Things I Wish I'd Said

 

 

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I've come to the conclusion that Ted Rall really is a national treasure.  Not only are his cartoons brilliant, but the comments attached to the cartoons at his blog are deadly on target.  Here's the succinct analysis he posted June 23, 2014:

 

 As Iraq spirals into sectarian civil war, one of the recurring stories on American media outlets is the mixed feelings of the American veterans who served in the invasion and subsequent occupation. While it’s understandable that they are wondering whether their sacrifices were worth it (hint: no way), shouldn’t we be giving at least equal time to the Iraqis who are living through the consequences of our war there?   [Emphasis added]

 

Good question, one that we probably won't see raised or answered in the US press or even mentioned by the Administration anytime soon.

 

I guess we're too close to July 4th.  It wouldn't be prudent.

The Devil Is Sometimes In The Details

(Cartoon by Lee Judge and featured at Mc Clatchy DC.)

A friend here at the Cuckoo's Nest lent me the current issue of the Columbia Journalism Review and I was quite taken by the editorial, primarily because it was the most concise statement I've ever seen of what is wrong with today's journalism.

... A more clarifying polarity than objectivity versus activism, or impartiality versus partisanship, is one that CJR’s Dean Starkman lays out starting on page 39: access versus accountability.
This, he argues, is the perennial tension that defines the field, its “Jacob and Esau, Gog and Magog.” These are two different views of journalism’s very purpose, forever in competition for status, resources, and power. These approaches require different skills, different practices, and different sources, and produce radically different representations of reality. Access journalism seeks to provide insider information from powerful institutions and people. Accountability journalism seeks to provide information about those people and institutions. Put in even shorter-hand, access reporting tells you what the powerful said, while accountability reporting tells you what they did.
[Emphasis added]

Neither form of reporting is inherently bad and both are necessary. The problem comes when one form predominates all of the time.  The result of "access reporting" at the expense of "accountability reporting" (and I believe that has been the case for years, even decades) is a major reason most of the reading public were caught so totally off guard by the mortgage/real estate crisis and the subsequent Great Depression.

We've had entirely too much of the imbalance.  We need more than stenographers for the powerful; we need (desperately) more accountability reporting.

Still Sickly

Verticality is still a challenge, so Horsey's column (which raises some interesting questions) is located here.

The New Newspaper Tycoon

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 8/7/13 in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.)

Jeff Bezos, Mr. Amazon, stunned us all by purchasing the Washington Post.  It's hard to imagine just what he has in mind for the venerable publication, but Michael Hiltzig has a few ideas.

Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com whose $250-million purchase of the Washington Post was announced Monday, is just the latest in a string of billionaires who have taken up or expanded their newspaper holdings this year.

Only days ago the commodity trader and Red Sox team owner John W. Henry bought the Boston Globe, which had been put on the block by New York Times Co., for a paltry $70 million. (The New York Times had purchased the Globe for $1.1 billion in 1993.) Earlier this summer Warren Buffett added the Atlantic City Press to his company's holdings of 30 medium and small newspapers.

And a number of billionaires were said to have been circling around Tribune Co.'s newspapers, which include the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune, until the company put the papers' sale on hold last month.

But Bezos' play may be the most intriguing. Bezos, who is buying the Post personally, outside of Amazon's corporate structure, hasn't said what his goals or intentions are; in an open letter to Post employees he declared, "The values of The Post do not need changing. The paper's duty will remain to its readers and not to the private interests of its owners. We will continue to follow the truth wherever it leads."

But he also observed that "the Internet is transforming almost every element of the news business: shortening news cycles, eroding long-reliable revenue sources, and enabling new kinds of competition.... Charting a path ahead will not be easy. We will need to invent, which means we will need to experiment." ...

Bezos is one business owner who has shown he's not averse to giving up profits, at least for some lengthy period, while aiming for much greater gains in the future. The challenge he faces with the Washington Post, and the goals he may have set for himself as a newspaper magnate in the digital world, might be encompassed by another line from "Citizen Kane": "It's no trick to make a lot of money … if all you want is to make a lot of money."  [Emphasis added]

It's the experimentation which will bear watching.  Will Fred Hiatt and his stable of op-ed scribblers continue without any change?  Will the journalists continue their stenographic ways?

This is going to be interesting to watch as the real story unfolds.

Two Things

(Editorial cartoon by Jim Morin/ Miami Herald (March 28, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.)

David Lazarus's current column has a couple of powerful lessons for us, lessons which show how things should work in this country.

Susan Segal normally spends about $30 for a three-month supply of a thyroid medication from CVS Caremark's mail-order pharmacy.

Recently, though, CVS sent her a different thyroid drug, which cost $23 more — a 77% increase.

Segal, 56, called to complain. A CVS service rep told the Irvine resident that the pharmacy wasn't trying to pull a fast one. ...

Segal asked whether she could return the Synthroid for a refund. No, the CVS rep replied. Once a drug is shipped, it can't be returned.

Segal asked whether she at least could be charged the lower price she would have paid for Levoxyl. Again, no. All sales are final. ...

Christine Cramer, a CVS Caremark spokeswoman, declined to comment when I asked what rights patients should have in situations like Segal's.

But she said that, in response to my bringing Segal's dissatisfaction to the company's attention, "we are providing a credit for the difference in the co-pay." In other words, she'll be charged what she would have paid for her intended drug order.

That's nice, but it overlooks the fact that CVS did nothing when the customer herself brought up the matter. It was only after the prospect of bad publicity arose that the company was moved to act fairly.   [Emphasis added]

Once again CVS Caremark is caught treating its customers badly.  That's certainly nothing new and indicates an ongoing pattern by the mail order division of the large pharmacy.  In this case, however, they do have an excuse: the manufacturer of the original drug pulled that drug from the market because of complaints that it smelled funny.  CVS called Ms. Segal's doctor and advised him of the problem and requested permission to replace it with Synthroid.  I guess the company is beginning to learn.

Of greater importance to me, however, is that when Lazarus called to ask about the situation, the company decided to act fairly with respect to the customer.  That's what the power of the press is all about, and when that power is exerted fairly and rationally, we benefit.  Now, if we could only get hundreds more journalists acting like David Lazarus instead of like the stenographers on staff at most newspapers, this country would be better off.

It Takes A Cartoonist

David Horsey has done a wonderful job in his latest column in explicating some rather complex issues in a way which somehow has eluded the rest of the mainstream media.

There seems to be one thing that unites all the demonstrators in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, from the young secular liberals who are jubilant that Egypt’s military has deposed President Mohamed Morsi to the Islamic militants who demand that he be reinstated: they all are furious with President Barack Obama and the United States of America.

On the one hand, the anti-Morsi crowds think Obama gave too much support to Morsi. On the other, the pro-Morsi marchers are calling Obama a hypocrite for giving lip service to democracy while doing nothing in the face of the military coup that overthrew Morsi’s democratically elected government.

As always, it is hard for the U.S. to get it right in the Arab world. ...

The reality, though, is that the authoritarian actions of the Morsi government were proving detrimental to the long-term prospects for permanent democracy in Egypt. After years of waiting for their chance, Morsi and his comrades in the Muslim Brotherhood were unable to restrain themselves from pushing too quickly toward the Islamic state they want. Perhaps just as damaging, they also proved themselves to be incompetent stewards of government.

Millions of protesters filled the streets to reject the slide away from democracy and toward theocratic rule. There was no vote and no election, but the will of the people was being expressed. That, too, is democracy and Morsi refused to respond to that expression, so the military stepped in.   [Emphasis added]

There.  Was that so hard?

Nicely done, David.  Now, if only White House spokespeople could be so direct and clear in their explanations and the traditional media could shake such explanations out of them to begin with and then actually print the story, we might be a better informed nation.

Two Stories

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich ahd published 7/4/13 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.)

I admit to being a little baffled by this Luckovich cartoon, which doesn't happen often when dealing with the gentleman I consider one of the premier cartoonists in this country.  He seems to be suggesting that the people of this country are being shallow by turning off the news in the Middle East in favor of the news in Florida.

I agree that the average American is deplorably, perhaps even willfully, ignorant when it comes to world affairs, especially when it concerns the Middle East.  I also agree that the average American is more apt to want to follow a "sensationalist" story like trial of George Zimmerman on murder charges for the killing of Trayvon Martin.  Still, both stories are important.

The Zimmerman case would never have entered the consciousness of Americans outside of Florida if there hadn't been a lot of noise by the Martin family.  Once the story got picked up, we had to look at a number of issues:  racism, the "Stand Your Ground" law in Florida, the two kinds of justice when it came to local police departments everywhere, not just Florida.  And I think looking at those issues through the lens of the trial proceedings is important.

Sure, many Americans haven't gotten that message yet, but they never will without the coverage which this trial and cases like can bring.

In other words, lighten up, Mike!

We're Number One

(Editorial cartoon by Glenn McCoy / Belleville News-Democrat (May 23, 2013) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge and then return, please.)

Glenn McCoy may be a conservative, but I think we all would agree with him on this issue.  The coverage of the recent horrific tornado in Oklahoma was its own disaster, ranking right up there with the "Dewey Wins" headlines decades ago and, in a way, with the predictions of a Romney win in 2012.

What was especially awful was the thrusting of microphones and cameras into the faces of people who didn't know if their families were safe or where they were.  Just as bad was confronting a mother who had located her young son and was clearly shaken.  I'm looking at you Wolf Blitzer at CNN!

I know the rise of the internets and the 24-hour news cycle brings new pressures to bear on news organizations, but perhaps reporters and assignment editors could dial it down a few notches so we can be presented with facts instead of rank sensationalism.

Is that too much too ask?

What's Really Wrong

(Editorial cartoon by Joel Pett / Lexington Herald-Leader (May 14, 2013) and featured at McClatchy, DC.  Click on image to enlarge.)

Michael Hiltzig took a look at one of the three major "scandals" swirling around the White House.  His conclusions pretty much mirror mine.

It's strange how "scandal" gets defined these days in Washington. At the moment, everyone is screaming about the "scandal" of the Internal Revenue Service scrutinizing conservative nonprofits before granting them tax-exempt status.

Here are the genuine scandals in this affair: Political organizations are being allowed to masquerade as charities to avoid taxes and keep their donors secret, and the IRS has allowed them to do this for years.

The bottom line first: The IRS hasn't done nearly enough over the years to rein in the subversion of the tax law by political groups claiming a tax exemption that is not legally permitted for campaign activity. Nor has it enforced rules requiring that donors to those groups pay gift tax on their donations. ...

Our lunatic campaign finance system is what turned the typical C4 from a volunteer fire department into a conduit of anonymous political cash. Big donors were given the green light to spend freely on elections by the Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United decision. That wasn't good enough for some; they wanted to distribute their largess secretly.

C4s were there for the exploitation, and the result has been a wholesale decline of donor disclosure on the national level: As recently as 1998, nearly 100% of all donors to federal campaigns were publicly identified, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog group. By the 2012 presidential election, that was down to 40%. ...

The danger inherent in the latest faux controversy is that the IRS will have its wings clipped before its investigation of C4s is fully fledged. Politicos and pundits are in a lather over the questions the agency put to targeted organizations to determine their social welfare bona fides — things like the identity of their board members and the amount of time and money spent on "electoral issues," and endorsements of candidates. These facts would be pretty fundamental to determining whether an organization is political, wouldn't you say?  

The real crime is the way Karl Rove and the Koch brothers have scammed the system.  This brouhaha over the IRS targeting conservatives is simply to deflect an examination of that crime.  Unfortunately, the Village press is only too happy to cooperate in that deflection.

Or it was.  Let's see if AP is going change its tune now that they've been subjected to a loss of constitutional rights, eh?  Maybe AP and other news organs will start doing their jobs a little more assiduously.

Nah ... that's too much to ask.

My Newest Nightmare

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David Horsey reminds me of something I have been conveniently ignoring:  the sale of the Tribune properties, including the Los Angeles Times.

The people of Los Angeles would be up in arms if some out-of-town billionaires tried to buy the Dodgers and institute a rule that only right-handers could play on the team. Petitions would be signed, protests would be organized and politicians would rise up to condemn the sale. It would be nice if there were a similar outcry at the prospect of the Koch brothers buying the Los Angeles Times.

After all, as exciting as it may be for a city to have a major league sports team, a good newspaper is a far more valuable asset. Even in these tough days for the journalism business, newspapers remain the core providers of comprehensive news coverage in every town that still has one. Sure, there are local television stations. They are great if all you need to know about is crime, weather and traffic. There’s the Internet, if you are free to spend your day surfing for bits of information that may or may not be true. But the providers of America’s bedrock news reporting are still newspaper journalists.

Newspapers continue to provide most of the comprehensive coverage of government, business and society at large that is essential to democracy. It would seem like a terrible idea to turn that function over to rich industrialists seeking a megaphone for their self-serving political views, but that very well may happen, not only in L.A., but in Chicago, Baltimore and the several other American cities with newspapers owned by the Tribune Co. ...

That is where David and Charles Koch come in. The brothers own Koch Industries, a Kansas-based energy and manufacturing conglomerate that rakes in $115 billion annually. That’s the money to burn. And the motivation? Right-wing ideology. The Kochs hate government regulation and taxes and they love tea party Republicans. Over the years, they have dumped millions of dollars into think tanks, magazines, political action committees, candidates and attack ads – all of them staunchly conservative.

Having fallen short of their objective of crushing Democrats and liberalism, they now apparently believe a necessary component in their strategy is ownership of a few major newspapers. It is doubtful they want to merely have a voice on the editorial pages, as has always been a publisher’s prerogative. It is far more likely they hope to create print versions of Fox News.    [Emphasis added]

It was bad enough when Rupert Murdoch showed interest in buying the bankrupt Tribune Co, but having the Koch Brothers in the bidding war just makes it worse.

Does this mean we can expect Southern California to go all conservative?  Of course not, but it does mean the end to easy access to the Times Washington Bureau, its political reporters (who do a pretty decent job), and (worst of all) David Horsey and Ted Rall.  We'll have Jonah Goldberg 8 days a week, and ALEC blast faxes rather than news.

And I'm not quite sure what we can do about it.

Out From Under A Rock

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Actually, the title for this post is not very accurate.  The critters living under rocks and skitter away when the rock is moved fulfill a useful function in the biosphere.  The critters David Horsey references in this column do not.

Nearly as soon as I heard about the bombings on Monday, I was certain that somewhere in the nutty right-wing blogosphere someone was already concocting a storyline that would blame the crime on President Obama and the federal government. Alex Jones came through with impressive rapidity.

Jones runs a radio show from Austin, Texas. He describes himself as a libertarian and an “aggressive constitutionalist.” The Southern Poverty Law Center says he has stirred up racial animus “to appeal to the fears of the antigovernment Patriot movement.” He certainly appeals to fear. Jones asserts that both the Oklahoma City bombing and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were perpetrated by the U.S. government as part of a scheme to promote a New World Order through “exploitable hysteria.”

So it is no surprise that he is now pushing the idea that the Boston bombings were the nefarious handiwork of federal agents. ...

Jones is asking Americans to believe that their own government is responsible for all of the worst terrorist attacks in the country’s history and that the motivation for the latest one is a desire to grope sports fans. All of this is, of course, total ping-pong-balls-for-brains nonsense. It would be laughable if it were not for the fact that this conspiracy kook claims 2 million radio listeners and more online followers than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined.

Jones is a purveyor of the neo-Confederate brand of “patriotism” that has gained currency on the far starboard side of American politics. I do not think he should shut up or be shut down; he has the same 1st Amendment rights as I do. But he deserves to be exposed for what he is: a delusional, self-promoting bully who is slandering the very people who are right now doing the truly patriotic work of bringing the Boston bombers to justice.   [Emphasis added]

To be fair, people like Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh find it easier to garner an audience when the press stumbles and bumbles as it has from the very start of this horrendous event.  Speculation, baseless assertions, flat-out wrong assumptions kept pouring out from all of the MSM outlets, often by way of streaming tweets.  Yes, tweets.  One wag at Eschaton referred to the "twitterfication" of the news. And,, several days later,  the "news" still keeps pouring out in that fashion.

And we haven't even had the blasts from the Religious Reich now that we know the suspected perpetrators are Chechnyans, i.e. Mooslims.

And we haven't heard yet what our federal government has in store for us after all of the suspects, however many there may be, are captured/killed.

Interesting times, these.  Far too interesting.

Dear John

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Clearly I'm not "done" with the Newtown Massacre, but please bear with me.  David Horsey's recent cartoon and column raised some further issues which I feel are worth considering.  Here's what he had to say:

While most Americans spent the weekend in shock and mourning following the shooting deaths of 20 first-graders and six teachers and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., at least a few of our fellow citizens were thinking that killing school kids is a cool idea.

After listing multiple items from the news since last Thursday on people threatening to open fire on schools, he continues:

Apart from the ones who actually started shooting, it is anyone’s guess which of the men in these weekend incidents were serious about killing people and which are just fools who lack brains and empathy. But this quick sampling of news reports indicates there are way too many oddballs among us with violence on their minds and guns within reach.

It is the part about "news reports" which intrigued me.  The initial coverage of the incident was weird, and mostly wrong on the facts:  the suspect was incorrectly identified as his brother;  his mother was identified as a kindergarden teacher at the Sandy Hook school; he used semi-automatic handguns to do the shooting, leaving the semi-automatic rifle in the car.  As the hours and days wore on, the actual facts came out, but for the first twelve hours or so, the public was misinformed about every fifteen minutes by all the media outlets, and they were ALL there.

Libby Spencer noticed the same thing and adds that the behavior on the ground, especially interviewing the children who managed to escape the carnage, was unconscionable.  She's right. 

Libby's associate at The Impolitic, Capt. Fogg, points out that the misinformation continues to pour forth from the media:

Suddenly everyone is an expert on guns and gun law,  but although I'm hardly a "gun advocate" I do advocate the truth and the truth is that although the police and the military do use some autoloading pistols, real military assault rifles have been banned since 1937 and are not "easily available" at your local Bass Pro Shop or Wal-Mart. That dearly beloved ban left store shelves loaded with extended magazines and the kind of weapons it didn't actually ban.  I'll just assume that my Grimm brother here is as ignorant as most journalists who think that BA in journalism grants poetic license and instant expertise on all matters and not just someone looking for ratings by reaching into that bucket of breathless hyperbole and  cheap drama and pulling out plums about "high velocity bullets" without actually knowing anything about ballistics.  Would the victims have been better off being hit by slow moving .45 ACP slugs or faster moving .22 magnums?  Not really.

 Is it any wonder even the best of us are making statements that don't hold up with all this misinformation floating around pretending to be the god's honest truth.  I've been as guilty of that as anyone, as my nephew John continues to point out.  His comments on my post on Incrementalism taught me a few things, as have some of his comments on other posts.  I don't always agree with him or his premises, but I do admit that on some issues he has better information than I do.

Which is not to say that John isn't a brat.  He is.  But I love him dearly because he has taught me a few things, among them that reasonable people can disagree.

Now, if we can just get our vaunted "free press" to do its job, maybe things will be easier when it comes to decision-making on such serious issues as we are now facing.

And Some Are Scum

(Editorial cartoon by Glenn McCoy / Belleville News-Democrat (October 25, 2012) and featured at McClatchy DC.  Click on image to enlarge, although I don't see why you'd want to.)

As you've probably noticed over the past several months, I've indulged my love for editorial/political cartoons on this blog.  I've always posted those that really tickled me, that really cut through the bovine excrement being spread by the rest of the mainstream media outlets to get at the truth of what's going on.  It occurred to me that I wasn't presenting a complete picture.  You see, the conservatives and Reich Wing have their cartoonists as well, and Mr. McCoy is one of them. 

I've selected this cartoon of his to show just how the worst of the wurst operate.

OK, the main reference is to the Three Wise Monkeys aphorism, one that we're all familiar with.  Here's the thing, though, it's the Three Monkeys, not the Three Wise Apes or the Three Wise Chimpanzees.  The aphorism is Asian and it's clear what is intended.  This graphic from Japan makes my point.  Notice the ears.

And you might want to notice the ears of this picture of one of my favorite species, spider monkeys.  Here also the ears are close to the head, not sticking out. 

The ears sticking out are usually associated with apes and chimpanzees.  Liberal cartoonists had a field day with that when it came to George W. Bush, whose ears did stick out.  A whole lot of my liberal friends referred to him as "Chimpy" because of that.  And, to be fair, President Obama has acknowledged that his ears have been a life-long challenge for the same reason.

So what's my beef with Mr. McCoy's cartoon?

Well, I have several of them.

The first is easy.  The mainstream media and the lame stream media at FOX and AM talk radio have been screaming about Obama's obfuscation of what happened at the Libyan embassy since it happened, even though it's clear that the administration has been forthcoming with the information they had as soon as it was received, even though some of the information was partial.  There has been no silencing on the issue, just a whole hell of a lot of mis-reporting all the way around.

The second is that we just had a debate on foreign policy and Mr. McCoy's candidate was noticeably silent on the issue of Benghazi.  He was too busy agreeing with President Obama's foreign policy in most respects, that is, when he wasn't talking about Mali and a really geographically-challenged  view of the Middle East.  I guess Mr. McCoy was left hanging, so he went for what he thought was low-hanging fruit.

Which brings me to the third beef:  this isn't an example of a racist dog-whistle.  Oh, no.  Not at all.  It's a freaking FOG HORN.

The use of the chimp image is one thing, which is still enough to make my tin-foil chapeau vibrating.  It's the brown hand reaching down from the upper right hand corner of the cartoon.  This BLACK MAN is in the WHITE MAN's house and he's screwing things up for WHITE MEN.

And the thing is, a picture really is worth more than a thousand words and this cartoon will reach a lot of people in the heartland.  That's the power of cartoonists.

I know that's a nasty way to end the week, but I needed to vent.

Things That Make Me Gag

Is it really too much to ask that our news sources stick to delivering real, actual news?  I'm not talking about doing away with the comic section or entertainment sections.  They're fine and are usually labeled appropriately.  It's when the front page or the television news hour blurs the distinctions in order to increase the audience that I get sickened.

A prime example of what I mean is detailed by James Rainey in his most recent column.

Media and their ethical norms have changed so much in recent times that no one seemed to miss a beat when ABC announced that it had invited would-be First Lady Ann Romney to sit in next week as a guest host on what ostensibly remains a news program — the network’s “Good Morning America.” 

A time existed not that long ago when news outlets kept an arm’s length from the subjects they would cover. But both “GMA” and Romney have bigger priorities today — with the morning show in a daily race to unseat NBC’s “Today” as the a.m. ratings leader and Romney pushing hard to help her husband, Mitt, win the White House.

At least the show, which announced Romney’s guest hosting duties Thursday, signaled that it intends to treat both sides equally when it comes to line-blurring. It hopes to find a spot to bring First Lady Michelle Obama on as a co-host too.   [Emphasis added]

I don't mind having Ann Romney on, but if Good Morning America is going to do that, then label it and treat it as an interview.  This "guest host" gig is ludicrous, not to mention bovine excrement.  And, no, trying to find a spot for Michelle Obama to "guest host" doesn't make it all better.  It still blurs the line between the journalist and the subject.  Or don't J-schools teach that anymore?

Just shoot me now.

Mirrors

David Horsey has been on a trip to Ukraine and speaking to people there about a free press.  His first column, published 9/27/2012, dealt with the problems which are beginning to emerge in this new democracy.

As in Russia, rich businessmen -- many allied with Yanukovych -- are building monopolies in all sectors of the economy, including the media. As these "oligarchs" gain control of major media outlets, they stifle aggressive, critical reporting and leave little of the advertising market for independent newspapers, magazines and broadcasters.

The second column (and the one to which this cartoon is attached) was published 10/1/2012 and points to the increasing power grab by the Ukrainian president.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych is the model of a new kind of power-grabbing authoritarian. Gone is the preening, bullying fascist in a comical military costume, like Hitler or Mussolini. Mao’s jacket and Fidel Castro’s combat fatigues are out of fashion. Today, it is all business. Today, Stalin would be wearing Hugo Boss or Brooks Brothers, his mustache would be shaved off and he, like Yanukovych, would look like any chief executive flying business class.

The pogrom and the putsch have given way to PR. Yanukovych has hired lobbyists and public relations teams to help him project a progressive image while he quietly squeezes the press and rejiggers election laws to guarantee his party permanent rule.

An example of this is the Podesta Group’s $200,000 contract with an entity called the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine. Podesta Group is an American lobbying firm run by Bill Clinton’s former chief of staff, John Podesta. And the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine? That just happens to be an operation controlled by Yanukovych, according to Ukrainska Pravda.   [Emphasis added]

Horsey's ostensible point in each column is to show how this fledgling democracy is sliding back into a form of dictatorship, one that the US needs to confront diplomatically rather than ignore completely.  Yet I can't help but think that what we are seeing in Ukraine is the same set of processes that are being played out in this country.

Media ownership in the US has been consolidated and reconsolidated so that the news, both print and electronic, are owned by fewer and fewer entities, all of them corporate in nature.  One need only look at local newspapers names:  Journal Sentinel, Star Tribune, Journal Constitution.  And the same owners usually have a local or national television station. 

And as to slick image make-overs, our current politicians on both sides of the aisle have availed themselves a-plenty.  The euphemisms of the cartoon are just as viable in the US as they are in Ukraine.  In fact, I suspect Yanukovych hired Podesta for just that reason.  The very worst of our system is being emulated by the Ukraine leadership, something which I find appalling. 

And, sadly,  it may very well work.

Los Angeles Times: Bringin' In The Snark

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I am delighted to report that the stodgy Los Angeles Times is beginning to loosen up a bit, well, at least some of its political and op-ed columnists are. Yesterday I burst out laughing twice: one simply because of the headline, the other for the entire column.

First, the headline:

For GOP, storm's timing makes it harder to be anti-government

The story appended to the headline is actually pretty straightforward, but it does make the point that the GOP regulars were going to have a hard time decrying government involvement when several states were going to need all sorts of government assistance as Isaac finishes its run.

And then there's David Horsey's column from yesterday, again about the impact of Isaac.

Could God be irritated because some of the Republicans who claim to speak for him are breaking his commandments?

On Monday, while the convention delegates had plenty of time on their hands, many of them attended the Faith and Freedom rally featuring Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly. At the event, the 88-year-old firebrand of Christian conservatism tore into President Obama for waging war on religion. She went way beyond the usual complaints about his support for abortion rights and access to contraceptives for women working at church-supported institutions. She repeated a series of myths that have been debunked repeatedly, such as the one that claims Obama always excises the words "endowed by their Creator" whenever he quotes the Declaration of Independence.

Maybe, unlike Schlafly, the Lord checked out YouTube and found Obama has used that phrase on many occasions. Could it be that God is sick of so-called Christian leaders lying and bearing false witness by repeating falsehoods churned up from the far edges of right-wing media?

Naw, probably not. Tropical Storm Issac was likely always intended as another blast at New Orleans for continuing to give shelter to gay poets, jazz musicians and drunk college women who flash their breasts for a string of Mardi Gras beads. The rain and wind in Tampa are mere collateral damage that faithful Republicans should recognize as a blessing.

After all, the storm forced Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal to rush back home, thus saving the delegates from another disappointing speech by a onetime GOP golden boy who has failed to develop the knack of fervently lying for the Lord.

And that's just the last section of the column!

Now if the paper's news pages would just get with the program ...

Don't Ask, Don't Tell

The Republicans in the House are having themselves a high old time. Rather than addressing serious issues, they've been play-acting: holding the Attorney General in contempt; passing a bill to repeal "Obamacare;" and, now, going after journalists who publish leaks from government whistle blowers.

Expressing outrage over national security leaks, Republicans on a House Judiciary subcommittee pressed legal experts Wednesday on whether it was possible to prosecute reporters for publishing classified information.

The response was a qualified yes.

"Under certain circumstances, you can see that if someone acting with impunity and knowledge of the consequences goes ahead and publishes it, that is something that I think would be worthy of prosecution and punishment," said Kenneth Wainstein, a partner at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft who specializes in national security.

The hearing of the crime, terrorism and homeland security subcommittee follows publication in recent weeks in the New York Times and other outlets of detailed accounts about cyber warfare, the slaying of Osama bin Laden and alleged "kill lists" maintained for targeting foreign terrorists. ...

Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) suggested that the U.S. attorneys subpoena journalists to determine the names of sources who provide classified information.

"Put them in front of the grand jury," Gowdy said. "You either answer the question or you're going to be held in contempt and go to jail, which is what I thought all reporters aspire to do anyway. I thought that was the crown jewel of the reporter's resume to actually go to jail protecting a source." ...

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.) said that some leaks revealed abuses, such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. He questioned why Congress should be so concerned about the current leaks when leaks had occurred in every administration.

Instead of looking for ways to go after journalists, the government should be focused on updating outdated laws like the Espionage Act in a way that will protect journalists and government interests, said Bruce Brown, a partner at Baker & Hostetler law firm.

"What's unfortunate is that rather than grappling with this question in a measured, rationale [sic] way, whenever disclosures are in the headlines then lawmakers have a tendency to latch on to this area," Brown said.

What? Approach an issue in a rational way? Oh, please. We're talking Republicans and we're coming up on an election.

To be fair, it's not just Republicans. The administration is none too pleased with the published leaks and it has gone after whistle blowers with a vengeance. But it hasn't so far threatened the journalists who are the recipients of the leaks.

Apparently the message the Republicans are sending to the media is that journalists should stick to what they do best: covering missing white women, shark attacks, and unedited GOP talking points. Straying from those beats will cause problems for everyone.

In other words, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

Well, How About That

The New York Times finally got around to noticing that groups organized as "non-profits" have been donating to political causes, a real no-no if they want to keep their tax-free status.

Two years after the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision opened the door for corporate spending on elections, relatively little money has flowed from company treasuries into “super PACs,” which can accept unlimited contributions but must also disclose donors. Instead, there is growing evidence that large corporations are trying to influence campaigns by donating money to tax-exempt organizations that can spend millions of dollars without being subject to the disclosure requirements that apply to candidates, parties and PACs.

The secrecy shrouding these groups makes a full accounting of corporate influence on the electoral process impossible. But glimpses of their donors emerged in a New York Times review of corporate governance reports, tax returns of nonprofit organizations and regulatory filings by insurers and labor unions. ...

Some of the biggest recipients of corporate money are organized under Section 501(c)(4) of the tax code, the federal designation for “social welfare” groups dedicated to advancing broad community interests. Because they are not technically political organizations, they do not have to register with or disclose their donors to the Federal Election Commission, potentially shielding corporate contributors from shareholders or others unhappy with their political positions. ...

Because social welfare groups are prohibited from devoting themselves primarily to political activity, many spend the bulk of their money on issue advertisements that purport to be educational, not political, in nature. In May, for example, Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies, a group co-founded by the Republican strategist Karl Rove, began a $25 million advertising campaign, carefully shaped with focus groups of undecided voters, that attacks Mr. Obama for increasing the federal deficit and urges him to cut spending.

The Internal Revenue Service has no clear test for determining what constitutes excessive political activity by a social welfare group. And tax-exempt groups are permitted to begin raising and spending money even before the I.R.S. formally recognizes them. Two years after helping Republicans win control of the House with millions of dollars in issue advertising, Crossroads GPS’s application for tax-exempt status is still pending. [Emphasis added]

The Center for Responsive Politics has been following this trend since the end of February, and has done a remarkable job in compiling a list of such groups. It even has a chart which indicates how much money is involved, the political persuasion of the group, and its disclosure policy.

While the NYT is a little late to the dance, it has at least done a pretty good job in digging out even more information about these groups. For that it deserves some praise. The trick will be for the paper to keep at it, if only to light a fire under the IRS to do some investigating of its own.

Epic Fail

(Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

OK, I'm back. My burn-out lifted with a few extra hours of sleep and this cartoon and column by David Horsey.

If life were a movie, the president of the United States (probably played by Will Smith) would be leaping into action to save humankind from the calamity that a new scientific report says is about to befall the Earth.

A paper prepared by 22 international scientists and just published in the journal Nature warns that overpopulation, environmental destruction and climate change have pushed the world toward a tipping point beyond which lie irreversible, frightening alterations in the biosphere that supports life on this lonely planet.

Of course, since this is not a movie and is, instead, just another surreal election year, the scientists’ alarming analysis will go unheeded. If the report is addressed at all by Republicans, it will be dismissed as another attempt by fiendish environmentalists to destroy the American economy by reining in polluting industries. If Democrats take note, they will tout their green jobs program as a panacea and quickly move on to a different, less disturbing, subject. [Emphasis added]

Yes. And yes.

Part of the problem is that Americans are by and large an impatient people. We insist on immediacy: immediate "solutions" to immediate problems and instant gratification. Deficit getting out of hand? Cut social welfare programs and taxes on the wealthy who purportedly provide jobs. What do you mean I can't have cheap gas to operate my beautiful new guzzler? Give tax breaks to the oil companies to provide more gasoline and roll back regulations on drilling operations. A national debate on environmental issues pre-empting "Dancing With The Stars"? Screw that. A long term investment to restore natural habitats and forests? What? That would have an impact on the next quarter's profit. You must be mad.

A larger part of the problem is a failure of leadership at all levels of government, which Horsey notes quite clearly. For every Bernie Sanders there's a Dianne Feinstein and a Max Baucus in the Democratic party, some 35 other Dems who keep checking their campaign funds, Joe Lieberman of the Joe Lieberman Party, and 47 Republicans. The numbers are even worse in the House, where other than the few members of the Progressive Caucus we are represented by two parties owned by the corporatocracy.

And the one institution which could bridge the gap has abdicated its responsibility. The mainstream press may have published articles about the report contained in Nature, but most, if not all, "balanced" the argument with the truthy responses of those who do not want their immediate interests impaired, the rest of us and our grandchildren and great-grandchildren be damned (as they surely will be). The only exceptions have been the cartoonists such as David Horsey. And that's one of the many reasons why I've taken to posting editorial/political cartoons as often as I can.

So, where does that leave us?

Well, in a conversation yesterday morning at Eschaton, noblejoanie posted this:

Nature notes: Watched a tiny eastern kingbird assail a bald eagle who must have done some nest robbing. Irate little bird actually surfed the back of the eagle furiously pecking his head for about 1000 feet. Saw similar outrage directed at a raven. Tough day for nesting kingbirds.

I consider that an excellent metaphor for the very least we can do, so much so that I've created a new label, "Kingbirding." I suggest that as often as we can we peck mercilessly at the heads of the rapacious thieves stealing from our nest for as long as we can. If nothing else, it will annoy them, causing them to spend their oh-so-precious-time trying to shake us off. Faxes, letters, emails, telephone calls, vigils, letters to the editors: they may be just momentary distractions, but at least we are doing something.

And we are bound by honor to at least try.

Sad, But True

OK, I admit it: David Horsey is a bit more fair than I would have been on the issue. The Democrats really did set themselves up for the "turn-about is fair play" move by the Republicans when it comes to quoting the candidates out of context in his latest column and cartoon.

Get used to hearing the phrases “out of touch” and “out of context” in the coming days as the Obama and Romney presidential campaigns try to paint each other from the same can of ugly-colored paint. ...

...could anyone really expect the Republicans to be any more fair-minded than the Democrats who ripped out of context some of Romney’s so-called gaffes?

The answer is, “Not in a million years.” We are at the stage in this campaign when both sides are fervently engaged in the task of creating a negative image of the opposing candidate. Whether that image is accurate or false is beside the point. This is how the game is played in 21st century U.S. politics. The odd twist this time is that each campaign has latched onto the same point of attack: “This guy is out of touch!” [Emphasis added]

Some of Romney's "gaffes" have indeed been ripped out of context, just as the latest attack ads against Obama have been. Romney's statement that he "likes to fire people" came within the context of a government which is not delivering what it promises, even though it is being paid to do so. Of course, Mr. Romney has given the Democrats plenty of ammunition for such tactics, given his relationship with Bain, his wife's love of very expensive dressage horses, and his multiple dwellings with car elevators, but still, Roosevelt was wealthy, as was John F. Kennedy. Both had enormous family wealth which allowed them to successfully run for public office. Both had multiple dwellings which were not exactly one-room apartments or even single family dwellings. Both men are still liberal icons.

That said, I just wish David Horsey had made explicit which I suspect was vaguely implicit in his column: this is where democracy depends on a free press which takes its job seriously. The White House mouthpiece who suggested that the press should have taken note of the context of the speech was on the money. When this kind of negative attack is made (if not before,but even I am not naive enough to believe that our current press is willing to make the effort),we should see articles that traces back the comment to the entire speech in which it appears. Shame may not resonate with the principals, but it still does with a lot of people.

It's going to be a long slog to November, and I don't think popcorn is going to cover it.