The headline on MSNBC this morning was “CHAOS AT THE CAPITOL.” No, that’s not correct. A correct headline would read, “REPUBLICAN CHAOS AT THE CAPITOL.”
Also, reporters for both MSNBC and CNN, need to stop referring to the 20 or so Republicans on the far, far right of the party who are refusing to vote for McCarthy, as “conservatives.” They are not even close to being conservative. Calling them the party’s “Lunatic Fringe” would be more appropriate. Even some Republicans are referring to them as “the tail wagging the dog.”
Word inside the media, is that the push is on at CNN to attract more viewers from the right. Hopefully that won’t mean straying from telling the objective truth. Hopefully, MSNBC, wanting all those same viewers, won’t follow suit.
Journalism for profit works about as well as providing the best healthcare to those that can pay the most. Two white elephants in the Captiol rotunda that have never been adequately addressed.
Please, tell it like it is. The American public will be better informed and you’ll feel better about yourself.
On August 16, 1984, a jury in Los Angeles found John DeLorean not guilty of trafficking in cocaine to try and save his failing car company. The jury found DeLorean to be a victim of entrapment by the federal government.
Following the verdict, John Z. DeLorean would give out one first exclusive interview. I was the reporter who got it, and it was all because of Barbara Walters.
Barbara and I both worked for ABC at the time. DeLorean had promised that first interview to Barbara, who was in New York. There was no way she would be able to get to the West Coast in time. For some reason, maybe because I was the only reporter available, or possibly for some other reason never revealed, KABC sent me over to do the interview with DeLorean.
And so we headed over to the home of Cristina Ferrare’s parents in L.A. Cristina, John Z’s wife, was co-hosting our morning show “AM Los Angeles,” so it wasn’t merely coincidental that the couple had headed for the Ferrare’s house after the acquittal. Probably, because they thought they might be able to dodge the media. They didn’t.
Everybody in town was there, in a long line on the sidewalk at curbside. It was a real ego trip, walking past that line and up to the front door to be met by Cristina.
John DeLorean, was seated at their kitchen table. He was clearly exhausted. And that’s pretty much all I remember about the interview. Except that I was astonished to be there at all.
I’ll never know why I was chosen. I really don’t care. I’ll just take it and say one last thank you and goodbye, to Barbara Walters. On August the 16th of 1984, she really made my day.
Sometime between 1976 and 1979, a few of the Pittsburgh Steelers got together and opened a nightclub in one of the suburbs just outside of town. I heard about it and sold it to KDKA as a good live-shot on the 11 o’clock news with Bill Burns. They agreed, and so, there we were, me and my cameraman, in the club when several of the Steelers showed up for the grand opening. One of them was Franco Harris. There were others, but Franco, is the one I remember, probably because he was so much larger than life.
Franco Harris, was, and still is, famous for his skills on the field, highlighted by him snagging a catch deflected off another player that has come to be called the “Immaculate Reception.” It was a catch that shouldn’t and couldn’t have happened. But it did, and Franco Harris, did it.
I made him a part of my live presentation, and he couldn’t have been nicer. Just a regular soft-spoken guy. He was in no way full of himself, as he could have been. For years, Franco has been noteworthy for supporting the City of Pittsburgh and the Steelers organization. I just recently learned that he was a Pennsylvania delegate to the 2008 Democratic National Convention.
There are any number of good things about spending your life in the media. One, is that you get to meet people who turn out to be legendary. Franco, is one of the legends I was privileged to meet and I admit to being just a little bummed out about his passing. I won’t say he’s “gone,” because for those of us who were there in those days of the “Steel Curtain,” Franco, Terry, Lynn, Rocky, Jack, Mean Joe Greene, Iron Mike and a few others will live on in our hearts and minds. Such is the stuff legends are made of.
I didn’t realize I was part of the so-called “Steeler Nation” until long after I had left Pittsburgh. It’s not the kind of thing you can walk away from. Anyway, for a guy, if you’re gonna be sloppy and sentimental about something, it might as well be football?
Franco Harris, was 72. He is survived by his wife and one son. A second son, died of a heart attack in 2006.
In the summer of 1975, I was working as a gen. assignment reporter at WBNS in Columbus. I recall a sudden buzz running through the newsroom over some new music group. Totally focused on the job, a cub reporter with no time for anything else, I mostly ignored what some were saying was the best new group to come along in years. A few years later, I bought one of their albums and actually listened to it. I was hooked, and have been a fan of Fleetwood Mac ever since. I especially like the vocals of the two women in the group, Stevie Nicks and Christine McVie. Also a big fan of McVie’s songwriting skills. Today it’s being reported that she died at the age of 79 following a short hospital stay. She’s gone but her work carries on, as music marks our lives. RIP
Well gang, here we go. Arguably, the most important American election in 160 years is underway. The results, will depend in no small way upon how many of us continue to deny the validity of the just past election of 2020. Many of those same folks also refuse to recognize the attempted coup d’etat of January 6th, 2021, when a former preisdent sent his supporters down Pennsylvania Avenue, for the sole purpose of stopping the count of electoral ballots so that he could remain in office as an authoritarian, a tyrant, with the democratic process set aside. Maybe permanently.
That actually happened, but millions, apparently, continue to deny reality, favoring the misinformation and disinformation promoted by Fox and the house of Murdoch. We can only hope they lied when asked by pollsters who they were going to vote for. We can only hope they turned off the right-wing echo chamber long enough to clear their heads and think for themselves just long enough to see what tyranny and greed are doing to us.
So many have given up on traditional media, which continues to try and report out the truth, despite terrible pressures from corporate sales and promotion departments that answer to CEO’s and their Boards, and not to the American people. Fact is, despite corporate greed, there are still thousands of real journalists out there doing the best they can. Not just for their employers, but for their readers and viewers as well. Many of them, struggling to survive on low pay as their papers continue to be threatened by closure. They are unsung heroes. They deserve our support.
Too seldom are we reminded that a free press is the cornerstone of our Democracy. Not Twitter, not Facebook, not the Communist Chinese owned Tic Tok, but our traditional newspapers and broadcasters, who have earned our trust by continuing to seek out and report what Carl Bernstein likes to call “the best available version of the truth.” I think it was Ben Bradlee who called it “a first rough draft of history.”
Don’t be fooled. The issue of this election is not the economy. It is not the price of gas or unisex restrooms or abortion rights. It’s the survival of American Democracy, self-determination derived from honest and open elections and the rule of law. It’s a question of how many Americans have been fooled into believing the tyranny of autocracy and despotism will be preferable to the freedom provided by our democratic process. Something, perhaps that far too many have come to take for granted.
Anybody else watch Bill Maher last night? He left me with the feeling that we are on death watch, waiting to usher in the the death of American Democracy. First, he urged everyone to vote, and then proceeded to explain why it won’t matter all that much because the Republican machine has the election all tied up in their favor, going right up to 2024, when, Maher thinks, Donald Trump and his goon squad will be waiting at the door, regardless of the outcome at the polls.
On the flip side, Michael Moore, more often than not a purveyor of doom, is apparently of the opinion that we are about to see a Democratic victory, with women coast to coast refusing the support the party that killed Roe. If that’s the case, then the polls will have been off, not by a little, but by a lot. It shocked me how abruptly they switched from favoring the Dems to favoring Republicans. Can’t recall polling numbers being upended that abruptly before. I do think Oprah, may have just tilted the race for the Senate in PA in Fetterman’s favor.
There was a time, not so very long ago, when you actually had to do something. You had to have a string of accomplishments proving you were worthy of being given a voice, before they handed you a megaphone or a microphone or a keyboard. No more. Now, a little rich kid from South Africa, can fall over backwards into an emerald mine, buy a social media app, and suddenly be in charge of one of the biggest and potentially most dangerous megaphones ever invented. This might be compared to Wm. Randolph Hearst, getting into the newspaper business?
Sure, I know about Space-X and Tesla, but he didn’t exactly invent anything did he? Musk, simply invested money he had inherited, right? Do a couple of smart or lucky investments mean we should listen to what he has to say or that he should have control over one of our most powerful channels of information? Is Warren Buffett, really that much wiser than the rest of us simply because he has acquired a pile of money? For years now, I have been fascinated by the major media’s affection for Mr. Buffett, treating him like some old testament prophet, simply because he is sitting on a truckload of money.
At this point I should probably insert something about people not being able to live on money alone, about Homo sapiens primal need for spiritual input or we will wither away, but that old chestnut has been pulled out of the fire so many times that if our species doesn’t get it by now, chances are we never will.
Sounds pretty bad for us, doesn’t it?
Is the story of Musk, all that different from the story of our last alleged president, who was reportedly handed some $400-million by his dad, only to blow it all in bad business deals before he too found Twitter, turning it into a soapbox that landed him in the White House – along with considerable help from CNN and MSNBC, hungry for the ratings Fox had been getting? Interesting how the 7/24 news channels are now so eager to condemn DJT, after they did so much to get him elected? People forget.
The dangers of social media apps are all too apparent. Or maybe Twitter, is simply evil. A tool of the devil. But that would be beyond me. Evangelicals of one sect or another might want to look into it. Hopefully they won’t wait too long. It feels a little like children are out there playing with loaded shotguns. Again.
First, somebody mysteriously blows holes in both the Nordstream pipelines. At almost the same time, Russia, begins punishing Ukraine for defending itself, by lobbing even more missiles into civilian locations. It almost feels like Putin tried using the pipelines as a diversion from all the civilians he is murdering for no reason other than conquest and his need for ego gratification
In the south, the Ukrainians are pushing back the Russian Army and have bombed the bridge sending in supplies to Putin’s troops. Now, suddenly, Putin’s foreign minister, Lavrov, is talking about the potential for peace talks, either with the U.S. or Turkey.
It feels like Putin, may be on the ropes, gasping for air. One wonders what our intel knows and how much pressure Putin is feeling internally as the Russian people demonstrate in the streets and flee the country by the thousands to avoid being drafted into the dictator’s senseless war against innocent Ukrainians, who want nothing more than for the Russian Army to withdraw from their borders and to be left alone to live in peace.
Because of his insane war of conquest for his personal gratification, everything Vladimir Putin did not want is coming to pass as a self-fulfilling prophecy. NATO, has expanded and more than before, aligned itself as a wall of steel against Russia, a country increasingly seen as a pariah among nations. A country now under the punishing yoke of international sanctions. Most insulting of all perhaps, will be history forever seeing Putin as a butcher of babies and children. A man who failed both his people and himself.
When the killing stops and the madness ends, this may be viewed as another, anachronistic example of too much power in the hands of just one person. Something civilized people thought they had relegated to the past, with the likes of Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. Something Democracy, does not permit, which is why Putin has thrown so much of his energy into his attempted destruction of American Democracy.
Through it all, Donald J. Trump has favored, appeared to even idolize Vladimir Putin, a man who wants to destroy Ukraine and other free and democratic countries around the world. Those on the right who continue to support Trump and the Republican Party, need to remember this as they go to the polls. The future of our Democracy is at stake. Voting for a Republican, any Republican, is a vote to tear down our institutions and eliminate all that we hold dear. Freedom, cannot, must not, be taken for granted.
So the U.K.’s new PM, is turning out to be just as ditsy as so many Brits said she was, as, without warning, she came out with a plan to cut taxes to her richest constituents, paying for it by borrowing and putting the burden of replaying the debt on all the regular folk lower down on the economic ladder. A tax cut is one thing, but Liz, wanted to eliminate an entire tax bracket for the richest of the rich and then get the poor folks to pay for it. Oh my. Moreover, she did it without the support of her own party. Even a novice politico would have seen this as an impossible move in a proportionally representative system, but not Liz Truss, who reportedly sees herself as the next Maggie Thatcher.
With the weight of both public opinion and her very own party crashing down upon her stiff upper lip, Truss, abruptly did what the Brits kindly call a “u-turn,” and forgot about it. Leaders in her party are now, according to reports, trying to figure out how to get rid of her as quickly as possible, before she is able to attempt any more buffoonery. It appears to be Boris Johnson times ten.
Politics-watchers, are waiting to see which of Truss’s colleagues will be forced to fall on their sword to save the PM, who once, while doing a speech about British exports, inexplicably touted the dangers of importing too much cheese, which she called a “disgrace.”
Apparently, she doesn’t think the Brits deserve a bit of cheese now and then.
If you can’t find humor in any of that, then consider the “Pillow Guy,” good old Mike Lindell, in the spotlight again, this time before the Supreme Court of the United States, where his appeal to throw out a $1.3 billion defamation suit filed by U.S. Dominion, the company that manufacturers voting machines, has been denied. This of course, is all tied up in Lindell’s belief that the election was stolen from his buddy, DJT.
Can’t wait to see what the late night talk show hosts do with Lindell and what SNL does with Liz Truss. Ms. Truss in particular. It’s just too big an opportunity to pass on while they wait for her next big move as she attempts to become the UK’s next “Iron Lady.” There is no comparison of course, since Maggie Thatcher was capable of salient thought and Truss seems to be a legend in her own mind.
What was it Dr. Thompson said about American politics? Words to the effect of, “What do you want? You already live in the land of the weird.” Something like that. Not only was he right, but his analysis can now be expanded to include the U.K., which seems to be in a race to outpace anything the U.S. has been able to come up with.
Balsonaro, appears headed for defeat in Brazil, moving the country away from the far-right and towards the center-left. Could this be a precursor to the upcoming election here in the U.S.? Hopefully so, if you believe in majority rule and self-governance. This current batch of American right-wingers in the House and Senate clearly do not, witness their stand on public education, women’s rights, the obvious need for more and not less regulation of firearms and the very survival of Democracy in America.
Beyond Republican Fascism in the House and Senate, the way the Supreme Court has been skewing far-right, leaves one wondering if “packing the court” might not be the only solution and whether Joe Biden will be able to get it done.
In the short-term, the best way to return the country to majority rule, that is to say a Democracy featuring self-determination, appears to be an overwhelming defeat of the Republican Party at the polls. An absolute mandate, leaving no question about how most Americans feel with regard to throwing out this current Oligarchy, which continues to hold so much power in the House and Senate.
We all need to think more about what the Ukrainians are fighting for on a daily basis. The survival of their self-determination through the democratic process. Their freedom. The latest word is that they’ve retaken a town inside the territory Putin and his Russian stooges now claim for their own.
You have to wonder to what degree the Russian dictator might not be losing control of both his military and his sway over public opinion. With his soldiers in retreat, record numbers of business leaders falling out of 18th floor windows and thousands of young men leaving the country by any means possible, Vladimir Putin’s future surely must be called into question?
The similarity between Putin and the far right-wing in America is interesting. Rather than doing that which is in their best interest, both seem destined to take actions that are in their worst-interests, a kind of self-fulfilling suicide wish. At least it appears that’s where Putin is headed. We can only hope the same will happen to those on the right in America who are bumping up against Fascism, with so many of them lacking the ability to sort out what or why they are doing it. I don’t mean those in the House and Senate who are doing it for the money, the publicity and the power. I mean those common folk, the lemmings headed for the nearest cliff. They just seem determined to get it done, even though they don’t really know why, except that they have been filled with hate and fear of the other. What fine madness is this? I think the Bard wrote that originally.
After reading about the “human stampede” at a football game in Indonesia, killing more than 120 people, one is left wondering about the very survival of our species, much less our ability for self-governance.
When and why did reporters begin referring to elementary school property or a high school as having a “campus?” For decades the term campus referred only to colleges and universities. Didn’t it? Am I being overly critical? I suppose if caps can be hats and anything with four wheels can be a car then a grade school can have a campus.
Remember when people in the business used to care about such things and correct others for their improper usage? That may be what’s happening. Or not happening. Those who know better are afraid of correcting anybody, so the degree of incorrect usage just grows making it difficult to home-in on a solution with so many people running around trying to “hone-in” on it.
Eventually, the incorrect usage becomes acceptable, so why worry? Webster’s now accepts “amirite” as a replacement word for the phrase “am I right?” Sick, isn’t it?
My personal theory is that this is all a part of human evolution. From our current youthful “fast-talkers,” who jamalltheirwordstogether to our next level, which will be total telepathic communication. “TTC” for short, which will come into being when fast-talking becomes inadequate because it will be too slow. That’ll be really sick, won’t it?
Reports coming in from Russia, indicate people are being arrested in the streets for protesting the war. Other reports indicate military recruiting offices are being torched while airlines are bulging with people wanting to get out of the country rather than being subjected to Putin’s latest military call up. History teaches that it rarely ends well for demagogues, once the Russian people take to the streets.
Putin again threatened the use of nuclear weapons. This is, hopefully, his version of Nikita Khrushchev, banging a shoe on his desk at the United Nations while threatening, “We will bury you.”
At the same time, back in America, the Feds have won their appeal, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, two of the three judges having been appointed by Trump, giving them access to the top secret files from Mar a Lago. Meaning, they can move forward with their investigation of Donald J. Trump, while New York Attorney General Letitia James, moves forward with a civil suit against Donald and his children for bank and tax fraud and possibly more in a complaint of 222 pages and the possibility of criminal cases being pressed by the IRS and the SDNY.
Legal and moral accountability appears to be arriving at about the same time for both Putin and Trump, entwined in their mutual love of tyranny and hate for Democracy and the freedom it represents.
I was just notified that my old school, the University of Minnesota, will have a record number of freshmen this fall with 6,700 new arrivals making up the freshman class. The alert was sent out on Facebook, with the apparent intention of making alumni feel good about the surge in enrollment. Really?The estimated annual cost of attending the University is more than $31,000 for students who are state residents.
Where are these kids getting the money to afford this? If the majority are using loans to pay their way through, and one must assume they are, then this is a national crisis perpetuating itself. This is unacceptable. It’s social and fiscal madness to essentially punish young people who are trying to better themselves to be more productive members of our society. This is insane.
It almost makes you think that the upper classes are trying to prevent lower and middle-income Americans from getting a college education, because a dumbed-down society is easier to control. There’s also the fact that making higher education more affordable, the way it used to be, would involve increasing taxes on the wealthiest Americans. So it’s not gonna happen?
Better to force the kids to take out loans with excessive interest rates some will never be able to pay off. But that’s something that only a conspiracy theory nutjob would believe. Right?
In Indianapolis, a Dutch military commando, in the United States for training, was shot outside a hotel. He has now died. Two of his buddies, two other Dutch commandos, remain hospitalized.
There were six shootings over the weekend in Baltimore, leaving one dead and six injured.
Just a bit earlier it was announced that the family of a man who was shot dead in downtown Baltimore, allegedly by a 15 year-old “squeegee kid,” is suing the City, for failing to provide adequate public safety. City officials and their “Federal partners” held the obligatory news conference saying the violence has to stop. Truth is, the violence won’t stop in Baltimore, until the people of Baltimore get so fed up that they start assisting the police in putting the bad guys in jail. To date, that hasn’t happened. Not enough to make any real difference. I suspect City leaders are afraid to call the City’s residents out for their negligence out of fear that they’ll lose what little cooperation the cops are currently getting. But enough about the long-term woes of Charm City. There is so much more.
Sunday night in Phoenix, three people were killed, including a “suspect” and two police officers were injured following some kind of shootout. Apparently the suspect was wearing a bullet-proof vest and there was a molotov cocktail involved.
Earlier on Sunday, in Houston, four people were killed after a suspect set several homes on fire and then shot the occupants as they ran outside trying to escape the flames.
And this just in: An off-duty Harris County Texas Deputy Constable was shot and killed last night while driving home from a restaurant, where he had gone to pick up dinner for his family.
I apologize if I missed any of the weekend shootings but there are so many on any given weekend, that it’s difficult to keep up.
Some ninety percent of America thinks the country should enforce national background checks for firearms purchases, a position that’s opposed by Republicans and the gun lobby. For this one issue alone, you need to vote for Democrats in the upcoming election. This Republican supported madness opposing common sense gun safety legislation has to stop.
In a very real sense, opposing Republicans supports the police, and right now, they need our help. Big time. Before long, people will be afraid of traveling to America, out of fear of being gunned down on our streets. We are nearly there. Or, maybe we’re already at that point but most of us got so used to all the mass-shootings that we simply missed it?
Ozzy Osbourne, didn’t. On Sunday it was announced that he and his family are fed up with the violence here in the U.S. and are moving back to the U.K. A move Rod Stewart made some years ago, after he was mugged at gunpoint in Los Angeles back in 1982. Stewart had his 3-year old daughter with him at the time.
Two things: One, is that KTLA is reporting on the LAPD complaint that Tic Tok now has videos of kids showing other kids the best way to steal some cars, featuring cars by make, model and year, that are apparently the easiest to steal. And guess what? More of those cars, the LAPD says, are now being stolen.
Somehow this has got to be stopped, but how without stepping on the First Amendment? It’s also a safe bet that young people who are taking over intersections to do “burnouts” with their muscle cars are simply mimicking what they have seen on social media or in the movies.
Are there any adults still in the room?
Our second issue is email alerts. Like getting an alert that you need to update your information on an account. Most of these “alerts” can be ignored, so many are nothing but advertising, but there is always a chance that ignoring a specific alert might cause a problem. I thought if anything was important enough to merit my attention somebody would send me a notice in the real “snail” mail. I’m no longer so sure that’s still the case, or at least if it will be the case going forward.
