Round One of the fight against deregulating the media even further began last night in Los Angeles with the first "Public Hearing on Media Ownership" held on Thursday August 31 at the University of Southern California Davidson Conference Center.  And what a round it was.

It began as a slow fight with conferences on how to personally testify to the FCC Commissioners but ended up to be a real slugfest.  Before I get ahead of myself the event was organized by "The National Latino Media Council" in partnership with "Media Alliance" and "Free Press".  It was an informal hearing not on the official schedule but all 5 FCC Commissioners were invited.  The 2 Democratic commissioners Michael J. Copps and Jonathon S. Adelstein were the only 2 that could make it.

The important issues discussed were the effects of big media on diversity and local programming, children's programming, the number of viewpoints, the number of jobs, and pay.  The web site containing information on the conference is:
link

Last week I heard Scott Ritter, the former Marine and Chief Weapon Inspector on the radio and he said that he heard from informed insiders that know, that the U. S. will bomb Iran in June.  He repeated the statement again this Monday morning on the radio.The purpose is not elimination of nuclear threats but regime change.  Those that brought us the war in Iraq think that bombing will create sufficient unrest and instability to provoke the people to revolt.  He said he was thinking about writing an op-ed piece but has not gotten around to it yet.

Expert opinion is that bombing Iran would be disastrous for the U. S.  Iran has been planning for something like this for some time.  Iran has not been weakened by sanctions, is not a weak country, and their research facilities are underground.