In political news-speak, Friday used to be known as "trash day." That was the day of the week when - if you were involved in politics or government - you tended to release information you'd rather the public didn't see. With the 24/7 internet media cycle we all live in today, however, stories about almost anyone's latest stupid, ugly, or unfortunate actions won't just be buried in the late edition of the Friday afternoon newspaper - the one almost nobody would read - and forgotten.
That means that whether you're a Democratic politican in San Francisco getting arrested in corruption raids, or a Republican Governor of New Jersey trying to sell an obviously fictionalized legal defense, your dirty laundry isn't going to be easily swept under the proverbial rug.
As both journalists and citizens, that's a change from how things used to be - one that all our staff members tend to think of as a positive development.
Sadly, for every 'yin' there's a 'yang', and in the world of media, that 'yang' remains the incredibly destructive 'Citizens United' decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which has allowed the billionaire political bosses and their flood of nearly unlimited campaign propaganda.
As Americans all over the country have already been finding out this election year, the peace and quiet of their own homes is already being disturbed by the disgusting, filth-and-lies oozing monster of effectively unlimited campaign contributions buying ad after ad on our televisions, radios, and computers.
From the Koch Brothers and their ads which have been repeatedly debunked, to billionaire Sheldon Adelson who outwardly is admitting he's trying to buy the best candidates to win in 2016, the corrosive effects of too much poorly regulated money in our political system is all over our media. That kind of oozing media monster isn't always effective - as the ridiculous castration ad from Joni Earnst in Iowa, and the incredibly out-of-touch Duke-over-Kentucky ad of Mitch McConnell have already proven this cycle.
Not all stories about money and politics in America today are bad, however.
What if we told you there's a young man, who has instant access to one of the richest men in the world, and who's aiming to get money almost completely out of politics in America. His plan would include getting all those political ads off your TV...in the next seven years.
That young man's name is Jonathan Soros, son of well-known multibillionaire George Soros - though, as he's displayed in more than one arena, he's more than just the scion of one of the wealthiest persons on Earth.
David Freedlander, in Politico Magazine, just published a fantastic focus piece on the younger Soros, and his efforts with the Friends of Democracy PAC. That's a political action committee the young private investment operator is aiming to use to get money almost completely out of politics here in America. While the younger Soros is working on legislative efforts both in Congress, and in his own home state of New York, he has no problem taking on unsavory oligarchs like Tom Perkins, as Soros did in Reuters just last month.
Of course, we're skeptical of whether he'll be successful - but we're actually more than a bit hopeful he will be, for all kinds of reasons, both personal and professional.
One of the biggest reasons we hope Jonathan Soros is successful...? We'd like to watch a little bit of TV, sometime in the near future, without having to face the monster of bad political advertising in our off time.
At least we have a wonderful tool known as the remote control to help us avoid those silly ads, for now.
Ahhhh, the wonders of the modern world.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Eating Their Own
As we mentioned on Tuesday, Democratic candidates across America are looking at this year's elections with some anxiety as they face multiple structural problems - not the least of which is a tradition of low voter turnout for Democratic voters in midterm elections.
That's really no surprise, especially in the U.S. Senate races. Six years ago, in 2008, it was a wave election for Democrats. Not only did Americans elect our first mixed-race President ever, they also elected large numbers of Democrats to both houses of Congress, many from places Democratic candidates rarely-if-ever have success. Six years later - one short Senate term - Democrats now have to defend many of those same Senate seats in geographic regions that haven't seriously favored progressive candidates since the 1960s.
That doesn't mean Republicans will have a problem-free election season. Outside of the normal racism, classism, and misogyny that modern Republicans have become known for, Republicans have several other serious challenges this year - especially in typically reliable "red" states.
As extremist right-wing ideology has continued to take over the GOP during the past decade, much of the mass media, including cable "news" channels have chosen to pander to those same extremists, due to the many millions of dollars in right-wing propaganda advertising. That ideological slant has, in-turn, driven more moderate, sensible Republicans away from politics.
For Republicans, that's often left a pile of candidates - like the six Republicans now competing to become Nebraska's next governor - that either believe the extremism they preach, or pretend to be extremists, so as not to be "outed" as somewhat sane.
That fact alone already makes many of the Republican primary races this year appear more like a dinner party for cannibals.
Another major problem Republicans are facing is the challenge of not cannibalizing their voters by focusing exclusively on a single subject that - frankly - voters don't want to hear about anymore. Following that campaign plan could leave Republicans with one of the same major problems Democrats are now worried about: Turning off potential voters enough that they won't get out and vote.
For a political party that was planning on having their candidates run exclusively against Obamacare, that single-subject shutdown could become a major complication for Republicans.
Indeed, as Dylan Scott of TPM noted yesterday, the latest Kaiser Family Foundation survey confirms - Americans are increasingly making it clear they're done talking about Obamacare. According to the survey, about half of Republican voters, and more than fifty percent of all Americans of any other political affiliation have said the topic no longer needs to be discussed, as it's been settled.
What's even more problematic for Republicans, as Kevin Drum made clear in Mother Jones on Wednesday, is that as problems with the ACA get resolved, opposition to Obamacare continues to shrink, and Americans are liking it more. That means the issue has been settled - but not in a way that benefits those on the political right.
That leaves Republicans running for office this year chomping at the bit, with no accomplishments to brag about, no serious policy distinctions to bite into - and only personal attacks on each other as a topic they can sink their teeth into.
All we can say to that is 'Bon appetit.'
That's really no surprise, especially in the U.S. Senate races. Six years ago, in 2008, it was a wave election for Democrats. Not only did Americans elect our first mixed-race President ever, they also elected large numbers of Democrats to both houses of Congress, many from places Democratic candidates rarely-if-ever have success. Six years later - one short Senate term - Democrats now have to defend many of those same Senate seats in geographic regions that haven't seriously favored progressive candidates since the 1960s.
That doesn't mean Republicans will have a problem-free election season. Outside of the normal racism, classism, and misogyny that modern Republicans have become known for, Republicans have several other serious challenges this year - especially in typically reliable "red" states.
As extremist right-wing ideology has continued to take over the GOP during the past decade, much of the mass media, including cable "news" channels have chosen to pander to those same extremists, due to the many millions of dollars in right-wing propaganda advertising. That ideological slant has, in-turn, driven more moderate, sensible Republicans away from politics.
For Republicans, that's often left a pile of candidates - like the six Republicans now competing to become Nebraska's next governor - that either believe the extremism they preach, or pretend to be extremists, so as not to be "outed" as somewhat sane.
That fact alone already makes many of the Republican primary races this year appear more like a dinner party for cannibals.
Another major problem Republicans are facing is the challenge of not cannibalizing their voters by focusing exclusively on a single subject that - frankly - voters don't want to hear about anymore. Following that campaign plan could leave Republicans with one of the same major problems Democrats are now worried about: Turning off potential voters enough that they won't get out and vote.
For a political party that was planning on having their candidates run exclusively against Obamacare, that single-subject shutdown could become a major complication for Republicans.
Indeed, as Dylan Scott of TPM noted yesterday, the latest Kaiser Family Foundation survey confirms - Americans are increasingly making it clear they're done talking about Obamacare. According to the survey, about half of Republican voters, and more than fifty percent of all Americans of any other political affiliation have said the topic no longer needs to be discussed, as it's been settled.
What's even more problematic for Republicans, as Kevin Drum made clear in Mother Jones on Wednesday, is that as problems with the ACA get resolved, opposition to Obamacare continues to shrink, and Americans are liking it more. That means the issue has been settled - but not in a way that benefits those on the political right.
That leaves Republicans running for office this year chomping at the bit, with no accomplishments to brag about, no serious policy distinctions to bite into - and only personal attacks on each other as a topic they can sink their teeth into.
All we can say to that is 'Bon appetit.'
Wednesday, March 26, 2014
On Obamacare, Substance, Not Smoke & Mirrors
While some of the media will try to bamboozle their audience today into thinking they know how the Supreme Court will decide the contraception-rights case heard on Tuesday, as our longtime readers know, we're not charlatans and we prefer to operate from known facts.
That doesn't mean we're not concerned with how the case will be decided this summer, or what it will means for this fall. The potentially disastrous outcome for the nation if the biased and intellectually dishonest corporate faction of the court wins is not hyperbole. Pointless speculation though, would only make us look as idiotic as many of our colleagues in the national media did last week, talking about the missing plane.
There have been plenty of facts coming out this week, on the fourth anniversary of Obamacare, about how the program is doing. Those facts may have as much to do with the outcomes of this fall's elections as either the Supreme Court decision, or all the money being poured into propaganda campaigns by right-wing billionaires.
One of those facts includes the announcement made late Tuesday night by the Obama Administration, that they will allow all those Americans who've begun enrolling in private health insurance plans through the Obamacare website, until mid-April to finish or file a formal extension. Next to the news that - unlike Nebraska - New Hampshire has decided to do the wise thing and pass Medicaid expansion, the news surrounding Obamacare seems to just keep solidifying into a positive, tangible outcome Democrats can campaign on this fall.
That's a far cry from the empty promises and complete lies about healthcare that Republicans and their supporters have heading into the 2014 election season.
As Sahil Kapur noted last Sunday, and as many of our colleagues have noted for years now, four years after claiming they would repeal and replace Obamacare with their own plan, Republicans still don't even have an alternative health care plan that their own members of Congress are willing to vote for.
What's more, as both Greg Sargent and Brian Beutler pointed out this week, the Republican sob stories and ads about how horrible Obamacare is keep evaporating. Multiple fact checkers keep revealing the lies in the multiple propaganda ads from Koch Brothers-supported groups. Even right-wing hacks like Matt Drudge are exposing themselves as frauds and charlatans on the issue of Obamacare.
The facts, as our friend Rick Ungar noted this past week, continue to roll in - and those few who are honest on the right will have to eat crow about Obamacare. The young people are indeed signing up - at the last minute, of course. Not surprisingly, women have proven better at men at navigating the tough decisions. Individual penalties have motivated a substantial number of Americans to push through the array of insurance choices and sign up.
For those Americans who have been underinsured, or who were uninsured and didn't get cut short by Republicans in their states, most Americans are now happy with the health care system in America, thanks in large part to the fact that millions finally have affordable health insurance.
That Obamacare has succeeded as well as it has is not a small accomplishment. It's a massive feat of political skill, applied to a huge problem that Democrats pulled off almost entirely on their own. What's more, Democrats used a Republican idea to accomplish this task over the last four years, while being attacked by extremist Republicans the entire time.
Democrats should be proud they have a major, substantive accomplishment to show voters this fall.
Republicans only have smoke and mirrors to show voters - along with millions of dollars in fruitless propaganda.
That doesn't mean we're not concerned with how the case will be decided this summer, or what it will means for this fall. The potentially disastrous outcome for the nation if the biased and intellectually dishonest corporate faction of the court wins is not hyperbole. Pointless speculation though, would only make us look as idiotic as many of our colleagues in the national media did last week, talking about the missing plane.
There have been plenty of facts coming out this week, on the fourth anniversary of Obamacare, about how the program is doing. Those facts may have as much to do with the outcomes of this fall's elections as either the Supreme Court decision, or all the money being poured into propaganda campaigns by right-wing billionaires.
One of those facts includes the announcement made late Tuesday night by the Obama Administration, that they will allow all those Americans who've begun enrolling in private health insurance plans through the Obamacare website, until mid-April to finish or file a formal extension. Next to the news that - unlike Nebraska - New Hampshire has decided to do the wise thing and pass Medicaid expansion, the news surrounding Obamacare seems to just keep solidifying into a positive, tangible outcome Democrats can campaign on this fall.
That's a far cry from the empty promises and complete lies about healthcare that Republicans and their supporters have heading into the 2014 election season.
As Sahil Kapur noted last Sunday, and as many of our colleagues have noted for years now, four years after claiming they would repeal and replace Obamacare with their own plan, Republicans still don't even have an alternative health care plan that their own members of Congress are willing to vote for.
What's more, as both Greg Sargent and Brian Beutler pointed out this week, the Republican sob stories and ads about how horrible Obamacare is keep evaporating. Multiple fact checkers keep revealing the lies in the multiple propaganda ads from Koch Brothers-supported groups. Even right-wing hacks like Matt Drudge are exposing themselves as frauds and charlatans on the issue of Obamacare.
The facts, as our friend Rick Ungar noted this past week, continue to roll in - and those few who are honest on the right will have to eat crow about Obamacare. The young people are indeed signing up - at the last minute, of course. Not surprisingly, women have proven better at men at navigating the tough decisions. Individual penalties have motivated a substantial number of Americans to push through the array of insurance choices and sign up.
For those Americans who have been underinsured, or who were uninsured and didn't get cut short by Republicans in their states, most Americans are now happy with the health care system in America, thanks in large part to the fact that millions finally have affordable health insurance.
That Obamacare has succeeded as well as it has is not a small accomplishment. It's a massive feat of political skill, applied to a huge problem that Democrats pulled off almost entirely on their own. What's more, Democrats used a Republican idea to accomplish this task over the last four years, while being attacked by extremist Republicans the entire time.
Democrats should be proud they have a major, substantive accomplishment to show voters this fall.
Republicans only have smoke and mirrors to show voters - along with millions of dollars in fruitless propaganda.
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