This is so cool. Hope you all can watch and share this awesome interview with President Biden. While I’m not particularly a fan of Howard Stern, I’ve always noticed how comfortable guests seem talking with him and his musical guests always sound so amazing in his studio. This was behind a paywall on Sirius. Great to be able to watch it via YouTube. Thanks to Howard Stern.
This week was a fairly typical Iowa Press program except there were follow up questions and challenges because their guest was a Democrat for a change.
The prize for worst lead in to a question in this episode came from Erin Murphy who said, “..obviously, former president Trump is popular here and democratic president Biden is not..” Followed by a pointed question as to how this was going to likely negatively affect Democratic down ticket races.
What about the 759,061 Iowans that voted for Biden for president? Do we count for nothing? If you are looking for nuance, do not watch Iowa Press.
House Democratic leader Jennifer Konfrst gave a great answer. You might actually sort of enjoy watching this episode. Not because of the Iowa Press panel’s superficial horse race questions, but because Konfrst did a fantastic job providing information counter to the program’s Republican leaning ways.
To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with challenging an answer. It’s just that it has to be equal. I’ve never seen the panel interrupt, talk over, or challenge Republican guests. I counted four times that Murphy interrupted Konfrst.
One of the interruptions was to say he expected she was going to mention the abortion issue, because he said it is also a federal issue that could impact state elections. She had to school him on just exactly why this is in fact an issue currently in the state of Iowa to women who are interested in reproductive freedom including in vitro fertilization. This was a frustrating exchange but she came out on top of hostile, uninformed questioning. It starts at about 21:00.
If you are new here and haven’t read my many reviews of the Iowa Press program, type “Iowa Press” in the search box.
This is just a reminder that the general election is six(6) months from today. Make sure your registration is up to date and make plans to help elect Democrats at all levels. If we don’t elect Democrats we will continue to watch rights such as women’s health care disappear.
Rachel Maddow – one of the most thoughtful commenters on the political world of today – goes deep behind the headlines to expose what is driving our current state of affairs. What she tells us is quite simple and as old as humanity itself. We have a party that is corrupt to the core with a leadership that is corrupt to their essence and foot soldiers willing to take the fall for the leaders.
And the pipeline is filled with ‘wannabes’ on the Republican side, each and every one ready to take your rights away. As she notes at the end, it is a criminal enterprise. My thought has been since Trump came down the elevator that the model for his organization has been organized crime.
At present time we see sycophants at various levels attempting to destroy and discredit law enforcement and the court system. Note that his organization already has followers placed strategically in government positions – especially the Supreme Court.
Remember also that the National Republican Party is hard at work on something called Project 2025 that will essentially end our constitutional government if a MAGA party member becomes president.
We posted a video on Project 2025 yesterday. It is the far right wing wet dream which turns the federal government into a weaponized partisan entity. As you can glean from the Maddow video, the organization is fully set up to implement such a plan day one with little opposition within their party and the opposition from Democrats will simply be ignored.
Well, look who finally decided to come back to work. Went out to buy Christmas presents. Must have went to Mars to find bargains.
Just a reminder that there is a big election in 6 months from today. Get your plans in place.
A reminder of why this coming election is so important. Authoritarian governments are bad for your health. Kent State 54 years ago yesterday (3 minutes)
Another week of the corporate media trying to mislead us.
A) Despite the media trying to ignore it, what politician’s deadly encounter with her puppy kept cropping up everywhere?
B) What first witness for the prosecution in the Trump election interference trial really did Donny no favors?
C) According to Iowa Starting Line, what Republican representative is ready to cash in on his vote to publicly fund private schools by doing what in Tama-Toledo?
D) A farmworker in Texas has had an infection in late March officially diagnosed as bird flu which means the disease has transmitted between what three species?
E) Back in the game – what country should be getting delivery of F-15 fighters from the US today?
F) The president of what university released a statement Tuesday stating that “Protests were being led by individuals who are not affiliated with the university”?
G) A long time a-coming. What formerly highly restricted substance will be rescheduled from Schedule I to Schedule III a much lesser controlled schedule?
H) Fox News pulled a fictional series on a mock trial of who after the subject threatened a lawsuit?
I) Wednesday was the 25th ‘birthday’ for what popular cartoon character?
J) What major US Christian denomination voted this week to lift its ban on LGBTQ clergy?
K) In Arizona, the legislature passed and the governor signed a bill that would end that state’s ban on abortion originally passed when?
L) Twang, twang twang twang twang twang! Perhaps the first real guitar hero, what early guitarist with hits such as ’Rebel Rouser’ died last week at a age 86?
M) A second whistleblower against what company died suddenly last week from a “a fast-spreading infection”?
N) The Biden Administration announced $3 billion Thursday to replace what ubiquitous health hazard that still exists in many cities infrastructures?
O) The day that Arizona rescinded its strict abortion ban what state imposed a near total abortion ban beginning at 6 weeks?
P) Philips Respironics announced a $1.1 billion settlement concerning what defective product of theirs?
Q) What major international tourist destination has imposed a 5 Euro/day to try to discourage day trippers?
R) What is the name of Taylor Swift’s newest album that is shattering sales and play records that was released last week?
S) What other national Republican leader was excoriated for how he treated his dog as he ran for president?
T) “Don Snoreleone” and “the Nodfather” are sarcastic names for what public figure who has a penchant for sleeping during his election interference trial?
You would think after Bill Clinton fixed the economy that George H.W. Bush broke & after Barack Obama fixed the economy that George W. Bush broke & after Joe Biden fixed the economy that Donald Trump broke that people would stop voting for Republicans. – Evan
As of today we are 54 years removed from the shootings at Kent State University in Ohio. Once again it becomes relevant as protests concerning the Israeli – Palestinian situation are being pushed hard by the corporate media.
Protests have always been integral to America’s functioning and the right to protest is enshrined in the constitution. Protests must remain peaceful, however. Right wing groups are attempting to exploit these protests trying to make the President look inept. He is on top of the situation
President Biden addresses campus protests:
Right wingers who live in a dreamworld fully detached from reality are also trying to equate the insurrection of January 6th, 2021 as yet another protest within the American tradition of protests. It wasn’t. January 6th was a planned insurrection by the then president with a goal of ending our constitutional democracy.
Since then Republicans have attempted to rewrite history by simply lying about their insurrection. Here we see Senator JD Vance of Ohio lying to CNN’s Kaitlin Collins about the attempted overthrow of our government. Collins ain’t buying what he is selling:
KAITLAN COLLINS: So you agree that people who break in and vandalize a building should be prosecuted?
JD VANCE: Yes
COLLINS: Ok, I'm just checking, because you helped raise money for people who did so on January 6 pic.twitter.com/nEztSPrQlC
I do not know if this has been ballyhooed enough. Maybe some of you have heard of Project 2025. Maybe some of you have been sufficiently scared by this proposal to sound the alarms. But I do not think enough have been scared enough. This is a really frightening proposal and the extreme right is fully ready to put their proposals into practice almost immediately.
Here is a video explaining some of the plans. This video has a little age, but I was trying to find one that was sufficiently serious about this plan to get people’s attention. (10 minutes)
Hopefully this video will sufficiently awaken folks to the reality of how much danger our form of government is in. This fall we will have a clear choice to maintain our democracy even though it is from perfect or losing our democracy not for something better, but to an authoritarian government with a few wealthy elites in charge.
Sadly our corporate media will do little or nothing to explain Project 2025 or the danger it represents.No doubt the goals of Project 2025 line up well with corporate media’s policies. Thus we are on our own to understand and spread our concerns.
A group name “Stop The Coup” released a ten page list of key proposals of Project 2025. You can find it here:
In addition to that warning we have a response to Project 2025 from the Democratic Party Rapid Response Team. This one page response ends with this warning from the New York Times:
New York Times: “Roberts told me that he views Heritage’s role today as ‘institutionalizing Trumpism.’ This includes leading Project 2025, a transition blueprint that outlines a plan to consolidate power in the executive branch, dismantle federal agencies and recruit and vet government employees to free the next Republican president from a system that Roberts views as stacked against conservative power. The lesson of Trump’s first year in office, Roberts told me, is that ‘the Trump administration … simply got a slow start. And Heritage and our allies in Project 2025 believe that must never be repeated.’”
Finally I will link to this rather long (36:35) video that goes into some depth on Project 2025. Lawyer Leeja Miller explains how badly Project 2025 will totally screw up our democracy:
(The video is a sponsored video and I will give a language warning even though I doubt people care):
Nobody has the Republicans’ number quite like Hillary Clinton who was right about Trump early on and was ignored. Now look where we are. We ignore her at our peril. Looking ahead to November she said, “Expect them to shrink the electorate, make it difficult to vote, confuse the electorate with flat-out disinformation and they will launch big surprises at the end.”
On SCOTUS: “What the majority is doing is what they were put on the court to do. They are implementing a right wing agenda… we got the judges that had been groomed to put into the pipeline to do what they are now doing.”
“I went to law school with Clarence Thomas. It wasn’t like I was surprised.”
On Trump/Ukraine: “Russia is playing an old game and we’re not understanding the full implication of it but the Europeans are standing firm in large measure because they do see what a direct threat it is to them and I believe it is a direct threat to us. That’s not how Trump is talking… he’s easily bullied and easily flattered and he’s also only concerned about himself not the country so if you’re a smart enough dictator in Moscow or Beijing, bullying and flattering – those are pretty easy strategies to carry out.”
To Marc Elias: “You’ve been on the frontline of saving our democracy..we need you now as much as ever, so please keep going because we’ve gotta get through this next election because we’ll either continue our democracy or we’ll lose it.”
Let’s hope we continue it.
This is an informative, candid, and sometimes scary conversation between Clinton and Marc Elias of Democracy Docket.
A decent history of American politics in the post-Obama era has yet to be written. One can’t rely upon any of the conservative principals to author one, because they have been drinking at the well of minority rule for too long. A Trump autobiography? He didn’t even write The Art of the Deal.
Enter Ari Berman’s new book, Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People–and the Fight to Resist It, published in April. It provides a well-researched and relatable history of an issue that has been at the heart of modern conservatism since Pat Buchanan worked in the Nixon White House.
In a 1995 National Press Club address, Buchanan, then a presidential candidate, said, “If present trends hold, white Americans will be a minority by 2050.” This underlying fear mongering became endemic to Republican politics and drove the ascendancy of the 45th president. Irrational fears the United States would transform from a First World Power to Third World status drove conservative voters to the ballot box.
In my reading of books about the rise of Donald Trump as president, Berman is the first author to tell a clear, coherent, and relatable story of that time. Minority rule is at the heart of current Republican policy and behavior and Berman lays it all out for the reader.
While the 1965 Voting Rights Act broadened access to the ballot, conservative white folks were aghast and feared they would become a racial and political minority. During the Johnson administration, an emphasis on immigration of whites was transformed to a broader band of global populations. Enter Trump to both fan the racist, anti-immigrant flames, and get elected as a supposed fire fighter for the fires he started.
Berman outlines the constitutional and legal structure that enables minority rule in the United States. The conduct of the U.S. Census, having two U.S. Senators per state regardless of population, the growth of the filibuster, the electoral college, and drawing political districts in a way that disenfranchises non-white voters, all play a part in enabling minority rule, according to Berman.
While it may sound easy to keep the U.S. Census above politics, it was politicized during the 2020 census by the administration. Having two U.S. Senators, combined with the filibuster enables senators representing a minority of the population to set policy and block majority-favored laws they don’t like. Political gerrymandering, especially in states like Wisconsin and Michigan entrenched minority rule and blocked attempts for political districts to represent the people in the state. There is no magic bullet to fix any of these issues. Entrenched, minority rule makes it more difficult.
In Minority Rule, Berman outlines the role of The Heritage Foundation’s sister organization, Heritage Action, in our politics. Heritage Action is a 501(c)4 nonprofit conservative policy advocacy organization founded in 2010. The Heritage Foundation was restricted from advocating policy, so they created this offshoot, which has become one of the most powerful political lobbying groups in the nation. Iowa is one of the states where these dark money groups have been active.
Ari Berman gets a thumbs up for this book, and I recommend you read it yourself. Minority rule is endemic to the problems of politics in 2024. Berman helps us get a grip on it. He also provides hope the electorate can address the problem and embolden democracy going forward. He presents evidence such a movement has already started.
Governor Kim Keynolds: (515) 281-5211 U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121 Iowa Members of Congress - Rep. Randy Feenstra (R) - Rep. Ashley Hinson (R) - Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R) - Rep. Zach Nunn (R) Iowa US Senators - Senator Joni Ernst (R) - Senator Charles Grassley (R)
This week was a fairly typical Iowa Press program except there were follow up questions and challenges because their guest was a Democrat for a change.
Nobody has the Republicans’ number quite like Hillary Clinton who was right about Trump early on and was ignored. Now look where we are. We ignore her at our peril. Looking ahead to November she said, “Expect them to shrink the electorate, make it difficult to vote, confuse the electorate with flat-out disinformation and they will launch big surprises at the end.”
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