Day: April 27, 2005

The New York Times article opens with:

ON the morning of Saturday, Feb. 26, a day before the Academy Awards, the actress Carrie Fisher [right] woke up in her Beverly Hills home next to the lifeless body of a gay Republican political operative named R. Gregory Stevens.

Turns out they were close friends, although I doubt they talked about politics very much. She is a second generation Hollywood leftie. Stevens worked in the first Bush White House at age 26, who went onto be “political fixer manipulating elections in backrooms and palaces from Costa Rica to Croatia, Thailand to Togo, South Korea to the former Soviet Union.”

Is this this a trend?

April ’05 marks “the sixth consecutive month where FNC declined versus prior month in M-F, primetime P25-54 (every month since Nov ’04),” CNN’s press release says. The 25-54 demo is coveted by advertisers. One insider called it a “downward spiral.” FNC still has more demo viewers than CNN, though (443k vs. 304k in April). Here are FNC’s month-by-month weekday primetime averages in the 25-54 demographic:

Oct. 04: 1,074,000 / Nov. 04: 891,000 / Dec. 04: 568,000 / Jan. 05: 564,000 / Feb. 05: 520,000 / March 05: 498,000 / April 05: 445,000

> Also: In April 2005, FNC’s weekday primetime demo average decreased 25% compared to the year-ago, while CNN increased 27%.

It’s good to see that the county government in Charlotte, my old hometown, is considering giving spousal benefits to same sex couples. Pam’s House Blend out of Durham has a great round up of the ins and outs.

Naturally, wingnuts are threatening recrimination at election time for Mecklenburg County Commissioners who support the move, but some of us remember that when GOP commissioners tried to de-fund an arts agency for putting up a few bucks for a professional theatre production of “Angels in America” they were the ones who were turned out by voters.

Charlotte, with a metro population of 2 million – and 4 million residents in a 100 mile radius – is the biggest city, by far, in the Carolinas. It is also the second largest repository of banking resources in the US. Both Bank of America and Wachovia Bank are headquartered there, among dozens of other banking, insurance and other financial institutions. As Pam points out, Charlotte-Mecklenburg was one of a handful (three?) NC’s 100 counties that voted for Kerry in the 2004 presidential elections.

The national Dems have long ignored North Carolina’s significance to the party, despite the fact that it is the 10th largest state in population – will likely move ahead of New Jersey in size in the next census (largely because millions of people from Jersey have moved there). NC has had Democratic governors for the past 24 out of 32 years and its legislature is controlled by the Dems. When we start to make inroads in the South, I predict NC will be the first GOP stronghold to fall.

(Btw, Charlotte is called the Queen City because it was named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of mad King George III.)

My congressman, Rep. Henry Waxman, Ranking Minority Member of the Committee on Government Reform and a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, sent a letter to his constituents yesterday that perfectly illustrates how the GOP is avoids dealing with issues that would redound poorly to their backers in the corporate plutocracy that is now running this country.

These are the issues that Waxman and the Democrats in the House are urgently working on:
– DOD Audits: Halliburton Overcharges Top $212 Million
– Withheld Data Shows ‘Dramatic Up-tick’ in Terrorist Attacks
– Waxman Amendment Would Reduce Dependence on Foreign Oil
– Rep. Waxman Requests Hearing on Pediatric Vaccine Stockpile
– President Urged to Reject Pledge Requirements in HIV/AIDS Funding

Instead of dealing with these issues, here’s what the GOP leadership is holding hearings on:

COMMITTEE HEARING
Wednesday, April 27 — The Government Reform Committee will hold a hearing on the National Football League’s steroids policy as part of the Committee’s ongoing examination of steroids use in sports.