I know I'm not really good at the politics blogging thing, but it seems to be the only thing on my mind. And things keep happening that really piss me off.

Living in Australia puts me a little behind in the news and since mr. ralph reads news on the web a little more often than I do, he happened to know about the Sinclair Group shenanigans before I did. The only US news program we get on a regular basis, News Hour with Jim Lahrer on PBS gets shown here a day later.

Yes I know we really should get cable tv, but we had some problems due to the fact that we live in a block of flats where no one else has cable and in order to get it everyone would have to get it also. But basically what I'm getting at is that I only heard the scandalous news last night about how they plan on forcing all their sindicates to show a 90 minute long political commercial and pass it off as news in prime-time, commercial free television just two weeks from a very critical election in which the candidate they support is not doing so well.

Although the major news networks have already turned down the vets proposal to show the documentary, the Sinclair group said the program is a "newsworthy event."

As quoted from this Washington Post article, Vice president Mark Hyman said, "This is a powerful story, the networks are acting like Holocaust deniers and pretending [the POWs] don't exist. It would be irresponsible to ignore them."

In order to try to give equal partisan time they've invited Kerry to sit on a panel where so far he is the only one invited to discuss the allegations made in the film. I've read articles that say Kerry denies ever being told about the film, or being invited, and others that say he has refused the invite. I personally don't think he should attend since the showing is illegal and it would be basically like walking into the lion's den.

How can a group that is so obviously in full support of president Bush claim that they are only reporting this because they feel it is newsworthy? Campaign finance records show that company's executives have donated thousands of dollars to Bush's campaign. In April, the company was in the news for refusing to run a "Nightline" show in which hundreds of names of American troops killed in Iraq were read by ABC anchor Ted Koppel.

Republicans argue that Michael Moore used his documentary Farenheit 9/11 to drum up support for John Kerry. The real difference between Michael Moore's documentary and this one is choice. I saw the Michael Moore documentary but I also paid for it. This thing is being passed off as news, which it is not.

On the Sinclair groups website they offer an email address for anyone who wants to comment on their decision. But if you are really outraged, why not make some phone calls to the local station owned by the Sinclair group. I think it is too easy to delete emails. Here is a link that shows information on how you can boycott.