Year: 2023

I have not watched cable news in about 15 years and yet, I’m a news junkie. Why is that? Because I realized that cable news kept me disinformed. Something awesome happened around 2003 in response to the Bush/Cheney presidency. Independent media emerged in response to the horseshit that the mainstream “trusted” news sources were peddling. Remember this years long turd from the New York Times? It wasn’t just The Times. They were all doing it. Phil Donahue was fired from MSNBC for opposing the Iraq war.

The only good thing that came from that horrendous presidency, is that the mainstream media was exposed for being nothing more than stenographers for the establishment. Unfortunately, the majority of the generations that were consuming news at the time didn’t notice. But a decent percentage of us did, and upcoming generations totally knew it and never experienced disillusionment with mainstream media because they grew up knowing it was propaganda.

I did enjoy Keith Olbermann’s rapier wit during the Bush years. When Rachel Maddow took over his slot on MSNBC, I tuned in because I was a big fan of every iteration of her show on Air America Radio. She cohosted a show with Lizz Winstead, founding writer of the Daily Show and champion of women’s reproductive rights. She also cohosted a show with Chuck D of Public Enemy, a fierce fighter for progressive causes and equal justice. Maddow was a true progressive who really understood that the corporate takeover of our government was the reason for 90% of our country’s problems. She understood that a combination of republican neocon ideology and the military industrial complex were responsible for getting us into and keeping us in Iraq and Afghanistan. She knew that big Pharma is the reason why Americans can’t afford life saving drugs. She was a big supporter of then congressman Bernie Sanders.

So I watched her on MSNBC, not because I expected her to do the same type of show that she had done on Air America. At that point, I was acutely aware of the main stream media’s role in propagandizing the American people on behalf of the establishment. I watched because I believed that she would do what she could do within the constraints of working for corporate media to actually inform viewers. In the beginning, that’s what she did. Her shows were definitely not as informative as what I was getting from independent media, and she never really told me anything I didn’t already know but she was raising issues for “normies” that wouldn’t otherwise be exposed to.

As time went on, she was doing fewer and fewer stories about things that directly impact working people’s lives and focused more and more on DNC propaganda. Her show became the same old, same old partisan horserace hackery that everyone else was doing. I stopped watching entirely and listened to the podcast once or twice a week. The end for me; the moment when I realized that she was the most insipid person on cable news came during the 2016 presidential primary. She did one of her 40 minute monologues about a Supreme Court decision that vacated former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s conviction on corruption charges. Basically they said that if someone lavishes gifts on a politician, and then that person gets state contracts, there’s no corruption unless there’s video evidence of a bag of cash being handed over while the politician clearly states that the donor will receive a lucrative contract in exchange. Disgusting, and definitely worth a 40 minute segment.

Less than a week later, Maddow had Andrea Mitchell on to discuss an allegation that Bernie had made against Hillary (remember, this was the primary). Bernie accused Hillary of illegally laundering money to her campaign through state democratic organizations. Bernie was lying. What Hillary was doing was not illegal anymore. It was not illegal because of another Supreme Court ruling. In McCutcheon v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court removed the aggregate cap on donations that an individual can make in an election cycle. The maximum amount that a single donor can make to a candidate of a party is $2,700 per election cycle. There was also an aggregate cap that capped the total amount that somebody could give during an election cycle. The Supreme Court removed that cap. That’s what made it possible for George Clooney to throw a $350,000 a plate fundraiser for Hillary. That $350,000 donation would get distributed to state democratic entities all across the country and then sent back to Hillary’s campaign. This is now perfectly legal because of SCOTUS, but it’s definitely corrupt just like Citizen’s United. So Bernie lied to try and get the media to talk about the McCutcheon ruling.

You would this was right in Maddow’s wheelhouse since she had just spent forty minutes on how the Supreme Court legalized corruption, right? Nope. She did a four minute segment with Andrea Mitchell about how Bernie lied, never mentioning the Supreme Court or uttering the word “McCutcheon” once. She didn’t even explain what I did about how the money gets laundered around and around. She just spoke about the ‘Hillary Victory Fund’ that the DNC set up and emphasized that they had also set up a ‘Bernie Victory Fund’, failing to mention that he never touched it. Way to outsmart Bernie and keep your audience in the dark Rachel. Bravo!

It was disgusting and insipid, and it’s an excellent example of how the “liberal” corporate media exists to manipulate liberals just as much as Fox News exists to manipulate conservatives. That’s when I decided that she had gone from being someone I respected to being the most insipid person on cable television. Yes, more insipid than Tucker. Why? Because while Tucker is a prolific liar, he does fundamentally believe in republican ideals. As one of the heirs to the Swanson frozen food fortune, he’s all for fucking the working class over in order to protect his inheritance through as many tax cuts as he can trick his viewers into supporting. He grew up believing that trickle down makes the world work. She knows better and decided to sell you out to the establishment that she knows has been robbing you for decades, just so that she can collect a fat paycheck for herself.

There’s absolutely no reason to fall for this crap anymore. There are a myriad of independent outlets, just like Air America Radio (long defunct) where Maddow once earned my trust.

For podcasts, there’s The Majority Report with Sam Seder. He’s another Air America alum. He has the best analytical mind I’ve ever come across and he’s totally unemotional about politics. There’s Indisputable with Dr Rashad Richey. He’s excellent on matters of racial justice. There’s The Young Turks. They will teach you to decode politician speak better than anyone else and they will teach you to spot how the main stream media is manipulating you. There’s Unbossed with Nina Turner. She will inform you on how establishment democrats are enriching themselves at your expense, while still giving you hope that we can undo this mess. Lastly, in the podcast category, there’s This Is Revolution. This one will make you the most uncomfortable if you’re switching from msm news but the more I’ve listened, the less uncomfortable I’ve become and the more they’ve won me over on some of their perspectives. They will give you the best world history lessons you will get now that the world no longer has the amazing Michael Brooks to educate us.

I do read the New York Times and The Washington Post every single morning because I think it’s important to stay on top of the corporate spin and they do occasionally do some good investigative journalism. I go to The Hill and Politico to get unvarnished establishment propaganda and to learn about who is turning on whom. There was a period of time when they were peddling fluff pieces full of effusive (unearned) praise for Mayo Pete and stories about Kamala Harris’ blunders. That made it clear that Biden was floating trial balloons in regard to replacing his veep in the next election. But to get the information that the msm won’t give me, I go to The Intercept, Pro Publica, and The Lever every single day. They have earned my trust the way Maddow once did.

I do, of course fact check everything I read. I actually fact check articles that sound good to me more than I fact check anything else. Trust but verify is my approach to news.

It’s bullshit. There is no debt ceiling crisis. Not really.

Let me debunk some shit that literally none of the mainstream media media will educate you on.

Fact #1: No corporate owned politician will allow the debt ceiling to be breached. Why? Because their owner/donors have literally everything to lose. Approximately 90% of our politicians are wholly owned subsidiaries of corporations. That includes Biden and McCarthy. The other 10% are funded entirely by grass roots donations. All but one of those are progressives. The progressives don’t want the debt ceiling to be breached because they’re progressive and the mere discussion of tanking the world economy (that part of the media narrative isn’t bullshit) is unconscionable.

Fact #2: Anytime there’s a “debt ceiling crisis”, the president has all the power. It doesn’t matter if the opposing party controls both chambers of congress. Unless the opposing party has a super majority in both chambers, the president has 100% of the power in this situation. Why? See fact #1.

If the president refuses to negotiate over raising the debt ceiling, congress is completely powerless. They have to raise it. Their owner/donors won’t let them tank the economy.

There is no crisis unless the president creates one. That is an empirical fact.

When Obama, and now Biden agreed to negotiate with republicans, they created a crisis. And they did it by breaking a stated tenet of the US government; we don’t negotiate with terrorists.

Yes democrats – I understand your compulsion to blame McCarthy for this but you’re just wrong. Let me repeat: the president never has to engage in negotiations because the terrorists have no leverage.

Have you ever asked yourselves why democrats never deploy the same tactics that republicans win with? Do you think it’s because they’re the “good guys”? If you do, that’s a pretty flawed opinion because “good guys” should be doing everything they can to do good things.

No, democrats are getting paid to lose. They’re getting paid to lose by the same owner/donors that pay republicans to win. They have been cast in the role of well meaning but hapless in the political theater that we’ve been treated to for the past four decades.

Remember when democrats “tried” to pass a $15 federal minimum wage under reconciliation and the senate parliamentarian said “no”? Remember? Remember how they gave up after that because, what could they do? Raising the minimum wage was something democrats really wanted to do but their hands were tied, right? Oh wait, would you look at that; twenty years earlier, when the then senate parliamentarian stood in the way of W’s tax cuts for the rich, republicans fired him and passed the tax cuts.

Huh. Maybe democrats just didn’t know they could do that because none of them have been in office for that long? No, come to think of it, Biden was in the senate when republicans fired the senate parliamentarian.

Hmmmm. Maybe there’s another explanation I haven’t thought of that doesn’t involve democrats profoundly sucking. I’d love it if someone can point me to that explanation.

Make no mistake: this debt ceiling crisis is 100% Biden manufactured and you are definitely going to end up on the losing end of these unnecessary negotiations.

I am flummoxed as to how anyone can still buy into this “good guy” and “bad guy” narrative that has been created in order to get voters to enthusiastically vote against their own self interests. If you’re not looking long and hard at your primary candidate options, you’re part of the problem. If you have even dismissed a candidate because “they’re not viable”, you have bought into the corporate media narrative that keeps you voting against your own self interest.

I don’t vote for a corporate owned democrat until I don’t have a choice. When it’s general election time and my options are between a democrat and a republican, I vote for the democrat because I know that they will be slightly less shitty than the republican. Slightly. That’s the reality.

I just wish that the rest of the electorate would wise up and put me in that unpleasant situation less often.

I know I’ve been slow to post about Jordan Neely’s murder. That’s because I needed time to process the facts and my feelings about what happened. My process generally involves challenging myself on my initial opinion until I land on an opinion that includes the facts and my values.

First, let me say that since we don’t have all the facts yet, I’m not advocating for a first degree murder charge (yet). Right at this moment, we don’t have any witnesses who have claimed that Jordan assaulted anyone. That might change and I will form a different opinion if that happens. I certainly won’t take the choke holder’s word for it. The good news is that there are cameras on the subway so we’re not going to have to rely on witness testimony to see what happened.

The opinion I hold on the forefront of my mind in regard to this incident is that my heart aches for him. He lived a heartbreaking life that ended the way his mother’s did: by being choked to death. When he was 14 years old, his mother was strangled to death by her live-in boyfriend, who stuffed her body in a suitcase and tossed it along a highway like trash. When Jordan was 18, he has to testify against his mother’s murderer. What happened to his mother broke him and that’s all I can think about.

My opinions about the incident are eclipsed by my heartache for him, as should anyone else’s.

Now back to the day he was murdered. I watched the video shot by the reporter on the train because I believe that watching is the least we as the public can do. I saw him in a chokehold for over 2 and a half minutes. He was already in the hold before the video started. I’ve heard that he was in that chokehold for 15 minutes. I don’t know that to be a fact so I’m only going to speak to the 2 1/2 minutes that I personally witnessed.

There’s a reason why the majority of police departments don’t allow chokeholds; they kill people. We all know this, so using a chokehold on another person is completely inexcusable Full.Stop. Using a chokehold on someone means that you don’t care if they die so the choker in this instance is trash.

Knowing that he served as a marine for 4 years makes this even worse. He was ostensibly trained on chokeholds and knew what I had to research to learn. If you do a chokehold “correctly” a person would be rendered unconscious in 8 – 10 seconds. It is still dangerous to do it “correctly”. This asshole had Jordan in a chokehold for at least the 2 1/2 minutes that I witnessed. What we know right now absolutely warrants a manslaughter charge. I am reserving judgement on a murder charge, but even if we have confirmation that Jordan didn’t assault anyone, that’s going to be a difficult charge for the prosecutor to make. We have to start prosecuting these vigilantes because encouraging them by letting them walk with no consequences creates a world that no one should have to live in.

Before he was murdered, Jordan said, “I’m tired already. I don’t care if I go to jail and get locked up. I’m ready to die.” He said he was hungry and thirsty. That doesn’t sound like a dangerous person to me. That sounds like a desperate person who is slowly being killed by society. That sounds like a person who is literally crying out for help. The asshole wanna-be hero in this story has an outsized penchant for fear. He should not be applauded for that.

The right wing media loves to report that Jordan was arrested 42 times. That’s forty-two opportunities that New York City missed to help this man. It was actually many more than 42 opportunities. He was on NYC’s outreach workers’ list of the “top 50”, meaning that that he was among the unhoused who are urgently in need of help. Here’s what they neglected to do during their numerous attempts to help him: give him a home. Providing the unhoused with permanent shelter works. It works. Let me show you again that this fucking works. If the city you live in has tried it and it didn’t work, it’s because of corruption, misuse of funds and crony capitalism. When the money isn’t siphoned off to pay back owner/donors, housing the unhoused with no preconditions works. It works for everyone. Every last member of society benefits by housing the unhoused.

I had brunch with a very dear friend who I absolutely adore yesterday. He’s had encounters on the subway with unhoused people who were having a mental health episode. Those encounters scared the shit out of him so he doesn’t feel that the choker (I REFUSE to use his name) did anything wrong. I can see that perspective, but I don’t share it.

I’m not a fearful person by my nature. I actually rarely have strong split second emotions, and I never have. In any given situation, my brain goes to assessing what’s happening based on what I know.

During that brunch, my friend told me about his friend who lives (or works – I can’t remember which) on the upper west side. His friend does a good amount of humanitarian work so he’s certainly a kind person. He told my friend that when the city put some of the unhoused up in a hotel on the upper west side in the early days of the covid pandemic, he personally witnessed a crime spree. As it happened, I was very familiar with that situation. Our then mayor made the decision to move some of the city’s unhoused people into some of the plethora of empty hotels across the city. One of those hotels was The Lucern, located on the Upper West Side where the primary demographic is fine, white liberals. Here’s what those fine, white liberals did (I encourage you to read the article). They started a Facebook page to band together. They got so much backlash, that they made the page private because that’s what you do when you’re right and righteous; you hide. They insisted that crime was going up in their neighborhood and they saw that crime everywhere. The problem is that the crime they saw was entirely imaginary. They had to imagine crime so that they could tell themselves that they are good people. My friend’s friend imagined crime that wasn’t happening. This is why I always find anecdotal evidence completely worthless. Anecdotal evidence isn’t evidence of anything except what a person thinks they see with their own eyes. It’s total bullshit that I won’t entertain because data is what I rely on to inform myself.

I have also experienced encounters with unhoused people in the middle of a mental health crisis on the subway. I’ve never been afraid. Maybe that’s because I understand that people with mental illnesses are far more likely to be victims of crime than they are perpetrators of crime, and that they’re legitimately frightened all the time. Or maybe it’s because I know that half of our population is two paychecks away from being unhoused and that being unhoused is not a result of a moral failing.

Our culture is seriously diseased in this regard. We fundamentally believe that the unhoused got that way because of something they did so they deserve this. We believe that despite the fact that the vast majority of us are justifiably feeling screwed by our government that only exists to fellate the 1%. I don’t know where the disconnect is in regard to applying what we know to the unhoused. I used to be bothered by the idea of giving an unhoused person money, just to have them spend it on drugs or alcohol. That no longer bothers me. I would medicate the shit out of myself if I had to live on the streets too and so would you.

We see the unhoused as trash that we don’t want in our neighborhoods. We don’t look at them when we walk past them.

And that’s why Jordan Neely was killed and why some applaud him for doing the killing. He was just taking out the trash that we’re afraid of and want to remove from our consciousness.

Here’s what I do when I’m on the subway with someone who is having a mental episode: I either walk away or I feed them. Before the pandemic, I always kept a few protein bars in my purse for just these occasions. I had fallen out of that habit until this happened. I went to Costco yesterday and stocked up. A desperate person is not going to harm you if you treat them like a human being and make even the smallest gesture to help.

Can you imagine what living in a society where you’re invisible all the time and the only interaction you have with other humans is one where you’re seen as trash?

When you see an unhoused person, look at them and say, “Hello”. That simple act of seeing someone as human can help to diminish mental health episodes. If I have food or water on me, I give it to them. The leftovers that are packed up for me after I have a meal seldom make it home with me (don’t forget to ask for utensils when they’re packing up your meal!)

These are human beings with very human stories. Please let that thought be the first one you have when you see an unhoused person.

And please, I beg you – don’t let your fear turn you into the type of person who applauds murdering vigilantes. I promise you that this won’t turn out well for you.