Sunday, January 08, 2017

Sunday Morning Comin' Down


Sure, I'm suspicion of metaphors.  Who isn't?


But it was a morning for them.

For example, since I was busy doing much better things this morning, instead of watching the Sunday Morning atrocities on the teevee, I listened to them being rerun on the radio.  

On progressive radio.

Yeah, a number of progressive radio stations around the country do that on Sundays.  During the week it's the same 3-4 shows, or the "Best Of..." those same 3-4 shows, or the rebroadcast of earlier broadcasts of those same 3-4 shows.  But on the weekend, a number of progressive stations shell out actual money to rerun "Meet the Press."

Progressive stations pay money so their nine listeners can bask in the wisdom of a weakling like Chuck Todd bantering with the ridiculous David Brooks.  And steam-powered hack Mrs. Alan Greenspan.  And volatile, lying pit-viper Rick Santelli.
CHUCK TODD:   Joining me this morning for insight and analysis are David Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, Andrea Mitchell of NBC News, CNBC's Rick Santelli, and former Congresswoman Donna Edwards. Welcome to Sunday, it's Meet the Press.
So that's what I listened to with half an ear this morning on the stream from KTRC AM in Santa, all chirping out of the little radio app on my antique iPhone.

This was followed by a solid hour of dead air. No kidding. Instead of its scheduled programming, progressive KTRC AM in Santa Fe pumped out an hour of absolutely nothing.

And what was its scheduled program for that day and time? Well here's the punchline instead: it was the execrable "Both Sides Now" -- a "Both Sides!" show invented by Arianna Huffington and Mary Matalin and now hosted by the guy that destroyed Air America.

Like I said, I don't trust metaphors, but Jesus Christ on a crystal radio set, this is the best progressive radio can manage?  Reruns of Meet the Fucking Press?  Followed by either nothing whatsoever or Both Siderist dreck?

And speaking of Meet the Press, Rick Santelli explaining how health insurance is basically just like car insurance so quit worrying your silly little head about it provided America with one more proctologically close look at the way reptilian Conservative scumbags process reality:
RICK SANTELLI:  --selling you car insurance.

DONNA EDWARDS:  Look, twenty million--

RICK SANTELLI:  --how would that compare with the rates you get today? I think many agree, being on the plan till 26, good idea, preexisting conditions, they all have a cost. So you have to find a way to pay for it. But it doesn't mean that you're going to keep or change. Listen, cars have tires. You can reinvent the car, but it's still going to have tires. Those aspects are components of healthcare.

DONNA EDWARDS:  If I don't have healthcare I don't know what a car has to do with my healthcare

ANDREA MITCHELL:  I think that's a silly analogy.
But it was groveling collaborationist Chuck Todd who arguably provided the very lowest point of the weekend.

Because let's face it, Santelli really is nothing more than a Conservative scumbag reptile: that's what you get when you book him on your teevee show and that's what he delivers.
DAVID BROOKS:  Putin is a guy who murders journalists, who's destroyed the democratic process in his own country, and now suddenly he feels the freedom to try to do that in our country. I don't know-- It's not normal statecraft.

RICK SANTELLI:  --to see Russia is happy because Trump won on election night, I never saw you so unhappy. You picked sides, everybody picked sides.

CHUCK TODD:  Who picked sides?

ANDREA MITCHELL: That's not true, Rick.

CHUCK TODD:  Who picked sides, Rick?

ANDREA MITCHELL:  It's just not true.

DONNA EDWARDS:  It really is not. And this is actually--

ANDREA MITCHELL:  Let's get back to the facts here.

DONNA EDWARDS:  This is about the Russians interfering with our election --

RICK SANTELLI:  Here are the facts. We've been seeing entities-- we were hacking Merkel's phone. Everybody does it.

See? No surprises.

But Todd is supposed to be the "moderator" of this train-wreck.  However Todd is fundamentally a coward, who is in way over his head in a game where power has shifted radically away from where he thought it would be.  He is like unto a happy little field mouse whose clear blue sky is suddenly full of hungry predators sizing him up.

And so Chuck Todd tells the predators the lies they want to hear:
CHUCK TODD:  All I have to say is Democrats made a mistake when they didn't bring Republicans into this [the health care] process, and they owned it on their own, and it was a political problem. Republicans are going to make a mistake if they own this on their own. I mean, if this is a partisan effort on the other side, then we're going to continue to litigate.

RICK SANTELLI:   I think there's going to be a big compromise. I think you're going to be impressed.

CHUCK TODD:  Well, I think we all want to see compromise once somewhere.
So we're back to the "Obama didn't lead" nonsense.  A lie which Mr. Todd damn well knows is a lie but speaks anyway because these little, everyday betrayals -- these constant, numbing concessions to monsters -- is how talentless clods like Mr. Todd keep their jobs.

In case  you forgot, here is how the Great Healthcare Debate actually went down.  From Salon in February of 2010 before it lost its mind:
Fact-checking the GOP on healthcare reform

Senate Dems adopted 161 amendments and key GOP planks while soft-pedaling the public option. That's not compromise?

As the healthcare reform bill waddles toward reconciliation — a maneuver that would let the Senate pass certain budget-related provisions with “only” a majority vote — Republicans are complaining, louder than ever, about being excluded from Democrats’ efforts to craft legislation. And some in the media are buying it.

Newsweek gave voice to GOP grievances in a piece titled “How the GOP Sees It.” It begins with this John Boehner lament: “We’ve offered to work with the president all year. We’ve been shut out, shut out, and shut out.” Newsweek characterizes the minority party’s point of view this way: “Republicans want to help the president succeed, but he won’t let them.”

Almost no one is noting the extraordinary influence Republicans had on the healthcare reform bill crafted by the Senate, as it made its way through the committee process last year. The bill approved by Sen. Christopher Dodd’s Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee, for instance, included 161 amendments authored by Republicans. Only 49 Republican amendments were rejected out of 210 considered.  Yet the bill got zero Republican votes when it passed out of the committee.

...
To recap: Senate Democrats have accepted at least 161 Republican amendments to their healthcare reform legislation, they’ve incorporated core GOP planks, and they’ve scuttled an aspect of the plan most popular with its base, the public option, because of opposition by Republicans as well as red state Democrats.
...
Mr. Todd also certainly knows that, from the very beginning, GOP leaders made it abundantly clear that they never had any intention of negotiating in good faith (from Media Matters):
GOP senators made clear they didn't intend to negotiate with Democrats in good faith. For instance, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) asserted during a July 17, 2009, conference call organized by the anti-health care reform group Conservatives for Patients Rights while discussing health care reform: "If we're able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him." Similarly, Minority Whip Jon Kyl (AZ) reportedly admitted on August 18, 2009, that "almost all Republicans" will oppose Democratic health care reform efforts, regardless of the compromises Democrats might make in attempting to win their support. And Senate Finance Committee ranking member Chuck Grassley during an August 2009 town hall meeting told the audience they "have every right to fear" the end-of-life counseling provision in the House bill, adding that the "government-run plan" could " could lead to "decide when to pull the plug on grandma." During an August 2009 interview, Grassley also admitted he wouldn't vote for his own bill if the GOP remained opposed. The Senate Finance Committee also held 31 "bipartisan meetings to discuss the development of a health care reform bill."
In fact there are all kinds of facts like these easily available on the internets to anyone with a keyboard and a conscience who is interested in what really happened these last eight years. but Chuck Todd doesn't have time for all of that!

Meanwhile, over on Face the Nation, America's Most Ghastly Elected Hypocrite is bitching that actually vetting cabinet nominees before appointing them is some wild Liberal sour grapes idea out of left field (h/t Crooks & Liars):
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appeared on CBS' Face the Nation to pooh-pooh the Office of General Ethics' complaint that the Senate was rushing President-elect Trump's cabinet nominations to vote before ethics investigations could be completed. Rather than dealing with the allegations by the non-partisan office, McConnell spins this as a totally partisan--and therefore, dismissable--complaint by the minority party. 
“All of these little procedural complaints are related to their frustration at having not only lost the White House but having lost the Senate. I understand that but we need to sort of grow up here and get past that.”
And then looky here at this letter from 2009 in which then-Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell demanding the exact opposite:
There was a day when a "journalist" might have considered quoting McConnell owns words back to him and asking him what the fuck?

But, you know, golden years.

18 comments:

Unknown said...

The last time any of the Sunday morning shows were worthwhile This Week was still This Week with David Brinkley!

Digital Canary said...

A lovely little bit of passive aggression would see Senate Dems send back a marked of version of the same letter. Not anew, edited version of the same; an actual copy with various names dates and titles just scratched out and reversed in a scrawl.
It would be hard for the point to be overlooked by media reports.

Lit3Bolt said...

I'm just thrilled corrupt warmongering neoliberal shills like Hillary Clinton were not elected so that our peaceful socialist workers' utopia can finally come about through true progressive messaging. All we have to do is make the case to people who watch Fox news, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and read the Drudge Report.

Prosperity is just around the corner! After 8 years of Trump heightening the contradictions, a liberal United States empire will take shape, just as it did in the UK in the eighties.

Robt said...

The booking of Rick Santelli on the issues of health care and foreign attacks on American elections. Is Ricky really the person to provide intelligent discussion?

A loud NO is correct.

Ricky has no expertise in either matter to bring to the discussion table. What Ricky does bring is the table setting partisan ideological self aggrandized superiority of a white wealthy supremacist. Go ahead, tell me I am wrong? And how?

Ricky is booked on to set up the foundation of everything GOP is best for you and everything Liberal is bad for us. He is drawing the media lines of where the discussion begins. GOP on the strawman high ground of ill repute.

I have no idea why they got together to yak at one another. Other than using Ricky as I said to set the parameters of future discussion from a false premise from here on in future panels. Where they can pick up where Ricky set the misleading foundation.

And that toughness of Mitchell, Edwards and the Todd in this is about as bad as MSNBC cutting from a Sanders rally speech in progress to a empty podium awaiting Trump at his rally. The efficiency of live on air time usage should get someone fired.
This is the stuff that causes people to change channels and watch Megyn Kelly strongly disembowel a guest the Santa is White (for all you kids watching FOC).
If voters rely on this to take in information to digest to make best decision to cast their vote for President.
Beware, because you will end up with a president Donald Dufas Trump.
Wait, Trump is president. See, I told you so.

I can't wait for Megyn's new MSNBC show. Where she scours the sewage pipes for those same people that are predicting the end of the world (all through Obama's term). Only now she can have them on as liberals.
All I can say is, the competition for Morning holy Joe is getting fierce and Hoe is going to have to find a way to get Charlie and Davy Koch on the show to reassure us all that being owned by them. They will be benevolent, really.

I really feel for you over watching this. I am on a high Free Radicals diet of late and that goo is not healthy with its high in braincell fats.

Randle Aubrey said...

The above comments about what passes for progressive radio throughout most of the country, combined with what you mentioned on the last ProLeft podcast about the "Two Minutes Hate" clips of Limbaugh and/or Hannity local stations splice into regular programming throughout the day make me further realize that people out her in "librul" California and a lot of other places simply have NO idea what we're up against when it comes to breaking the right-wing media stranglehold. I'd be impressed by the whole apparatus, if I wasn't so terrified of it.

proverbialleadballoon said...

Strange, there was a person named Chuck Todd on my television, reporting on the ACA process and negotiations, 8 years ago. Maybe it was a different Chuck Todd than this one, only, they look exactly the same. Or maybe he got a concussion over the last 8 years. Or maybe he had a traumatic episode and has a has a psychotic break from reality. Or maybe he's a simulacrum from PK Dick or Westworld and he's been reprogrammed. Or maybe he's a paid fucking professional liar, who's repeating the inversion of truth that is this talking point that republicans are going to repeat and repeat and repeat. Chuck Todd: "You're face, to face, with the man who sold the world. Who knows? Not me. We never lost control."

The fucking Press has sold us up the river. When were the Golden Years exactly, anyway? Before the Iran-Contra affair? Before/after the Fairness Act? Never thought we'd reach full-on propaganda, up is down, black is white, not quite like this. And we are on our own. The press is committed. This is laying down suppressing fire, before 1000 Huns come charging up on Capital Hill. Two weeks from now, 'democrats shut republicans out of the ACA process' and 'democrats need to work with republicans like republicans wanted to so very dearly during those meanie Obama years' is going to be the Gospel, and we need to stand and say No.

Neo Tuxedo said...

people out her[e] in "librul" California and a lot of other places simply have NO idea what we're up against when it comes to breaking the right-wing media stranglehold.

The only solution is to kill television.

Unknown said...

Here in Reno we had a similar dead air episode on our progressive station 1270 The Buzz over the weekend. It happens a lot with them as they apparently have a crap transmiter. It used to be the local sports station (still does Niners and SF Giants games.)I usually listen in the morning on the way to work or when out book hunting. That time slot features a couple of local yokels named Panama and Mike, two of the jocks held over from the sports format, who gamely spout weak tea libertarian stuff as a warm up act for Thom Hartmann (and they went into rerun mode for two weeks for the holidays). The rest of the roster is pretty much unlistenable.

dinthebeast said...

Wait just a cotton picking minute: The ACA was thought up by Heritage and implemented by Romney, and the Republicans feel "shut out" of the process? Poor little Republicans, can someone please get them a cookie? Then set it on fire and stick it in their eye? Then let them take the Quality of Service Survey after their ER visit.

-Doug in Oakland

Kath320 said...

Hopefully you have already seen on twitter that Senator Schumer sent McConnell's letter right back to him, crossing out only the "Republican" leader, the date, changing Reid to McConnell and signing it himself. Touche, indeed!

Robt said...


You can take Doug out of Oakland:

"The ACA was thought up by Heritage and implemented by Romney"
GOP knows that. Their voters don't.
GOP with all the obstructing of ACA had 167 health care proposals accepted into ACA by Dems.
Reconciliation was preventative medicine so the monkeys could play with their poop and not get it on everyone and everything.

But you can't take the Oakland out of Doug:

They also screamed of "forcing big government down their throats"

The small or NO government party is going to replace? Forcing big GOP Gov't down throats"?
This is why we see repeal and delay.




Habitat Vic said...

Sorry to be Debbie Downer here, but the Conservative attack /capture of radio stations is not just limited to "rural" markets. Literally the day after Trump was elected, WXXM 92.1 FM was switched from liberal talk (Miller, Hartman, local-progressive shows) to 24-hour a day Christmas music, and will become an Oldies station.

Where did this happen? In Madison Wisconsin. No market for liberal radio there, amirite? On a totally unrelated point, the station is owned by iHeartRadio - formerly Clear Channel, and still owned by Mitt Romney's hedge fund. I'm sure that had nothing to do with it. Nothing at all.

ClearChannel/iHeart (Romeny & his conservatives investors) are losing money hand over fist -including propping up nearly sponsor-free Rush's program - but they'll go further into red ink if it means killing the Progressive voice. Yeah, it's that bad.

Robt said...

Habitat Vic said...

"(Romeny & his conservatives investors) are losing money hand over fist "
Not to be rude but they are not losing money. The company(s) are losing money.

Many radio stations of the past are now just repeater stations. For centralized EIB headquarters et al.

If these owners/investors show loses in their companies. They get to write it off on taxes and me and you pay to cover their loses.

You are fortunate to still have the self awareness to realize this. many younger folks only ever known the R-wing stuff.
The same young folks that really love the old 60's rock and roll but have no idea why it rose up. When for thee most all they need to do is listen to the words. Connecting that with the historical times. Well it sings for itself.

This is one communicative nurturing, education, support and the exchange of progressive ideas. The Democratic party has knowingly ceded to the tightest of whitest wingers.
I hear it from their Zombie Dittoheads everyday. But know this, R-wing radio only seems to feed only the tip of the iceberg to their listeners. My experience is they cannot take a issue down the road in conversation because they were only fed a half block of the 50 block road.

I move to Nebraska from California via job transfer. Their has not been even a half an hour of progressive, liberal, even moderate talk shows available locally. Not even a liberal morning joke jock can be found here.

Not everyone has or can afford paid radio (XM). Leaves the internet and podcasts..

I hear your alarm but I have been hear this alarm of R Wing hostile takeovers for a very long time.

I ask of today's youth (which I cannot claim anymore). Where is your music, your books, your movies. Where is your Woodstock. Where is the revel culture voice of malcontentery for those that order you to stay off the grass in the park that you pay taxes to go on? Well, you get the battle call.

Ian said...

I think this comment thread needs a flipping of perspective. It is not the people in Cali or NY who have no f*ing idea what we are up against, it is the people of the rust belt and appalachia who have absolutely no idea what we face.

Habitat Vic said...

Robert,

You're right that Mitt & the actual hedge fund guys may not lose money on the iHeart deal. Perhaps the opposite. Two things; if they were an actual VC firm - versus a hedge fund (that's a whole discussion onto itself) - then having 50%, 60% or more of your investments go belly up would be somewhat normal. You make it up on that 1:5 investment that goes 10x or 100x. Perhaps more germaine to hedge funds is their collection of various fees from their bought companies that brings them into a net positive even as the company is losing money. Bain Capital has certainly had those with companies that otherwise have gone under, while Bain walks away with huge fees before the bankruptcy.

iHeart may fit that same profile. They lost only about $80M on operations (including about 850 radio stations) in 2015. However, they borrowed $20 billion to buy all those stations back in 2006, and they started defaulting on those bond payments in Feb of 2016 (wrote down $4B to only $1.6B in court). Investors are also trying to get the next $6B coming due, but it looks like that won't happen. So, yeah, its someone else who stands to lose"bigly" on iHeart. I suspect the smart money boys (including Bain) didn't put up their own money for those soon to be worthless bonds - they unloaded them onto large mutual/pension funds, just like derivatives during the 2008 bubble.

Bitter irony, there are likely retired RWNJs who are going to lose some of their pensions to indirectly fund Rush & Company who will go on feeding them lies about who to hate, while guys like Romney walk away with a profit. As you and others have pointed out, that's not a bug in the Right Wing media landscape - its a feature.

Robt said...

,Habitat Vic

using business economics to overthrow your perceived political enemies. business competition, (or like Trump) anyone you "feel" impunes your honor.

The CIA and World Bank have utilized this economic power concept.. Many corporations employ this tactic.
It is so very well written of and documented in the book, "Shock Doctrine"
Ir you do not read much or if you do read a lot. I recommend the book. many of the same economic tactical principles are brought to clarity by the writer Naomi Klein.
Very instructive book still relevant today .

There is no GOP lotion to sooth the painful itch when you can ask them point blank questions like

* When they say, "we are in debt and we cannot afford Social security". Ask them simply, "show me a nickel that Social Security has added to that national Debt".

* Where Did the $13 billion in U.S. cash go to after being sent into the Iraq war zone?

* Why does a company going bankrupt has a legal right to to take those pension funds, the pension funds of its workers and why haven't you changed the bankruptcy laws to prevent it? It is employee deferred earnings. Especially when Government has to use tax dollars to shore up pensions in these bankruptcy theft schemes?

* Mr GOP, why is it you do not repeal the DCIC? Should banks get the government to back banks like this. Isn't it big Government?

* In a Free Market, how is it Government is involved with patent protections at all?
Should this be privatized?

* With small, free market GOP Gov't. Why does corporations get to depend on US tax dollars to defend its corporate interests in foreign countries? Why does corporations run to government for trade deals?

* Under the ideological belief in originalism when it comes to the Constitution.
What does that mean for the 27 amendments that were not original? Are you aware the "incorporation entity provided exclusively by Government is not an original of the 10 in the bill of rights?

You get the idea.

Look, Rushbo is not a top rating show but they keep him on. he doesn't draw advertising much anymore. He does fill air time. So he is not having to compete in the radio business and hasn't for quite some time. Competition here is for progressive/ liberal/ Democratic leaning shows.
There may be 26 radio stations for sports in a small market and you will see the last of the mohican liberal talk shows (with good ratings) taken off the air for that 26th sports talk station. Which finds itself in lower ratings and less ad dollars than before it changed over. It will not return to its reasonable success programming. It will continue to fail. It becomes a business write off. Hell, I recall having write offs for improvements on my home. Improvements that bettered changing my home to a sports talk coffee shop..

maybe you can help me with a question.
In the 2007 Wall Street economic collapse that brought us the Great Recession.
AIG and other insurers of many of the banks theft schemes. Provided top ratings for contaminated coleslaw, right?

When all this invested money all of a sudden disappeared.

-Where did that money go?

Sure it had to be replaced by Government.
But the money invested and brought in.

Where did it go?????



Habitat Vic said...

Robt,

I have read Shock Doctrine, and think it is a great book. As to the missing money in Iraq (and other fuck ups), I'd recommend Imperial Life in the Emerald City by Rajiv Chandrasekaran. Excellent book, by a real functioning (Washington Post) journalist. Sources, footnotes, lots of legwork, naming names, etc.

Short answer to your last question - and I'm not an options trader, nor an employee of the Fed or an investment banker (though I've kept in touch with classmates who are) - is that most of those 2008 derivatives(nearly $700 trillion nominal value) were cross-bets between the largest 20-30 financial institutions. After about $200T of bilateral cancelling, unwinding, etc only 1% or 2% were "real." The whole thing was/remains complicated as shit. My interested bystander's take away was that the Federal Reserve - via Qualitative Easing programs, liberal use of Discount Window, etc, basically created/injected $8T to $14T of liquidity into Wall Street to shore things up in 2009. And, of course, there was quite a bit of collateral damage into the stock market, pension funds, mortgages, etc. The Wall Street firms only had about 3 -5 quarters that were truly down (in terms of profits & bonuses paid). Most of the rest of us are still recovering eight years later.

Robt said...

Habitat Vic

Appreciate what you could answer and the book referral. haven't read it and will check it out.
Do you are saying most of the Wall Street crash wasn't actual money invested but credit investments?
Like calling your bookie and asking him to put you down for sea Biscuit in the third. For $10 K (you do not have)on your good name. Your good for it. I you loose on your bet, instead of sending Knuckles to break something on you. They send Knuckles to lobbying Congress?

And on the conservative media hostile take over and expulsion of the progressive talk.
No radio station aired President Obama's last speech. They did however air people telling you what he was saying and what he said. In their bewildering interpretations mind you. But today, the uplifting of the 400 pound Gorilla turd in the room and then the full airing of the Trumpster, Pence and all. With the after glow of rearranging and decoding into GOP speak what one is to hear Trump saying.


It looks like we are in for Trump's term with a KellyGirl Conway there to perform sign language to ensure the substance of spin slides smoothly up the to the Colon.

By the way, Thanks for the Charlie Sykes "I am a Zombie" awakening. Watching him try to reanimate himself into a living human being on the MSNBC as of late is less than reading the book of the recovering Dittohead written some time ago.
As the Beckerhead tries to rehabilitate his financial future as some sort of independent moderate Mormon republican.
There is a rash of this splitting into Alt Right and old radical right. marketing scheme to align the Tax cut voter with the KKK. As far as I can tell.

As the public airways owners use conservative only apply. So do GOP congressmen.
Those others in their state or district that did not vote for them, get no representation. yet we are still honored with paying the salaries.
Aren't we fortunate?