Back when Bill Clinton was President there was a huge media-swarm controversy because a decade before her husband was elected Hillary Clinton had made $100,000 over ten months by investing in cattle futures. Now, skip forward to 2012. Report after report circulates about a candidate for President who owns a secret company in Bermuda, Swiss and Cayman Islands bank accounts and an IRA containing as much as $100 million — and who may have filed SEC documents containing false information (a felony). Huge media swarm this time? Not so much.
Cattle Futures?
In the 1970s Hillary Clinton made some speculative investments. Over a period of 10 months she made investments in cattle futures that did well, earning $100,000. Later when her husband was President, the media wanted to find out how she was able to make such a large, huge, ginormous sum from speculative investments.
Take a look at the 350,000-or-so web references to cattle futures trades made by Hillary Clinton way back in the 1970s. This might give you an idea of how big a deal it was back in the mid-90′s that Hillary Clinton had made $100,000 (!!!) on speculative investments back in the 1970s. (The number of stories located online is possibly reduced by the fact that the media swarm happened in the mid-1990s — largely before the Internet.)
Look at the outlets that assigned teams of reporters to investigate: All the TV networks, the Washington Post, New York Times, Newsweek, and all of the rest of the jouranilmalism crowd were all over what was considered to be a major story.
This story was investigated, written about, investigated, written about, and investigated. No evidence of any wrongdoing was ever found — which many in the media took as clear proof that there had been a massive cover-up.
Murdoch’s Scandal | FRONTLINE | PBS shows how FOX corrupted UK government. This is a criminal organization, and the response here shows they are intimidating and corrupting media and government. MUST SEE.
They have obviously broken US laws against a US company bribing officials, why will Obama Justice Dept not prosecute for this? Why won’t Dems in Senate launch investigations?
There is a news report that yet another right-wing billionaire is going to spend even more millions to run even more poisonous, divisive, racist, degrading, insulting, lying, character-assassination ads designed to turn people against government and democracy. And an added bonus (for Republicans) will be turning people away from even voting. They’re going to do this because it works — for them and the billionaires who back them.
NY Times: G.O.P. ‘Super PAC’ Weighs Hard-Line Attack on Obama,
A group of high-profile Republican strategists is working with a conservative billionaire on a proposal to mount one of the most provocative campaigns of the “super PAC” era and attack President Obama in ways that Republicans have so far shied away from.
… The $10 million plan … includes preparations for how to respond to the charges of race-baiting it envisions if it highlights Mr. Obama’s former ties to Mr. Wright…
The group suggested hiring as a spokesman an “extremely literate conservative African-American” who can argue that Mr. Obama misled the nation by presenting himself as what the proposal calls a “metrosexual, black Abe Lincoln.”
Obama is black, black, black, black, black. And in case you miss it, here is Republican Strategist Lee Atwater explaining the Republican strategy:
You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger.” By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites.
It Works
Just lying — making stuff up and blasting it out there — works. In 2010 Republicans spent millions and millions on ads saying “Democrats cut half a trillion from Medicare” and captured the senior vote for the first time, throwing the House over to them. It worked, they spent millions broadcasting lies, they took the House — and then voted to turn Medicare into a voucher program.
From the post, “Half A Trillion In Cuts To Medicare”
In the 2010 election campaign Republican groups ran millions and millions of dollars of ads promising not to cut Medicare, and to increase Social Security. They campaigned against Democrats for “cutting $500 billion from Medicare” and not increasing Social Security cost-of-living. As a result, for the first time the senior vote went to Republicans.
Here are just a few of the ads that saturated the airwaves, saying that Democrats should be thrown out for cutting Medicare:
And voters were sent flyers like this: (click for larger)
The Obstruct-And-Lie Strategy
Republicans have a huge “noise machine” and they know how to use it. And they really, really don’t care if they are telling the truth or not, they say what they need to say to win.
After years of blocking President Obama’s efforts to try to create more jobs, Repubicans are campaigning saying Obama didn’t create more jobs.
After running up huge deficits — Clinton left behind a surplus, Bush left behind a $1.4 trillion deficit — Republicans are campaigning that Obama has run up huge deficits.
This summer when student loan rates double because Republicans blocked efforts to keep them from doubling, Republicans will blast out that Obama doubled student loan rates.
Negative Ads Suppress Turnout
The point of running negative ads is not to get people to show up and vote for someone. Negative ads are about turning people off from voting. Negative ads tell people they should not have hope, that anyone they think could be a leader is actually a scoundrel, etc. The point of the millions and millions of dollars that will be spent by Republicans on negative ads this year is to try to keep the kind of surge election that brought so many people out to vote in the 2008 election from happening this time.
The Media Enablers
Republican media outlets like FOX News, the Wall Street Journal and Rush Limbaugh will go ahead and repeat the party line (when they aren’t out front creating it). They reach a lot of people, and the rest of the Republican “noise machine”‘ is very skilled at echoing the lies until they become “truthy.” But the rest of the media does not serve as a counterweight, bringing people the facts. As a result almost everyone — consumers of the right’s propaganda and people who think they aren’t — is left misinformed in ways that serve Republicans and their billionaire backers and hurt everyone else.
Greg Sargent wrote the other day in, How Mitt Romney gets away with his lying,
If you scan through all the media attention Romney’s speech received, you are hard-pressed to find any news accounts that tell readers the following rather relevant points:
1) Nonpartisan experts believe Romney’s plans would increase the deficit far more than Obama’s would.
2) George W. Bush’s policies arguably are more responsible for increasing the deficit than Obama’s are.
[. . .] The two bullet points above could not be more central to the debate over the debt that Romney’s big speech set in motion yesterday. Yet the vast majority of news consumers who now know that Romney has accused Obama of lighting a “prairie fire of debt” that threatens to engulf our children and our future haven’t been told about either of them.
Meet The Press moderator David Gregory is the “Keynote Address” speaker at the upcoming National Federation of Independent Business “Small Business Summit” conference. This is a conservative advocacy group that solidly aligns with Republicans.
Here is a speakers bureau page promoting Gregory for speaking engagements for “$40,001 & up” per appearance.
I have not verified if he is getting paid, but he is doing the “speaking” circuit. A very brief look around finds him at the 2007 American Resort Development Association. The 2006 United States Geospatial Intelligence Foundation (USGIF) symposium, at the Gaylord Palms Resort & Convention Center in Orlando. At the 2010 Milken Institute Shaping the Future conference. 2010 Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. The Risk Management Association 2011 annual conference.
A few years ago I looked into Chris Matthews’ speaking engagements with Republican-aligned lobbying groups. Matthews was doing this regularly, and there was an NBC policy against accepting speaking fees.
NBC’s President said Matthews’ fees were going to a charity. So assuming this is true and he really was donating the money to a charity, that is still receiving a thing of value. He was speaking before Republican-aligned groups again and again, and spouting Republican positions on the air.
Back to Gregory. Is it still NBC’s policy to prohibit speaking engagements for pay?
There is a certain tedium involved with speaking at trade association meetings, so one does it for a reason. I assume the reason he does this is not that he really, really loves speaking to trade associations. Why would someone do it continually, if not for compensation – which I would say includes being given money to donate to favored charities? And if someone is getting compensation of “$40,001 & up” for an hour’s work, shouldn’t we assume this just might affect what they are willing to say or not say on the air?
Updates on Gregory speaking engagements:
2011 Palm Beach Civic Association
2007 American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) and the Sales Association of the Paper Industry
2011 Nantucket Atheneum Geschke Lecture Series
2011 Food Safety Summit
In 1949, drawing on a long history of court decisions; on public hearings; and on legislation mandating “equal time” for political candidates, the F.C.C. ruled that holders of radio and television broadcast licenses must “devote a reasonable percentage of their broadcast time to the presentation of news and programs devoted to the consideration and discussion of public issues of interest in the community,” and that this must include “different attitudes and viewpoints concerning these vital and often controversial issues.”
The Supreme Court repeatedly upheld the F.C.C.’s power to make such a rule — but never gave it the power of law. In 1986, a pair of Ronald Reagan’s judicial appointees on the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Robert Bork and Antonin Scalia, ruled that the Fairness Doctrine was not “a binding statutory obligation.”
Armed with this verdict, Fowler, who insisted on viewing television, in particular, as not a finite and supremely influential broadcast medium but “just another appliance — it’s a toaster with pictures,” persuaded his fellow commissioners to abolish the Fairness Doctrine. Furious Democrats in Congress passed legislation to codify the doctrine into law in 1987 and 1991, but these attempts were vetoed by Reagan and George Bush, respectively; Democrats have gone on trying to make the Fairness Doctrine law to this day, but have always been stymied by adamant Republican opposition.
Also under Clinton Republicans filibustered.
After that Dems turned into the party they are now, and didn’t even try.
Watch this shameful NBC Nightly News segment describing studies on the effect of sugary drinks and red meat on heart health. The segment includes statements by soda and meat lobbyists countering what the medical studies have concluded! Shameful!
And it is here, in a feat of remarkable imagination, that Cohen deploys what I believe to be (and professionals in the field, please correct me if I’m wrong) a never-before-seen version of the genre, one that might be called the If-Not-Now-Then-Later False Equivalence:
So far, the Palin effect has been limited to the GOP. Surely, though, there lurks in the Democratic Party potential candidates who have seen Palin and taken note. Experience, knowledge, accomplishment—these no longer may matter. They will come roaring out of the left proclaiming a hatred of all things Washington, including compromise. The movie had it right. Sarah Palin changed the game.
Gingrich plays victim. Blames media for what his ex-wife is saying. Newt: CNN ‘Despicable’ To Bring Up ‘Trash’ Open Marriage Story | TPM2012
Watch out, people, this snake is the worst of the right. Dangerous, just doesn’t care what he says. He will destroy everything. So far beyond Bush and Rove…
Even if he doesn’t get the nomination, his just being there is whipping the right into a frothing, riotous mass that is going to be very bad for the country and world.
In which the NY Times avoids being a “truth vigilante” — goes to the town of one of the companies in the Romney video, talkes to people who were not affected by what Romney’s company did.
This is the Cain defense: there were actually women he didn’t harass.
Reading my local morning paper, I see that it is a typical day…
Front page story about the exponential growth in the crow population since a 1981 measurement, Counting crows: Number of black birds on the rise in Bay Area (‘Eden For Crows’ in the print edition), can’t find an explanation, but doesn’t bring up that the climate here is changing.
The anniversary was marked not only by the traditional rituals of speechmaking and prayers, but also by organized sessions and designated spots for yoga, meditation, hugging, dancing and steel drum playing. There were campaigns promoting civility and community — people gathered at a park Saturday to sign a “Tucsonans Commit to Kindness” contract — that were notable in how they avoided any explicit mention of the events of a year ago.
An editorial cartoon blasting “Government Motors” for having a “Fire Sale” of Chevy Volts, showing the entire dealership burnt out from a car fire, doesn’t mention that there has not been a single car fire in a Volt, except after a special-circumstances crash test, and the cars are being recalled to fix the potential problem. Compare this with the following numbers for cars that run on … gasoline:
In 2002-2005, U.S. fire departments responded to an average of 306,800 vehicle fires per year. These fires caused an average of 520 civilian deaths, 1,640 civilian injuries, and $1.3 billion in direct property damage.
What’s not in the paper? Anything that informs people of the benefits of belonging to a union. Anything that talks about how our government helps us. Anything that goes up against Big Oil and King Coal and informs the public of just how serious the problems of global warming are and the need for immediate solutions, or that informs the public of the need to move away from oil and coal as our energy source.
To sum it up: anything that informs the public of the harm caused by plutocratic, corporatist-captured government and the benefits of democracy and good government.
In other words, you find very little in today’s corporate-owned media that runs up against the agenda of the 1% and helps the 99%.
This is a fully-captured newspaper.
If you take a government program, change everything about it, destroy its core purpose, but keep the same name, is it the same program? Politifact.com says yes, and even goes so far as to say it is “The Lie Of The Year” to say it isn’t — because it still has the same name.
Early this year Republicans voted to privatize Medicare, ending it as a government insurance program, instead giving limited vouchers to people to use to purchase private insurance. Everything about the program would change, and because of the loss of economy-of-scale that government provides the costs to seniors would be much higher while the coverage would be lower. This would effectively end the program.
Americans were outraged by this. People love Medicare, and depend on it. And the cost-shifting these changes would bring mean that the cost to the larger economy would greatly increase. But since government wasn’t paying those costs anymore, the pressure to raise taxes on the 1% would go down.
People took up arms that Republicans were trying to end Medicare. Newspaper editorials expressed shock and outrage. Bloggers were angry. Politicians pledged to run against Republicans who voted for this plan to end Medicare.
Enter Politifact.com
Politifact.com’s About page says, “PolitiFact is a project of the Tampa Bay Times and its partners to help you find the truth in politics.” The look at statements, research the facts, “then rate the accuracy on our Truth-O-Meter – True, Mostly True, Half True, Mostly False and False.”
Politifact examined the statements that Republicans voted to “end Medicare” and decided this was a “lie” – because the program would continue to have the same name. This week Politicat doubled down on this absurd conclusion, saying that claiming the program would end is the “Lie Of The Year.”
That’s right, they say it is “The Lie Of The Year” to say that a program ends, as long as there still exists a program with the same name.
The Kicker
HOW did Politifact decide that this is the lie of the year? Digby explains, in Paul Ryan Stuffed The PolitiFact Ballot Box, that Rep. Paul Ryan rigged this by sending people to vote at Politifact. She writes,
Unfortunately, the Villagers will be gleefully using this as proof that their dreamy young idol Paul Ryan is a good guy after all but it’s probably a good idea to demand another source for anyone who cites Politifact on the veracity of any claim going forward. This will make it easier on the Republicans in the beginning, since they actually make a profit at their lying, but in the long run it will be for good. Clearly Politifact can’t tell the difference between a lie and and a fact and is subject to obvious right wing manipulation.
But Politifact, an independent organization associated with the St. Petersburg Times, chose instead a claim that placed third in their poll, thanks to an effort by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) to stuff the ballots. The only problem? The big “lie” is true. “Republicans voted to end Medicare,” by the the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and other Democrats, is the winner, despite the fact that Republicans did indeed vote to end Medicare when they voted for Ryan’s budget.
Conservatives have long excelled at working the refs — the corporate media. And this week they scored a resounding victory, as PolitiFact, the non-partisan fact-checker, dismissed the results of its readers’ poll to declare the entirely truthful statement that House Republicans voted to “end Medicare” as we know it the “lie of the year.”
Politifact.com has ended its credibility.
Full disclosure: Politifact fact-checked the claim in a post of mine that 400 people have as much wealth as half our population, which was picked up by Michael Moore for use in a speech in Wisconsin. In their article they misidentified me, misstated and just got wrong what I sent them, linked to the wrong post, but concluded that the claim is true. This post originally appeared at Campaign for America’s Future (CAF) at their Blog for OurFuture. I am a Fellow with CAF. Sign up here for the CAF daily summary.
When was the last time you saw someone from organized labor in the news explaining why unions benefit the middle class? This chart explains why our “new” is the way it is: Media Consolidation: The Illusion of Choice | The Big Picture
Want to know why Occupy is mocked as “dirty hippies?” See this chart.
Want to know why CEOs are presented as heroes, like sports stars? See this chart.
Want to know why the wealthiest are presented as “job creators?” See this chart.
Want to know why there still has been no explanation or demand for answers for why we went to war in Iraq? See this chart.
