2016 Presidential Candidates

[Orema]

Rachel Maddow interviews Hillary Clinton on msnbc.com

Some of the things they discussed:

– Biden not running
– GOP cooperation (or lack of)
– Undoing her husband's policies
– Benghazi hearings

[Orema]

Live Coverage of FOX Business Network and Wall Street Journal GOP Debate

[Cin]

In this article the author mentions that he believes "CNN should think about how it can stop some of its anchors from helping bigotry get mainstreamed" But considering CNN suspended global affairs correspondent Elise Labott for two weeks for tweeting her disapproval of a bill to keep out Syrian refugees with a comment "Statue of Liberty bows head in anguish", I doubt very much that calling out bigotry, racism, or xenophobia is on CNN's agenda. Quite the opposite it seems.

Donald Trump might actually be invincible: His hateful message has taken a fascist turn—and the press is letting him get away with it

The Donald's campaign has gone to some increasingly dark places recently. Yet he's basically getting a free pass

One of the sharpest pieces of media criticism in the past couple of years has come from Slate’s “If It Happened There” series, which imagines how the American media would cover American news in the same way that it covers news from other countries. The thing that the series gets above all is the gap between the on-the-one-hand caution American outlets take when covering domestic issues and the often sweeping, highly opinionated language they use when describing events elsewhere.

I’ve found myself thinking repeatedly about this disparity over the past couple of days, as the anti-Muslim climate in the United States has reached new heights and as Donald Trump has begun conducting what even some conservatives describe as a fascist campaign. How, I wonder, would the American media cover some other country—in South America, say, or the Middle East—where leading presidential candidates explicitly stirred up hatred against an already-demonized minority group and cheered on the beating of protesters at their events; or where armed gangs patrolled outside faith centers and leading businesses sanctioned religious discrimination?

The question answers itself, really. We’d be reading story after story about the terrifying authoritarian climate tearing through Country X—all with the implied assertion that We Don’t Do That Sort Of Thing Here, Thank God.

Well, we certainly do that sort of thing here. Far too often, though, some of our top media outlets are either soft-peddling what’s happening in the presidential campaign and in the country at large, or diving right into the cesspool along with the Trumps of the world. (More on that later.)

When Trump retweeted made-up, racist crime statistics from a neo-Nazi, some outlets initially called his actions “controversial” or “questionable,” as though there was some debate about the odiousness of what he’d done. A New York Times story described his calls to surveil and register Muslims as “emphatic, if controversial.” A Monday report on CBS dutifully showed tape of Trump and Ben Carson demanding more tracking of Muslims, then tape of President Obama and Jeb Bush objecting, then summed it all up by showing a poll that said a majority of Americans don’t think Obama has a clear plan to fight ISIS. And that was that.

Can that not be that, please? The mainstream political media has such a pathological dedication to the notion of balance and “objectivity” that it often finds itself at a complete loss when it comes to dealing with someone like Trump. But the kind of filth that he and others are putting out has long since moved past the debatable stage. There is an Islamophobic crisis building in this country. To oppose discrimination against Muslims is not to take some partisan stand. It’s to be a human being. To oppose a prominent political figure’s use of fascistic slander toward black people is not to shirk your objectivity. It’s the least the elite media should be doing.

There were some signs that the tide was turning a tiny bit as Monday went along. In NBC’s political tip sheet, for instance, Chuck Todd and two other colleagues called Trump the “post-truth” candidate and said that it was “hard to disagree with the assessment of our colleague Benjy Sarlin: ‘Let’s not sugarcoat what’s going on. The GOP frontrunner is spreading hateful falsehoods about blacks and Muslims.'” The Washington Post gave prominent space to fact-checker Glenn Kessler’s debunking of Trump’s demonstrably false claim that he saw Muslims cheering the 9/11 attacks in New Jersey.

That’s just a start, though. The fact-checking should be in every single article about Trump, not a separate feature—and it’s easy to dispute such obvious lies. As for Chuck Todd: Good job calling a spade a spade, but what is he going to do about it? Will he be tougher on Trump than he was on Ben Carson, whose open Islamophobia he let slide? Will he acknowledge, in every single report he does about Trump, that Trump is leading an objectively racist and authoritarian campaign? Will other reporters? To the Times’ credit, it ran a story about a Muslim community in Michigan dealing with what the paper called “a tide of anti-refugee, anti-Muslim sentiment [that] has swept, angrily and inexorably, across the United States.” There need to be far more stories like that.

And there need to be far fewer incidents like the ones that keep occurring at CNN lately. The network, which already disgraced itself with a shockingly Islamophobic interview about the Paris attacks last week, took another plunge into the gutter on Monday, when anchor Carol Costello had this exchange with the mayor of a Muslim-majority town in Michigan:

COSTELLO: You govern a majority-Muslim-American city. Are you afraid?

KAREN MAJEWSKI: No, I’m not afraid. And actually, I’d like to make another correction. We have, as of our last election, which was a couple weeks ago, we elected a Muslim-majority council. Whether the demographics of the city would say we’re a Muslim majority city, I don’t think that we’re there yet. I think we’re probably somewhere in the 40 percent Muslim for the city overall. But our city council that will take office in January will be a majority-Muslim council.

COSTELLO: So does that concern some of your citizens?

Costello also described what Donald Trump is saying about Muslims as “tough talk.” She should be ashamed of herself, and CNN should think about how it can stop some of its anchors from helping such bigotry get mainstreamed.

http://www.salon.com/2015/11/24/dona..._away_with_it/

[Cin]

While Eugene Debs is certainly not running for president in 2016, another socialist is in the race. I thought this article about Debs might be fun to read.

"At his trial, Debs freely conceded his guilt. “I have been accused of having obstructed the war,” he stated. “I admit it. Gentlemen, I abhor war.” Facing a possible 60-year prison sentence, the aging Socialist leader refused to flinch. “Your Honor,” he said, “years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better. . . . While there is a lower class, I am in it; . . . while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

"many of the democratic socialist ideas he championed—minimum wages, maximum hours, unemployment insurance, the abolition of child labor, collective bargaining rights, health and safety regulations, worker’s compensation, social security, and a variety of publicly funded services—having attained some popularity, became incorporated into the program of the Democratic Party and, later, enacted into law."

While a socialist party never had a chance, the Democratic party at that time was actually invested in democratic ideals and was not just a slightly more moderate version of the GOP. At this point in history some of the very things Debs championed and the Democratic Party built its platform on are now under attack.

Almost a Century Ago, Another Democratic Socialist Ran for President of the United States—from His Prison Cell
http://commondreams.org/views/2015/1...ted-states-his

[Cin]

Striking Fact: Trump's Corporate Media Coverage Outnumbers Bernie's 81 to 1

Trump has received more network coverage than all the Democratic candidates combined.

Does that ratio seem out of whack? That’s the ratio of TV airtime that ABCWorld News Tonight has devoted to Donald Trump’s campaign (81 minutes) versus the amount of TV time World News Tonight has devoted to Bernie Sanders’ campaign this year. And even that one minute for Sanders is misleading because the actual number is closer to 20 second.

For the entire year.

That’s the rather stunning revelation from the Tyndall Report, which tracks the various flagship nightly news programs on NBC, CBS and ABC. The Report’s campaign findings cover the network evening newscasts from January 1 through the end of November.

The results confirm two media extremes in play this year, and not just at ABC News. The network newscasts are wildly overplaying Trump, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support, while at the same time wildly underplaying Sanders, who regularly attracts between 20-30 percent of primary voter support. (Sanders’ supporters have long complained about the candidate’s lack of coverage.)

Obviously, Trump is the GOP frontrunner and its reasonable that he would get more attention than Sanders, who’s running second for the Democrats. But 234 total network minutes for Trump compared to just 10 network minutes for Sanders, as the Tyndall Report found?

Andrew Tyndall provided the breakdown by network of Sanders’ 10 minutes of coverage, via email [emphasis added]:
1.CBS Evening News: 6.4 minutes
2.NBC Nightly News: 2.9 minutes
3.ABC World News Tonight: 0.3 minutes

But how can they be? ABC News, for instance, clearly devoted more than 20 seconds to covering the Democratic debates, which featured news of Sanders, right?

As Tyndall explained to me, the number “counts stories filed about the Sanders campaign or from the Sanders campaign. Obviously he is mentioned in passing in other coverage of the Democratic field overall, specifically his performance in the debates.”

So in terms of stand-alone campaign stories this year, it’s been 234 minutes for Trump, compared to 10 minutes for Sanders. And at ABC World News Tonight, it’s been 81 minutes for Trump and less than one minute for Sanders.

Other Tyndall Report findings:
•*Trump has received more network coverage than all the Democratic candidates combined.
•*Trump has accounted for 27 percent of all campaign coverage his year.
•*Republican Jeb Bush received 56 minutes of coverage, followed by Ben Carson’s 54 minutes and Marco Rubio’s 22.

Did you notice the Bush figure? He’s garnered 56 minutes of network news coverage, far outpacing Sanders, even though he is currently wallowing in fifth place in the polls among Republicans. And you know who has also received 56 minutes of network news compared to Sanders’ 10? Joe Biden and his decision not to run for president.

Meanwhile, I can hear supporters of Ted Cruz complaining that based on Tyndall’s analysis, the Texas Republican has only received seven minutes of coverage this year and look where he is in the polls. That’s a fair point. But also note that Cruz has only recently risen in the primary polls, whereas Sanders has been a solid second for many, many months. (A new poll this week shows Sanders leading the New Hampshire primary.)

Close observers of trends in network news might also say ABC’s paltry Sanders coverage isn’t surprising considering the network’s flagship news program has recently backed off political coverage, as well as hard news in general.

From the Washington Post this summer:

“World News” devoted half as many minutes to Washington stories as CBS did during the first four months of the year, and about 40 percent less than did NBC, according to Andrew Tyndall, who tracks the networks’ newscasts through his eponymous newsletter.

In perhaps a first for a national newscast, “World News” no longer has a full-time correspondent reporting on Congress. Such stories are handled on an ad hoc basis by reporter Jonathan Karl, whose primary beats are the White House and political campaign this case though, that explanation doesn’t work because while World News Tonight might be shying away from news out of Washington, D.C., Tyndall’s analysis shows ABC has produced more campaign coverage this year thanCBS Evening News; 261 minutes vs. 247 minutes for CBS.

Look at that ABC number again: 261 minutes devoted to campaign coverage this year, and less than one minute of that has specifically been for Sanders. How does that even happen?

So no, Sanders didn’t get virtually ignored this year by World News Tonightbecause the show’s cutting back on campaign coverage. Sanders got virtually ignored by ABC because there was a conscious decision to do so.

And before anyone suggests ABC has somehow been in the pocket of the Clinton campaign and that’s why Sanders got slighted, note that World NewsTonight has set aside roughly the same amount of time this year to cover Republican-fed controversies surrounding Clinton’s email and details about the Benghazi terror attack, as it has to cover Clinton’s actual campaign.

Any way you look at it, 81:1 is a ratio that means there’s something very wrong with the campaign coverage.


http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-pol...s-bernies-81-1

[Cin]

But the good news is that more people support Sanders than Trump. At least according to this article and calculations by Real Clear Politics. Imagine if Sanders could get half the coverage the corporate media devotes to Trump.

Fear Not: More Americans Support Bernie Sanders Than Donald Trump — No Matter What TV Says

Don't lose faith in democracy just yet.

As the Donald Trump campaign turns from farce to tribulation, it’s worth noting that millions more Americans support Bernie Sanders than the Republican frontrunner.

Trump’s level of national support is 30.4 percent of GOP primary voters, according to the average calculated by Real Clear Politics, while Sanders remains in second place among Democratic primary voters with a 30.8 percent average level of support.

However, as the Philadelphia Daily News‘ Will Bunch points out — there are considerably more Democrats than Republicans.

The most recent Pew poll shows 32 percent of Americans identify themselves as Democrats, compared to 23 percent who describe themselves as Republicans — so that suggests far more people support Sanders than Trump, based on party identity and both candidates’ levels of national support.

Polling guru Nate Silver, who operates the 538.comwebsite, cautioned that all the candidates’ poll numbers are misleading at this stage in the election cycle because most voters still aren’t paying attention.

Trump, the real estate tycoon and reality TV star, entered the race as a celebrity and has gobbled up a disproportionate share of media coverage that has, in turn, helped him maintain a healthy lead over his GOP rivals.

The Tyndall Report, which tracks coverage on nightly network newscasts, found that Trump has hogged more than a quarter of all presidential race coverage — and more than the entire Democratic field combined.

Hillary Clinton — who enjoys the most voter support, by far, of any candidate in either party — had received the second-most network news coverage.

Sanders, who is supported by more voters than Trump, has received just 10 minutes of network airtime throughout the entire campaign — which translates to 1/23 of Trump’s campaign coverage.

That has distorted perceptions about Trump’s true level of support, which Silver has estimated as 6 percent to 8 percent of the electorate — or roughly “the same share of people who think the Apollo moon landings were faked,” the pollster said.

Trump’s continued success remains mystifying to many observers, and his anti-Muslim proposals are so alarming that his rivals and mainstream media organizations are openly comparing him to Nazi leader Adolph Hitler.

But some of those horrified observers might take comfort in realizing that Sanders, the democratic socialist, has earned more voter support than Trump — the fascist fabulist.

http://www.alternet.org/media/fear-n...r-what-tv-says

[Shystonefem]

I have already made up my mind.... Feel The Bern 2016

[homoe]

I am NOT a fan of Rand Paul BUT I do agree that the media has no right to determine what tier any candidate belongs in. IMHO, I think they do it so they can fill another time slot in their programming, and make a few more bucks on advertising!

[Shystonefem]

Originally Posted by homoe

I am NOT a fan of Rand Paul BUT I do agree that the media has no right to determine what tier any candidate belongs in. IMHO, I think they do it so they can fill another time slot in their programming, and make a few more bucks on advertising!

I could not agree more with everything you said.

[Shystonefem]

Bernie Sanders is ahead of Hillary in NH and now Ohio. I love it!

[Shystonefem]

Originally Posted by Shystonefem

Bernie Sanders is ahead of Hillary in NH and now Ohio. I love it!

Iowa. Fingers are too fast for the brain.

[Orema]

Elizabeth Warren, One Way To Rebuild Our Institutions

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/29/op...f=opinion&_r=0

While presidential candidates from both parties feverishly pitch their legislative agendas, voters should also consider what presidents can do without Congress. Agency rules, executive actions and decisions about how vigorously to enforce certain laws will have an impact on every American, without a single new bill introduced in Congress.

The Obama administration has a substantial track record on agency rules and executive actions. It has used these tools to protect retirement savings, expand overtime pay, prohibit discrimination against L.G.B.T. employees who work for the government and federal contractors, and rein in carbon pollution. These accomplishments matter.

Whether the next president will build on them, or reverse them, is a central issue in the 2016 election. But the administration’s record on enforcement falls short — and federal enforcement of laws that already exist has received far too little attention on the campaign trail.

I just released a report examining 20 of the worst federal enforcement failures in 2015. Its conclusion: “Corporate criminals routinely escape meaningful prosecution for their misconduct.”

In a single year, in case after case, across many sectors of the economy, federal agencies caught big companies breaking the law — defrauding taxpayers, covering up deadly safety problems, even precipitating the financial collapse in 2008 — and let them off the hook with barely a slap on the wrist. Often, companies paid meager fines, which some will try to write off as a tax deduction.

The failure to adequately punish big corporations or their executives when they break the law undermines the foundations of this great country. Justice cannot mean a prison sentence for a teenager who steals a car, but nothing more than a sideways glance at a C.E.O. who quietly engineers the theft of billions of dollars.

These enforcement failures demean our principles. They also represent missed opportunities to address some of the nation’s most pressing challenges. Consider just two areas — college affordability and health care — where robust enforcement of current law could help millions of people.

When the Education Management Corporation, the nation’s second-largest for-profit college, signed up tens of thousands of students by lying about its programs, it saddled them with fraudulent degrees and huge debts. Those debts wrecked lives. Under the law, the government can bar such institutions from receiving more federal student loans. But EDMC just paid a fine and kept right on raking in federal loan money.

When Novartis, a major drug company that was already effectively on federal probation for misconduct, paid kickbacks to pharmacies to push certain drugs, it cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars and undermined patient health. Under the law, the government can boot companies that defraud Medicare and Medicaid out of those programs, but when Novartis got caught, it just paid a penalty — one so laughably small that its C.E.O. said afterward that it “remains to be seen” whether his company would actually consider changing its behavior.

Enforcement isn’t about big government or small government. It’s about whether government works and who it works for. Last year, five of the world’s biggest banks, including JPMorgan Chase, pleaded guilty to criminal charges that they rigged the price of billions of dollars worth of foreign currencies. No corporation can break the law unless people in that corporation also broke the law, but no one from any of those banks has been charged. While thousands of Americans were rotting in prison for nonviolent drug convictions, JPMorgan Chase was so chastened by pleading guilty to a crime that it awarded Jamie Dimon, its C.E.O., a 35 percent raise.

To be fair, weak enforcement is sometimes a result of limited authority. Despite the company’s history of egregious safety failures, for example, the former C.E.O. of Massey Energy was convicted only of a single misdemeanor in the deadly Upper Big Branch mine disaster that killed 29 miners in West Virginia in 2010, because federal mining laws are too weak. It’s on Congress to stiffen such penalties.

But in many instances, weak enforcement by federal agencies is about the people at the top. Presidents don’t control most day-to-day enforcement decisions, but they do nominate the heads of all the agencies, and these choices make all the difference. Strong leaders at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Labor Department have pushed those agencies to forge ahead with powerful initiatives to protect the environment, consumers and workers. The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a tiny office charged with oversight of the post-crash bank bailout, has aggressive leaders — and a far better record of holding banks and executives accountable than its bigger counterparts.

Meanwhile, the Securities and Exchange Commission, suffering under weak leadership, is far behind on issuing congressionally mandated rules to avoid the next financial crisis. It has repeatedly granted waivers so that lawbreaking companies can continue to enjoy special privileges, while the Justice Department has dodged one opportunity after another to impose meaningful accountability on big corporations and their executives.

Each of these government divisions is headed by someone nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The lesson is clear: Personnel is policy.

Legislative agendas matter, but voters should also ask which presidential candidates they trust with the extraordinary power to choose who will fight on the front lines to enforce the laws. The next president can rebuild faith in our institutions by honoring the simple notion that nobody is above the law, but it will happen only if voters demand It.