All against all

I was going to begin this by asking whether you've noticed the sharp increase in shootings of policemen against the background of hysteria about shootings by policemen, but trying to answer that question myself, I had to admit that all we can know is derived from the sensationalist coverage designed to outrage, that plays out in the media.  The first news item appearing on my smart phone this morning was about the shooting of two policemen, there was another about the shooting of an FBI agent.

I was going to base this morning's post on the observation that unscrupulous entities may be trying to create a war or the appearance of a war that can only end in the degradation of the justice system and increase tolerance of mob violence and mob justice.  It's a clumsy attempt because when there is a questionable action by police and those policemen are arrested and charged with a crime, it would appear to show that the system has functioned properly, but such is the need to demonize that it makes little difference.  The witch hunt proceeds with the public perception that everyone involved with the police and prosecution and defense is corrupt and murderously racist.  Everyone is stretched and trimmed into the Procrustean bed the media provide for us.

And so I can't answer my own question.  When one incident or two or three incidents in a vast ocean of possibilities is all that's needed and no statistics are provided or referenced, we just can't know.  We're made to believe that real justice comes from the mob and so when the system works, the system is still somehow at fault and more rioting is needed, more public marching and chanting.  Perhaps it would be productive to inquire after the people who benefit most and it's tempting to see a small group of disruptionists, anger mongers and distortionists making a living and making names for themselves by making sure that nothing changes, making sure that improvements are seen as failures, that progress is seen as lack of progress and that everyone is at war with everyone else.

If we somehow managed to get along, if the policeman's lot became a happy one, if petty crime and serious crime stopped being a cultural norm and violence became a faded dream, who would suffer? That's not hard to answer. What's hard to answer is the question of why we get all our information and opinions from them.

Of course he can - he's rich!

(Since this is the first Sunday in February, I should probably have some kind of Superbowl post. Of course, if I watched football, that would be a lot easier to do; but at least I can write about something football-related, so maybe this qualifies as Superbowl-adjacent.)

You know, it's funny. A lot of people complain about the independent weeklies, those free papers that pay for themselves using advertising - I've been told that they're nothing more than a "free rag you pull out of a box on a street corner... that is, if you can find it among the brochures for escort services."

(Honest. We'll get to the football in a second. Relax!)

Personally, I've got nothing against these smaller independents. I've found that their style tends to be more readable than a lot of the "mainstream media," with a distinctly local flavor, and their reporters have been known to beat the more conventional news sources to a story. (For example, the place where I pulled that last quote is a fine example.)

Plus, they're free. My favorite price.

Although I lived near Washington, DC many years ago, I never saw the Washington City Paper. Dan Snyder, on the other hand, the owner of the Washington Redskins, apparently did see this story by Dave McKenna in this particular paper, and seeing it apparently made him unhappy. So unhappy that he's suing them.

(See? Football. Happy now?)

Now, Danny had some time on his hands. He always does, this time of year; the Redskins haven't made it to the Superbowl since he bought them in 1999. (Huh... I wonder if that might have something to do with why DC residents hate the man...)

Anyway, first he sent a couple of boys around to threaten the owners of the paper ; you know, to point out "Hey, nice little place you got here. Be a shame if something happened to it, wouldn't it?"

Of course, by "boys," I mean Daniel P. Donovan, general counsel for the Washington Redskins. And by "threaten," I mean... well, no, that's exactly what I mean. To wit:

We presume that defending such litigation would not be a rational strategy for an investment fund such as yours. Indeed the cost of litigation would presumably quickly outstrip the asset value of the Washington City Paper.

The paper put the entire three page letter on line - you know, in the spirit of full disclosure. And reading it, you can see that it's a good thing that this Danny got a nice cushy job sweeping "drunk and disorderly" charges under his plush shag carpeting; I don't think he was at the top of his class. (If nothing else, failing "Constitutional Law" has to drag that grade point average down a bit, doesn't it?)

OK, Dan, let's go over it one more time.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

See that part I bolded there, Danny? Read it again.

So Atalaya Capital Management (the owners of the Washington City Paper) put their lawyer on it, who probably fired off his reply over lunch; it wasn't like he had to try hard. And again, the letter mysteriously made it on line ("No, really. I don't know how that keeps happening..."). It's a straightforward smackdown. (And only 3 pages long, too - you should check it out.)

We encourage you to consult with First Amendment counsel in regard to your claims and would be happy to discuss the matter with such counsel at any time. I expect that, with the advice of counsel and upon further consideration, you will agree that continued debate over the relevant law serves little productive purpose.

Or in other words, "yo, counselor! Suck on 'dis!"

But Danny and Danny didn't take the hint. And they filed suit.

Now, the majority of this 11-page filing can be boiled down into "Waah! He said mean things about me!" Much of the press, on the other hand, has gone toward one claim, itself almost libelous, that the cover art, of a defaced picture of Snyder, was "anti-Semitic."

Well, as the paper explained it:

For the record: The story didn't mention Snyder's religion at all. And the illustration is meant to resemble the type of scribbling that teenagers everywhere have been using to deface photos for years. The image of Snyder doesn't look like an "anti-Semitic caricature"—it looks like a devil.

But we at City Paper take accusations of anti-Semitism seriously—in part because many of us are Jewish, including staffers who edited the story and designed the cover.

(If anyone was really interested, I could explain why the traditional representation of the Devil was intended to look Jewish, but let's move on.)

But, since libel requires specific allegations, Danny's "lawyers" (let's assume they were lawyers, although the evidence is a little shaky at this point) dug up four. Of course, the internet is a wonderful place to do research on stuff like this, and the Paper's lawyers have found all their work done for them. To wit:

a. that "Dan Snyder... got caught forging names as a telemarketer with Snyder Communications"

Well, let's check this AP story from Friday, April 27, 2001, entitled Verizon fined $3.1 million for telephone slamming:

Verizon and its former marketing agency, at the time owned by Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder, were fined $3.1 million for illegally switching Florida customers' long distance telephone service without authorization.

The state Attorney General's Office said representatives of Bethesda, Md.-based Snyder Communications forged thousands of customer signatures to switch them to service provided by GTE, which is now Verizon.

Investigators also found GTE employees forged signatures and "used deceptive tactics" to get customers to switch service.

OK, that's one. What's next?

b. that Mr. Snyder caused Agent Orange to be used to destroy trees "protected by the National Park Service" on "federally protected lands," a matter about which previously published reports have been publicly corrected

Wow. See, that would be cool, if it bore any relation to what the story actually said. Which was:

That’s the Dan Snyder who... made a great view of the Potomac River for himself by going all Agent Orange on federally protected lands

I mean, you understand the word "metaphor," right? It's not that anybody used Agent Orange, it's that somebody cut down a bunch of trees. You know, like in this this 2006 Washington Post story:

A high-ranking National Park Service official improperly helped Washington Redskins owner Daniel M. Snyder broker a deal to cut down more than 130 trees on a hillside between his Potomac estate and the C&O Canal, according to a report by the Interior Department inspector general's office.

OK, that's two.

c. that Mr. Snyder bragged that his wealth came from diabetes and cancer victims

Oooh... harsh. Of course, the writer was referring to his own story, where he was reporting on this video from 2000.

Snyder replies that at Snyder Communications, they had "weekly meetings" to come up with a list of what groups to market goods and services to.

"We'd make jokes, each niche would be a $5 million niche, and we'd go after each one," Snyder says.

Greenfield asks for examples of his targeting decisions.

"We were looking at trend lines," Snyder says. "We saw that the aging baby boomer demographics were coming on strong. That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc. How do we capture those market segments?"

The first 20 times or so that I saw the clip, I had pretty much the same reaction: "Uhhhh....Did Dan Snyder just brag to a crowd of college kids that he looks at folks on the business end of diabetes and cancer as a target market? As members of '$5 million niche?'"

And then I'd rewind the clip. And, dang if Snyder wouldn't say it all over again!

So let me type it again: "That meant there's going to be a lot more diabetic patients, a lot more cancer patients, etc." Snyder says. "How do we capture those market segments?"

Repeat after me: Yucky! I mean, sure, big business is a cold realm. But it takes a special kind of guy to boast about exploiting the downtrodden in front of a roomful of young strangers and TV cameras.

Aa-a-a-and next!

d. that Snyder was "tossed off" the Six Flags' board of directors

Ouch. That one had to hurt. I mean, Danny even has a witness that the whole departure was amicable and both sides were happy. So where does the truth lie?

How about in the actual filing from Six Flags at the time?

In addition, Mr. Shapiro shall serve as an initial director and shall be entitled to appoint the remaining director; provided , however , that such remaining director shall not be Daniel M. Snyder without the consent of the Majority Backstop Purchasers.

Yeah, that's exactly what they'd say during an amicable breakup, huh?

Really, what all this proves is that, by all appearances, Danny Snyder would seem to be a world-class douche, and hates it when people point this out.

Of course, this is only my opinion. I could be wrong. I freely admit that, and would submit this final paragraph as evidence of my fair-minded treatment of this situation into any court filing.

SHOCKING INCOME INEQUALITY REPORT DROWNED BY MEDIA NOISE

As our mainstream media continues to abuse us with nonsensical blow-by-blow accounts by blowhard headline-grabbing louts, this story received scant attention:

Scary New Wage Data

As millions of Americans lost jobs, homes, and life savings in the Great Recession of 2009, the highest-paid earners saw their average incomes rise more than five-fold in a single year. According to new data, the 74 highest income earners – the uppermost income bracket as measured by the Social Security Administration -- saw their average incomes skyrocket from $91.8 million in 2008 to a staggering $518.8 million in 2009:

These 74 people earned an average of $10 million -- per week. Meanwhile, half of all American wage earners, or about 75 million people, earned less than $505 per week.

An abrupt change in tax and economic policies started under the Reagan administration, conflated by Bush era tax cuts, made this possible. Three decades of Reaganomics have crippled the base of the income ladder while adding a burdensome weight at the top. The result is an unstable and unsustainable structure awaiting collapse.

Meanwhile the Republican Party and their tea party rabble are clamoring for more tax cuts and an indiscriminate dismantling of the social safety net for middle class Americans.  If our mainstream media had done a better job of informing the public, perhaps voters would be making more intelligent choices this November.  Fat chance!

What have you done for me lately?

I was having a late lunch with a friend of mine yesterday, Russ, who volunteers for the Martin Heinrich campaign. And he mentioned a campaign mailer that he helped send out, which showed Heinrich's opponent, along with McCain, Palin and other Republicans. This is one of the basic messages from Democrats this year. "OK, so we suck. But they suck more!"

That's not really a message that raises people's spirits, is it? Not really inspiring hope, right there.

But that seems to be the nature of this political season. Go negative, as hard as possible. And while you might be expecting this to be a Republican tactic (after all, if you have no new ideas of your own, what do you campaign on?), it's coming from the Democrats, too.

Was there ever a time in America when politicians would just run on their accomplishments? Or at least show how your political beliefs are improving the country?

Well, we can thank that media narrative being advanced by the right-wing press, who want us to believe that a Democratic White House and a Democratic-controlled Congress are getting nothing done. Or worse, destroying the country.

Some Democrats are just leaving Obama out of their ads (and at least one tongue-kisses George W. Bush). Because, after all, Obama hasn't been able to get anything done, has he?

Which, of course, is complete bullshit. But try telling that to the media.

(Perhaps this is why Bush's "No Child Left Behind" focuses more on children regurgitating what they've been told recently, and less on critical thinking. A compliant electorate, used to being fed the answers and not thinking about the questions, is easier to fool.)

Now, admittedly, anything that the Obama administration has accomplished has been over the intractable resistance of a Republican party who would watch the country to fall to ruins before they'd allow a Democratic President to succeed. Hell, they're already planning, if they "win" the midterms, to do absolutely nothing except smear the president. (You know, like the end of Clinton's term, only with less ethical investigators and a compliant press.)

Obama took an economy in free-fall, and has managed to stop the plummet. It's true that everything isn't perfect. But consider what this country was up against.

"Hey, you've had two years to clean up what we took eight years to break! Aren't you done yet?"

Despite what the GOP desperately want you to believe, Obama's stimulus program worked. It didn't work well enough, because Obama and his advisors were too conservative - it didn't go far enough, but it still worked.

In the words of Alan S. Blinder (professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton University, vice chairman of the Promontory Interfinancial Network, and former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Board):

TARP must be among the most reviled and misunderstood programs in the history of the republic. Voters are clearly appalled by the idea that their government spent $700 billion bailing out banks.

The only problem is: It didn't. Even if we count insurance giant AIG as a bank, no more than $300 billion ever went to banks. TARP's total disbursements, including the auto bailout, never reached the $400 billion mark. The money went for loans and to purchase preferred stock; it was not "spent." In fact, most of it has already been paid back—with interest and capital gains. When TARP's books are eventually closed, the net cost to the taxpayer will probably be under $100 billion—far under if General Motors ever repays.

Spending perhaps $50 billion of taxpayer money to forestall a financial cataclysm seems like a bargain. Yes, I know it's maddening to hand over even a nickel to bankers who don't deserve it. But doing so was a necessary evil to save the economy. Think of it as collateral damage in a successful war against financial armageddon.

And it continues. He's enacted cuts in spending, instituted financial reforms to prevent another economic meltdown, passed credit card reform to keep the banks from stealing from you directly.

Oh, and he also passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, to essentially prevent businesses from saying "Hey, she let us fuck her for four months before she complained. It must not be an issue! So we can keep on fucking her!"

He has installed not one, but two female Supreme Court justices; Elena Kagan actually started her new job on Friday. There have been twenty Supreme Court Justices appointed since 1960 (date chosen arbitrarily as the second wave of the Feminist movement). Only four of them have been women: they make up 51% of the population, they're equally affected by the law, but only four have been appointed to the Supreme Court; and Obama is responsible for doubling that number. And, by the way, we also have the first Hispanic Justice, Sonia Sotomayor.

(Think of that number for a second, by the way. Fifty years, and only twenty Justices. You wonder why American jurisprudence is so freaking slow? Where's the anti-incumbent crowd on this issue?)

You know that a lot of the provisions in healthcare reform just kicked in, right? Yes, it could have been better, it could have had a public option, it could have given puppies and kittens to every child in the United States. But it's also the first major healthcare change since the Medicare and Medicaid legislation was passed almost half a century ago.

And despite the panicked cries of the ignorant and ill-informed (as well as the blatant liars), it's entirely market-based, without even a tinge of socialism.

And America is now safer than it was just twenty-one months ago. America's reputation in the international community is improved, we are withdrawing from Iraq, in as safe a manner as possible. And we're moving toward an effective nuclear treaty among the world's major powers.

And these are just highlights, without even mentioning advances in environmental protection, science and education, among others.

George Santayana once said "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But at the moment, maybe we should just work on understanding current events.

Politico Sinks to New Low in Non-News Reporting

The main stream media has been receiving a lot of harsh criticism over the last couple of years, decades maybe, for using bad news judgement, most of it well deserved. Politico just beat the crap out of them by sinking to the bottom of the cesspool.

Are these non-entities serious? Where is the news worthiness in this banal non-news story? Has all judgement been flushed down the toilet? Another time of the year, I would think it was an April Fools joke or that I had landed at the Onion by mistake - or at Fox News.

In what is undoubtedly the most inane news story I have ever had the misfortune of reading, reporters

Patrick Gavin and Amie Parnes (requires two to write this garbage?) take the president to task for - hold your breath - going ringless at today's "presser." Oh my God! Rates right up there with jobs and medical research don't it?

Sometimes, a White House press conference can be a chance for a president to take some weight off his shoulders ... but weight off his fingers?

Eagle-eyed reporters noticed that President Barack Obama wasn't sporting his wedding ring during Friday's White House press conference.

"big to-do over potus not wearing his wedding ring today," Tweeted The Hill's Sam Youngman, who was at the presser.

Presser? Please, somebody tell me this is a joke. I actually read this piece of shiitake three times to make sure I wasn't missing something. The comments indicated it was meant as an honest-to-God news story.

Jim in Houston:  Which ring, the one for his finger or the one in his nose? Big Meshell leads him around like a dog on a leash.

MAC59: He is probably getting it adapted to fit in his nose. 

maxovrdriv: I just figured he wanted his favorite verse from the Quran put on it.

But this conservative says it best:

zjak10: BFD! I mean who the heck cares, really?

So, why do I care? I don't.

Where I've Been

I'm now the southeastern correspondent for The H.O.R.N., the Head On Radio Network. Here's a rant last night by host Bob Kincaid:



Bob doesn't make a pretense of being a journalist, but his live streaming of the Families USA conference in Washington, DC caught an incredibly important and little-known fact about the health care bill:



Mind you, ending Medicaid means testing is no wonky arcanum. In states like Alabama, this is literally the holy grail of reform advocates.

Bob also has interesting guests:



The H.O.R.N. is a listener-supported liberal talk media that has already outlasted the Air America experiment, proving that you cannot support liberal opinion with a right-wing revenue model.

BYE, BYE, MISS AMERICAN PIE - BYE, BYE TO LIBERAL MEDIA

Act 1: Last August, Comcast removed MSNBC from its Digital Starter Package and moved it to one of its premium offerings. Of course, Fox News remained in the basic Starter Package because Comcast is a conservative media conglomerate and wants to spread the Fox-Beck-Hannity-Billo message. According to beachwriter429 at Daily Kos:

What this means is that one now has to pay an additional $17 per month ($204 per year) to view anything progressive enough to even remotely balance out FNC's right wing extremism (…) The neighbor who alerted me to the situation is an attorney, and he thinks this appears to be to be an FCC/Fairness Doctrine violation.

Act 2: Some Daily Kos readers in the Jacksonville area ganged up on Comcast with a letter writing campaign. In response, Comcast restored MSNBC to all customers in the Jacksonville area and sent this reply (excerpt):

Thank you for the email. First and foremost, I wanted to let you know that today we restored access to MSNBC for all of our digital cable customers in the Jacksonville, Florida area (…) Please know that this week's disruption was not at all targeted at MSNBC - it was due to some changes to our digital channel security system (…) This issue was isolated to the Jacksonville area, and we have no reason to believe that Comcast customers in any other areas experienced any interruptions of MSNBC.

Except for the fact that Comcast customers in the suburban Philadelphia area still paying extra for MSNBC (and how many other markets that we don’t know about). Comcast = L I A R S !

Act 3: Advance the calendar to November 4, 2009. In the Pittsburgh area, MSNBC has been replaced by the Golf Channel. When an irate Comcast subscriber called to complain, this is what Comcast said:

I was told that at my level of service, basic cable, it is no longer available. No way can I afford to upgrade my service, (and nor would I....it is Comcast after all) so no more MSNBC for me (…) The agent on the phone also told me that Comcast had nothing to do with this decision, but that because MSNBC is a national cable network, it was no longer available in a non digital format. Oddly enough, CNN and Fox are still in the same place.

Act 4: If you can’t beat them, buy them out:

General Electric and the cable giant Comcast have moved closer to a deal giving control of NBC Universal to Comcast (…) After a series of meetings last week, the two companies reached a tentative agreement on Friday over the main points of a deal, these people said. Comcast would own about 51 percent of NBC Universal, contributing several billions of dollars in cash and its own stable of cable networks to the new venture (...) Other potential bidders have surfaced, including the News Corporation.

Does this mean bye, bye to Keith Olbermann? Bye, bye to Rachel Maddow? Bye, bye to liberal media? Sorry folks, but this wave of media consolidations spells b-a-d * n-e-w-s ! Once MSNBC is gone, that leaves only us, the netroots community, to keep the liberal flame from flickering out.