Posts filed under ‘Progressives’
Keith Olbermann Predicts Ed Schultz is a Goner
MSNBC moved The Ed Schultz Show to 8:00 p.m. ET this week, the show’s third time slot since it debut in April, 2009.
Yeah, it’s only been a week but it isn’t bringing in the big buckaroos the corporate media counts on:
I can’t defend Schultz. I have no idea what he’s thinking. He led tonight with a long segment about Paul Ryan (R-WI) and his speech yesterday at the Heritage Foundation during which he said (in essence) that President Obama is waging class warfare and oh, something incoherent about jobs. The point is, Schultz gave Paul Ryan — a sociopath whose policies will never fly — a whole bunch of time and attention and frankly, I don’t give a rat’s ass about Paul Ryan and I don’t think anybody else does either…other than maybe the beltway pundits.
As a matter of fact, I’m willing to bet that most Americans have no idea who Paul Ryan is.
I changed the channel.
Schultz seems to be fixated on Ryan because he seems to be fixated on defending President Obama and the DNC. I mean, the guy has repeatedly said of late that the Occupy Wall Street protesters are “frustrated,” a word Obama and his Press Secretary, Jay Carney, use all the time.
We aren’t “frustrated” Ed, we’re FURIOUS! We’re furious but we’re trying to hold it together.
Ed Schultz’s time has come and gone. If he continues to side with President Obama and the Democrats – who have failed the 99%ers as tragically as the Republicans have — he’s done. His ratings will continue to lag and hey, he’ll bore an audience that’s willing to die, almost literally, to buck the establishment. Again, we aren’t frustrated, we’re furious. But Ed can’t deliver because he’s owned by the corporate media and because he just doesn’t seem to get what’s going on around here.
Keith Olbermann is right when he tweets:
Bob Beckel — Fox’s Badass “Liberal”
This is Bob Beckel, the guy who Fox tout as their badass “liberal:”
[B]ut can I just make one point about this principle, besides [inaudible]. Um, the idea that somehow kids can’t, ah, the whole idea of dressing up, yeah, it’s good. The whole idea of dressing up at Halloween; what’s wrong with that. I mean, I don’t, I don’t get it. First of all, if you go past any high school today they all look, they look like a bunch of hookers hanging outside, a lot of these girls, so maybe they have costumes [on?] all the time…
(Video here.)
Excuse me Bobby boy. The” girls” you ogle in front of high schools aren’t hookers, or as you imply, whores. You are.
Michael Bloomberg: The $18+ Billionaire
This would be our Tweet of the Day re NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg who’s worth an estimated 18.1 BILLION.
Got that?
$18+ Billion. That’s with a B.
I’m off tomorrow, volunteering at my local food bank. When I’m there, I think about how the people who come through would love to have an extra $30 much less $18 billion.
The disparity in this country is Un. Real.
H/t to #OWS for their work.
Follow Occupy Wall Street
Class warfare? Hell yes, and Wall Street won.
Enough.
I Will Not Be Silent
Follow OccupyWallStreet here.
You too Tea Partiers. This is a pic from a Tea Party rally in Madison, Wisconsin in April, 2010:
Hey. They’re ripping all of us off. Let’s get together.
Quivering, Chicken Sh*t Democrats
I just finished reading an article in the New York Times — G.O.P. on Defensive as Analysts Question Party’s Fiscal Policy:
The boasts of Congressional Republicans about their cost-cutting victories are ringing hollow to some well-known economists, financial analysts and corporate leaders, including some Republicans, who are expressing increasing alarm over Washington’s new austerity.
Their critiques have grown sharper since last week, when President Obama signed his deficit reduction deal with Republicans and, a few days later, when Standard & Poor’s subsequently downgraded the credit rating of the United States.
But even before that, macroeconomists and private sector forecasters were warning that the direction in which the new House Republican majority had pushed the White House and Congress this year — for immediate spending cuts, no further stimulus measures and no tax increases, ever — was the wrong one for addressing the nation’s two main ills, a weak economy now and projections of unsustainably high federal debt in coming years.
Instead, these critics say, Washington should be focusing on stimulating the economy in the near term to induce people to spend money and create jobs, while simultaneously settling on a long-term plan for spending reductions and tax increases to take effect only after the economy recovers.
But the above paragraphs weren’t the kicker for me. This one, the third-to-last, was:
A Democratic Congressional adviser, granted anonymity to discuss party deliberations, said: “We’re at a loss to figure out a way to articulate the argument in a way that doesn’t get us pegged as tax-and-spenders.”
Is that pitiful or what? Every single poll I’ve seen in the last six weeks points to the fact that Americans want Washington to concentrate on creating jobs, not on cutting the deficit. Why don’t these terrified Democrats understand that if they hold a press conference every single day on the steps of the Capitol (i.e., they act up and make some noise) and they screaming about the desperation of the unemployed and underemployed, they’d strike a home run. Why is that so damn hard?
They have to have a unified message and they have to hammer it home every time any one of them is on teevee, the radio or in a for-print interview. Over and over and over again. Period.
Geezus.
Remember When Fox Loved Town Hall Meetings?
Remember when Fox loved town hall meetings?
That was then, when the Tea Party dominated those meetings.
This is now:
(Via.)
Yup. Love that. It’s all about democracy-in-action when the Tea Partiers attend but when “shreiking leftists mobs” show up? Well, they’re shreiking leftists mobs.
So, let’s repeat the mantra: Fox is fair and balanced. Fox is fair and balanced. Fox is fair and balanced. “The most trusted name in news.”
Matt Damon: I think Obama Has “Rolled Over to Wall Street Completely”
Matt Damon:
President Obama’s record on the economy particularly rankles. “I think he’s rolled over to Wall Street completely. The economy has huge problems. We still have all these banks that are too big to fail. They’re bigger and making more money than ever. Unemployment at 10 per cent? It’s terrible.”
“They had a chance that they don’t have any more to stand up for things,” he says. “They’ve probably squandered that at this point. They’ll probably just make whatever deals they can to try to get elected again.”
(Via.)
Damon appears so disillusioned that, playing devil’s advocate, I ask whether he is considering voting Republican. “Good God, no! I just got a 3 per cent tax cut. Do you think I’m going to start a small business with that money? You’re out of your mind if you think so. I’m going to put it in the bank. So is every other guy that makes the kind of money I make. I don’t think that’s what’s best for the country. I think a stronger middle class makes for a stronger country.”
As well as the economy, Mr Obama’s record on education repels him. “They have to get people who actually know about educating kids in positions of power. Now they’re trying to get business people to come and manage schools like they’re factories. It’s not going to work.”
Sadly, I couldn’t agree more.
More here.
Arianna Huffington — A Koch Sisterhooder
Arianna Huffington — who, full disclosure — I have met and partied with — is out with a new book titled, Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream:
Meanwhile, after selling her Huffington Post blog to AOL for $315 million two weeks ago, Arianna had this to say about bloggers who helped propel her site into the stratosphere (writing, free of charge, I might add):
She argued that blogging on the Huffington Post is equivalent to going on Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart or the “Today” show to promote their ideas.
And, she said, there are plenty of people willing to take their place if they do.
“The idea of going on strike when no one really notices,” Huffington said. “Go ahead, go on strike.”
Meanwhile, writers at the Guardian are boycotting the site and they’ve got the knives out:
Huffington has brilliantly and gracefully exploited at least hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of otherwise bright and qualified professional writers. She is revelling in both wealth and celebrity, having been lifted by the combined efforts of this army of the uncompensated. Brava, Madame Capitalist. But as a very public voice, she has suddenly morphed from being a soul sister of progressives into a Koch sister, contributing to nothing so much as that betrayal of the middle class.
I’m too tired to comment. I’m afraid I might write something I’ll regret.
Flames are coming out of my eyes, smoke is coming out of my ears and my hair is on fire.
Later.
CNN Ignores Madison
CNN is airing a “Special Report” tonight about the “unrest in Libya.”
Hey! What. About. MADISON?
Tea Party FAIL in Madison
This is such good news:
(Image via.)
Police say nearly 70,000 people have converged on the Wisconsin Capitol to join in protests over a Republican bill that would strip public workers of most of their collective bargaining rights.
According to the Madison Police Department, 60,000 people gathered outside the building with another 8,000 inside on Saturday — easily the largest crowd yet as the protest stretched through its fifth day. The demonstration was far more intense on Saturday, though, as hundreds of tea party supporters staged a counter rally outside the Capitol.
Police spokesman Joel DeSpain says there have been no arrests. He refused to say how large the tea party contingent was, but union supporters clearly outnumbered them.
So, what is that, something like 35 union supporters to every one Tea Partier?
Maybe the “grassroots Tea Party movement” is beginning to realize that it’s being used (this from Forbes, no less):
The Americans for Prosperity group, a Tea Party group that is a Koch Brothers front, has put up a website and petition called www.standwithwalker.com. The website attacks all collective bargaining – not just for public employees’ unions. Americans for Prosperity is also organizing a rally tomorrow in Wisconsin to support Gov. Walker.
Why are the Koch Brothers so interested in Wisconsin? They are a major business player in the state.
– Koch owns a coal company subsidiary with facilities in Green Bay, Manitowoc, Ashland and Sheboygan; six timber plants throughout the state; and a large network of pipelines in Wisconsin. While Koch controls much of the infrastructure in the state, they have laid off workers to boost profits. At a time when Koch Industries owners David and Charles Koch awarded themselves an extra $11 billion of income from the company, Koch slashed jobs at their Green Bay plant:
[...]
You really have to wonder how long it will take for Tea Party devotees to realize just how badly they are being used.
Governor Walker, you just might be the stooge we have been waiting for. You’re doing more to educate the public about what unions do than anyone — in years, if not decades.
And don’t forget, Gov. John Kasich in Ohio, Gov. Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Gov. Chris Christy in New Jersey are waiting in the wings to do the same thing.
Fox: Gov. Walker is Trying to “Reform” Employees’ Rights
Gregg Jarrett on Fox @ 4:01 p.m. ET: Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is “trying to REFORM the rights of public employees.”
Hey, he’s only trying to help!
Yeah. Right.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is “Channeling Mubarak”
Kudos to David Obey (D-WI):
Former Rep. David Obey (D-WI), a 41-year veteran of the House, the former chairman of the Appropriations Committee and an icon in Wisconsin politics, assailed Gov. Scott Walker for engaging in “political thuggery” and accused him of channeling toppled Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak before his fall.
“All I know is that last week, when people were asking where Mubarak was — whether he had gone to Sharm el-Sheikh or Paris — I was saying he was ensconced in the governor’s mansion in Madison.”
Get down!
Walker as mini-Mubarak:
Radical Lefty Kenyan Obama Set to Protect Millionaires and Billionaires
Barack Obama, that radical lefty socialist commie Kenyan, will unveil his new budget tomorrow and from what I’ve heard, he’s going to impose budget cuts designed to pay for that deal he made with Republicans to extend tax cuts for the top 2%-ers back in December.
The millionaires and billionaires win, you and I lose.
From tree-lined Lily Pond Lane, driveways lead to some of East Hampton’s loveliest oceanfront mansions. Photographs by Cameron Davidson.
(Via.)
A true lefty would do the opposite.
More tomorrow.
It is Morally Imperative That Democrats Start Making Noise
I think Democrats have a moral obligation to the country — past and future — to grow a pair and start standing up for core Democratic values. Given the plethora of conservative media outlets pushing corporatist legislation, they must — MUST — start making noise and standing up for working people, the environment, etc.
We need (at least) a two-party system people!
How about storming out of the House and/or Senate chamber and standing as a group on the steps of the Capitol and holding a press conference? Make the news. Get on the news. Get the people’s attention.
But no (tweet of the day):
Glenn Beck Puts People’s Lives in Danger But it is Keith Olbermann Who is Silenced
No, we don’t know precisely whether Keith Olbermann was fired but we do know he was a roguey kind of guy whose honesty made the establishment uncomfortable. One had the feeling he was always walking on egg shells, constantly making his bosses nervous and perpetually on the verge of being fired. Well, as of last night, he is off the air.
On the other hand, Glenn Beck threatens people’s lives, he gets book contracts, appearances on the Today Show where they treat him like a kindhearted therapist, and write ups in the New York Times:
On his daily radio and television shows, Glenn Beck has elevated once-obscure conservative thinkers onto best-seller lists. Recently, he has elevated a 78-year-old liberal academic to celebrity of a different sort, in a way that some say is endangering her life.
Frances Fox Piven, a City University of New York professor, has been a primary character in Mr. Beck’s warnings about a progressive take-down of America. Ms. Piven, Mr. Beck says, is responsible for a plan to “intentionally collapse our economic system.”
Her name has become a kind of shorthand for “enemy” on Mr. Beck’s Fox News Channel program, which is watched by more than 2 million people, and on one of his Web sites, The Blaze. This week, Mr. Beck suggested on television that she was an enemy of the Constitution.
Never mind that Ms. Piven’s radical plan to help poor people was published 45 years ago, when Mr. Beck was a toddler. Anonymous visitors to his Web site have called for her death, and some, she said, have contacted her directly via e-mail.
What a great country, heh?
Is it any wonder there is so much hate and anger out there? Hate and anger are rewarded around here.
Lou Dobbs: “We” Have to Sacrifice
Lou Dobbs is on Hannity tonight claiming that “we can’t sustain this level of spending.” He is joined by Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK).
Two weeks ago the two of them were orgasmic over tax cuts for the rich, which, BTW, added some $700 billion to the deficit.
Now Dobbs and Coburn are talking about the “sacrifice” we little people have to make in order to balance the budget.
Sleep tight dumbed down America.
This is only the beginning.
A Car That Runs on Air!
Wow, this is so cool: a car that runs on air:
A company in the UK is developing it (see link above).
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, U.S. coal consumption rose 1.4% last week alone.
The Sobering Reality of the Future of the United States
Here is a frank assessment by James K. Galbraith of the precipice the United States is on. It ain’t pretty but he offers words of wisdom and hope that are comforting, to me least, because I’m one who likes to live life with my eyes wide open.
His conclusion:
…[I]n the long run we need to recognize that the fate of the entire country is at stake. Its governance can’t be entrusted indefinitely to incompetents, hacks, and lobbyists. Large countries can and do fail, they have done so in our own time. And the consequences are very grave: drastic declines in services, in living standards, in life expectancies, huge increases in social tension, in repression, and in violence. These are the consequences of following through with crackpot ideas such as those embodied in the Bowles-Simpson deficit commission, as Jeff Madrick again outlined, such notions as putting arbitrary limits on the scale of government, or arbitrary limits on the top tax rate affecting the wealthiest Americans.
This isn’t a parlor game. The outcome isn’t destined to be alright. It will not necessarily end in progress whatever happens. What we do, how we proceed, and how we effectively resist what is plainly about to happen, matters very greatly for the future of our country, of our children, and of another generation to come. We need to lose our fear, our hesitation, and our unwillingness to face the facts. If we thereby lose some of our hopes, let’s remember the dictum of William of Orange that “it is not necessary to hope in order to persevere.”
The President should know that, as Lincoln said to the Congress in the dark winter of 1862, he “cannot escape history.” And we are heading now into a very dark time, so let’s face it with eyes open. And if we must, let’s seek leadership that shares our values, fights for our principles, and deserves our trust.
Michael Moore Annihilates Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity & Andrew Breitbart on Twitter
I don’t have access to the secret world of television ratings info and focus group this-and-that about whether or not this-or-that “media personality” is raking in the viewers or listeners or readers on an hourly, daily or weekly basis. I have to rely on other means of figuring out what’s going on out there — despite what “they” say.
If being followed on Twitter is any indication, I think flaming liberals are doing just fine, thank you very much:
Sean Hannity has 87,640 Twitter followers as of a few minutes ago:
Andrew Breitbart has 27,586 followers:
Glenn Beck has 305,583:
And as for the guy the wingers and the “liberal media” want you to think is the most hated, un-American man in the US — Michael Moore? He has 700,000+ followers:
He annihilates the other guys.
What does that tell ya?
How Do I Forward This to Obama’s Blackberry?
Last week I wrote about how some enthusiastic, hopeful “kids” from Unity College in Maine drove an old solar panel that once stood atop Jimmy Carter’s White House down to D.C. — hoping that “change you can believe in” Obama would put it back up on the roof of the White House.
After a brief meeting at the White House, Obama’s team rejected the idea.
Here’s the sad, behind-the-scenes, play-by-play account of how that went down and how Obama (and the DNC) just lost a slew of young, hopeful, college-age supporters — people who came to our door, unable to control their excitement in 2007/8:
It was all a little odd, to say the least. They refused to accept the Carter panel as a historic relic, or even to pose for a picture with the students and the petition they’d brought with them. Asked to do something easy and symbolic to rekindle a little of the joy that had turned out so many of us as volunteers for Obama in 2008, they point blank said no. In a less than overwhelming gesture, they did, however, pass out Xeroxed copies of a 2009 memorandum from Vice President Biden about federal energy policy.
I can tell you exactly what it felt like, because those three students were brave and walked out graciously, heads high and kept their tears back until we got to the sidewalk. And then they didn’t keep them back, because it’s a tough thing to learn for the first time how politics can work.
If you want to know about the much-discussed enthusiasm gap between Democratic and Republican bases, in other words, this was it in action. As Jean Altomare told the New York Times, “We went in without any doubt about the importance of this. They handed us a pamphlet.” And Amanda Nelson added, “I didn’t expect I’d get to shake President Obama’s hand, but it was really shocking to me to find out that they really didn’t seem to care.”
Did I say I was impressed with these young women? I was more than impressed. Nobody I went to Harvard with would have handled it as powerfully as they did (maybe because they weren’t looking for a job in the White House someday). A few hot tears were the right response, followed by getting on with the work.
Our next question, out there on the sidewalk, was how to handle the situation — which, indeed, we had to do right away, because in today’s blog-speed world, you’re supposed to Put Out a Statement to reporters, not to mention Tweet. So how to play it?
The normal way is to claim some kind of victory: we could have said we had an excellent exchange of views and that the administration had taken seriously our plea. But that would have been lying, and at 350.org, we long ago decided not to do that. The whole premise of our operation, beginning with the number at its core, is that we had better always tell the truth about our actual predicament.
Alternatively, we could have rounded on the administration, and taken our best shot. In fact, it would have been easy enough right then and there for me to chain myself to the White House fence with the panel next to me. It would have gotten some serious press (though not as much as if I’d burned a Quran). And in fact, some of our supporters were counseling that I head for the fence immediately.
We got an email, for instance, from a veteran campaigner I deeply respect who said:
Show Obama you can’t be taken for granted, and I predict you will be amazed at the good things that come your way. This is a watershed moment: if they think they can get away with this with you, they’ll judge they can get away with more in the future. If you show them they can’t get away with it (at the very least without embarrassment), they will come your way more in the future. It’s power politics, pure and simple. This is how the game is played. Get their respect!And I think he was probably right. As he pointed out, Obama was even then on the phone with the mustachioed Florida geezer, the stack of Qurans, and the following of 50 or less. But I couldn’t do it, not then and there. Because… well, because on some level I’m a political wuss.
[...]
And a confession. We’d walked past Obama’s official portrait on the way out and, despite the meeting we’d just had, I couldn’t help but smile at the thought that he was president. I could remember my own enthusiasm from two years ago that had me knocking on doors across New Hampshire. I admired his character and his smarts, and if I admire them a little less now, the residue’s still there.
And so I couldn’t help thinking — part of me at least — like this: the White House political team has decided that if they put solar panels up on the roof, Fox News will use that as one more line of attack; that they somehow believe the association with Jimmy Carter is the electoral equivalent of cooties; and that, in the junior high school lunchroom that now comprises our political life, they didn’t want to catch any.
If that’s their thinking, I doubt they’re on the mark. As far as I can tell, the right has a far better understanding of the power of symbols. Witness the furor they’ve kicked up over “the mosque at Ground Zero.” My feeling is: We should use the symbols we’ve got, and few are better than a solar panel. Still, with the current craziness in mind, I was willing to give them a pass. So we just put out a press release saying that we’d failed in our mission and walked away.
At least for now, but not forever, and really not for much longer.
On Oct. 10, we’re having our great global work party, and ever since Obama stiffed us, registrations for its events have been soaring. Last week, with the heads of Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network, I issued a call for ideas about how to mount a campaign of civil disobedience around climate. Not a series of stunts, but a real campaign. At coal plants and drilling sites — and at the places where our politicians do their work.
Actually, I’ll be surprised if the White House doesn’t put up solar panels within a year. But even if they do, that would just be the barest of beginnings. We’ve run out of spare decades to deal with climate change — the summer’s events in the Arctic, in Russia, in Pakistan proved that with great clarity. I may be a wuss, but I’m also scientifically literate. We know what we need to do, and we will do it. Enthusiastically.
The Tea Party’s Strength is a Figment of the Corporate Media’s Imagination
I swear to God, the more I learn about the internals of the “tea party” the more I realize the “movement” and the hype about their “rallies” is a creation of the corporate media.
Take this for example:
Here’s a screenshot of an email I received on February 9, 2010 from the Tea Party Express asking for money to promote and host the “Showdown in Searchlight,” set to begin on March 27:
Note the second to last paragraph: “To meet our fundraising goal, we need to raise $150,000 in the next 9 days. We’ve so far raised $21,450 of that amount, so we have $128,550 left to raise.”
Fast forward, not 9 days but 38 days, and here is a screenshot of a Tea Party Express email I received today:
Note the fourth paragraph: “We still have a little more than $52,000 that we must raise to fully fund our efforts…”
On February 9, the Tea Party was looking to raise $128,550. Today, it’s short $52,000. That means that in 38 days, it raised $76,550.
Compare that to this:
•• Just days after launching a petition drive to raise funds for primary challengers against Democrats who help defeat health care reform, the progressive activist group MoveOn.org has raised more than $1 million.
•• As of Tuesday night, the combined efforts of four liberal groups — MoveOn.org, Daily Kos, Democracy for America and Progressive Change Campaign Committee — had raised $1 million for [Bill] Halter in just 36 hours. (MoveOn was responsible for $900,000 of that.)
So take a look, goddamn corporate media and your Republican backers, at where the fucking energy is.
At Fox, the Terror Threat Level is High
Fox News pulled away from President Obama’s health care “pep rally” today — too good; he might actually convince a Fox viewer or two — to go to John Boehner Boner for an emergency lobotomy to remove any positive feelings the audience may have had. Video here.
