Could a person get some news?

Nothing hammered home the shallowness of so-called in-depth reporting this week quite like the treatment of Director Mueller’s testimony before two Congressional committees. Here are a few reasons my television set is now turned off.

Breaking news is broken. First, if something was reported at 7 in the morning it is no longer breaking at lunch time. Breathless repetition will not endow the item with any more immediacy. Nor will splendid graphics, or dramatic music. It was news at 7 in the morning, it is not news at 7 in the evening.

Secondly, while I appreciate the need for the broadcasters to fill air time, I don’t need endless panels to explain to me what I just watched. For one thing, this all but invites gaslighting. For another, I really am capable of comprehension and some context is welcome, but speculation is often ridiculous.

Speculation should be left to the investment markets. Remember the video of the rat dragging a slice of pizza, the little clip that went viral?  Going a step beyond the previous paragraph,  why should a person ever get the sinking feeling that somewhere a pundit was opining on what the specter of the smallish rat with the large pizza slice portended for urban politics in a polarized political landscape? Mercy, was there a chatterer out there wondering aloud if the rodent were an analog for the gentrification of neighborhoods? After all, it was a large slice of pizza. Or, was it emblematic of urban blight yet unaddressed? Yes, it was a rat. Spare me. There are less imaginative instances.

I’m certain nearly everyone, including the boor at the end of the bar (perhaps especially the boor at the end of the bar) has an opinion on each and every topic possible during a domestic broadcast. Pack enough of these people onto a set, run the cameras, and there’s an Instant Time Stuffer. Pack a sufficient number of generalists and the time is filled with a light fluffy concoction analogous to a news version of cotton candy. There’s not even enough substance for our rodent to bother with.

If you like sports but aren’t terribly good at one, join a fantasy league. The obvious manifestion of this problem remains the horse race journalism associated with national elections.  How many of us are there who really could go for one entire 24 hour period without receiving a single report of the latest poll? The one which may, or may not, have a large sample size; and, may, or may not, have a margin of error larger than the gap between the candidates included in the polling?

Walter Cronkite was no raging beauty. Telegenic is as telegenic does. The camera may love Bonita Bombshell or Howard Stalwart, but if they are delivering drivel…it’s still drivel.  Here’s a thought: If you can’t book A-List guests for the afternoon grill, how about filling the time with…news?

There are things going on in the world not generally noticed by an increasingly myopic American broadcasting system. For example, there’s an Ebola outbreak in Africa, the Greeks have a new government,  and Guatemala is experiencing severe drought. Death due to gun violence in the US has now surpassed that from traffic accidents, and Chinese economic growth has slowed down. However, the chances Bombshell and Stalwart are devoting time to these topics are fat and slim.

So, the television remains silent. I’ve no particular interest in game shows, or contests to see which individuals can make the greatest fools of themselves.  I could watch a ball game, sports talk about sports makes sense. I could select one of the plethora of shows about ancient Egypt, or true crime…enough of that already.  Or, I could, wonder of wonders, read a book, thus avoiding all the problems listed above.

 

Make America Good Again: Why I’m tired of DC’s Cool Kids

Press bashing is altogether too simple, and simplistic, but it is the way we get our information about politics in Nevada and America.  Now that we’re a focal point for national interest in a senatorial race it’s hard to avoid the punditry and their continual blathering.  However, we do need to avoid them.  We do need to ignore the cool kids and their cocktail party conversations in print, at least most of them.

For the next two weeks — shut down the television machine and do something else. Why? Because they really can’t tell us much we don’t already know. Because they want to talk to us about what they want to talk about and not necessarily what we need to know.

The cool kids in front of the cameras and writing as columnists are opinionists. Each day it’s their job to grind out opinion pieces — some better than others, some more informed than others, but always written to be read by other opinion writers and commentators. The other cool kids will comment on what a member of their cohort has written or said, and the cycle continues until the next shiny object floats before their countenances and their off to another topic — because it’s not cool to keep writing about the same topic day after day.

Then the opinionists profess surprise that people, real people, are more interested in health care, than in the latest incident du jour or poll of the moment.  Real people are more interested in policy than process; real people are more interested in issues than in the reflections and refractions from the myriad of shiny objects which distract the opinionists and bedazzle the punditry.  This is likely because real people understand that health insurance policies which don’t cover pre-existing medical conditions, or only provide coverage at exorbitant premium rates, isn’t helpful.  Real people understand, on a daily basis, that if they aren’t seeing their wages keep up with inflation, or they don’t have enough cash in reserve to meet a $500 emergency expense,  the economy isn’t working for them.

Turn off the Sunday squawk shows. Why? Because these are more infotainment than substance; more about process and spin than information and analysis.  Case in point: The cook kid’s obsession with “Democratic responses.”  Let’s face it, we have a misogynistic, sexist, racist, elitist administration in the Oval Office and the Democrats have to come up with ways to respond to it — but with the cool kids there’s no way to win.

Senator Elizabeth Warren responds to at least two years worth of nasty racist taunting with a DNA test and what does she get from the cool kids?  Oh, clutch pearls, she’s descending to “his level,” or she doesn’t meet tribal membership qualification standards (that was never the point in the first place.) Is she really announcing her interest in running for the presidency in 2020?  The cool kids were ever so busy parsing her announcement for “clues,” and ever so dismissive about her “timing,” her “phrasing,” her “intentions.”  Was it just me, or did this smack a bit of the Clinton Treatment?  Secretary Clinton writes a book. It was “too soon.”  It was “too late.”  It was “too personal.” It was not “personal enough.”  She should “go away.” She has a responsibility to stay and lead her party.  She can’t win with the cool kids in DC, she never could, and now it appears Senator Warren has joined her.

How many members of the Cool Kids Club have noticed the propensity of the Republicans to attack a certain group of people — Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren, Maxine Waters, Fredericka Wilson, Valerie Jarrett, Susan Rice, Stacey Abrams, Nancy Pelosi… seeing a pattern here?  It’s time to tune out of the punditry’s process analysis parsing, and do some phone calling, door knocking, and talking to some of those people who are more concerned about whether they can afford a trip to the ER than with how the Cocktail Party Club will receive their well crafted and grammatically polished opinion pieces.

It’s also high time to stop listening to the false equivalency gamesmanship.   I don’t much care how many times the buffoon in the Oval Office calls Democrats a “mob.”  That’s a bull-horn talking point for his base of dead-ender deplorables.  Yes, they are deplorable people.  A person gets to be deplorable in my estimation when it’s acceptable to invite a self-anointed radical right wing racist thug to a Republican venue, and then offer no apology when he and his associates go out on a New York city street and start beating up people.  What on earth could these “Proud Boys” be proud of?  It

It is deplorable, in my estimation, when the Tiki Torch carrying, Nazi slogan chanting boys take to the streets of Charlottesville, VA, and then one of their number decides it’s a fine idea to deliberately drive a car into the crowd of anti-nazi demonstrators — killing one young woman.  It is NOT a fine idea for Florida Republican leadership to invite White Supremacists to threaten House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.  Oh, but but but what about Mitch McConnell and some others being shouted at in restaurants?  Excuse me… but when did driving into crowds, beating up people in the streets, chanting Nazi slogans within hearing distance of a synagogue, and threatening direct physical violence to the House Minority Leader become “equivalent” to getting shouted at in a restaurant?  [I don’t advocate shouting at people in restaurants — I’m rather more the type to tell the management that the mere presence of those people has put me off my feed and I’m leaving — I’ll pay my bill if I’ve already been served (no reason to make the staff pay for my personal quirks) but I’d really rather spot the Deplorables before I order so I can walk out without making any financial contribution to the establishment serving them.]

I, for one, am tired of the false equivalency game, and there’s no reason to listen to it.  I have a handy button on my TV remote control that fixes that.

So, please, for the next few days walk precincts if you can, make phone calls, talk to friends and neighbors, do whatever you can whenever you can to Get People Out To Vote.  Somehow we need to overcome the gerrymandering, egregious vote suppression tactics, and false electoral information strategies to get to the polls, vote in the polling stations, and make a difference in the trajectory of this country.  State by state, county by county, city and town by city and town, ward by ward, precinct by precinct.

There’s enough noise coming from the television sets and radios; but, what we do need to attend to are the needs of our neighbors, the interests of our friends, and the concerns of our cohorts.  Vote like our right to vote depends on it. It does.  Make America Good Again.

Dear Media, There’s Nothing Wrong With The Democratic Party That Democrats Can’t Fix (Thank You Very Much)

Dear Media (especially the morning pundit chattering variety on the television set.) There is nothing wrong with the Democratic Party that Democrats can’t fix.  However, never let it be said we’d stop you from endless pontificating on one of your favorite themes: Democrats in Disarray.  So, this morning we have yet another segment, this time on MSNBC, about the “Rift” in the Democratic Party.   Not that anything in this little rant will deter you from embracing one of your favorite themes, but PLEASE take a couple of thoughts into consideration.

Thought Number One:  The Democratic Party is not now, nor has it ever been a monolithic lock step organization and model of political efficiency.  There are urban Democrats and rural Democrats; capitalist Democrats and socialist Democrats; able bodied and disabled Democrats; straight and gay Democrats; men and women Democrats; white and African American and Hispanic and whatever Democrats. There are college educated Democrats, and Democrats without high school diplomas. There are Democrats with homes in the suburbs, and Democrats living in mobile home parks.  Getting the picture?  What all these Democrats have in common is that they care about the other Democrats…and their Republican and Independent neighbors as well.  They want everyone to have health insurance; a chance for an education; a secure retirement; equal pay for equal work, and humane laws concerning immigration and gun safety.

So, yes. There will be squabbles about Single Payer health insurance systems versus private insurance models. There will be heated discussions about how many educational services will be provided to whom over what period of time.  There will be disagreements about agricultural subsidies and banking regulations.  There will be rifts all over the place — it’s called a “healthy civic discourse.”  And, the way Democrats squabble with one another it would seem we are among the healthiest civic “discoursers” around.

This may surprise you, dear Media, but this leads to our Second Thought.

Thought Number Two:  We like it.  We challenge each other.  The more Socialist among us challenge those of us of a more Capitalist bent to justify the way we think about financial regulations.  The more Capitalist among us challenge our more Socialistic inclined brethren to think in practical terms of how social programs are to be administered and financially supported.  The more urban Democrats challenge their agricultural cohorts to think in terms of the needs of city dwellers, while the agriculturally interested Democrats remind the city dwellers that major metropolitan areas don’t have enough cropland to provide sandwich bread for 7 million people.

We may even shriek a bit at one another, hurling the ultimate insult, “You’re not really a Democrat,” about.  However, when the chips are down we don’t want anyone turned away from a voting booth for any nefarious reason; we don’t want children separated unnecessarily from their parents; and we certainly don’t want farmers going bankrupt as a result of a silly trade war.  We may rail at one another over the details of a health care plan, but we agree that people with pre-existing medical conditions shouldn’t be gouged to pay for health insurance premiums.   There are as many different combinations of interests as there are Democrats to express them, and now for our third thought.

Thought Number Three:  We are national and local.  We have this old fashioned idea that the representatives (from school boards to city councils to county commissions to state legislatures to the halls of Congress) should represent their constituents.   We are often amused to find pundits expressing something just short of amazement that candidate Haymaker, a relatively conservative rural Democrat recently won a seat in the State Legislature.  Yes? Why not? Haymaker probably represents the needs, aspirations, and politics of — wait for it — his or her constituents.  If this doesn’t fit neatly into some national pundit’s nifty theory of national political trends, so be it.  It’s not our (Democrats) fault if our candidates and elected officials don’t align precisely with Pauly Pundit’s theoretical framework du jour.  Live with it.

Thought Number Four:  The Democrats in Disarray thing is getting boring. I know, it’s a convenient hook upon which to hang a story, a handy narrative on which to pad out a few column inches into a full column, BUT please… it’s getting old, stale, and noticeably desiccated.  Why, Dear Media, don’t you want to spend yet more time interminably interviewing Trump voters to seek out tiny indications of Buyer’s Remorse?  You probably won’t find much there either, any more than you will get eight Democrats in a room to agree upon the specific elements of anything.  However, the endless media fascination with “real people,” as if African American urban factory workers are “unreal,” is perilously close to insulting — as in, let’s find some grammatically challenged suitably casually dressed individuals with guns in the back of the pickup cab to interview as if these are “real Americans” to the exclusion of all others — including the college educated, articulate, and middle income individuals living right down the road who may or may not be identified with the same political party.

So, thank you very much members of the Chatterati — but let’s leave the Democrats to it — to their very own loving and sometimes even lovable capacity to crash and bash into each other.  However, don’t expect Democrats to be incapable of recognizing when matters at hand have reached crucial moments.  We, as Democrats, may be slow to move, slower to move in unison, but when faced with assaults on core principles and values move we do.  And will.

See you in November.

DB’s tired of: Pundit Edition

The problem with national pundits is that they are national pundits, which is a problem when we’re discussing local and state races.  Here’s why —

(1)  Local races are won by those who best represent the views of local people. Granted, national pundits from the right are interested in how the tax cut legislation will play in beautiful downtown Smudgeville, and left leaning pundits are interested in how civil liberties legislation will go over with Smudgeville’s citizens.  Neither may prove to be essential.  What if the major issues for Smudgeville’s residents include health care and education spending?  The candidate who can convince the residents his or her views are aligned with theirs on these two key issues will probably win.  This will not be based on national polling numbers, and certainly not predicated on national issue polling  What’s important in Smudgeville (District 1) may not apply to Downerville (District 2).

(2) Generalizations may not describe local and state political situations. For the sake of argument, let’s assume immigration is a major issue in both District 1 (Smudgeville) and District 2 (Downerville).  However, demographic statistics indicate a large number of naturalized citizens in District 1 as opposed to a low number of naturalized citizens in District 2.  A higher number of naturalized citizens may be predictive of success for a pro-comprehensive immigration reform candidate.  But wait… what if there are historic trends showing low voter turnout from members of the naturalized citizens in the community?  What if there are a lesser number of naturalized citizens in District 2, but these people tend to vote in higher percentages than their cohorts in District 1?

What if a higher number of citizens in Downerville have college and advanced degrees? What if a lower number of citizens in Smudgeville have college or advanced degrees, but they tend to vote more consistently in state and local elections than their counterparts in Downerville?

Pondering these purely hypothetical problems should cause some musing on the part of local campaigns — what exactly IS the composition of the electorate of the two Congressional districts? What exactly are the voting trends in those two districts?  How likely is it that trends may be altered or broken entirely in an upcoming election?

Generalizations have their uses, but any campaign which relies on generalized polling and issue testing will “generally” be out of touch with the electorate in question.  It’s fine for national pundits to rely on generalized data for the purpose of speculating to fill up time on cable broadcasts.  It’s not fine for local and statewide campaigns to do the same.

(3)  Never assume an issue is an issue.   Again, for the sake of debate, let’s assume District 1 is generally considered “working class,” with median household incomes of approximately $50,000 per year or less.  Does the candidate automatically assume that Gun control will be a major issue, with most voters aligned with pro-gun interests?  Careful here.  What if there is a strong and growing pro-control movement going on in the District, independent of the campaigns?  What if meetings of Moms Demand Action is drawing more attendees than pro-gun rallies?  What if March for Our Lives has signed up a significant number of younger voters in recent weeks?  What if Candidate A runs on a pro-gun platform while the voters are primarily worried about health care costs?

Alternatively, what if Candidate B runs on a pro-health care plan as a major element of the campaign in a district in which there is scheduled to be the closure of a large manufacturing plant?   The moral of this part of the story is that national pundits are no better at predicting this race than if they were located on Mars, especially if they don’t have access to internal and local polling and focus group data.

(4) Merely because an issue is of importance to national pundits doesn’t mean it’s of importance or even a modicum of interest to local voters.   We’ve all watched the national pundits pontificate on their favorite topics — immigration, income inequality, student loan reform, health care, gun legislation, religion, tax cuts…ad nauseam.  There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with this, unless the pundit is trying to squeeze the election in District 1 or 2 into the shoe size of his or her favorite topic.  “Candidate A is facing an uphill battle because of his position on abortion…” unless, of course, abortion isn’t a major issue in the district. “Candidate B is facing headwinds because of her position on education spending…” unless, of course, education spending is barely moving the needle in District 1.

(5) Gratuitous advice is free, and should be treated as such.   “Oh, what will the Democrats do if the Republicans run on ‘impeachment’?”  So?  See items 1-4 previously. If the Republicans and Democrats in our hypothetical Districts 1 and 2 are running quality campaigns, then they are already pouring over data from their constituencies down to the precinct level; they are already reading local newspapers — not for the endorsements but for the lead articles; they are already meeting with local leaders and major local organizations.

While the activities of national parties, and national PACs, may play an important media and financial role in local and state campaigns, this is tempered with a need for caution. Precious few locals like to be told how to vote by “outsiders.”  Similarly, national ad campaigns may or may not, be focused effectively on local issues.  Finally, while phone banking and GOTV efforts are efficacious, they are more efficient if they are conducted by friends, neighbors, and other people from the districts.

In short, sometimes the old rules of the game are still the best rules of the game. The party which recruits the best candidates, candidates who fit the districts they seek to represent, and who are willing and able to run campaigns aligned with local concerns, are more likely to be successful.

If the candidates don’t quite fit the Perfect Candidate Profile of the national punditry, so be it.  The sooner the national pundits get over themselves, and their purity tests, the better.  It’s probably OK for a Republican to run as pro-choice in a pro-choice district, and for a Democratic candidate to run on a DACA yes, comprehensive immigration reform no, platform in a DACA yes, comprehensive plan no, district.  It’s obviously more important to have representatives who align with the voters in their states and districts than with national pundits who “struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more, it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Things that could get me to toss confetti in 2013

There are things that could get me to toss confetti for 2013.   Not many, mind you, which would justify the consequent vacuuming, but a goodly handful.

#1. The Senate of the United States of America does something constructive with the FILIBUSTER rule.   The original rule was intended to prevent the willful trampling of minority points of view, but the abuse of the rule is now part of the clichéd “Washington Gridlock.”  There is a delicate balance between Majority Rule and Minority Rights, but Obstruction for its own sake is not a laudable occupation.

#2. The Republicans in the House of Representatives eschew the  Hastert Rule , under which a majority of the majority party caucus must agree to the passage of a bill before a vote can be taken on the House floor.  This might have been a lovely idea if the current majority party caucus weren’t the replication of that other cliché– a wheelbarrow load of frogs.  Governance requires compromise, and compromise demands the admission that we don’t always get everything we want.  Ideological posturing is not a substitute for principled discourse.

#3.  Someone in a position to do something about it finally figures out that arguments over raising the debt ceiling are academic at best and consummately silly at worst — rather like announcing that because I overspent my budget for this holiday season I’m going to chop up my credit cards and not pay the bills.  Aside from being the most fiscally irresponsible action imaginable, it’s also a manifestation of the idea that the full faith and credit of the United States is some kind of bargaining chip in ideological squabbling.

#4. The National Rifle Association (aka No Rational Argument) stops pretending to care about the right of our citizens to keep and bear arms, and honestly announces that its ultimate intention is to promote the sale of as many firearms as its manufacturing donors can create.  After that, it should be far easier to discuss comprehensive background checks, closing the gun show loophole, and banning military style assault weapons.

#5. More people, perhaps even more people in the national media, stop referring to “The” government and start calling it what it is — OUR government.   “The” government calls to mind the institution which cracks down on Moonshiners, or enforces school integration, or ignores calls to make Jefferson Davis’s birthday a national holiday.  “The” government didn’t decide to integrate public schools — “our” government did. “The” government didn’t decide to enact regulations to prevent air and water pollution — “our” government did.  And, “The” government didn’t create the Food Stamp (SNAP) program — “our” government did that.  And so it goes.  Continual references to “The” government is an unfortunate holdover from the Reaganesque caricature of government designed to promote the financial health of the economic elite by appealing to the discontent with those laws “our” government enacted to promote OUR general welfare.

#6. Our representatives on Capitol Hill learn to say “____ isn’t the end of the world as we know it.”  I could do with a great deal less hysterical hyperbole.  “This is the Largest Tax Increase In The History of the Universe!”  Probably not.  “This is the worst violation of human rights ever!” Probably not that either.  “This will create the worst calamity known to man.” Probably not.  “This will destroy our ____.”  Again, probably not.  Excuse me while I chuckle at the pomposity of this meaningless prognostication.

#7.  Journalists who seek to inform me via the television set prove to be (1) knowledgeable about the subject under discussion, and (2) include fact checking as part of the “context” of which they speak so often.  If a statement made by a politician is factually inaccurate, they will tell me; and I hope they’ll be able to offer a correction.  I really don’t care if they are correcting the record in the wake of Left Wing Larry or Right Wing Richard’s pontification.  The object of the exercise should be to impart accurate information so far as it can be known — I can get my “entertainment” elsewhere.  Bluntly, the “he said, she said, and then he said” reactions from professional chatterati or elected representatives is less entertaining than a good professional wrestling match, which at least has the grace to admit it’s a scripted farce.

#8. Somebody finally declares the Culture Wars over and done with.  Our contemporary version appears to incorporate a toxic dose of good old fashioned misogyny.  Women make up about 51% of our population and telling them they cannot have an abortion (even in the cases of an ectopic pregnancy or as the result of a rape) is paternalistic to the core.  Worse still would be telling them that their employer can decide if their health insurance plan covers contraceptive medication.

#9.  On a related note, it really doesn’t do to blame God for everything.  I’d cheer the week that some blowhards weren’t showcased in the media for pronouncing God’s Wrath for … whatever.  Hurricane Katrina — God’s wrath for a Gay Pride gathering? Really?  God’s wrath because we don’t pray hard enough?  That certainly doesn’t explain the attack on congregants in the Knoxville Unitarian church.  God’s Wrath because we don’t have organized  prayer in schools? Huh?  No one at Columbine High School, Platte County High School, Northern Illinois University, Virginia Tech University, or Sandy Hook Elementary knew how to pray and practiced it regularly? Spare me the Westboro Wannabes who “know” the mind of God better than a six year old child.

#10.  The confetti will fly when we begin to have a serious discussion about global climate change without having to incorporate the phony “science” offered up by the fossil fuel industry.  No, there isn’t a “controversy” here. And, no reputable science deflects our responsibility as human beings for the contamination of which we are clearly capable.

Speaking of the Almighty, there’s an old story about the man caught in a flood which seems appropriate at the moment.  “Why, he cried out to God, am a trapped in these flood waters?”  The Almighty, sorely tired of listening to the wailing, said, “I sent you warnings.” “When?”  “When?” responded the Deity. “When indeed.” “I sent you warnings on the radio. You ignored me. I sent you warnings in television broadcasts, and you ignored me. I even sent a deputy sheriff to personally advise you to evacuate. And, you ignored him too.”  ….

We’ve been visited with major named storms, watched ice caps diminish, seen glaciers disappear… and all together too many people are ignoring the warnings.