Listening to the hearing

Cary Skelton 19, Roanoke, Virginia. — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:05:43 GMT

Good evening, Brian! Hope you had a nice, long weekend.

I have to say, I don't know too much about the Supreme Court myself, but it is an interesting process in the making. I was just glad to finally hear a few words from Judge Sotomayor herself, I don't think I had even heard the sound of her voice until today. I'm sorry you couldn't participate in an all-day live blog on msnbc.com, don't you hate when that happens? I hate when I go blank, or just don't have a thing to add to the conversation...or especially when you think of something after the fact.

I missed Lester on msnbc's Why Planes Crash premiere, thinking it was on at 7pm. I'm hoping to catch up soon.

Anyhoo, I'll join you soon!
-Cary

Listening to the hearing

Andrew, Oak Park, CA — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:11:32 GMT

Hi Brian... I know you didn't mean it literally, but Congress, not Presidents, declare war. I could insert a "unless you're GW Bush" bit of sarcasm, but I won't!

Listening to the hearing

Lisa McNeil,Alpharetta,Georgia — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:24:57 GMT

Good Evening Mr.Williams, Great to see you this evening for the broadcast! Another fine broadcast this evening. First of all the report by Mr.Pete Williams concerning the confirmation hearings of Judge Sotomayor. Even though she didn't speak much today she will be answering many questions tomorrow and Wednesday. It is true that her task of Justice is to apply the law and not be swayed by her own biases. She certainly has worked extremely hard to get to where she is today has much experience for the job. All the Senators have a huge stake in the nomination of her to the bench of the Supreme Court.
On another note the report by Mr.Potter from Florida concerning the murder of the couple who had adopted so many children some of special needs is so very tragic. Hearing in the report more people were involved is just horrible and one just wonders why anything like this would happen to such nice people who were so well liked in the community. It is good to know the children are safe. My thoughts and prayers go out to all the children. So very sad.

The report by Trish Regan and Scott Cohn about certain job sectors that are prospering was very encouraging. The one man testing video games and the man selling his own homemade salsa seem quite happy with their new career choices. It appears the wine business is flourishing too with sales very strong. People starting new career paths and being creative is paying off for them. It this tough economy and unemployment numbers being so high it was nice to see people passionate about beginning their own businesses and career choices.
Possibly tomorrow for liftoff of the Shuttle Endeavour. Hopefully, the weather will cooperate.
The "Making A Difference" segment by Mr.Miklasweski about the volunteers sprucing up the landscape at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. was so very nice. Such a wonderful annual project to gather volunteers to help keep the landscape beautiful for all Our Nations Fallen Soldiers. It really does have a deeper meaning when there are still soldiers fighting overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan. All the people seem so very happy doing the job with great fulfillment. Very nice and moving piece!
Thank You for the broadcast Mr.Williams. Peace to You and to All!

Lots of Love to Laurel,Jackie,Stephanie,Claudia,Celine,Anna,Lori,Cary and Matt!
Be Well Always!
Stay Extra Safe and Well Richard!
XOXO

Listening to the hearing

Elizabet, Reno, NV — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:26:39 GMT

Brian,
Earlier today, I read your tale of a dog's woe in the cargo hold of an airplane. Less than 2 hours later, I came across this article about a new airline just for pets, which will let them ride in the main cabin. Coincidence? Hmm...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/13/pet-airlines-airline-just_n_231004.html

Listening to the hearing

Vicki — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:35:14 GMT

Hi Brian,

Welcome back! I hope you had a beautiful three days off and got some rest.

First of all, thanks to the University of Phoenix for limited commercial interruptions. That was nice.

Congratulations to Dr. Regina Benjamin for all that she's done and being appointed Surgeon General.

It's disturbing to hear there are so many shootings taking place in Chicago that emergency rooms have almost run out of blood before. It's a good reminder for all of us who can, to donate blood. I haven't done so in yrs.

Hopefully the space shuttle will have "all systems go" soon. I've seen pictures of the lightning strikes that could have caused tremendous damage. The space shuttles have been overlooked throughout the yrs., as if it's an everyday thing and nothing could go wrong. I'll never forget the time I happened to be at the Kennedy Space Center, and was wondering why all those people were there. It was beautiful to see the shuttle landing.

Brian, I received the current issue of Time magazine. Sarah Palin was on the cover. A perfect time for face time, right? I looked and thought I was seeing things. She seemed to have on a bluish toenail polish (on the cover). I turned the pages and found that I was wrong. She was sporting purple toenail polish. I was looking through a magnifying glass at that point. She really could have used a pedicure. Where are those high heels when you need them? Sorry to be petty.

I enjoyed one of my favorite striped ties of yours. Thanks for a great broadcast and we'll see you tomorrow evening.

Vicki

Listening to the hearing

Cary Skelton 19, Roanoke, Virginia. — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:37:16 GMT

Evening, Brian.

Thank you for the Monday night broadcast. Despite all of the awful news heard this evening, you all did a wonderful job reporting it all. I loved tonight's Making A Difference report from Arlington, Virginia. It's a wonderful thing what these people are doing.

I hope you are watching HBO's documentary "Teddy: In His Own Words" on right now. I had almost forgotten it was on tonight. I'm loving the documentary, but wishing it were more than an hour long.

Goodnight and take care,
-Cary

Listening to the hearing

Will, Williamstown, MA — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:23:30 GMT

Brian, Presidents don't declare war. Congress does.

Listening to the hearing

Ginni, Hayward, CA — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:56:16 GMT

HI Brian:

Great broadcast and blog as usual. Lester did a great job on Friday night but you were missed. Glad you are back.

I know that everyone says that Sotomayor will definitely be confirmed and that the hearings are just the formailty before she takes her place on the bench and I hope they are right and the confirmation goes without a hitch. She is very well qualified. I am sure she will be a very good change for the Court and will bring much to her position. I do disagree with your blog in that you "did not have anything to say that would add to the covnersation". Very untrue. Your insights are what makes me and so many other's listen to your broadcasts every night. You are such an intelligent person and your insights would have been very well received. But, selfishly, I am glad you didn't as it might have meant we would not have had you reporting for us tonight. We got the better end of the deal.

As for the CIA and Dick Cheny mess, it does not surprise me that he would have told the CIA to keep something as serious as ordering them to capture and kill terrorists from Congress. I am sure more serious acts were kept from Congress. I know that there are times the people have to be kept in the dark about national security matters, but Congress should never be kept out of the look and should be made aware of everything going on especially if it affects our national security. I may be wrong, as I don't know that much about the workings of the CIA, but I don't believe their plans would be seriously hindered if Congress was told what is going one.

I am glad that the President is back and is putting all efforts into the health care issue. It is the most serious problem facing all of us each day and something has to be done to fix it. I am just not sure he will get it done in 3 weeks.

I don't know much about Dr. Regina Benjamin except from what I heard on your report but it appears President Obama has chosen the right person for Surgeon General. From what I learned of her past she is not a quitter and she will fight to help all those in need of care. Her love for medicine and her love of helping people will be what this job requires.

Glad to hear that there are some arrests in the killings of the Billings' family. It is hard to understand why these people were targeted. I know they say robbery was part of it but this was such a precisely laid out plan of attack with, from what they say, many people invovled, it does not make sense to me that this is just a simply home invasion with robbery at the base. I hope that once all of the police invovled are caught we will be able to get some answers as to what really happened. I am hopeful that the people involved will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. These murders were senseless and horrible and the family needs these answers to get closure. I am glad the children are being cared for by loving family and friends.

Your "Making a Differnce Segment" was fantastic. What loving and caring hearts these people have to give of their time to come and make sure that the resting place of those brave soldiers, men and women, who gave their lives for us, is well cared for. It must be so heartwarming for the families with loved ones at Arlington to know that there are people out there that have not and will not forget what their loved ones did for us.

Your Great Lake Swimmers interview and music clips made me by the CD. It is fantastic. Can't wait to hear the next installment of BriTunes. Yes, Cary, I had a hard time finding it locally here in California but Amazon has it in stock.

Have a great evening and glad you're back.

Will look for your blog tomorrow and your broadcast

Listening to the hearing

Norman Charles, NYC — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:15:01 GMT

From Brian's blog entry for today:

"Full disclosure: I had agreed to participate in the all-day msnbc.com live blog, but found I didn't have a thing to say that would add to the conversation...so I held off."

As a self-professed "Supreme Court buff", I guess Brian was attempting to imitate one of the Justices by recusing himself. So what's Brian's excuse for every other time when he doesn't recuse himself from commenting on a wide variety of subjects despite having nothing to add to those conversations? Brian should stick to reading from his teleprompter and leave the expert commentary to the experts.

Listening to the hearing

Norman Charles, NYC — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:57:28 GMT

I think we all know that Brian Williams and his producers are consumed with one goal above all others--achieving high ratings. To Brian and his team, having the highest ratings is far more important than delivering the most newsworthy stories of the day. Each evening, the Nightly News producers select stories based on their ability to attract viewers, rather than on their newsworthiness. That would explain why Nightly News recently transformed itself into Access Hollywood to cover Michael Jackson's death. It would also explain recent Nightly News non-stories about high heels, the Colorado elk population, a ladybug infestation (also in Colorado), Susan Boyle, and my personal favorite--high school students who like to hug each other (that breaking news story aired on May 28). But I had no clue about the depths to which Brian and his producers would descend just for the purpose of gaining a few extra ratings points. The following is an excerpt from a June 23 story on the tvnewser.com website. It describes the ratings for the previous week's evening news broadcasts:

"NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams won the week with a 3-day (Mon-Wed) average, but also lost more than half a million viewers from the week prior.

NBC averaged 7.75m Total Viewers Mon-Wed but on Thursday and Friday gave their program a different Nielsen code -- 'Nitely News.' (The correct spelling is 'Nightly News'). This is despite the fact that the network had regular coverage on those days. We're trying to determine if the U.S. Open Golf Championship had something to do with the coding change. Had Thursday and Friday been included, the average would have been lower. On Friday 'Nightly' averaged 6.29m Total Viewers.

An NBC insider tells us, even though the broadcast had full national coverage, the U.S. Open tends to affect viewership so the Thursday and Friday shows were not in the average. NBC says this is normal procedure."

Let's be clear about what happened here. The producers of Nightly News intentionally misspelled the name of their own broadcast when they submitted it to the Nielsen ratings service on June 18 & 19 so that those two newscasts wouldn't be counted as part of the week's Nightly News ratings. That way, the lower ratings on those two days wouldn't bring down the average weekly rating of the broadcast for Monday through Wednesday. (It should be noted that on both of those days, Nightly News aired at its regularly scheduled time.) This is unbelievable. This is shocking and reprehensible. This is the equivalent of giving a false name to the police so that their computers can't detect any prior arrests. This is manipulating the stats. This is cheating. For their actions, Nightly News should be banned from participating in the Nielsen ratings service. But this was not a one-time occurrence. The following excerpt is from the July 7 tvnewser.com website:

"NBC Nightly News won the week, but lost about 40,000 Total Viewers from the week prior. The Brian Williams broadcast still had a 1.19M viewer lead over #2 ABC World News. The Charles Gibson broadcast gained 160,000 viewers week-to-week and had its best delivery since the week of May 4.

And for the fifth time this year, NBC News has coded one of their shows differently, which takes it out of the Nielsen average. Despite having full coverage last Thursday, Nightly News was called 'Nitely News.' NBC has also done this on June 9, 12, 18 and 19.

NBC experienced low coverage due to sports on June 9 (84%) and June 12 (83%). But the other three days they had regular coverage but those were either a Thursday or Friday, the two lowest rated days of the week."

For five days in June, NBC producers intentionally misspelled the name "Nightly News" when they submitted it to Nielsen in order to avoid lowering their weekly ratings. Of course, the question is: How many other times has NBC pulled this stunt? Maybe any night the producers feel like their viewership might be low, they submit Nightly News as "Nitely News". Perhaps they have a whole slew of aliases: Nightlee News, Nightleigh News, Nightly Nooz, Nightly Nuze, Nightly Nughes, etc. Obviously, this is okay with Brian. He and his producers have sold their souls to the devil for the sake of a few ratings points. I don't understand how Brian Williams (or Bryan Williams or Brian Willyums) can look at himself in the mirror without feeling a deep sense of shame over this unethical practice. Clearly, there is an integrity gap at NBC. Brian owes his viewers an apology and a promise that he and his producers will immediately end this vile deception.

Listening to the hearing

Pat Bauserman, Lewisburg, WV — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:59:12 GMT

I understand a story tonight (7/14) concerns a shortage of Family Practice Docs. At this Osteopathic School (WV) as well as many others, our mission is to place Family Practice/Primary Care docs in rural areas, as well as in other areas in need. Why dont you ever mention the fastest growing medical profession, Osteopathy? It's not only allopaths anymore. Let's hear about osteopathic medicine!!!

Listening to the hearing

Harrison, Appleton WI — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:01:45 GMT

Great newscast last night! What angles do you look for in a story if there really isn't anything happening? With something as big as the nomination process... is it okay if you simply say there was nothing to report?

Listening to the hearing

Joan Chapman, Cheshire, CT. — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:13:34 GMT

Brian -

I tried to watch on MSNBC yesterday, but their new screen graphics make it impossible to watch - I'm spending this week with CNN and CSPAN. The MSNBC screen is simply too cluttered.

Sorry

Joan

Listening to the hearing

Harish Dand — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:16:09 GMT

We need more basic medical care. Add more Doctors Assistant that dont have to go through 10 years of traing and make them work ata lesser price under Dr's supervision. Cover evryone who is in school, colleges under a government subsidized program. Offer basic medical services to anyone making less then $ 30,000 throgh subsidized govt health care program. This will solve crisis at all the ER in Hospitals as the patient will get help much before it becomes major health problem. This will solve inceasingly non covered citizens on any health plan.

Listening to the hearing

Vicki — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 19:01:47 GMT

OMG, OMG Brian,

You've been a bad, bad boy, you sly fox! I'm sure it's the NBC producers are trying to pull a fast one here and there. I don't keep up with that though. I'm glad someone has the time to. That's some nice work there.

I agree about MSNBC's new graphics. And I can't read the trailers at the bottom. They're too small. Please tell them to change it back to the old way. And also on MSNBC- do they have to advertise the special about porn around the 7 p.m. hr.? Why are they doing a special about porn anyway?

And by no means do I blame you Brian, but someone needs to clean up things on MSNBC.

Vicki