Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Friday, August 22, 2008

Fox airs illegal ad 'by mistake'

By Libby



Not content with an endless parade of incorrect chryons, Fox News went with the big error today and inadvertently aired an ad they had allegedly refused to run by the extreme right wing group American Issues Project which has ties to McCain through one of its board members.

The right-wing American Issues Project has spent $2.8 million on an ad questioning Sen. Barack Obama�s (D-IL) relationship to William Ayers, a founder of the 1960s radical group Weather Underground. ...



... Fox News accidentally aired the most of the ad. During a segment about Obama�s ties to Tony Rezko, Fox News attempted to play McCain�s latest ad on the subject. However, the Ayers ad began playing instead.

One has to ask, if they weren't going to run the ad, what the heck it was doing in the queue just waiting for someone to press the wrong button, but the mistake whether actual or contrived, may just have a silver lining.

Election experts yesterday raised concerns that this ad may violate election law. Laura MacCleery of the Brennan Center for Justice told Huffington Post that the ad is clearly �express advocacy� and �cannot legally be paid for with corporate money, including those of a non-profit.� In response, the American Issues Project has agreed to disclose its individual donors to the FEC.

I can't wait for someone to leak those names, which I believe the group has been keeping secret despite calls for disclosure. It would be very interesting to see who's financing this smear campaign.



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