Progressive Media

Ed Schultz KO's Joe Scarborough

Bob Fertik — Thu, 21 May 2009 08:39:13 -0400

It was a rare pleasure to wake up to Ed Schultz ripping Joe Scarborough to shreds. Ed was particularly good on the faux-controversy over Speaker Pelosi, demanding the name of a single House Democrat who thinks Pelosi should be replaced as Speaker. Of course Joe couldn't name a single one because (1) House Democrats credit Pelosi with putting Democrats in the majority, and (2) because they believe her when she says the CIA lied to her.

Joe (and Mika) continue to be shocked! shocked! that anyone could accuse the CIA of lying. Hey JoeMika - over 4,600 of our bravest sons and daughters are dead and 20 times that number are maimed because the CIA lied!

INN Battles Free Speech TV

Bob Fertik — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 11:30:48 -0400

Obviously this is just INN's side of the story, but we have had an excellent relationship with INN since the Stolen Election of 2000 and want them to continue to do their outstanding work, and hopefully get back onto FSTV in a better time slot..

Free Speech TV Gags Independent National Newscast

The Free Speech TV network (FSTV), widely perceived as a progressive broadcast provider, has undermined and provoked its daily evening news show to cancel production. "The International News Net" (INN)-- now in its seventh year as a premiere source of high-quality, in-depth daily reporting on world affairs was forced to quit through a pattern of discriminatory revenue and scheduling practices. These include selective blocking of the viewer donor base, discriminatory revenue-sharing, and exclusion from prime-time scheduling in key communities.

The INN evening newscast, and its "parent" FSTV network are both viewer-supported. But FSTV has now refused requests from INN, as well as major donors, and guests for the newscast to be scheduled at reasonable air times for the west coast -- where financial support for both the network and the show have traditionally been strongest.

Moreover, FSTV has arbitrarily allowed on-air fundraising and prime time access for other daily informational programs. As a result of FSTV policies, unfairly favored programs are growing disproportionately -- while INN faced extinction having been denied similar fair and equitable programmatic and fiscal considerations.

Ironically, FSTV has used the highly-reputed INN "brand" to raise money for itself, but does not allow INN, its so-called "broadcast partner," to appeal for funding within its own news program -- or even to share in the revenues gained from an annual two-months of on-air fundraising in which INN has been a prominent magnet for FSTV viewer support.

INN has delivered via its own satellite uplink up the hour news. INN has provided exclusive daily broadcast rights to FSTV for its hard-hitting and highly-informed one half hour-long program of news and interviews with top sources, including award-winning journalists, activists, independent producers, filmmakers, and politicians every Monday through Friday since 2004. Before that I.N.N delivered a weekly news in review to FSTV since 2002.

INN believes the world of alternative media, the global news community, and information consumers have been severely damaged by these practices. Without an independent platform such as INN to challenge and inform a media establishment that thrives on monopoly and discriminatory practices, hundreds of journalists will have one place less to tell their vital stories. And, equally tragically, millions of viewers of this valuable service will be denied their independent daily global newscast as provided by INN.

The Press Can Only Get Better, Not Worse

Bob Fertik — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:43:44 -0500

Glen Greenwald asks,

Is it even theoretically possible to have a worse, more deceitful and more moronic press than the one we have?

Atrios responds, Sadly, yes. But for once I disagree with Atrios. And the reasons are purely market-driven.

The only reason the "press" exists is to filter news for citizens who don't have time to filter the ever-raging torrent of news themselves. Otherwise no one would "consume" its product.

Each news consumer chooses "press" outlets that filter the news in the way that best reflects his or her values and interests. They may or may not spend money for their news, but ultimately what matters is where they spend their time because advertisers will always follow them and reward the press outlets that have the most and best consumers.

In the 19th Century, big city readers had many newspapers to choose from, and market forces rewarded the "best" press. But press economics were completely transformed in the mid-20th Century by radio and TV broadcasting, because licenses were restricted and big corporations cornered the market (except for plucky alternative Pacifica Radio). The corporate-owned press wasn't interested in values, just profits, so it stopped competing on values and started competing on access - who could get the scoop or the best newsmaker interview.

That is the "press" that Glenn Greenwald and Atrios and the rest of us all rail against. It was a virtual monopoly until the emergence of the "blogosphere" around 2003. But George Bush drove the "press" over the cliff with the invasion of Iraq.

Luckily for America, the Internet had emerged as an alternative "press." There were good magazines like Salon and The Nation, and lots of smaller proto-blogs like Democrats.com. Thanks to Blogger.com, in 2003 it became possible for anyone to start a blog, giving rise to instant "press" stars like Atrios, Digby, Crooks and Liars.

Driven by the unrelenting and disastrous Iraq war lies, intelligent citizens started reading blogs and stopped consuming the garbage produced by the corrupt "access" press.

This was the free market for news at work. And it is because of the free market - made possible by the neutral Internet - that the "press" can only get better, not worse.

This year, market forces compelled second-tier newspapers to close their Washington bureaus and remove a lot of dead wood. Quality blogs with first-rate Washington reporters like the Huffington Post, Salon, Talking Points Memo, The Nation, Mother Jones, Americablog, Raw Story, and the Washington Independent are quickly replacing them, making "the press" genuinely better.

And market forces are even working their magic on TV. FOX was always just a Republican propaganda outlet, but Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008 persuaded MSNBC executives there was a market for progressive viewpoints. They put their toes in the water with Keith Olbermann and discovered the water was fine, which allowed them to give Rachel Maddow a much-deserved show. Their success is slowly spreading throughout the MSNBC schedule, and will someday breach the hostile "press" bastions of Morning Joe, the Sunday shows, and CNN.

Thanks to Internet neutrality, the genuine free market in news is a wondrous thing indeed!

Impeachment: Where Olbermann, Turley, and Fineman Are Wrong

Bob Fertik — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 20:48:58 -0400

Kucinich's historic Articles of Impeachment were the top story on Tuesday's Countdown with Keith Olbermann - which is now the #1 cable news show, beating out The O'Reilly Factor for the first time.

Olbermann and his guests treated Kucinich with tremendous respect - which formed a sharp contrast to the nasty coverage Kucinich received last November (led by the ineffable Countdown regular Dana Milbank) when he introduced 3 Articles of Impeachment against Vice President Cheney.

But there was still a fundamental problem with the analysis by Olbermann, Georgetown Law Professor Jonathan Turley, and Newsweek reporter Howard Fineman: they missed three of the five major reasons for impeaching a President:

To stop one or more criminal activities being committed by the President
To put the President on trial for those criminal activities as a political punishment
To remove him or her from office as a limited form of accountability, namely losing the powers and trappings of the Presidency
To allow a President to be prosecuted under the law for full accountability, which is prohibited while (s)he is in office
To deter future Presidents from committing similar crimes

In the minds of Olbermann, Turley, and Fineman, the only reasons to impeach George Bush are #2 and #3 - to put Bush on trial and possibly remove him. But why are they missing the other three reasons?

1. Remarkably, none of them want to recognize that Bush's criminal activities are ongoing. The closest anyone got was Olbermann saying Bush should be removed even with just a few months remaining in his term because every day he is taking America to hell in a handbasket. But that was a ridiculously weak statement compared with the searing indictments in Olbermann's own "Special Comments."

In Iraq, Bush is still occupying a country that he invaded illegally at massive cost in blood and treasure, and his agents are still committing war crimes in some of their actions against civilians and prisoners. Here at home, Bush is still wiretapping Americans without a warrant, still defying Acts of Congress with signing statements, and still destroying all the evidence of his crimes to obstruct justice.

So the first reason to impeach Bush is to finally stop him from committing all of these crimes!

4. The concept of post-office prosecution was entirely absent from the conversation. Here Turley deserves the most blame, because he is the only lawyer among the three of them. Surely he understands that a former President can be prosecuted for crimes committed while in office. And when it comes to war crimes, there is no statute of limitations.

5. The concept of deterring a future President was also entirely absent.

So why did they ignore these three reasons, which are completely obvious to everyone in the impeachment movement?

Because the Washington elite - even the most "liberal" - refuse to recognize Bush's activities as not just bad policies, but actual crimes.

More broadly, they refuse to see George Bush and his administration as a criminal enterprise.

Here at Democrats.com, we recognized this shocking fact from the day they stole the Presidential election in Florida by order of a 5-4 Republican majority of the U.S. Supreme Court. That's because we recognized that the 2000 election was literally stolen through illegal voter disenfranchisement, most famously the "felon" purge uncovered by Greg Palast.

Until HBO broadcast "Recount," the Washington elite refused to even discuss the possibility that the 2000 election was stolen by George Bush and his corrupt Republican cronies on the Supreme Court. And now it is so long ago that none of them remember or care about the crimes.

But we at Democrats.com remember the Stolen Election of 2000 like it was yesterday. And despite the demands then - and even now from the Felon-in-Chief, Justice Antonin Scalia - we will never get over it.

And that's why we will insist on holding George Bush and Dick Cheney fully accountable for all of their crimes until the day they die.

Of course, those of us who understood that Bush stole the White House - and has led a criminal enterprise in the White House ever since - are not permitted on TV to articulate what 70% of Americans know deep in their hearts, because those of us who believe in "quaint" things like the Constitution and the Rule of Law are just DFH's - "dirty f**ing hippies."

But maybe someday soon Olbermann will let us on his show to finally break the deafening silence...

freespeacht tv program

michael fabiszewski — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 05:46:28 -0500

Did anyone out there happen to see the program on freespeech t.v. on or about Dec. 20, a very enthusiastic gentleman talking about the many reasons for impeaching g.w. bush? If you happen to have watched that show, and know the name of that man who gave the presentation, I would like his e-mail to thank him for doing so much research, his message was right on, geedubya gotta go! hope to hear from you soon, my e-mail is luckytrdr@yahoo.com, later !

Moveon.TV

Bob Fertik — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 10:51:59 -0400

For entirely crazy reasons, the biggest news story of last week was Moveon.org's ad in the NY Times.

Was it the biggest news story because Moveon questioned a sacred General? Hardly. American generals have been questioned throughout American history, starting with Gen. George Washington's defeat at Brandywine Creek.

The only reason is because FOX News created a Shitstorm (TM) over the ad.

What is a Shitstorm (TM)? It's when FOX News takes a bullshit topic and turns it into a tornado by pumping it full of bullshit for a major chunk of each news cycle for day after day.

There have been innumerable Shitstorms since FOX went on the air. FOX actually has two going right now - the Moveon ad and the visit of Ahmedinejad to Columbia. If you tune in for any given hour you'll get at least 10 minutes of both.

As I said, the core of a Shitstorm is bullshit. It is always a direct or indirect attack on Democrats and liberals, taking some small "fact" and twisting it to suit their partisan purposes. The most infamous Shitstorms were Al Gore's "sigh" (like George Bush's debate bullshit didn't deserve it?), Howard Dean's "Scream" (which was just Dean yelling over a noisy crowd, distorted for TV by the mic) and John Kerry's "botched joke" (which was an joke against Bush, not the troops), but there have been countless others.

And FOX doesn't end its Shitstorms until its victim is crushed - just ask Gore, Dean and Kerry. (That's why Hillary was so good with Chris Wallace - her laugh made Wallace look like the fool that he is and crushed his attacks.)

So what is the solution to Fox's Shitstorms? We have to fight fire with fire.

Moveon.org must become Moveon.TV

How? I'm not one of those who blithely says Moveon can easily raise hundreds of millions and create its own TV network. First of all they can't, and secondly you can't build a successful business with capital alone - Air America Radio blew through $25 million with little to show for it, and that's just audio on low-wattage AM stations, which costs a whole lot less than TV.

So here's an alternative plan: start with a half hour evening broadcast on Al Gore's Current.tv, and gradually build from there.

Moveon.TV would start with a priceless asset - brand identity. Moveon has always represented idealistic progressive activism, but thanks to George Bush's attacks, Moveon now represents the overwhelming majority of Americans who oppose George Bush.

Moveon.TV would also have a built-in audience of 3 million people. And we're not just any 3 million people - we're the most influential people in America, the people who put Democrats in charge of Congress by beating Karl Rove, George Bush and the vast White House/Republican political machine.

The key to success is terrific energetic TV personalities like Taylor Marsh, Randi Rhodes, Sam Seder, Cliff Shecter, and Nancy Skinner. Give them producers, scriptwriters, editors, and guest bookers. Let them file reports on topics in each day's news and weave them together into a show that has passion, guts, conviction, and a focus on taking action.

Current.tv is already available on many cable networks. Progressives have nothing to watch between Keith Olberman and Jon Stewart, so pick a half-hour between 9 p.m. and 11 p.m. and let it roll.

How could it fail?

The Iraq Veterans Memorial

CactusPat — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 03:47:05 -0400

"The Iraq Veterans Memorial is an online war memorial that honors the members of the U.S. armed forces who have lost their lives serving in the Iraq War. The Memorial is a collection of video memories from family, friends, military colleagues, and co-workers of those that have fallen."

You can host the memorial on your website/blog and download it to burn to DVD. Instructions here...

The Anti-Hillary 1984 Video

CactusPat — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 06:43:22 -0400

Over 2.3 million folks have viewed it on YouTube, now you can too...

Funny what grabs people's attention... but that the way it is with viral video, even, as in this case, if it's based on one created before a third of the population of the country was born...

Oh, and the big mystery is solved, the ~~perp~~ digital artist has been outted...

Mystery creator of anti-Clinton ad ID'd By JIM KUHNHENN

WASHINGTON - The mystery creator of the Orwellian YouTube ad against Hillary Rodham Clinton is a Democratic operative who worked for a digital consulting firm with ties to rival Sen. Barack Obama.

Philip de Vellis, a strategist with Blue State Digital, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press that he was the creator of the video, which portrayed Clinton as a Big Brother figure and urged support for Obama's presidential campaign.

De Vellis said he resigned from the firm on Wednesday after he learned that he was about to be unmasked by the HuffingtonPost.com., a liberal news and opinion Internet site.... (full article)

It's spawned a veritable cottage industry of knock-offs and parallel efforts, like this cheesy attempt to turn the tables on Barrack Obama...

Barack 1984

And a history lesson from speechprofessor at the beginning of his knock-off, Hillary '1984'

This campaign spot for Obama Barack is a parody of the 1984 Apple Computer Super Bowl spot. Hillary Clinton has been substituted for IBM as the mind numbing voice of conformity. In the original spot, the Macintosh was introduced as 'the computer for the rest of us.' Presumably, in this spot, Barack Obama, 'is the candidate for the rest of us.' (though a person would have to be older or check the original spot to make this connection).

Plus here's another effort w/improved soundtrack, Hillary 1984 - Equilibrium Remix

There's many more but this gives a taste of the Hillary 1984 mania that has swept the Internets these past couple weeks....

Stephen Crockett: Democratic Activists Harassed by Republican Lunatics

Chip — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 18:56:09 -0500

In the wake of Ann Coulter's meltdown, Steven Crockett, co-host of Democratic Talk Radio wrote about other typical forms of harassment against Democratic activists from his own experience in "Democratic Activists Harassed by Republican Lunatics."

The idea seems to be to make political activism personally unpleasant and nasty. The Republican Right has routinely acted in this manner to keep voters from the polls. New activists and writers are often discouraged by these tactics. Many veterans of Democratic Internet activism are encouraged. I certainly am emboldened and delighted by the harassment. It means I am being effective and the opposition would like to silence me.

When I first started writing the Democratic Voices column and airing Democratic Talk Radio, the Republican Right lunatic fringe tried to harass us out of business with a tidal wave, frontal assault of insults, venom, profanities, obscenities, occasional death threats, anthrax hoax letters, etc. Once I wrote about how delighted these Republican attacks made me, they slowed to a mere trickle.

We restricted open posting on the Democratic message board and screened-out those members of the lunatic fringe Republicans engaging in the tactics mentioned. The message board was always meant to be a place for Democratic activists to exchange ideas, opinions and information and not a place for debate between activists of different Parties. There are plenty of places for that kind of dialogue other than my site. Our mission statement always made the purpose of the message board clear.

Since only Democratic activists were meant to use the site, Democratic Talk Radio instituted a screening process to keep disrupters from posting disinformation, profanity and insults on our site. We found that Republicans from the lunatic fringe had no problem lying to gain temporary access. They falsely claimed to be Democratic activists, thereby stealing use of private property against the wishes of the owner. So much for respect of property rights by the lunatic fringe of the Republican Right.

A few of them were successful at infiltration for a few months and created a degree of havoc. For many years, the Republican disrupters have pretended to be Libertarians while actually making statements taking positions that are Republican talking points and completely in opposition of real Libertarian ideology. They claimed to be Independents as often as they claimed to be Libertarians. The claims were equally false.

The verbal venom usually gives the imposters away. They have a strong tendency to revert to name-calling and intentional distortion of verbal statements or writings by Democrats. They frequently switch topics when supposedly commenting on topics or articles on various websites just to launch unrelated attacks on things Democratic. Readers should be wary of the motives of anti-Democratic critics using these tactics. They may be agents of the Republican Right.

Infiltration by the Republican Right of opposition groups goes back at least to the Nixon era. The current Republican Right is still closely wedded to the corrupt political tactics of the Nixon era. The 2000 Republican Presidential Primary in South Carolina saw the Bush Republicans absolutely smear their opponent, John McCain. Karl Rove used and is using Nixonian tactics everyday while running the political operations of the Bush White House.

The Scooter Libby trial has shown that dirty politics in Republican Party reaches the very top. We all understand that Tom Delay is not outside the mainstream of Republican politics. Bush and Cheney lied to the American public in order to get us into a disastrous war in Iraq, undermine the Constitutional Separation of Church and State, tilt the tax code heavily in favor of the wealthiest of the wealthy, etc. The Republican Right has a very serious political ethics problem. Honesty is not their strong point. Dirty politics is!

It is not surprising to find them now pretending to be supporters of the anti-Democratic Left. Besides making political involvement nasty, they appear to be trying to divide the opposition to Republican Right policies. The only viable electoral opposition to the Republican Right is the populist base of the Democratic Party.

Frankly, I have very good relations with many real Populists, Libertarians and Greens. We often agree on issues and work together to promote specific positions or policies. Democratic populists have a great deal in common with many third party supporters. In time, many of these third party supporters will find it comfortable to become either Democrats or Democratic-leaning Independents if populism in Democratic circles continue to grow.

Populist Democrats do often struggle against "Republican-lite" elements inside our Party. I believe that the populist Democratic approach now dominates in Democratic circles. The populist control is increasing in strength day by day in community after community. Certainly, Howard Dean, as the national leader of the Democratic Party, is a great example of the rising national ascendancy of Democratic populism.

Coulter Bashes Gays and Edwards As Bodyguards Bash Critic

Chip — Sat, 03 Mar 2007 07:22:11 -0500

Ann Coulter, that contemptuous example of "compassionate conservatism," infamous for bashing the 911 widows who "marinate in their exquisite personal agony...I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much" while promoting her misinformed and skewed diatribe "Godless: The Church of Liberalism" struck out twice at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

First, she simultaneously smeared gays and John Edwards with this despicable comment:

"COULTER: Oh, and I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards. But it turns out that you have to go into rehab if you use the word "faggot," so I'm -- so I'm kind of at an impasse, can't really talk about Edwards. So I think I'll just conclude here and take your questions."

In her own homophobic, duplicitous irrationality, she later added: "Well, you know, screw you, I'm not anti-gay. We're against gay marriage. I don't want gays to be discriminated against. I mean, I think we have, in addition to blacks, I don't know why all gays aren't Republicans. I think we have the pro-gay position, which is anti-crime and for tax cuts. Gays make a lot of money, and they're victims of crime.

Apparently the goddess of crass, Ms. Coulter, doesn't recognize that hate speech is discriminatory, let alone the economic inequity built into the tax code. Her tawdriness is particularly ironic given her declaration: "Frankly, I'm not a big fan of the First Amendment."

As if to prove that point, her bodyguards roughed up one of her critics, Dan Borchers, a lifelong Republican conservative Christian military veteran, cutting his hand and wrestling him out of CPAC. As a journalist at the CPAC, he apparently had erred by asking the wrong questions about Coulter.

Borchers, who runs the website Coulter Watch, has tracked Coulter's writings and exposed what he cites as instances of plagarism.

Lydia Cornell, of the progressive talk radio show Basham & Cornell describes Borchers as "the most mild-mannered, humble Christian. He is critical of the way Ann Coulter has 'mainstreamed extremism'...(his) only crime is being morally offended by the way conservatism has been ruined by people like Coulter who indulge in hate speak. He believes it is his moral obligation to bring attention to this, and that "evil triumphs when good men do nothing."

Mr. Borcher knows something about history, as we've seen fascism before, and Ms. Coulter's hate speech is a perfect example of the third characteristic of fascism:

Ms. Coulter is proof that being well-educated doesn't necessarily mean having a well-developed sense of humaneness or humor, as her email response to a NY Times inquiry revealed: "C'mon, it was a joke. I would never insult gays by suggesting that they are like John Edwards. That would be mean."

Whether desperate for media attention to pump up her flagging career as a creditable, insightful, quotable pundit, too dumb to know when to cut her losses, (as Republican front runners frantically distance themselves from her), or just too vitriolic to exhibit decent self-control, Ms. Coulter has exposed her pathetic, pitiable, shameless inner self for the all the world to see.

Looks as though she made herself into a joke.