'm sure a potential $350,000 fine would have been nice to avoid and, like Fox with Bono, I'm sure they will scramble the lawyers to attempt to dismiss it, or stop it using all the standard tricks.

I have said in the past that Citadel management's insistence in seeing these KSFO hosts as assets and not liabilities is a mistake, but one that they have chosen to make. I don't know how many more ways I have to demonstrate this to them.

Chris Matthews Challenges Campbell Re: Obama's Birth

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

These are your people now Rep. Campbell.

Good Hair Day

My main computer has been dead for almost a month. I found this on it. I don't remember where I got it.

Some fun audio clips can now be posted! Stay tuned!

Time Travel Cover up! Birther's Busted!

U.S. Army Maj. Stefan Frederick Cook says Obama can't be president because he hasn't proven he was born in the United States. Therefore, he refuses to be deployed to Afghanistan.

[Cook] and his lawyer Orly Taitz have filed a lawsuit so the Major does not have to go to war and fight in Afghanistan because that would be, ”in violation of international law by engaging in military actions outside the United States under this President’s command.”

Obama-Time-Travel-Coverup Birthers insist that a giant conspiracy has taken place. The birth certificate showing that Obama was born in Honolulu in August 1961 is fake, they say. Birthers are also certain that some kind of time travel treachery has been undertaken by shadow pinko government agents, who warped themselves back to 1961 to insert notices in the Honolulu Advertiser and the Honolulu Star Bulletin saying that "Mr. and Mrs. Barack H. Obama" gave birth to a son on August 4, 1961.

--------------
h/t Boing Boing

I don't think I've heard Brian Sussman's take on this. Who will he support? The solider who won't go to war because he believes Sussman's views on Obama not being a NBC, or the chain of command that tell the Major to follow the chain of command and considers the President the Commander in Chief?

One course of action will land the Major in the stockade (which might be what he wants). It's this years Section 8. This way he doesn't have to dress as a woman or pretend to be gay.

I love Musicals. Especially Joyful Singing and Dancing

I've posted this before, but I love it so much I want to post it again. If you want to watch some of this singing and dancing fun in SF check out Beach Blanket Babylon

PR Tricks of the Health Care Industry

Remember how powerful the movie "The Insider" was? A whistleblower from inside the tobacco industry revealing what they knew and how they suppressed it?

Former CIGNA vice president Wendell Potter is going on Bill Moyers' Journal on Friday, July 10, 10:00pm here in the Bay Area on KQED/Channel 9.

This might be one of the more insightful shows on TV this month.

Wendell now works for my friends at the Center for Media and Democracy and has recently written how the health care industry has adopted the tactics of the tobacco industry. (link)

Webcam choreography

You know how I love those videos where a bunch of people dance together in public to music? Well this one is an example of people "dancing" together over webcams!

The musical group is Sour. Keep watching, the video gets better.
I've done a bit of video editing so I appreciate how hard it is, but this must have been crazy hard to do.

clip via boingboing via BBVBox

They Kept Jackson's Brain!

Michael Jackson to be buried without his brain

The Los Angeles coroner's office is waiting to run tests on the King of Pop's brain to help determine the cause of death. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jul/07/michael-jackson-buried-brain


The scarecrow in the Wiz was Jackson. But Nipsey Russell was the Tinman. Where is his heart these days?

Spring Training for the Darwin Awards

Fireworks Hammers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuayUN1Ihd8

HT to Hotpant in boingboing's comment section for the title.

Found in North Carolina Sewer!

Creepy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcKpx2DxGwY

C.H.U.D?

A Public Option for Health Care: Tell Senator Landrieu: Support the people of Louisiana NOT insurance companies.

The pull quote at the end is:
Tell Senator Landrieu:
Support the people of Louisiana
NOT insurance companies.