Dear Media: Think Of Your Mothers

This election season has been more detrimental to the American psyche than any in history. The women, especially, have had to suffer in ways that should be unimaginable in 2016. We have had to endure repeated reminders that one of the candidates running for the top office in the land feels entitled to sexually assault women because of his status. We have, of course, then had to witness the media allow his surrogates to repeatedly tell us that it was just 'locker room banter.' #GrabEmByThePussy is now a thing. It's become a joke. The women in America who have been sexually assaulted now live in a country where our discourse has embraced the mentality of 50 years ago. You did that.

American women have endured a media acceptance of a candidate who rates us from 1 to 10 and dismisses our accomplishments. He has told us that breastfeeding is gross. And said if we are sexually harassed we should find another career. He has said sexual assault against women in the military is the fault of the women who wanted to serve. He said women who seek abortions should be punished.

We have heard him call us dogs, fat pigs and disgusting animals. We have waited patiently for you to bother to tell America about his rape accusations (still waiting ...). We have waited for you to report on his fantastically inappropriate comments about many young girls, 10-17, and how he wanted to date them. We have had to contend with the idea that pedophilia is being discussed, but not discussed, when an aside is offered about his various comments about his own daughters, back to the time when Tiffany was a baby. American women have suffered this election season in countless ways from this 'man' and the coverage you've afforded him. Your mothers endured this normalization, thanks to you.

We have heard you tell America that we, the millions of women so excitedly cheering on, volunteering for and celebrating our candidate, don't exist. It made for a more sensational story, I suppose, to ignore us and have hours of discussion about why Hillary Clinton didn't have much support with women. But our absence on your news coverage didn't negate our existence. I'll bet many of your mothers were with us on this journey and have told you privately everything I am telling you today.

So I implore all members of our failing media to consider your mothers if Hillary Clinton wins the election tomorrow. I understand that you have executives in your ears telling you about ratings. I understand that you believe those ratings are contingent upon tabloidesque conversations. I understand that you have conditioned yourselves to not have meaningful dialogue. But tomorrow night, think of your mothers sitting at home watching your coverage of the election of the first woman president. Think about whether or not they would like to be asked to consider all of the disenfranchised white men who will exist after a Clinton win. Think of your mother who will be sitting at home crying, both in celebration of this monumental achievement for women, and for the fact that she raised you and your focus on her night is on the white men who have run our country since its inception.

A Hillary Clinton win is not about ratings. A Hillary Clinton win is not about the people who supported the other candidate. You will have 4-8 years to report on their supposed lots in life. A Hillary Clinton win is about the accomplishments of a woman who never stopped fighting to do the right thing. A Hillary Clinton win is about a woman who pushed forward while you participated in degrading her by spreading rumors like teenagers about scandals that always turned out to be baseless. A Hillary Clinton win is about a woman with a history of civil service that you haven't managed to highlight over the last year and a half because supposition about emails was more likely to get you ad buys. And, most importantly, a Hillary Clinton win is about every woman who is sitting at home watching your coverage waiting for a beautiful embrace of this moment in our grueling history where, after enduring universal abuse by our media who allowed misogyny to permeate our airwaves for the last year and a half, our hard work has merited this moment.

Give us our night. If you can't do it for ratings, if you can't do it for your audience, if you can't do it because it is newsworthy, if you can't do it because it's the right thing to do ...

DO IT FOR YOUR MOTHERS!

Kiss Kiss ... Mean Progressive

Dear Media: It's Time For Extreme Vetting

BREAKING NEWS >>> This isn't breaking news.

Media, you have failed us. Again. You have spent 16 months trying to normalize a campaign that is toxic, at best. You have asked yourselves, your pundits and the American people to explore the Trump candidacy to the depths of a puddle after a 5 minute rain. You have made it clear that your only objective is to report on that which creates the best spin and ignore all else. In the case of CNN, you have literally hired Corey Lewandowski, Trumps 'former' campaign manager, and then ask him daily to tell us just what Trump would like us to hear. Is America being punked right now? Is Ashton Kutcher going to pop out one of these mornings from behind Steve Kornacki's big board and tell us all of this was a complete joke? That would be more settling than the place we presently find ourselves.

The spin is the only thing that matters. Why, then, aren't Trumps rape charges tabloidesque enough for you? Are you afraid of him filing a lawsuit? You opened the week telling us about a sexting scandal of the husband of a Clinton staffer but have yet to find the time to tell Americans that the 'man' on the top of the Republican ticket has been accused of rape. Repeatedly.

You keep bringing up the fact that he is polling miserably with college educated voters. Wanna know why? We saw last night's speech in college. In the original German. (see here) We are able to see his campaign for what it is. Is the whole of our media too naive to see what is coming or are you too interested in ad buys to educate those Americans who can't see it coming?

It is (well beyond) time that you do some extreme vetting of your own. Go find footage of Hitlers old speeches. I found them myself but was only able to find them in Neo Nazi youtube channels and I don't want to give them more clicks. Why not do some pieces and explore what history has shown us about demagogues who rise to power. Trump is known to have kept a book of Hitler's speeches at his bedside. Maybe explore that a bit. The comparisions are terrifying. Here are a few hints of the things to look up:

* Promised 'Peace through strength' (Trump said TODAY)
* Condemnation of entire religion.
* Proposal of mass deportation of 'undesirables.'
* Promise to break treaties with foreign nations.
* Assertion that all government is corrupt and only he could be trusted to fix it.
* Promise to rebuild the military to the greatest force in history.
* Use of quick catch phrases to outline policies with little/no detail (read Mein Kampf).
* Called for IDs to distinguish all of a single religion he deemed 'dangerous.'
* Teach nationalism in schools (he said this today - you ALL missed it).
* Condemn the media for lying about the candidate (heads up - some of them were killed).
* His supporters like him because he was 'telling it like it is.'
* Demanded that all of the problems of the country were caused by the outsiders.
* Encouraged beatings of protesters (later murder) who spoke out against him.


This is a quick list off the top of my head. I know many learned people would be able to add to it with ease.

Yes. There is a good reason we shouldn't blindly just toss Hitler/Nazis into a discussion. It distills the conversation for the next time it would be relevant. Thanks to assholes like Mike Huckabee, Rand Paul, Rick Perry, Ben Carson and others on the right, we have had to suffer ridiculous correlations to President Obama and Hitler. Of course, those were exciting to cover SO YOU DID.

It is your job to chronicle what we will leave to history. After having studied the journalists who witnessed and documented the 20th century, take your responsibility more seriously. Read and watch what they left you about the rise of the monstrous leaders who tried to annihilate all that was good in the world. Offer the American people the important comparisons they need to make educated decisions in November.

 Kiss Kiss ... Mean Progressive



For any who missed the Arizona 'immigration' speech last night (8/31/16) where many of the comparisons are drawn:

Dear Media: Patriarchy Is Not A Necessity

You know what? When I started my Dear Media: series last year I never thought it would be a series. I just figured I would write that one piece to shine the light on the missteps of you, our media, and you would have a revelation. I'm adorable, it's true. I can hardly help it - I came this way.

Over the last two days all media have covered, to one extent or another, Donald Trumps assault on Secretary Clinton because her husband cheated on her. It wasn't enough, apparently, to cover the story. You all needed to harry Clinton to try to get a response from her. After having realized she is above such nonsense, you just determined to discuss it among yourselves. Fucking INCREDIBLE.

Once again, you are asking Trump to drive your narrative. How embarrassing.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is a rapist. When that was added to the public discourse last summer, no one wanted to touch it. I wrote about your complete dismissal of the topic here but I'm not anyone the general public is going to find and read. It was your responsibility to tell the American voters about how he treats women. If he won the election, he would be in quite a unique position to steer the rights of women. Wouldn't that be an important element of the vetting expected of our media?

And today, instead of taking the opportunity to question the motives of an obvious misogynist and inform about his own treatment of women, you further victimize a woman by asking her to comment on her husbands infidelity. Repeatedly. Are you comfortable with the patriarchy you perpetuate? It is your choice, after all. You could aspire to better. I'm sure your mothers would appreciate it if you tried harder. Right now they're probably all pretty disgusted. I sure as hell would be.


Shame on YOU!  ... Mean Progressive

Trumps Big Endorsement: MSNBC

The hardest part of my having determined to give up on watching MSNBC is my sincere love of Rachel Maddow. I have loved her since she started her show on Air America with Chuck D and followed her right into MSNBC. Although she is a Rhodes Scholar, Rachel never talks down to her audience. She opens every show with a good ten minute story about whatever her main topic of the day will be and I always end up having learned something contextual about the issue that was either foreign or, at least, much more in depth than I had understood it before. If I had to give up one thing in my daily life that would hurt more than Rachel, it would probably be air. But I meant what I said the other day. I have to give up MNSBC. The formula of an approachable smarty pants with unparalleled wit and sensibility was one MSNBC should have been proud of. Her ratings have traditionally been the highest on the network and one would think that would merit her some respect from the brass. I have a feeling even her strength and viewership are irrelevant to the Comcast/MSNBC executives who seem intent on alienating their audience and promoting the narrow conservatism of Fox and the mindless punditry of CNN.

I woke up this morning to find I had received several messages from readers telling me that I had to go online and see what happened on Rachel's show last night. Fortunately I'd forgotten to turn off the notifications for the shows I always record and it was still on my DVR. The part of me that felt like I was going through a painful breakup was kind of relieved to get to see her this morning. But the part of me who knew the break up was for a good reason was soon rekindled, as well.

The historical preface to the story was just as compelling as ever. She told us about a very shady character, Joel Arends, who had been alleged to have deliberately condemned the candidacy of Annette Bosworth, a Republican candidate for US Senate in South Dakota in 2014 by, as her attorney, creating a scenario where she signed documents which would end up finding her being tried for 12 felonies. Initially the idea of this plot sounded far-fetched, but by the end it seemed completely plausible. This man who had been the attorney is now running a SuperPac with $30 (not a misprint) in its account called Veterans for a Strong America. This SuperPac was having a fund-raiser last night where the Trump speech was to have been given. It turns out there are no veterans remotely associated with this Pac and he is smart enough to know that if you put that one word in anything, one can easily convince the least among us to excitedly support them and ask absolutely no questions about their creditworthiness or their intentions.

To no (intelligent) person's surprise, although this was supposed to have been a foreign policy speech by Trump, he had nothing to say about policy or anything else. He passed out his stupid ball caps in camouflage to the audience and rambled for 20 minutes but he told the press he would be doing foreign policy so it was covered and now America knows that some bullshit Pac having nothing to do with actual veterans (aside from publicly condemning John McCain for having been to blame for Trumps recent comments dismissing his service and having been a POW) is endorsing Trump. Glorious.

Sadly, what was to follow might as well have been the MSNBC endorsement of Trump, as well. The Rachel Maddow Show, after playing the Trump rally in its entirety, invited Steve Schmidt (yes, that Steve Schmidt) on to offer Regressive talking points and validity of Trumps candidacy. I was so depressed to see that Rachel had gone on to devote the show to free Trump rally coverage which is what Chris Hayes had done the night before and ended my devotion to MSNBC.

Upon reflection, it looks as if Rachel did her very best to give her audience what they expect. I am sure she did not get to choose who would come on to offer the counter-narrative to the intelligent conversation she was offering America. Schmidt, after admitting that there was no mention of foreign policy, applauded his efforts to remind the Republican voters that President Obama has failed the country. He told us that the morons who love Trump do so because they are sick of the promises the regular candidates from the right make but never fulfill about their plans to ruin the country and celebrate him because he is not taking lobbyist dollars. He, of course, made no mention of the fact that he has just squirmed in bed with this veteranless Pac and given a speech at a fundraiser which will, undoubtedly, go to his campaign.

Not only did Schmidt absolve Trump for having never given any cohesive policy information in his policy speech by telling us, "There is precedent for a Presidential campaign running on a secret plan. Richard Nixon, of course, in 1968." (Nixon/secrets - brilliant analogy we did not get to delve further into), but he then went on to compare Trump's followers to Bernie Sanders'. Because. Yeah.

Schmidt told Rachel that even though Trump really had nothing important to say, it doesn't take away from the fact that it was compelling television. I'm sorry. Is that the objective of a news organization? Apparently. And the executives at MSNBC were smart enough to invite Schmidt on to explain that to us. They have been offering us mind-numbing punditry from both he and Nicolle Wallace for years now. When they finally manage to get rid of the handful of wonderful hosts left on MSNBC, I fully expect to hear that they have a new show called "We Tried to Feed You Palin - Now Eat This Shit."

If you, like me, will hold on to a dream that our voices can actually be heard, please PLEASE click [HERE] go sign this petition and forward to everyone you know demanding Comcast/MSNBC be thoughtful about their choice to bastardize a once loved network.

Dear MNSBC: I Am Done!

I have always watched MSNBC. I am not like any of the morons on the right who seem to believe there is no bias on my channel. I watch it because their bias speaks to mine. And I watch it because their intelligence (once) matched my own. Although they certainly leaned left, there was never any concern of their having actually created stories to promote hate or fear. There was never a time when I was embarrassed to admit that I watched it. There are several people in my family and those that I have worked with who almost seem apologetic for watching the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title. There was nothing embarrassing about watching MSNBC. Its audience is on the left. All rational people who understand our platform know that the left are peopled with compassionate and intelligent individuals. With every month it seems they are inching ever closer to being another Regressive media outlet. Apparently the compassionate and intelligent audience was not strong enough for MSNBC to be loyal to. And, apparently, they don't realize that the chasm between their audience and that of Fox is so profound as to never be bridged. No one is going to cross over.

I have always had to avoid their programming in the morning and allowed an excuse for their absolute insult every day when they aired Morning Joe by telling myself that they wanted to show a balance by offering something for the Regressives. The rest of the day was always filled with intelligent hosts that I enjoyed for the most part. Some of them I even had set to record on the DVR just in case something big happened during the day and I missed it. I would want to hear it live from the hosts I was comfortable with.

I can only assume it was because of an attempt to garner a larger market share that MSNBC has recently determined they would completely fucker up their programming and get rid of some of their talent. Ed Schultz had a very specific audience. The working class and those interested in the environment knew that they would have someone who would reflect on the days news from a perspective that was meaningful to them. He's gone now.

The Reverend Al Sharpton had a very specific audience, too. He was always very honed in on how to relay the days events to make them personal and really help us understand it from a perspective beyond whatever a mere blurb about an event and a reactionary pundits retort would offer. I looked forward to him every night. He was my favorite because he has a heart which seems to feel the pain of the world much in the way that I do. I used to start the six o'clock hour every evening with a big smile and say 'Hey Rev!' to the television (she admits with absolutely no shame. wink). I love him. He is now gone, too.

Alex Wagner was, by far, my favorite of all of the people who had daytime shows. She is so smart and always brought in context to the historical aspects of a story one might have never considered or even known about. She had a welcoming personality and a wit to match none on the channel. She, too, is now gone.

The world is an ugly place. As such, every once in a while a girl needs to get a break from the news and just ignore it altogether. That is just what I did today. I had a Jason Statam marathon instead and enjoyed one of the world's most genuine beauties. I was going to see what happened today at 8 when All In With Chris Hayes came on. Of course, it was 8:35 by the time the show actually started because MSNBC decided to run another Trump rally instead of its regular programming. The President doesn't get this much air time when he actually has something important to say. Trump had nothing important to say. He literally said the same shit he says every single time he comes on. Great! We know. He has seen polls that say everyone loves him. He is a great businessman. He has relationships with important people. He is rich. He thinks a lot of himself. He thinks little of many others. Fabulous. That was 35 minutes of my show. I still had no idea what happened today in the world.

When MSNBC finally determined to get back to its programming, what was the audience offered? Commentary on the Trump rally. Yep. For 20 full minutes. We saw it. Thanks. The whole goddamned thing. We don't need it rehashed for us. He didn't actually say anything. The last 5 minutes of the show Hayes gave us a glimpse into a rally for Bernie Sanders this evening. That was newsworthy. The audience from the left would have really found it interesting to hear the speech Bernie Sanders gave to Liberty University. This is, after all, the most Liberal of our candidates in the most fuckered up setting on the planet for him. Liberty University is the place that teaches their students the absolute opposite of the actual New Testament Bible (am I the only one who wonders if they missed the whole bit about why they are called 'Christians'?) while finding new groups of people to condemn and hold judgement over with every election cycle. That would have been a very interesting rally to hear about. But MSNBC thought we needed to devote the hour to Donald Trump and the speech he has given repeatedly where he has said nothing.

***UPDATE: Please See Petition at the bottom and forward to all ***


I keep hearing pundits go on about what a brilliant campaign Trump is running so far because he really hasn't had to spend much of his own money at all. Fucking brilliant. He doesn't have to, does he? The media (including MSNBC? wtf?) give him all of the free air time he needs. He doesn't need to pay for ads to condemn his rivals, he just goes to any city in the country to hold a rally and the 'news' will stop everything to make sure that all of the country has a chance to hear what he has to say. Motherfuckers.

Well, as MSNBC has determined that it has no need to be loyal to its audience, I  feel that I have no need to be loyal to you all, either. I am done. Honestly. I can only assume you have pulled this shit of getting rid of your shows and offering All-Trump-All-The-Time programming because you want to up your ratings but I am sure it will backfire. You had your audience. Those on the right have a 'news' channel. They don't want you. Those in the middle? I have no idea. I guess they watch CNN. But no one will be tuning in for this shit. The new people doing the news during the day suck. They lack personality and they lack intellect. They ask ridiculous questions of their pundits who jump right in to misinform. If I wanted misinformation I would watch Fox, too. I am not a moron, however. If your objective is to create an even more ignorant society, I will not be along for the ride. You are trading in your audience for no audience. Congratulations. You have completely sold out and become irrelevant. You will find no one interested in your new bullshit line up. As your ratings drop so will your ad buys. I can only imagine that is what this is all about. Fuck You. You deserve to lose your money. And hopefully an intelligent billionaire will come in and take your actual talent to a network where integrity and loyalty are important.



All :  Please sign this petition and pass it on to all who are offended by MSNBCs new programming and demand a return to respectable, left-leaning journalism. 

Dear Media: Your White Trash Chronicle of History

As an observant and intelligent human being, I expect the Regressive Party to fall all over itself in attempts to explain why Trump has been at the top of the polls since he entered the race. Being eternally naive, however, I would expect for the media to have figured it out by now. I have heard every credible news organization (MSNBC you are getting quite close to falling to the other side of that scale) ask itself and its panelists to riddle them through their quandary for over two months now. Not only has the discussion become tiresome, their ignorance has, too.

We are still allowing our media to ask the Regressives to dictate our narrative. We still ask them to tell us why their party are not interested in the politicians they have been force fed. The rest of us can see it. Why does our society have to pretend that we are stumped? I have heard the answer countless times by party 'leaders' who say that their voters are angry with the government and have grown tired of 'politics as usual' to explain their interest in an outsider.

Of course, that outsider is out on the stump unapologetically being a racist while using no dog whistles. He puts women in their place. He tells them that all of society's ails are due to immigrants. If the far right voters are suddenly looking for an outsider who isn't afraid to tell them the exact same things the rest of their politicians have, why do you suppose that is? Let us look at what they have been promised by the Regressive Party just since 2008 when the Tea Party started trending. Let us just focus on the time since racism has become fashionable and acceptable again in our society.

What has pissed the far right off, since 2008, about politics? They are pissed off at THEIR politicians and THEIR 'politics as usual.' They have been promised that they would get rid of that Muslim in the White House. They have been promised that they would get Secretary Clinton indicted for Benghazi. They have been promised that universal healthcare would be reversed. They have been promised that abortion would be outlawed. And that is about all that they have heard. Oh media, my media. Ask yourself this, okay? Why are you so interested in politicians who try to lure voters that literally believe the President is a Muslim and who promise to oust him once they prove he is not really an American? Why are we giving voice to politicians who have had 7 (or is it now 8?) hearings on Benghazi and have yet to find anything? Why would any thoughtful individual continue to reflect on the needs and desires of a base (fucking perfect word) whose intellect allows them to rally to get rid of their own healthcare without noticing the scores of attempts which have been made and the time wasted in doing so? And why are you focused on politicians who promise to get rid of abortion rights without repeatedly reminding your audience that it has been legal for over 40 years. They are promising to come up with ways around a Supreme Court decision based on the Constitution.

The reason their constituents are pissed is because they keep hearing the same promises and see that nothing has been done. None of their promises have been kept. Of course, none of them were even possible. Why not report that?

Let me sum it up for you like this: You have spent nearly 3 months now trying to understand the mood of the people on the right who are confusing you.

Answer: These are the people who started the year identifying with the Tea Party movement which demanded American Exceptionalism and told their members in their mission statement: "By joining the Tea Party, you are taking a stand for our nation. You will be upholding the grand principles set forth in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights." These same people, within six months time have feverishly jumped ship and determined the best leader for America would be a man who not only denied exceptionalism, but announced his candidacy for President by concluding, "The American dream is dead." Then, within two months of that revelation he has determined we need to repeal the 14th Amendment. I guess they don't need to worry about having to uphold Constitutional principles any longer.

This is the very depth of the people you are trying so desperately to understand. You are attributing to them more capacity for reflection, comprehension and introspection than any of them are capable of. You might as well ask a pre-school class to analyze the Iran Nuclear deal. It almost seems unfair to put so much responsibility on them. And it is certainly unfair for the rest of America to spend 3 months listening to you all try to figure it out.

These are the people who call themselves socially conservative but disrespect and disavow the Pope. THE POPE. Traditionally, no public figure has ever been more strict on every single social issue and those on the far right are presently dismissing him altogether because he isn't tough enough. Have a quiet moments reflection on that. These are the people who believe their morality exceeds that of the Pope.

These are the people who rally and raise funds for every police officer who kills an unarmed black person. They raise money for people who want to discriminate against the LGBT community. While they do this they demand that they are being just like Dr. King because they are standing up for their rights. I literally heard this discussion on CNN last night and Jim Sciutto, the anchor filling in for Erin Burnett, was the one posing the question. I have no idea who he is but let me answer it for you easily, moron: The difference is Dr. King was fighting to give rights to people. His civil disobedience was in an effort to make society see those they were allowing to be discriminated against. These assholes who are saying they are being discriminated against because of their religion? Their civil disobedience is in an effort to take away the rights of others. They are literally fighting because they want the right to discriminate against other people. I am embarrassed as a human being that I had to answer that question for the asshole anchoring the 7pm news show on CNN. Honestly. This is our media.

You not only diminish the discourse in America when you spend so much time discussing these people and their interests, you diminish America, itself. While doing this, of course, you embolden them because their power and their unified voice becomes stronger as our focus is directed soley toward them. Close your eyes. Please. Do it. See those people in your mind. You can see them. They are wearing a tshirt with either an eagle or a flag and holding signs which are meant to demean other human beings. At least one word will be misspelled. See them? Right! Those are the Americans you are celebrating. Again, you are complicit in where we find ourselves today.

You are determining what history will remember and how we will be seen as a country. Holy Shit. My great-great-great-great grandbabies will be so confused. If you would just start making strides toward asking thoughtful questions and then seeking intelligent answers we could be on our way to a healthier future. If you could stop giving voices to panelists whose sole agenda is to write our history to meet their narrative, that would be great, too. Your great-great-great-great grandbabies will know that you were actually responsible for our chronicles. Give them something to be proud of.

While focusing on the hype surrounding these candidates, do you feel any responsibility to our chronicle for history of this election? Do you feel any responsibility about the chronicle of the American community and its ideals? Do you feel any responsibility about the chronicle of the truths behind our social environment and the truths about those who attempt to drag us down and pull us back? As such, you are presently glorifying those who are the least among us. You are giving their agenda the spotlight. I had to witness every single news station showing a woman coming out of jail with a triumphant soundtrack of "The Eye of the Tiger." None of the media took the time to specifically counter this properly. I am embarrassed and disgusted! Honestly! Why aren't you? Take a moment with this. Ask yourself what your network, magazine or online media outlet took the time to document today surrounding Mike Huckabee, Kim Davis and their White Trash Agenda. What will our great-great-great-great grandbabies think about us? What did you leave them?

Look at this giddy piece of shit reveling in the attention she (and Mike Huckabee) gets for being a hateful degenerate human being. YOU are giving her that attention. If there had been no coverage and it were just a rally full of other white trash it would not have been such a marked success, you know?

Just. Jesus Christ! I scream it in my head repeatedly. "Jesus Christ!" What do you tell yourselves? Are you proud of your work? This is just one single day. It has been going on for months. For years! Are you proud of your role in our history? Step up before the story can't be rewritten. Step up and deliver actual countenance of a present day narrative filled with facts and reflections you will be glad bore your name. Otherwise, what the fuck are you doing? And why the fuck are we supposed to tune in for you to do it?

New Talking Point

It's so funny. (Or not). I've come to know the new talking points from the right as soon as I hear absolute bullshit coming from a pundit that I have never heard anyone say before which really only seems to divert from the narrative against their platform and does nothing to support their assertions or diminish ours. Last week, I believe, was the first time I heard their latest distraction from the anti-choice discussion. My warning sirens went off immediately when they insinuated that the Regressives were the ones who really respect women because they believe that women are capable of thinking about more than just one issue, abortion. Curious, right? You believe we are capable of deep, critical analysis about things but we still should have no capacity to determine how to build our own families or make decisions about our bodies. Brilliant. Please, tell me more. I have now heard it several times and I do not believe the idea of the new talking point was well enough defined as to enable clear or coherent retellings by those who offer them to us.

This evening Chris Matthews had a new pundit on, KellyAnne Conway, who I have seen around lately. In a conversation tonight about the Regressive Party having such despicable ideas about immigration, KellyAnne offers us this little nugget. Either she is too ignorant to realize where their new talking point is appropriate or she is too green to understand only the Fox audience would miss its unnecessary insertion into the conversation. Somehow she managed to get this in to distract from the fact that their candidates (who always demand it is the job of those on the right to defend the Constitution) are now suggesting we need to get rid of the 14th Amendment. She tells us that the candidates on the right can think above the waist and, "its not about women's health - that's breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and the rest of it..." I don't know ... when discussing the genuine importance of women's health and compelling the viewers to believe that you are the ones who care deeply, does 'and the rest of it' really suffice?

So this is their latest talking point. Of course it is ridiculous. Sometimes I honestly believe that they give them to us to leave us dumbfounded and unable to reply at all. This new one sets your brain spinning with so many arguments that you can't catch your brain quickly enough to counter their bullshit. Of course abortions and contraception are about women's health. We do not go see our mechanic for those issues. Of course candidates on the left don't believe that is all we care about. That is why they also talk to us about the environment and schools and societal struggles and the economy and the myriad other things we care about that the right would like to find ways to ignore or ruin altogether.

We all need to be mindful of the talking points as they come out. We all need to be ready with the thoughtful counter punch to ideas coming from the right which are utterly unimaginable and usually laughable. Otherwise whomever offers the bullshit gets to walk away having convinced themselves and anyone else paying attention that they were right by virtue of having left you dumbstruck. Christ they're awful.

We also need to be mindful of where these talking points are coming from. Start noticing the job titles of their pundits. KellyAnne's job title is "Republican Pollster." It would seem that a pollster would be getting statistical data and disseminating necessary information to the party and the candidate(s) paying for her services. But this pollster is on different shows giving us talking points on every issue imaginable, completely devoid of statistics or support of data offered. What is the point of having a pollster on the show who doesn't offer you statistics? I have recently come to find out a lot about the pundits on the right which has offered profound pause. I hope to write about it soon. They are crazy. And we, as a society, are assholes for allowing them to even have a voice.

Dear Media: Rape Is A Thing

Fox has a right-wing cable channel with the word 'news' in its title and demands it has no political bias. This is laughable to every single person in the country who knows the definition of the word 'bias' (which obviously excludes their audience). The left has MSNBC. They never try to dismiss allegations that their commentary comes from the left, however they maintain credibility because they never contend to be something other than they are or make stories out of thin air to create and perpetuate hate or fear in their audience. For some reason, MSNBC feels the need to alienate their audience and offer us a regressive perspective for their morning show, Morning Joe. Its host, Joe Scarborough, is a former Congressman from Florida and his co-host, Mika Brzezinski, is supposed to offer us a perspective from the left.

Sadly, as with my previous condemnations of ABC, MSNBC has gone out of its way to offer American women an unhealthy representation of strong women. Brzezinski is adamant about being a leader for women. She recently wrote a book called "Know Your Value" and started a nationwide tour to teach American women just how to rise and be strong. Meanwhile, every morning she shows us a woman with no backbone who seems quite content with her place as the nodding head next to its superstar from the Regressive Party. She calls herself a feminist while giggling to the boys and literally defining women as the subordinate creatures we were meant to be in the 50s where the men on the show ignore her cutesy little remarks when she tries to speak about politics as if its adorable that she thinks she knows what is going on.

In July, in a long series of unsettling opportunities Brzezinski has taken to rally with the host and any guests about myriad unfounded (later proven to be untrue) rumors about Secretary Clinton, she gave a disgusted and dismissive start to a discussion about the recently released rape allegations against Donald Trump by the Daily Beast. She didn't want to hear about it.

The question of the rape, itself, was not relevant for discussion on Morning Joe. The story the crew offered us was about the reply from Trump's attorney where he literally said that "by the very definition, you can't rape your spouse." (I suppose in their dark world, when a man is married he can pretty much do whatever he wants to his wife and she has no say in it). He then threatened the author of the piece (a woman) in a manner so crude that no feminist or human being should consider lightly, and ended in a sentence which actually sounded like a threat of rape to her. The whole thing was ridiculous to Brzezinski. She passionately feigned disgust when the co-author and editor, Tim Mak of the Daily Beast, came on and then she rolled her eyes while shaking her head. Scarborough even pointed out that he would protect the editor from Mika, because she was so pissed about the fact that rape allegations would be offered about Trump.

Mak pointed out that the reply from Trumps attorney said that spousal rape isn't illegal and Brzezinski literally dismissed him and cut him off saying,"Great. Thank you." Hey Mika, kindly never tell your audience that you want women to know their value while you refuse to hear the story and refuse to take the opportunity to remind your audience that in fact, spousal rape is a thing. And that it is not only deplorable, but illegal. That discussion concluded with Scarborough explaining to America that the reason many good people don't run for political positions is because they are afraid of terrible lies like these coming out about them.

The Morning Joe team never even discussed the actual allegations of the story and why they are incredibly important for Americans to hear. Thankfully, MSNBC was good enough to offer its audience an interview with the author of the piece, Brandy Zadrozny, the night before where she explained the relevance of the story on The Last Word With Lawrence O'Donnell. O'Donnell was uncharacteristically offensive, however, because he was looking for reasons to remind his audience that the victim in the case, Ivana Trump, still has a friendship with Donald Trump all of these years later. He reminded us that when many marriages end the spouses can still get along for the sake of the children. Thanks for the reminder, Lawrence. That happens with a lot of survivors who are just glad to get out of the cross hairs of bullies. Trump has proudly offered us proof that he is a bully. He tells us that he goes out of his way to be nice to people who are nice to him. Exactly. Bullies often do that. They also, as Trump does, remind us about what happens when they are crossed. Trump makes sure we know that. He had a television show where the objective was for him to be a bully. No woman who left a man like that, with the status and power that he has, would dare speak out about him.

If Trump has shown us anything in the last several months it is that he will absolutely not abide any betrayal (either real or imagined) and if anyone spends a moment of their time thinking he wouldn't do whatever he could to bury this story, they are living in a world completely devoid of reality. Only the article, which no one seems interested in discussing, and O'Donnells show in July offered us insight into what that bully is capable of.

The only time that Ivana Trump testified under oath about the event she called it rape. The entire scene was violent. He yanked fistfuls of hair from her head. The testimony from her friends that O'Donnell couldn't even say on the air was "He tore off her clothes and unzipped his pants. 'Then he jams his penis inside her for the first time in more than sixteen months.'" When she later recanted (through Trumps attorney) this was the statement:

“During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me,” the Ivana Trump statement said. “[O]n one occasion during 1989, Mr. Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage. As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness, which he normally exhibited towards me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape,’ but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”

As with terrorism when the actor is neither foreign nor a Muslim, the media is really desperate to find new words to define rape. Both the word rape in the initial testimony and the account above is offensive and demands further scrutiny. If no one can admit that this updated account sounds like an attempt to minimize rape, they have no business calling themselves a journalist whose sole responsibility is to inform their audience, regardless of who is going to get pissed after you do. Finally, the divorce was granted on the grounds of Donald Trump's "cruel and inhuman treatment' of Ivana. That should trigger someone into thinking deeply about both his respect for women and the possibility of his being their President.

After the divorce, when she was finally away from him and was under a gag order, she changed her story to say that it was an emotional rape. And no one wants to discuss the fact that every single thing she said the week that the story broke in July to defend Trump had to actually be approved by him because of the gag order. What moron believes he, or the attorney above who would be the one to review it, would allow a response that would put the bully in a negative light?

Is it any wonder that the women's movement has been so unsuccessful? Is it remotely curious that in 2015 we still have not been able to get the ERA passed?

We allow for those in our media culture to negate accusations of 40+ women who give undeniably similar stories about Bill Cosby raping them. We allow them to do so even though we have evidence of his having admitted under oath to drugging them beforehand. But we accept a noted celebrity, Whoopi Goldberg, condemning us for believing these women. We have a self-proclaimed feminist on MSNBC refusing to hear an accusation of rape in a desperate attempt to protect the reputation of the man accused, who we all know to be a bully.

Again, I remind my reader, (for whites) there are two laws in our country where it is absolutely justifiable, and maybe even expected, to first be skeptical or dismiss allegations and, in turn, accept that the victim is lying. Those two laws are, of course, rape and domestic violence. If our media can't be held accountable for offering us perspectives in the dismissal of women and their obvious subjugation in the most extreme cases, what type of society are we accepting?

This is where we are in our women's movement: We have a very serious chance of getting our first female President. All news outlets, including the one which is supposed to lean left, offer supposition for every rumor that comes up (they've been giving us rumors for over 20 years now, has no one yet determined they should vet their sources before reporting?), but when serious allegations come out about the rage and danger of a man who is running for the same office, those allegations are dismissed with obvious and extreme prejudice. And the discussion about the dangers of spousal rape are minimized in order to literally promote the character of a bully.

In short, I guess we are fucked. That's where we are. And the media refuses to see their complicity in that fact.

Dear Media: Your Advertisers Want More Money

I had the most ridiculous conversation with my mom last night on the phone. I asked her if she had heard about the interview with the former Deputy Director of the CIA where he admitted that Dick Cheney lied when he said Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons. My mom didn't believe me. And do you want to know how she knew that I was not telling her the truth? She didn't want to hurt my feelings so she implied first that I must have misunderstood the interview, then she reasoned with me, and I quote, "Angie, if that happened, why wouldn't it have been on the news?" Great question mom! I don't know. I don't know why they don't bother to cover a lot of things that are newsworthy but find it necessary to open every hour with a story about a deflated football or some pseudo-patriotic bullshit that an asshole politician decided to say on their campaign today.

I find myself still exhausted by that call today. Of course, I am not the only American who is pissed. I am not the only one of your consumers who is being ignored daily. I have decided that this time I will forward my letter on to your biggest advertisers, too. It seems that you want us to constantly be mindful of the fact that you are a money making venture whose concern for the actual information you are meant to be relaying to us is secondary to the profits you can turn. (We can tell because of how much time you spend hyping and telling the same stories that are more worthy of tabloids than actual news coverage). So I will let your advertisers know that if you covered a story like this, you could certainly be making them a lot of money. People would tune in. More people. More than the ones you just want to come back every day, but the people who don't even watch the news.

Ewww... are you drooling? Wipe that. Now listen.

Two nights ago the former CIA Deputy Director, Michael Morrell, was on Hardball with Chris Matthews. Morrell admitted that, even though Cheney told America that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted nuclear weapons, this was not true. The information Cheney offered to finally get America behind going to war in Iraq, even though we knew that the attacks on 9/11 were from bin Laden, was a lie. This was not reported anywhere. Why? How?

The sad part is that last night when he closed his show, Matthews was actually upset, you could tell, by the fact that Cheney had lied. The rest of us were surprised to have heard it verified on live television, but no one who has been paying attention was really surprised that it was true. Matthews has such a sweet and pure heart. His love for politics and America is so sincere that he often doesn't see through the rhetoric a lot of us do. Because he is that type of person, it should have been even more important that this story be covered nationally. No one reporting on it (who is in a legitimate news organization) could question whether or not there was anything untoward about the story having come from Chris Matthews. And, lest you forget, you certainly have no problem relaying absolute nonsense you hear from the Fox cable channel with the word 'news' in its title.

America united after 9/11. We were one country. I stood behind my leadership and ignored the fact that they were of another party. I didn't care. I was an American. My country was attacked. And with that unity and with our excitement for retribution, our Vice President created information to take us into a war that would benefit he and the Bush family. And its only costs have ever been felt on the families of those lost and injured and the economy of the country that was so anxious to offer its misdirected trust.

Just think, not only could you let America know tonight that you had a story about how we fought a war that we are still paying for, and, more importantly offer the cost in the numbers of lives lost, because Dick Cheney told lies, but then you would have many night of follow up stories. The kinds of stories that are actually newsworthy. You would have real American stories to tell. About how Americans feel after having been betrayed. And about the myriad circumstances we now find ourselves because of those choices. You could go back to remind us about how Cheney commissioned a story to report on his lies. And then he offered those lies to Congress. There would be real goddamned substance in your reporting. It sounds glorious, doesn't it?

It is your job to bring the information to the country. It is your job to remind us of what we had been and help us to heal so we can find our way back there. At present, we have leaders who are trashing the name of America every day. They demand her exceptionalism while condemning the majority of Americans for not having met their very narrow definitions of those who are exceptional. You give them validity when you give them a voice. As was true in  2003, is true today, you are perpetually complicit in where we are finding ourselves. It is time to bring America back to a place that is unified and healthy. And it needs to start today.

Dear Media: Is Fox Your Master?

For some reason, Americans are supposed to accept a biased report on all issues out of your fear of being condemned for being too liberal by people who, quite sincerely, have their own bias and their own media. The conservative media is an astounding conglomerate of groups who report the same misinformation to create conspiracies and encourage hate and fear. They have a cable television channel with the word 'news' in its title, they have a myriad of bloggers that right wing consumers accept as journalists, they have noted radio personalities and they have their hands in many of the nations largest newspapers. This is literally an entire market that, due to freedoms of the press and speech, Americans have to accept as being a part of our society and hope that the rest of Americans have enough sophistication to know the difference. However, we should not then be forced to accept that the rest of our media opt to follow them directly down the rabbit hole.

You are literally allowing them to direct the narrative in America. As a resource, I offer you this: every morning open this link and watch it on your way to work while reminding yourself that your sole responsibility as a journalist is to offer the country true journalism completely devoid of anything that would be found on a station which would air this in something other than a diatribe against what the worst of our society has to offer. (You are quite welcome).

I am amazed quite often at the times media are compelled to retract and apologize for inaccurate information. Recently several media outlets had to retract a story that had only been aired on Fox about a black man in Baltimore having been shot in the back by a police officer. How is it possible to have a cable television channel which has been discredited countless times not just for journalism in specific stories, but as a news outlet altogether, lead the narrative for any media that would want to be noted as creditworthy? No true journalist in America believes that the stories or opinions they offer are based on fact. Then how can anyone excitedly pick up their reporting and offer it to a respectable audience? Because you are lazy.

Your laziness has been on display lately as all news stations started reporting on the varied answers Jeb Bush has offered about whether or not he would've taken us into Iraq if he'd known then what we know now. I mean, it was such a triumph, right? Because he was changing his answer again and again. And you have been conditioned to know a 'flip-flop' when you hear one and pounce. Oh how exciting. In all of your excitement you missed the opportunity, as journalists, to ask yourselves, "So, if the 'hard-hitting' question that stumped him came from the Fox channel, should it be repeated to others or should I take a minute to analyze the question to at least make sure the facts are included in the question and any responses?" Instead, you repeated the question and allowed the answer to then direct or conclude the narrative with no contradiction. None of the candidates or pundits are being corrected when offering their denouncement of GW Bush to reply, "By the way, Hillary Clinton doesn't want to have to answer this question, either." She has already given us her answer. And no one is taking the time to remind us of that. Is fair journalism only a concern when attempting to deflect scorn from the right? Christ!

That has concluded every dialogue offered. And that pissed me off. I was so pissed off that I managed to miss the even bigger failure pointed out by Rachel Maddow last night (there is a reason one of us has a television show and the other has a blog (wink)). Once the generic slant is offered back to Secretary Clinton, it is then your responsibility to interrupt and inform your audience who may not be aware by inserting into the dialogue "To correct you quickly [fill in the blank with name of candidate or pundit], Secretary Clinton has already answered that question in her book. And she was not a member of the administration who commissioned the answer then offered to Congress." (You will be forgiven for finding a more respectful way of saying that, but not for omitting it altogether). The onus is on you, the journalist, whose job is to inform America, to remind us of the context of the questions and their answers. You cannot expect your newsmakers to give honest accounts. And you cannot expect your audience to know everything, otherwise, we wouldn't need you, would we?

This morning in an interview with Rand Paul on CNN, the candidate was asked about what he would do about ISIS. He delved into a discussion where he inserted a sentence, unchallenged even though this was obviously pre-recorded, saying that President Obama wasn't hard on terrorism because he called the attacks on Fort Hood 'workplace violence' instead of 'terrorism,' the word Paul, apparently, would prefer be used. This is a favorite talking point repeated in the right-wing media. But on CNN, this new idea to the thoughtful American audience was allowed to air without having been questioned. Of course, the interview was concluded by Alisyn Camerota asking about his curly hair and its maintenance. I guess we couldn't really be expected to find anything integral from that piece of journalism, so were we meant to discount the entire interview? In asking for so many contrived understandings, you are asking a lot of your audience.

In 2013, CBS apologized for misinformation offered in an interview of a source using an assumed name about Benghazi that ended up to have been proven false. It was not a live broadcast. The story offered was not vetted and was offered to America as fact. CBS bore a lot of criticism from many journalistic outfits for this failure and for the retraction which was insincere and offered no explanation for their profound neglect. Here is a way to avoid this in the future: If someone wants to use an assumed name, be damned sure you know that they are legit. Also, again, if the story is about something only the right wing is excitedly jumping all over, there is a very very good chance its bullshit.

We learned from tabloid print, and then tabloid television, that people get really excited when something negative happens or someone says something derogatory about another person in America. And those stories sell copy or ad space. And news outlets, at their core, are moneymaking businesses. I suppose Americans are just supposed to accept that you will run this type of content to make money? I don't accept it. I don't accept that because something is outrageous I should hear about it every hour on the 24/7 news channels. I don't accept that you compel your viewers to come back so you can tell them the same thing you told them the last hour. I don't accept that you are giving me garbage because you don't demand more of yourselves.

It is unfathomable that a man like Peter Schweitzer can publish a book and outlets which we are supposed to consider legitimate report on it. It is hardly newsworthy that he has written another book. New books are released every week. You might find it newsworthy that less reputable news outlets are reporting on an, as yet, unreleased book by a man who has been discredited at least 10 times. Otherwise, it is not newsworthy. Let the right wing media cover it. Let America see distinction in the media who don't cover the tabloidesque stories. I feel insulted when I hear these ridiculous stories coming from anyone other than right wing talking heads. It is as if those of us who are intelligent and genuinely want to know what is going on in the world are either irrelevant or expendable as an audience. Please give the rest of America the respect we are due and just ignore the stories that are, quite obviously, garbage.

The New York Times and Washington Post were contractually obligated to report on the book release. What kind of shit is that? So, before its release, they were "briefed on the books findings" along with major Republican candidates for the 2016 Presidential election, and, without having read a single word of the book, without having vetted a single contention, its conspiratorial information was reported to America. We were not offered information about the illegitimacy of his many past 'findings.' It is not journalism to assume your readership has such information. And it certainly isn't journalism to report on what is, quite obviously, slanderous nonsense meant to be released just as Secretary Clinton is beginning her campaign for the Presidency. The New York Times mentioned the fact that the book was published by a News Corp company, but neglected to tell its readers that News Corp is owned by Rupert Murdoch, the owner of the Fox cable channel with the word "news" in its name.

Upon its release (when people actually had read it and were able to vet the information they were reporting on), Amazon immediately released a message to buyers that significant changes had been made to the Kindle copies purchased. But, of course, the damage has been done. The negative associations attributed to Secretary Clinton that were all based on supposition are now ingrained in the minds of Americans. And that was the objective. And you did that.

That distinction is what would make you the legitimate media, at present you are not. You would actually prove your legitimacy by reporting on the discredited outlets who did report on it and then had to retract their contentions while holding yourself in esteem for having ignored it altogether. But when you end up adding your own retractions to the list, you become their equal. Ill bet that as a journalist or a media outlet, that thought just kind of made you queasy. If it were my career, it would certainly offer me a nauseated pause.

Deliberately neglecting to inform Americans about the goings on in the country is bias. The majority of Americans still support a woman's right to choose offered by Roe V Wade. However, a House Bill passed last week to limit those rights profoundly and Americans weren't informed of it by the major 3 (PBS did cover the story). This bill, if passed, would be cruel and potentially dangerous, as many birth defects are not detectible until after 20 weeks. Not only were Americans not made aware of the passing of this bill, but they were not offered the contradictory information where the Supreme Court found in Colautti V. Franklin:

Because this point [of viability] may differ with each pregnancy, neither the legislature nor the courts may proclaim one of the elements entering into the ascertainment of viability — be it weeks of gestation or fetal weight or any other single factor — as the determinant of when the State has a compelling interest in the life or health of the fetus.

I want to attribute these failings to laziness and not bias. Please prove me right. If you have been lazy in allowing the right to manipulate the narrative, take it upon yourselves to seek truth in your stories and objectively offer your audience all of the information they need to be sincerely informed. As with every political season, I believe that this is one of the most important election cycles in a long time. I think I might be right this time, however. The right wing voters have become noticeably more extreme and all of the present candidates are speaking only to those people. If their dialogue becomes imprinted in the American mind in the next year and a half and they all get the seats they need in DC with the Presidency, we are fucked. I think anyone who can see what is really going on would say the same.

The really cool thing about your job and your industry is that you get to direct the narrative of America. You get to determine what we need to hear and in what manner it should be delivered. That is a very heavy responsibility. How can you allow that responsibility to be dictated by the least credible sources in the industry? They have very overt biases. The rest should not.

We will quickly begin to see noticeable changes in journalism once a few adjustments are made. For instance, there will be little need for phrases like "a credible source has said." The sources credibility should either be clearly defined or be named and allow the audience to interpret their credibility. It should be a rare occasion when your source should require anonymity. And, it should never be necessary in reporting on politics. Politics are, by nature, biased, we have to believe your sources aren't. Likewise, when reporting on 'a study' please offer your audience the information on who performed the study and who commissioned it. I can offer you a study of what people in an apartment complex think about property taxes, but neither I nor my findings would be remotely credible. The right-wing media have their very own studies. They are not reputable and intelligent people realize that. We don't want to have to question your findings, too.

Americans are growing impatient for something they can believe and not have to immediately discount for fear of its being 'more of the same.' Imagine what kind of respect will be afforded the outlet which decides to step up and offer that to us. (Just tell your owners and VPs that means lots of ratings, which means lots of money!!)