January 19, 2012

Gingrich Blames Elite Media, Crowd Goes Wild

Gingrich plays victim. Blames media for what his ex-wife is saying.

Newt: CNN ‘Despicable’ To Bring Up ‘Trash’ Open Marriage Story | TPM2012

Watch out, people, this snake is the worst of the right. Dangerous, just doesn't care what he says. He will destroy everything. So far beyond Bush and Rove...

Even if he doesn't get the nomination, his just being there is whipping the right into a frothing, riotous mass that is going to be very bad for the country and world.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:06 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 14, 2012

NY Times Gives Romney The Cain Defense

In which the NY Times avoids being a "truth vigilante" -- goes to the town of one of the companies in the Romney video, talkes to people who were not affected by what Romney's company did.

This is the Cain defense: there were actually women he didn't harass.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:11 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 9, 2012

My Local Paper - A Typical Day

Reading my local morning paper, I see that it is a typical day...

Front page story about the exponential growth in the crow population since a 1981 measurement, Counting crows: Number of black birds on the rise in Bay Area ('Eden For Crows' in the print edition), can't find an explanation, but doesn't bring up that the climate here is changing. 

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:37 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 20, 2011

Politifact Kills Its Credibility

If you take a government program, change everything about it, destroy its core purpose, but keep the same name, is it the same program? Politifact.com says yes, and even goes so far as to say it is "The Lie Of The Year" to say it isn't -- because it still has the same name.

Early this year Republicans voted to privatize Medicare, ending it as a government insurance program, instead giving limited vouchers to people to use to purchase private insurance. Everything about the program would change, and because of the loss of economy-of-scale that government provides the costs to seniors would be much higher while the coverage would be lower. This would effectively end the program.

Americans were outraged by this. People love Medicare, and depend on it. And the cost-shifting these changes would bring mean that the cost to the larger economy would greatly increase. But since government wasn't paying those costs anymore, the pressure to raise taxes on the 1% would go down.

People took up arms that Republicans were trying to end Medicare. Newspaper editorials expressed shock and outrage. Bloggers were angry. Politicians pledged to run against Republicans who voted for this plan to end Medicare.

Enter Politifact.com

Politifact.com's About page says, "PolitiFact is a project of the Tampa Bay Times and its partners to help you find the truth in politics." The look at statements, research the facts, "then rate the accuracy on our Truth-O-Meter – True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False and False."

Politifact examined the statements that Republicans voted to "end Medicare" and decided this was a "lie" -- because the program would continue to have the same name. This week Politicat doubled down on this absurd conclusion, saying that claiming the program would end is the "Lie Of The Year."

That's right, they say it is "The Lie Of The Year" to say that a program ends, as long as there still exists a program with the same name.

The Kicker

HOW did Politifact decide that this is the lie of the year? Digby explains, in Paul Ryan Stuffed The PolitiFact Ballot Box, that Rep. Paul Ryan rigged this by sending people to vote at Politifact. She writes,

Unfortunately, the Villagers will be gleefully using this as proof that their dreamy young idol Paul Ryan is a good guy after all but it's probably a good idea to demand another source for anyone who cites Politifact on the veracity of any claim going forward. This will make it easier on the Republicans in the beginning, since they actually make a profit at their lying, but in the long run it will be for good. Clearly Politifact can't tell the difference between a lie and and a fact and is subject to obvious right wing manipulation.

Richard Eskow: PolitiFiction: A 'Lie Of The Year' Sends Alice Back To Wonderland, "If you thought that the "aspect of Medicare" that directly pays for hospital coverage was Medicare, then apparently you are a very silly person ..."

Others Weigh In

Paul Krugman: Politifact, R.I.P.: "This is really awful. Politifact, which is supposed to police false claims in politics, has announced its Lie of the Year — and it’s a statement that happens to be true, the claim that Republicans have voted to end Medicare."

Steve Benen: PolitiFact ought to be ashamed of itself: "This is simply indefensible. Claims that are factually true shouldn’t be eligible for a Lie of the Year designation."

Jason Linkins at Huffington Post: Politifact Has Decided That A Totally True Thing Is The "Lie Of The Year," For Some Reason

Ben Adler at The Nation: Politifact Peddles Falsehood About Ryan Plan to Privatize Medicare

But Politifact, an independent organization associated with the St. Petersburg Times, chose instead a claim that placed third in their poll, thanks to an effort by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to stuff the ballots. The only problem? The big “lie” is true. "Republicans voted to end Medicare,” by the the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other Democrats, is the winner, despite the fact that Republicans did indeed vote to end Medicare when they voted for Ryan’s budget.

John Aravosis at AmericaBlog: Politifact wins own "lie of the year" after letting Paul Ryan rig the results

Joshua Holland at AlterNet: PolitiFact, Fearing a Right-Wing Backlash, Calls Democrats' 100% True Claim About the GOP Medicare Plan the "Lie of the Year",

Conservatives have long excelled at working the refs -- the corporate media. And this week they scored a resounding victory, as PolitiFact, the non-partisan fact-checker, dismissed the results of its readers' poll to declare the entirely truthful statement that House Republicans voted to “end Medicare” as we know it the “lie of the year.”

Politifact.com has ended its credibility.

Full disclosure: Politifact fact-checked the claim in a post of mine that 400 people have as much wealth as half our population, which was picked up by Michael Moore for use in a speech in Wisconsin. In their article they misidentified me, misstated and just got wrong what I sent them, linked to the wrong post, but concluded that the claim is true.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:25 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 19, 2011

Media Consolidation In One Chart

When was the last time you saw someone from organized labor in the news explaining why unions benefit the middle class? This chart explains why our "new" is the way it is: Media Consolidation: The Illusion of Choice | The Big Picture

Want to know why Occupy is mocked as "dirty hippies?" See this chart.

Want to know why CEOs are presented as heroes, like sports stars? See this chart.

Want to know why the wealthiest are presented as "job creators?" See this chart.

Want to know why there still has been no explanation or demand for answers for why we went to war in Iraq? See this chart.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:40 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 26, 2011

Wa Post Again Says Don't Believe Your Own Eyes

I went to Occupy Oakland Nov 2 for the "general strike" and maybe 20% of the people there were African-American, another 20% were Hispanic, another 10-15% were other ethnicities. But the Washington Post says I didn't see that: Why blacks aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street - The Washington Post

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:26 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

November 10, 2011

NY Times Says Obama Bailed Out Banks

The conventional wisdom machine in operation: No bailouts, Republicans agree at debate in Michigan

On a day when the stock market plummeted amid fears that Greek and Italian debt might bring European financial institutions to collapse, the candidates each rejected the idea that the United States should intervene to help, arguing that U.S. taxpayers should not be responsible for the missteps of foreign countries and companies and that the Obama administration’s bailouts of banks here two years ago amounted to government overreach.

The fact that a NY Times reporter has been tricked by the Republican misinformation machine, on something as well-known and important as this, is significant.

Note this article has been changed: (was reporter fired?)

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 10, 2011

An earlier version of this article incorrectly attributed the bank bailouts of two years ago to the Obama administration. The Bush administration was responsible for the initial bank bailouts, and the Obama administration followed with additional bailouts.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:34 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 20, 2011

NYTimes On Climate

Here is how the corporate/conservative movement succeeds in keeping the public misinformed: No reporter will get fired for promoting big corporate interests, no reporter will have career advancement from taking them on.

OK I just got around to reading this. A whole "how come?" story on how the US is an outlier on climate change, why isn't it in the national discussion anymore, and not mentioning Koch Brothers or oil company funding of the conservative movement even once. Sheesh. Whatever Happened to Global Warming? - NYTimes.com

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:12 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 26, 2011

Shutdown And Hostage-Taking -- It Is NOT Both Sides Doing It

One side says, "Never mind the deal we just agreed to, cut this or we'll shut down the government" and the other side says, "This isn't fair, and it hurts people. We can't keep agreeing to pay these ransoms, this has to stop!" Is this "both sides squabbling?" Is this "Congress can't get its act together?" Or is this a group of hostage-takers using media obfuscation of what is going on as cover for a radical strategy to turn people against government and democracy, while the "other side" tries to stop them?

So here we are, another fight looms over shutting down the government. This time the Republicans have taken disaster relief hostage and are using it as a lever to demand we cut even more of what We, the People do for each other, so that the big corporations and the wealthiest 1% can have even more wealth and power. Many in the media are reporting this as "both sides squabbling" but this is not what is happening.

Democracy depends on the public being informed so that they can hold their representatives accountable. So the media has a responsibility to correctly identify, in clear terms, just who is doing what. "Both sides do it" tells people not to bother to vote, that government and democracy don't work, that you should just tune ou and leave it to the plutocrats to run things. Stop it!

"Blame Both Sides" Reporting

The Chicago Sun-Times, in Government on brink of shutdown again blames "Congress", calls it "bickering" and "posturing" and blames "Congress."

More "blame both sides" reporting is found in today's Progressive Breakfast, hiliting this NYTimes story, Flood Victims Getting Fed Up With Congress says the current hostage-taking is "a dispute between Republicans and Democrats in Congress over money for the Federal Emergency Management Agency,"

“Neither side wants the other side to get credit for doing anything good,” Mr. Golembeski said. “Elections are coming up.”

Neither side wants the other to get credit. Nice.

“Members of Congress are playing with people’s lives, not just their own political careers,” said Martin J. Bonifanti, chief of the Lake Winola volunteer fire company. “While they are rattling on among themselves down there in Washington, people are suffering.”

Dear NY Times, "members of COngress" are not doing this. ONE PARTY is doing this. The story offers nothing to counter the quote.

“Members of Congress are intelligent, but they have no common sense,” Ms. Swithers said. “They fight too much. They should be put in a corner and take a timeout and start working together as a team. I’m so sick of hearing Republicans this and Democrats that.”

Dear NY Times, This fight is not "Republicans this and Democrats that" it is Republicans taking disaster relief hostage and using the suffering of the people you quote as a lever to gut programs like green energy.

Norman Ornstein writes about this problem, in What ‘The Washington Post’ Doesn’t Understand About the Looming Government Shutdown,

One of the biggest problems of reporting on our dysfunctional politics has been the reflexive tendency in “mainstream” media to balance, via what is increasingly false equivalence. A glaring example was a front-page, above-the-fold story in Saturday’s Washington Post by Lori Montgomery and Rosalind S. Helderman, titled (in the print edition, though not on the web), “Gloom Grows as Congress Feuds.” The story was about the looming showdown, and possible government shutdown, over disaster relief funding. The piece makes sure to include a comment from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor blaming Democrats, ends with a comment from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blaming Republicans, and includes a comment from an independent analyst blaming both.

If you reflexively "blame both" you are not informing the public and you are not serving democracy. There are people who will want to vote for the ones who are trying to help We, the People watch out for and take care of each other. And there are people who will want to vote for the ones who have a strategy in play to eliminate government so that the biggest corporations and wealthiest few can use their wealth and power to have their way. But our media are not letting the public know who is doing what.

Blaming "Both Sides" Is An Anti-Government Strategy

In Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult, retiring Republican Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren explains why Republicans try to make government dysfunctional while pushing the "both sides do it" narrative. They do it on purpose as a strategy to make people hate government and democracy,

Far from being a rarity, virtually every bill, every nominee for Senate confirmation and every routine procedural motion is now subject to a Republican filibuster. Under the circumstances, it is no wonder that Washington is gridlocked: legislating has now become war minus the shooting, something one could have observed 80 years ago in the Reichstag of the Weimar Republic. As Hannah Arendt observed, a disciplined minority of totalitarians can use the instruments of democratic government to undermine democracy itself.

[. . .] A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters' confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that "they are all crooks," and that "government is no good," further leading them to think, "a plague on both your houses" and "the parties are like two kids in a school yard." This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s - a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn ("Government is the problem," declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

They do this on purpose, to turn people against government, and then when people are disgusted and looking the other way they can just grab the loot -- your savings, your retirement, your wages, your common wealth, your rights.

What Can We Do?

There is a session titled Taking Back the Media: Embracing New Media and Using it to Our Advantage at the Take Back The American Dream conference next week. Nicole Sandler, Timothy Karr, Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter will be speaking about how to overcome the corporate-media lock on information.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 29, 2011

Stop Calling This A "Debt Crisis" -- It Isn't

You have probably been hearing about "the debt crisis." I can't open a newspaper or turn on the radio or TV without hearing about "the debt crisis." Well stop calling it that, because that isn't what is going on. There is no debt crisis; the only crisis going on is the threat of several members of the House to vote against raising the debt ceiling if they don't get what their way, thereby sending our country into default. They are trying to get around the rules of democracy and force deep cuts in the things We, the People do for each other while keeping taxes really low for the wealthy.

The Fight

There is a fight going on in Washington over whether we should have a democracy that works for all of us, or a plutocracy that runs things for the benefit of the already-wealthy. Unable to change public opinion, the conservative Republicans are trying to force changes in who our government is for and who gets to have a say in how things are decided. These ideological conservatives say government "takes money out of the economy" by spending on education, infrastructure, health care, etc. for you and me and our small businesses and startups, and they want that money to instead go to the billionaires and large, multinational corporations that fund their campaigns. As you know, they already voted to eliminate Medicare, and voted for cuts in Social Security, education, infrastructure spending, and all the other things We, the People have decided to do for each other, so we know they are serious about this. They say if they can't have a country that is run their way then we can't have a country at all.

"Debt Crisis"

The "mainstream media" has decided to name this fight a "debt crisis." This leads people to think that somehow the country is in crisis over debt, when the crisis is over a few people forcing default if they don't get their cuts. There is no debt crisis. There is a lot of debt, the result of tax cuts, increases in military spending, wars and giveaways to large corporations that have occurred under the Bushes and Reagan. But the way to solve a problem that resulted from tax cuts and military spending increases is to put taxes back where they were before Reagan, and cut the military back at least to where it was when we were fighting the Soviet Union, even though the Soviet Union is long gone.

Giving In To Hostage-Takers Is A Mistake

Last year these conservatives took the unemployed hostage, refusing to keep unemployment benefits going unless we extended the bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The hostage-taking succeeded.

So, having succeeded at taking hostages, the conservatives then took another, even bigger hostage. They demanded big spending cuts, outside of the normal budget process and decision-making mechanisms of our democracy, or they would "shut down the government." The hostage-taking succeeded.

So, having succeeded at taking hostages, the conservatives have taken another, even bigger hostage. This one is the big kahuna of hostages. If they refuse to raise the debt limit the country could go into default, destroying our economy and the economy of much of the world.

The official policy of the US government on hostage-taking is as follows:

“Based upon past experience, the U.S. Government concluded that making concessions that benefit hostage takers in exchange for the release of hostages increased the danger that others will be taken hostage. U.S. Government policy is, therefore, to deny hostage takers the benefits of ransom, prisoner releases, policy changes, or other acts of concession.”

It says that past experience has shown that giving in to hostage-takers "increased the danger that others will be taken." We gave in to hostage-takers, and the result was that more and bigger hostages have been taken. During these "negotiations" every single time Democrats have agreed to their demands it has resulted in their asking for even more.

It was a mistake to give in then, and it would be a mistake to let them get anything from taking hostages this time. If they get rewarded again next time is guaranteed to be even worse.

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:56 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 25, 2011

Marketing Works

Marketing works - especially when it has a very big budget, is repeated endlessly and goes unanswered. 46% of voters think the media has a liberal bias.

The Hill Poll: Most voters see media as biased and unethical - TheHill.com

A full 68 percent of voters consider the news media biased, the poll found. Most, 46 percent, believe the media generally favor Democrats, while 22 percent said they believe Republicans are favored,,,

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:39 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 3, 2011

The Real Weinergate Scandal

See the pic!! litbrit: Dear Media: Is that a REAL scandal in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:58 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 31, 2011

The Politics of 2012 and Maybe 2016

Will Sarah Palin, Congressman Paul Ryan or Newt go under the bus? This is quite a polemic for our Republican brethren that have always made hay on their brilliant use of language while we Dems contemplated our sleepy intellectualism. Perhaps finally in the aftermath of the failed assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, the President's irrefutable victories, and the Arab spring -- maybe the forces have finally aligned for the Democrats together with social media to counter balance the megaphone of the Right wing propaganda.

Given that language and propaganda are not working, who will be the first to be thrown under the bus for the greater good of the Republican Party? Will it be Sarah our old pal from the McCain campaign that has built a $25M industry around her 2008 candidacy to the chagrin of the Party elders? Or will it be the "real" Palin appropriately coined as such by the supporters of Michelle Bachman on national television? Or have the women folk run their course in Republican Land? And if so has the time come to "man-up" with a few good, old white conservative male Governors from Conservativeville - like Tim Pawlenty or Jon Huntsman? Or better yet will it be Newt who inappropriately danced on the head of Congressman Paul Ryan and his budget plan -- only to refute it later? Sadly, for the Republicans all of this is off putting for guys like Mitt, or even Governor Chris Christie that appeal to the moderates of both parties.

Admittedly, any candidate, male or female, needs the proverbial brass cajoles, or other such accoutrements to challenge this sitting President after the take down of Osama bin Laden. This factoid together with Obama's recent tough stance on the Middle East clearly levels the playing field. The scare tactics of the past cannot work at this rodeo particularly when bundled with the wholesale lunacy of the Republican leadership on the debt ceiling, Medicare and the budget. Vice President Biden in an LA Times piece summarizes well when referring to the Osama take-down as a "defining moment" for the Obama presidency. Certainly, this together with the broken Republican message machine is having an impact. Terms like "Mediscare" are not getting the same kind of traction as "ObamaCare" did just last year, or the coinage of the term "entitlement" used to pollute a whole generations' thinking on Medicare and Social Security. Of course, Newt and his merry gang of language shapers keep trying to spin, but it is not sticking. Maybe in Newt's case, folks have had enough of those that behave badly, pander family values, but live on the edge of exorbitant wealth. For him it appears that there is just no way to explain away things like the Tiffany's account to the Middle Class. Further is there now cause to wonder if the day has come for Sarah, sweet Sarah, who walks the walk on reality television, but lives shall we say in Palin vernacular, high off the hog.

Indeed, the President and the Party are on the right side of the budget, Medicare, Social Security, national security, jobs and climate change. But can he and the Dems maintain this momentum when the banks, remember those pesky money men, continue to behave poorly. The reality is that folks are as fed up with these fat cats as they are with the empty threats of Right wing rhetoric and the bad behavior of men of a certain age and power whether they represent Hollywood, government or international politics.

Note to the Democratic Party: clean up the banks, the bankers and all of the bad behavior of their ilk and 2012 is a shoe-in, and maybe even 2016. Let's think like Republicans and chart the waters for the next eight years.

Posted by Michelle at 11:01 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 16, 2011

Warning Labels For Newspapers

Journalism Warning Labels ｫ Tom Scott

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:42 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 31, 2011

Did American Workers "Get What They Deserved?"

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

What did people expect would happen when they voted for Reagan, Bush and other conservatives, or supported their policies? In the Holland (Michigan) Sentinel community columnist Ray Buursma writes, American workers got what they deserved. Some of the things he says might resonate with many of us,

Remember the Reagan standard? Are you better off today than you were a decade ago? Two decades? Three? Unless you make more than $380,000 a year, the answer is no. In fact, your standard of living over the last quarter century has actually decreased while millionaires have added 30 percent to their net wealth. Why? Two reasons.

First, hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs went overseas while the politicians you elected did nothing to stop them. Yet you continue to elect leaders who offer nothing but tax cuts, as if that would stem the flow of disappearing jobs.

Did you demand your leaders address America’s trade imbalance or continuous outsourcing of jobs? Did you demand your leaders require foreign countries to buy a dollar’s worth of American goods for every dollar of goods they sell here?

No and no. You didn’t bother.

Buursma writes that instead of resenting people who make more because they are in a union, people should join a union and fight for your job, wages and benefits. He continues,

Maybe you’re thinking, “I’m not a union worker, so this doesn’t affect me.”

Stop being stupid. Union benefits provide a standard other companies have to match, or at least come close to. When those benefits are cut, yours are, too. Or do you think you operate in your own little employment vacuum?

Agree or disagree, please click through and read his entire piece.

Whose Fault?

There is no question that things are not going the way they should be going. We see decline all around us -- all pointing back to the changes made after the election of Ronald Reagan. Tax cuts led to massive debt. Deregulation led to mine, oil and financial disasters that cost us more than deregulation ever saved. The infrastructure is crumbling. It seems like we are entering third-world status.

So is it the fault of American workers that their wages and benefits have declined as jobs are shipped overseas?

I don't blame working people. After all, they're working! So they're busy, and stressed, and focused on work. They can't be expected to keep up with the little details and facts and nuances -- especially when they are attacked daily with a barrage of well-funded and professionally crafted corporate/conservative propaganda!

This assault on information and truth has been going on for decades. Under Reagan there was a dramatic shift toward "market" -- one-dollar-one-vote -- sources of information and away from objective, citizen-oriented democratic -- one-person-one-vote -- sources. This market-sourced information necessarily reflects a conservative/corporate view because it is driven by money and profit instead of humanity and humanity's needs.

Information for Democracy!

How do we counter the corporate/conservative assault on truth? One answer to the problem of getting accurate, objective information is to use (and support) alternative sources that are not offered by the conservative/corporate machine. Here is a list of a few links to alternative news sources. Please send these to relatives, friends, and even post them to conservative forums.

• Campaign for America's Future -- and especially sign up for Progressive Breakfast as well as the afternoon emails.
• AlterNet
• TruthOut
• Talking Points Memo
• Daily Kos
• Daily Agenda
• Womens eNews
• Reader Supported News
• Common Dreams
• Smirking Chimp
• Mother Jones
• The Nation
• Op-Ed News
• The Progressive
• Think Progress
• In These Times
• American Prospect
• Huffington Post

PLEASE suggest more progressive information and news sources in the comments! And forward this to others.

Added suggestions, not necessarily just news:
AFL-CIO Now Blog
Manufacture This
Scholars & Rogues
Crooks And Liars
Firedoglake
Black Agenda Report
Washington Monthly
Eschaton
AMERICAblog
The Raw Story
Agonist
Today's Workplace
Republic of T
Democrats.com
Hullabaloo
Jack and Jill Politics
Liberal Oasis

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:47 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 14, 2011

'Duh!' Headline Award

Japan's blasts cast doubt on nuclear renaissance - Yahoo! News

D'ya think?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:04 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 3, 2011

The Decline of the American Media

There must be something in the spring air. The lunatics, the delusional and the kooks seem to be descending upon us from far and wide: Gaddafi, Charlie Sheen, Julian Assange, and Glenn Beck to name a few. They come at us in all shapes, sizes and ethnicity over the media and political airwaves. Just tune into the television, cable, radio, social networks and even in the halls of Congress. As many have lamented this past week, it's almost impossible to decipher the recent ramblings of Moammar Gaddafi from Charlie Sheen because it all sounds the same. Scary stuff huh when folks like Sheen take to primetime and Twitter for a public meltdown, and a profitable windfall that may have sacrificed his children. You know listening to him was like listening to ranting of the crazy uncle who spent a bit too much time alone in the attic drinking lighter fluid, and diddling himself. Yet, the real embarrassment is that the American media's executive producers have not shut down this crass profiteering. We've always known that: Gaddafi was stark raving mad; Sheen was spiraling out of control with drugs and drink to the embarrassment of his father; Assange had fantasies of grandeur; Beck was another foul mouthed profiteer picking at the underbelly of America's prejudices; and the new members of Congress were grandstanding while smiling for the television cameras. Alas, we may have finally reached a dangerous level of toxicity from the blitzkrieg of ratings driven dribble passing as American news coverage.

Posted by Michelle at 1:20 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 1, 2011

When Oil Companies Rule

This is what happens when oil companies dominate an economy ... and media career paths.

Story in my local paper today: Electric car sales far from electrifying and likely to stay low

Sales so far have been microscopic, and they're likely to stay that way for some time because of limited supplies.

GM sold 250 to 350 Chevy Volts this month, and Nissan's sales totaled fewer than 10 Leaf sedans in the past two weeks.

OK, now with the stage set, with the public believing that electric cars are a total flop, something they would NEVER want to look at, comes the reason:

It will be well into 2012 before both the Volt and Leaf are available nationwide. And if you're interested in buying one, you'll need to get behind the 50,000 people already on waiting lists.

Next story, No One Goes To Maude's Diner

... because it's too crowded.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:11 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

Blood, running warmly down the sides of his head

This is what happens at a newspaper during the holiday shift, when the newsroom staff has been cut back to part-time, low-pay novelists and the editors are all on break.

Victims in pot-house robbery detail terror of home invasion - San Jose Mercury News,

Then he felt the blood, running warmly down the sides of his head. He began to think of his husband, his dogs, his cats.

"At first I knew that I was dying, then when I didn't die right away, I thought it's gonna be slower," Vlad said. "But somebody was watching over me."

Under his knit hat, on Friday he tenderly showed the two bloody holes -- one where the bullet entered his scalp and another where it burst out.

That night, Joseph was running for the front door with his friend to escape when he heard the pop. He knew then that the intruders had either shot his husband or Maya or Vito, their dogs. Joseph tried to keep calm. He had to think.

One of the men caught Joseph and his friend, grabbed Joseph by the shirt and punched him in the head.

They dragged Vlad into the same room. Vlad asked Joseph if he was bleeding. Joseph lied, telling him it wasn't that bad. Blood was gushing from his head, dripping off his chin. Vlad said his whole left side was going numb.

It all happened on a dark and stormy night.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:04 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 15, 2010

The New Revolutionaries Take to the Internet: The Tale of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange

WikiLeaks raises some of the most poignant questions of our time about the power of cyber warfare, the role of hackers, and the future of the Internet. It is not a coincidence that Madame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has created a whole new effort to explore and fight cyber terrorism. In fact, WikiLeaks and Assange may represent the first of the wholesale anarchists using today's information highway to do battle. Consider that instead of taking to the streets in protest, this generation may take to the Internet to wage their battles and carry their message. We are living a time represented by the power of Facebook that links over 500 million people together. And if this is true, we may have unleashed a whole new generation of cyber warlords on the world's information centers.

Many of our brethren are writing about democracy, liberty and the freedom of information pivoting off what they believe WikiLeaks stands for. Julian Assange has been elevated to the "Man of the People" as filmmaker Michael Moore contributes to his bail fund, and the Huffington Post sets up a whole section devoted to whistleblower Fantasy Land. You know, we all need something valiant to believe in during the difficult days of Obama. The obnoxious wealthy are dancing on the heads of US lawmakers. The banks are still doing the Texas two-step, and the Middle Class continues to suffer in silence with simmering rage. There are two deeply divisive wars. China is rising and scaring the heck out of us. The liberals of the Democratic Party continue to act like toddlers, and Sarah Palin is making hay laughing all the way to her off-shore accounts. So Julian Assange, or whoever is backing him, could not have picked a better moment of discontent. They are evoking new archetypes of good and bad in a world that is increasing grey.

Assange is the anti-hero. He has been personified as a man with no country who is a metrosexual kind of guy willing to risk it all to uncover the truth. Yet, we don't really know much about this man, or what makes him tick. Is he really the wizard behind or the curtain, or there really someone or something else pulling the strings. Is he a hacker extraordinaire, or just a man that is a brilliant online community organizer? In fact and most importantly, what does it mean to be a hacker? Are hackers by definition anarchists, or is it just Julian that wants to topple the establishment at any cost. Or are there droves of these cyber-sleuths trolling the black lands of the Internet looking for back doors into silos of information? Remember Assange was a cryptologist of sorts which is the super duper folks that develop the ways to tunnel into software code. And it may be fair to assume that these same hackers were probably responsible for the DOS (Denial of Service) attacks on Visa, Master Card and others. And if this is true then who is really pulling the strings since these were very, targeted attacks on specific corporations that shut out the money flow for WikiLeaks? The bottom line is that we still don't know how the WikiLeaks information is gathered and/or obtained. Does it come from this new breed of whistleblowers, such as Private Manning that had a rare blend of tech talents and access? If so; does this new breed even resemble our beloved archetypical whistleblowers circa Daniel Ellsberg, or even Erin Brockovich? And I ask again, have we grappled with the ramifications of an Internet that is locked down in response to WikiLeaks? Are we ready to usher in a new age of restrictions? This sadly will make the debate around net neutrality seem like child's play if cyber war erupts.

Please note that this post appeared earlier in the day in the Huffington Post.

Please note that a selection of the reference material used for this article and others in the past on WikiLeaks is included in the complex pearltree below.

Posted by Michelle at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 14, 2010

Can't Get By On $250K? Try Leaving Your Bubble!

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

The Washington Post ran a story how hard it is for a family making only $250K a year. Just who could a story like this be written by and for? How many ways does this story mislead its readers? If you want to write about hardship write some stories about and for the rest of us!

Over the weekend the Washington Post carried a story labeled as a "Fiscal Times" piece, Where does $250,000 a year go? Summary:

It's the annual income that President Obama and others have repeatedly used to define what it means to be "rich" in America today. ... Just how flush is a family of four with a $250,000 income?

... The bottom line: Living in high-tax areas on either coast can leave our $250,000-a-year family with little margin.

Richard Eskow hit the nail on the head in his post, A Quarter Of A Million Little Pieces: Pete Peterson & The Washington Post Have A New Fiscal James Frey, writing,

This "analysis" was written by someone named Karen Hube, and it's based on two phony premises: First, that "President Obama and others have repeatedly used (that level of income) to define what it means to be 'rich' in America today," and second, that it's a hardship to get by on $250,000 a year.

(Please read Richard's post, because he gets into what the Fiscal Times is, and why it carries stories like this one.)

The story claims that President Obama and others label them as "rich" because $250K would be the lower borderline if the Bush “tax cuts for the rich” expire. But this misleads readers because the family making $250,000 will NOT see any tax increase at all. If you understand how tax brackets work you know that only amounts above $250K get taxed the additional 4.6%, so someone making $250,001 will pay an additional tax of $0.046. Yes, that’s right, four point six cents. The amounts become large only with very (very) high incomes, but those incomes are so high that the additional tax is still almost nothing. A person making $1,000,000 would pay an additional tax of $2,875 a month on their $83,333 a month of income. (Sorry, it's hard to write a number like that without shouting.)

So Who Is The Story For?

Just who is going to feel the pain of the people who "only" make $250K? The Joneses in the story actually have retirement savings and life and disability and health insurance! They have student loans to pay off because they went to expensive universities and they will have the high expenses to send their kids because their kids will, too. 98% of us understand that when we read this story. Since anyone who makes less than $250K is going to know better from their own experience than to believe what they read in this story, who is this story written for? Hint: the Washington Post is in ... wait for it ... Washington!

What about the rest of us? If $250K a year -- the borderline for entering the top 2% -- leaves the Joneses "with little margin" then shouldn't there be 49 articles for every article like this, explaining how people who make less than $250K are doing -- since that is almost all of us? Shouldn't there be 49 articles about how 98% of us are not getting by, and have no margin at all?

Anti-Government

The story tries to make an anti-government point by claiming that taxes are squeezing the Joneses, complaining that the Joneses "only" take home $173K after all taxes (incl cell phone tax). (That is "only" $14.4K a month take-home.) But a careful reading shows that the opposite might be the case. It might really be limited government that is squeezing them:

College Costs: One of the factors in the cost analysis is college costs. They are paying off high student loans, and are getting ready to send kids to expensive collected. But college costs are so high because we have less government, because of tax cuts. This is clearly true in California, for example.

Child Care: Child care costs are high because government is "limited" in our conservative on-your-own society.

Health Care: The Joneses health insurance bill is another product of our on-you-own limited government here. Health care is covered anywhere else.

Retirement: The Joneses are saving a lot for their retirement. This drain on their income is high because in conservative America you are on your own. Corporations got rid of most pensions through the 401k scam, while the Social Security system is inadequate.

There are many other areas where limited government pouts a squeeze on people: insufficient transportation options and high energy costs due to fossil-fuel reliance among them.

They Did One For The Rest Of Us

To their credit the Post also has a story this weekend, In the U.S., Christmas remains a great divide, but the story misses the point by blaming the recession for the difficulties regular people face,

A new division is emerging in America between those who have moved on from the recession and those still caught in its grip.

This holiday season, those two worlds have been thrown into stark relief: At Tiffany's, executives report that sales of their most expensive merchandise have grown by double digits. At Wal-Mart, executives point to shoppers flooding the stores at midnight every two weeks to buy baby formula the minute their unemployment checks hit their accounts. Neiman Marcus brought back $1.5 million fantasy gifts in its annual Christmas Wish Book. Family Dollar is making more room on its shelves for staples like groceries, the one category its customers reliably shop.

But many, many people with jobs are having a hard time buying baby formula, too, these days. It was like this for more and more people before the recession. In fact, many say that is why there is this bad economy. Where I live people go through my recycle bin looking for cans - and were doing so before the recession. People living on Social Security are having a very, very hard time while the people making $250K "with little margin" can talk casually about cutting the program in order to avoid having the cap lifted causing them to pay a bit more into the system.

The Post story attributes the divide to the “grip” of the recession and not to the problems caused by policies that have led to our intense concentration of wealth. The problem is that our economic system for thirty years has been increasingly rewarding a few at the very top, and not the rest of us. Tax cuts, bailouts and bonuses for them, government cutbacks and stagnant wages for us.

But flawed as it is, that is one down, only 48 more stories about the other 98% to go to catch up with the one about getting by on only $250K.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:15 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

October 30, 2010

Corporate Media Not Even Pretending Anymore

ABC Taps Andrew Breitbart For Election Night Analysis

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:51 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 29, 2010

Beyond Peace in the Middle East at CGI

The Clinton Global Initiative this year was a place where politics converged with philanthropy. Since inception, this venue has been the change agent for philanthropic work throughout the world. The commitments made have been massive and have provided millions worldwide with clean drinking water, mosquito nets, eye glasses, vaccines, and education-- among many others. This Foundation can be credited for ushering in new social philanthropic models involving private industry, the wealthy and government working together with non-profit organizations.

Remarkably, the topics at CGI this year spanned Empowering Girls and Women (see the prior post) to market-based solutions, clean tech, jobs, manufacturing and world peace. What an extraordinary venue it was where the participants could experience a panel with the Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the Kingdom of Bahrain, Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority, and the President of Israel discussing rebuilding the region after peace. Where else and with whom else other than former President Bill Clinton - could one see and hear such a constellation of world thinkers cutting across the issues of our time. Many of us bloggers, writers and journalist bustle through the high security and put up with the fanfare --just to be inspired and sustained for the coming year.

It was a rare gift from the universe to be able to hear the Middle East session up close. It is curious that there was not enormous media coverage of this landmark discussion because all the bad stuff gets air time. Even CNN's Fareed Zakaria this Sunday morning did not mention it. Rather he focused on the fabricated photograph of the President of Egypt from the White House for the Arab press. It is perplexing because here sat the leaders of those enmeshed in the real peace talks. In this small room, they and former President Clinton were talking gracefully with one another about rebuilding the region. Only the former President could command such authority and respect. Remember, it was Bill Clinton that attempted peace between Israel Prime Minister, Yitzhak Rabin and Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat so long ago. It was that fateful handshake on the White House lawn that in many ways led to the assignation of Rabin. And it is now Madame Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that is officiating the peace talks today. Perhaps this is a forbearing for things to come later this year. If they can talk peaceably in front of Bill Clinton, maybe there is hope for a just and final resolution. Few of us get to see our dreams come to fruition, but it appears that the Clintons both have long reach, big memories and staying power. All this woman can say is - may it be.

Posted by Michelle at 9:44 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

August 23, 2010

Five Things People "Know"

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

The things that people "know" are very different from the "reality-based" things those of us reading a blog like this know, and those things seem to always, always serve the corporate right.

I have been away on vacation. While away I have been talking to "regular" people who are outside of the circles many of us who follow progressive blogs and news closely live in. The particular group I spent time with might not fairly represent "regular" people but whenever I spend time talking to people who are outside of our highly-informed circles, whether it is talking to relatives, doing call-in radio shows or just talking to people I meet I come away very discouraged by the things that most people "know." The corporate right has been very effective at spreading an anti-government, anti-democracy narrative that, when believed, puts their interests on top.

Some of the things that people "know" that I heard in one form or another on my trip include:

1) Government caused the financial crisis. A lot of people know this, and a lot more have heard it repeated over and over. Government forced banks to give mortgages to poor people and minorities. Taxes and government spending "take money away" from and generally harm the economy.

2) Obama bailed out the banks. The most a lot of people know about the stimulus is that it was a lot of money and it went to bailing out the banks. Obama's massive spending increase (Democrats "tax and spend") is the cause of the deficit and the government is at risk of going bankrupt.

3) Corporations (plutocracy) are always more effective and efficient than government (democracy). Government messes up everything that it touches.

4) "Entitlements" are welfare and are destroying people's independence and work ethic. People think the government will solve their problems so they don't turn to themselves. Illegal immigrants immediately get welfare and have lots of babies on welfare and this is why states are going bankrupt.

5) Social Security is going broke and won't be there for younger people.

Of course all of these are just wrong, and of course acting on these beliefs leads the country to results that are terribly destructive to the economy and people's lives while a few at the top make out very very well for themselves. I'm not going to spend any time here getting into how much is wrong with each of these. I do want to get into why people believe these things.

So many of us -- by "us" I mean people likely to be reading this -- spend our time in somewhat insular information environments, where the blogs and other information sources we read and the people we talk to tend to follow news closely, and to be very highly informed with "reality-based" information. But "regular" people do not follow the news closely, and the "news" they get does not come from the same places as the news sources you and I carefully seek out.

Why The Right Controls The Narrative

It's simple. The corporate right controls the narrative because they make an effort to do so, and the forces of We, the People democracy, community and caring humanity do not. (Peace love and understanding, truth and happiness.)

Corporations and conservatives have invested a ton of money in a huge ideological message machine because they understand marketing. There is FOX News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of talk radio, Drudge Report, a vast, vast Astroturf operation and all the rest of the right's propaganda operation. It is very, very well funded. They have constructed an effective narrative and they repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and repeat it -- and then they repeat it.

But there is also the corporate-owned "mainstream" media that largely echoes and often directly transmits the right's narrative. First, they echo these anti-government themes. Then, as with the current anti-Muslim "ground-zero mosque" frenzy they carry the things that distract from the real issues. Why? Because it serves their interests, too. If people are focused on distractions instead of looking at the real causes of their economic woes it is all the better for the real causes of their economic woes: namely the big, monopolist corporations.

(Does the mainstream media reflect corporate interests against those of the rest of us? Without going into detail here is a simple test: When was the last time you saw, heard or read someone on TV, radio or in a newspaper explain the benefits of joining a union?)

Meanwhile progressives and the forces of democracy are barely reaching out to regular people at all. We seem to focus our efforts mostly on elections, and do very little between elections to persuade the public that there are benefits to them of a progressive approach to issues. (And never mind our political leaders who repeat and reinforce the right's frames and narratives.)

A big part of this is that it takes a lot of money to reach out past our circles. But we sure do seem able to come up with money for elections. In fact the return on investment of reaching people outside of the election cycle should be obvious. We wouldn't have to raise and spend so much money in the election cycle if we were making the case that progressives bring more benefits to regular people, because then regular people would be more inclined to vote that way in general.

I plan to write more about this.

I think I did an OK job going into more detail on the things people "know" and why in this video from the Netroots Nation panel, The 2010 Elections: Channeling the Power of Jobs, Populism and the Angry Voter. Use the bar to slide this to the 40:00 minute mark, and watch for about 5 minutes.

And, while I'm showing videos, here is Love, Peace & Happiness by the Chambers Brothers. (I can't get it out of my head since writing "Peace love and understanding, truth and happiness" above...)

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:54 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 5, 2010

What Social Security Report SAYS Vs What They Tell You It Says

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees today released their report on the Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs. Here is what it says:

Social Security Just Fine Until At Least 2037

The summary of the report says, "The financial outlook for Social Security is little changed from last year. The short term outlook is worsened by a deeper recession than was projected last year, but the overall 75-year outlook is nevertheless somewhat improved..." and is otherwise fine until at least 2037 with no changes.

It is just fine forever, in fact, if we do something simple like raise the "cap" on earnings that are taxed to pay for the program. (That's right, when you make more than a certain income level you stop paying the tax!) Compare that to the military budget. We spend more than $1 trillion on military and related programs each year - more than every other country combined - and unlike Social Security that is completely "unfunded," and adds to the deficit.

Medicare Outlook Improved Substantially

The report also says, "The outlook for Medicare has improved substantially because of program changes made in the [Health Care Reform Bill]"

Those Are The Facts

Those are the simple facts: everything is fine. Everything will be fine. There are some things that should be changed to make them even more OK than they are. They are good programs that demonstrate that government works.

So What's The Problem?

The Social Security program collects money via the "payroll tax." Much, much more money -- trillions -- has been collected than needed to be paid out to cover the coming retirement of the "baby boomers," and the extra -- the "trust fund" -- was invested in US Treasury Bonds.

Under Reagan and then both Bushes that money was borrowed from the trust fund and used to give huge tax cuts to the wealthy. (Clinton was paying it back but Bush II cut taxes again for the wealthy.) Now those boomers are beginning to retire, and the trust fund money that was borrowed and given out to the rich is needed back to cover their retirement. The obvious solution is to get the money from where the money went. But those who it went to are trying to stop the obvious from happening. They say we should cut benefits, make us retire at 70, anything to keep them from paying back what is owed to the retirees.

Oh, and there is another conservative complaint about Social Security. Social Security is very successful and popular, and is a constant, living proof that government of the people, by the people and for the people works and works really well. Among a certain crowd, that just can't be allowed to stand.

So now, let the anti-tax, anti-government conservative bamboozlement begin.

Let The Bamboozlement Begin

The anti-government conservatives are using several approaches to undermine public confidence in the program (and therefore government). MoveOn.org has a "Top 5 Social Security Myths" page up that is worth looking at.

Myth: Social Security is going broke.
Myth: We have to raise the retirement age because people are living longer.
Myth: Benefit cuts are the only way to fix Social Security.
Myth: The Social Security Trust Fund has been raided and is full of IOUs.
Myth: Social Security adds to the deficit.

Please go to the website to learn the truth about these myths. And please answer with those facts when you hear people spreading these myths.

Let's see how the conservatives are doing at spreading myths today, and how the mainstream media covers it:

Heritage Foundation: Once Again, the Social Security Trust Fund Has No Money in It

Washington Times: Social Security in the red for first time ever (Note - that's only if you don't count the interest that the trust fund earns. Just more bamboozlement.)

FOX News: Social Security 2010 Outlays to Exceed Receipts

CNN: Social Security: More going out than coming in

NPR: 2010 Social Security Outlook: Not Great

CNBC: Social Security 2010 outlays to exceed receipts

That's just a quick sampling. Compare what these headlines lead you to believe to the facts above. When was the last time you saw a headline that reads, "Massive military budget causes huge federal deficit"? Right. Bamboozlement, plain and simple. Expect to see a lot more like these. Don't fall for it.

Social Security Is Not Broken

Social Security is not broken. If we fight the myths and the anti-government lies it will be there for all of us.

Here is a statement by Nancy Altman, co-chairman of the Strengthen Social Security Campaign, a coalition of 60+ organizations, representing over 30 million Americans:

“Every year, the trustees’ reports become an excuse for fear mongering by those who should know better. This year, the news is especially good for Medicare, thanks to the enactment of health care reform. The news for Social Security is even better, revealing once again that Social Security’s promised benefits are fully affordable without benefit cuts and without increasing the retirement age. Poll after poll reports that’s what the American people want. Unfortunately, we know there are some in Washington, including a few members of the Administration’s fiscal commission, who will use this report to try to advance their agenda of cuts to Social Security benefits, including rising the retirement age. Politicians should stop scaring the American people. Social Security is strong and should be strengthened, not cut. The reality is the biggest threat to Social Security is the politicians in Washington who continue to play politics with this issue.”

Send a message to the politicians: No increase in the retirement age. No privatization. No Social Security cuts. Go to ourfuture.org/nosocialsecuritycuts.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:33 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 14, 2010

Against All Odds: Save the Middle Class and the American Dream

The American Dream is what is at stake for the Obama Administration, and they know it. This is the dirty, little secret that can longer be contained -- it is escalating, cannot remain hidden, and may have significant political ramifications for the 2010 elections. The atrocity of the past years is this broken promise with the people, and it is deeply affecting the way they think, behave, vote and live. Moreover, it could begin to explain the groundswell response to candidate Barack Obama in 2008. The power of his words helped them believe that the dream was recoverable. He exemplified what was possible through education and hard work in his meteoric rise through American politics to the Oval Office. Further and more importantly, it also explains why we are now suffering such profound political despair reflected in the dropping poll numbers.

The middle class, for its survival, needs life to return to a semblance of "normalcy" - a time when they didn't know how to spell the word "deficit" and didn't have to care. They want their retirement savings back so they don't have to work until they drop. They want a bank account that makes more then one percent interest. They want to know what their health insurance premiums will be this year and in ten. They want to know if their kids study, and if they save and sacrifice, that their lives will be better. They want their kids to get good jobs, and they want to hold onto our own jobs. And with despair and anger they realize that despite the heroic work of the Congress with this President in passing landmark legislation in all of these areas -- they still are not safe. Economic ruin may still be right around the corner, and makes it hard to sleep at night.

You know we've all been hoodwinked and sold a bill of goods about the sanctity of the middle class in this country. It is a basic tenet of our lives, and made us different from other countries. The ranks swelled over the last decades after FDR to the present. But now for the first time since the Great Depression, the middle class is at risk of tipping over once and for all. They are not coming out of the financial, housing and environmental crises intact. Interest rates have ratcheted up on the family home, maybe there's a balloon payment on the mortgage and its impossible to refinance under the "new" programs; savings have virtually no interest and are drying up; pensions have evaporated; health insurance premiums are basically unaffordable until 2014 if then; schools are overcrowded and on the decline; there are no jobs except in China and they don't speak Mandarin; and unemployment is still at 9.5% -- higher in key areas throughout the country. The new legislation is riddled with loopholes, as all legislation can be after laborious compromises and extensive details. What is different is that each of these loopholes is flagrantly being exploited by the banks, the credit card companies and the health insurance companies. For example, many of the unemployed cannot qualify for COBRA because their companies failed which is code for closed their doors. COBRA is not available when a company terminates their health insurance plan, and 2014 is a long way off when you need health insurance coverage now.

Frankly, this is not what the middle class signed up for. It was not part of the implicit promise made to them. As a result, they are angry (enter stage right the Tea Party to exploit this vulnerability), and depressed (evidenced in the lackluster June election voter turnout). This is a deadly combination that could seal the deal on the November elections for the big, bad guys. Yet somehow the middle class and its Democrats must rally again and rise above the collective depression (no pun intended). We cannot let the brilliant and effective message machine of the Republican Party lull them into universal amnesia -- forgetting all the wrongs of the past. Remember these are the same guys (Bush and Cheney) that put the nails in the coffin cementing the potential extermination of the middle class. These same guys two weeks ago even blocked the extension of unemployment benefits while they frolicked on vacation. How could they do that to working families in this country? The extension passed the House before the break, but was filibustered in the Senate. And given all that, imagine life when we essentially give away the House because we are too depressed to vote or disorganized to keep these seats.

I will take liberal Speaker Nancy Pelosi any day over anti-choice, sanctimonious Republican Representative John Boehner as Speaker of the House. That would be a bad dream that just keeps on giving. This threat should be enough for the White House to saddle up and come out with a plan, a message (remember "hope and change"), and leadership to deliver - not the White House Press Secretary Gibbs message yesterday. David Gregory of Meet the Press has gotten so very good and Gibbs just walked into a fiasco announcing the potential lose of seats in the House. It was as bad as giving away candy instead of feeding the homeless, and maybe that's why White House Special Advisor, David Axelrod, was so snarky with CNN's Candy Crowley during the next hour on the Sunday morning political shows because it sure didn't make any sense.

Snarky or not, we all know Obama and his team are awful busy with the economy, the oil spill and a few dozen Russian spies, but we need them to reach out to that disenfranchised middle class again, aka big voting block. After all, Obama is the master communicator and we know that he can do it because he has done it before to win in 2008. And now the stakes may even be higher. If we allow 40 seats in the House to go asunder and a few more in the US Senate -- we can start waving bye-bye to the American Dream, the middle class, economic recovery, and maybe the Supreme Court for the next couple of decades.

Please see my Pearltree for some of the reference materials with more to come. This is a new tool to organize and share materials on the web. In full disclosure, I advise them as they build out the new features of this platform.

Note, an earlier version of this article appeared this week on the Huffington Post.

Posted by Michelle at 1:32 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 16, 2010

DO "Both Parties Do It?"

Really? Both parties do it?

ANOTHER ANGEL LOSES ITS WINGS.... ,

In a column devoted to highlighting Republican extremism, the Post writer just had to say, "Both parties have been undergoing ideological cleansing." The observation was both wrong and superfluous.

What examples show "both parties" do it? Pennsylvania, where a Democrat is running in a primary against a Republican who switched in order to "get votes." Apparently it is extremism to run an actual Democrat in a Democratic Party primary.

And Arkansas, where Lincoln has taken tons of cash from corporate interests and blocked the President's agenda, and the Chamber of Commerce and other Republican groups are running ads for her.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:12 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 13, 2010

Washington Post Misinforms Readers About Deficit

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.

The job of the news media is supposed to be to inform, not misinform. But Tuesday's Washington Post story, Obama team points to smaller deficit numbers, makes this claim about the cause of the huge $1.4 trillion budget deficit for FY 2009.

The federal deficit was large when Obama took office, but it ballooned as the administration launched an ambitious stimulus program to soften the economic downturn, which was eating tax revenue and prompting increased spending on safety net programs.

But this just isn't the case, and it is vitally important that the public understand the real facts so they can make decisions about solutions. The New York Times, The Washington Post's competitor, offered a more honest explanation of the cause of the massive deficits, and even included a great chart. In last year's How Trillion-Dollar Deficits Were Created the Times pointed out that only $145 billion of the huge $1.4 trillion 2009 deficit was spending on the stimulus program and only another $56 billion was from other Obama programs. This is a fraction of that $1.4 trillion deficit of Bush's last budget year.

Obama did not "balloon" the deficit, as the Washington Post claimed. It was tax cuts for the rich, Iraq and military increases, Wall Street bailouts and other conservative policies and/or consequences of failed conservative policies.

In Huge 2009 Budget Deficit -- Just One More Conservative Failure, I wrote,

Conservatives claim that President Obama "tripled the deficit" and point to the huge 2009 budget deficit as proof. The fiscal-year 2009 deficit, as reported in October was, indeed, about triple the prior year's borrowing. But the 2009 budget was the last budget year of the prior, conservative administration. It is just one more demonstration of the failure of conservative policies.

Basic math: A budget year that ends 8 months into a President's first year wasn't that President's budget.

My post used material from the conservative Cato Institute to back up the point.

The public needs to know the real causes of the borrowing. If the cause was previous conservative policies, that leads to one set of solutions. If the public instead is led to believe the borrowing was caused by the incoming administration's efforts to solve that problem, they will be misled into possibly supporting policies that will just make the problem worse.

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Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:28 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 11, 2010

Media Fail

Have you seen
Media Behaving Badly | MediaFAIL?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:32 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 9, 2010

URGENT: Stop CNN From Airing Deficit Propaganda

Please read URGENT: Stop CNN From Airing Deficit Propaganda | OurFuture.org

This weekend, CNN is giving four hours of free airtime to the leading propagandist fanning the flames of deficit hysteria, Pete Peterson, along with his lackeys.  Bloggers and online activists are joining today to promote this action:

Click here to demand CNN stop giving free airtime to deficit crazies this weekend – And if they do go ahead with this programming, tell them to provide balance to Pete Peterson's deficit hysteria. Give equal time to defenders of Social Security, Medicare and public investment.

VIDEO

Roger Hickey discusses the CNN/Peterson Foundation deficit program with Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research.

CNN plans to air Peterson's thoroughly debunked propaganda movie "I.O.U.S.A," – and then his acolytes will have free reign to spread their usual lies about Social Security, Medicare and government in general without any fiscal expert to challenge them and give a different point of view.

How do we know? Because CNN did the exact same thing with "I.O.U.S.A" last year. No debate. Just Peterson's propaganda.

Is this how "the most trusted name in news" should cover the debates on retirement security, job creation and fighting poverty?

We have just one day to get CNN to balance it's programming.

Click here to demand CNN stop these programs – or give equal time to defenders of Social Security, Medicare and public investment.

Whose voices will be shut out this weekend?

The nation's leading economists who are urging our government to use deficits today to invest in long-term prosperity – such as Paul Krugman, James Galbraith and Dean Baker.

The fiscal experts who have repeatedly said Social Security is sound and broader health care reform will protect Medicare.

All of you who voted for an active government to invest in our future.

While you are kept silent, who does CNN give the microphone to?

A multimillionaire Wall Street mogul who wants our government to slash investments while millions are losing their jobs.  This guy had no problem taking tax cuts for the wealthy that caused our deficit problems – and his Wall St buddies crashed the economy.

NOTE:  Peterson is holding an April 28 “Fiscal Summit” to once repeat his “way forward” out of the deficits caused by tax cuts for the wealthy and the financial crisis caused by Wall Street and the bankers.   On the program:  President Bill Clinton and former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin, who deregulated the financial system, profiting Rubin’s Citibank – until the system melted down.  Also on the program, Alan Greenspan, the former Fed Chief who presided over the deregulated banking system.  These are the people Peterson chooses to lecture the rest of us about why we need painful austerity.  This weekend’s CNN programs are just a setup for April 28. 

Click here to demand CNN give equal time to defenders of Social Security, Medicare and public investment.

We are in the midst of a great debate over the direction America should take.

"The most trusted name in news" should be the place where we have the debate, not where one opinion is deemed to be absolute truth.

We already have a cable news network that does that. We don't need another unfair, unbalanced channel



Speak out today. Don't let Pete Peterson take over the debate about our future.  

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:02 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 16, 2010

CNN - From Unwatchable To Even Worse

I haven't been able to watch CNN for years. Now they just get worse.

"Feminazis?" "Ugly feminists?

Seriously, why not just watch Fox news if you want to expose yourself to horrible right-wing crap?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:49 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 1, 2010

Green Jobs Are NOT A Myth!

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.

Last week the Washington Post ran an op-ed with the curious headline, “The Green Jobs Myth.”

Oil and coal lobbyists everywhere, well-aware that most people only read headlines and a few paragraphs at most, were giving each other high-fives. You see, a headline like this “propels the propaganda” that anything remotely environmentally-conscious “costs jobs.” And being in the Washington Post, it signals that the “powers-that-be” are officially poo-pooing the concept.

The op-ed begins by setting up a straw man to knock down. It claims that the Obama administration has the “assumption that a "clean-energy" economy will generate enough jobs to mitigate today's high level of unemployment … and to meet the needs of future generations”, But seriously, has anyone, anywhere, ever said that new green jobs alone will solve the jobs crisis? Just asking.

The basis for the headline’s premise that green jobs are a myth was that installing smart electric meters means there will be fewer meter-readers employed. Well duh! But this op-ed -- with its curious headline -- uses some curious math to reach its conclusion that automating meters means fewer meter-readers will be employed. It claims that only 400 installation jobs would be created to install 20 million meters, 1600 if the rate of installation is increased. Huh? Then it gets better. To calculate how many meter-reader jobs will be lost it claims that meter-readers only read 30 meters an hour, causing 28,000 meter-reading jobs to be lost.

Now, I was already sold on the idea that automating meters means fewer meter-readers would be employed, but come on! Clearly the Post is betting that most people don't read past the first few paragraphs if they're thinking this kind of "let's play tricks with math" will just slip by.

Curiously, the op-ed doesn’t mention that people will be employed to manufacture these 20 million smart-meters! How many jobs will be created to manufacture 20 million smart meters? The op-ed doesn't say. perhaps saying how many would negate the curious title.

How Many Green Jobs Are There?

But never mind smart meters. If we’re going to talk about green jobs we need to talk about the jobs that would be created by:

• retrofitting every building and home in America to be energy efficient, and the management, supply chain, transportation, tools, etc.


• manufacturing, installing and maintaining wind turbines


• manufacturing, installing and maintaining rooftop solar installations


• manufacturing, installing and maintaining solar power generation facilities


• everything associated with biofuels, geothermal power generation, nuclear power, advanced batteries, hydro power, carbon sequestration, carbon credit trading and transportation alternatives including building an advanced high-speed rail system connecting every major city in the country.

Think about the huge number of jobs all of this involves – and the huge payoff to our economy. And remember, these will all be in addition to the existing energy infrastructure, for now.

I suspect that the reason we see curiously misleading op-eds like this one in outlets like the Washington Post is that all of these coming technologies mean lower profits for the big, monopolistic oil and coal giants.

They can try to stop the green manufacturing revolution but it is coming. The question is, do we let op-eds like this one stop it from being Made in America?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:34 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 25, 2010

NYTimes Owes Us An ACORN Smear Retraction

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF.

A month ago while covering the arrest of James O'Keefe after his attempt to tamper with the phones at Senator Mary Landrieu's office the New York Times repeated conservative misinformation that smeared ACORN, and is now refusing to retract their "reporting."

James O'Keefe previously had released videos that purported to show ACORN employees supposedly advising a "pimp" on how to evade the law. These videos were widely publicized in conservative outlets as part of a larger conservative campaign to destroy ACORN, because the organization registers poor people to vote. Usually-careful major media outlets like the New York Times then picked up the "story" from these conservative outlets and repeated the false accusations against ACORN.

An an example of how the Times has repeated the misinformation, this Times story, High Jinks to Handcuffs for Landrieu Provocateur, contained the following:

Mr. O’Keefe made his biggest national splash last year when he dressed up as a pimp and trained his secret camera on counselors with the liberal community group Acorn — eliciting advice on financing a brothel on videos that would threaten to become Acorn’s undoing.

In fact, O'Keefe was NOT "dressed as a pimp." He represented himself as a candidate for Congress who was trying to help women who were being exploited. He then doctored the resulting videotapes to make it appear that ACORN acted improperly. He only dressed as a "pimp" when publicizing his videos, using the racist stereotype to amplify his false claims. This preposterous 1970's blaxploitation-movie costume seemed to resonate with media outlets like the Times. (The woman who played the "prostitute" in the videos has herself been videotaped verifying that O'Keefe DID NOT wear a "pimp" costume.)

Compare the impression left by this NY Times story with other independently verified facts of the case as explained in : ACORN Report Finds No Illegal Conduct, which describes former Massachusetts Attorney General Scott Harshbarger's investigation of the accusations. Among the investigation's conclusions,

The videos that have been released appear to have been edited, in some cases substantially, including the insertion of a substitute voiceover for significant portions of Mr. O'Keefe's and Ms. Giles's comments, which makes it difficult to determine the questions to which ACORN employees are responding. A comparison of the publicly available transcripts to the released videos confirms that large portions of the original video have been omitted from the released versions.

The Brad Blog has taken the lead with efforts to get the NY Times to retract their reporting. From yesterday's post, Exclusive: NYTimes Public Editor Declines to Recommend Retraction for Multiple Erroneous Reports on False ACORN 'Pimp' Story,

We've spent the last several weeks here reporting and demonstrating how the O'Keefe/Breitbart ACORN video hoax was exactly that --- a political partisan scam that was publicized uncritically by the New York Times, and dozens of otherwise reputable outlets.

Despite the Times' repeatedly misreporting that O'Keefe was dressed or posed as a "pimp" while meeting with ACORN employees in those videos, and even after being shown in no uncertain terms that he did not, the Times' Public Editor has declined to recommend the paper retract its reporting on this story.

The next day, in NYT Public Editor Accuses The BRAD BLOG of 'Political Agenda' on Par With ACORN Smear Artists, Hoaxsters Breitbart and O'Keefe, New York Times Public Editor Clark Hoyt offered the following stunning statement,

The story says O’Keefe dressed up as a pimp and trained his hidden camera on Acorn counselors. It does not say he did those two things at the same time

Also at this Brad Blog post are links to a number of other blogs following this story.

You can take action by clicking through to: Tell the NY Times: retract anti-ACORN reportage.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:51 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 22, 2010

"Both Sides Do It" -- Senior Republican Leader Equated With Guy On A Blog

I wrote a post a few years ago, Who Is The Crazy Person In The Room? that California's Debra Bowen used in her campaign stump speech. It was about how if you try to describe to people who do not follow news very closely what is going on with the Repubicans these days, they'll think YOU are being crazy and extreme.

This is one area where I feel "mainstream" news outlets like the New York Times and major broadcast networks are failing their readers/viewers. Someone who only gets their news from those sources is not being informed about what is really going on inside the Republican party, and just how extreme things have gotten. These news outlets feel they have to "present both sides of the argument" so they won't be accused of being "the liberal media." Imagine the howls if they described a typical Ann Coulter or Glenn Beck speech and the audience reaction - and then pointed out that she is not on the fringe but is standing next to perhaps Dick Cheney or Mitt Romney on the stage! And readers just would not believe it if they carried the transcript from even a minute of Rush Limbaugh.

For example, this weekend AP wrote about the many flat-out untruths that Mitt Romney told in his speech at the conservative CPAC convention: Analysis: Untruths have consequences in politics. But they had to make it a "both sides do it" piece. To accomplish that, the piece equates a speech by a senior Republican Party leader, one of their candidates for President, with a pseudonymous "liberal" blogger.

"While Romney and fellow Republicans were filling the air with red-meat distortions, liberal Democratic activists were torturing facts online as they wrote commentary about the conservative gathering."

So what example is given of "liberals" torturing facts?

"And so it was this week, when liberal bloggers reacted to the CPAC distortions with false attacks of their own. On the Daily Kos Web site, one blogger noted the standing ovation given to "the self-confessed war criminal Dick Cheney."

The "false attack" against Cheney? The blog post reported that Cheney himself said on ABC's This Week the other day, "I was a big supporter of waterboarding" -- a war crime for which the United States government has prosecuted people.

So a senior Republican Party leader and Presidential candidate telling whoppers is equated with a guy on a blog who points out that Cheney said he had in office approved of torture.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:44 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

February 15, 2010

Toyota Coverage In Corporate Media

Did you notice how coverage of Toyota dried up right after Toyota dealers pulled some ads and threatened to pull more?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:05 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 9, 2010

NYTimes "Stands By" False Reporting

Last month I posted NYT Propels Anti-ACORN Propaganda,

The NY Times ran a story today about the "high jinks" of the right-wing smear artist O'Keefe, repeating the smears on ACORN, without mentioning the investigations that concluded his ACORN videotapes were doctored and that ACORN employees did nothing wrong.

The Times reported as fact that O'Keefe was "dressed as a pimp" - he was not, he was representing himself as a candidate for Congress - and that ACORN employees gave advice on setting up a brothel - when an investigation concluded that the videos were "heavily edited" and had "substitute voicovers" inserted to make it sound like ACORN employees said things they did not.

Brad Friedman pressed the Times on this. The Times said it "stands by" the story and cites FOX News as their source.

Go read the whole thing - it's really quite stunning.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:29 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 30, 2010

Generic News Report

Hat tip: The Big Picture

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:28 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

January 1, 2010

Bad Newspaper Business Model: Catering To The Right

My local newspaper runs the Mallard Fillmore comic strip. Today's strip tells readers they shouldn't read newspapers.

This is brilliant thinking on the part of the big corporate owners of the news media. Cater to the right, which wants to destroy the news media. The right tells people not to trust the media. People stop reading newspapers. Brilliant. Business. Model.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:26 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 23, 2009

NYTimes Get Debt Interest Very Wrong

From Payback Time - Wave of Debt Payments Facing U.S. Government - Series - NYTimes.com

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

Just wrong.

According to the US Treasury, the interest on the debt was $451 billion in 2008. I'm not clear on the 2009 number yet, but it may actually be lower due to lower interest rates.

This changes the character of the entire NYTimes story, which claims interest could soar to over $700 billion "up from $202 billion." A climb from approx. $450-500 billion just doesn't sound as scary. The conclusions I guess we are supposed to draw are stop helping the unemployed, don't reform health care. (But of course ignore the $1 trillion military budget, more than the rest of the world combined spends.)

And by the way, this is the Reagan/Bush debt they are writing about. Obama has added very little to that.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:06 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 16, 2009

Washington Times Against Protectionism Before They Were For It

This post originally appeared at Campaign for America's Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture as part of the Making It In America project. I am a Fellow with CAF.

President Obama is visiting Asia, and is blasted over and over about America's supposedly "protectionist" policies.

"China on Monday accused the United States of increasing protectionism..."

Think about it, the country with the massive trade surplus accuses the country with the massive trade deficit of being "protectionist." Call it The Audacity Of Projection.

Our trade opponents have learned that all they have to do is shout the word “protectionist” and their American enablers will quickly run from doing anything that might help American companies and workers. But what happens later, when the consequences start hitting home? Do the "free trade" shouting, foreign-competition enablers take the blame and accept responsibility when Amercan dollars are spent overseas and American workers lose jobs and American factories close? Who could have known that they would point the finger at the President instead of themselves?

Here is what I am talking about:

On February 8, 2009, during the debate over the stimulus package, the conservative Washington Times joined the "free trade" chorus, denouncing the package's proposed "Buy American" requirements as the same kind of "protectionism" that conservative mythology says caused the Great Depression: EDITORIAL: How to cause a depression,

...Tucked within the economic stimulus bill the House passed last week was a clause requiring state and local public works agencies to buy American iron and steel for their reconstruction projects, and the Senate expanded it to all manufactured goods.

[. . .] The stimulus bill has a way to go before it reaches Mr. Obama's desk, but if strong "buy American" mandates are present at that time, he will have no choice but to veto the bill. Otherwise, he will be forever known as Barack H. (Hoover or Hawley) Obama.

Conservative free-traders got what they demanded. In response to these and other cries of “protectionism!” the Senate backed away from the Buy American clause, changing it to vague language requiring that the money be spent in ways consistent with existing treaties.

Since this wording gives the President some discretion in how the money is spent conservatives started demanding the President spend it ... outside of the country. For example, a Washington Times editorial on March 24, EDITORIAL: The Mexican-American War of 2009, ended by blasting President Obama for wanting American stimulus dollars to stimulate America's economy:

"Wasn't Mr. Obama going to be the "international" president who was going to get the rest of the world to love us? The path to improving relations does not involve destroying jobs in other countries as well as in our own."

So now it turns out that many stimulus dollars are being spent according to the wishes of the "free trade" conservatives, with money to purchase wind turbines creating jobs in Europe and China, and who could have known, the very same free-trade conservatives are JUST OUTRAGED that President Obama is sending American stimulus dollars out of the country! For example, a Washington Times editorial on November 13, EDITORIAL: Stimulus creates jobs in China, begins,

Of the $1 billion in clean-energy stimulus money spent since the beginning of September, $850 million has gone to foreign wind companies. It doesn't take a bunch of experts at a hastily planned "jobs summit" to discover this isn't the way to bolster employment in America.

Indeed, the 11 U.S. wind farms that received stimulus money from the Treasury have imported 695 of the 982 wind turbines to be installed, creating 4,500 jobs overseas. That's far more overseas work than the stimulus money has created in the United States.

Yes, how DARE they not require that American stimulus dollars be spent in America! This from the very same Washington Times editors who earlier in the year demanded exactly that.

Who could have known that conservatives would attack President Obama for the consequences of giving in to conservative demands??!! The Washington Times was against protectionism before they were for it. Call it The Audacity Of Hypocrisy.

The lesson to be learned here is to stop listening to these conservative, "free trade" clowns. They are only interested in making the rich richer at the expense of the rest of us and will say whatever advances that goal. We should start just doing what is right for the country, our workers, our factories, our companies and our jobs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:30 PM | Comments (3) | Link Cosmos

November 14, 2009

NBC Nightly News Leads With Promo of Palin's Book

In the intro to tonite's NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, led with "Sarah Palin's Book, you can't get it yet, but we've got it."

The second segment of the "news" broadcast was entirely Palin and her book. It started with all the "buzz' about the book, just a huge puff piece, calling it a "juicy political tell-all. The book names names and exposes what really happens in the back rooms of a national political campaign." Holt even held the book up to show to the audience! Then the segment went through different reasons to buy the book... Holt even letting the audience know that she has a bus tour coming up.

You just can't buy advertising like that! Someone will get footage up so you can see this amazing "news" report.

You might remember that on October 11 NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt John Harwood had a story claiming the White House views supporters of gay rights, etc. as the "internet left fringe" and "those bloggers need to take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult."

Palin's book is published by a company owned by ... Rupert Murdoch, NBC's competitor. But when it comes to promoting the far right, they're all on the same page.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:40 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 17, 2009

Fairness Doctrine

How can conservatives argue that:
1) Liberals dominate the media
2) Restoring the "Fairness Doctrine" will get rid of conservative voices in the media

??

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:45 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 15, 2009

Fair and Balanced

Our Media Need a Fair and Balanced Doctrine by Brad Friedman, at the Commonweal Institute blog.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:38 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

September 23, 2009

Newspaper Irresponsibility -- Reprinting Propaganda Lies

From Sept. 23 Readers' letters - San Jose Mercury News

ACORN corruption is no trivial matter

In his interview with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday, ex-ACORN attorney President Barack Obama denied any knowledge of that organization having received over $55 billion in federal funding. He stated he had not paid attention to such trivial matters as he had bigger issues to deal with. That the liberal media swallow such indigestible fodder is reinforced by the Nick Anderson cartoon (Opinion, Sept. 21). Like our president, this gullible cartoonist views the ACORN corruption as an nonevent stirred up by contentious conservatives.

$55 billion?

In the last 15 years ACORN has received a total of $53 million - with an 'M' - in funding from the government. That comes to $3.5 million a year. That amount is more than 1000 times less than SJ News readers would now believe. Almost all of this is to "ACORN Housing" for providing assistance with low-income housing programs -- things like helping poor people fight off foreclosures.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:14 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 10, 2009

Why Health Care Reform Is Losing

I haven't heard very many voices, prominently featured, explaining to the general public what the bill really does. President Obama is out there laying out general principles, and then there are a million conservative voices saying all kinds of stuff. Maybe because there isn't a bill yet.

So you can't really blame some people for coming to some of these conclusions. You and I say it sounds ridiculous to say these things but to a lot of people who don't really understand a lot about how things really work, when all they hear is one side of the story they're going to go with the only thing they hear.

The only thing that really matters - gets through to millions and millions - is what is on TV and radio. Sure, in a democracy it is the job if the news media to inform the voters. But in the 1980s our broadcast news media was released from the obligation to serve the public interest and they immediately stopped serving the public interest. Pro-government legislators seem to have just given up on fixing that. Go figure.

When the opposition is able to define you before you do, then you have lost the battle. The pubic is going to figure that the truth lies somewhere between the extremes they hear. And those are that on the one side the government is going to set up death panels to decide who gets to live, and on the other side the government is going to take over the entire system and ration care. So it must be somewhere between those.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:52 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

July 31, 2009

Washington Post's Dana Milbank Calls Hillary A "Mad Bitch"

See for yourself.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:00 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 22, 2009

WHO has To Wait?

Here is an example of the basic problem of today's insular, childish, gossip-focused news media.

AP story: Obama may have to wait for health care passage.

WHO has to wait? Obama HAS health insurance. HE doesn't have to wait. THE REST OF US CITIZENS HAVE TO WAIT.

The needs of the citizenry and informing the citizens isn't the concern. It isn't even on the radar. The reaction to a post like this is "what is he even talking about?" The gossip, the process, the confrontation is the concern. Finding an "angle" to drive the corporate concerns of the media owners and the career of the report is the concern.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:04 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

July 8, 2009

CA Voters Kept In Dark About Budget

This post originally appeared at Speak Out California

Today's San Jose Mercury News has a front-page story, California leaders in no hurry to break budget impasse. From the story,

Despite plunging tax revenues, Wall Street's unwillingness to loan the state money and billions of dollars worth of IOUs hitting mailboxes, California's leaders are displaying a seeming lack of urgency to close the state's $26.3 billion deficit.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders blew past a supposedly ironclad June 30 deadline to pass a new budget...

Blew past? The legislature did pass a budget fix last week, but the Governor vetoed it! This choice by the Governor led to the state needing to issue IOUs.

To their credit (I guess) the San Jose paper hinted at the veto in an editorial a week ago, Governor didn't need to push state over the edge, writing,

In rejecting a stopgap fix for the budget on Tuesday, the governor and GOP leaders have accelerated a budget meltdown that pushes the state deeper into debt."

Talking to people involved, I pick up a sense that passing a budget fix after the Governor said he would veto it was pointless, so not worth mentioning. But isn't that for the voters to decide?  Many would say that passing the fix, especially at the last minute after all negotiations had failed and the state was going over the cliff was the responsible thing to do, also known as governing. This put a budget fix on the table and available for use to avoid the calamity and cost of IOUs, rating downgrades, etc. The Governor had a clear choice at that point, and chose to take the state over the cliff.  The voters should have been told, not kept in the dark that the Governor made that choice.

Meanwhile, the other side still refuses to offer up any plan of their own, still insisting that the Democrats fix the budget entirely with cuts to services that the public needs and take the blame for that.  They refuse to allow any plan that asks oil or tobacco companies to pitch in. They claim the wealthy will "leave the state" if asked to pitch in an additional $40 a week. They make up stories about companies leaving the state (but can't name any). But it is not reported that the Republicans refuse to offer a plan or engage in serious negotiations. It is as if the Republicans are expected to not be serious, so it's not worth reporting that they aren't serious. The voters should have been told.

The system of democracy depends on the voters being informed so they can apply pressure as needed and remove officeholders who are not doing what the voters want them to do.  But none of this works if the citizens have no way of learning simple facts, like that the legislature did govern responsibly and pass a budget fix, which the Governor vetoed. The voters should have been told.

Click through to Speak Out California.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:34 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 20, 2009

Corp Media Wont Report On Health Insurers

Do read this by dday and then watch the video below. Health insurers refuse to stop denying coverage to people after they get sick. Testifying to Congress they said, "No" they will not stop this. Watch the video.

If you know about this at all it is because you read blogs. The corporate media outlets refuse to let the public know about this. You can come up with a number of reasons, but the fact is that they are not reporting on this story.

So go read Daily Kos: Paul Begala calls out the media: expose the insurance industry!

Since the media will not report on this, you have to. Send the video to people and explain to them what it means. Health insurance companies refuse to stop "rescission" which is denying insured people the coverage they have paid for -- after they get sick. This is why we need at the very least a "public option" in health care coverage. Demand this.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:28 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

June 16, 2009

Short Media memories

Remember a couple of years ago when the media echoed the Repubican accusation that any vote against war funding was a vote against "supporting the troops," and against america?

But It's OK If You Are Republican (IOKIYAR): TheHill.com - In reversal, GOP balks at war funding

House Republicans are preparing to vote en bloc against the $106 billion war-spending bill, a position once unthinkable for the party that characterized the money as support for the troops.

For years, Republicans portrayed the bills funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as matters of national security and accused Democrats who voted against them of voting against the troops.

In 2005, Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) went so far as to say sending troops into battle and not paying for it would be an “immoral thing to do.” And just last year, more House Republicans voted for the war supplemental bill than did Democrats, who opposed the legislation because it did little to wind down the military effort in Iraq.

But Republicans say this year is different. Democrats have included a $5 billion increase for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to help aid nations affected by the global financial crisis.

So, will there be a media firestorm?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:54 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

May 23, 2009

OpenTable IPO Cheats Shareholders

A company called OpenTable went public this week, and its share price went up 59%,

Online restaurant-reservations system OpenTable Inc. dished out the best IPO performance since late 2007, delivering a 59% gain in its trading debut.

Shares of the San Francisco company on Thursday closed at $31.89 apiece on the Nasdaq Stock Market, well above its initial offering price of $20.

Investors would have to go back to December 2007 to find a better first-day close, from Orion Energy Systems Inc., which rose 65% during its debut.

This first-day rise in the price is presented by the business media as a good thing, worded as "best performance" and a good first-day close, demonstrating again how the business media favors corruption over competence.

You see, what this first-day rise in price tells us is that the underwriters grossly underpriced the stock, which the business media did not explain. The company should have gone public for $30 a share, which the market demonstrated, rather than the $20 a share that the underwriting companies allowed insiders to buy at on the opening. The way this racket works is that insiders get the special $20 price and can sell at the $30-35 price later in the day. The company, however, only received the $20 per share it offered, cheated out of the $30 it clearly should have received. Others got rich at their expense.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:08 PM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

May 16, 2009

Your Liberal Media

When the Republicans were preparing to invade Iraq people were out in force in demonstrations. According to BBC News, on Feb 15, 2003, hundres of thousands of people demonstrated against the coming invasion in the United States - 250,000 just in San Francisco, and as many as 10 million people worldwide.

The U.S. corporate press -- at the time complicit in the invasion preparations -- barely covered these demonstrations, so most Americans did not know that there was a great deal of opposition to the coming invasion.

Fast forward to today. President Obama is going to speak at Notre Dame - a Catholic university. A dozen or so right-wingers are protesting because Obama believes that women should have the right to make their own health care decisions. And this is almost the only thing in the news. You cannot turn on the corporate cable news channels or the corporate radio without hearing about the huge controversey about the President coming to speak.

Stark contrast.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:09 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

April 24, 2009

The Rules Of DC Journalists

Go read: Three key rules of media behavior shape their discussions of "the 'torture' debate" - Glenn Greenwald,

[. . .]
(1) Any policy that Beltway elites dislike is demonized as coming from "the Left" or -- in this case (following Karl Rove) -- the "hard Left."
[. . .]
(2) Nobody is more opposed to transparency and disclosure of government secrets than establishment "journalists."
[. . .]
(3) The single most sacred Beltway belief is that elites are exempt from the rule of law.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:54 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 25, 2009

He Didn't Call On Me

It seems the big news from the President's press conference is that "he didn't call on me." THAT is what the big Washington reporters choose to write about, instead of, you know, ... reporting the news.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:00 AM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

March 22, 2009

Corporate Media -- NO Representatives Of Labor Allowed

Media Matters - AP quotes "labor lawyer" who is really an anti-labor lawyer,

Earlier, I noted that the Washington Post failed to quote a single labor representative in its Employee Free Choice article today, though it quoted three CEOs. Turns out the AP is even worse. This article doesn't quote any labor sources, though it does quote a Starbucks spokesperson, the vice president of the anti-labor National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, a Whole Foods spokesperson, a Chamber of Commerce official, a representative of the anti-labor Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, and "Washington labor lawyer Jay Krupin."

. . . Here's a 2000 restaurant industry newsletter that says Krupin "represents a range of restaurant and other foodservice companies dealing with unions" and quotes him calling unions a "cancer":

Click through to follow links and read the rest...

When was the last time you saw or heard someone in the corporate media talking about teh benefits of joining a union?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:08 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 20, 2009

Things The Corporate Media Won't Let People Know

You don't know what you don't know.

In 1998 Saturday Night Live aired this video about corporate control of the media. The network censored it, preventing it from being shown on the later broadcast on the West Coast.

Go read the story at La Figa.

What else do people "know" or not know, as a result of corporate control of the information channels? For example: When was the last time you saw anything on corporate media promoting the benefits of joining a union?

When was the last time you heard through corporate media that democracy is a better way then corporate decision-making to govern the country?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:02 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

Obama - Two Months

President Obama was sworn in two months ago. Here's a short clip from Media matters about the "honeymoon" he enjoyed:

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:56 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

March 12, 2009

Recovery.gov

Have you visited Recovery.gov lately? Go read the FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions). Look at the timeline for distribution of the recovery money. Etc...

They will be showing where the money goes in the spring, as the agencies start reporting in.

Has your local newspaper, TV or radio news told the public about Recovery.gov, or are they instead telling people what Britney is wearing?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:30 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

February 23, 2009

Washington Post -- Own Up To It

File this under Why People don't Bother With Newspapers and their Aging Conventional-Wisdom Columnists Anymore

George Will must have a new client: Exxon. He wrote a column denying global warming, filled with stuff that was just wrong. Some of the "sources" he cited have demanded that the Post print corrections, because Will flat-out misrepresented their positions and reports.

The Washington Post and George Will refuse to print a correction to the misinformation.

Go read Think Progress: When will the Washington Post issue a correction for George Will's error-filled global warming denial column? They show that the aging Will is now recycling 1992 columns.

TPM Muckraker: Hiatt, Will, On Global Warming Misinformation: Talk To The Hand

Hilzoy at Washington Monthly, The Washington Post's "Multi-Layer Editing Process",

If Will actually read these two articles, it's hard to see how he's not being deliberately deceptive by citing them as he did. If, as I suspect, he just got them from some set of climate change denialist talking points and didn't bother to actually check them out for himself, he's being irresponsible.

Matthew Yglesias, Washington Post Stands By Climate Change Denialism,

This started as a problem for Will, his direct supervisors, and the Post’s ombudsman. But now that the Post as a paper is standing behind Will’s deceptions, I think it’s a problem for all the other people who work at the Post. Some of those people do bad work, which is too bad. And some of those people do good work. And unfortunately, that’s worse. It means that when good work appears in the Post it bolsters the reputation of the Post as an institution. And the Post, as an institution, has taken a stand that says it’s okay to claim that up is down. It’s okay to claim that day is night. It’s okay to claim that hot is cold. It’s okay to claim that a consensus existed when it didn’t. It’s okay to claim that George Will is a better source of authority on interpreting the ACRC’s scientific research than is the ACRC. Everyone who works at the Post, has, I think, a serious problem.

Ezra Klein at American Prospect: GEORGE WILL EMBRACES PALIN-ISM and WHERE DOES GEORGE WILL GET HIS GLOBAL WARMING FACTS?

And just out from Think Progress' Wonk Room: George Will’s ‘Global Cooling’ Column Is Almost Old Enough To Vote with Matter of Fact -- a PDF fact sheet from Think Progress

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:18 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

Chris Matthews -- Voice of the Village -- Says

Chris Matthews says that the stock market is a "scorecard" for how Obama is doing. And he says Americans are going to be really mad at Obama because "their" stocks are just going down and down.

Barack Obama didn't elect George Bush, and then elect him again even after it was obvious that a criminal conspiracy was dismantling the government and was looting the treasury. And it was the corporate media that enabled this, not Barack Obama.

So now the problems are really bad. Really bad. And not just the economic problems, the climate problem might be even worse than the economic problems.

Barack Obama has been in office one month now. We are all going to have to grow up, make sacrifices, stop being consumers and start getting involved, and pitch in to solve the country's problems.

And you, with your million-plus-dollar paycheck, if you can't grow up, just shut up. Really.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:55 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

February 17, 2009

Media Coverage of Recovery/Stimulus

Media Matters took a look at media coverage of the Recovery/Stimulus package: (It passed, by the way.)

They also released some facts and figures: (Click through for links)

JUMPING ON AN INCOMPLETE LEAKED CBO REPORT

In January, Media Matters noted several media figures falsely suggesting that a partial Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis of the economic recovery plan was in fact a full analysis of the bill and falsely suggesting that in that analysis, the CBO found that, in the words of The Washington Post, "the majority of the money in the Democratic plan would not get spent within the first year and a half." According to the CBO's most recent analysis of the entire bill, 74.2 percent of the total package would be spent within 19 months.

MISLEADING COVERAGE ON NEW DEAL

In December, Media Matters documented columnists Mona Charen and George Will cherry-picking unemployment figures to assert that the New Deal did not reduce unemployment, continuing a trend among conservative media of attacking the New Deal and President Roosevelt in an attempt to discredit Obama's stimulus plan. Both Charen and Will ignored that unemployment fell every year of the New Deal except during the 1937-38 recession and that economists have said that it was a reversal of New Deal policies that contributed to rising unemployment in 1937-38. This cherry-picking of data continued as Obama's economic recovery package moved through the legislative process, with a number of conservative media figures making similar claims.

AMPLIFYING REPUBLICAN FALSEHOOD ON ACORN

Echoing "fast facts" released by House Minority Leader John Boehner's office, a number of media figures falsely suggested that $4.19 billion of the stimulus would go to ACORN, referring to the $4.19 billion in the bill for "neighborhood stabilization activities." This falsehood persisted after the Conference bill was released (except now purportedly appropriating only $2 billion). As Media Matters documented, the bill does not mention ACORN or otherwise single it out for funding. Moreover, ACORN has denied that it is eligible for "neighborhood stabilization funds," and has stated that it does not intend to apply for them.

FALLING INTO A REPUBLICAN MOUSE TRAP

Many in the conservative media eagerly advanced the false claim that the economic recovery package contained $30 million to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district. The story was traced back to an email from a Republican staffer that said an unnamed federal agency, when asked how it would spend its share of the stimulus money, said that $30 million would go toward wetland restoration - including work to protect the salt marsh harvest mouse. That same staffer later conceded that "[t]here is no language in the bill that says this money will go to this project."

PROPOGATING HEALTH IT FALSEHOOD SPEARHEADED BY RUSH LIMBAUGH

The week that Congress voted on the Conference version of the economic recovery package, Media Matters documented Rush Limbaugh leading several conservative media outlets in parroting former New York Lt. Gov. Betsy McCaughey's falsehood that a provision in the House-passed version of the bill grants the government authority to "monitor treatments" or restrict what "your doctor is doing" with regard to patient care. In fact, the provision in question contained no such language. It grants authority to establish an electronic records system so that doctors can access complete and accurate medical information "to help guide medical decisions at the time and place of care."

FALSELY CLAIMING UNDOCUMENTED IMMIGRANTS ELIGIBLE FOR TAX CREDIT

Following a Drudge Report headline reading "HILL REPUBLICAN: STIMULUS GIVES CASH TO ILLEGALS," Media Matters documented several examples of the media falsely claiming that undocumented immigrants without Social Security numbers could be eligible for tax credits included in the economic recovery package. In fact, the legislation specifically disqualifies anyone without "a social security number issued to an individual by the Social Security Administration" from eligibility for the Making Work Pay tax credits. The Drudge Report headline had linked to an Associated Press article that cited a single anonymous "top Republican congressional official," and the article was amended four hours later, making clear that the GOP official's claim was false. Even after this correction, several media figures and outlets repeated the falsehood.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:13 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 5, 2008

Deep Thought

What if we had financial reporters based in Michigan? What if the people we see, hear and read from the corporate media were paid the national average, and didn't get health insurance?

Would policymakers have a different perspective? Would we have pledged $7.4 TRILLION to the black hole of financial companies? Would we already have health insurance?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:17 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

December 1, 2008

So Stupid It Literally Burns My Brain

It is official that we have been in a recession since the end of 2007.

So I am hearing people on the news channels saying that because most recessions do not usually last longer than this, it must be almost over, just about to get better.

It literally burns to hear this stuff.

WE are all in the pot like the proverbial frog. And when the water boils and everyone is dead, they'll say, Oh, Yes, we see that the water really is warming up.. (I stole that line from Ron S)

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:29 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

November 26, 2008

Media Just Shut Up Please

I keep hearing on the TV that "people on the left" are upset with Obama for putting former Clinton admin people (experienced people) into positions in his administration. Of course not one of them ever names names of those "people on the left." I haven't heard ANYONE say that. That is just stupid.

Shut up! Go divide the Republicans and leave the rest of us alone. Go criticize some CEOs or something. Sheesh!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:12 PM | Comments (2) | Link Cosmos

November 19, 2008

Cable News Shows

Cable news channels are filled with people with not enough information trying to fill up a whole lot of time. Basically they don't have much to say. Why does anyone watch this stuff?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:09 PM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

October 8, 2008

Debate Moderator and Social Security

Why was I subjected to a debate moderator telling us "everyone agrees" that Social Security is broke -- when it's just not true?

Wasn't that out of place for a debate moderator to say? Is the job of a debate moderator to inject right-wing anti-government propaganda into my head?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:11 AM | Comments (1) | Link Cosmos

September 4, 2008

Corporate Media Allows No Non-Corporate Analysis Of RNC

When the Democrats had their convention ABC and CBS constantly cut away to give "analysis" by Republicans and a few Democrats. During the Republican convention ABC and CBS have analysis by ... Republicans only.

See Media Matters - ABC, CBS aired no analysis from Dems during Day 2 of RNC coverage, despite airing analysis by Republicans during Day 2 of DNC coverage

Neither ABC nor CBS aired analysis from Democrats, Democratic strategists, or progressive media figures during their live coverage of the second day of the Republican National Convention on September 2 (the first day of the networks' live coverage of the convention). By contrast, both networks aired analysis from Republicans and conservatives, as well as from Democrats and progressives, during coverage of the second day of the Democratic National Convention on August 26.

By the way, when was the last time you heard about the benefits of joining a union from ANY corporate media outlet?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:55 AM | Comments (0) | Link Cosmos

August 3, 2008

Exxon-Funded Washington Post Articles?

The Washington Post has an article making fun of the idea of global warming, that coincidentally manages to coincide with the oil industry/Republican Party "Drill Now" advertising campaign. Global Warming Did It! Well, Maybe Not.. It begins by mocking people concerned about the planet,

Somewhere along the line, global warming became the explanation for everything. Right-thinking people are not supposed to discuss any meteorological or geophysical event -- a hurricane, a wildfire, a heat wave, a drought, a flood, a blizzard, a tornado, a lightning strike, an unfamiliar breeze, a strange tingling on the neck -- without immediately invoking the climate crisis. It causes earthquakes, plagues and backyard gardening disappointments. Weird fungus on your tomato plants? Classic sign of global warming.

Here is an example of the logic of this piece,

Last week, we saw reports of more wildfires in California. Sure as night follows day, people will lay some of the blame on climate change. But there's also the minor matter of people building homes in wildfire-susceptible forests, overgrown with vegetation due to decades of fire suppression. That's like pitching a tent on the railroad tracks.

Right, building homes in forests causes the fire season to start several weeks early, the snow pack to be half normal, vegetation to be drier, and a vast increase in the number of fires.

Did Exxon pay for this article? SOMEone pays this guy's salary, for this awful, cynical, insulting stuff. Or has the writer just attended too many cocktail parties with industry lobbyists?

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July 29, 2008

Media Matters Ad

Go help Media Matters put a great ad on the air:Take the Pledge: Hold the Media Accountable

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July 28, 2008

Corporate Media Largely White, Male

Media Matters has a study of 1700 guest appearances on cable news channels that shows that the people represented are largely white and male. Other Media matters studies showed the same on the Sunday news shows.

Media Matters - Cable Diversity:

Media Matters for America examined four programs on each of the three cable news networks during prime time, and recorded the gender and ethnicity of every guest who appeared during the month of May 2008 -- nearly 1,700 guest appearances in all. The results demonstrate that, at least in prime time, whatever effort the networks have made to increase the diversity of their guests have borne little fruit. Although there may be more African-American political analysts appearing during the daytime hours (particularly on CNN and MSNBC) in prime time -- when the audiences are largest -- white men continue to dominate.

And let me point out thatyou will never, ever see someone explaining the benefits of joining a union on corporate media outlets.

Key findings include:

* In total, 67 percent of the guests on these cable programs were men, while 84 percent were white.

* MSNBC featured the greatest gender imbalance, with 70 percent of its guests being male. CNN and Fox News were not far behind; each of those networks featured 65 percent male guests.

* Fox News was the whitest network, with 88 percent white guests. CNN and MSNBC were close behind, with both featuring 83 percent white guests.

* Latinos were particularly underrepresented. Though they now comprise 15 percent of the U.S. population, they made up only 2.7 percent of the guests. The worst of the three networks on this score was MSNBC, which featured only 6 prime-time appearances by Latinos during the entire month (out of a total of 460 guest appearances).

* A number of ethnic groups were shut out entirely, or nearly so, on some networks. During this month, there was only one appearance by an Asian-American on MSNBC, and only one on Fox News. Across all three networks, there were only four appearances by someone of Middle Eastern descent.

* Though white men make up only 32 percent of the population, they made up 57 percent of the guests on prime-time cable during this period. The host of every single prime-time cable show is white, and all but two (Greta Van Susteren of Fox News and Campbell Brown of CNN) are men.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:25 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 18, 2008

Written From A Desk In DC

Here's another illustration of the reasons people are turning away from corporate media and toward blogs, YouTube, etc.

Why We're Gloomier Than The Economy - washingtonpost.com,

Ask Americans how the economy is doing, and their answer is stark: It is not just bad, it is run-for-the-hills terrible. Consumer confidence is at its lowest level in almost 30 years. Only 12 percent of Americans think the economy is in good shape. On the Internet, comparisons to the Great Depression are widespread.

But the reality is different. According to most broad measures of how the economy is doing, it's not all that grim.

. . . But so far, the economy is holding up better than it did during the last two recessions in 1990 and 2001. Employers haven't shed as many jobs, the unemployment rate is still relatively low, and gross domestic product has kept rising. Things are nowhere near as bad as they were in the Great Depression, or even during the severe recession of 1982-83. The last time consumers were this miserable, in May 1980, the jobless rate was 7.5 percent and inflation was 14.4 percent. Now those numbers are 5.5 percent and 4.2 percent respectively.

OK. First, the jobs lost in the last recession never came back, so we're just starting from where that one left off.

Second, if you read blogs you know that the ACTUAL inflation and jobless rates -- if measured the way they were in 1980 -- are much higher than 5.5 and 4.2 percent. MUCH higher.

This has left economists trying to figure out why Americans' perceptions are so much more negative than the data analysts use to measure how things are going.

So the well-paid economists and Wall Streeters and Washington Post reporters are sitting behind their desks wondering why all those people out in the real world are yelling that tings are bad. THEY just don't see it, so things must be fine, and all those people out in the real world are just making shit up.

I mean, THEY don't get told every day to accept longer hours for less money because their jobs could be outsourced in a minute if the boss gets even slightly displeased with the amount of "Yes, Sir!" you're putting out. THEY certainly don't care if bread is approaching $5 a loaf.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:44 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 6, 2008

Corporate News Media Management Insanity

The new owners of the Tribune Co., which publishes the L.A. Times and the Chicago Tribune (among other papers), are going to be making widespread changes to their 12 publications, including massive layoffs, and balancing content and advertising in a 50/50 ratio on news pages, according to the New York Times, in an article entitled: Tribune Co. Plans Sharp Cutbacks at Papers.

Here's the "logic" they're using:

...the struggling company has looked at the column inches of news produced by each reporter, and by each paper’s news staff. Finding wide variation, they said, they have concluded that it could do without a large number of news employees and not lose much content.

This makes about as much sense as measuring computer programmers by how many lines of code they produce. In other words, none at all. Based on what I read in the article, you can kiss goodbye to serious journalism at any of these newspapers.

Mr. Michaels [chief operating officer] said that, after measuring journalists’ output, “when you get into the individuals, you find out that you can eliminate a fair number of people while eliminating not very much content.” He added that he understood that some reporting jobs naturally produce less output than others.

Yeah, sure. He "understands". That's why his metrics emphasize quantity over quality, and he puts a newspaper that has won 37 Pulitzer prices (the LAT) in the same category as one that has won two (the HC).

The Los Angeles Times produced 51 pages of news for each journalist there, while the figure for two other Tribune papers, The Baltimore Sun and The Hartford Courant, is more than 300 pages.

In other words, the staff at the LAT are bleeped.

Surveys show readers want “maps, graphics, lists, ranking and stats,” [Mr. Zell, chief executive officer and chairman] wrote. “We’re in the business of satisfying customers, and we will respond to what they say they want.”

Who the BLEEP do they think bothers to pick up a newspaper at this point? High school dropouts?!?

Posted by Thomas Leavitt at 11:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Washington Post Headline Calls Hillary a 'Ho'

Howard Kurtz - Hey, Ho, Please Don't Go - washingtonpost.com

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:16 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 4, 2008

On The TV

So will we start seeing more than one or two black people on TV now? How about Hispanics? Once in a while maybe?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:32 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 17, 2008

Doctoring Audio And Video Clips To Fit The Republican Line

Get ready for a new kind of attack in this year's campaign.

More and more I am hearing about doctored audio and video circulating. For example, on May 9 conservative news outlets were pushing a story that was based on an audio clip that "spliced and doctored an NPR interview of Al Gore in order to allege that Gore said something which he did not."

On May 15 ">CNN edited a video clip of Obama communications director Robert Gibbs to remove from the middle of a paragraph his statement about Bush's Defense Secretary calling for talks with Iran the day before Bush said Obama was an "appeaser" for saying exactly the same thing.

The right and corporate media are becoming more comfortable with this tactic, so check and double-check everything you are hearing to be sure it is true before you let it influence your thinking.

And watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 16, 2008

Why Don't We Hear About Labor Issues Anymore?

Last week security guards working at Kaiser Permanente facilities in California went on strike to protest illegal anti-union activities on the part of their employer, Inter-Con Security. Instead of hiring security guards directly in California, or using a union-friendly security contractor, Kaiser contracts with Inter-Con. The strike lasted three days.

A few local TV news broadcasts covered the story, and there were a few newspaper articles announcing that there was going to be a strike. But there was almost no actual coverage of the strike except on progressive sites and labor outlets. What's up with that?

Why does the media barely cover labor issues?

Of course, when I write "the media" here I mean the newspapers, TV and radio that we usually call the "mainstream" media and lots of us call the "corporate" media. This is where most people get the news and information that forms the basis of their opinions and understanding about what is happening - and why it is happening. And therefore for most people the information presented by this mainstream or corporate media necessarily forms the basis of their voting decisions, their opinion poll survey answers, and their overall acceptance of and consent for actions conducted in their name by government and other institutions of society.

When things are repeatedly reported in "the media" as problems, most people begin to become concerned and perceive that these "problems" need to be somehow "solved." We see cycles of this development of public concern. In recent years, for example, the media has done a great deal of reporting on the problem if children being kidnapped. And there is a great deal of concern about this among parents -- to the point that societal patterns are changing and children rarely are allowed out of the house unaccompanied. Fewer and fewer children walk to school, go to parks alone, etc.

In reality child kidnappings are extremely rare, which makes this a case study of the power of the major media to sway the behavior of the entire country. Over the years similar media-driven concerns about drugs, shark attacks and satanic cults have created waves of national hysteria.

If actual threats held sway, car accidents, guns, and other real threats would receive much, much more public attention and concern.

The other side of this ability to drive public attention is the power to hide real problems. The national debt is approaching ten trillion dollars, and interest on that debt is approaching half a trillion dollars per year, but is rarely mentioned as a concern. The military budget is greater than the military spending of all other countries in the world combined, much, much higher than when we faced down the Soviet Union, while a lot of people are making a whole lot of money from it with little public scrutiny. (This is not even counting Iraq/Afghanistan spending.) But this is never brought up.

And then there is the problem that labor unions are trying to address. This is the domination of our government by big-business interests and the accompanying concentration of wealth into the hands of a very few people at the expense of the rest of us. Workers like the Inter-Con security guards who are trying to organize to demand even minimal pay and benefits are absolutely invisible in today's mainstream/corporate media. The illegal tactics being used - with the assistance of the Bush administration - are not covered by today's mainstream/corporate media. But what else would you expect, as the media becomes further and further concentrated into the hands of a few very, very large corporations? Do you think for a minute that a large corporation would allow any kind of pro-labor stories to be carried on news media that it owns?

You hear that the reason for this is that "labor is declining." Well there are a lot more members of unions in this country than there are Fellows at neo-con think tanks, but you sure do hear from them a lot in the mainstream/corporate media. There are a lot more members of labor unions than there are members of the far-right Christian Coalition, but you sure hear a lot about their concerns the corporate media. And there are a lot more people who work for a living in jobs that pay too little, don't provide adequate health care or sick leave or other benefits and need to hear about the benefits of joining unions. That's for damn sure.

In fact any coverage of the plight of these security guards is necessarily pro-labor. When you hear about their living and working conditions you will understand what I mean. My next post will be about that, so stay tuned.

I encourage you to visit StandForSecurity.org.

I am proud to be helping SEIU spread the word about this strike.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:18 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Good For Matthews

Chris Matthews on Hardball went after a right winger for mindlessly repeating talking points, clearly demonstrating that the right winger didn't have even a clue what he was saying. Good for him. It is worth watching if only because it is so very rare to see a right winger held accountable.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 23, 2008

The Missing Word -- FILIBUSTER

Republicans block pay discrimination bill | Politics | Reuters,

On a 56-42 vote, mostly Democratic supporters of the bill fell short of the needed 60 in the 100-member Senate to clear a Republican procedural hurdle and move toward passage of the bill.

"a Republican procedural hurdle." Wow, that's some fancy wording in this "news" article. In fact the wording is designed to block the information about what happened here from reaching the reader.

What happened here is that the Republicans FILIBUSTERED the bill that would bring fair pay to women for the same work.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Breaking - Another Preacher Says God Damns America

Hagee Says Hurricane Katrina Struck New Orleans Because It Was ‘Planning A Sinful’ ‘Homosexual Rally’,

On September 18, 2006, Pastor John Hagee — whose endorsement Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said this past Sunday he was “glad to have” — told NPR’s Terry Gross that “Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans.” “New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God,” Hagee said, because “there was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came.”

Hagee is McCain's preacher.

Will this also be on every news channel, repeated over and over, 24/7, for the next several months? Will reporters hound McCain with questions about his preacher? If not, then what is it that is different between this preacher and Obama's?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:21 AM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 19, 2008

ABC Interviews McCain

Following the right-wing-framed questions ABC presented the Democratic candidates with in this week's debate, here is a look a tomorrow's interview with Sen. McCain -- at The REAL McCain: Less Jobs, More Wars.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:20 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 9, 2008

McCain's Taxes

There was a huge media frenzy demanding that Hillary Clinton release her tax returns. And, of course, she did.

But McCain didn't. There is not a mention in the media of that, however. Of course.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:55 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 26, 2008

What Does Corporate Control Of Media Mean?

Think about this: When was the last time you heard, read or saw anyone in the major media explain the benefits of joining a union?

Almost all of the outlets for news and information in the United States are now owned by five corporations. From The New Media Monopoly,

When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian's warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation's news "alarmist." Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America's daily newspapers, magazines, radio and television stations, book publishers, and movie companies has dwindled from fifty to ten to five.

Think about that. Five corporations control almost everything that most people in the country "know."

Again, think about this: When was the last time you heard, read or saw anyone in the major media explain the benefits of joining a union?

So, do you think these five corporations are using this near-total control of information for their own benefit, or not?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:10 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 22, 2008

Not Getting It

I get so tired of press stories about rich people written by well-paid comfortable people. What relevance do these stories have for regular people?

Example: in the story Thinking Twice About That $400 Handbag - New York Times,

"You had a lot of people who graduated to a level of consumption they could not really afford," said Adrianne Shapira, a retail analyst at Goldman Sachs. "Two-hundred-dollar pairs of denim were plausible when home values soared, but now $100 jeans are looking more reasonable."

Do you see what is wrong in that paragraph? You can't afford $200 jeans, so you have to settle for $100 jeans?

That is Just. Not. Getting. It. REGULAR people NEVER DID buy $200 jeans. Regular people go to Costco and pay $15 for jeans. And now the economy is forcing them to cut back on the $15 jeans.

Dear New York Times: I might start paying attention to you again when you're writing about people who wear $15 Costco jeans.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:59 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 31, 2007

Who Do These People (The Press) Think They Are?

Brent Budowsky: Media Insiders Shaft Biden, Richardson, Dodd, Kucinich and America - Media on The Huffington Post

[. . .] The insider political media is now embedded with, and morphed into, the insider political classes to the point where they part of the same beast. The insider political reporters have moved beyond the courtiers that Stephen Colbert so brilliantly satired two White House correspondents dinners ago; and have fully joined the home team of the insider Washington establishment.

This class decided a year ago which candidate was inevitable, and which candidates were exiled into the insider media gulag, destined to disappear as though they never existed.

By any standard, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd stand at the top of the list in presidential qualification, stature, substance and a lifetime of depth and achievement. A reasonable person might conclude that each of these three, has equal or greater qualification to be president as any of the three leading Democrats.
[. . .] Who do these people think they are, that during most of the presidential debates, the three candidates with such vast experience had to virtually ask permission, to sandwich a few seconds of their views, into the most boring, shallow, vapid, pointless debates that any serious democracy could possibly conduct at such a momentous time in our history?

Regarding the last Iowa Democratic debate, who do these sainted Iowa debate organizers think they are, that Alan Keyes gets prime participation in the Republican debate while Dennis Kucinich is banned from the Democratic debate?

I cannot even show minimal professional respect; only an idiot would give Keyes prime exposure while treating Kucinich like a Guantanamo detainee; and the idiots that made this decision have far too much power, in Iowa and nationally, for the health of our democracy.

Go read - it's great.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 20, 2007

Wingnuts Roll Out Annual War On Christmas Nonsense

Here we go again. The wingnuts will believe anything. It's sort of fun to watch, except that they have guns and power.

See Redstate | Okie Attorney General Bans Christmas. Seriously. Except if you read the story they point to the Oklahoma Atty General didn't "ban Chrsitmas" -- a wingnut group says he did with no evidence. Turns out from the story that some obscure HR person at a university may have done it - not the state Atty General as claimed. And the news source for this? "a visiting journalism fellow at The Heritage Foundation. " Heh.

And of course, other extremely gullible wingnuts jump on board to catapult the propaganda, as they say... Unfortunately they are giving out the Atty General's phone number, so readers can harass and intimidate him.

The whole point being, of course, to rile up the "wackos" (as the conservative leaders refer to the Christians). But this year it might backfire on them. The "conservative movement" is extremely threatened by candidate Mike Huckabee - but he is the primary beneficiary of their efforts to stir up religious strife.

Update - To his credit Captain's Quarters actually checked out the story - after posting - learned it isn't true, and posted an update. Others, however, join in echoing the lie - even adding more phone numbers and e-mail addresses to harass.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:08 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 18, 2007

Even MORE Media Concentration Coming!

Do you think the media is corporate-controlled, and offers only one viewpoint? Well, you ain't seen nothing yet.

FCC to vote on media ownership,

Despite intense political pressure, the Federal Communications Commission is expected to approve a proposal Tuesday that will allow broadcasters in the nation's 20 largest media markets to also own a newspaper — overturning a 32-year-old ban.

Republican Chairman Kevin Martin says his plan is a "relatively minor loosening" of the rule, but it has received a considerable amount of opposition.

On Monday, 25 senators, including four Republicans, sent him a letter threatening that if he goes ahead with the vote, they will move legislation to revoke the rule and nullify the commission's action.

Hmm ... this would be in place just in time for the next election. I wonder which party these corporate-controlled news outlets will be pushing? Hmm...

Update - It's done. FCC Votes To Relax Cross-Media Ownership Rule,

The Federal Communications Commission voted on Tuesday to loosen media ownership restrictions in the 20 biggest U.S. cities, despite objections from consumer groups and a threat by some U.S. senators to revoke the action.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 17, 2007

Real People Missing From The National Discussion

From Booman Tribune ~ Who's Missing from NY Times Op-Ed Pages?,

Yesterday, The New York Times (Sunday edition) devoted almost a full page of its Op-Ed section to a number of short essays written by economists, Wall Street analysts, scholars and fellows at various "think tanks" (both liberal and conservative) government advisers (past or present) and prominent business people (many of these folks fit into more than one category, by the way). The question they were all asked to address: Are We in a Recession?

[. . .] Oddly enough (well, not really, I just like to use the word odd in all its varieties when discussing serious purveyors of news and public opinion such as, for example, The New York Times) there was one significant group of individuals who apparently were not asked to contribute to this discussion by answering the question posed by the Times' editors, as to whether "we" are in a recession (and I'm using we here in the same sense as that term is used in the phrase "We the People" in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, rather than limiting it to any "subset" of said "we" such as financial institutions, economists, investors, fellows at well known non-profit educational and policy foundations or highly compensated, highly educated, and highly intelligent people offered the chance to present their opinions on the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times). Can you guess who those people might be, the ones whose opinions were deemed unsuitable for inclusion alongside all of these well spoken and well informed worthies the Times chose to answer this question of serious concern to all Americans?

Go read.

And what do you think, are "we" in a recession now? Leave a comment.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:05 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 6, 2007

Corporate Media Working To Further Conservative Agenda

When are progressives going to stop being all shocked and surprised that the corporate media are working hand-in-hand with conservatives to further the conservative/corporate agenda? Face it, people, it's just the way it is. Times have changed. Stop being so chocked and awed by it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 27, 2007

CNN Promises Easy Questions For Republicans - Unlike Those For Dems

In the Democratic CNN/YouTube Presidential primary debate CNN included questions like,

"I'd like to know, if the Democrats come into office, are my taxes going to rise like usually they do when a Democrat gets into office?"

This question reinforced the Republican-spread conventional wisdom about "tax and spend" Democrats.

But CNN promises not to do any such thing for the upcoming Republican debate.

See Media Matters - CNN pledges no Dem 'gotchas' in Republican YouTube debate -- so why did CNN allow partisan 'gotchas' in Dem debate?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 8, 2007

Is Fox News A Soft-Porn Network?

I've long noticed that Fox's MySpace is a soft-porn enterprise. Now Brave New Films is taking on Fox News for the same.

Watch the video:

Go here for a petition :FOX Attacks Decency with Bill O'Reilly Leading the Way

Demand "a la carte" cable television.

Under current law, you cannot opt-out of FOX. You are forced to put money in FOX's pockets every time you pay your cable bill.

The best way to keep FOX out of your home is to force cable companies to offer "a la carte" cable, where you only pay for the channels you want. A la carte will lower your cable bill, prevent inappropriate programming from entering your home, and will keep your money out of FOX's pockets.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:19 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 5, 2007

Moonies

Why does Fox News put Moonies on as authorities?

Why don't other "competing" networks call them on things like this?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:44 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 1, 2007

AP Prints Tobacco Company Press Release As News

In today's paper - San Jose Mercury News - Cigarette tax would hurt poor. This is an AP story. It begins,

Congressional Democrats have chosen an unlikely source to pay for the bulk of their proposed $35 billion increase in children's health coverage: people with relatively little money and education.

... The program expansion passed by the House and Senate last week would be financed with a 156 percent increase in the federal cigarette tax, taking it to $1 per pack from the current 39 cents. Low-income people smoke more heavily than wealthier people in the United States, making cigarette taxes a regressive form of revenue.

Democrats, who wrote the legislation and provided most of its votes, generally portray themselves as champions of the poor.

This is what is considered "news" in corporate America.

I'll have more on the idea that taxes "hurt" peoplelater...

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 21, 2007

Dems "Failing?"

The Republicans have a strategy of using the filibuster to block everything the Democrats try to do, and then telling the public that the Democrats are letting them down. As a result of this strategy there have never in history been as many filibusters. Is this news? Apparently not.

So what IS the news from this? AP: Democrats failing to pass anti-war bill, ABCDemocrats failing to pass anti-war bill, Google News shows this echoed this morning at 1,422 outlets.

Some days it seems like the major media is complicit in Republican political strategies.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:47 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 31, 2007

Fox Attack Game Show Video

The FOX is WRONG: Global Warming!

This is really funny:

Go do something.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 30, 2007

Bill O'Reilly, hatemonger

David Neiwert writes about Bill O'Reilly of FOX News in Orcinus: Bill O'Reilly, hatemonger. He has a number of quotes from O'Reilly himself, including "Well, I want to kill Michael Moore" and "Mexican wetbacks" and talking about a "final solution" for dealing with Arabs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 26, 2007

Become A Fox Attacker

Become a Fox Attacker. Help identify FOX News advertisers (national and local) for the database. Then let advertisers know what is being said on FOX News. This is not a boycott, it is letting advertisers know what is being done with their advertising dollars.

Fight back! Become a Fox Attacker.

Fox is not a legitimate news channel. They consistently misrepresent facts, manufacture terror, and slander progressives.

We're fighting back by identifying and calling all of FOX's advertisers. All of them. Particularly local advertisers who probably have no idea the kind of hatred their money is supporting.
We’re fighting back by identifying and calling all of FOX’s advertisers. All of them. Particularly local advertisers who probably have no idea the kind of hatred their money is supporting.

This is not a boycott. We are simply calling advertisers and informing them about FOX. And making Bill O’Reilly’s life a living hell.

Thanks to Brave New Films.

More at Crooks and Liars, and Rick Perlstein at Common Sense Blog,

I've just become a proud "FOX Attacker". Now you can too. It's not a boycott. It's simply calling advertisers and informing them what FOX says. FOX can't survive that. Have a blog? Then help spread the word.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:22 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 25, 2007

Bush Uses Injured Reporter As Prop

Over at All Spin Zone, “Welcome Back Bob. Now, STFU.”

Bush welcomes back Bob Woodruff, a reporter injured by a bob in Iraq. The Woodruff asks a questions, and Bush says,

“Just because I recognized you, Bob, doesn’t mean I’m going to answer your questions here.”

As All Spin Zone puts it:

(Of course, CNN obediently left out that part of the exchange in their report.)

In other words: “Thanks for being here as a prop for me, Bob, now shut the fuck up.”

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:21 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 24, 2007

While Progressives Talk To Each Other, Conservatives Talk To The Public

Progressive bloggers talk to each other. Conservatives talk to the public.

For example, Bush and the Republicans recently renewed their claim Iraq attacked us on 9/11 and that is why we invaded that country. Their politicians, pundits, talk-show hosts, bloggers, news anchors, op-ed writers, letter-to-the-editor writers and others all said it, using largely the same "tested" words and phrases, on the radio, in the newspapers, in their blogs and on their TV channels. Progressive bloggers responded with the truth, but who did they reach?

The right talks to the public, and it works. Support for Initial Invasion Has Risen, Poll Shows,

Americans’ support for the initial invasion of Iraq has risen somewhat as the White House has continued to ask the public to reserve judgment about the war until at least the fall.

[. . .] However, the number of people who say the war is going “very badly” has fallen from 45 percent earlier in July to a current reading of 35 percent...

[. . .] The poll’s findings are in line with those of one conducted last week by The New York Times and CBS News.

And other lies continue as well. Just today, for example, from the right-wing Heritage Foundation, The War in Iraq: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,

While WMD were not found, some may have been moved to Syria in the convoys of hundreds of trucks that crossed the border just before the U.S.-led intervention and during the first few weeks of fighting.

[. . .] If the U.S. pulls out of Iraq before it has a stable government capable of defending itself, the likes of bin Laden will have a safe haven from which to attack the U.S. again.

[. . .] If we stand back and allow al-Qaeda's terrorists to succeed, they will turn Iraq into a base for attacking us, just as they turned Afghanistan into a base for attacking us. The Clinton Administration decided that the U.S. had no stake in the civil war in Afghanistan in the 1990s. Only after the Taliban allowed al-Qaeda to operate from its territory did we discover—too late—that we did have a stake there.

Right, blame Clinton. But it was Clinton who did something about Iraq's WMD, and tried to do something about al Qaeda before 9/11, not Bush. Remember the "aspirin factory?"

Progressives need to start reaching the general public with the truth as well as each other. We need to start working together to fund and build the organizational infrastructure to develop and test messaging, then coordinate the use of messaging, train speakers, employ pundits, develop media channels, etc.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:11 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 8, 2007

Reporting Live Earth News Or Shaping Opinion?

Organizers say Live Earth's internet audience may have been as many as two billion people*. But how is it reported today? Earth underwhelmed by environment pop extravaganza ,

They rocked the world, but as the clean-up at nine climate change gigs around the globe begins, many wonder if the galaxy of pop stars did much to change it.

U.S. and British media were generally underwhelmed on Sunday by Live Earth, the mega-concert organized by former U.S. vice president and green campaigner Al Gore, which, though built on the model of Live Aid and Live 8, created a less positive buzz.

Murdoch's Times of London had this ready, Live Earth fails to pack large-scale punch, and Murdoch's Fox News was ready with this one, reminiscent of the energy-use smear on Al Gore that came out the day after he won the Oscar for An Inconvenient Truth (see part 2 also), 'Green' Means Money, Not Environmentalism to Madonna,

Madonna had better clean up her business before she starts cleaning up the world.

... Madonna, who seems to be on top of all her many business endeavors, has actually invested about $2.7 million dollars in companies that are creating the destruction that Live Earth is trying to raise awareness about. She has invested in several companies named as the biggest corporate polluters in the world.

.. The companies include Alcoa, Ingersoll Rand, Weyerhaeuser, and several others associated with oil exploration, digging, and refining including British Petroleum, Schlumberger (a chief competitor of Halliburton), Devon Energy, Peabody Energy, Emerson Electric, Kimberly Clark and Weatherford International.

... one has to wonder why Madonna has put even a penny into the company if she has any feeling for environmental causes. But that's an inconvenient question for the material girl as she prepares to close the Live Earth show live from London.

Nice try, but people do understand the problem and are going to continue to pressure the government for action.

*P.S. MSN reports 9 million streaming, AOL reports 5 million. AND,

Control Room, producer of Live Earth and Live 8, said it found that the on-demand streams in the days after the Live 8 had the most impact, especially after clips were passed around by e-mail.

Live 8 was streamed by users more than 100 million times in the six weeks following the shows.

Live Earth is predicted to be three times bigger with organizers expecting more than 80 percent of the viewership will be on-demand in the days after the event.

So two billion seems high, but one heck of a lot of people did and will tune in for sure.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:16 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 25, 2007

Fairness Doctrine

The right has launched a pre-emptive attack on the Fairness Doctrine.

Contradiction alert: if the right says the media is dominated by liberals, why would they oppose a doctrine requiring presentation of differing points of view? Oops!

WorldNetDaily: Democrats hope to hush Rush

The Conservative Voice: The Nazification of the American Left,

..Given their desire to censor, even to prohibit, conservative speech, it is clear that American liberals are much more in tune with Goebbels than with our cherished First Amendment rights. ... Imagine what Goebbels could have accomplished if he’d had what American fascists have had at their disposal for decades: four major television networks – ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN – with a stable of star-quality propagandists, such as Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Bill Moyers, Keith Olbermann, and Rosie O’Donnell, in their pocket. ... George Soros, the anti-American billionaire who now owns a controlling interest in the party ...

Drudge is pushing it, too

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 22, 2007

Talk Radio Study Demonstrates Misuse Of Public Airwaves

Free Press and The Center for American Progress have teamed up to produce a report on tal radio that is very interesting. The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio. Some excerpts from the summary:

...in recent years, Americans listened on average to 19 hours of radio per week in 2006.

Among radio formats, the combined news/talk format (which includes news/talk/information and talk/personality) leads all others in terms of the total number of stations per format and trails only country music in terms of national audience share. Through more than 1,700 stations across the nation, the combined news/talk format is estimated to reach more than 50 million listeners each week.

And what options are presented to the public by these stations?

* Our analysis in the spring of 2007 of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners reveals that 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming is conservative, and 9 percent is progressive.
* Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk—10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.
* A separate analysis of all of the news/talk stations in the top 10 radio markets reveals that 76 percent of the programming in these markets is conservative and 24 percent is progressive, although programming is more balanced in markets such as New York and Chicago.

Yikes! This study demonstrates that consumers are not allowed choices of different opinions and analisys. These stations are licensed to use public airwaves. By limiting choices in this way, are they serving the public interest?

Is it a licensing issue? Again, from the study,

Ownership diversity is perhaps the single most important variable contributing to the structural imbalance based on the data. Quantitative analysis conducted by Free Press of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations reveals that stin, from the study,ations owned by women, minorities, or local owners are statistically less likely to air conservative hosts or shows.

In contrast, stations controlled by group owners—those with stations in multiple markets or more than three stations in a single market—were statistically more likely to air conservative talk.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:11 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 14, 2007

The Seriousness Of Our News

At about 12:30pm Pacific I turned on the TV and clicked over to CNN for a minute. On the screen was a reporter interviewing Barbara Walters, because Walters was the only journalist who had interviewed Paris Hilton in jail.

That’s it. That's news in America. This news wasn't even news about Paris Hilton, it was news about the news interviewing Paris Hilton.

So I got on the internet and visited BBC News to see what news is like in England today. They are covering boring stuff, like the Hamas-Fatah war.

Al Jazeera is covering that, the Iraq mosque attacks, the assassination in Beirut, North Korea ... boring.

Nothing about Paris Hilton so I guess I'll go back to CNN.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:04 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 28, 2007

Terrorism From The Right Escalating

Rick Perlstein notes the rise in Right-Wing Terrorism, and the major news media's failure to connect the dots.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 23, 2007

Gore on Fire

I saw Al Gore talk at a book signing for his book, The Assault On Reason, in Marin County (north of San Francisco) this evening. He was supposed to talk for a short time, take questions and sign books, but he just got going an gave one of the most inspired, intelligent and I think historically important articulations of the current threat to the American experiment and our democracy that I have heard. He was just on fire.

Gore says our country’s problems go beyond the manipulations and corruptions of Bush and Cheney. He talks about what has happened to this country that we could have ever allow a Bush and Cheney and their lies and evasions and incuriosity to take the reigns of our government – and allowed them to stay there after it became clear what they are about. And he has some very insightful things to say about the historical forces that brought us where we are, and how they might guide us through this.

At times he sounded like a guru, talking about “truthforce,” about how honesty enables us to see clearly without the distortions and distractions that come from constant TV exposure to trivia like gossip about Paris Hilton and Britney and work to push deadly situations like the Iraq war and global warming from our discourse. This is a man who has thought about what is happening to us, and who has the vision and experience to come up with some answers.

He asked how could not just the President, but the Congress, the media and the rest of our system of checks and balances and watchdogs have let Iraq – which he called the worst strategic blunder in our history – happen? How could he public have been fooled into thinking that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11? It’s not just Bush who did that – it’s all of us. Bush is just a symptom. We are ALL responsible for the decisions our country makes. So we all have to get involved and start fixing this broken system. Democracy is not a spectator sport.

I have only had time to read excerpts from Gore’s book, The Assault On Reason, but I predict that the conversation it fuels will be fundamentally and historically important. Buy this book! And listen for news of Gore coming to your area, or appearing on TV, to talk about this subject. The guy is just on fire and I think that fire could catch and spread and help bring about the changes we need.

It’s late or I would write more. I am inspired. (does it show?) I hope that a video of this evening’s talk surfaces soon. I'll post about it if I learn of one.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:48 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 7, 2007

More Mike Gravel - "Left-Wing Fringe"

I came across this New York Magazine interview with Mike Gravel, and it is one more example of why mainstream, grassroots people are turning away from the "traditional" media. Many are turning to blogs.

We Do Not Understand What the Hell Mike Gravel Is Talking About - New York Magazine's Daily Intelligencer,

The star of last week's Democratic presidential debate was a fringe contender Mike Gravel, 77, a former Alaska senator, who became a blogosphere sensation for saying that it should be a felony for Dubya & Co. to stay in Iraq.

OK, let's take this step by step. Why is the word "fringe" in there? Next, that is not what the guy said. He said the following,

We need to find another way. I really would like to sit down with Pelosi and with Reid, and I would hope the other senators would focus on, how do you get out? You pass the law, not a resolution, a law making it a felony to stay there. And I'll give you the text of it.

And if you're worried about filibuster, here's what you do tactically. They can pass it in the House. We've got the votes there.

We've got the votes there.

In the Senate, let them filibuster it. And let Reid call up every -- at 12:00 every day to have a cloture vote. And let the American people see clearly who's keeping the war going and who's not.

And then, of course, is the nasty ending:

Do you think Dennis Kucinich is angry you're stealing his thunder as the left-wing fringe candidate?
Stop that. I'm not the far-left fringe candidate, and please don't write that. We've had somewhat of a testy conversation in this interview, and now we've got to end this.

"Left-wing fringe" Right.

So there's a Neiman Macrus ad and a Delta Airlines ad on the page. Their media kit says they have 90,000 unique visitors per day. (yeah, right.) Their rate card says there is a $20,000 minimum to run an ad there. The Neiman Marcus ad has a $40 CPM which means they pay $3600 each day so those supposed 90,000 unique visitors can hear about how Americans who oppose the Iraq war are the "left-wing fringe".

I don't charge nearly as much for an ad, and I don't insult readers. Except certain ones. You know who you are.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Why People Read Blogs

Through Atrios: Firedoglake - Firedoglake weblog ｻ Zombies,

I don't know what it's going to take to kill the "teenagers in their pajamas" stereotype but I suppose I should be grateful. If these people were any less lazy and stupid we wouldn't have a readership.

Exactly. The reason blogger have readers is because the "traditional" media is not serving the public interest.

In the above-referenced post, Jane quotes from the 2006 Blogads Readership Survey:

The median political blog reader is a 43 year old man with an annual family income of $80,000. He reads 6 blogs a day for 10 hours a week. 39% have post-graduate degrees. 70% have contributed to a campaign.

Here's the thing. News is now a business, not a public service. There is a fundamental conflict between serving the larger public good and being a business. It is one or the other, not both. It is foolish to have any other expectation.

The only way to change that is to mandate that the media act in the public interest.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:50 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 30, 2007

Washington Media Thinking

This is just offensive: Wag the Blog: What's Next for Democrats on Iraq - The Fix,

Some Democratic strategists fret that by turning the Iraq debate into a war of words on funding for the troops, an idea which Americans generally still support, the party could watch a political winner turn into a loser at the ballot box in 2008.

Today's Wag the Blog question asks The Fix's community to sound off on what the Democrats' best next move is -- politically -- when it comes to the debate over the war.

Should Democrats escalate the current standoff and provoke a showdown with the White House over funding? Or should Democrats compromise in hopes of negotiating some sort of timeline for withdrawal? If they pursue the former strategy, will it risk turning off moderate voters who will be key in next year's presidential and congressional races? And if it's the latter, will the vocal liberal wing of the party revolt, attacking congressional leaders seen as too moderate on the war issue.

Remember the issue is not which argument makes the most sense from a policy perspective, but rather which one is the savviest from a political viewpoint.

We passed 100 American soldiers dead so far this month. How many Iraqis? How many "contractors?" How much closer is the Middle East to a regional conflict breaking out?

And "some Democratic strategists" and the Washington media crowd want to talk about who it's helping politically.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 13, 2007

Media Matters Featured In My Morning Paper

Are times beginning to change - a little bit? An actual mention of Media Matters in the newspaper!

San Jose Mercury News - Group that exposed Imus angers conservatives,

While radio shock jock Don Imus was hanging up his cowboy hat and getting canned Wednesday from his MSNBC TV show and then Thursday from CBS for a racial slur made a week earlier, the Washington, D.C., organization Media Matters for America was scratching a notch on its belt.

In its third year, the non-profit with 50 employees and a budget of $3 million to $4 million was getting its biggest recognition so far for its efforts to "monitor, analyze and correct conservative misinformation."

Over three years, and to the ire of the conservatives it targets, the group had reported some 15 other examples of racist speech by the popular in-the-Beltway host, as well as countless corrections to reports in major media outlets, from the New York Times to Fox News. But even it was surprised that the Imus incident was the spark that caught fire.

"We were the first to draw attention to the comments a week ago," said Jamison Foser, the organization's managing director. "We focused a great deal of effort to make sure that people understood this wasn't an isolated incident, as he was claiming afterward."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 7, 2007

In The Tank For Bush & The Right

Is it just me, or does it seem to you like the media is much more in the tank for Bush and the right since the election?

On another subject, does it seem to you that the US Attorney scandal has faded from the news with nothing being done, leaving in place US Attorneys who let Republicans and corporate criminals off the hook, while investigating or indicting Democrats? My prediction - if these US Attorneys stay in place, the lead-up to the 2008 election will include LOTS of news stories about Democrats being investigated and indicted, and no stories about Republicans being investigated at all.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:31 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

April 1, 2007

Media Matters

"Media Matters"; by Jamison Foser,

How many ways can one news outlet demonstrate that it is out of touch with the public in one week?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 23, 2007

What I Wish I Had Said

I was on a panel at UC Berkeley this week with some political reporters from TV and newspapers. (I will write more about this soon.) I represented the voice of the people - the scary bloggers.

One question was about the concentration of media into fewer and fewer corporate hands. I said that one result is that you no longer see union voices represented in the major media, and that you will never hear the case for why people should join unions and the benefits people receive from union membership, and that this amounts to outright censorship. You just can not expect corporations to allow this case to be presented. This really upset the journalists. The audience - US Berkeley students heading to summer intern jobs in Washington - loved it.

One of the panelists offered that the reason you don't get the union viewpoint is that so few Americans are members of unions. It was worded, "How many Americans are members of unions?" I responded, "How many Americans work for a living?"

Then I asked, "How any Americans are CEOs?" One of the panelists offered that the decisions CEOs make affect all of us, so it is important to cover the viewpoints of CEOs.

What I wish I had said was, "Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't the decisions all of us make affect CEOs? Isn't that how a DEMOCRACY should operate?"

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:51 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 15, 2007

Public Believes Media Is Left-Wing

Zogby Poll: Voters Believe Media Bias is Very Real,

The vast majority of American voters believe media bias is alive and well – 83% of likely voters said the media is biased in one direction or another, while just 11% believe the media doesn’t take political sides, a recent IPDI/Zogby Interactive poll shows.

... Nearly two-thirds of those online respondents who detected bias in the media (64%) said the media leans left, while slightly more than a quarter of respondents (28%) said they see a conservative bias on their TV sets and in their column inches.

... While 97% of Republicans surveyed said the media are liberal, two-thirds of political independents feel the same, but fewer than one in four independents (23%) said they saw a conservative bias.

Even 17% of Democrats believe the media is left-wing.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

March 1, 2007

The Al Gore Lie Is Halfway Around The World And The Truth Is Sitting In Nashville.

By Dave Johnson and James Boyce

There's a tragic but true old expression that a lie can make it half way around the world before the truth can even get its pants on. Sadly, this has been proven true again this week with the $mear attack on Vice President Al Gore and his energy consumption.

Today, we noticed that the lie has made it to Germany. How did this happen and, more to the point, why does it continue to happen?

As Media Matters continues to speak out about every single day - and we all owe them thanks - the corporate media in America absolutely fails to serve the interest of the public. How could they spread this lie? How does a small, unknown organization with a $100,000 budget issue a press release containing a $mear on a respected former Vice President of the United States and have their lie echoed around the world within hours? Pathetic. (Just look at their IRS form! No officers, directors or trustees? Very little information? A P.O. box? Is it normal for an organization to spend that high a percentage of their funds on "meals?") One reporter asking one question about this group, or about the facts behind Gore's energy use, and the story is over. But they didn't.

Furthermore, it's our collective fault. As we noted in our post a few days ago, no one should have been surprised when Al Gore was attacked for the positive press he and his movie received last weekend. An Inconvenient Truth was sure to win an Oscar. Gore would then speak to a billion people about the problem of global warming. The well-funded global warming denial industry would respond, and $mearing people is their standard method of attack. They destroy our leaders.

And yet, there was surprise and a lack of preparation to fight back. How many times will one of our leaders be attacked and be marginalized before we get it through our thick heads that this is a pattern? How many times will this happen before we start to do something about it?

Al Gore was mocked as "ozone man". Max Cleland destroyed. Howard Dean screamed out of town. McGovern, Carter, Mondale, Dukakis, and Bill Clinton $meared and $meared and even impeached. Then the lies about Al Gore during his campaign against Bush. Then John Kerry swiftboated. Now Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama and John Edwards attacked. They destroy our leaders.

And not only are the targets of the attacks often caught off guard, but the Democratic institutions and leaders are often nowhere to be found when it happens!

Where was the Democratic National Committee on Tuesday and Wednesday as these lies gained hold? Where was any Democratic-oriented Group? There were the progressive bloggers, Media Matters and CAP's Think Progess and very few others -- the usual suspects -- and this is all that Gore and our other leaders have watching their backs. They sure aren't watching each other's.

Last fall, we (James, Dave and Taylor Marsh) worked together on The Patriot Project. We struggled mightily to raise money to help veteran candidates like Joe Sestak, Patrick Murphy, Charlie Brown, Jack Murtha and Chris Carney. We raised money online but traditional donors didn't help us. The progressive bloggers are also largely unfunded and are the targets of strategic marginalization attacks themselves. The progressive donor base continues to play it safe and avoid controversy, funding the large, stale, DC-based "traditional" organizations.

And the attacks continue.

When John Kerry was the focus of the machine when he botched his joke, the wingnuts misrepresented what he said and pretended outrage, the right's online sites echoed and amplified the smear, the Drudge Report spread it widely, Limbaugh blasted it out, and then the networks dutifully picked it up and spread the lie to the rest of the country. And not only did no Democrat come to his aid, some actually piled on.

When Nancy Pelosi was $meared with the lie that she "demanded a luxury jet" the wingnuts misrepresented what she said and pretended outrage, the right's online sites echoed and amplified the smear, the Drudge Report spread it widely, Limbaugh blasted it out, and then the networks dutifully picked it up and spread the lie to the rest of the country. But how many leading Democrats and organizations joined forces to protect her?

How many similar episodes have we seen in just the last few months? Where are the Democratic institutions? Where are the other Democratic leaders? Don't they understand that they're next?

And this week here was Al Gore getting blind-sided and the silence was deafening. One more sad but clear example of what ails our party and our leaders.

It is a tragedy.

First the wingnuts came for Bill Clinton,
I remained silent;
I am not Bill Clinton.

When they made up stuff about Gore,
I remained silent;
I am not Gore.

When they lied about John Kerry
I didn't speak up for him;
I complained about how he ran his campaign.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out;
I am a Democrat.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:02 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 23, 2007

It Really Is This Simple - Bloggers Are About The Real World

I glanced at "The Note" this morning to get the Washington Insider view of things.

"See the Democrats in Congress not falling into the Republicans' trap (yet) and avoiding a stop-the-war strategy that will (fully) open them up to charges of abandoning the troops. As they tinker with various legislative efforts to achieve their goal of bringing American troops home, Democrats have three main goals: (1) appease their base; (2) keep their coalition together; and (3) most of all, pressure enough Republicans to demand that the President change course. Oh: and: as a political matter, is the surge working?"

I have to give them credit for saying right at the start, "to achieve their goal of bringing the troops home." But the rest of it? The rest of it is about the politics of it. In fact the entire rest of today's Note is about "the politics" of everything - which is to say, about nothing.

The DC media perspective is about the politics. The blogger perspective is about what is happening in the real world. A lot of people are content to argue about politics and positions. I guess it's easier, emotionally, than thinking about the real world.

Here are some things going on in the real world:

Those people in Iraq are D.E.A.D.

That national debt is Money. That. We. Owe.

Houses and buildings Will. Be. Under. Water. from global warming.

Every single day that the posturing continues more people die in Iraq, more carbon goes into the air, more money is owed.

It really is this simple.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:53 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 13, 2007

How the “Pelosi 757” Lie Was Spread

Another day, another right-wing lie spreads through the media and across the country...

The current $mear on Speaker Pelosi is a case study in how the right-wing $mear machine operates. The right has been working to spread a lie that Speaker Pelosi “demanded” a “luxury jet” to fly herself and “supporters” and “contributors” around. The lie is effective because it ties a current event to a deeper, long-term resentment narrative about “limousine liberals” that the right has been pushing for years. It is spreading across the country because it is passed through a prepared pipe to the places where the general public receives their information.

The facts are simple: since 9/11, for obvious security reasons, the Speaker of the House of Representatives (who is next in line behind the Vice President to become President) has flown on government rather than commercial aircraft. Speaker Pelosi is from California, so with the House now back to a five-day workweek the Sergeant-at-Arms of the House of Representatives requested a jet that can make it to California non-stop. According to the Sergeant-at-Arms,

"The fact that Speaker Pelosi lives in California compelled me to request an aircraft that is capable of making non-stop flights for security purposes, unless such an aircraft is unavailable."

That is the entire story, period. But the right’s propaganda machine has been working to blow this up into a story that supports their “limousine liberal” resentment narrative, adding various embellishments with each passing day. According to this narrative, liberals are rich “elitists” from the coasts who think they are smarter and generally superior to the “regular people” in “the heartland.” This is meant to create a resentment backlash, bringing votes to conservative candidates so they can get into office … and give tax cuts to rich elitists.

Over several days, the “Pelosi plane” story has been expanded into a fable that has Speaker Pelosi “demanding” a “floating pleasure palace,” a “luxury 757” with two beds, a bar, and 40 first-class seats, so she can “transport her political cronies, favorite Members of Congress, congressional staffers, friends and relatives.”

An interesting point to note about this story is that such government planes do exist. The Bush administration has actually purchased such planes for use by executive branch officials and military brass. But this “use of luxury aircraft at taxpayer's expense” is not objected to in the retelling of this story. The objection is to their use by Speaker of the House Pelosi in particular. So perhaps part of the right’s anger driving this issue can be laid to authoritarian resentment about a member of Congress - “the People’s House” - a female Speaker, no less - being “demanding” enough to possibly gain use of one of “their” luxury planes.

As so many $mears do, this one originated with the Reverend Moon's Washington Times and was quickly spread across the right's echo chamber. Though the Reverend Moon preaches that Christianity must be “torn down” because he is the true Prophet and our “True Parent,” the Christian Coalition again joined forces with him to condemn Pelosi,

Christian Coalition of America condemns the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, Democrat from San Francisco, for trying to get luxurious travel paid for by the American taxpayers. Is a first class seat on a commercial jet no longer good enough for Speaker Pelosi? Nancy Pelosi is demanding that the Air Force provide her with a large jet on demand - “Pelosi One” - so she can transport her political cronies, favorite Members of Congress, congressional staffers, friends and relatives back and forth to her district in San Francisco every week.

Others joined forces with Moon’s efforts. The New York Post wrote in the story,
AIR-OGANT NANCY, DEMANDS 22G-AN-HOUR JET OF SAME TYPE VEEP GETS,

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is demanding regular use of the military's "Lincoln Bedroom" in the sky - a luxurious aircraft of the same type that carries Vice President Dick Cheney and First Lady Laura Bush on official trips, officials said yesterday.
In a development that has some Republicans and defense officials fuming, Pelosi recently asked the Pentagon to give her access to the Air Force's super-opulent C-32 for flights to her San Francisco home and other official trips.

The floating pleasure palace is a reconfigured Boeing 757 stored at Andrews Air Force Base with Air Force One and the rest of the fleet of executive aircraft.

The aircraft has a game room, stateroom, showers, a communications center and seats 42 to 50 people, according to the Air Force.

It costs taxpayers $22,000 an hour to operate, according to military and congressional sources.
“It will be a flying Lincoln Bedroom,” said House GOP Whip Rep. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).
“This shows an unprecedented sense of entitlement. This is a symbol of hypocrisy, this is a symbol of excess and this is a symbol of arrogance,” said a member of the House Republican Conference.

Far-right outlets like NewsMax echoed and amplified the $mear. The Republican Party itself put up a web page titled, “Non-Stop” Nancy Seeks Flight Of Fancy, claiming,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Wants Non-Stop Military Aircraft For Herself, Staff, Family, And Other Members In California Delegation

And right-wing talk radio has, of course, echoed the $mear all day, every day.

But the right’s “echo chamber” reaches far beyond newspapers, TV and radio. People receive information in lots of ways, and the conservative machine has studied them and puts them to use. Online message boards and e-mail chain-forwarding, for example, can be a useful barometer of right-wing smear-planting operations. The same wording repeated at many boards often indicates that something is going on. The number of examples resulting from a Google search for the phrase “Nancy Pelosi's Gas Guzzling 757 Flying Bedroom”, for example, demonstrates that this may be occurring.

One message board example, posted by “Air Pelosi One” at various discussion groups, (also found here) reads:

Note: The author of this message requested that it not be archived. This message will be removed from Groups in 4 days (Feb 16, 2:21 pm).
The list of things Nancy Pelosi (allegedly) wants with relation to her air travel just gets funnier and funnier every day. Each new day someone comes up with something wilder she allegedly is asking for. So here's the Top Ten List of what Nancy Pelosi wants:
10. Hot male strippers as pilots
9. Young gay nubile boyz as flight attendants
8. Hot lesbian oil wrestlers for inflight entertainment
7. Nonstop supply of recreational drugs
6. Wall-to-wall mattresses for Democratic Party orgies
5. An olympic sized swimming pool
4. Dubya's bronzed balls mounted in a trophy case by the plane door
3. A Boeing 747 - previously the largest commercial plane in the world
2. An Airbus A380 - the current largest commercial plane in the world
1. The Space Shuttle!

Many similar examples can be found across the Internet. A Google search for the terms “Pelosi” with the term “757” already yields over 160,000 results. A quick check shows that a substantial number of the listed results are about this particular story.
“Heartland” newspapers piled on, picking up the “limousine liberal” narrative. The Evansville Courier Press, for example, in and editorial titled Air Pelosi, The Issue: House speaker demands airliner-sized jet, writes,

… She is demanding - and, given her style, “demand” is the correct verb - that the Pentagon supply her with an airliner-size jet, the military version of a Boeing 757, to fly her to and from her San Francisco district.

… One Republican-allied group weighed in, decrying the “42 leather business-class seats, a fully enclosed stateroom for Nancy Pelosi, stewards who serve meals and tend an open bar, and other such luxuries aboard.”

Maybe that's a little overwrought, but Pelosi should know from what happened to the House Republicans last November that voters resent what they saw as the GOP's overweening sense of entitlement and privilege.

Even though no facts supported Reverend Moon’s smear, the $mear quickly migrated to the corporate media, as documented by Media Matters and Think Progress, with CBS News (and here), Nightline, CNN, NBC’s Today, MSNBC, and , as the right's Media Research Center bragged, others. (Media Matters covers this topic in detail here.)

Right-wing weblogs also helped spread the story. The weblog GOP Bloggers, in Democrats Weak on America's Enemies, Tough on America's Armed Forces, wrote,

If these matters weren't so serious, it would be humorous to watch the Democrats wield their power in the clean, non-corrupt and open way they advertised prior to the election.

The weblog Redstate, in the post, Roy Blunt on "Pelosi One", wrote,

In case you have not heard, Nancy Pelosi is trying to take advantage of her position and force the military to provide her with a 50 passenger plane which would be about the size of a Boeing 757.
[. . .] For those of you who still do not believe Pelosi and Democrats are obessed with power I would ask you to think again.

The weblog Right Wing News, in the post Queen Nancy’s Plane, amplifying yet another Washington Times story on the subject, wrote,

At first, it was hard to pay attention to this scrap between the military and Nancy Pelosi over how big of a military plane she'd get, but when it gets to the point where Pelosi wants to inconvenience the troops so she can shuttle her political supporters around the country with her, that's a little much.
[. . .] If it were up to Nancy Pelosi, the troops getting ready to go overseas would sit and wait for a larger plane while she had the military ferry her and her campaign contributors across the country on junkets. The military is not a taxi service.

The "military weblog" Blackfive, in the post BLACKFIVE: Pelosi's Air Force wrote,

Coming from perhaps the least military friendly district in America, it is a little disgusting to watch Nancy Pelosi shamelessly try to use her new power to get as many toys and perks as possible.

She has basically put the Air Force on notice that she and an entourage must be transported at a moments notice in the largest and most luxurious manner possible. She shunned the C-20 that Speaker Hastert used as insufficient for her needs. It's a Gulfstream IV FFS, a luxury jet that billionaires fly on. But Speaker Grandma needs more. She wants her own military 757 and a crew of 14 to handle her and up to 50 guests, family, and hangers on.

Particularly revealing about these weblog posts are the comments they elicit. For example, one commenter writes,

The idea that Speaker Granny is too lofty to stop in Podunkia somewhere and gas up her Gulfstream IV is pathetic.

Another writes,

They'd have to stop somewhere in "flyover country," and exposure to how the real America lives would be too much for HM Queen Nancy to handle.

Note the "heartland resentment" narrative.

Other comments illustrate anti-democratic authoritarian resentment,

She should be happy the Pentagon makes jets available to her in the first place.

And,

They despise the military, unless and until THEY need them.

Another commenter resorts to eliminationist threats, writing,

…Just throw her out in mid-air. Murtha, what a fat, bloated stuffed shirt. He really f'd himself, he needs a grenade stuffed down his throat.

So there you have it. Another day, another right-wing lie told and re-told. This is the pipe. At one end you have the strategic, coordinated $mear pushed out to the public. Coming out the other end you have the street-level reaction: resentment and threats of violence.

A final note - Newsweek today continues the circulation of the lie, complete with conservative narrative reinforcement, writing, (with a big, red down-arrow):

"Sure Hastert had military jet, but seeking bigger one (to go nonstop) makes her sound like a 757 liberal."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:38 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

February 9, 2007

The Media Does Not Act In The Public Interest

Before 1987 the government required that our broadcast frequencies be used in the public interest. Broadcasters were required to present a diversity of information and opinion. This was because it was understood that it was essential to democracy that the public receive diverse ideas and information.

In 1987 the Reagan administration removed the requirement that our broadcast frequencies be used in the public interest. They said that “the market” (a few people with lots of money) rather than the public (the public) should decide the best way to use this public (public) asset.

No longer required to act in the public interest, the media immediately ceased acting in the public interest. Instead they, of course, began to advance the profit interests of the corporatocracy, exactly as was predicted back when the requirements that the broadcast media act in the public interest were imposed. That is what "the market" means. The market serves the market's interests, not the public's.

The results are obvious - we no longer hear the ideas of, for example, labor leaders. (For just one example out of hundreds of examples.) We do not see comprehensive, informative, investigative documentaries on the problems facing society. We do not hear news that harms the interests of advertisers - or media companies and the companies that own them. (When was the last time you heard about the benefits of being a union member on a TV show? What percentage of broadcast time is used for commercial entertainment purposes rather than informative or educational topics?)

People who complain about "the media" and expect them to be impartial, neutral, informative and/or objective and balanced - or otherwise act in the public interest - do not understand the difference between required to act in the public interest and not required to act in the public interest. If you require them to, and enforce that, they will occasionally act in the public interest. If you do not, they will not -- and expecting them to is entirely misunderstanding the conflict between the requirements of "the market" and democracy.

This has been an episode of medium-length answers to simple questions.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:43 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 29, 2007

Pilotless Drone

Never say "pilotless drone." Ever. There can be consequences. This guy might call you up and leave a message on your voicemail.

He needs to start a blog.

Through Engadget.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:47 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 23, 2007

Big Media vs Blogs

Big-time media guy blogs and gets every fact wrong. Commenters point it out. Big-time media guy then writes a post saying, "the left is as full of unthinking Ditto-heads as Limbaugh-land."

Please, please, please go read the comments!!! Please!

Seriously, take some time off. Maybe take a refresher at a local community college. Or maybe look into one of those air conditioner repair courses. It's supposed to be a lucrative field.

and

Wow-comparing fact-based commenters to unthinking dittoheads form Limbaugh-land. That's going to win you some friends.

What is this assumption that people are from "the left" when they point out errors?

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:54 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 22, 2007

NY Times and Right Wing Framing

Just the headline: Fragile Hopes for Bipartisan Rescue of Social Security - New York Times

"Rescue?" The Social Security trust fund is solvent - no problems at all. But the NY Times story talks about "the long-term fiscal problems in Social Security."

This framing of "going broke" and needing "rescue" comes from a long-term strategy to get rid of Social Security by portraying it as a "ponzi scheme," "going broke," "needing to be fixed," etc. This strategy was laid out in a 1983 Cato Institute document. The document even describes the strategy as "Leninist."

Do not be fooled. There is nothing wrong with Social Security, it is not "going broke," there is no need to "fix" it. It is solvent, and will continue to provide retirement, disability and other benefits to Americans without changes.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:46 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 10, 2007

MySpace Refused Anti-Media Consolidation Ad

MySpace, owned by Fox News, refused to allow Common Cause to run an ad opposing media consolidation.

Update - I originally posted the ad with a link so others could get the ad and post it. Then I visited the Common Cause blog and learned that they are paying some sites to run the ad. Which made me realize they were making fools of all of us who ran it for free - a trick to get free PR from dedicated progressives, while paying the big sites. So I took it out of this post.

MySpace shouldn't have refused the ad and supposed progressive organizations should stop exploiting dedicated progressives.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

January 3, 2007

Challenge Local TV Stations

Did you know that TV and radio stations are using YOUR common airwaves and are therefore required to serve the public interest?

ARM Challenges TV-Station License Renewals in Portland

The Oregon Alliance to Reform Media, or ARM, has filed a petition at the FCC to deny its renewal of all the commercial TV station licenses in Portland, Ore., saying its coverage of elections does not meet the FCC's standard of public-interest service, which is to meet the needs of the community.

The group uses as supporting material a study from the Campaign Media Legal Center that found that, in the four weeks prior to the election in 2004, less than 1% of newscasts were devoted to coverage of state elections, about 9% to ballot issues and less than 1% to local elections.

The group claims the study covered "substantially all of the regularly scheduled locally produced news available in Portland."

The group argues that the FCC must at least designate the license challenge for hearing--something it rarely does--saying that its petition raises "substantial and material questions of fact" that make that designation mandatory.

Of course, the FCC can also conclude that the evidence does not meet that burden of proof, as it did recently in denying a license challenge to Chicago commercial stations over minority issues.

Of course, this is the BUSH FCC, so they'll just refuse to do anything. But maybe if we alert the public and make enough noise... now that there is oversight, maybe the Congress will work to force the Bush FCC to enforce the law.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:42 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 20, 2006

WSJ Says You Are "Imbeciles"

In The Blog Mob, Assistant Features Editor Joseph Rago doesn't like democracy -- not one bit. He thinks what you read should be controlled by gatekeeper "journalists." Himself, namely.

He says blogs are mostly awful, appalling, boring. He says "The petty interpolitical feuding mainly points out that someone is a liar or an idiot or both." So at least we know what he is afraid we will discover if blogs write about him and the rest of the WSJ editorial page.

I suspect the online WSJ needs traffic and is "trolling for hits." Accommodate them - go read it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 19, 2006

When News Becomes A Corporate "Product"

In the new corporate-owned America a newspaper owner tells people in the newsroom what to print. They quit - or are fired when they won't do what the owner wants because they consider it unethical. Journalists write about the story and are sued for libel and "product disparagement." See Publisher of Santa Barbara paper sues journalist over AJR story

A local barber puts a sign in his shop window supporting the workers, and is threatened with a lawsuit. See Santa Barbara News-Press Owner Threatens Hair Stylist Over Sign

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

December 14, 2006

It's Not The Bloggers, It's The Blogs

A quick comment on all the big-name pundits and Washington insiders who criticize "the bloggers" and question their legitimacy: Anyone can start a blog.

(pause)

Here is what I am saying. When you criticize "the bloggers" and question the legitimacy of what they are saying, you are questioning the concept of democracy itself. ANYone can start a blog -- so everyone is a blogger. If it makes you uncomfortable that the rabble is allowed to speak and express their opinions you need to think about your own understanding of and commitment to democracy. The blogs that reach prominence do so through an entirely democratic process - people have chosen to read or echo what is being written on them.

It's not the bloggers you have a beef with, it's the blogs themselves -- the tool that lets the public have a say.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:04 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 28, 2006

Fairness Doctrine

I submitted an op-ed to a major newspaper, advocating restoring the Fairness Doctrine. The editor wrote back saying he was rejecting it because he can't think of any examples of bias or unanswered attacks on broadcast media. Heh. I'll submit it to a different paper - maybe one with an editor that owns a radio.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 17, 2006

Eat the Baby to Save the Baby

And watch the TV pundits reaction as they strive to shape America's opinion.

It's modern America -- in The Propaganda Age.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:28 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 9, 2006

Restore The Fairness Doctrine!

It is time to restore the Fairness Doctrine!

How many of you have heard of the Fairness Doctrine? Public broadcasters are licensed to use OUR airwaves. It used to be that in order to be licensed they were required to serve the public interest. One part of that public interest was to present a balanced view of different political viewpoints and to cover controversial issues of public importance. This "Fairness Doctrine" requirement was intended to protect the public from the possibility of moneyed interests buying up all of the information sources, leaving the public hearing only their viewpoint.

There was also a personal attack rule, which required stations to notify people or groups who were attacked on their broadcasts and give them the opportunity to respond on the air. And, candidates were given the opportunity to respond to attacks or endorsements of opponents.

Ronald Reagan's FCC stopped enforcing and then got rid of the Fairness Doctrine. Congress restored it but Reagan vetoed that. Under President George HW Bush Congress again restored it but it was vetoed. Then, under President Clinton the House passed it but the Republicans in the Senate blocked it with a filibuster. In the last six years Republicans controlled the House, Senate and Presidency and were quite happy with broadcasters presenting only a narrow corporate viewpoint, and allowing personal attacks to go unanswered.

It is time to restore the Fairness Doctrine!

Restoring the Fairness Doctrine would open up America's "marketplace of ideas." It would help to restore civility to our public discourse. It would help restore our democracy.

If the Fairness Doctrine were restored we would begin to see a variety of issues covered by the broadcast media, from a variety of perspectives. Currently we only see subjects that the corporate world is interested in, covered from a pro-corporate perspective. Imagine the effect on the country if the public were exposed to a variety of viewpoints on issues like trade, consumer protection, sustainability, unions, health care, global warming and energy, religion, the environment, nutrition, and SO MANY other issues!

Imagine the effect on our civic discourse if stations had to give time for a response to everyone that Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter smeared on the air!

It is time to restore the Fairness Doctrine!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:25 PM | Comments (16) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 8, 2006

Bush Press Conference -- The Liar

In his press conference Bush just acknowledged lying to a group of conservative reporters last week, to their face, about Rumsfeld. Wow. He said something along the lines of, "I said that because I wanted you to think so-and-so" and that lying ""and it was the only way I could get you onto another topic." He made them look like fools and patsies in front of the press corps. I wonder if that will have repercussions?

Update - So another reporter asked him to clarify, and he is saying it (lying) was the right decision to make because injecting it (that there would be a change) into the media would harm the morale of the troops...

And he's talking about reporters trying to trick him and get him to say things... Wow.

Update - OK, the transcript,

You and Hunt and Keil came into the Oval Office and asked me to question one week before the campaign. Basically, are you going to do something about Rumsfeld and the Vice President? The reason why is I did not want to make a major decision in the final days of the campaign. The only way to answer that question, and get it on to another question, was to give you that answer. The truth of the matter is as well, that is one reason I gave the answer. The other reason why is I had not had a chance to visit with Bob Gates yet. I had not had my final conversation with Don Rumsfeld yet at that point. I had been talking with Don Rumsfeld over a period of time about fresh perspectives. He likes to call it fresh eyes.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:13 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Pelosi

I'm watching Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi's press conference. CNN cut it off. Fox cut it off to show Lieberman...

We have a LOT of work to do.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:17 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

November 3, 2006

Why Haven't You Heard About The Plan?

BobGeiger.com: Proof That Bush Lies Every Day About Dems Lack Of Security Plan

It was just two months ago that Democrats rolled out the Real Security Act of 2006, a plan whose legislative description left no doubt that Democrats had a plan, saying that it was designed "to provide real national security, restore United States leadership, and implement tough and smart policies to win the war on terror."

"The Real Security Act of 2006 marks a major change from status quo Bush Republican policies that have left America less safe than it must be," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in introducing the plan. "Unveiled against the backdrop of a new White House media offensive, the legislation spells out the tough and smart path to make America more secure and to deal more effectively with threats that confront America at home and abroad."

These days, you would never know that such a plan exists for two reasons. The first it that it was killed by the Senate GOP leadership on September 13, 2006 on a roll-call vote that went almost straight down party lines. The same Republicans who killed the Democratic plan now walk around saying the Democrats have no plan.

The second reason that the Democratic strategy is so hard to find is that the corporate media continues to let the no-plan nonsense go unchallenged because, I suppose, it would be too much like real work to read the 528-page piece of security legislation that the Democrats tried to pass.

Go read the whole thing!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:34 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 19, 2006

Why Air America Matters

Thom Hartmann writes over at Huffington Post on Why Air America Matters,

There are times when doing the profitable thing is also doing the right thing.

That's certainly what Roger Ailes and Rupert Murdoch thought when they lost an average of $90 million a year for about five years before the Fox News Channel became profitable. It's what Reverend Moon believes, as his Washington Times newspaper lost hundreds of millions of dollars and, according to some reports, even today continues to lose money.

Go read.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 18, 2006

Reid vs Hastert

Media Matters - Why has CNN devoted 50 times as much coverage to Harry Reid's land deal as Dennis Hastert's?,

From October 12-17, CNN aired 3,361 words about allegations that Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (NV) improperly reported a land deal in which he made $700,000.

Seventeen different CNN transcripts in the Nexis database include mention of the Reid land deal -- and that doesn't even count October 18, when CNN has aired at least one more lengthy segment on the deal.

By comparison, CNN has aired only 65 words about a land deal in which House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL) made nearly $2 million, a story which was first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times on June 15. By contrast, the Reid land deal first broke a week ago, when the Associated Press reported on October 11 that Reid had made $700,000 "on a Las Vegas land sale even though he hadn't personally owned the property for three years."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

October 16, 2006

CBS News Provides Free Airtime To Vets For Freedom Action Fund - A Campaign Organization

This piece originally appeared on The Patriot Project

Wade Zirkle, Executive Director of Vets for Freedom Action Fund was invited last week to present a “free speech” commentary segment on the national TV “news” show CBS Evening News With Katie Couric.  There is a problem with this. Vets for Freedom Action Fund is a “527” group – a campaign organization that appears to exist soley to support one candidate – Joe Lieberman’s Connecticut campaign for the Senate.  So Zirkle’s presentation was not “commentary,” by definition it was a campaign speech supporting a partisan cause, delivered to a national audience a few weeks before an election.

CBS identifies Vets for Freedom Action Fund as a “bipartisan” organization.  But it is not.  Vets for Freedom Action Fund is entirely founded and controlled by Republican Party-aligned individuals, and its formation follows a pattern of formation of Party-aligned front groups for election-campaign purposes.  In the August post Behind the Front: The Creation of Vets for Freedom, Patriot Project exposed Vets for Freedom as a Republican front group.  From that post,

This "non-partisan" organization’s website was designed by The Donatelli Group/Campaign Solutions, which previously had worked with the infamous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, as well as the White House-associated Judicial Confirmation Network, yet another well-financed, party-affiliated front group. Other Donatelli Group/Campaign Solutions clients include Bush-Cheney 2004, The Republican National Committee, the 2004 Republican National Convention...

The "non-partisan" Vets for Freedom originally had a privacy statement on their website that read, "We may from time to time share the information our visitors provide with other Republican candidates and other like-minded organizations."

The "non-partisan" Vets for Freedom included William Denman "Wade" Zirkle, who had helped run Republican Jerry Kilgore's 2005 campaign for governor of Virginia, and was campaign manager for Republican Todd Gilbert's 2005 race for the Virginia House of Delegates.

Because Vets for Freedom is a political, Party-affiliated election-campaign "527" organization supporting Joe Lieberman’s Senate Connecticut bid, CBS’ contribution of several minutes of airtime may be an improper corporate campaign contribution. 

Additionally, the appearance of Vets for Freedom Action Fund on a national nightly-news program bestows unwarranted credibility on Vets for Freedom.  In the minds of voters, this elevated their party- and candidate-supporting advertisements to a different level.

However, beyond the impropriety of CBS making this contribution, there may also be a question whether this contribution violated Federal election law.  Federal election law prohibits corporate-paid 527 advertising within 30 days of an election if it mentions a candidate.  While the CBS/Vets for Freedom “free speech” advertisement did not directly mention Joe Lieberman by name, the fact that Vets for Freedom Action Fund exists entirely for the purpose of supporting this one candidate brings into question whether this was a candidate-support advertisement.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:46 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 15, 2006

Net Neutrality

Watch Sen. Ted Kennedy supports Net Neutrality and rate it up so more people see it.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:36 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 11, 2006

Limbaugh on CBS News - Word-For-Word Matches New Republican Ads

Media Matters - CBS gave Limbaugh a platform to attack nameless "critics" who are "not interested in victory," offer his definition of "patriotism",

Summary: In a "Free Speech" segment on the CBS Evening News, Rush Limbaugh attacked unnamed critics who are "not interested in victory" over what he termed "Islamofascism" and who do not conform to his definition of "patriotism," specifically those who "are more interested in punishing this country over a few incidents of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay than they are in defeating those who want to kill us."

The new Republican/PFA ad message: "These people want to kill us."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:04 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 10, 2006

Republican Ad Echos 'Path To 9/11' Theme

After writing the post below I replayed the new Republican/PFA ad and noticed something. The ad says,

“Many times before 9/11 al Queda attacked America and we took little action."

Interesting how this lie exactly corresponds to the theme of ABC's Path to 9/11. Interesting how the ad is rolled out at the same time.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 2:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 9, 2006

The Extent Of ABC Lies

ABC's Path to 9/11 doesn't just fictionalize - it intentionally tells the public the very opposite of what happened. It doesn't just broadcast the right-wing myth that Clinton was responsible for 9/11, it also misleads the public into thinking that the Bush administration was trying to prevent the attacks. But in fact the Clinton administration was "obsessed" with preventing terrorism and the Bush administration ignored terrorism.

According to Joe Conason at Salon, in The Sept. 11 that never was,

The movie shows ... Condoleezza Rice demoting Clarke in January 2001 when she takes over as national security advisor. Clarke tries to warn her that "something spectacular" is going to happen on American soil, and she assures him that "we're on it," which they assuredly were not.

Indeed, the script downplays the neglect of terrorism as a primary threat by the incoming Bush team -- and never mentions the counterterrorism task force, chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney, that never met for nine months before 9/11. The famous Aug. 6 presidential daily briefing, which warned the vacationing Bush that al-Qaida intended to strike here, is given due attention. But the movie then shows Rice telling her associates that "as a result of the Aug. 6 PDB, the president wants to take real action" against al-Qaida. But the 9/11 Commission report's section on the PDB clearly states that the August warning was not followed up on by Rice. [emphasis added]

This is pure right-wing propaganda, following the Republican campaign theme.

Update - Orcinus has more.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:58 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

ABC Also Blames American Airlines

At AMERICAblog,

Here's what the "Path to 9/11" claims American Airlines did on the morning of September 11. According to Disney/ABC, American Airlines had Mohammad Atta at its ticket counter and a warning came up on the screen when he tried to check in. The AA employee called a supervisor who kind of shrugged and said, blithely, just let him through. The first employee, shocked, turned to her supervisor and said, shouldn't we search him? The American Airlines supervisor responds, nah, just hold his luggage until he boards the plane. The scene is clearly intended to make American Airlines look negligent.

Only problem? It never happened.

We now know that David Horowitz is involved in this smear, and that Horowitz has been working on a long-term strategic effort to rewrite history and shift blame for 9/11 away from Bush and the Republicans and onto Clinton.

We also know that the reality was that the Clinton administration was "obsessed" with preventing terrorism, and that the Bush administration ignored it, and went on vacation after receiving a warning alert titled, "Bin Laden Determined To Attack Within US."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 11:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 8, 2006

Al Gore Statement On ABC Anti-Clinton Propaganda Piece

At Think Progress, Gore On Path to 9/11: ‘It Would Be Fundamentally Irresponsible To Air Such Distortions’. Gore's statement:

By all accounts, “The Path to 9/11″ is riddled with inaccuracies and contains material that directly contradicts the factual findings of the 9/11 Commission. I am deeply concerned that ABC is considering going forward with their plans to broadcast this so-called docudrama. The lessons from the events leading up to that tragedy are too important to trivialize, and it would be fundamentally irresponsible to air such distortions.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:33 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 6, 2006

ABC and Propaganda Blaming Clinton for 9/11

ABC is attempting to spread a lie and manipulate the public to vote for Republicans in the coming election. George Bush let 9/11 happen -- and to cover themselves they launched a campaign to blame Clinton. Now ABC is "propelling the propaganda."

Go to Open Letter to ABC: Don't Airbrush 9/11.

Down the left column (should be at the top) is a TAKE ACTION section. Go do everything they say. Right now.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:48 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 5, 2006

The Set-Up - Right-Wingers Leave Comments, Then Complain About Them - Updated

Here is an opportunity to watch a strategic narrative develop in real-time. Remember the other day when the Republican National Committee had a picture of Howard Dean with a Hitler mustache? Maybe that was a tip-off of something coming. The Republicans are trying to make the public think that liberals hate Jews.

A few days ago several bloggers noticed a flurry of anti-Semitic comments suddenly showing up at their blogs. It was obvious that the next step would be widespread circulation of right-wing stories about those anti-Semitic liberals...

And, right on schedue: HATEFUL 'MOVE' VS. JOE By MAGGIE HABERMAN - New York Post Online Edition: News,

A string of anti-Semitic rants about Sen. Joe Lieberman have popped up on the liberal MoveOn.org's open forum Web site, drawing criticism from the Anti-Defamation League.

And of course, the chorus chimes in, here, here, here, here, here, here, and I'll add as they show up...

More here, here, here, here, here and here.

RedState: Ned, Junior, and their hate-filled endorsement,

The type of hatred evinced by MoveOn.org and by George Soros is dangerous.

Right Voices, MoveOn.org and Hateful Jewish Slurs Aimed At Joe

Free Republic, MoveOn.org: Hot-bed for Anti-Semitism

OK, the larger echo chamber is kicking in now:

FrontPage: Moving On to Anti-Semitism

Update - Will we see this in the right-wing media? ADL Welcomes MoveOn.org's Responsiveness in Removing Anti-Semitic Messages,

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) welcomed the responsiveness of MoveOn.org Political Action in removing anti-Semitic messages that had been posted on the Action Forum on their Web site.

In response to a letter of concern, Eli Pariser, Executive Director of MoveOn Political Action, has been in direct contact with ADL. He indicated that MoveOn.org found the comments abhorrent and had them removed.

ADL is pleased with Mr. Pariser's responsiveness to our concerns and believes the matter has been resolved satisfactorily.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:12 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

STF Joining Spotlight Project

Seeing the Forest is joining The Spotlight Project. This will enable you to forward an individual post that you think is important to several journalists by name, with your comments. Following every STF post, at the end of the line that starts with "Link to this," you will see a "Spotlight" link. Click that link, and you are taken to The Spotlight Project, and all the information about the particular post comes there with you. You then can choose which specific journalists you would like to send the post to with your message attached.

May I suggest that you start with this post about ABC's right-wing 9/11 propagana show. Click "Spotlight" in the line that follows the post, beginning with "Link to this". (Yes, the line in which the second item is "Tip Jar," where you can leave a few dollars when you like a post.)

This Spotlight demonstration page explains further.

Firedoglake wrote about the Spotlight Project here.

Crooks and Liars wrote about the Spotlight Project here.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:51 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Action Alert - Coming ABC 9/11 Show Contains RW Lies

An upcoming ABC 9/11 "docudrama" contains right-wing-planted propaganda, including a lie that the Clinton administration refused to kill bin Laden. We need people to act on this. Click this link.

In fact, Clinton had authorized killing bin Laden. In fact the Republicans BLOCKED Clinton's anti-terrorism efforts. In fact, Bush received a memo titled Bin Laden Determined To Attack Inside the US and went on vacation instead of doing something about it.

Think Progress has the story.

Meanwhile, ABC distributed info on the show to right-wing outlets only. Digby has more,

When this was revealed, the lefty bloggers who asked ABC for copies so that they might see it too, were told that they would have to wait until this week. Obviously, none of us will be able to screen it until Wednesday at the earliest and probably not even then.

... Smells of agenda, indeed. Obviously,since only some people have had a chance to watch the movie and guage its accuracy, it's difficult to know.

Firedoglake has more,

When challenged to explain why the right-wing blogosphere is abuzz with praise for the film, director David Cunningham responded that "we are also being accused of being a left wing movie that bashes Bush" — a claim for which there is absolutely no evidence. I searched Technorati for mentions of the film and found 260 references, mostly from conservative websites, every single one of which had nothing but praise for the film. And although I found numerous examples of conservative pundits and bloggers who reported seeing pre-broadcast screenings, no leftist pundits or bloggers had been given a chance to see it...

Also - ABC not allowing progressive bloggers on a press conference call about the show.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:31 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

September 2, 2006

Washington Conventional Wisdom Is Like New York Fashion

I think the fashion industry is a good analogy for the out-of-touch pundit and political insider class. Take a look at what the insiders think we're supposed to look like. It really does resemble what the Washington Conventional Wisdom crowd wants us to think like.

Let's start with Christian Dior with that special look for meeting his parents:

But wait! There's more!

Here is the new office attire we'll be wearing next year:

And for casual Fridays:

And from Givenchy, a new look in makeup, for when you want to impress that special guy:

And for the men, the "emperor's new clothes" look from Calvin Klein:

They really DO think we're dicks!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:42 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 22, 2006

Can't Tell The Difference Between Bush Propagandist and ABC Reporter

Yesterday while driving I tuned into KGO, a local ABC talk-radio station. The host was talking with a woman guest about Bush, Iraq and the coming election. The nature of the conversation led me to wonder which Bush-administration official he was talking with, as she argued the positive points of every single White House talking point. After a while it got so bad that I figured it had to be Bush propagandist Karen Hughes, back on the circuit.

I shouldn't have been, but I was really surprised to discover that the guest was ABC White House reporter Ann Compton, sounding very much like a Republican Party official. "Apologist" is the word that comes to mind.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:48 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 18, 2006

Something New Coming Tonite -- UPDATED

Tonite The People Choose 2006 is launching has launched. Go see it! Think of it as a political YouTube for "citizen journalists" -- inviting regular people around the country to submit videos you make about your local Congressional races. Anyone can go to the site and view the videos, and use them on blogs, etc. Some of these will end up broadcast nationally on Dish and DirecTV.

It won't be publicized for a while because there won't be a lot of content yet. You are getting advance notice. It launches tonite but yYou can go upload now. So if you're into making videos, or if you want to see what other people - regular people - have to say about this election, go visit.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 5:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 14, 2006

You Know things Are Bad When...

You know that our news media situation has gotten pretty bad when foreign news outlets run stories about it. This British news story, America's one-eyed view of war: Stars, stripes, and the Star of David, discusses how America's news coverage of Israel/Lebanon has deteriorated to pure propaganda dissemination.

The media, more generally, has left little doubt in the minds of a majority of American news consumers that the Israelis are the good guys, the aggrieved victims, while Hizbollah is an incarnation of the same evil responsible for bringing down the World Trade Centre, a heartless and faceless organisation whose destruction is so important it can justify all the damage Israel is inflicting on Lebanon and its civilians.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

CNN Calls Lamont "The al Queda Candidate" - Media Matters Responds

Media Matters - Media Matters to CNN: Will anchor Roberts be disciplined for suggesting Lamont is "the Al Qaeda candidate"?

Jonathan Klein
President, CNN

Rolando H. Santos
Executive Vice President and General Manager, CNN Headline News
One CNN Center
Atlanta, GA 30348

Dear Messrs. Klein and Santos:

I am writing to express my great concern over an incident that occurred on your network Friday, August 11, 2006. As the Think Progress weblog noted, during a discussion on CNN Headline News of the recent Connecticut Senate Democratic primary won by Ned Lamont, anchor Chuck Roberts asked: "Might some argue, as some have, that Lamont is the Al Qaeda candidate?"

One expects to hear this kind of hyperbolic rhetoric -- which also perfectly plays into the Republican Party's baseless smears of Democrats as soft on national security -- coming from the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, or Michael Savage. CNN, however, is supposed to be a legitimate news organization.

Mr. Roberts might have a defense if it were actually the case that people were calling Mr. Lamont "the Al Qaeda candidate." But as Arianna Huffington pointed out on CNN's own Reliable Sources yesterday, the smear appears to be entirely the creation of Mr. Roberts. We note that Mr. Lamont's opposition to the Iraq war is shared by a majority of the American people; we hope it is not common practice among CNN anchors to refer to most Americans as Al Qaeda sympathizers.

I presume you have a sincere commitment to responsible journalism and accountability within your news organization. We at Media Matters for America, along with your viewers, would like to know what action you intend to take in response to this incident. Will CNN be issuing a retraction? Will Mr. Roberts be offering Mr. Lamont an on-air apology? Will some disciplinary action be taken against Mr. Roberts?

We eagerly await your response.

Sincerely,

David Brock
President and CEO
Media Matters for America

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:27 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 12, 2006

Upcoming Republican Primary in Rhode Island -- Compare and Contrast

In recent weeks we have been treated to a press firestorm over the Connecticut Democratic primary, in which the "netroots" DARED to run a candidate against Senator Joe Lieberman, and beat him. The insider press and political system is in absolute SHOCK that this could happen, with a good dose of anger at the voters for daring to go against their wishes. (Never mind that a far-right candidate beat a moderate candidate in Michigan's Republican primary -- for some reason that is different and remains unreported.)

You might also have noticed that since the primary, the press has paid far more attention to Lieberman - the loser of the primary - than to the winner. This is because the Republicans are promoting a wedge narrative intended to split the Democratic Party. By amplifying the voices of disgruntled Lieberman supporters, the Repubicans hope to keep a segment of the Democratic Party from voting this November.

In illustration of my point, contrast this firestorm to the situation with the upcoming Rhode Island Repubican primary. Lincoln Chafee is an old-style Republican Senator from Rhode Island. By "old-style" I mean he precedes the Christian Right/conservative movement takeover of the Republican Party and remains independent of The Party's corruption machine. And the far right is not happy about that, so they are running a candidate against Chafee in Rhode Island's upcoming Republican primary. You would think the "on the surface" similarities would drive press coverage, but the opposite is the case. (I say "on the surface" because in this case it is actual radicals running a candidate against an incumbent, where in Connecticut the opposition candidate actually had a more centrist voting record than the incumbent.)

Conservative group sets sights on Chafee,

Since its inception in 1999, the group has spent millions to help dozens of conservative Republicans win seats in Congress - often at the expense of more moderate party members. The Club's president, former Rep. Pat Toomey, nearly defeated Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter in 2004.

This year, the group's top priority is defeating Chafee, who angered many Republicans by voting against President Bush's tax cuts and then casting a write-in vote for the president's father in the last election.

... Republicans who support the Club say its refusal to compromise its ideology gives it credibility.

"They're not about getting more Republicans elected, they're about getting real Republicans elected," said Jerry Stacy, spokesman for Sharron Angle, a Club-endorsed House candidate in Nevada.

Learn how the American system operates now. Keep an eye on this one -- compare and contrast the coverage and commentary.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:42 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

August 11, 2006

George Galloway Takes On Britain's Fox News

With a longer-term view of what's happening in Lebanon.

"What a silly person you are." "No justice no peace."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 28, 2006

We Are Seeing Different News About Lebanon

Americans need to understand that the rest of the world is seeing very different images on their news broadcasts from what we are seeing here. VERY different.

YouTube has lots of short videos from Lebanon.

Also, go watch Mosaic - excerpts from Middle Eastern news shows.

Just go watch a bit, and then try to reconcile what you see with what we are getting here from the news. The consequences to all of us are enormous.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 10:54 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 25, 2006

Fascinating Middle East News Coverage

I'm not sure how many people are aware of the LinkTV network. (You might have seen their coverage of YearlyKos.) LinkTV is available if you have satellite, like DirecTV and Dish -- but you can also visit them online. Over at LinkTV there is a show called Mosaic, with some great Middle East news coverage offering perspectives you can not get from American corporate TV. You can watch the stream of last night's Mosaic, with translated clips from Lebanese, Israeli, UAE, Al Jazeera, Algeria, Iranian and Gaza news broadcasts covering the fighting going on. It is fascinating to get these viewpoints and coverage of events so important to all of us and to the entire world. You can always watch archives of Mosaic at this page.

Recently there have been two extended coverage specials, and another extended coverage special tomorrow. highlight clips from the specials are available here.

From LinkTV:

Mosaic Special Report: Insight into the Middle East. This live call-in special showcases Link TV’s team of journalists and Middle East experts answering your questions and e-mails about what’s really happening in the current crisis. Wednesday’s program will be aired at 7 to 7:30 p.m. (Pacific Time) and 10 to 10:30 p.m. (Eastern Time) on DIRECTV ch. 375 and DISH ch. 9410. The program will be followed by Link TV’s Peabody Award-winning original program Mosaic, which draws on reports from 28 Middle Eastern news broadcasts to provide context, analysis and a look at the stories you never see on American TV.

To watch the first evening of our extended Middle Eastern coverage, Mosaic Special Report: Insight into the Middle East from July 20, 2006, click here.

Daily episodes of Mosaic are available at no cost online.

Link TV is also offering a special emphasis on the Mideast throughout our daily schedule, including a rotation of reports and documentaries such as Me and the Mosque, Occupied Minds and International Dateline: An Eye For An Eye, which features a report from Dateline’s Thom Cookes from the city of Haifa and his on-the-spot assessment of why things have gone the way they have.

There's also a new Mosaic blog.

(Disclosure - I am doing some unpaid consulting with LinkTV.)

Posted by Dave Johnson at 4:49 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 11, 2006

Murder Supreme Court Justices?

Here we go.

Prominent right-wing blogger today calls for the murder of Supreme Court Justices - the Right fails to condemn it. Go read.

It's based on the Right's call to murder journalists. This has been around a while.

Seriously, watch your backs.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 9, 2006

Purging Moderates

Shorter Digby: The Republicans have been and are finalizing a purge of their moderates. Therefore the media narrative is that the Democrats are purging their moderates.

The STF Rule:

Remember the Seeing the Forest rule: when you see a Republican accusing others of something, it means they are probably doing that thing.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 9:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 7, 2006

Daily Occurrence Now

Half of America insulted, called traitors, a daily occurrence now in the corporate media...

Bob Geiger, The "Liberal Media" on MSNBC,

And on it went, including their own version of analysis on Osama bin Laden in which Carlson opined that "every American will rejoice when that guy suffers and goes to hell" only to have Scarborough sneer "except for the Democratic party."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:14 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

July 6, 2006

How the Press Treats Americans Who Disagree With Bush

I tried to watch the video linked from NORAH O'DONNELL GROSSLY CARICATURES ANTIWAR POSITION ON IRAQ.

But I can't. It only lets you watch if you are using Microsoft's Internet Explorer. I use FireFox. Great. Corporate power used to force me to use a product.

So I powered up Internet Explorer, and this is really worth watching, as much to see how the corporate press treats Americans who disagree with Bush, as anything else. "Fringes, extremist" etc...

You hear about concentration of media into a few corporate hands -- watch this video to see what that means. It's similar to what happens when you allow an operating system to become a monopoly.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:58 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 22, 2006

FCC To Allow MORE Media Concentration

Not content with the current rapid pace at which corporatism is overtaking democracy, FCC to review media ownership rules,

The Federal Communications Commission voted yesterday to review its media ownership rules, though the panel's two Democrats objected that the process won't ensure enough public comment on proposals.

With a Republican majority in place after a vacancy had produced months of deadlock, the panel reopened the disputed issue of limits on the number of radio and television stations that one owner can have and the limits on cross-ownership between newspapers and broadcasters. The rules are of great concern to giant media firms in an era of mergers and convergence of print and broadcast media inside companies.

What's the point? Everything ALREADY sounds like Fox News.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 8:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

Just Silly

I can't really say much about this except it's just silly. Someone needs to retire.

I've been thinking that big media doesn't even think of itself as informing the public in a democracy - it's just political entertainment. A commercial enterprise, period... The blogs come in to fill a vacuum.

Update - ">Peter Daou says it better than I can, today. Actually, he quotes a right-wing blogger who said it better.

"Tough sh*t! So after thirty years of writing this stuff in a bubble, you're finally getting feedback from people who are pissed off. Deal with it."

Posted by Dave Johnson at 7:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 21, 2006

Seeing the Narrative

Senate rejects bid to raise minimum wage

The Republican-controlled Senate refused Wednesday to raise the minimum wage, rejecting an election-year proposal from Democrats for the first increase in nearly a decade.

... Republican critics said the minimum wage was a job killer, not the boon to low-wage workers portrayed by Democrats.

See the narrative: The Democrats only offered the proposal as an election-year tactic, the Republicans opposed it on principal.

Fact: The Democrats offer this every year, and the Repubicans always block it. Fact: Jobs INCREASE every time the minimum wage is increased because we live in a consumer economy and more people with more money to spend increases activity. Fact: No one employs more people than they need to employ, so a small increase in wages does not cause layoffs - as the results of minimum wage increases have ALWAYS shown.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:23 PM | Comments (7) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 20, 2006

Now Republicans Are FOR Adultry?

High Infidelity: What if three admitted adulterers run for president and no one cares?,

Sen. John McCain (affair, divorce), former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (affair, divorce, affair, divorce), and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (divorce, affair, nasty divorce). Together, they form the most maritally challenged crop of presidential hopefuls in American political history.

Until relatively recently, a self-confessed adulterer had never sought the presidency.

[. . .] Despite the scandalous details, whether the press will air them is still an open question. When it comes to personal morality, liberal commentators have long argued that the press has one standard for Democrats and another for Republicans (and another one entirely for the Clintons). It's possible that the mainstream media will fail to apply the same scrutiny to the known transgressions of Gingrich, Giuliani and McCain as the Times did to rumors about Hillary Clinton's husband.

SO, will the press give Republicans the same treatment they give Democrats? Did Bush get the same treatment Clintodid? HA!

Posted by Dave Johnson at 6:23 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 17, 2006

Signals Sent

Newspaper Clients, and Syndicate, Stick With Coulter,

Ann Coulter hasn't lost any of her 100-plus newspaper clients, or the support of her syndicate, Universal Press Syndicate, despite her nasty remarks in her new book about 9/11 widows and her comment in an online interview implying that, perhaps, U.S. Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) should be "fragged."

A Universal spokesman said there were no discussions going on there about dropping the columnist.

[. . .] Editors, she pointed out, have chosen not to run certain "Doonesbury" or "Boondocks" cartoons, which come from the liberal side of the spectrum. Asked if any paper had ever decided not to run a conservative column or cartoon, she said, "If it's happened, we don't know about it."

[. . .] The Universal columnist has also "joked" about killing other people, including Arabs, Muslims, and U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, and suggested that blowing up The New York Times building might be a good idea, especially if the reporters and editors were still inside.

Even though parts of her recent book were plagiarized. And she continues to appear on network television. The very media people she talks about killing put her in front of a national audeince!

A while back, in the post Juan Cole denied position at Yale for criticizing Bush, Ashleigh Banfield fired from MSNBC for criticizing one-sided media coverage, I wrote,

Suppose you want a career in media, want to rise up, want to buy (or keep) a house and car, have health insurance etc., how does your brain digest this news?

Not just media, but people understand that MANY careers at this point depend on not letting on that you oppose the Republican machine. The signals are sent.

Watch your backs.

Update - I neglected to point out that NBC, the network that fired Ashleigh Banfield for criticizing media one-sidedness, refuses to say they will keep Coulter off the air, even after she called for killing a US Congressman, and members of the media.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 12:06 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 16, 2006

Coulter Everywhere -- Informed Public Nowhere

After listing just some of the disgusting things Ann Coulter has contributed to the national discourse, Atrios writes,

There's nothing these people can say which will stop the mainstream media from putting them on.

I would like to add to this that "our side" CAN'T say ANYTHING that is able to reach the public.

I was on a conference call with Democratic Minority Leader Pelosi yesterday, during which she outlined some of the things she has been doing and saying. The thing is, there is almost not way you would know what "the Democrats" have been saying if you don't hear it from her directly, or read lots and lots of blogs. You don't hear about it on TV. It is occasionally in the newspapers -- but no one reads newspapers anymore.

America's "marketplace of ideas" is not a marketplace at all, it is a rigged system. It is rigged entirely in favor of the corporate viewpoint. When was the last time you head or saw someone discussing the benefits of joining a union, or perhaps an open discussion of what it would mean to nationalize the oil companies? What ARE the merits for, and arguments against, such an idea anyway?

Did you just snort coffee out of your nose when I wrote "nationalize the oil companies?" Is the very IDEA of someone saying such a thing so far beyond imagination? More to MY point - is that somehow more far-out of an idea than Ann Coulter being invited on national TV over and over again to say the things she says? But we're USED TO that sort of thing on TV - we expect it - but we no longer expect rational discussion of how we as a democratic society should manage our commonly-owned resources.

Anyway, what I am trying to get at is that there are signals that are sent out to a society about what is and is not acceptable public discourse. Putting Ann Coulter on TV is a signal from which the public infers what can and can not be considered. Dick Cheney appearing on stage with Ann Coulter is a signal. President Bush refusing to meet with the Black Caucus or NAACP is a signal. NOT ALLOWING rational discussion of unions and allocation of public resources is a signal. More on this later.

Posted by Dave Johnson at 1:03 PM | Comments (15) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

June 9, 2006

NY Times, For The Record

For the record, the NY Times story has an out-of-context portion of what was said. The converstation was that there were more press and politicians than people attending - which of course was true because yesterday was the "pre" day. YearlyKos didn't officially start until later with Kos' talk. In a longer conversation I said that because I had posted something about Nancy Skinner on my blog 10,000 more people are here now just for that one small piece of it.

My point was about the virtuality of all of this - the community around YearlyKos is very large, even if only some of us can afford to attend in person. This is an important part of what is happening with the "netroots" experience. The NY Times can try to make that look silly if they want to - we're here.

Here's a pic from Markos' talk:

Posted by Dave Johnson at 3:03 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack | Link Cosmos

May 25, 2006

Just Blatant

Eric Boehlert's great book Lapdogs has an entire chapter dedicated to ABC's The Note. Before reading this book I did not know how influential The Note is. From the book,

It is impossible to overstate the behind-the-scenes influence of The Note. Whereas ten or even five years ago a serious examination of the Beltway press might put the work of New York Times's D.C. bureau under a microscope and dissect it for clues to media trends and emphasis, today it's The Note the most succinctly speaks for the political press elite, and whose body of work deserves close attention.

Boehlert goes on with examples of The Note's influence. And then he goes on to show how The Note has a Republican/conservative "conventional wisdom" anti-Democrat bias.

The other day I wrote about how The Note was carrying on Republican smears, writing,

Democrats have to root root root for bad news. And no bad news source is better for the Democrats' election prospects than the bad news from Iraq.

But The Note today tops itself, and comes out blatantly in support of Republicans over Democrats. From The Note today:

A majority of the minority will be in their hearts for higher taxes, universal health care, a heightened emphasis on civiil liberties, and a dramatic and swift reduction of troops from Iraq. They know it, the RNC, NRCC, NRSC, and The Note all know it — the Democrats just have to hope that the American people don't find out until February.

Can they be more blatant?

(Through Atrios)

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May 17, 2006

New Editor at Time

Stengel is named editor of Time magazine,

[Richard] Stengel, who is 51 years old, had worked at Time in several different capacities, including national and culture editor and also editor of Time's web site, Time.com. Most recently he was head of the National Constitution Center, a Philadelphia-based museum and nonpartisan think tank focusing on civic issues.

Media Transparency's research on National Constitution Center funding shows they receive substantial support from the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation,

Richard DeVos is co-founder of Amway Corporation and owner of the Orlando Magic (2004), and served as the finance chairman of the Republican National Committee.

Some information about Amway, from Amway's GOPyramid Scheme, by Bill Berkowitz,

According to Scheibeler, some Republicans received as much as $100,000 for appearing at an Amway event. "After accepting speaking fees, [House Speaker Newt] Gingrich arranged a reported last-minute modification in a comprehensive tax bill that allegedly provided a $283 million tax break to just one company -- Amway. One report called the tax break a $283 million payoff," investigative reporter Evelyn J. Pringle pointed out in a piece on Amway.

... Billionaire Richard DeVos, who appears regularly on the Forbes magazine list of richest Americans also owns the National Basketball Association's Orlando Magic and has been a member of the highly secretive Council for National Policy. ... For more than 35 years, the DeVos family has been a major benefactor of both the religious right and the Republican Party.

Oh please take the time to read that whole article! And follow the Council for National Policy link.

Other significant National Constitution Center funding comes from the F.M. Kirby Foundation. If you go to the page titled "The Conservative Movement Starts At Young America's Foundation" and scroll to the bottom, it says "© 1995-2006 Young America's Foundation F.M. Kirby Freedom Center"

I report, you decide. And send a few bucks to Media Transparency for making this research available.

Update - I'm not saying Mr. Stengel is a right-winger. This post reports on some of the funding of the National Constitution Center, where he was CEO. Meanwhile, Eric Alterman writes,

A massive congratulations to my friend Rick Stengel, who, depending on who you talk to, was the best point-guard in the history of Scarsdale High School. He’s done a few things since, here. And Jim Kelly went out with real class, didn’t he? (Now about how about a few liberal columnists?)

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May 16, 2006

5 White Men Comment On Bush's Speech

Media Matters - CNN roundtable on Bush immigration speech included five white men, but no progressives or Latinos,

Summary: Following President Bush's speech on immigration, CNN aired a special edition of Lou Dobbs Tonight that consisted largely of a roundtable