The Covid19 virus was a game-changer that undermined Bernie’s campaign strengths and his chances of overcoming the battery of establishment cannons arrayed against him, the pressure of which would buckle most people half his age. And unlike Perez and Biden, whatever the latest tune they whistle, Bernie wouldn’t have people risking lives in primaries in a game of Covid19 Russian roulette.  Biden has a minefield of banana peels before him, but waiting for him to slip from the grasp of his army of handlers and do a face-plant is not a political strategy that inspires. It’s understandable that someone with Bernie’s integrity would focus instead on his ideals and proposals, which to anyone not in a coma or a special interest pocket make more sense with each passing day.

As Naomi Klein has observed, “…during times of crisis, people also are risk-averse. I think the timing of this was such, with the inability to continue campaigning in person, with people just reaching for something that looked and felt safe, I don’t think it was possible to translate that shift in openness to these kinds of policies with a huge electoral swing from Biden towards Bernie, although I was certainly hoping for it up until Bernie’s announcement last night. But while hoping for it, I was keenly aware that the polls were not reflecting it, that it wasn’t happening and that people are not up for that kind of political seesaw in this moment of tumult.”

There’ve been logical, solid analyses, as by the anchors of the online political show Rising, Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti, that the Democratic establishment will eventually blow off anyone not brandishing a ball bat with nails in it, that whatever promises Bernie might elicit from making nice, they’ll be written in sand washed away by the high tide of big donors. And no matter what Bernie says or does, he will be blamed again if Trump wins, as CNN is already about the business of. As in 2016, how dare Bernie practice democracy and provide the country with a choice and an awareness of issues best left concealed from view.

Some might despair that with Bernie stepping back, the progressive movement has lost its lynchpin. Bernie countered that nicely with accomplishments noted in his statement that he was suspending his campaign, (not cremating it, as many in the media have implied), while staying on the ballot to hold and earn delegates to influence the party. Progressive candidates inspired by Bernie certainly aren’t fading away. Charles Booker, running against Mitch McConnell, stated “…make no mistake: our fight for Medicare for All, racial justice, a Green New Deal, and an economy that works for all of us is nowhere close to over.” Mark Gamba, the mayor Milwaukee, Oregon, running against incumbent Blue Dog, Kuirt Schrader, reaffirmed his goals of changing the healthcare system, boldly addressing climate change and holding corporate interests accountable for damage they cause. The grassroots movements supporting such candidates aren’t fading away either.

Here’s Biden’s statement on Bernie stepping out of the race. Pre-canned by strategists for sure, but I’d have to say it’s not a bad statement from the point of view of conning people to fill in the blanks with whatever they hope Joe is saying about health care, etc…. Trump was masterful at letting people hear what they wanted. If he’s not too addled, he may be again. But maybe Joe can limp along for awhile on a lack of specificity and a media tossing him softballs, until Biden figures out the peril of not making solid, substantive commitments and standing by them.

Maybe Biden can ride to victory atop a platform of low expectations other than not being Trump. But if Biden wins with wishy-washy, he’ll have nothing resembling a mandate, only a load of disappointed people when he turns out to be Mr. Cellophane, moved about with puppet strings by big donors to whom Bernie, with his small donor cornucopia, must have looked like one of Eliot Ness’s Untouchables. Spurning the money of big donors and owing them nothing made Bernie a dangerous man.

Howie of Down with Tyranny has repeatedly contrasted Biden’s weaknesses and Bernie’s strengths, so I’ll just offer a couple glimpses that glare out.

Recently the Biden camp conferred with Eric Holder about Biden’s campaign and his vice-presidential pick. Holder who ushered, covertly from colleagues who’d have been aghast, the pardon of finance criminal fugitive Marc Rich for Bill Clinton’s signature on Clinton’s last day in office, after which Rich’s ex-wife donated huge sums to the Clinton library. Does anyone doubt that had that happened a year earlier Clinton would have been impeached, and properly so? Holder, who prosecuted whistleblowers like John Kiriakou, a top counterintelligence agent who exposed CIA torture, just to ruin him and to send a message to others, putting this hero in prison, initially with an effort to throw away the key. Holder, who let bankers off the legal hook laying the groundwork for his law firm, and therefore Holder, to reap fortunes servicing those banks. Read what Holder did to bank whistleblower Brad Birkenfeld on behalf of foreign banks hiding Americans’ money. That’s the short list.

Holder was Wall Street’s early Manchurian candidate for President. He fizzled like a wet fuse, but he’s been waiting in the wings if opportunity knocks, raising his profile with an anti-gerrymandering organization that’s run like a campaign. If Biden hadn’t already committed to a female vice-president, I’d bet Holder would pull a Cheney and recommend himself. He’ll certainly be influential in a Biden administration, again looking out for protecting his client bankers from facing serious consequences for misdeeds and greedy maneuvers that are again setting Americans — and the world — up for another fall.

My point is that no one had to worry about Bernie consulting with Eric Holder. Instead Bernie would be throwing a wrench in the revolving door to keep Holder’s ilk out of his administration. Bernie would never have floated the idea of Jamie Dimon as a swell potential member of an administration, perhaps Secretary of the Treasury, as Biden’s camp did. Want some intriguing reading? Read a bit on Dimon here, and on JPMorganChase, courtesy of Wall Street on Parade. I’m confident that after the election, when the revolving door starts spinning, Bernie will be shouting the dangers loud and clear, channeling public anger that Biden would be a fool not to pay attention to.

By the way, Wall Street called the shots on many of President Obama’s picks, including Holder for Attorney General and Hillary for Secretary of State. That insight came courtesy of WikiLeaks, so one can sense the establishment fervor to destroy Julian Assange. And Wall Street on Parade reports that in the 2020 presidential primaries one Wall Street firm was an instrumental supporter of five different Democratic candidates. Should that leave us wondering at the impressive orchestration of the Super Tuesday endorsements, that maybe some candidates, beyond shooting for Veep or major posts, were being jockeyed to derail progressives and elevate Biden?

Both of Bernie’s presidential campaigns laid bare the hapless state of much of mainstream, corporate media. Take the Washington Post. Does anyone think Jeff Bezos bought that paper because, like Citizen Kane, he thought it might be fun to run a newspaper. The man has a Washington agenda. The Bezos Brigaiders on the editorial pages and covering the campaign are well aware of how many newspapers have hit the skids, with major staff layoffs that leave many journalists scrambling to find public relations work. They don’t have to be geniuses to figure out what the world’s richest man doesn’t like. Bezos doesn’t like antitrust enforcement and close scrutiny and regulation of monopolies. He doesn’t care much for paying taxes. He doesn’t like to be embarrassed and pushed by potential legislation that would penalize him if he doesn’t raise wages and improve working conditions for expendable workers toiling in warehouses and grocery stores and delivering his goods. He doesn’t like unions. So none of the Bezos Brigaiders needs to be told he doesn’t like Bernie Sanders, whose major supporters include Amazon workers and who throws a spotlight on that company’s excesses. And so these members of the press decided squashing Bernie is worth shredding their journalistic credibility, continuing a pattern Thomas Frank wonderfully described in 2016 in a Harper’s magazine article, Swat Team.

The New York Times opinion page and campaign coverage has been as relentless whacking Bernie. One can only marvel at how the Gray Lady has become so in the tank for the Wall Street establishment it still won’t acknowledge the folly of Bill Clinton and Robert Rubin eliminating the Glass-Steagall Act, that had separated commercial and investment banking since FDR, becoming a major cause of the 2008 economic debacle. Both Clinton and Rubin were richly rewarded for that, from speaking fees and foundation contributions for Clinton to a job for Rubin with stunning compensation. In Washington, quid pro quo often takes its time, but it gets there.

Did it ever look to you like a contest between those two papers to find the most deranged and angry looking images they could of Bernie? Propaganda 101.

We’ve been treated to the comic spectacle of Comcast media players like Chuck Todd, putting their Orwellian knives into Bernie and his health care proposals between commercials for health care insurance and pharmaceutical companies. And a number of NPR reporters and analysts behaved as if they’re auditioning for Comcast, putting words in interviewee’s mouths and cutting them short if what they said wasn’t supporting the narrative. They all ought get plaques engraved with “But How Will You Pay For It?” Particularly if the big banks start tumbling economic dominoes that most media has routinely ignored.

So we can thank Bernie for making the media fix so apparent that many of us now seek out alternative media voices, voices that often represent a much better use of one’s time.

Consider corporate media’s willingness to avert its gaze from a foreign power meddling in American elections. I’m not speaking of Russia, the influence of which on the 2016 election I think greatly over-played, to the detriment of focus on critical issues and on what the Trump grifter class is up to. Whatever Russia did I doubt it had much impact next to the tabloids in the grocery store checkout line, let alone our home-grown dark money networks of the Kochs, Mercers and others from the oligarch rogues gallery. More attention should have been paid to the influence of foreign companies’ American subsidiaries, including banks.

No, I’m speaking of Israel, whose confederates and advocates in the US spent fortunes running ads attacking Bernie in the primaries, supporting the narrative of Bernie being unelectable. Just imagine if it had been Russia, how quickly those covertly undermining our democracy on a behalf of a foreign power would earn the accusation of betraying our country. Just because Bernie called for decency and morality in the treatment of Palestinians systematically oppressed in every way imaginable. That oppression was often done with American indifference or complicity, which Bernie was perceived as a threat to.

Predictably, media was then complicit with ludicrous and flimsy intelligence claims — intelligence loosely defined — that Bernie topped Russia’s wish list.

Ironically, Bernie went along a bit with the Russia narrative, something for which he’s been criticized. I’ve no idea how much he really bought into that party orthodoxy. Some purists won’t like what I’m about to say. Things are relative, and running a presidential campaign isn’t the same as seeking sainthood. Look how fast media stood Bernie before a firing squad for giving a harmless nod to educational and medical accomplishments in Cuba, painting him as a fellow traveler to discredit him, particularly in Florida.

On balance, Bernie has given it to us straight more than any other candidate. Pardon what’s almost become a cliché, but his consistent drumbeat really has changed the conversation. On healthcare, 55% of voters now support single payer health care, only 35% oppose it. Major programs to counter climate change and develop related jobs are now a top priority of many, particularly younger voters. Bernie provided an articulation of the growing wealth gap that helped people better understand what they already sensed going on around them, and the campaign finance fix behind much of it. He provided hope that there was a way to do something about it. Where would the conversation be were it not for Bernie?

While I like and respect some of those who’ve been critical of Bernie over dis and dat, no offense to them but I think Noam Chomsky is better than most in assessing the immediacy of the big picture. (Here’s some of his comments on Bernie ending his presidential run.)

Chomsky on Democracy Now:

If Trump is reelected, it’s a indescribable disaster. It means that the policies of the past four years, which have been extremely destructive to the American population, to the world, will be continued and probably accelerated. What this is going to mean for health is bad enough… It will get worse. What this means for the environment or the threat of nuclear war, which no one is talking about but is extremely serious, is indescribable.

Suppose Biden is elected. I would anticipate it would be essentially a continuation of Obama — nothing very great, but at least not totally destructive, and opportunities for an organized public to change what is being done, to impose pressures.

It’s common to say now that the Sanders campaign failed. I think that’s a mistake. I think it was an extraordinary success, completely shifted the arena of debate and discussion. Issues that were unthinkable a couple years ago are now right in the middle of attention.

The worst crime he committed, in the eyes of the establishment, is not the policy he’s proposing; it’s the fact that he was able to inspire popular movements, which had already been developing — Occupy, Black Lives Matter, many others — and turn them into an activist movement, which doesn’t just show up every couple years to push a leader and then go home, but applies constant pressure, constant activism and so on. That could affect a Biden administration.

In the end, we should appreciate Bernie for the enemies he’s chosen, domestic and foreign. And we should appreciate him for the voice he’ll provide as interesting times compound.

The post Appreciating Bernie in Our Era of Hobson’s Choices appeared first on Traveling Archive.

And no one should fear banks more than Iowans. They stand very naked, and very much at risk. My dad’s alma mater, Iowa State University, recently issued a report that Iowa farm finances are continuing to erode, with 44% of growers struggling to cover costs. Iowa farm dept hit $18.9 billion in the second quarter, the highest level in the country.As it is, government aid is now providing nearly 40% of US farm income.

Climate change isn’t helping prospects. Last year Iowa finished its wettest twelve months since records began, and it also had a rough drought. The most recent National Climate Assessment from the U.S. Global Change Research Program has nothing but grim news for the Midwest, including increased humidity and participation, eroded soils, rising temperature extremes, more pests and pathogens and major reductions in agricultural productivity. Worsening health conditions are also in the cards, with substantial loss of life by mid-century. Anyone for Medicare-for-All?

Now contemplate that the banks are about to do to us something similar to what they did to us in the Great Recession, from which many have still not fully recovered. If you don’t want to be blindsided, spend some time at Wall Street on Parade, where you can learn fun facts like a handful of banks are again up to their ears in derivatives exposure, are trading their own stocks in dark money pools, and that since Fall the New York Fed has funneled $6.6 TRILLION to trading houses on Wall Street in the form of of repurchase agreement (repo) loans, keeping the details opaque. There’s speculation by market watchers that the Fed is fueling a Ponzi-like rally in stocks. What could go wrong?

We’d never know that after the financial meltdown the Fed pumped in various bailouts the equivalent of over $29 trillion, if Bernie hadn’t hammered away until he finally got that information.

Banks pulled plenty of tricks pursuing their business model of taking what doesn’t belong to them. Recently Citibank, which foreclosed on homes under an alias, was quietly revealed to have illegally held homes of the market for more than five years while rents are rising dramatically from a shortage of affordable homes for purchase. It got a slap on the wrist.

The people Bernie will put in charge won’t just give a slap on the wrist. They won’t keep the public from knowing what’s going on behind the scenes, or be pushing for further bank deregulation, like Wall Street’s revolving door minions Trump has put in charge. Or the revolving door minions like Obama put in charge at the behest of Wall Street. There will be no Eric Holder put in charge of the Department of Justice to make sure bankers are protected from the consequences of their misdeeds.

I have found from personal experience in Iowa that inaction against bankers behaving badly is a seamless web between state and federal public offices. The tone is set at the top, and it flows down through all tangential government offices. One of Obama’s greatest failures was setting a tone that talked a good game but threw people under the bus on behalf of banks, which ushered in Trump, who of course has set that tone from day one.

How do I capsulize over a decade of horror stories, involving one bank that was shut down, and another bank that took it over, both of which used the same foreclosure artists? I’ll just give one little slice. I broke my back to pay off in full an unfair settlement that was forced on us, to the astonishment of everyone familiar with the case. I relied on a bank’s representations, both verbally and in emails, that it would cooperate with the payoff arrangement being structured. On the appointed day, it reneged on its promise, deliberately sabotaging my ability to pay it off in full by the agreed upon plan of having another lender buy the note. The bank knew there was no time for due diligence on another arrangement by the loan deadline. It refused to extend the deadline or modify the loan. It did so because my mom’s family farm, outside of Des Moines in a recreation area, was known to be worth far more than what was owed. The bank simply did not want to be paid off. So my mom, who lived with us in DC until we lost her a year ago at 101, had a very sad note at the end of a life that richly deserved much better. The loss of her farm, the family nest egg, and a great deal more. How does one begin to describe the wear and tear of a krap decade? How does one begin to describe the contempt with which I hold the bankers responsible, or the government officials who enabled them by averting their gaze?

I know what it’s like to go up against a bank on the bank’s home turf, where every decision is like rolling the dice on the cost of a college education. I know what it’s like to encounter the bipartisan fix for political darlings like family-owned and so-called community banks. And I include judges in the mix, because in Iowa they gather campaign contributions to run for retention elections. Over time that’s a recipe for courting pro-business decisions to the disadvantage of individuals. Judges know where the money’s at as well as Willie Sutton did. They can make a seemingly minor unexpected ruling a bank wants that in practicality throws the game. You like judges with a tin cup? Go to Iowa.

At every government level I encountered indifferent if not complicit public officials. It’s a hard education nobody should want, but I have enough stories to fill a book. And may yet do it. Public servants and in particular local prosecutors will claim to be overwhelmed and under-resourced. If you’re not a big headline providing political glory, and you don’t have local political backing and connected lawyers, you can forget about getting a measure of justice on anything that isn’t penny-ante.  Prosecutors also fundraise from banks and their lawyers. If you’re an out-of-towner, a centenarian widow half way across the country, just have a laugh.

Consider the regulation of banks in Iowa, a state not known for robust consumer protections in the banking arena. The top bank regulator, at the Iowa Division of Banking, is appointed by the governor. The regulator who recently ended his term was a former bank CEO and was formerly the top state bank lobbyist – Chairman of the Iowa Bankers Association – and worked with government relations for the American Bankers Association. The top regulator before that fulfilled his role while serving as chairman of a state bank. The new top regulator was a president and CEO of a financial services holding company, a former chairman of the American Bankers Association and a former chairman of the Iowa Bankers Association, and I gather he will continue on various bank boards.

These are the people who are to protect Iowans from predatory and deceitful banks. Except that they are all about protecting bankers. They all know each other, it’s a tight little club in Iowa.

Several years ago I sent a well-documented history of my experience to the top regulator. His general counsel responded with a note that said “Mr. Kaltenheuser, you’ve made some very serious allegations.” It had that sort of legal attitude of “wouldn’t you really like to back off and not say those things about a bank?” I responded that “…yes, I think they’re very serious allegations. But tell me, which ones do you find to be the most serious?” Crickets. Several followups asked the same question of both the chief regulator and his general counsel. Nothing but crickets. The regulator has a lot of power. If he finds something serious, like deceptive practices or fraud, he’s supposed to lift the bank’s license. Well, they’re not very keen on doing that to their buddies. So look away, don’t look close.

But what of the “people’s lawyer”, State Attorney General Tom Miller, famed for heading up the multi-state investigation of foreclosure fraud against major banks for misleading or fraudulent statements to evict struggling homeowners from their homes? A top finance writer, David Dayen, summed up the result, “…Miller, the attorney general of Iowa, ran the 50-state investigation of foreclosure fraud, which investigated nothing and moved directly to a weak settlement that delivered shortage of affordable homes for purchase (hyperlink shortage of affordable homes for purchase.”

It paid off well for Miller, though. According to Dayen, “Within days of being announced as the lead investigator, we learned that Miller received $261,000 from banking interests for his re-election campaign – 88 times more than he ever took in the previous decade – and that he personally asked bank lawyers for contributions. Miller then famously told community groups in Iowa that ‘we will put people in jail’ for foreclosure fraud, only days later his office backtracked and said they weren’t referring to foreclosure fraud but some separate mortgage fraud investigation in Iowa (which he didn’t put people in jail for either), and then days after that he called the case ‘inherently civil,’ and days after that he appeared at the Senate Banking Committee and admitted he had two settlement negotiations with Bank of America within the first month of the vaunted investigation.

In other words he’s a phony, he’s for sale, and you can’t afford him. Miller just endorsed another bankers’ favorite for President, Joe Biden, who’s long carried the water for the finance sector and its most onerous abuses.

Bernie will set a very different tone at the top, and if Iowans miss the opportunity to help him set it, they do so at their peril.

The post Why Bernie, Iowans? Banks! appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Dance with the one that brought you – BERNIE! As Bernie changed the national dialogue on critical issues and transformed large swaths of the Democratic Party, that’s my bid for his slogan.

It won’t be NPR’s. NPR political reporting isn’t evolving, it’s devolving, already tipping its hand that it’s out to sink Bernie, as it did its best to in 2016, taking every opportunity then to slip in the knives of Hillary talking points. When Bernie announced last week, I heard a public radio newscaster remind us that Bernie ran in 2016, winning several primaries. Several? Somebody must have jumped him, I didn’t hear that repeated. Now something more insidious than dopey has come along.

A friend, Elliott Negin, knows the treacherous territory of Washington. You can catch samples of his splendid insights, for the Union of Concerned Scientists here, and for the Huff Post here.

After hearing this politics segment on NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday,  Feb. 23, Elliott wrote a social media post I’d like to share:

Did NPR Red-Bait Bernie Sanders this Morning?

I just sent this email to host Scott Simon and reporter Ron Elving:

Ron and Scott: In a two-way between the two of you this morning, Ron confused socialism with communism.

Referencing Bernie Sanders announcing his presidential bid, Ron said: “The phrase democratic socialist that Sanders uses a lot — that has quite a few fans, especially among younger voters, who seem to take this word socialist in stride. Older voters still remember the years when to be a socialist was to be on the wrong side of the Cold War in many people’s minds. And voters of all ages will be taking part in those primaries and caucuses starting in less than a year.”

Older voters still remember the years when a COMMUNIST was to be on the wrong side of the Cold War, not a socialist. Sanders’ socialism has nothing to do with the Soviet Union or China and everything to do with the social democracies of Europe and Canada.

In the mid- to late-1980s, I was the editor of Nuclear Times , a peace and disarmament magazine that covered the Cold War face-off between the United States and the Soviet Union, and we would never call the USSR a “socialist” country. Sweden, da. Russia, nyet. After my stint at Nuclear Times, I joined the NPR foreign desk as an editor.

Either you guys don’t know your history or you are deliberately redbaiting Sanders.

Unfortunately other reporters and columnists have done the same thing. In October 2015, for example, The Washington Post ran a front page story on Sanders that included this passage:

“Twenty-four years after the end of the Cold War, many Americans no longer associate socialism with fear or missiles — or with failure, food lines or empty Soviet supermarkets. A word that their elders saw as a slur had become a blank, open for Sanders to define.”

I wrote a letter to the editor to correct the record, pointing out that the “Soviet system of government was communism, not socialism.” My letter went on to explain that the residents of social democracies in Europe and Canada on average fare better than Americans.

It is critical for news organizations to accurately define what Sanders is talking about when he says that he is a democratic socialist, especially since President Trump and other Republicans are now associating socialism with the debacle in Venezuela.

It’s shocking that NPR could get this wrong. I expect more from you guys.

Analyze the points packed into the Sanders portion of the NPR segment below and the packaged propaganda shines through.

SIMON: Senator Bernie Sanders entered the 2020 race for president this week – I think $6 million he raised within 48 hours or something. But he touched off a recurrent question about if he’s really a Democrat in all ways, maybe. This week, he refused to call Nicolas Maduro a dictator.

KALTENHEUSER: Everyone knows Bernie raised nearly 6 million, mostly small contributions, in 24 hours, with 600 grand of that in monthly pledges. Except Simon, who waters that impressive feat down, to “forty-eight hours or something.” Then he trots out the murky strawman of whether Bernie’s “really a democrat in all ways, maybe.” Simon elevates that to “a recurrent question”, nevermind Bernie’s pledge to run as a Democrat, his position in the Democratic leadership, his stumping like a circus trooper for Democratic Party candidates, and everything else in his history, not least his 2016 campaign. Simon then parrots the criticism of Floridians like Clintonite Donna Shalala that Bernie didn’t call Venezuela’s Maduro a dictator, as if Bernie secretly supports Maduro. There’s no elaboration that while Bernie is not beating the drum for opening the Pandora’s Box of military intervention, he is calling for free and fair elections in Venezuela. That’s hardly a subversive position, particularly when the mouths of the slippery axis of Trump, Bolton and Abrams publicly water for Venezuela crude. But Simon won’t even attempt such basic and responsible nuance. He just lets the smear float freely.

Does Simon really believe his own bullshit, or is it flowing from an NPR edict from top down? Is Simon auditioning for Chuck Todd and his merry band of Sabbath Gasbags? Inquiring minds want to know.

And now Elving takes the cue, undermining Berne’s prospects by implying Bernie is disingenuous  and only feigning to be a Democrat because he’d like to be President. And, he’s been an independent! Never mind that he always caucused with the Democrats, and be sure to ignore he’s in the Democratic leadership. Just keep up the Orwellian suggestions of uncertainty about who Bernie really is, that he’s just playing the Democrats. Does Elving think the largest group of voters, self-identified independents, will take offense at independent labels?

ELVING: You know, terminology and labels are not ultimately where people live, but they can have meaning and effect when it comes to campaigns. We certainly saw that in 2016. Sanders only calls himself a Democrat when he’s seeking to be the party nominee for president. The rest of the time and in Congress, he calls himself an independent. And that may be more accurate.

KALTENHEUSER: Elliott already nicely addressed the red-baiting below, but also note the attempt to undercut Bernie’s prospects by driving an electorate age wedge on Bernie’s secret identity. I think much of that age wedge is a work in progress by pundits in search of a comment. If enough say it, it must be true.

ELVING: The phrase democratic socialist that Sanders uses a lot — that has quite a few fans, especially among younger voters, who seem to take this word socialist in stride. Older voters still remember the years when to be a socialist was to be on the wrong side of the Cold War in many people’s minds. And voters of all ages will be taking part in those primaries and caucuses starting in less than a year.

Christ on a bicycle! Trump’s writers are moonlighting at NPR! They at least seem kissing cousins. Their common purpose ultimately juices the risks of getting the same result as the 2016 fiasco.

Elving caught my attention a while back when an NPR correspondent described newly elected Arizona Senator Kyrsten Sinema as a moderate. Elving went that foolishness one better, calling Sinema a progressive. As Howie has pointed out, when Sinema was in the House she had the worst voting record of any Democrat. Sinema, a bought and paid for Wall Street minion, was chair of the Blue Dogs. Would someone please explain to Ron Elving that the Blue Dogs are not a posse of progressive pooches? And perhaps NPR analysts might want to study up on the analyses of Progressive Punch, which awards Sinema an F as she battles it out with Nevada’s Jacky Rosen for worst Democrat in the Senate. Spell-check keeps changing Sinema to Cinema. Perhaps it’s right. Her image embraced by NPR is quite a show.

NPR’s bias drifts about. In December I watched a seminar, “Undermining the Courts and the Media: The Consequences for American Democracy” at the National Press Club. Bob Garfield, a host of NPR’s “On the Media” was the moderator of a panel of journalists. About five hours and eight minutes into this video, here’s Garfield. “As an institution, we are almost as equally distrusted by the Left. I mean, there is nothing quite like the lip curl of a Bernie Bro using the words mainstream media. I mean, it’s really such a sight to behold. Because obviously we are just such whores to The Man…. especially the Times, James, I mean, what does your inbox look like? …Your job is to have a diversity of opinion and balance and yet you have to deal with these sometimes quite astonishing accusations that you are just a shill for big capital or you name it.”

With his affinity for lip curls, I’m surprised Garfield didn’t just reveal Bernie as Snidley Whiplash. I’ll resist the temptation to mention the Times drumbeat to invade Iraq, its continued backing of the mythology that Clinton’s repeal of Glass-Steagall had nothing to do with the economic debacle bequeathed by bankers behaving badly, and the gatling gun Times columnists trained on Bernie during the 2016 primaries. Well, my resistance is weak.

To his credit, James Bennet, now editor of the Times editorial page, said a lot of the criticism is deserved, and that the editorial page needs to have its feet held to the fire, that it aims to have a wide variety of opinions needed while arguing its way toward the truth at a time a lot of big questions are in play, and conventional answers aren’t adequate. A number of the journalists’ comments on challenges facing journalism are worth a listen.

Is “On the Media” looking for topic suggestions? Probably not this one. How about a serious soul-searching on the bias of mainstream media, including NPR, specifically against Bernie during the 2016 primaries? And maybe keep an eye on it during the 2020 primary season. Have Thomas Frank on as a guest, revisiting the points he made about he Washington Post and other media coverage of the 2016 primaries in his excellent Harper’s essay, Swat Team, by Thomas. It ought to be required reading for journalism students rolling the dice that a career might await. WaPo is already preparing its editorial gauntlet for Bernie. Here’s a silly early entrant, pushing the notion that Bernie was a flash in the pan Bernie, your moment has come — and gone. After Amazon had to pony up 15 beans an hour, is the world’s richest man running scared from Bernie?

I imagine we’ll see NPR – including focused shows like “On the Media” and “1A, Speak Freely” – honestly tackle that topic about the time we’ll see in-depth coverage of the proposals for anti-boycott laws that seek to throw America’s First Amendment under the bus on behalf of a foreign power. Or for that matter, on the systematic repression, often violent and sometimes fatal, of Palestinian journalists, as the American government averts its gaze and opens its treasury to unquestioned support of Israel’s far and farther right.

Appropriately, NPR never misses the chance to mention the Saudi assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. It does miss the chance to discuss the Israeli spy technology the Saudi regime uses to monitor dissidents like Khashoggi. Selective critiques are the difference between earning sanctioned merit badges and attempting a journalistic profile in courage.

Bernie is more apt to call Middle East injustices as he sees them, which is a profile in courage by Washington standards. It earns him the ready-made enmity of groups that want no such clear-eyed views and that seek to marginalize him. Other groups that realize Bernie is as unbuyable as the late Wisconsin Senator Willam Proxmire was also want to define Bernie in ways that diminish him. They know people who can’t be bought pose a danger. Bernie’s deep in the pockets of hordes of small donors. Pretty damn dangerous, that.

Irritation by NPR’s political coverage of the 2016 primaries prompted this piece: Reflections on an Election Year When It Finally Hit the Fan.

Here’s a couple excerpts relevant to NPR:

“Frustrations on the coverage of the Democratic primaries have been slow-cooking quite awhile. Not just with the networks, I’m also looking at you, National Public Radio. Does NPR have a clue as to how badly it’s damaged its brand from reporters and commentators chirping regurgitations of Hillary talking points from the outset? For that matter do the NY Times and the Washington Post? They’ve sounded so long like self-appointed gatekeepers, queen-makers, charges of media malpractice now abound. Now brace for articles, already appearing, on how Bernie blew it, too little too late. Never mind media putting him in a box and for so long paying scant attention beyond socialist snowball in hell status.

We can take solace that the public’s collective tin ear to media fixes is well on its way to repair, but that doesn’t cure the frustration. I listened to NPR’s Scott Simon Saturday, interviewing (lecturing) RoseAnn DeMoro, executive director of National Nurses United, over her group’s support of Bernie Sanders.

Ms. DeMoro acquitted herself well, plowing past Simon’s condescending entreaties to party unity, to getting the inevitability of math, to what’s really practical for health care in the political system, and to every other point he could squeeze in to call the game before the clock runs out. In his mindset there’s only one game in town. Never mind pushing the party where it needs to go, never mind concern over game-changers that might wait in the wings. But I assure you in Washington there’s ample trepidation over what might next waltz out of the wings, and on its impact on voter turnout for down-ballot races.

Simon’s comments typify the drumbeat to make Bernie the fall guy for Hillary’s troubles. Apparently it’s now against the law to point out that occasionally the empress strolls buck-naked. And the commentariat now infuses Bernie with mystical powers to demand his supporters rise up for Hillary. If not, Bernie’s fault Hillary loses…

…Here’s a thought. If you want Bernie’s supporters to come around for Hillary, quit trying to stifle their voice at every opportunity, quit telling them from the outset their aspirations are hopeless, their efforts pointless, that they’re naive as to what’s possible, that if we end up in Trumpville it’s their fault for not folding early.”

Fortunately, the unwavering support of media champions like Simon glided Hillary over the top and into the White House.… What?

I’ve been wondering what fears and long term bets resonate at NPR during these days of shifting political fortunes, what it looks for when it looks over its shoulder.

Elliott told me,  “In the mid-1990s, some NPR editors were worried about being perceived as ‘too liberal.’ Newt Gingrich was speaker of the house, and he was harassing NPR. If I remember correctly, Gingrich was threatening to cut off federal funds for NPR and asked the network to produce a list of all its employees who had previously worked for Pacifica radio stations. NPR refused to honor his request.”

Well, good for NPR on that refusal. But another topic for “On the Media” might be the influence of NPR donors, including donor demographics and particularly corporate donors, on topics and coverage.

Personally, I’d like to see increasing government funding of public radio that strengthens confidence in the independence of its political reporting. But until my confidence returns, I’m just glancing online to see if there are offerings of interest, usually arts and culture and science. Otherwise I’m spending more time perusing the BBC and Pacifica. And with apologies to Garfield, what I might call alternative media.

I thought it quite telling that NPR didn’t bother to cover Bernie’s town hall on inequality last Spring, with guests including Elizabeth Warren and Michael Moore. Despite an overflow crowd and nearly two million watching online, it got the NPR cold shoulder. It was held in the US Capitol building, a short walk from NPR headquarters.

To be fair, it was a crowded news day at NPR. A gorilla in Philly walked upright to keep his hands clean. You can still catch “Inequality in America: The Rise of Oligarchy and the Collapse of the Middle Class.”

Voters in the 2020 primaries, from the early states like Iowa to the ones that ice the cake, are well-advised to be as judicious parsing for objective news sources, and as wary of media herd instinct, as they are selecting their preferred candidates.

The post Dance with the One that Brought You – BERNIE! appeared first on Traveling Archive.

Allow me to offer a few additional thoughts on the recent Economic Inequality Town Hall that triggered Howie’s post on job guarantees.

The event, “Inequality in America: The Rise of Oligarchy and Collapse of the Middle Class,” took place on the 19th in the Visitor Center at the US Capitol before an overflow crowd. Its panel included Bernie Sanders, Senator Elizabeth Warren, filmmaker Michael Moore and economist Darrick Hamilton, with input from thoughtful experts, interspersed with short films of people describing their economic realities in ways that fracture stereotypes. I watched it here, thinking what a great resource it is for candidates and others exploring progressive values. Over 1.7 million viewers watched online, a figure I hope rises as it’s sent about and if astute teachers make it a homework assignment.

Smack dab in the center of the swamp, this should have been a top drawer political story. Those wondering why so much of mainstream media is being deserted for alternative media offerings might do a search trying to find coverage of this event in publications like WaPo and the NY Times, and in the All Things Lightly Considered-type shows at NPR. To be fair, the following day was a crowded news day at NPR. For example, a gorilla in Philly walked upright to keep his hands clean.

What does this lack of MSM attention tell us? Unless we start making noise, we’re going to see corporate media continue to use its coverage, or withholding of it, to damp down the prospect of truly progressive contenders who might exorcise the demon leeches from America’s executive branch and the rest of government.

One wearies of media’s frequent lumping together of all stripes of populism as if they make up a uniform monolith. As if Berlusconi and Bernie are cousins, with Trump the missing link. It’s hard not to suspect some of an effort to tar Bernie’s brand of egalitarianism. Let journalists, commentators, editors and any remaining of the vanishing ombudsman species know how dopy it sounds. It might eventually shame them into making the distinctions one hopes those in their profession are capable of. If they aren’t capable or willing to end such media malpractice, they’d best continue on to their more promising careers in propaganda.

Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren sure looked to me like an amiable presidential ticket. Mitch McConnell and Republican strategists who once dissed Warren in order to elevate her status, hoping she’d land on a presidential ticket, might be rethinking their wish list. You know wish lists. Like Hillary had for running against Trump. But as Hillary points out, she had the cool, prosperous, dynamic places in her pocket. What’s to worry about places where people are hurting from neglect, from opioids, war casualties, unaffordable education and foaming the runway with people.

I marvel at what Bernie has done. Distilling his themes and pounding away at them, he’s helped sort our confusion over what’s happening around us, giving us focal points. He might have had to run for President to do it, but with apologies to Ralph Nader, Bernie has had more success than anyone in recent memory to substantively change the political dialogue across the political spectrum. You probably have to go back to Clean Gene McCarthy and Uncle Ross Perot for contenders. Reagan of course, but he moved us toward the dark side. Bernie’s provided a legitimate framework that Everyman can use to interpret what is going on behind the scenes in those places where public viewing is verboten, like forbidden meetings of lawyers for colluding banks. Despite his label as an Independent, never mind democratic socialist, he is the vanguard for reforming the Democratic Party, in the near term the only real game in town. That is one hell of an accomplishment. Even when it seems Bernie’s about to stretch our attention spans by smacking our hands with a ruler, he’s coming off as darn likable. Smiling more and dressing dapper, if he wasn’t so worried about the country cracking apart – worry that seems written on his face – he might enjoy himself. No one can accuse Bernie of sticking his finger in the wind before he speaks. How many politicians can you say that about?

There’s nothing I’d change in this kitchen sink pitch for Bernie during the primaries. It begins with an example of the media knives out for Bernie. A National Press Club election post-mortem on the media is here. True, Bernie now gets invited on the Sunday shows, for short segments. Producers figured out the most popular politician in America is a ratings booster.

For a thicker slice of Bernie unbound than the Sunday shows carve, here’s a twenty-five minute symposium keynote I heard him give last November to the Economists for Peace & Security, warming up on the bought-and-paid-for levers of inequality.

A quick digression on when I became aware of Micheal Moore’s work. I knew former Congressman Jim Corman, a terrific guy, gone now, whose family was kind enough to host my wedding in their backyard, with Jim giving my wife away. Jim’s father was a silica miner in rural Kansas who died of related lung disease. Jim was always batting to hit long balls for the downtrodden. The GOP targeted him for his support of the Supreme Court’s decision to tackle desegregation with busing. Next in line for Ways & Means chairman, he lost by a hair when Jimmy Carter conceded defeat while the polls were still open in California. Jim was dismayed by what Reagan was doing to unions, starting with the air traffic controllers. He predicted a downward spiral for those who’d achieved middle class status with the help of unions.

Through Jim, I met Dale Kildee, a Michigan congressman who grew up in and taught school in Flint. I took him to see (Hyperlink) “Roger and Me,” a 1989 film in which Moore explores the impacts of General Motors laying off Flint union workers, replacing their labor with that of non-unionized workers in Mexico. Roger is Roger B. Smith, then chairman of GM. The late, great Roger Ebert discusses the film’s controversies here.

Two of the film’s scenes involved women trying to make ends meet for their families by raising rabbits, necessary to supplement their job wages. The first had a sign offering customers the choice of rabbits for pets or meat. In the second, a woman shows her affection for a rabbit then whacks it in the head and skins it for her family’s dinner that night. Both matter-of-factly discuss their lives while demonstrating the critical role their rabbits played. I glanced at the Congressman and saw tears rolling down his cheek. I then understood what was happening in his home town. And this was long before Republicans decided to save money with hot and cold running lead.

Sanders made the point, there was more discussion on inequality issues in this single town meeting than the networks ever present. Indeed, think of the rarity of gems like Harvest of Shame, Edward R. Murrow’s final program for CBS. If you haven’t seen the riveting 1960 documentary on the lives of American migrant agricultural workers it can be seen here.

I did see a decent piece on the town hall event in The Guardian, a British owned-paper with an American edition, and a media partner for the event.

The Guardian occasionally risks losing its MSM card by publishing Thomas Frank’s essays. Here’s a worthy batch.

To its credit, FOX News took note of the event. Except that it did so with goofballs claiming middle class shrinkage is from so many moving up. Comedy Central gets a run for its money.

The Hill initially focused on quips Moore and Sanders made about Stormy Daniels, along with Russians, being among the shiny keys to distract us.

Some irony there, the lesson that if you want media notice, at least give media a chance to quote mention of Stormy as a shiny distraction. I guess if one really wants coverage, put her on a panel.

Thankfully, I am above such cheap tricks.

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The Graham-Cassidy attempt to hamstring the health care of millions– the latest fruit of Justice Anthony Kennedy’s eternal gift to democracy, the Citizens United accelerant of bribery– has flamed out. But the donors to bought-and-paid for members of Congress will not go quietly, not when their congressional minions have their tin cups out. Increasingly desperate to fill campaign coffers, the minions seek to please their paymasters. Politico is reporting Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) vows to vote against a budget resolution that doesn’t resuscitate the health care battle. Noises are being made about reconciliation instructions for both health care and tax reform in the fiscal 2018 budget resolution. This might increase the odds of more happy flameouts, including of tax gifts to the very well-heeled. That would displease plenty of big donors. But even if taxes become the major focus, kicking the health care can down the road, Democrats shouldn’t let up on educating the public on the perils of mischief like Graham-Cassidy. And they need to make the case for real health care evolutions, explaining why significant improvement requires sidelining profits of the big donors fighting single-payer, primarily insurance and pharmaceutical interests.

Toward that end, perhaps a bit of spiritual guidance. Enclosed below is the September 25th letter to the Senate from the Interfaith Healthcare Coalition, with their message that “healhcare is an essential human right,” and detailing risks facing the most vulnerable among us.

September 25, 2017

Dear Senators:

We, the more than 3,000 undersigned faith leaders representing Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, and Buddhist traditions, believe that healthcare is an essential human right. We believe that individuals and families should not have to worry about the future of their healthcare coverage and whether or not it will be ripped away.

It was a tremendous relief that Congress was working in an open, bipartisan way to improve our healthcare system. But now, we are outraged that Congress would abandon these efforts for another partisan attempt that would take healthcare away from millions of our people. For the sake of our people, please oppose the Graham-Cassidy proposal and support the reauthorization of the vital Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Disproportionate Share Hospitals (DSH) program.

The Graham-Cassidy proposal would cause millions to lose health coverage, and people experiencing vulnerability, sickness, and poverty would be hit the hardest. Over the next decade, ACA funding would be eliminated, Medicaid would be gutted, and critical protections, such as for people with preexisting conditions, could be eliminated in certain states. Graham-Cassidy would end Medicaid as we know it by instituting a per capita cap and shifting billions of dollars onto states. The result would be nothing short of reducing access to quality healthcare, raising premiums, and eliminating protections for millions of Americans. In 2027 alone, Graham-Cassidy would cut federal health care spending by $299 billion. More than 37 million children would be affected by cuts to Medicaid.

Graham-Cassidy not only threatens the health coverage of millions of children through cuts to Medicaid, but it also delays bipartisan congressional action to extend funding for programs like the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). Since its creation in 1997, the uninsured rate of low- and middle-class children has decreased from 14% to just 5%. Without reauthorization, CHIP funding will expire at the end of September, and the nearly 9 million children on CHIP might begin to receive termination notices.

We also urge you to protect funding for DSH, which supports safety-net hospitals that provide health services to people without insurance. Without this funding, many hospitals will face difficult decisions to cut services or close entirely. In rural areas especially, lower-income Americans will face a crisis. The $43 billion in proposed funding cuts over the next eight years will cause job loss, a decrease in the quality and number of services hospitals provide, and create life-threatening gaps in healthcare service for many Americans.

To allow Graham-Cassidy to pass the Senate– and to allow the CHIP and DSH programs to lapse– is to allow the health of America’s most vulnerable people to face unnecessary and immoral obstacles. Jobs will be lost, local economies will be harmed, and access to healthcare will become a challenge for many. Therefore, we deplore this proposed legislation and these potential funding cuts and pray that you will work with your colleagues in Congress to prevent any disruption of healthcare for Americans.

As faith leaders, it is our duty to care for and minister to people in our communities. As Senators, you have a similar duty to care for your constituents. Please focus on bipartisanship rather than political posturing, oppose Graham-Cassidy, and extend CHIP and DSH funding.

Sincerely,
National Faith Leaders

Here’s a few comments that typify the unifying views of the religiously diverse signatories:

Sister Simone Campbell, SSS, NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice:

Once again, a group of white, male Senators have crafted a plan that is out of touch with the realities of millions of ordinary families and fails the moral tests of our faith. The Graham-Cassidy-Heller-Johnson proposal is immoral policy that would hurt millions of people, and their plan to rush it through without knowing the impact is reckless. This new repeal bill goes far beyond the BCRA by eliminating all ACA premium and copay supports, gutting Medicaid, and removing protections for people with pre-existing conditions. These policies target people struggling to get by, the sick, and the elderly—the very people Jesus teaches us to put first. Catholic sisters stand with our nation’s most vulnerable people and we must stand against this anti-health, anti-life legislation.

Rabbi Jill Jacobs, T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights:

Our insistence on the moral duty of the government to ensure health care for all comes from our grounding both in human rights, and in Jewish teachings. Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, one of the most important twentieth-century legal authorities, notes, “When poor people are ill and cannot afford medical expenses, the community sends a doctor to visit them, and the medicine is paid for by the communal fund.” (Tzitz Eliezer 5:4) And Rabbi Shlomo Goren, former Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel declares, “the government may not excuse itself from responsibility toward the sick since the government is responsible for the health of the people.” (Assia journal 21:40) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights requires that all countries provide “standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including … medical care.”

Colin Christopher, Islamic Society of North America:

We have a moral obligation in this country to care for those who are young, elderly, sick, or unable to fend for themselves. If we can build the mightiest defense system the world has ever known, we also have the ability to fund the best preventative health care system. The Graham-Cassidy bill would decimate patient protections, decrease care, and directly lead to thousands of preventable lives lost that are currently being saved by the affordability and coverage of the ACA.

Sr. Patricia McDermott, RSM, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas:

The Sisters of Mercy, who have been providing healthcare services for people who are poor and vulnerable for nearly 175 years in the U.S., believe that access to health care and adequate health insurance coverage is a fundamental human right. Rather than taking away health care for millions of Americans over the next several years, we should be finding ways to strengthen and expand health coverage and improve affordability.

Dr. Noel Castellanos, Christian Community Development Association:

As people of faith we lift our voices to declare to our lawmakers that eliminating healthcare for millions of vulnerable Americans is shameful and immoral. To do so is putting politics over the needs of people and cannot be justified. Fix ACA so more Americans can get coverage, don’t obliterate it at the expense of the poor.

Diane Randall, Friends Committee on National Legislation:

The Cassidy-Graham health care proposal violates the very values that lie at the core of Quaker morals. This bill would threaten the health and dignity of millions of Americans, especially low-income children, seniors, and people with disabilities. Cassidy-Graham includes extreme cuts to Medicaid, undermines critical protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions, shifts billions of dollars onto states, and will cause tens of millions of Americans to lose health coverage. Moreover, advancing this legislation will destroy the productive and bipartisan work currently taking place. Rather than trying to force through yet another rushed, ultra-partisan, dysfunctional health care proposal that causes millions of Americans to lose health coverage, Congress should refocus back on the bipartisan negotiations so desperately needed to stabilize the insurance markets and lower health care costs.

As good as members of Congress are at feigning religion, they might take heed of the moral imperatives expressed in such sentiments. Or at least the increasing number of voters embracing those ideals.

A quick plug, the most promising way out of a health care system fractured by special interests is the proposal by Bernie Sanders, as expressed in his NY Times essay. The more the public learns of it, the more it appears to warm to it, and to discount the special interest knives flashing across mainstream media. If there’s another economic crisis gifted by Wall Street, ramping up the bankruptcies, foreclosures and general miseries from family health crisis cost bombs, the public may warm up with torches and pitchforks, or at least take a sober look at what many of those claiming to represent them in Congress are really all about. Sure, the proposal is a work in progress. So progress. There is no other way out of our quagmire.

Don’t think there’s plenty of time because of the most recent failure to upend health care. When the big money– including insurance and pharmaceutical– sloshes about both parties, it has a hell of track record of making steady gains, fighting on a number of fronts. Here’s an informative piece from The Intercept on lobbyists cranking up to derail Single-Payer as it builds steam. Here’s another, on Republican efforts to pre-empt attempts by states to create their own single-payer programs, revealing the farce in claims that Graham-Cassidy repeal efforts aim to empower the states.

Allow a digression, a nod to Senator McCain, responding to his summer health care vote. It also revisits a long-haul look at the slide toward banana republic status greased by Washington’s campaign finance industry, a not-so-distant cousin to the vampire squid.

Thank you again, Senator McCain, and to Senator Collins and the others jumping that dark ship flying the Jolly Roger.

On health care, Congress should take the sweetest of oaths: do no harm.

From a translation of the line of the Hippocratic Oath, “I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous.” Play doctor, Congress, but put your heart in it.

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