So Many Rabbit Holes... #1

Apparently, I blinked and when I opened my eyes I saw that Elizabeth Warren had apologized for her insensitivity to Native Americans.  Let me just summarize this situation the way I see it:

When Elizabeth was a child, her mother told her she had some Native American blood.  I imagine it was a point of pride.  So when it came to indicating her heritage, Warren later included Native American.

Scott Brown, who is an idiot, had nothing else to run on against Warren in 2012, so his oppo researchers learned that she had included this detail when applying for a job at Harvard.  It was such a moronic attack, and given that Warren was running on intelligent and important issues, that she easily won.

Of course, idiot-in-chief Donald Trump, who can't resist the opportunity to mock a woman, began the highly insulting (to Native Americans) taunt of "Pocahontas" when referring to her.  Popular with his really ignorant base, who thought it was really clever and hilarious, the taunt became a standard line.

Circus showman Trump promised $1 million to charity if a DNA test "shows you're an Indian."  Sick of the taunts and knowing how hard it is for Trump to part with a penny, she took him up on it.  Which SHE WOULD NOT HAVE DONE IF SHE DID NOT BELIEVE SHE WAS PART NATIVE AMERICAN.

Now, the test found "strong evidence" that Warren has a Native American ancestor, which should have been solid enough proof that her claim was valid.  But not only did Trump turn it around to his ugly needs, but the Native American community joined in.

Elizabeth Warren has been a hero for working class Americans and minorities throughout her life and her political career.  Instead of recognizing this for the manipulative attack that it is, the argument became over whether she had the right to claim Indian heritage without the proper "blood quantum" amount.  Which term was brought into use by the federal government in the first place, and not by Native American tribes.  Into the weeds, and through to the rabbit hole.

Meanwhile, the media has taken this on, as though Hillary's emails had never led to the election of Donald Trump and mea culpas all around.  No more talking about raising the working poor by taxing the wealthy, or about regulating Wall Street.  Now she can count on at least one question by some imbicile about her heritage.

Shortly after the test results hit, I tuned in to a talk show on NPR.  The guests were Native American and they were all having a go at Warren, postulating about the meaning of "blood quantum" and whining about how Warren had insulted their heritage.  Then a caller -- a Native American woman -- said that Elizabeth Warren had been a strong and uncompromising voice for women and minorities, and this silly misstep wasn't going to make her less of a Warren supporter.  Before I could let out a cheer, the moderator asked the geniuses in the studio another question about tribes and blood quantum identity TOTALLY IGNORING THE CALLER'S COMMENTS.

Are we so gullible that we will continue to turn on our own, so desperate to be politically correct that we don't recognize the virus in the messaging?  Once again, republicans have been able to toss in the grenade and watch as Democrats jump in after it.

When I first heard the comment that Warren should not run for president because she had too much baggage, I thought my head would explode.  Baggage???  Warren is the most straightforward and honest person in politics.  Period.  The only baggage she has been carrying has been that thrust on her by the media, who once again is passing it on for the Fox News crowd.

We have got to stop this.  Tweet MSNBC and CNN whenever they start to wander toward those rabbit holes.  Remind them that their job is to talk about real issues, not rumors and questionable or false attacks.  Write letters to the editor and make phone calls.

We lost an amazing if imperfect candidate in 2016.  She would have been as good a president as Barack Obama, an amazing if imperfect president.  We have lost members of Congress and solid candidates because republicans know how to avoid the issues with really ugly oppo research and we continue to chase after it.

Meanwhile, there is a pussy grabber in the White House, one who openly mocks Native American dignity as he attacks a U.S. Senator, locks up children and lies about immigrants.  And waiting backstage is our former attorney general, also a former member of the KKK, who is contemplating a run to retake his Alabama Senate seat in 2020.

Let us not get distracted.  Not again.

Being Invisible

It was comical after Wednesday's Democratic debate, to watch MSNBC political hosts and pundits dance around the fact that Bernie Sanders has more supporters than Hillary.  They have mostly been ignoring his growing and extremely enthusiastic followers despite huge crowds and numbers -- and amounts -- of donations to his campaign.  They have been ignoring this despite the fact that he is accomplishing this without the celebrity and fortune of Donald Trump.

So when several focus groups agreed that after the debate they would support Bernie over Hillary, the media continued to report Hillary as "the winner" of the debate.  I heard a pundit rationalize that just because people in focus groups say they support someone it doesn't mean they will go out and vote for them.  Okay, I guess that could be said for all the brouhaha about Donald Trump as well as his sidekick, idiot savant Ben Carson.

But look who has noticed Bernie Sanders.  Donald Trump, the following day, called him a "maniac" that is forcing "poor Hillary" to the left -- "this socialist-slash-communist."  And, by the way, this maniac that is pushing Hillary around is just not the "tough, strong leader" that we need.

While we might not call Trump logical or rational, what he does have is a very sharp awareness of threat, and a subsequent instinct about how to attack and manipulate that threat.  Call it his cutthroat business sense, or maybe just his success at being a bully.  So when Trump takes notice and begins to attack Bernie Sanders, it is safe to assume that he recognizes the threat.

When is the media going to get it?  Time and again we have seen the media snowed by the loudest voice, the predominant story, the words of the powerful and/or the wealthy.  Take their focus on candidate Trump.  How many times did we watch segments wherein the media couldn't believe all the attention Donald Trump was getting from the media?  They have their story and by gods they are sticking by it, regardless of the facts.

The facts being that Bernie gets the largest crowds, the greatest number of donations, the most hits on Twitter, the loudest cheers of all the Democratic candidates.  That pundits were reporting Hillary as the winner of the debate after hearing the audience response (remember the old applause meter?) meant that they may have been hearing but they sure weren't listening.

Speaking of applause meters, back in 1980, I would watch Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.  As the presidential election approached, each night he would ask the audience to clap if they were voting for Carter, and then if they were voting for Reagan.  The applause was always, always far louder for Reagan.  And Carson would look astonished and chuckle.

The media is doing that now for Donald Trump, and I am not finding it all that funny.  My own sense of self-preservation and denial kick in and I think, "Well, that doesn't mean they are going to get out and vote for him."  Yes, sadly, the idiots that can find their way to the town halls and the stadiums to cheer for his hate-filled nonsense can -- and will -- find their way to the polls.  But I am hoping that there is a lot more noise than substance, that those republicans who are embarrassed by Trump are many, and they are not seeking attention.  And that when a strong candidate presents on the other side, all those wackos will stay home and watch Trump and Fox News on TV.

On the other hand, we Democrats aren't comfortable welcoming success to our house.  I have talked with far too many who say they like Bernie but can't vote for him because he can't win.  And yet the enthusiasm among younger voters is very much like that for Barack Obama in 2008.  Are we really willing to reject a candidate we like, refuse to see the groundswell of support he is getting because it does not match our expectations?

When Obama won in 2008, with an increase in the majority of both House and Senate, Democrats were smug in their assumption that the republicans had been put down.  Oh we did laugh when John Boehner said "Hell, no you can't!" in his opposition to the health care bill.  And we were amazed at the gall when Mitch McConnell in the Senate said that the number one goal of the republican party should be to see that Obama did not get a second term.  Well, Obama did not back down on health care, although too many Democrats in Congress did, and the result was that Obama won his second term and became stronger, and the Democrats in Congress were left in the dust.  Not surprisingly the ones most likely to get dumped were the ones most afraid to stand tall as Democrats.

So here's the thing about Bernie.  I'm fine with him being ignored by the media, but he has shown himself to be quite capable of handling the inevitable attacks on his "socialism."  The people know he's out there, and a lot of us are behind him.  Hillary is a fine candidate and would make a fine president, but Bernie is that much better for not ever having to be tempted to be beholding to Wall Street and corporate donors.  He has made it farther than any of us, including himself, thought possible, so who are we to jump to conclusions about the likelihood of his success?

I am 100 percent for Bernie Sanders.  He has as much chance as anyone to win the nomination, and more so if those of us who are worried about whether he can make it stop worrying and vote for him.

If he does not win the nomination, I will throw my support behind Hillary with no reservations.  But until then, I believe that Bernie Sanders is our best possible candidate, and that he can win both the nomination and the election (my god, look who he would be running against!).  And, as Obama did in 2008, Bernie will help us get back a Democratic Congress.

Meanwhile, isn't it wild being the party of the people, fearless and moving forward?

Trying to Be CNN

If you'd like to know, the only important thing that has gone on this week is the tragic derailment of the Amtrak train between New York and Pennsylvania.

I know because I get my news from MSNBC, and the best and brightest on their evening lineup have been filling their entire broadcast with that event.  Either it is the only news worth covering, or MSNBC has changed their format from covering several important and newsworthy events per one hour news show to wall-to-wall coverage of one single event.

I don't intend to seem callous.  The derailment is important news, and not just for the tragic deaths.  The day after the accident Congress, not to be "derailed" by reality, cut funding for Amtrak.  You can't make this stuff up.  And, to be fair, MSNBC covered the budget cut.  But you can only get away with calling their coverage of one event over the course of one hour, much less several hours running, "breaking news" for so long.  Jon Stewart has had many hours of fun (not consecutively however) mocking CNN for doing exactly that.

I'm not sure when this nonsense began, but after the shooting in Ferguson, Chris Hayes was out there night after night interviewing people on the street.  He did the same thing after the shooting in North Charleston and ditto in Baltimore.  He tends to get excited over these admittedly horrendous events, and it seemed at times that he was actually enflaming the crowd.  A newsworthy event, but it stopped being news after the first fifteen minutes of each broadcast.

Anyway, I had assumed this was because of the importance of the gun issue, and the point was in fact that police violence toward African Americans was a constant presence in America, one we had been ignoring throughout our history.

But two nights after the Amtrak crash, there was Chris Hayes, interviewing, well, anyone that was there.

I've gotten to the point where I can tell in minutes whether MSNBC has got their teeth into a news story that is going to go 24/7, and of course, after a short time, it is no longer news.  And then I wonder, what about all the other important things that are going on in the country?  Do people really want to hear from every single person on the street, and how many times can you re-air somebody-or-other's official statement, and how many different ways can you analyze it?  Larry Wilmore interviewed gang members in a Baltimore diner and was able to be more relevant and newsworthy in eight minutes than MSNBC had been throughout their whole coverage.

During those entire weeks of wasted airtime, I hunger for other news.  For that matter, I also get impatient when Rachel Maddow takes twenty minutes repeating the same comment over and over to make one important point.  If she only said the same thing once or twice, her program would be fifteen minutes long.  But boy would it be powerful.  Or, she could cover that many more stories.

I hate that MSNBC has dulled their news reporting, made it as trite as that of CNN.  Their repetitions and redundancies, their hundreds of on-the-street interviews, have watered down the important headlines and analyses that I had come to expect from them.  While we heard over and over and over again that the engineer on the Amtrak train was in the hospital and had amnesia for the crash, Congress was voting on important budget matters, attempting once again to prohibit the right of women to seek abortions, fighting over Obama's fast-track trade deal, and who only knows what else, because it wasn't being covered on MSNBC.

This is what I would like.  I would like, in the first segment on each show, an update on any major event.  And then I would like to hear what else is going on in the country and in the world.  If you asked, you might find that I am not the only one that after the first few minutes of the same reprocessed news about the important event turns off the TV or walks out of the room.

So please, MSNBC, take a look at what you're doing.  Would YOU watch your show night after night to see the same piece of information presented over and over again?  Really, you are far, far better than that.

Thank you, and good night.