The People Of This Nation Have Spoken

Posted on November 10, 2020 by Trish Nelson

ICYMI – watch Joe Biden’s full victory speech.

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Armistice Day Observance To Be Held On Zoom

Posted on November 9, 2020 by Trish Nelson

Veterans for Peace

Armistice Day message from Ed Flaherty:

Veterans For Peace, Chapter 161 is holding space with a traditional Armistice Day Observance on Zoom.

You are invited to be there with us as we celebrate the peace that the world felt at the end of WWI and at the same time remember the fallen on all sides and recognize the victims of wars throughout the world.  Fast forward 102 years to today.  Although we cannot celebrate peace we can work towards it.  We can recognize the victims of war throughout the world, including the damage to Mother Earth herself.

Please join us at 10:45 AM CST on November 11 for opening remarks. We plan to ring the bell 11 times promptly at 11 AM followed by a minute of silent reflection.

Many thanks to PEACE Iowa who arranged to have David Swanson, co-founder of World Beyond War deliver the concluding remarks.

To register for the event and obtain the Zoom link please click the following:  lu.ma/ArmisticeDayinIowaCity

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It’s The Radio Stupid!

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Dave Bradley

Still a mighty tool

A story over at dailykos is among the beginning of what will be a long line of “what went wrong?” type of article that will be coming in the bucketloads over the next year. Many Democrats will be wondering what happened to what they hoped would be a blowout and total repudiation of of the scandal filled and often illicit Trump administration.

There are many areas in which the Democratic Party could improve. The writer of this article focuses on the impact that over 30 years of far right wing radio in local communities with some 1500 stations blaring out what is essentially unchallenged propaganda for the Republican Party 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Propaganda worth billions a year disseminated for free that will affect elections.

Polling and analyses seldom take the effect of right wing radio into the mix when looking for reasons why people vote as they do. Extreme right wing radio has been playing in the background like elevator music that is with us everywhere. In the car, at home while we make dinner, in our stores as we shop. Then much like we while then tune we heard in the elevator for the rest of the day, we subliminally roll the thoughts planted by people like Rush Limbaugh in our minds.

Having extreme right wing radio as the background music in our lives has been going on since something like the late 80s. Thus having extreme right wing ideas being implanted in our minds has become normalized. That is we just accept it. Even if we try to block listening, some of the ideas creep in anyway.

Thus whether we want to think what the right wingers want us to, the ideas are planted. Also the concept that right wing ideas are the acceptable ideas because they are the ones heard in the public. There are no left wing ideas being played in stores or even on our car radios because there are only a very few left wing radio stations in the whole country to counter program.

Over the years leaders on the left have ignored radio as a medium to disseminate their ideas. So while the right has poured massive amounts of money into having their ideas on a 24X7X365 loop in every media market the left has chosen to simply cede that battlefield to the right. Seems like a very short-sighted vision.

Radio would take some deep pockets. But there are some on the left that do have deep pockets that could make a commitment. Air-America was an attempt to counter program. AA was successful in getting ratings and much of the programming was good. Unfortunately management did not understand radio and its markets. So in a short time they mismanaged themselves out of business.

Writer certainot in his article on radio’s power on our political process is much more blunt than I am:

Andrea Mitchell asks David Plouffe what are Democrats doing wrong if a scumbag (paraphrasing) like Trump can get nearly 50% of the US vote. It’s the radio, stupid.

Like just about every Republican politician the last 30 years Trump piggybacked 1500 unchallenged radio stations. Radio stations that are licensed to operate in the public interest but spent most of the year calling COVID a ‘Democrat’ hoax, like the global warming ‘hoax‘ they’ve been yelling about for 30 years.

Wake up Americans, especially you who live in cities with lots of options on the radio dial, and you who think you can ignore talk radio because you believe it’s just another part of the free speech spectrum and if it makes your head hurt you just turn it off or put on another CD.

Like GW Bush, Trump is another candidate who would never have gotten anywhere near the White House, much less get close in a national election, if Democrats didn’t completely ignore 1500 coordinated radio stations yelling over and distorting any national conversation on any major issue Republicans want to dominate.

Can anyone find a single poll relating Trump support to talk radio? Even after Trump spent two hours on the Rush Limbaugh show recently? It’s the radio stupid, because it dominates the primary, secondary, and tertiary buzz in at least 40 states with 80 senators.

He then offers his solutions. To me we simply must compete in this area. Michael Bloomberg could probably have bought a few radio stations in Florida for what he dumped into ad buys in the last few weeks. Many of those ads probably were played on right wing stations to audiences that would naturally be resistant to what was being sold.

As I have said so many times, Marshall McLuhan’s simple message now over 50 years old is so profound: “The Medium Is The Message!” The right is creating and selling their message through their control of the media, especially the radio.

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Sunday Funday: It Ain’t Over Til It’s Over Edition

Posted on November 8, 2020 by Dave Bradley

Stress relief:

It should come as no surprise that I write this ahead of time, usually on Friday. Before Trump most news was done by Friday noon. So we could write the quiz and enjoy the weekend while still looking like we were on top of things. Yet since Trump we have tried to fake our way through it for these many years.

All that is to lead in to this hardly surprising revelation. Much that I write today may have been change by Sunday at 5AM. I am satisfied that at least for a short time it was considered true. Frankly, I am so giddy at the prospect of no more Trump, I really don’t care. No more of his family and his miserable sycophants . Sadly the lapdog Republican congress members are still there.

And just to add to my euphoria, just before I started this column we get news that RITA HART! Has taken the lead in Ia-02. 

  1. Happy and solemn Veteran’s Day to all Vets Wednesday. What was Veteran’s Day originally known as?
  1. The first cases to be argued before the newly constituted SCOTUS involved the rights of what group of people?
  1. Iowa’s daily new corona virus cases soared last week topping what almost unimaginable number last Thursday?
  1. The three major professional sports leagues in the US – baseball, basketball and football – reported expected losses of how much due to the corona virus?
  1. Iowa’s climatologist’s prediction for the coming winter says this winter will be what?
  1. It is November and there is still what tropical storm / hurricane wandering in the Gulf of Mexico?
  1. Among the many things voted on Tuesday was a referendum on statehood for Puerto Rico. How did that vote turn out?
  1. Dear Leader claimed what during a national address on the election Tuesday that caused national networks to immediately cease coverage of his press conference?
  1. Denmark found a mutation in the corona virus among what animal that had spread to humans that will lead to the culling of 15 million of these animals?
  1. Despite the current warm spell October in Iowa was exceptionally what?
  1. What major nation recorded 0 corona virus cases Monday? This was the first time in 5 months.
  1. November 8, 1923 Adolf Hitler and comrades fail in a coupe attempt to take over the government of Germany in an event known as what?
  1. During the election counting and the various controversies pushed by Republicans, what once major administration player has been noticeably missing?
  1. Corona virus numbers nationally topped what shameful number Friday?
  1. Was he a spoiler? Kanye West got approximately how many votes in his first run for the presidency?
  1. In the past 7 presidential elections (since 1992) how many times have Republicans won the popular vote?
  1. Which two states will split their electoral votes this year?
  1. Which state elected a US House delegation made up entirely of women of color?
  1. It almost sounded like a game of Clue. A Russian oligarch was killed in his sauna with a what last week?
  1. The War on drugs is over and the drugs won. What state passed a referendum to decriminalize hard drugs (eg – heroine, cocaine)?

As a comedian, I voted against my self-interest. I would be thrilled to have less material. – Andy Borowitz

Answers:

  1. Armistice Day – the end of WWI 
  1. LGBTQ
  1. 5,000 new cases
  1. 13 billion dollars
  1. Long and cold
  1. Eta which slammed into Central America last week and is still wandering around.
  1. In favor of statehood 52 – 48
  1. That he had won and there were “illegal” votes.
  1. Minks
  1. Cold – nearly the coldest ever recorded
  1. Australia
  1. “ The Beer Hall Putsch”
  1. AG Bill Barr
  1. 10 million
  1. 60,000 – probably what cost Trump the election.
  1. Once in 2004. That was mostly because W Bush was the incumbent.
  1. Nebraska and Maine. They each have state laws that split their electoral votes by congressional district.
  1. New Mexico
  1. Crossbow
  1. Oregon
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The Next President and Vice-President

Posted on November 7, 2020 by Dave Bradley

Huge congratulations to the newly elected President and Vice-President of the United States – Joseph R. Biden and Kamala D. Harris.

Much as President Obama had a huge mess to fix when he took over in 2009, President Biden will also have a huge task ahead of him to rebuild the government and face down the corona virus.

Godspeed, Mr. President and Madam Vice-President.

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No, Kim! We Do Not Condone Your Miserable Corona Leadership

Posted on November 7, 2020 by Dave Bradley

you are doing a lousy job

In what has to be one of the most twisted Republican thought processes I have ever seen Iowa’s pathetic Governor has decided that since Iowans voted for Republicans in this election, therefore Iowans must approve of her terrible mismanagement of the corona virus pandemic in Iowa because she is a Republican.

Sounds like she must have gotten a degree in logic from Trump University.

Iowans do not want to fear death when they do simple everyday actions such as buying gasoline or go to a store to get food for dinner or sending their children to school. Reynolds seems incapable of understanding that. Her decisions from the beginning of the pandemic have served only to spread the virus far and wide.

We want a leader whose first concern is the health of the citizens, not whether we can squeeze another nickel of profits out. Leaders are elected to make tough decisions for the good of the whole of the citizenry. Reynolds has only cared about decisions that make business happy.

Because of Reynolds lousy decisions Iowa’s corona virus cases meet and exceed those of states two and three times larger than Iowa. Hard to get re-elected when you kill your base. Like many Republican office holders, Reynolds believes that some miracle vaccine will pop up some day and solve the problem. If that happens it will be a long way off. Until then Iowans will suffer and suffer mightily because of Reynolds lack of leadership and lousy decisions.

State Senator Rob Hogg sent an email Friday asking for our help in pushing Reynolds to do what is right for the majority of Iowans:

We need an Iowa plan to control coronavirus!

Here are the two-week new cases and deaths by county, plus a proposed Iowa plan

Dear Friends:

We are in the middle of a public health emergency that is getting worse. This email is to ask for your help convincing our political leaders and Iowans that we need to do more to slow down and control the spread of coronavirus.

Over the last two weeks (October 22 to November 5), the state has reported 207 deaths from coronavirus and nearly 30,000 new cases (29,635) that, unfortunately, are putting record numbers of Iowans in the hospital (912 as I write this, up from 530 two weeks ago) and will kill even more in the near future.

That’s in just two weeks. Coronavirus has never been more deadly since the public health emergency began in March.

As the bottom of this email, I provide the county-by-county cases and deaths below over the last two weeks and total so you can see how your county is doing.

This is a call to action. Please:
 
(1) Call Governor Reynolds’ office at 515-281-5211 to urge her to do more to slow down and control the spread of this deadly infectious disease, or contact her at this link: https://governor.iowa.gov/contact
 
(2) Contact your state legislators and newly elected legislators – regardless of party – and local elected officials to urge them to do more.
 
(3) Educate other community leaders and the public in your community about the rising numbers.
 
(4) Read (and share) the plan prepared by University of Iowa epidemiologist (Eli Perenchevich) that he shared on Twitter on November 5 (see below).
 
Let’s speak up and help stop this virus, save lives, support our health care workers, and end the epidemic so we can get more Iowans safely back to work.

+++++

Coronavirus Plan by University of Iowa epidemiologist Eli Perenchevich

Here is what Dr. Perenchevich said on Twitter on November 5:

Hospitals are full. Don’t look at ‘beds’ available on websites. Hospitals are already running at >100% capacity. Healthcare workers are burning out. If all we needed were beds, we could just put people in hotels.

People are not wearing masks and are doing things they shouldn’t. Don’t go to bars to watch the Hawkeyes. Don’t take grandpa to eat indoors at restaurants. Eating/drinking indoors increases risk 3-4 times! If you go to bars/restaurants you are collapsing hospitals.

The virus is spreading in schools. This is because community rates are too high and there are too many kids/teachers getting infected in the community. We will need to close schools in Iowa and reduce transmission before we can safely reopen them.

We can’t have bars AND schools open at this time. We need to close bars and schools and then we can open schools in 3-4 weeks. Once we get rates lower, we can then open bars/restaurants. We need a mask mandate now that the election is over, full stop.

#PlanForIowa
 
1) Close bars, restaurants for indoor dining; use surplus (CARES?) funds to support those businesses for 3 months
2) Mask mandate with enforcement – people are dying, hospitals are collapsing
3) Ban indoor gatherings >5 people

Here’s the link to this plan that you can read and share with others:
https://twitter.com/eliowa/status/1324367141425041408

Posted in Covid-19, Kim Reynolds | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Biggest Surprise

Posted on November 7, 2020 by Dave Bradley

Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President

This was a historic election no matter how you slice it. The shear size of the vote, the size of the early vote and even the relative calm with which people were able to vote on Tuesday will be talked about for years to come.

There is another aspect that I would like to bring up for discussion.

The Republican Party ran a person who was arguably the worst candidate they have ever run, or at least since 1900. In 2016, Trump was on paper perhaps the worst candidate they had ever run. But up to that time though Trump had many private activities that caused concern, he had no real record as a public servant. The bankruptcies, the racism, the allegations of rape, the long string of lawsuits gave great cause for concern though.

This year candidate Trump did have a public record. Almost no matter how his public record is analyzed, it is without a doubt the worst public record that any candidate had ever amassed. Even a short list as a reminder is extremely damning. But we do need a reminder.

To start with there was the the continuing to work in his businesses which frequently included taking “emoluments” from foreign leaders. Also

  •  hiring a National Security Advisor (Flynn) who was actually on the payroll of a foreign country
  • firing an FBI director for not being loyal to the president
  • Collusion with a foreign government to interfere in our elections;
  • Separating immigrant children from their families at the southern border and then
  • Keeping those children in cages like animals. Many of these children will never see their families again
  • Dropping out of world treaties on climate change
  • Continually befriending America’s enemies while treating our allies like enemies
  • Blackmailing Ukraine to manufacture false charges against a potential presidential rival Joe Biden
  • Total mismanagement in the face of the corona virus which has led to a quarter million deaths and over 10 million more ill.
  • Continually stoking racial hatred and encouraging violence against perceived enemies.

That is just an off the top of my head short list of some of the lowest of the low lights from the past 4 years. Weaved throughout the tapestry of Trump are actions that are very questionably legal. Also there are actions by subordinates that are questionably legal. To add to that is a big chunk of stonewalling and ignoring congressional subpoenas.

No party has ever before run a candidate whose public record is one long string of bad decisions, questionable legality and scandal after scandal, after scandal. Yet for some reason the Republican Party lacked guts to stand up to do the right thing. Nor during the past four years were any elected members of the Republican Party moved to say anything to try and stop or reprimand Trump.

The US public watched this monstrosity of a circus day after day and appeared to yearn to deservedly turn this guy out of office at the first opportunity. But here is where the BIG surprise comes in.

When push came to shove and the election took place nearly half – nearly ONE HALF! – of American voters supported this guy. They supported his lies, his ineptness, his illegalities, his stoking of racial hatred, his dividing the country, his collusion with foreign enemies, his misogyny, the kidnapping and caging of children. HALF OF AMERICA CONDONED THIS WITH THEIR VOTE.

Living in Iowa it was even worse. Nearly 60% of Iowans gave Trump a thumbs up. What happened to your morals, Iowa?

This is shameful, shameful, shameful.

Jon Pavlovitz in a commentary titled “We Were Wrong About America” says:  

Numbed by a cocktail of optimism and ignorance, many of us imagined this was a sick, momentary aberration; a temporary glitch in the system that would surely be remedied: after so much ugliness, such open disregard for people of color, such inhumanity toward migrant children, such a sickening failure in the face of this pandemic—sanity would surely come to the rescue.

We were certain that we would collectively course-correct; that the pendulum that had so wildly swung toward inhumanity would come roaring back to decency in these days; that we would presently be basking in the glory of a radiant dawn referendum on all this bloated bigotry.

We thought we would be dancing on the grave of fascism.

We thought, of course the good people of this nation would come to their collective senses, leaving behind political affiliations and superficial preferences and ceremonial ties, to rescue us from a malevolence that had proven itself unworthy of its position and toxic to its people.

We were certain there would be a mass repudiation of the racism that this man has revealed and the violence he’s nurtured, because for all its flaws we really believed America was better than this.

We were wrong.

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Biden Fight Fund

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Trish Nelson

Photo by Adam Schultz / Biden for President

Message from Joe Biden:

After a couple long days of counting, it is clear we are winning in enough states to reach the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency.

I am here to report that when the count is finished, I believe I will be the winner.

We knew — because of the unprecedented early vote and the mail-in vote — that it was going to take a while. We’re going to have to be patient until the hard work of tallying the votes is finished. And it ain’t over until every vote is counted, every ballot is counted.

With all the votes counted, we have won Wisconsin and Michigan. And I feel very good about Pennsylvania. We flipped Arizona and the second district of Nebraska.

Of special significance to me is that we’ve won with the majority of the American people, and every indication is that the majority will grow.

As I’ve said all along, it’s not my place or Donald Trump’s place to declare who’s won this election. That’s the decision of the American people.

“We the People” will not be silenced. “We the People” will not be bullied. “We the People” will not surrender. That’s why we launched the Biden Fight Fund to count every vote — and why I’m asking if you’ll chip in $25 to fund election protection efforts for our campaign and Democrats up and down the ballot.

We once again proved that democracy is the heartbeat of our nation — just as it has been for more than two centuries.

Even in the face of a pandemic, more Americans voted in this election than ever before in American history. Over 150 million votes were cast. I think that’s just extraordinary.

I’m grateful to the poll workers, to our volunteers, our canvassers, everyone that participated in this democratic process.

And I’m grateful to all of my supporters all across the nation. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Every time I walked out of my grandpa’s house up in Scranton, he’d yell, “Joey, Keep the faith.” And my Grandma, when she was alive, would yell, “No, Joey spread it.”

Now, we have to keep the faith.

If you’re with me and Democrats across the country, I hope you’ll chip in to the Biden Fight Fund today.

Keep the faith guys, we’re going to win this.

– Joe

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Voting Rights And The 2020 Election

Posted on November 5, 2020 by Trish Nelson

Native Iowan Ari Berman discusses SCOTUS and voting rights with Thom Hartmann in the context of the 2020 election.  Ari is Senior reporter at Mother Jones, covering voting rights. He is author of Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America

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Some Thoughts About The November 3, 2020 Elections

Posted on November 4, 2020 by Trish Nelson

by Ralph Scharnau

The November 3 federal elections will stand as one of the most momentous in the nation’s history. Not since the 1960s have voters confronted such an array of issues—coronavirus pandemic, heath care, climate change, police misconduct, street protests, racism and sexism, voter suppression, economic doldrums, and a Supreme Court appointment.

These issues have generated fiery partisan debates. Recent public opinion polls also indicate that clear majorities of respondents think that the nation is headed in the wrong direction. The dissatisfaction rate is widespread, hovering between roughly 60 and 80 percent of poll participants.

Looming over the electoral process is the unprecedented amounts of money poured into the races for the presidency and Congress with billionaires often taking a leading role. Campaign spending in the 2020 election cycle will outpace the 2016 race by an estimated factor of 10. Access to money often plays a significant role in determining who runs for office and who is elected.

The amount of money now being spent on political campaigns has created growing skepticism about the integrity of our election system. This is not a new issue. It dates back to the brawling campaigns and political machines of Tammany Hall and the Robber Baron era in the 1880s and 1890s with special interest money bankrolling American political campaigns.

Congress enacted various reforms during the early 1900s, but it was not until 1971 that reformers came up with an alternative to private campaign money. The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 required candidates for federal office to disclose their funders and set limits on their spending. And, for the first time, it provided public funding of elections for presidential campaigns.

The idea was to match funds raised by the candidates themselves with public monies in return for candidates agreeing to spending limits. The public funds came from voluntary contributions by individual taxpayers through a check-off on their income tax returns, designating a small donation to public campaign funding for six presidential electoral cycles from 1976 to 1996, public funding worked well for the major party campaigns of Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, and their opponents. The availability of public funding encouraged transparency in campaign funding and sharply reduced the influence of wealthy donors.

But the presidential public financing system began to fray during the 2000 campaign. Republican George W. Bush became the first nominee of either major party to pass up public matching funds during the primaries and to rely solely on money raised by his own campaign.

The sheer cost of running for president has risen astronomically since 1976. The costs far exceeded the amount of available public funding. This occurred in part because Congress never established a mechanism to index public financing to the inflation in campaign costs.

A more basic problem was the sharp decline in taxpayer participation in funding the system, from 30% in 1980 to 9% in 2008. For the 2012 general election, the tax return check-off generated only about $80 million, a tiny fraction of the $2.3 billion actually spent on the 2012 presidential campaign. Today, we witness the outsized influence of Super PACs, independent money machines often led by billionaires.

Hope remains for a reasonable, comprehensive and meaningful system of public financing with carefully drawn disclosure rules, reasonable limits on campaign contributions, and stricter enforcement of existing bans on coordination between candidates and super PACs. The struggle to secure fair, public-financed elections will require an ongoing effort

Ralph Scharnau
October 29, 2020

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