NOTE: This post will stay at the top for the rest of Sunday.

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I had the opportunity to be on Dirk Thompson’s WTVN show “The Radio Deli” yesterday afternoon. The appearance idea came at me so fast that I didn’t get a chance to promote it (partly because my aggressive e-mail filter snagged Dirk’s first message to me — zheesh).

The topics were Thursday’s about-face immigration cloture votes of George Voinovich and Sherrod Brown, and their weak explanations (Voinovich; Brown) for their switches from Tuesday’s and earlier votes.

I’ll link to a podcast when it’s up.

During the show, Dirk brought up a must-be-known point about Voinovich’s vote that he posted at his now-blogrolled blog on Thursday (also true of Brown, to be noted below; original coverage is at Hot Air, whose post really should be read in full):

Forty members voted during the alphabetical roll. Note that fully six of them switched — and only five switches total were needed to kill the bill. The other fencesitters must have noticed, sensed the momentum, and recalibrated their own votes accordingly.

….. (after) the 40th no vote, which doomed the bill ….. Everyone ….. knew it was dead (assuming they’d been keeping count), which makes the late switchers like Coleman, McConnell, and especially Voinovich switchers of convenience, not conviction. Why vote yes on a bill that you know is going to lose?

Very, very weak, but apparently in-character move by George, who was final “no” vote number 53.

Oh ….. and Sherrod Brown was no better (see Hot Air, again), and in a very real sense worse. As “no” vote number 50, he also didn’t get his vote on the record until the bill was already down in flames. Again — convenience, not conviction.

Principled liberals (assuming the term is valid) should be every bit as outraged, if not more, at Brown’s abandonment of his long-time immigration-related positions as conservatives are at Voinovich’s transparent join-the-crowd vote. So, as I asked yesterday, while Voinovich’s feet have been held to the fire, where’s the outrage on the Left over Brown?

What a marvelous pair of opportunistic and apparently core-belief-free senators Ohioans have elected.

Matt Sheffield’s post over at Ace’s place (”The Attempted Crucifixion of Frank Luntz”) noted the heat PBS had received for having GOP pollster Frank Luntz participate as an analyst at last Thursday’s Democrat debate:

The blog left’s puppet master, David Brock, sends out an “alert” informing them that someone who might possibly be conservative is going to be allowed to report as a “mainstream” journalist.

….. Thankfully, PBS has not backed down. Luntz, who is a respected pollster and is often quoted in liberal publications is not getting the shaft, making him one of the very few Republicans that has (so far) managed to escape the assault of the conservaphobic left.

Mr. Brock and Media Matters (MM) are being quite selective.

In August 2006, longtime “Friend of Bill” Clinton Vinod Gupta’s Info USA, which had spent its entire corporate history in “data collection and distribution,” made what should have been seen as an eyebrow-raising acquisition:

OMAHA, Neb. & PRINCETON, N.J.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Aug. 4, 2006–infoUSA Inc. (Nasdaq: IUSA), the leading provider of business and consumer information products, database marketing services, data processing services and sales and marketing solutions, today announced that it has entered into a definitive merger agreement under which it will acquire Opinion Research Corporation (Nasdaq: ORCI) for $12.00 per share in cash.

The Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) acquisition was completed on December 4.

Gupta’s longtime connections with the Clintons, up to and including a nebulous consulting arrangement between Info USA and Bill, along with contributions to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, were cataloged in detail by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann in a May 24 New York Post column. A May 20 New York Times investigative piece (now behind TimeSelect firewall; excerpted at this BizzyBlog post), whose authors were perhaps unaware of the Clinton nexus, wrote up an Info USA affiliate as one of the main providers of the “sucker lists” used by elder-scam artists to fleece vulnerable seniors.

Within 45 days of the acquisition’s consummation, CNN, the same network whose late-1990s boss Rick Kaplan obsessed over covering for Bill Clinton’s assorted problems, made a very interesting announcement (original PDF saved as HTML for fair use and discussion purposes):

For Release: Jan. 12, 2007

CNN Announces New Polling Partner Opinion Research Corporation

CNN political director Sam Feist announced today that Opinion Research Corporation will become CNN’s new polling partner as the network moves toward the 2008 elections. Beginning in 2007, polls released by the network will be identified as CNN/Opinion Research Corporation surveys.

“Opinion Research Corporation’s reputation for independent, objective analysis and its excellent reputation in the industry make the firm the ideal polling partner for CNN,” Feist said. “As the network gears up to offer the most in-depth and expansive coverage of the 2008 election, Opinion Research Corporation will be a key part of giving viewers the accurate and relevant information they demand.”

Opinion Research Corporation, founded in 1938, is widely known and respected for its independent, non-partisan polls. The polling firm has worked with CNN since April 2006 and in that time has conducted national polls, speech reaction polls, state polls and flash/overnight polls.

One can’t help but wonder, given the change in ownership, whether ORC’s vaunted independence and objectivity are endangered. Regardless, its independence in appearance is long gone.

David Brock’s Media Matters was the primary driver of the objection to Luntz. As these MM site searches show (”Clinton Gupta” and “CNN Clinton“; both entered without quotes; no results relevant to what is discussed here returned), Brock’s George Soros affiliates-backed crew, while whining about one appearance of a GOP pollster on PBS, “somehow” hasn’t gotten around to noticing a very real and long-term pollster-related conflict of interest occurring on a daily basis at what appears, once again, to be the Clinton News Network.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From the Catholic News Agency:

Washington DC, Jun 26, 2007 / 11:24 am (CNA).- In an effort to reduce the digital divide separating the Church in Africa from the rest of the world, two organizations have launched a project to provide satellite radio to thousands of Catholic parishes in the continent.

The joint initiative of Faith Satellite Radio (FSR) and the World Catholic Association for Communication (SIGNIS) hopes to reach about 17,000 African parishes this year.

FSR and SIGNIS will be broadcasting high-quality digital Catholic programming to 31 countries in Africa, courtesy of Vatican Radio.

The broadcasting will be available in nine different languages.The new initiative offers both delivery of a satellite radio receiver and the broadcasting technology and content.

The radio receiver is equipped with a data port that transforms it into a wireless modem capable of downloading data to personal computers; thus the radio can also broadcast multimedia content.

FSR will be offered to African parishes through the ‘Adopt a Parish in Africa’ campaign. For $38 US a month, parishes or individuals outside of Africa can “adopt” an African parish and offer them the FSR service.

For more information, visit: http://www.faithsatelliteradio.com.