Friday, April 7, 2023

Big Lie vs Election Truth

 

More than the usual misinformation, misdirection, and propaganda, presented as “NEWS” to viewers, FOX News Network has sunk to a new low for U.S. media organizations by paying its on-air personalities to purposely lie to boost their ratings and increase corporate revenue. 

This, along with two additional, even more heinous reveals, were ferreted out by Dominion Voting Systems Corp. lawyers in the recent pre-trial hearing for summary judgment in Dominion’s $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News. 

You may recall that FOX ceaselessly, 24/7, declared false information to viewers about Dominion election software which Mr. Trump and supporters used to substantiate their claim that the 2020 election was, “stolen”. The “stolen election” lie was then used by Trump to instigate the 6 Jan 2021 MAGA insurrection against the United States.

In his ruling Delaware Superior Court Judge Eric Davis found:

“The evidence developed in this civil proceeding demonstrates that is CRYSTAL clear than none of the Statements relating to Dominion about the 2020 election are true. Therefore, the Court will grant summary judgment in favor of Dominion on the element of falsity,” the ruling read.

While that reveal may not be “real” news to most non-FOX viewers, what also came to light is news. The discovery process uncovered (reveal 2) that FOX personalities Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham, and Sean Hannity spread the stolen election lie and other conspiracy theories even though they themselves knew they were lies.

“Internal text messages and emails from top hosts at Fox showed them throwing cold water on Trump’s false claims of electoral fraud but worrying how fact checking those claims might hurt their standing with their audience.”

“In one email surfaced as part of the lawsuit Rupert Murdoch, owner and co-chairman of Fox Corp., worried to Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott that top hosts Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham “went too far” in endorsing former President Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, fillings from Dominion showed.”

“Maybe Sean and Laura went too far,” Murdoch wrote to Scott. “All very well for Sean to tell you he was in despair about Trump but what did he tell his viewers?”

Most importantly (reveal 3) Judge Davis found:

“Dominion has offered proof demonstrating that the allegations were substantially false,” Davis wrote. “Comparing the allegations at issue to the truth, the truth would have likely had a different outcome on the average viewer, as the statements at issue were dramatically different than the truth.”

“In fact, although it cannot be attributed directly to Fox’s statements, it is noteworthy that some Americans still believe the election was rigged,” the judge added.

It's now clear, had FOX presented Election Truth to their audience instead of the Big Lie, it is likely Mr. Trump’s riot/insurrection would have been dead from the get-go.

VoteVets - Ban (140)


https://votevets.org/press-releases/votevets-ad-calling-for-removal-of-carlson-ingraham-and-hannity-programming-from-tvs-on-military-installations

https://votevets.org/

Links in this Post

Judge sends Dominion’s $1.6 billion lawsuit against Fox News to trial
Dominick Mastrangelo and Zach Schonfeld, The Hill, 31 Mar 2023

https://thehill.com/homenews/media/3928459-judge-sends-dominions-1-6-billion-lawsuit-against-fox-news-to-trial/

Tuesday, April 4, 2023

Sacrificing Our Children

 

Sculptor George Segal and his sculpture in memory of students slain and wounded at Kent State by Ohio National Guardsmen, entitled: In Memory of May 4, 1970: Kent State-Abraham and Isaac.

There are happenings that change everything. 

Occurring in a flash, they are hurricane-like, erasing everything we thought we knew and forcing us into a totally unanticipated, dystopian understanding of our world. Once experienced, we can never go back.

For me, one life-altering moment, 13-seconds long, occurred on 4 May 1970, with the murder of four and wounding of nine Kent State University students

Those 13 seconds erased my naïve understanding of myself, my nation, our leaders, and our values. I began to understand that we are a people willing to sacrifice our children for nothing but cult identity membership and feeding our narcissistic egos.

Still, in one way the times have not changed. 

In the 1970s, the “silent majority” willingly sacrificed their children to the Vietnam War god. 

Today, we willingly sacrifice our children to the AR-15 god. 

Only the name of the god has changed. The willingness remains.

This Easter, my prayer is that our eyes and ears will open and that the Peace of Christ, pax Christi, will infuse us all with acceptance for each other.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you” (John 14:27).

Thousands of students walk-out in protest for gun control
The NewsChannel 5 Network in Nashville

Links in this Post

When Demagogues & Incompetence Rule Innocents Die https://downriverusa.blogspot.com/2017/02/when-demagogues-incompetence-rule.html

Closure
https://downriverusa.blogspot.com/2020/05/closure.html

Sculptor George Segal and his sculpture in memory of students slain and wounded at Kent State by Ohio National Guardsmen, entitled: In Memory of May 4, 1970: Kent State-Abraham and Isaac.
The Bound and the Unbound: Oedipus, Isaac, and Jesus
http://boundandunbound.blogspot.com/

Monday, February 6, 2023

Conjuring Gas Stoves & Drag Queens vs. Life-Changing Accomplishments for the Greater Good

 


While some politicians fixate on conjuring lies like Pres. Biden is going to take away gas stoves and drag queen dancers are going to “sexualize” youth, OTHERS, i.e. Democrats under Pres. Biden’s direction, have gotten some important, life-changing, things accomplished for us, the 99.9%, the everyday Joes and Janes of America.

Robert Reich* expressed what I see in today’s article posted in the British journal, The Guardian: Biden has revived democratic capitalism – and changed the economic paradigm, Robert Reich, 6 Feb 2023.

“It has taken one of the oldest presidents in American history, who has been in politics for over half a century, to return the nation to an economic paradigm that dominated public life between 1933 and 1980 and is far superior to the one that has dominated it since.

“Call it democratic capitalism.”

“Joe Biden is reviving democratic capitalism.

“From the Obama administration’s mistake of spending too little to pull the economy out of the Great Recession, he learned that the pandemic required substantially greater spending, which would also give working families a cushion against adversity. So he pushed for the giant $1.9tn American Rescue Plan.

“This was followed by a $550bn initiative to rebuild bridges, roads, public transit, broadband, water and energy systems. And in 2022, the biggest investment in clean energy in American history – expanding wind and solar power, electric vehicles, carbon capture and sequestration, and hydrogen and small nuclear reactors. This was followed by the largest public investment ever in semiconductors, the building blocks of the next economy.

“Notably, these initiatives are targeted to companies that employ American workers.

“Biden has also embarked on altering the balance of power between capital and labor, as did FDR. Biden has put trustbusters at the head of the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the justice department. And he has remade the National Labor Relations Board into a strong advocate of labor unions.

“Unlike his Democratic predecessors, Biden has not sought to reduce trade barriers. In fact, he has retained several from the Trump administration. But unlike Trump, he has not given a huge tax cut to corporations and the wealthy. It’s also worth noting that in contrast with every president since Reagan, Biden has not filled his White House with former Wall Street executives. Not one of his economic advisers – not even his treasury secretary – is from the Street.

“I don’t want to overstate Biden’s accomplishments. His ambitions for childcare, eldercare, paid family and medical leave were thwarted by senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. And now he has to contend with a Republican House.

“Biden’s larger achievement has been to change the economic paradigm that has reigned since Reagan. He is teaching America a lesson we once knew but have forgotten: that the “free market” does not exist. It is designed. It either advances public purposes or it serves the monied interests.

“Biden’s democratic capitalism is neither socialism nor “big government”. It is, rather, a return to an era when government organized the market for the greater good."

Please go here for the complete article.

I’m in favor for the “greater good.”

How about you?

*Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com




Friday, February 3, 2023

Has Jeff Davis returned?

Republican Kevin McCarthy, the current Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has now allowed the House to tumble backwards into a neo-pre-Civil War era of chaos, hatred, and racism.

My guess is that history will show McCarthy’s watch will be akin to having permitted traitor and supporter of slavery and racism, Confederate President Jefferson F. Davis, to become Speaker after he lost the Civil War.


Monday, December 5, 2022

No Longer in the Shadow

 


Six observations: 

  1. With his call to overturn the U.S. Constitution, Mr. Trump has without a doubt transformed himself into a seditious vampire, indiscriminately sucking the life blood out of the American people. On the treason scale, he rates higher than Benedict Arnold and no longer is in Arnold's shadow.
  2. By invading Ukraine, killing, or wounding hundreds of thousands of innocent people, both Ukrainian and Russian, Mr. Putin, has secured his place in history next to Joseph Stalin.
  3. By supporting Mr. Trump, the majority of serving Republicans in the U.S. House are insurrectionists and therefore they must be removed from office and forbidden from holding future public office.
  4. Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, Jr. have now crossed into unethical territory as defined under the Code of Conduct for U.S. Judges and now must voluntarily either recuse themselves or resign. (Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has no Code of Conduct.)
  5. After his Twitter takeover, Elon Musk has now earned his rating as No. 1 on the scale of the worst CEOs of history.
  6. The Hunter Biden laptop story really is a "nothing burger".



Thursday, October 27, 2022

It’s Time for Servant Leaders

Mike Franken, candidate for the US Senate in Iowa
photo: screen capture

Weeks have come and gone.

During that time we suffered COVID and then Hurricane Ian left us in ruins.

Still, our most serious affliction remains our leadership vacuum.

We have an epidemic of bought leaders. Dedicated to serving themselves at the direction of the billionaires, foreign nations and corporations funding their campaign coffers, they accumulate millions of payola dollars while in office rather than serve the interests of the people who elected them. 

In fact, our society has become dominated by the premise, “suck in big bucks while you can, even if means your own people will grievously suffer as a result”, that serving the interests of the people has become the exception rather than the first requirement for elected office.

Today, we expect that our representatives are or will soon be scumbags and are shocked if they exhibit concern for others, humanity, honor, and dedication to doing right by all people regardless of political affiliation, nationality, skin color or heritage.

All this said, I stumbled upon the interview below with Mike Franken, candidate for the US Senate in Iowa. I hope he is what he says he is… and if so, that he is elected to office.

Deep red Senate seat suddenly IN PLAY for Democrats, Brian Tyler Cohen


Oct 26, 2022

INTERVIEW: Brian interviews the Democratic nominee for the US Senate in Iowa, Mike Franken, about a bombshell new poll showing him within striking distance of unseating Chuck Grassley, and whether Grassley’s age (he’d be 95 years old by the end of the term he’s running for right now) is a concern to him.

More on Servant Leadership

Cincinnatus - A Leader Geo. Washington Respected


Friday, September 16, 2022

DeSantis’ PR Stunt Backfires

Florida Gov. DeSantis’ latest FOX PR stunt seems to be backfiring because it appears to be just plain stupid, illegal, and inhumane.

First the stupid part. Mr. DeSantis used Florida funds to pay for the private jets used to transport 50 refugees to Martha's Vineyard. The problem is that the refugees originated from San Antonio. Last time I checked, San Antonio was located in Texas, not Florida. Floridians might find that a problem, even if they are Trumpers. Using Florida tax money to transport the Texas “unwanted” just doesn’t make sense.

Second, shipping legitimate refugees awaiting their appearance in court away from a Texas-based immigration jurisdiction to another is not a up to a state. It’s up to the federal government. That makes this move illegal. Additionally, according to Susan Akram, professor, Boston University School of Law, "...if migrants were deceived into boarding the flights, coerced or deliberately misled, they or Massachusetts officials could charge Texas state officials responsible for fraud — or perhaps even kidnapping, depending on how they were coerced into boarding the transport."

Third, the inhumanity of this fraud is obvious to most people other than Mr. DeSantis. 

Finally, despite Mr. DeSantis’ best efforts to embarrass the people of Martha's Vineyard and score points with the FOX talking heads, the opposite has happened.  

Here’s the story…

DeSantis Flying Migrants to Martha’s Vineyard May Have Violated Federal Law, Experts Say, Nikki McCann Ramirez, Rolling Stone, 15 Sept 2022.

Alex Wagner Tonight MSNBC, 15 Sept 2022