On Chris Matthews Conflating Socialism & Democratic Socialism To Harm Bernie Sanders (Thom Hartmann Rant #5)

The following is an excerpt from the Thom Hartmann Radio Program, 8/3/2015, which I edited for brevity and clarity. Thom discusses a question posed to Debbie Wasserman Schultz (DWS) by Chris Matthews on the Thursday 7/30/2015 edition of Hardball and what Matthews said after DWS left.

The question Matthews asked was how are Democrats different from Socialists (this was in the context of the self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders running for president as a Democrat). After Debbie dodged the question and (instead) explained how Democrats are different from Republicans, Chris Matthews gave his take on why Debbie dodged the question, which was to bash Bernie Sanders and try to harm his chances in the Democratic POTUS primary. Thom's rant concerns why Matthews did this. (see SWTD #301 for my take on DWS's dodge).

Thom: After Debbie Wasserman Schultz was on and Chris Matthews tries to get her to, essentially complain about Bernie being a democratic socialist [he went on to deliberately conflate Democratic Socialism with Socialim].

Here's what he had to say... listen to this.

Chuck Todd: She doesn't want to answer that question. What do you think? Chris Matthews: I think there's a big difference. Socialists traditionally believe in government control of the economy. Democrats believe in modifying the economy to help people at the bottom. A safety net. Modification, but clearly they believe in the market. Chuck Todd: Why do you think she didn't say that? Chris Matthews: Well, politically, she doesn't want to offend the Bernie people. Chuck Todd: You think that's the issue? Chris Matthews: Well, I think so. Maybe there was an intellectual problem, but I will give her the benefit of the doubt and say it was really a political problem. Because I think Hillary Clinton hasn't staked out the difference, and she better. I mean, it's not the Democratic Socialist Party. You've got to run as a Democrat, which is always harder... to explain being a Progressive or a Liberal. It's a lot harder than just being a right wing or a left winger. You're actually somewhere center left, and it's a little harder to define. But clearly Democrats have had a record in this country for 200 some years of being for Social Security, Medicare, Civil Rights, interventions in the market. But not getting rid of the market. Clearly they accept the power and the efficiency of a capitalist system. Socialists do not. This is a fundamental difference.

Socialists do not if you're talking about Chinese communism, or if you're talking about the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. But Chris Matthews is trying to say that Bernie Sanders doesn't believe in capitalism or the market, which is a complete lie.

Either Chris Matthews is profoundly ignorant - which I don't believe for a second. I think he's one of the smartest guys out there. Or this is the leading edge of the establishment/insider spear thrown against the outsider Bernie Sanders.

It's really Insiders versus Outsiders here.

[End Thom Hartmann Rant]

The Insider Democrats are those who work for the "powers that be", or the wealthy and the large corporations (passing legislation that favors them in return for campaign contributions). Bill Clinton referred to this sellout movement as the Third Way. MSNBC is an Insider network, which is why they recently canned a number of their on-air personalities, including Ed Schultz. (Schultz wasn't Insider enough).

Chris Matthews is an Insider who is obviously in the bag for Hillary, which is why he lies about Bernie Sanders. And why he posed his gotcha question to DWS. DWS, while being the representative of the Insider Dems, realizes that the Dems need the votes of the Bernie supporters after Bernie bows out (the conventional wisdom, not what is inevitable), which explains why she dodged the question.

For more of my take on the differences between Socialism, Democratic Socialism, and the Democratic Party see SWTD #301, "On Debbie Wasserman Schultz Not Knowing The Difference Between A Socialist & A Democrat".

SWTD Tags: 2016 Election, Bernie Sanders, MSNBC, Thom Hartmann.

DSB #16

On Al Gore Being Elected President In 2000 #2

The following is an excerpt from the 7/18/2011 transcript from the Progressive personality Thom Hartmann's TV Program, The Big Picture.

In this segment (see video below) Thom asks "can Republican get elected without fraud & treason?". The answer according to Thom is NO. Thom says that "since Dwight Eisenhower left the presidency in 1961 - 5 different Republicans have been President of the United States. And every single one of them - from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush - have been illegitimate".

Watch the video for Thom's reasoning regarding the other frauds... my commentary here concerns only George W. bush's theft of the 2000 election from the rightful president, Al Gore.

Thom Hartmann: ...the most recent illegitimate Republican president - George W. Bush - the man who was given the White House by five right-wing justices on the Supreme Court. In the Bush v. Gore Supreme Court decision in 2000 that stopped the Florida recount and handed George W. Bush the presidency - Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his opinion:

The counting of votes ... does in my view threaten irreparable harm to petitioner [George W. Bush], and to the country, by casting a cloud upon what he [Bush] claims to be the legitimacy of his election".

I guess denying the guy who ACTUALLY won the most votes in Florida - Al Gore - the presidency - did not constitute "irreparable harm" to Scalia. And I guess it wasn't important to mention that Scalia's son worked for the law firm that was defending George W. Bush before the high court.

Just like it wasn't important to mention that Justice Clarence Thomas's wife worked on the Bush transition team and was busy accepting resumes from people who would serve in the Bush White House as long as her husband stopped the recount in Florida... which he did.

And more than a year after the election - a consortium of newspapers including The Washington Post, The New York Times, and USA Today did their own recount in Florida - manually counting every vote in a process that took almost a year - and concluded that Al Gore did indeed win the presidency in 2000.

As the November 12th, 2001 article in The New York Times read:

If all the ballots had been reviewed under any of seven single standards and combined with the results of an examination of overvotes, Mr. Gore would have won.

That little bit of info was slipped into the seventeenth paragraph of the Times story on purpose so that it would attract as little attention as possible around the nation.

Why? because the 9/11 attacks had just happened - and journalists feared that hitting people with the plain truth that George W. Bush actually lost the election would further hurt a nation that was already in crisis.

[End Transcript from The Big Picture]

The NYT article referenced above is not available online, although a Google search reveals MANY references to it. One example would be a 5/28/2008 Alternet Article titled "New York Times Perpetuates the Myth that George Bush Won the 2000 Election" which reveals that the original NYT article was by Ford Fessenden and John M. Broder... and YES, says Gore won.

Although 7 years (and change) later a movie reviewer for the NYT got it wrong. Alessandra Stanley, in a 5/23/2008 review of the HBO television movie Recount, wrote "Mr. Bush would have come out slightly ahead, even if all the votes counted throughout the state had been retallied".

Nope. Under FL law a recount should have been performed. Larry Beinhart of AlterNet writes "the Florida court... ordered a recount. Then the United States Supreme Court stepped in and shut the recounts down".

But the votes were recounted later by a consortium of newspapers (as Thom recounts)... and, concerning that recount, Larry Beinhart wrote "it took almost a year and cost more than a million dollars. [In the end the conclusion was that] Al Gore got more legal, countable votes than George Bush".

There you have it... Al Gore was elected to the White House as our 43rd POTUS. But he did not serve because the Conservative justices of the SCOTUS stopped the recount and anointed George W. bush.

Video: Excerpt from the 7/18/2011 airing of Thom Hartmann's "The Big Picture"... Thom asks "can Republicans get elected without fraud & treason? (9:01). Section concerning the theft of the 2000 election starts at 4:45... and ends at 6:58.

SWTD Tags: Al Gore.

DSB #15

Free Market Economics Is A Cancer (Thom Hartmann Rant #4)

The following is an excerpt from the Thom Hartmann Radio Program, 5/28/2015, which I edited for brevity and clarity. Thom discusses the similarities between cancer in living organisms and metaphorical cancer. Specifically the non-biological cancer caused by free market economic policies favored by Conservatives and Libertarians... and how that cancer has spread to our body politic.

Thom: George Johnson wrote a great piece in the science section of the New York Times yesterday. I think it apropo to our political system today, to Donald Trump, and to capitalism.

Yet me start out by explaining how Milton Friedman, Von Mises and all these kind of religious free market fundamentalists believe both economics and politics should be organized. It's an article of faith. Really, a belief system. This is Ayn Rand as well. This is basically the Libertarian worldview.

It goes something like this... In the days or weeks or months that it takes a legislative committee or a bureaucracy to figure out how things should be, either in the government or the economy, millions of individuals have made hundreds of millions of economic decisions by choosing what to buy and what not to buy. And this defines how things should go. Therefore, if every person, instead of supporting something like what the Founders created - a democratic republic - supported "the marketplace" [and the BS of "self regulation"].

Whether it's a marketplace for bluejeans or cars, or whether it is a marketplace for ideas. And whoever buys the most of those "idea", the marketplace has it's own intelligence - it will automatically come up with the best solution.

This is the theology, the religion of these guys. But over and over again we've seen this tried and it always produces bubbles and busts and a very small group of rich people and a very large group of working poor. It always destroys economies. Universally. And it destroys political systems.

There is a biological analogy to this. "Cellular Cheaters Give Rise to Cancer" is the title of the George Johnson article yesterday. He doesn't come right out and say Donald Trump is a cancer within our body politic, but he comes awful close.

He starts out by talking about, how back in 1871, Charles Darwin speculated that all life on earth probably began in a warm pond with chemicals assembling themselves randomly and accidently until they did so in a way that could replicate itself, and thus life came about.

The early life was just interested in replicating itself. The early viruses, for example. They don't consume or excrete, they just reproduce. And then you get more complex life forms, single celled bacteria and amoeba, things like that. But then we get to more complex life forms like you and me.

With hundreds of billions or trillions of cells that have to interact with each other. George Johnson says "as the primordial cells mutated and evolved, ruthlessly competing for nutrients, some stumbled upon a different course. They cooperated instead, sharing resources and responsibilities and so giving rise to multicellular creatures — plants, animals and eventually us. Each of these collectives is held together by a delicate web of biological compromises. By surrendering some of its autonomy, each cell prospers with the whole".

And then he gets to where I'm going with this question - does Donald Trump, sort of like Silvio Berlusconi in Italy, represent the cancer stage of politics? Because the Supreme Court, back in 1976 [with Buckley v. Valeo, which struck down limits on spending in campaigns] and then again in 2010 with Citizens United [which said that the 1st Amendment prohibited the government from restricting independent political expenditures by a nonprofit corporation. The principles articulated by the Supreme Court in the case have also been extended to for-profit corporations, labor unions and other associations].

These decisions basically turned our political marketplace into a capitalist marketplace by saying basically that billionaires can buy any politician they want and spend a virtually unlimited amount of money to influence the nature of elections, issues, and debates. Are we in a state of a democratic republic corrupted by an economic cancer - the cancer stage of capitalism?

George Johnson says "inevitably, there are cheaters: A cell breaks loose from the interlocking constraints and begins selfishly multiplying and expanding its territory, reverting to the free-for-all of Darwin's pond. And so cancer begins".

Then he explains how cancer shows up in virtually every complex life form - plants, mamals, reptiles... fungi. Then this incredible sentence... this is in a science story i the New York Times... "no wonder cancer has become a metaphor for human excess — overpopulation and consumption, environmental pollution, the concentration of resources among a hyperacquisitive 1 percent".

So here you have a science writer in the New York Times identifying the hyperacquisitive America - The Donald Trumps of America - as cancer. I thought it was astonishing.

When the top 1 percent, or the top 1-thousandth of 1 percent (Donald Trump), don't just influence politics, but become politics, does that mean we've hit the cancer stage of a political process that was created by the Supreme Court with this ideology that free markets are always the best?

I think so, frankly.

[End Thom Hartmann Rant]

Yeah, I think so too. Which is why the best economic system would be a mixed one, IMO. A mix of highly regulated capitalism, strong campaign finance laws, high taxation on obscene wealth and a strong social safety net (more socialism).

This is the only way to create a large Middle Class and eliminate (or greatly reduce) poverty. And isn't that what the great majority of us want? Excepting our oligarchic lords and their lackeys and worshippers, of course.

See Also
[1] Billionaires Kill: Volume 1 (SWTD #216, 11/5/2013).
[2] The wealth-worshipper Willis Hart pontificates "on the concept of orchestrating the U.S. economy from a bureaucratic and economically illiterate perch (the Elizabeth Warrens and Paul Krugmans of the World) and sez "we have a 4,000 year recorded history of this type of nonsense not working, of entire nation states crumbling as the result of it"... yet gives ZERO examples. Yet I can give a number of examples where the economic system he favors (the so-called "free market" rulz) crashed economies... the bush recession being the most recent one. The Great depression being another (Harding/Coolidge dropping the tax rates sparked a real estate and stock market bubble that crashed). But the true believing Willis thinx the roaring 20s were the shiznit. LOL. And a Nobel-prize-winning economist and professor of economics is "economically illiterate"? Of course.

SWTD Tags: Class Warefare, Libertarianism, Thom Hartmann, Wealthy Worship.

DSB #14

On Al Gore Being Elected President In 2000 #1

What follows are a pair of comments I submitted to the Contra O'Reilly blog. This was back before the proprietor, Willis Hart, banned me from further comment on 8/30/2012.

These two comments concern the fact that Al Gore was elected president of the United States by the American people following the conclusion of voting in November of 2000. Gore won the popular vote by 543,895 votes (50,999,897 votes for Gore versus 50,456,002 votes for bush).

And, as it turns out, Gore won the popular vote in Florida as well, which would have given him the state (and its electoral college votes). If only the Conservative Supreme Court justices had not violated the Constitution and circumvented the will of the people by stopping the recount and anointing bush (Justice Stevens: Bush v. Gore Decision Violated Constitution).

See 2nd comment below for info concerning Al Gore winning by carrying FL... when the votes were properly counted.

APRIL 21, 2012 AT 6:57 PM

When a complete recount was done it was found that Gore won. Here's a book on the topic:

The Betrayal of America: How the Supreme Court Undermined the Constitution and Chose Our President by Vincent Bugliosi and Gerry Spence.

Bugliosi says, "On December 12th, 2000, in a 5-4 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court put an end to the recounting of presidential votes in Florida, thus assuring that George W. Bush would win the election. This action by the Court's majority ... was a "judicial coup d'tat" that stole the election from U.S. citizens and simply handed the presidency over to the Court's guy, a conservative Republican like themselves. It was also treasonous, asserts Bugliosi... the five justices are "criminals in the very truest sense of the word"...

This description of what occurred is one I agree with completely.

APRIL 21, 2012 AT 7:20 PM

Robert Parry, writing for Consortium News said, "Counting fully punched chads and limited marks on optical ballots, Gore won by 115 votes. With any dimple or optical mark, Gore won by 107 votes. With one corner of a chad detached or any optical mark, Gore won by 60 votes. Applying the standards set by each county, Gore won by 171 votes".

SWTD Tags: Al Gore.

DSB #13

On Fox Nooz And MSNBC

I refer to what Fox does as "nooz" because they do opinion on the news while representing themselves as a news channel. It's right there in the name they gave themselves: Fox NEWS.

MSNBC, on the other hand, does not have the word "news" in the name of their channel. MSNBC "was derived from the most common abbreviations for Microsoft and the National Broadcasting Company" (source). None of the letters stand for news.

Also, if you Google "MSNBC" what you'll find is that (according to how they describe themselves) what they do is provide "news coverage and political opinion". So, "news" isn't in the name of the organization, and that they do opinion is clearly stated.

Whereas, if you Google "Fox" what comes up as the first result is "Fox News".

End of discussion. Case closed. It boggles the mind that there are some dumbasses who try to say they're the same. They both do slanted opinion (and sometimes outright lie) while representing themselves as news organizations (the dumbass will argue).

It's the strategy of making false equivalencies the Right specializes in. But there is a reason they have to say that both sides are equally bad. It is because they know that if they defended the Rightwing side people would know immediately they were spouting BS. So they default to an argument that sounds plausible to the cynic (which a LOT of people are when it comes to politics). And that is that both sides are equally bad.

But they aren't. Those who aren't shilling for Fox Nooz (or minimizing how bad they are with the false equivalency strategy) know that, when it comes to viewers of GOP TV (the original name Roger Ailes came up with), "the more they watch Fox News the less they know".

Fair and Balanced? Something else MSNBC does not have... an obviously bogus catchphrase (and one that is quite laughable at that).

Video Description: Bernie Sanders exposes Fox News as a Rightwing propaganda machine. Excerpted from Robert Greenwald's 2004 documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism by Brave New Films. Published on Youtube 5/27/2015 (1:59). See here for the full documentary (77:08).

SWTD Tags: Fox Nooz.

DSB #12

"Family Values" Sicko Pervert "Pastor" Mike Huckabee Wants To Shower With Teenage Girls

Former "Pastor" Mike Huckabee thinks Caitlyn Jenner might be pretending to be a woman for reasons of getting into places where he might be able to ogle naked chicks, and Hucky wants in on the action... at least he thinks it's funny to "joke" about such a situation.

Huckabee: [These] ordinances [say] if your 7-year-old daughter - if she goes into the restroom - cannot be offended and you can't be offended if she's greeted there by a 42-year-old man who feels more like a woman than he does a man. Now I wish that someone told me that when I was in high school that I could have felt like a woman when it came time to take showers in PE. I'm pretty sure that I would have found my feminine side and said, "Coach, I think I'd rather shower with the girls today". (Mike Huckabee Says He Would Have Pretended to Be Trans to Shower With Girls in School by Mark Joseph Stern. Slate 6/2/2015).

So, Hucky's "joke" consists of lies concerning transgender men as well as hate. The hate that causes him to joke about an older "man" (Jenner is 65) perving on teenage girls. But note that the "joke" involves - not Jenner doing the perving - but the Huckster himself. Although this fictional perving takes place back when Hucky was back in high school.

Although he didn't think about it until now... what he should have said to his coach, that is. Given the fact that Hucky "missed out", perhaps he would still attempt this? We know, at least, that he has given it some serious consideration.

And he apparently stands by his "joke", given the fact that there was no apology later, as is often the case when Repubs say stupid shit... so I guess he does think sharing his fantasies about raping teenage girls with his eyes is OK. Sicko pervert.

And this guy used to be a pastor? Seriously?

Note: This commentary was adapted from material contained in a 6/5/3915 commentary from my SWTD blog that concerned the Duggar fundy molestation scandal and Mike Huckabee's defense of the guilty son Josh... "If You Ever Find Yourself Deep In A Hole It Might Be A Good Idea To Stop Duggaring".

Video: Caitlyn Jenner's 22-page spread in Vanity Fair inspires Mike Huckabee to make a crude joke about transgender people. Video from Comedy Central's The Nightly Show starring Larry Wilmore posted to YouTube on 6/4/2015 (1:20).

Other Content: Contra O'Reilly Post (7/2/2015) "On Mike Huckabee Purportedly Wishing that it Him Who Had Come Up with this Whole Transgender Thing so He Could Have Showered with Chicks Back in High School".

SWTD Tags: 2016 Election, LGBT, Mike Huckabee.

DSB #11

Comedian Louis CK On White Privilege & Male Privilege (Comedy Bits)

Comedian Louis CK. I think his material is pretty good. He has a TV program that I don't watch, although I've seen the first season of it after it originally aired and liked it OK. He plays a jerk, I guess, basically. I've heard some people say they don't care for him.

While Googling recently using the search term "White Privilege" and "Male Privilege" (ideas that some people I would call misogynist and racially biased reject) I ran across the following two videos that I think offer some truisms in a humorous format, so I thought I'd share them (likely with nobody, given the fact that nobody reads this blog).

Both are fairly short, so they won't take a lot of time to view. So, I think it's worth the short amount of time to do so.

First, some background information that I pulled off Wikipedia (in case you are unfamiliar with Mr. CK).

Louis Székely (born September 12, 1967 and known professionally as Louis C.K.), is an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, director and editor. He is the creator, star, writer, director, executive producer and primary editor of the acclaimed FX comedy series Louie. CK has won a 2012 Peabody Award and five Emmy awards, as well as numerous awards for The Chris Rock Show and Louie, as well as his stand-up specials. CK's stage name is an approximate English pronunciation of his Hungarian surname, Székely. (Link).

The first video is labeled "I enjoy being White". Not because White people are better, but because it is better to be White. This is a statement acknowledging the fact that White privilege is real, despite some people dismissing it. In my opinion. Mr. CK does not use the term white privilege but I think we can absolutely agree that is what he is referring to.

The second video is labeled "there is no greater threat to women than men", which is pretty self explanatory. Is this Mr. CK's statement of belief in the notion that Men are privileged in our society? He does not use the term male privilege in his bit, but, YES, I think that's clearly what he's saying (that he agrees with it).

As do I... with both White Privilege and Male Privilege being REAL and societal problem we need to be addressing... as opposed to pretending they don't exist, as some males who are biased against minorities and women, do.

Video1: I enjoy being White (2:29).

Video2: There is no greater threat to women than men (1:43).

SWTD Tags: Male Privilege, White Privilege.

DSB #10