Economist and white-collar criminologist Bill Black explains Obama's true intentions (not good) regarding the sequester and how MSNBC is loath to spell this out to its Democratic clientele.

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March 12, 2013

Austerity and the Death of Logic

Bill Black: Both the GOP and the White House refuse to support a bill that ends the sequester, it shows the real intention of the Obama administration
Watch full multipart The Black Financial and Fraud Report

Blogger's Note: In this video Bill Black says that "Dean Baker has a spectacular column that people should read that basically says [MSNBC's support of Obama even though he plans 'austerity plus cuts in the safety net'] is because the president simply will not tell the truth to the American people." See it below.

DEFENDING CLEAN ELECTIONS IN ARIZONA: A FURIOUS "DEMOCRATIC DIVA" BLASTS THE POSITION OF ARIZONA-NATIVE POLITICAL ANALYST VICTORIA DEFRANCESCO SOTO IN AN MSNBC PANEL DISCUSSION ON "UP WITH CHRIS HAYES." ARIZONA REPUBLICAN MEGHAN MCCAIN KIND OF SIDED WITH DIVA ON THIS ONE.

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Defending Clean Elections is about more than Clean Elections.

29 Feb 2012 07:20 pm
Posted by: Donna

I’ve been meaning to blog about this since I saw it Saturday morning but other things came up. Now that Clean Elections repeal appears to be headed to the ballots in November I figured it was a good time.

Up With Chris Hayes on MSNBC (which is excellent BTW) had a panel discussion last Saturday morning that included Dr. Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, a political analyst and Arizona native. Meghan McCain dropped by as a guest and the topic of discussion, of course, turned to Arizona wild ‘n wacky political climate. About 3:25 into this video, Dr. Soto trashed Clean Elections. She invoked the standard conventional wisdom in Arizona that blames the program for people like Russell Pearce getting elected because Clean Elections gave ideologues an “edge” over Chamber of Commerce establishment candidates. She incorrectly claimed that the program was abolished (the Supreme Court rescinded matching funds, not the program itself) and hailed that as a good thing.

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It being a national show, the panel seemed perplexed by Dr. Soto’s harangue against our state’s public financing program and Chris Hayes pushed back on it, asking her why she felt it was good to get election money out of the grassroots and back in hands of big business. Soto repeated the evidence-free assertion that Clean Elections must have caused all the problems because, well, look at all these wingnuts in the Arizona Legislature! You know the drill: If we just get rid of that dastardly Clean Elections we’ll return to that (nonexistent) glorious era of moderation and collegiality. You know, just like how Alabama and other Red states with no public financing are today. Dr. Soto then made the remarkable comment that she might reconsider her opinion in 10 years. At which time ordinary citizens might have evolved enough to be trusted with public campaign financing, I suppose.

I’m not suggesting there’s no room for improvement in the Clean Elections program but I’ve explained at length in previous posts why the “moderation” argument in opposition to Clean Elections is false on the merits, intellectually dishonest, and elitist at it’s core. It’s that last point, the elitism, that’s the most visceral for me. Amanda Marcotte, as usual, has an excellent post at Pandagon analyzing a behavioral study demonstrating an inverse relationship between wealth and ethics.

Amanda:

2) The rich shouldn’t be the moral arbiters of society. There’s a strange tendency in the Beltway media to assume that viciousness in politics originates with the working class, and that the rich are above anti-choice sadism, racist a**holery, and homophobic nonsense. Part of that is that the very narrow demographic of professional urban people in the upper middle class influences their idea that privileged people are liberal, but if you take a snapshot of the country on the whole, that theory tends to fall apart. Anyone who looks at the giant gap in fund-raising for liberal and conservative non-profits could tell you that the money is on the right. Duh.

But the larger point is that the false assumption that the rich are better than ordinary people keeps us from interrogating how it is that the more power our leaders have, the more likely they are to be really rich. Not like upper middle class privileged, but straight up millionaire rich. Since we have scientific evidence that extreme wealth reduces empathy, this should concern us all. We want ethical people in government, and ethical people tend to come from the ranks of the ordinary more than the wealthy.

The professional class in Arizona isn’t nearly as liberal as that in DC and other urban regions (proving Amanda’s point there) but the media and punditocracy here do share the same assumption that ideological extremism (on the right, at least) is largely a working class phenomenon. That is the whole basis of their disdain for Clean Elections and the Chamber and lobbyists are only too happy to let them persist in it. This state is chock full of racists, misogynists, homophobes, and global warming deniers with political aspirations who can self-fund and/or raise funds raise funds very easily through traditional channels. This is the state that spawned Congressman Trent Franks, who has never gotten a dime of public financing for his campaigns and who got his start in political activism by chaining himself to the Phoenix Planned Parenthood clinic, after all, and he votes pro-business every time.

The truly powerful people in Arizona (and everywhere else in this country) aren’t even politicians. They are the very rich people pulling the strings of the politicians and the media. That’s what ticks me off most about ostensibly progressive political operatives going on national TV and repeating the ruling class’s anti-democratic talking points. It reinforces the false and un-examined notion that the rich are innately superior and the only ones qualified to be leaders.

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Keith Olbermann dropped by NBC

Keith Olbermann, the controversial MSNBC cable news host, has his contract abruptly terminated by parent company NBC

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Keith Olbermann, the liberal, outspoken anchor of MSNBC's Countdown show, had his contract dramatically terminated by the US cable news network's parent company NBC on Friday night.
Olbermann had two years of a four year contract remaining, worth an estimated $30m, and was the network's highest-rated personality, responsible in large part for MSNBC's orientation as a liberal, Democratic-leaning channel.

Abruptly announcing in a lengthy farewell that the current show would be his last, Olbermann said: "This may be the only television programme wherein the host was much more in awe of the audience than vice versa. You will always be in my heart for that."

Giving no reason for the departure, Olbermann ended by calmly reading aloud a piece by James Thurber before signing off with the words: "Good night and good luck."
While Olbermann was live on-air, NBC issued a statement reading:

Statement regarding Keith Olbermann
MSNBC and Keith Olbermann have ended their contract. The last broadcast of Countdown with Keith Olbermann will be this evening. MSNBC thanks Keith for his integral role in MSNBC's success and we wish him well in his future endeavors.

The Associated Press reported that Phil Griffin, MSNBC's president, would not comment on Olbermann's sudden departure. But a spokesman did say that the acquistion of NBC Universal by cable and telecoms giant Comcast, which received regulatory approval this week, had nothing to do with the decision.

As speculation swirled about the timing, Comcast later put out a statement denying any connection:

"Comcast has not closed the transaction for [NBC-Universal] and has no operational control at any of its properties including MSNBC. We pledged from the day the deal was announced that we would not interfere with NBCU's news operations. We have not and we will not."

Olbermann had a stormy relationship with management and had been suspended from hosting the nightly show by the network last November after violating station rules by making donations to three Democratic candidates. He was reinstated the following week. (One of the three candidates was Gabrielle Giffords, the Arizona congresswomen attacked in Tucson.)

Olbermann's show Countdown, which screened at 8pm and repeated at 11pm, was the network's top-rated programme. On Thursday the show attracted 1.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings, far ahead of CNN's Parker-Spitzer, which managed just 520,000 in the same time slot. Fox News's Bill O'Reilly – a frequent target of Olbermann's ire – dominated the hour with 2.9 million viewers.

Olbermann's departure leaves Rachel Maddow as the network's biggest name. Appearing on the Bill Maher show on HBO last night, Maddow said: "All I know is that it was between Keith and the company."
MSNBC later announced that Lawrence O'Donnell, host of the channel's 10pm output, will take over the 8pm slot, with Ed Schultz's show moving from 6pm to 10pm.
Media commentator Dan Kennedy summed up Olbermann's value to MSNBC:

MSNBC executives tonight should be thanking their stars that Olbermann came along when he did. It was he who led the way toward transforming the operation into a liberal alternative to Fox News — a profitable network that, though still far behind Fox, kicks CNN's tail in the ratings.

Piers Morgan, finishing his first week as host of CNN's 9pm interview slot, tweeted:

American TV needs a @KeithOlbermann - whether you agree with him or not, he's got passion. And that's always a good thing.