America Needs A Media Revolution

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Trish Nelson

freepressAction alert from Freepress

Donald Trump wants the press to be nicer to him — but that isn’t their job. We need to know: Is the media going to hold Trump accountable?

The first sign of a fascist government? The disappearance of a free press.

Yesterday, top TV news journalists and network executives met for an “off-the-record” meeting with Donald Trump.

While the press expected a conversation about access to a Trump administration, the president-elect spent the time scolding and ridiculing them.1

Trump’s hostility to the media is well-documented. He attacks any reporting that isn’t overwhelmingly favorable toward him. He hasn’t held a real press conference since July. He’s banned reporters from covering events and ditched the White House press pool.

Even more disturbing: This strategy is working. Trump is controlling the narrative and using his tweets and insults of the press to distract from his frightening appointments of white supremacists, his shady business deals and his incessant attacks on our democracy.

Demand to know: What are the TV networks going to do to hold Trump accountable?

The mainstream media — particularly TV news — spent the past year boosting Donald Trump and giving him mostly unfiltered access to their megaphones. They’ve consistently covered Trump’s tweets more thoroughly than his legal scandals, his attacks on vulnerable communities and his conflicts of interest.

The media rarely use the word “racist” to describe Trump’s positions and have moved quickly since Election Day to normalize the new administration.

But this isn’t normal. We need an adversarial press more than ever.

Tell ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC: We need watchdogs, not lapdogs.

In yesterday’s meeting, ABC, CBS, CNN, FOX and NBC all went off the record with Trump. Now they must go on the record with the public and tell us how they will respond not just to attacks on the media but to threats to our democracy.

Are they going to challenge this new administration? Are they going to put their resources into more reporters and in-depth investigations? Are they going to call out racism, misogyny and fascism? Are they going to stop being publicists and start speaking truth to power?

Let’s send a message to everyone from the networks who met with Trump yesterday and demand to know what they’ll do differently in the face of attacks on press freedom and so much more.

For far too long the mainstream media have valued preserving access over challenging those in power. That needs to end now.

Thanks for all that you do—

Craig, Candace, Joe and the rest of the Free Press team
freepress.net

P.S. Urge the TV news networks to stop giving Trump a free pass and start holding him accountable.

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign, Media Reform | Tagged , | Comments Off on America Needs A Media Revolution

Open Letter To Bobby Kaufmann

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Paul Deaton
Solon Economist

Solon Economist

Open Letter to State Representative Bobby Kaufmann sent to The Solon Economist, a newspaper in his district.

Congratulations on your mentions on FOX News and in the Washington Post last week.

Your proposed legislation to claw back money from state funded schools that supported students after the general election got their attention and raised your personal national profile. Well done on self-promotion!

Your political supporters may be cheering you on, but constituents are not.

Perhaps you should have considered the November protests in Iowa City and elsewhere more thoroughly before clutching the limelight of media attention.

Your statement on FOX News that “in life there are winners and losers” may apply to elections and sporting games but our God-given lives are about much more than winning and losing. You denigrated the lives of hard-working parents by this statement.

To CBC Radio you said, “I believe the national conversation needs to take place with both sides coming to the table.”

Let me refresh your memory.

Republicans attempted to de-legitimize President Obama from his inauguration and obstructed everything they could during his administration. They pledged to do the same should the Democrat have won Nov. 8.

In 1971, I joined with others to stop traffic on Interstate 80 near Iowa City, not unlike the recent protests you found annoying. Those of us who had been tear-gassed in our dormitory rooms without provocation had a bone to pick as we intentionally tried to stop business as usual and pay attention to ending the Vietnam War. Our bonfire on I-80 didn’t last long before the Iowa Highway Patrol broke it up, pursued and arrested many among us.

When people take to the streets in protest there is little concern about one’s arrest record regardless of the penalties.

“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” Thomas Jefferson said. We’ll be vigilant during the 87th Iowa General Assembly.

Posted in Progressive Community | Tagged | Comments Off on Open Letter To Bobby Kaufmann

Boycott Trump TV

Posted on November 21, 2016 by Trish Nelson

pussy-grabber-trumpI am not the only one who has been saying all along that Donald Trump – now  president-elect pussygrabberinchief, (PGOTUS) – is just a media creation. Donald  provided cable news readily available, inexpensive to produce, sensational content, so we now have him as President-elect of the United States.  Unfortunately, they haven’t changed since the unthinkable happened last Tuesday.  They are still raking in obscene amounts of cash while selling America down the river.

This is an article by Thom Palmer on how cable news and mainstream corporate media gave us President-elect Donald Trump.  You can read the entire article here

###

by Thom Palmer

To the reporters, political directors, and commentators at CNN and MSNBC: You gave Donald Trump his only path to victory. Where Trump may be a Putin puppet, You, the mainstream cable news media, are Trump puppets. You allowed yourselves to be manipulated, cowering to Trump’s threats and were fascinated with his foul mouth and images of his great big airplane bouncing around. And now we’re going to make you pay the price for it.

I’m calling out Wolf Blitzer, Anderson Cooper, Chris Matthews, Jake Tapper, Chuck Todd

Todd, Brian Williams, Andrea Mitchell, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brezinski and all of the rest. All but one of these people more than likely voted for Hillary Clinton, but all bear the responsibility for Trump’s election along with the ensuing national and global disasters to follow.

Congratulations, you made a lot of money this election season, and at the same time screwed 7 billion people living on this planet… You have no right to ask what the Clinton campaign did wrong….You bear the responsibility ….

You’re still doing it, and it makes me sick. Every day, 24-7 you allowed proven lies to be told in front of millions. Equal time given to those who would savagely slander and politically crucify a very good woman, one far more experienced, educated and prepared to lead the nation. You perverted the First Amendment for corporate profit. True that you did a certain amount of push-back on many of the false claims made by Trump, his surrogates and Republican extremists, but you STILL allowed them back on your shows over and over and over, as if it were a valid debate. It was disgusting. I know that you didn’t actually want Trump to win. Instead, you wanted the race to be close, and keep controversy at the forefront, because the tighter the race, the more angry your viewers became, the higher the ratings and the higher the profits.

Trump had just one real path to victory, and it was YOUR willingness to cater to bigotry and hate, and cower when Trump said that you were rigging the election. You knew that there was election rigging going on, but also knew that it went in the other direction. You knew that when Trump said Hillary was a bigot, that he was covering his own bigotry through “projection”, and any decent Journalist could plainly see that the Trump campaign was working hard to manipulate the election through espionage and FBI tampering. You buried his many scandals and legal problems in favor of a close race. Instead of correcting the record by proving to the public once and for all that Hillary Clinton was in fact NOT crooked, was NOT going to end up in jail, etc., you chose instead to let them say it thousands of times on your news shows. News shows that have become tabloid news. With the exception of a couple of hosts, you are not much better than Fox News now. Congratulations. You pushed him over the top.

You, the media, knew of Trump’s legal battles. You knew he was the corrupt one….under indictment for racketeering and other cases. You knew that he lied to his followers over 75% of the time, and you knew that he is unqualified and uneducated. You knew that his lack of experience made him too dangerous a candidate. Yet, you gave him and his surrogates the megaphone. YOU gave them the ability to spread their hateful and xenophobic rhetoric. You were suckered by Trump, who put one of his top campaign managers (Lewandowski) on your payroll. He took you for fools, and you bit the apple. You gave a megaphone to FULL BLOWN FASCISM.

Stop blaming the Electorate

There is plenty of blame to go around for Trump’s electoral win. From the “Bernie-or-Bust” Democrats, to Gary Johnson and Jill Stein protest voters, to the seven million Democrats who decided that the election is too stupid to vote, to voter suppression as states with Republican legislatures have actively worked to cut down on voting precincts in highly Democratic areas, causing a certain percentage of voters to refuse to wait in a three hour or more line to vote, etc.

Blame Trump, Russia, FBI, WikiLeaks

You can blame the Trump campaign. Not for running a great campaign, because they did not. They ran a rag-tag, disorganized campaign with little grass roots effort. You can blame Trump and his Campaign Managers Paul Manafort and Steve Bannon working with Russians to commit espionage against the United States, giving hacked emails from the DNC to Wikileaks and Julian Assange for mass distribution. You can blame Trump and his campaign managers and surrogate Rudy Giuliani for conspiring with the New York office of the FBI, where some of his right-wing friends and former co-workers worked.

Stop Blaming Hillary

‘Hillary didn’t pay enough attention to rural white America. She didn’t defend the email controversy properly. She didn’t cater to middle America enough.’ Oh, just shut the hell up, Chuck, and take the responsibility for your own actions, and quit deflecting.

Media Manipulation

Being the Political Director of CNN or MSNBC, major sources of political information among many millions of Americans, means that you are responsible for content, truth, and true investigative journalism. Ratings MUST come secondary to truth if our democracy is to survive.

Corrective Action Required

You need to correct this, and fast. In two years, we expect you to TELL THE TRUTH. We expect you to use the First Amendment as it was intended. While it is true that it gives great latitude, and allows for stories of alien invasions, fake conspiracies and scandals, and pornography, YOU, the media bear the responsibility of getting to the truth, and having the best interest of America as your foundation. YOU FAILED…. AND YOU BETTER FIX IT.

Since you gave Trump the Presidency, it is now your responsibility, your job to….
Save Medicare from being dismantled
Prevent Trump from abandoning the Paris Climate Agreement
Stop the Keystone Pipeline from being built
Prevent Mexican Concentration Camps
Protect religious freedom across America and around the world
Protect the First Amendment
Protect the ACA
Protect Social Security
Heal the racial divides
Refuse to accept xenophobia
Refuse to accept sexual inequality
Refuse to accept sexual abuse

Democrats, who should be in charge of the Senate and White House at this point, will continue fighting for truth and justice, but you made the task so much harder through your greed and reckless reporting. FIX IT, and don’t tell us that it is not your job. You made it your job.

WE ARE GIVING YOU NO TIME TO THINK ABOUT IT, and if you don’t respond, we’re going to take you down. Better to have no news media than to have media that pushes misinformation for profit. In the meantime, it’s your responsibility to make sure the GOP doesn’t run us over the cliff. If you do not respond, we will protest. We will march on and boycott every damn one of your advertisers and bring you to your knees. This will be a sixty million person effort that you won’t be able to survive…. I promise.

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Boycott Trump TV

Democrats Need Media

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Dave Bradley

radio icon

If you listened to Stephanie Miller Thursday you couldn’t help but hear the message over and over and over: Democrats need media.

After an election that saw the Republican candidate receive billions of dollars worth of free and very friendly media it should be wildly apparent that the media landscape in this country is horribly skewed to one side.

In the national landscape I can name only one national media outlet that is consistently liberal. That is Free Speech TV.

Many look to NPR as a liberal outlet. In my opinion that is a ship that sailed long ago. NPR seems to be more than anything trying to avoid stepping on any toes and making anyone angry. In pursuit of that, they give their megaphone with its patina of trustworthiness to the likes of Tucker Carlson and Jonah Goldberg this last cycle to spread their lies.

For some, the liberal oasis nationally is MSNBC. Currently that is true only for three hours in the evening. Beyond that any fairness to the left is hard to find.

The major problem with MSNBC is that they are owned by a right wing corporation – Comcast – which has shown recently that they have no allegiance to helping spread any lefty message. Ask Ed Schultz or Al Sharpton. Do you think Hayes, Maddow or O’Donnell will be immune to a corporate policy change?

Many of us have felt as though the internet was our refuge. The new president has almost no moral or political guidelines and usually doesn’t care to get into details. So expect him to pass policies such as controlling the internet off to someone else, most likely congress. Republican in congress have made their desire to hand the internet over to corporate control very plain and open. So in a couple of years we will probably be looking at a very different internet configuration in the US. You can bet it will not favor liberals or progressives.

As far as I know in Iowa NPR is far to the left of everything else which tells you a lot about the media in Iowa. A progressive in Iowa as with many throughout the country probably has to do what I do on a daily basis – go to the internet and search for radio from Minneapolis (KTNF) or Chicago (WCPT) or progressive podcasts.

Most people don’t want to do that. Most people come home from a day of work tired and hungry and most likely frustrated. They come to a home where their spouse most likely works also. Their lot in life is often not what they expected. When it comes to fulfilling his civic duty he or she doesn’t want to have to search to find what is going on. They are more than happy to turn on the TV and let the TV download their (the network’s) version of the news to themselves as a news consumer.

In that somewhat passive move the chances of a consumer getting any fair representation of what happened is nearly zero. The chances of getting a back story of how stories evolved are even less.

Democrats need media. I hope someone in Democratic leadership is listening. With a media that favors one side, no matter how onerous their message or their candidates are, that party will have the upper hand.

Unfortunately media costs a ton of money, but right now it appears to be the price of admission for today’s political game.

For folks in Iowa City, there is an actual group of progressives working to get a foot in the door. Radio station KICI is getting close to going live. This is one place where your dollars can be really make a difference! Here is their gofundme page. Make a difference now and help out.

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign, Media Reform | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Democrats Need Media

Sunday Funday: Depressing Thanksgiving Edition

Posted on November 20, 2016 by Dave Bradley

happy thanksgiving

The Republican Party has already thrown a scare into most Americans with its new leadership. With Muslims facing registration, college kids facing a lifetime of debt for getting an education, women facing greater restrictions on medical care, the elderly facing major changes in Medicare and Social Security, a leader who has no concept of diplomacy and a hair trigger temper and finally the prospect of an continually warming climate while the new administration does all it can to make it worse.

If you have to face right wing family this holiday you have our sympathy. It is bad enough to worry about you future without having some schmuck cheering what is bound to be the most corrupt administration ever.

Were you paying attention? It is hard these days:

1) It looks as if what surprise winner will not be traveling to Stockholm to pick up his Nobel Prize in literature?

2) The Democrats in the senate selected who as minority leader?

3) The new Democratic team in the senate included what two major progressive leaders?

4) What precedent did the coming administration cite in discussing possible registration of Muslims?

5) Attorney General appointee Jeff Sessions was denied a federal judgeship because of what?

6) What Iowa state representative has gained national notoriety for his “buttercup” bill?

7) What former presidential candidate has bowed out of the race to head the DNC?

8) What billionaire environmentalist has pledged to fight the new administration on environmental issues?

9) An official in West Virginia lost her job after making a racist comment on Facebook concerning what national figure?

10) Severe drought is now plaguing what section of the US?

11) November 19th, 1863. President Lincoln gives a short but memorable speech at what ceremony?

12) Gwen Ifill died last week. She was a noted journalist for what tv network?

13) 2016 is on track to be the hottest year on record. How far above the reference period (1961-1990) is it now? (celsius or Farenheit)

14) Sources say that negations are underway for a settlement in what fraud case?

15) People magazine named who as the sexiest man alive last week?

16) Air maintenance workers for what delivery company are threatening a strike over health care coverage?

17) 30,000 chickens were destroyed in what country due to bird flu?

18) Rep. Tom Price told reporters republicans plan on “overhauling” what health care system in 2017?

19) In Minnesota, the police officer who shot Philando Castile last summer was charged with what?

20) Although unknown for sure the term “Black Friday” seems to stem from the huge influx of people into what major city’s downtown in the 1950s?

Tuesday will be the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy in Dallas. It seems especially poignant this year as the very antithesis of President Kennedy prepares to take office.

Answers:

1) Bob Dylan

2) Chuck Schumer

3) Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren

4) the internment of Japanese during WWII

5) his racist views. He was denied by a Republican led subcommittee

6) Buttercup Bobby Kaufmann

7) Martin O’Malley

8) Tom Steyer

9) FLOTUS Michelle Obama

10) the southeast, especially Alabama

11) The dedication of the Gettysburg Battlefield as a National Cemetery

12) PBS

13) .88 C or 1.58 degrees F

14) Trump University. Rumors say the settlement will include a finding of no fault

15) Dwayne Johnson

16) UPS – whether it happens at Christmas time is up to speculation

17) Germany

18) Medicare – good luck elderly

19) manslaughter

20) Philadelphia – shoppers + fans for the Army – Navy game created a mass invasion of inner city Philly

Happy Holiday all!

Posted in Humor | Comments Off on Sunday Funday: Depressing Thanksgiving Edition

The Planet Lost Big Time November 8th

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Dave Bradley

America lost so much in this election. The world lost so much in this election. Perhaps no entity lost more in this election than the planet and its systems for sustaining life.

Humanity was finally, slowly coming to grips with the reality that the earth ecosystems are breaking down. Science has proven that this breakdown is due almost exclusively to human activity. If humanity wants to remain in a hospitable environment science has shown that the pollution that is hastening the ecosystem changes must be stopped and reversed and this must happen quickly.

At a time of urgency on climate the American electorate, dumbed down by decades of fake news and attacks on science and reality, chose a leader who think the ecological emergency is a fairy tale. This would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire.

It looks like those who will be chosen to run many of the federal agencies dealing with the climate and the environment will be openly hostile to the science. Indications are that laws and regulations on the environment will be rolled back. This will be done for the stated reason of stimulating business. Little could be further from reality.

Killing the environment will lead to deaths and illnesses at an unprecedented level. Weather will be hard to predict and will be extreme. We are already seeing extreme, wild and unexpected weather causing huge property damage and loss of business facilities. The other side of that coin is drought. We have already seen long and extremely damaging droughts in Texas and California in recent years. Expect droughts to be more widespread while huge rain events become more common in other ares.

The changes in weather that we are already seeing will also lead to changes in where vegetation can grow. Imagine an Iowa where it is too hot to grow corn. Imagine an Iowa with critters like we only currently seen in the hot south such as fire ants. It may well be coming, especially if we turn our backs on the science.

In case you haven’t been paying attention this year in Iowa has been a harbinger of what will be coming. It was a hot and humid summer starting in early May. It stayed hot through September and into October. Plants that normally die in September were still blooming into November. Trees didn’t even start changing color until almost Halloween, weeks after normal. Even now as we enter the second half of November leaves are still on the trees, long after their normal fall time.

Climate and environment change won’t just hurt a few poor people. Businesses will be greatly harmed by losses. Cities along the coast, especially in low lying coastlines such as Florida will slowly slip underwater. Businesses will be lost. No doubt insurance companies will quit insuring homes and businesses in those areas. Then what happens? Do we through our government become the insurer of last resort?

As with any impending disaster such as an epidemic the best approach is to try to stop it before it happens. The new administration’s policies will be in direct opposition to stemming a disaster. Their policies will accelerate the disaster. Seems like a pretty stupid policy to me.

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign, Climate Action, Climate Change, Environment | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Planet Lost Big Time November 8th

Elizabeth Warren Calls Out Transition Lies

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Dave Bradley

One Of The New Democratic Leadership Team

Thank goodness someone’s calling them out, but will America listen? Will the media report it?

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign, Elizabeth Warren | Tagged , | Comments Off on Elizabeth Warren Calls Out Transition Lies

Government Of The Corporation, By The Corporation, For The Corporation

Posted on November 19, 2016 by Dave Bradley
A Legislator for Every Corp.

A Legislator for Every Corp.

Looks like it is past time for Abe Lincoln to rewrite that little speech he gave at Gettysburg 153 years ago today. The reality now is that the country now more than ever in the hands of the wealthy and the corporation.

The Republican Party has spent tons of time and tons of money developing a strategy that would create an electorate that was so confused and so angry that they would vote for Satan if he were white, male and packaged in such a way as to conceal his true identity.

The money came from the incredibly deep pockets of their extremely wealthy donors. Not only people like Sheldon Adelson and Pete Peterson but most especially from Charles and David Koch. The Kochs have spent decades of time and billions of dollars in money to reshape the political landscape.

On occasion we see an isolated main stream media story when the Kochs do something like put together a group of the filthy rich to spend as much on an upcoming election as one of the major parties. But such stories are mere muffled shouts in the wilderness. They are heard by few and cause little change.

Meanwhile the Kochs put their money to work daily organizing and strategizing ways to tilt the playing field to their favor and what they want when the playing field is thus tilted. Their money pays the salary of people who spend their lives working at right wing think tanks. Their jobs are to create alternate realities and alternate histories and based on that create policies geared to solving issues that are created in their alternate universe.

Koch money is also invested in developing talking points and backing candidates who will parrot those talking points without interruption and without diversion. Most of the talking points dwell on tearing down the reality they disparage while talking glowingly of the glory of their alternate reality.

While the Kochs don’t own media, like minded corporations headed by leaders of the same political bent do own and run the media. So dominating the media with messages developed at right wing think tanks and delivered by mindless but very attractive humans is no problem.

So we now come to this point in the history of America where half of the electorate is angry and will vote for anyone who claims they will change whatever is going on. Despite the economy being recovered from the precipice by the Democratic Party with the Republican Party actively working to cause a depression, voters believed the economy was tanking.

Now Republicans will be running the economy. For the past century when Republicans have run the economy they have run it into the ground. In every instance Democrats have had to come to the rescue. Hoover, Nixon, Reagan, Bush and Bush have be disastrous for our economy. But they were nothing compared to what will happen.

Now corporate interests have control of the media so finding out what is really happening will be hard. Control of the internet through user fees and other techniques will be one of the first priorities. We seldom see media control like this except in dictatorships. Without a press that will actually act as a brake on administration excesses who knows where it will go?

One of the Kochs most successful enterprises, ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) will be meeting in Washington DC in 10 days to set their agenda on slicing up the spoils of their investments in the electoral process.

The payback will be HUGE, HUGE, HUGE! Just for starters, Koch Oil will see much more friendly oil and fossil fuel policies. Look for many of those nettlesome regulations to be rolled back saving billions.

At the state level, Iowa’s state legislature is now in the hands of Republicans who can remake Iowa’s economy into the “corporations run everything” mode that has ruined the economies of neighboring Wisconsin and Kansas. The Kansas miracle where schools were nearly shut down due to lack of funding may soon be coming to Iowa.

With former ALEC chair Linda Upmeyer once more installed as Speaker of the House, Iowa state chair for ALEC Bill Dix leading the state senate and former ALEC founding member Terry Branstad as governor you can bet Iowa was a great investment for the Koch brothers.

With Koch allies Paul Ryan as Speaker of the House and Reince Priebus as chief of staff the Kochs can rest assured that they will have some real influence in Washington.

Iowa is hardly unique among the states. With Republicans controlling a majority of state legislatures and governorships you can bet the Kochs desires will have a major influence in state policies across the country.

The Kochs played the long game. They invested money and time to changing the landscape. Now they own the land and can reshape it as few have been able to since the days of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Carnegie. They have done so quietly but persistently. Their payoff is about to be HUGE, HUGE, HUGE!

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign, ALEC, Branstad, Koch Brothers | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Give President-Elect Pussy Grabber A Chance

Posted on November 18, 2016 by Trish Nelson

President-elect Pussygrabberinchief  is getting his chance, so the stupid media who caused this should quit saying we should give this fascist a chance to take down America.

 

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign | Tagged | Comments Off on Give President-Elect Pussy Grabber A Chance

Kaufmann Buttercup Bill Wrong For Iowa

Posted on November 17, 2016 by altapricehome

bobby-kaufmann-buttercup-billRepublican Representative Bobby Kaufmann wants the Iowa legislature to pass a law to take away money from public Universities funding grief counseling for students who didn’t vote for Trump and are upset about the election.

The neo-Nazis have a plan, too, and grief counseling might interfere with its success. The Daily Stormer is encouraging Trump supporters to mercilessly harass Clinton supporters online. As explained by The Daily Stormer’s publisher, Andrew Anglin,

“You can troll these people and definitely get some of them to kill themselves”.

With his “suck it up, buttercup” bill, Rep. Kaufmann gleefully taunts the very people targeted by the neo-Nazis (whose leader, Stephen Bannon, has been appointed to the top White House position by Trump). I guess Rep. Kaufmann doesn’t want the Universities interfering with the neo-Nazi plan to have Clinton supporters kill themselves.

Posted in 2016 Election Campaign | Tagged , | Comments Off on Kaufmann Buttercup Bill Wrong For Iowa