Making Progress

Miss. No. 1 in Past Due Mortgages; No. 8 in Foreclosures

According to a new report (pdf) by the Mississippi Economic Policy Center, "Mississippi has the eighth highest foreclosure rate and the highest percentage of borrowers with past due home loan payments in the country. The high rate of delinquency coupled with a very high rate of subprime, or high cost, lending suggests that Mississippi is likely to experience increasing rates of foreclosures in the months to come," the MEPC said in a release.

U.S. House to Consider FISA Bill Sans Telco Immunity

The bill is coming out of committee in the House and should get a floor vote this afternoon. It grants the president many of the powers he wants for roving wiretaps, but it doesn't immunize the phone companies for going along with the administration's previously illegal use of those powers.

From the story Tempers Flare on FISA:

President Bush wasted little time weighing in on the House, issuing a statement Thursday morning blasting the measure and promising a veto if it were to pass the Senate.

“Members of the House should not be deceived into thinking that voting for this unacceptable legislation would somehow move the process along,” he said.

The bill would not grant retroactive immunity to the telecommunications companies that aided the government in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and would include a court approval process for FISA warrants—two measure that have led Republicans to call the bill “dead on arrival.”

No telco immunity is a good thing and Bush's arguments that we sleep less safely without this bill are a red herring. Remember...there's already a secret court that has never rejected a request for a secret warrant for the NSA.

The phone companies broke the law by going along with the White House's illegal requests, and they should therefore be forced to face lawsuits from their customers. Just because the government asks you to do something doesn't mean it's right, nor does it mean you should comply. This is America. When the President asks you to do eavesdrop on parties in this country, you should say, "Sir, may I see the warrant?"

I think it's important to send this bill back to the Senate and get them to send it to George Bush. He can either have the war powers he wants or he can cover his ass...he can't have both.

Money quote:

“Once again, the President continues to try to bully the Congress and mislead the American people on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,” said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) in a statement put out just minutes after the president’s.

“He refuses to accept that under our system of government, neither the President nor the telecommunications companies gets to decide which laws to follow and which to ignore.”

SF Bay Guardian Wins Suit over SF Weekly

Many will rightly consider this insider baseball, but we've been watching with interest a long-standing battle between the independently held San Francisco Bay Guardian (the sort of alt-weekly that defines the term, particularly those with long roots) and the San Francisco Weekly, owned now by Village Voice Media, the largest chain of newsweeklies in the country. VVM owns, clearly, the Village Voice, as well as the Dallas Observer, Houston Press, LA Weekly, Denver Westword, Seattle Weekly, Nashville Scene and others. The company was formed in a 2006 merger between Village Voice Media (which owned 6 papers) and New Times Newspapers (which owned 11), having originated as the Phoenix New Times. Management is largely that of the previous New Times company.

This week, the SF Bay Guardian won a predatory pricing lawsuit against SF Weekly and its parent company, in which a jury found that the Weekly has systematically offered advertising below its cost, running the SF Weekly into the red for over a decade while supporting it with profits from other chain papers. The goal, in the eyes of the jury, was hurt the Bay Guardian's business. The verdict, including some damages that automatically triple under California law, reached over $15 million.

Perhaps most entertaining is the fact that both are weekly papers, with varying degrees of solid reporting and snarkiness. A money quote from the SF Weekly's The Snitch blogger:

When The Snitch heard the verdict, he was disappointed but not surprised. As this blogger has written, the state law under which the Guardian sued is practically an invitation for inefficient competitors to sue their rivals in hopes of a big payday.

(The Snitch is a "corporate editor" for the newspaper chain, Andy Van De Voorde, based out of Denver.)

From the Bay Guardian, we get something slightly more reported and relevant:

Evidence produced in the trial showed clearly that the Weekly had been selling ads below cost. In fact, the paper had lost money every year since the New Times chain, now known as Village Voice Media, bought it in 1995. Those losses totalled $25 million over the 12 years.

As newspaper owners who have occasionally had our own Goliath come after us with unsavory plans and ambitions, we root, in the end, for fair pricing and fair competition. May the best journalism win!

Senate Votes for Telco Immunity in Wiretapping

The Senate caved to the White House on immunity for telecommunications companies while overturning amendments that would have provided greater checks in the interest of civil liberties. Senator McCain voted in favor the final measure, while Obama and Clinton did not make the vote. Clinton issued a statement from Texas saying she would have voted No.

Cochran and Wicker both voted "yea."

So take THAT you damned inconvenient civil liberties!

Super Tuesday Thread

What's your take? Already some suprises with West Virginia going to Huckabee and Ron Paul actually pulling a few delegates. (Are you supposed to say something after typing "Ron Paul" like "Yee-haw!"?)

The LA Times is blogging that Hillary's campaign is talking about potential defeat in California ... is that to lower expectations so that when they DO win, it'll seem like an upset or to lower expectations so that when they DON'T win it isn't an upset? (ahem.)

Results so far: Huckabee takes West Virginia with 52%

Which Candidate Do You 'Match' The Most?

I found this over on Wired.com -- it's a quiz patterned after online matching services that lets you walk through a series of questions and then tells you which presidential candidates you're most similar to. Supposedly non-partisan and so on. (It's amazing what grants will fund, eh? :-)

Check it out at Glassbooth.org. Praise: It's great to see something focused on issues vs. the horserace. Complaints: it's a little black-and-white in the way it rates your similarities to candidates and it's "issue weighting" test at the beginning seems to work against people who care about most issues. (Hint: to answer the most questions, give each issue a 1 first, then add a few points to the issues you care the most about.)

WJTV Digital to run 'Retro' Content

According to a press release the Retro Television Network announced today that it would be broadcast on WJTV's digital signal. (Digital signals allow local networks to broadcast multiple channels in the same amount of spectrum that used to be reserved for a single analog channel.)

Finally, years of spectrum squatting finally pay off in Gomer Pyle and Petticoat Junction re-runs. Thank God for the FCC. ;-)

FCC Approves Media Cross-Ownership

Sure, you could try to maintain your CorporateDaily(TM) hegemony in a market like Jackson by locking up free distribution points in exclusive contracts. Or, you could turn to a variety of non-daily products, including forced circulation papers you toss in people's yards or send to their mailbox regardless of their interest in your product. You might even paper the sidewalks with half-assed competitors to your competitors...cookie-cutter print manifestations of your print partnerships in sites like Cars.com and Apartments.com.

But what if, instead of all that rigamarole, you could shore up your profits by buying a local TV station? Consolidate the rate card, offer JoJo and his elephant a chance at both TV and newspaper stardom...and then sit back and let all those independent media voices quiet down a bit more. Wouldn't that be nice?

A divided Federal Communications Commission approved what could be the biggest change in the country’s media-ownership rules in more than a decade, allowing newspapers and broadcasters in a market to buy each other.

On a 3-to-2, party-line vote, the FCC approved Chairman Kevin J. Martin’s plan to eliminate its more than 30-year-old ban on cross-ownership. Instead, newspapers in the top 20 markets will be able to buy any station that isn’t among the top four in its market. In smaller markets, such a purchase could be approved if the buyer promises to add at least seven hours of news a week to the bought stations.

JFP Radio Takes Day Off

We'd planned to have a follow-up to the Farish Street discussion that's been going on for a few weeks, but all the principals are out of town or tied up today and early deadlines for the holidays are squeezing us here at the JFP for the next few weeks. So, I'm going to call this a wash and we'll take the day off.

Tune in next week!

Brad Pitt Fronts 'Make It Right' NOLA

Cool site features designs and information about the Make It Right (MIR) project for New Orleans. Architects were tasked with the goal of making low-income housing for the 9th Ward; the designs can't cost more than $150,000 to build (supposedly the foundation will help with financing to make $150k "affordable" in NOLA), have to include a porch, 3 bedrooms, modern green technology and most of the designs are made to withstand another storm (or otherwise ride it out, like one house that floats). The project is fronted by Brad Pitt, who donated $5 million and has been raising money and awareness for it.

makeitrightnola.org/

Dig some of that architect clipart they must have for people and cars. Oh...and everybody gets mod mid-century furniture, too, apparently. ;-)