McQueary is leaving the Tribune. Good riddance.

The people hired to take on corporate salvation projects have to have "Mussolini-like powers to execute and implement." -- Tribune editorial

Goodbye and good riddance to Tribune editorial page editor, Kristen McQueary who's leaving here  without a buyout. I guess when they know you're leaving anyway, there's no point in offering you early retirement. 

Her departure comes after the Trib has already been gutted under the new management of Alden Global Capital, a New York hedge fund. Alden has done the same to about 200 other newspapers across the country including The Denver Post, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Boston Herald, The Mercury News of San Jose, the East Bay Times, The Orange County Register, and the Orlando Sentinel. 

 In March 2018, Margaret Sullivan, the media columnist for The Washington Post, called Alden "one of the most ruthless of the corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism.

So far, more than 40 Trib journos and staffers have left the paper. 

While I feel terrible for those who have lost their jobs and possibly their careers because of the Alden takeover, forgive me for shedding no tears over the loss of McQueary. She's always been a Chicago basher and especially hateful of its public schools. She and John Kass have long occupied the far-right corner at the right-wing Tribune. 

In a racist 2015 rant, reflecting back on Hurrican Katrina, McQueary wrote: 

I find myself wishing for a storm in Chicago — an unpredictable, haughty, devastating swirl of fury. A dramatic levee break. Geysers bursting through manhole covers. A sleeping city, forced onto the rooftops. That's what it took to hit the reset button in New Orleans. Chaos. Tragedy. Heartbreak.

Educators especially will recall similar thoughts on the part of then-Sec. of Ed Arne Ducan who anticipated McQuary in 2010.

I spent a lot of time in New Orleans, and this is a tough thing to say, but let me be really honest. I think the best thing that happened to the education system in New Orleans was Hurricane Katrina. 

The idea is that cities like Chicago, Detroit and New Orleans are beyond repair and that a natural disaster, or a man-made one, is the only hope for a "rebirth."

In fairness, I should point out that in the face of public outrage, McQuary (like Duncan) did offer an apology. Well, it wasn't really an apology but rather an explanation.

I wrote what I did not out of lack of empathy, or racism, but out of long-standing frustration with Chicago’s poorly managed finances. 

Whenever one has to explain that they are not really spewing racism, that it's only a metaphor...well, you know the rest. 

Keep in mind, her devasting paen to disaster capitalism came only weeks after her Trib editorial calling for a Mussolini-type dictator to run the Chicago school system. 

Final note... It's disquieting to read over-the-top, gushing farewells to McQueary coming from a few long-entrenched Chicago white media aristocracts. 

Delmarie Cobb offers her take on Chicago's press corps

Delmarie Cobb on Hitting Left radio in 2017. 

Veteran media and political consultant, Delmarie Cobb responded, in her recent newsletter, to Lori  Lightfoot's decision to give preferential interviews to journalists of color on Lightfoot's second anniversary as Mayor of Chicago. 

Cobb agrees with Lightfoot's assessment of the current predominantly-white City Hall press corps and then takes it to the next level. 

Yes, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has a point about the predominantly white press corps. With the retirements of Charles Thomas of ABC/7 and Derrick Blakley of CBS/2, there is a small number of high profile, seasoned political reporters covering City Hall and Springfield for the mainstream media who are Black.

That still doesn’t address the near extinction of community media outlets and the role they play in nurturing and cultivating qualified journalists. It was the Chicago Defender that produced political journalists Vernon Jarrett and Lu Palmer. Currently, there are a number of working reporters in Chicago who got their start in the field thanks to Black newspapers.

Cobb's point is well taken. While local media workers and staff, along with Guild leaders, like the Tribune's Gregg Pratt, we're righteously outraged about the Alden hedge-funder's takeover of the Tribune Co. and even went begging for some benevolent billionaire to replace Alden,  they've been deadly silent for years about the takedown of community media outlets, especially those that were Black-owned. 

They were much more vocal and militant when it came to pushing back on Lightfoot's affirmative-action move, even joining in chorus with the likes of Tucker Carlson and Ted Cruz in their condemnation of supposed "reverse racism."

As the Alden hedge-funders dismantle the last of the city's remaining newspapers, it's worth recalling Ben Franklin's old dictum: Hang together or hang separately.

Mayor's round of interviews with journos provokes cries of ‘reverse racism’

As controversial as that was, it's important to note that the policy was for one round of interviews. @chicagosmayor gave a press conference yesterday and answered questions from reporters, regardless of background. A lot of misinformation from national hot-take artists on this. https://t.co/VEM2SzzpRJ

— Paris Schutz (@paschutz) May 21, 2021

Breaking... Lightfoot gives an exclusive interview to a young, Black, & critical journalist. And guess what? Chicago doesn’t crumble into the lake. 

Of all the attacks on Mayor Lori Lightfoot's challenge to the long-standing, embedded system of white-skin privilege in the ranks of City Hall reporters, there's one that creeped me out the most.

No, it wasn't NBC anchor Mary Ann Ahern's -- "Does [Mayor Lightfoot] think I’m racist?"

Nor was it Trib reporter and Guild Prez Greg Pratt's claim that political leaders shouldn't be allowed to choose who they give interviews to. Of course, that is complete nonsense. It's hard to think of a president, governor, senator, or Chicago mayor who hasn't chosen a journo to interview them. The Mayor's choice of a journalist of color over the traditionally white old City Hall guard was clearly making a point and a good point.

Pratt's pushback against Lightfoot's call for newsroom diversity put him on the same shaky ground with fellow Tribune columnist and Chicago's premier defender of whiteness, John Kass. 

In case anyone doubts Kass's premiership, check out  his faux-hip Twitter post calling Chicago's first Black, gay, and female mayor, "Mayor Wokeness." Ugh!

No, it wasn't even retired CBS newsman, Jay Levine, also writing in the Trib, who accused MLL of trying to "run the newsrooms." I can't imagine that there were many Black women running Levine's CBS newsrooms back in the day. Levine even claimed that the Mayor's directive was "unconstitutional." He could be proven right if his case against media affirmative action ever came up before the current Trump-packed SCOTUS. 

No one should have been surprised then when a rag-tag chorus of right-wing MAGAs and white supremacists, took the local's lead and chimed in on the issue. From Tucker Carlson ("Lightfoot is a 'Nazi' and a "monster") to Ted Cruz crying "reverse racism." I would expect nothing less from Trumpies. Remember it was Trump himself who used his Twitter feed to launch almost daily misogynistic and racist rants targeting mostly urban, Democratic, female mayors including Mayor Lightfoot.

Although I admit I was somewhat amazed at how Lightfoot's provocative interview offer even became national grist for the Fox News mill. Was it Carlson's folly or Lightfoot's intention? I would guess, the latter. 

Okay, back to my opening point. I admit that what really got to me was the headline on the Sun-Times editorial page with this old saw:

Lightfoot raises the right point about diversity in Chicago journalism — but in the wrong way.

How many times have I heard this mantra over the past 60 years? We support your cause, but not the way you -- protesters, unions, civil rights leaders, King, SNCC, Baker, Harold Washington, Panthers, Black Lives Matter... -- are going about it.  

OK then S-T, Tribune, Washington Post, and the rest of the local and national corporate media. If you don't like the Mayor's way show us your way. Where has it been?

OTHER VOICES:

Regardless of what you think of @chicagosmayor, I think her prioritizing interviews by Black and Latino journalists about her 2-year mayoral anniversary is sort of an interesting idea. It reminds me of when Anthony Bourdain went to Houston with a plan to only interview POC chefs.

— John Greenfield (@greenfieldjohn) May 21, 2021

How come whenever we try to balance the scales it's called "racism"

— Colin Turner (@dtdaddy13) May 21, 2021

Mayor Lightfoot is right to be concerned about accurate & fair press coverage & the mayor’s proposal of including people of color in one-on-one interviews is morally justified. She is making a strong & righteous case for inclusion & diversity in the press & its coverage.

— Rev Jesse Jackson Sr (@RevJJackson) May 21, 2021

I stand with @chicagosmayor. She has done an outstanding job guiding Chicago through unprecedented challenges. The right-wing attacks on her character are abhorrent.

— Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) May 20, 2021

Our focus in on the call for diversity in political units. I hope managers in newsroom big and small get the message. Political units must include different perspectives and life experiences in order to move diverse stories to the forefront. @NAHJ @NABJCC @aaja @NAJA @NABJ https://t.co/PO9HrVBYfA

— Dorothy Tucker NABJ (@Dorothy4NABJ) May 19, 2021

Weak local media coverage of the protests

Thousands march in Brooklyn

Why has there been so little press coverage in Chicago media, aside from the small obligatory news reports, on the large, downtown protests, calling for an end to the Israeli attack on Gaza? Could it be because the marchers were overwhelmingly Palestinian and Arab? Or that the large protests, while militant, were mainly peaceful and disciplined? 

It seems that unless there are violent confrontations with police or rioting at protests, editors are relegating coverage of anti-war demonstrations to small stories on back pages with little or no in-depth reporting. 

I was also dumbstruck by the national timid media response to Israel's missile attack which leveled the building that housed AP/Al Jazeera/BBC offices in Gaza. 

A fake news story in Business Insider and elsewhere, claimed that former Associated Press editor, Matt Friedman, had backed Israel’s claim that the Hamas did, in fact, have offices inside the building.  

The Israel Defense Forces claimed the building contained military-intelligence assets for Hamas, including "intel for attacks against Israel." But they offered no proof or hard evidence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was all over the Sunday news shows calling the building a "perfectly legitimate target," and "a tower of terror." 

The Insider reports:

But Matti Friedman, who worked as a reporter and editor at the AP's Jerusalem bureau from 2006 to 2011, contradicted his former employer on Sunday, tweeting: "A conversation with a friend who is intimately familiar with military decision-making right now suggests there were indeed Hamas offices there."

But then, Friedman tweets in response:

In my two essays from 2014, I gave multiple examples of the way news organizations like the AP had been compromised by Hamas in Gaza. Contrary to what I’ve seen attributed to me today, I didn’t write that Hamas operated out of the same building, and don’t know if that’s true.

— Matti Friedman (@MattiFriedman) May 16, 2021 

I have no idea as to whether or not Hamas really had an office in the building. But even if they did, given the fact that Hamas is part of the existing government coalition supported by most Palestinian citizens of Gaza and the West Bank, Israel's rationale for its missile strike against the foreign press offices has rightfully drawn international condemnation. 

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

CNN anchor, Jim Acosta calls "BS" on Fox

"That tale from the border didn't just border on BS, this was USDA Grade-A bullsh*t. -- Raw Story

Rick Ayers -- Capitalism is killing us

The big US and European pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer-BioNTech, AstraZeneca, and Moderna, hold patents on the counter-COVID vaccines and the accompanying formulas they’ve developed, keeping the processes of production under wraps. -- Medium

Sec. of State Anthony Blinken on Afghan pullout

 Just because our troops are coming home doesn't mean we're leaving. We're not. -- 60 Minutes

 Eric Goldstein on Israeli apartheid

To bring real change, we need to call the situation what it is: an oppressive and discriminatory system that shows no signs of going away, and that meets the legal definition of apartheid. -- Human Rights Watch

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves

On the penultimate day of the Confederate Heritage Month Gov. Reeves made a bold declaration: “There is not systemic racism in America.” -- Mississippi Free Press

Ali Velshi 

Arizona recently chose to out-source its rights and responsibilities to recount ballots to a private company run by a CEO who has been spreading the “Big Lie” that the election was stolen. -- MSNBC

Rebecca Solnit

Ideas put forth in the Green New Deal in 2019, seen as radical at the time, are now the kind of stuff President Biden routinely proposes in his infrastructure and jobs plans. -- Guardian

Epstein's poke at Dr. Jill Biden backfires.

The best honorific for Dr. Biden might be "Teacher". 

Whatever the purpose of Joseph Epstein's WSJ screed... it surely failed. I think his poke at Dr. Jill Biden for professionally using 'DR.' in front of her name had less to do with educational leadership titles and Dr. Biden's personal achievements (which are notable) and more with discrediting the Biden/Harris election victory. 

Whatever his intent, it most certainly backfired. The negative response on social media has been over the top. While the relatively-unknown Epstein may be the current hero in MAGAland's war on "identity politics",  in the education community he has become just another symbol of Trumpian anti-educator, misogyny. 

If anything, I'm sure he's driven even more white, educated, suburban women from DT's base. That being a demographic shift that helped put Biden over the top in several swing states. Thanks for that, Epstein.

Other reactions: 

Northwestern University said in a statement on Saturday that it disagrees with the "misogynistic views" of Joseph Epstein, an author and former professor at the Illinois school who wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published Friday that Biden should drop the "Dr." because it "sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic."

He also compared Biden’s doctoral credentials to an honorary degree that requires no academic work and said her doctorate thesis had an “unpromising” title. 

Epstein, the university said, has not been a lecturer there since 2003 -- clarifying Epstein's statement in the piece that he had "taught at Northwestern University for 30 years without a doctorate or any advanced degree." Northwestern also removed Epstein's profile from its website.

 Diane Ravitch on the Dr. Biden dust-up

To be sure, there was a political edge to [Epstein's] critique: Soon after the election, he wrote an article for the WSJ praising Trump’s accomplishments and chastising his anti-Trump friends. Knocking Dr. Biden is just another way of lamenting Trump’s defeat.

The best comment I have seen on this flap appeared on Fred Klonsky’s blog, quoting Glen Brown. The gist: 70% of instructors in higher education are adjuncts, not paid a living wage. That’s a true scandal.

 Indeed. Take it from me.

In fact, all this begs the questions about the inequalities in academic certification, access to graduate schools of education, and teacher leadership. Some of my favorite topics. But I'll save those for another post once the cloud of Epstein's misogyny has been fully blown away.

Dr. Michael Klonsky

Dr. Biden, good on you. You earned your title. It’s not like you got your doctorate at Trump University.

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) December 13, 2020

Melissa Korn is the higher education reporter for the Wall St. Journal 

There is a thick wall between the news and opinion operations of @WSJ, but it still saddens me that they'd print it. Which is the way I've felt about many op-eds over the years. Pieces like that make it harder for me to do my job. 2/2

— Melissa Korn (@melissakorn) December 13, 2020

Dad was a 'premature anti-fascist'

Photograph by Peter Stackpole for Life Magazine (1937).

Our dad was one of the original real antifas back in '37. This, a far cry from today's Antifa, a mythical group that exists mainly in MAGA nightmares, the media, and on Donald Trump's proposed list of domestic "terrorist" organizations.

Just in his teens, he hopped a freighter, crossed the Pyrenees, and fought for Spanish freedom alongside his comrades in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Back then they called them premature anti-fascists. When he died, we spread his ashes off the Barcelona coast.

Happy Father's Day Robert Klonsky and to all the anti-racist, anti-fascist dads out there as well.

********

"There was so much response... over a million ticket requests, that we decided that the BOK Center was just not big enough,” Trump campaign Communications Director Tim Murtaugh said on Friday. “We had to have more so that's why we have the neighboring streets all blocked off. There's going to be two stages. The president is going to speak in both locations."

The morning after...Everyone knows by now that Trump's million-ticket MAGA rally in Tulsa was a total bust. The rally was deliberately planned to counter the massive continuing Black Lives Matter protests and the commemoration of the 1921 Tulsa race massacre. But when only a few thousand MAGAs showed up, Trump had to cancel his outdoor rally and speech, Republicans blamed it on Antifa of course.  Dad lives!

********

When asked if he would attend Trump's racist rally, Dr. Anthony Fauci said "of course not." He added that in the case of Trump’s rallies “outside is better than inside, no crowd is better than crowd” and “crowd is better than big crowd.”

I hope this wasn't the only or even the main reason he chose to stay away. But I wish he would have said so.

Maybe the other 990,000 people went to Tulas https://t.co/ZOh5uiURVT

— Ben Terris (@bterris) June 20, 2020

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

If we must die, let it not be like hogs

Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot

 -- Claude McKay (1919)

Trump

'MAGA loves the black people' -- On way to space launch

Emily Witt

An officer would repeat, like a mantra, the directive “Move back.” The protesters would chant, “You move back.” A few cries would ring out: “This is a public sidewalk” or “We have a right to be here!” Then the police would make their move: pushing forward, pepper-spraying, dragging people who resisted. -- New Yorker

Even Michael Jordan (Better late than never)

"I see and feel everyone's pain, outrage and frustration. I stand with those who are calling out the ingrained racism and violence toward people of color in our country. We have had enough... ESPN

Deborah Brown, Human Rights Watch

“President Trump’s executive order amounts to a threat to punish social media platforms and the people who post on them because the government might disagree with the way the companies moderate content.” -- HRW

Richard Trumka, AFL-CIO President

Racism plays an insidious role in the daily lives of all working people of color. This is a labor issue because it is a workplace issue. It is a community issue, and unions are the community. -- Tweet

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot

At a press conference, Lightfoot referred to the nation’s “original sin” of racism, and she said, “I stand shoulder-to-shoulder” with peaceful protestors. But she added, “I’m also hurt and angry at those who decided to hijack this moment and use it as an opportunity to wreak havoc, to loot and to destroy. -- Presser

St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter 

We’re calling for ‘peace, not patience’ -- Today

"Save the bullshit": NFL players Kenny Stills, Eric Reid and more slam Goodell's statement on George Floyd death https://t.co/7gqPflDVpW pic.twitter.com/pUKUU7nd4c

— The Hill (@thehill) June 1, 2020

We're all in this together. Aren't we?

Between 40-60 million pushed into poverty in the Corona era.

"We are all in this together. We must put politics aside, stop the partisanship, and unify together as one nation and one family." -- Donald Trump, Address to the Nation, 3/11/20

This old saw may turn out to be the biggest lie ever told. Whether or not you believe it may well depend on which side of the poverty/race line you fall on. Whether you're one of the 40-60 million pushed into a life of poverty or one of the half of one percent cashing in on the sickness and misery of others; whether you're one of the 4,500 Tyson workers who've caught COVID-19 or one of the company's owners threatening to fire employees who fear to return to work. It could even depend on whether you're a state or local official having to go it alone with little or no help from the feds while the president boasts about how he's won the adoration of the governors and how he already defeated the pandemic. You get the picture.

CEO Randall Stephenson is out at AT&T. I know this is a hell of a time to lose your job, but don't worry about Randall. He won't be standing on line at the unemployment office like the 20,000 or so AT&T workers who've lost their jobs mainly due to offshoring and the corona crisis. Many of those remaining are working under unsafe conditions, here in the U.S. and in places like Jamaica and Costa Rica.

But not Randall. While AT&T lines up for its share of the multitrillion-dollar corporate bailout --mainly used for stock buybacks -- a bailout that will be paid for by taxpayers, their children, and grandchildren, he's leaving with a golden parachute retirement package. His pension is valued at $64 million with an additional $27.6 million in deferred earnings, according to the New York Times. This massive sum of money provides him with a guaranteed income of $274,000 a month for the rest of his life. This is on top of his total last three years with an average $30 million/year compensation.

CWA Union Pickets AT&T Offices in San Antonio Over Continued Job Cuts.

Establishment splits...Aside from the current (mainly one-sided) class warfare raging against the poor and working class, the pandemic has also intensified ongoing factional strife among the rich and powerful. For example, among those happiest to see Stephenson go is none other than Donald Trump. You see, AT&T owns CNN, along with more than 90 of its other major corporate divisions. Trump hates CNN as he hates all news media ("enemies of the people") and has been using his anti-trust division to go after them specifically.

Lots of AT&T money went to Republicans in 2016. But none to Trump. DT never forgot it.

Great News! Randall Stephenson, the CEO of heavily indebted AT&T, which owns and presides over Fake News @CNN, is leaving, or was forced out. Anyone who lets a garbage “network” do and say the things that CNN does, should leave ASAP. Hopefully replacement will be much better!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 24, 2020

Elon Musk not "in it together."

Tesla is telling workers that if they do not come back to the factory – which is open in defiance of a local public health order – they may have their unemployment benefits eliminated, @msainat1 reports https://t.co/cxyNByXT6v

— Julia Carrie Wong (@juliacarriew) May 12, 2020

Trump, the king of deflection, leads attentive media on a wild goose chase

No mask, no distancing with corporate pals at Honeywell mask plant. A provocation? Of course.

Today's blaring Trump headline becomes tomorrow's page-15 news story. Every day brings a new provocation, a new outrage or baseless rant against the press corps. Is D.T. having a meltdown? A psychological break? Or is this all White House strategy to keep an always-attentive press and Democratic opposition (such as it is) off balance?

Trump's game plan of leading the press by the nose from one daily crisis to another and having Dems react, appears to be working to an extent. Democrats apparently have no campaign or media strategy of their own besides having Joe Biden send out messages from his basement.

I'm looking back on how the Dems dropped the whole Ukraine/impeachment thing five minutes after the vote was taken in the Senate. I don't really blame them for slinking away from that one. After putting all their cards in that basket, I doubt you will ever hear the word Ukraine even whispered by a Democrat again.

It's like the way you will never hear the words, "Race to the Top" from the lips of the old Obama/Duncan education crew.

Trump is the master of deflection. In just the past two weeks he's led us on a trail of fears, from hydroxychloroquine and bleach injections, to "very good people" with guns and swastikas at the Michigan statehouse, to yesterday's rant against Dr. Bright the whistle blower. 

Oh, I almost forgot the Asian killer hornets.

What will it be today? It likely depends on tonight's Trump's  overnight tweets. My guess is, the disbanding of the coronavirus Task Force. Bye bye, Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx. Or maybe just a shot fired over the bow and a walk-back next week.

The press and the Democrats are still being led around by the nose. Only a few reporters dare to point out, the emperor has no clothes (ugh, make that go away).

One bright light is an ad created by a group of mainly neocon Republicans & never-Trumpers attacking DT's “failed presidency." Good on them. 

“Under the leadership of Donald Trump, our country is weaker, and sicker, and poorer,” it continues, with somber string music reverberating in the background. “And now Americans are asking, if we have another four years like this, will there even be an America?”

Why can't Biden and the Democrats produce something like that instead of, "Trump is soft on China" or "I will veto Medicare for all even if it passes both houses"?

📺 NEW VIDEO @realdonaldtrump’s failed presidency has left the nation weaker, sicker, and teetering on the verge of a new Great Depression.

There’s mourning in America. pic.twitter.com/QoEWJVNEXc

— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) May 4, 2020

Speaking of media coverage...After a month of radio silence with most of its the crew in Guam, struggling to recover from COVID-19, the U.S.S. Roosevelt is headed back out to sea yesterday without its whistle-blowing Captain, Brett Crozier and with crew members knowing that the top brass doesn't have their backs.

More than 4,000 crew members went ashore last month. While more than 2,000 are back on board, at least 1,000 are still testing positive for the virus and remain on land. And the close to 700 crew members who had been protecting and running the Roosevelt and systems aboard have now moved into hotels and other facilities on the island for their quarantine. -- Time Magazine

But here's the latest...

 Medical personnel and crew members on the Roosevelt say that several returning sailors have displayed symptoms that they associate with the coronavirus. But Navy officials counter that all sailors must have tested negative at least twice before going back on the ship, and that they will be tested again on board if they have even the mildest flu-like symptoms. -- N.Y. Times

I was amazed to see any coverage at all of the Roosevelt story since there's been an unofficial blackout on all reporting of the toll corona has taken on the entire fleet and on U.S. invasion and occupation forces in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere.

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Cook County Jail is now the national epicenter for COVID-19.

Prof. Marc Lamont Hill 

Easter calls us to remember the plight of the prisoner. Because of his political activism and message of social justice, Jesus was declared an enemy of the Roman State and sentenced to the death penalty...The story of Jesus is a reminder to challenge state authority, question unjust laws, and offer humanizing mercy to the prisoner. -- Ebony

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez on her support for Biden

I don’t think this conversation about changes that need to be made is one about throwing the progressive wing of the party a couple of bones — I think this is about how we can win. -- New York Times

Chris Wallace, responds to Trump

"One of us has a daddy problem, and it’s not me." -- The Hill

Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin 

“Wisconsin has a long pattern of this … Time after time, they have acted to disenfranchise people to make it tougher and tougher to vote.” -- MSNBC

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious diseases expert.

Earlier social distancing measures 'obviously' would have saved more lives. We make a recommendation. Often, the recommendation is taken," Fauci said. "Sometimes, it's not. But ... it is what it is. We are where we are right now." -- NBC

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Yamiche Alcindor, PBS White House correspondent 

Why did you shut down the pandemic office in the White House?

Trump first calls it a "nasty question." Then says, "When you say me, I didn’t do it…. I don’t know anything about it...I don’t take responsibility at all.”  -- CNN

Sociologist Eric Klinenberg

We need social solidarity, not just social distancing. To combat the coronavirus, Americans need to do more than secure their own safety. --New York Times

Bernie Sanders

You got schools all over this country now being shut down. OK? How are we going to make sure that the kids do well in this crisis, not become traumatized? What do we do about the parents now who have to stay home with kids and can't go to work?

So I think what -- bottom line here is that, in this crisis, we have got to start paying attention to the most vulnerable. That includes people who are in prison right now, people who are in homeless shelters right now. What about the half-a-million people who are homeless tonight? Who's going to respond to them? -- Debate

Joe Biden 

“Across the country, middle and working-class families are being squeezed by debt. This is a massive problem and one that we need all of the best ideas to solve. That's why today, I'm adopting two plans from @BernieSanders and @ewarren to achieve this.” -- The Hill

 Amanda Klonsky

If you think a cruise ship is a dangerous place to be during a pandemic, consider America’s jails and prisons. -- New York Times

 Angelique Power, President of The Field Foundation

If our ancestors and our history have taught us anything, it’s that in the face of unimaginable struggle comes a symphony of superhuman connectivity and response. Our better selves rise and stretch across the chasm not because we have to, but because it is in fact what saves each of us—not only one by one—but collectively. -- Letter from the President

'Unelectable' Bernie wins in a landslide

Strong Latinx vote for Bernie in NV could also carry him in TX and CA.

It was just another poorly-run DNC election and another big win in Nevada for the "unelectable" Bernie Sanders. This time it wasn't even close. The Biden campaign continues to plunge with the rest of the pack, bunched far behind and seemed headed for a shakeout around Super Tuesday.

Most significant and predictive about the victory in NV was the high turnout among young, Latinx voters and the Culinary Workers Union rank-and-file workers, who broke with their own leadership to support Bernie.

From the spin that party and union leaders and some pundits are putting Sanders' win, it's clearer than ever that their real worry is that Sanders is electable -- not unelectable.

MSNBC ignoramus, Chris Matthews was the worst of the worst, comparing Sanders's win yesterday with the Nazis taking control of France in 1940. Huh?

 By Matthews account, there was no German Wehrmacht, no Vichy, and no French resistance movement led by Socialists. Rathers, the Nazis began their 4-year occupation by electing a Jewish socialist as president.

Chris Matthews just compared Bernie's victory in Nevada to the Nazis taking control of France.

Incredibly offensive thing to say about someone from a family of holocaust survivors. pic.twitter.com/t29L4K4iHm

— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) February 22, 2020

Can you imagine the uproar if some pro-Bernie tweeter had drawn such a comparison?

The funniest part of the evening for me was listening to all the victory speeches given by the losers early on in the evening, hoping that what happened in Vegas stays in Vegas. It won't, predicts the Guardian's Richard Wolffe, who writes this morning, "Bernie Sanders' Nevada win is a breakout moment. The others are toast." 

I won't go that far. A lot can still change leading up to and through the convention. And there is still the Bloomberg wildcard if the convention is brokered. But with momentum on his side and with young and Latinx voters turning Bernie's way in states like Arizona, Texas, and California, there's no better argument to be made than Wolffe's.

My biggest laugh came when Joe Biden assured his still hopeful fans, "I'm still alive."

18 years of lies on Afghanistan revealed

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” -- Napoleon Bonaparte

Three U.S. presidents, Bush, Obama, and Trump, have bought and sold this big lie to the public and built their failed foreign policies upon it.

A confidential trove of government documents obtained by The Washington Post reveals that senior U.S. officials failed to tell the truth about the war in Afghanistan throughout the 18-year campaign, making rosy pronouncements they knew to be false and hiding unmistakable evidence the war had become unwinnable. -- Craig Whitlock, Washington Post

LOOKING BACK...On Oct. 2, 2002, then IL State Senator Barack Obama said in a major speech at an anti-war rally we organized in Chicago that "I am not opposed to all wars. I'm opposed to dumb wars." He referred to the Iraq War as his "dumb war" example in contrast to Afghanistan, which was billed as a winnable and necessary war to topple the Taliban government, drive out al Qaeda terrorists and install a pro-U.S. regime in Kabul.

"We must embrace America's singular role in the course of human events but we must also be as pragmatic as we are passionate, as strategic as we are resolute. 

Then there was...

Hillary Clinton supported the 2009 increase in U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. During the administration's Afghanistan War review in 2010, Clinton endorsed General Stanley McChrystal's recommendation for 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan, before endorsing a fallback proposal (ultimately accepted by Obama) for 30,000 troops. -- NYT

And regime-changer McCain...

Robert Kagan, a former adviser to his 2008 opponent John McCain, warned that a quick withdrawal threatens recent gains against the Taliban - and popular opinion could swing against the president if an emboldened enemy takes the speech as a cue to step up attacks.

"This is a political decision, not a military decision," he told POLITICO. "Americans are tired of this war, that's true. But they hate losing more, and if there's the perception that we're being run out of there, the public will turn on him fast." 

Since 2001, more than 775,000 U.S. troops have deployed to Afghanistan, many repeatedly. Of those, 2,300 died there and 20,589 were wounded in action, according to Defense Department figures.

The government has not carried out a comprehensive accounting of how much it has spent on the war in Afghanistan, but the costs are staggering -- into the trillions.

Now, Trump says he's ready to engage in peace talks with the Taliban, in preparation for a U.S. troop withdrawal.

News of the talks came just before The Washington Post reported it had obtained more than 2,000 pages of government documents that it says show how U.S. officials have for years misled the public about the war in Afghanistan.

What an irony it would be if Republican Trump, facing impeachment and a difficult 2020 re-election campaign, ended the war that Democrats couldn't or wouldn't end. Shades of Republican, Richard Nixon in March of 1973, withdrawing his defeated army from Vietnam, only to be impeached in October of that same year.

I'm doubtful. Most likely, this is for media consumption.

The media has been complicit... The editorial board of the very same WaPo that this week revealed the pile of lies driving the Afghan war, opposed the war's end just months earlier.

The Washington Post’s editorial board (1/28/19) was similarly apprehensive at the prospect of US withdrawal. Lamenting what it considered a deal brokered “mostly on the enemy’s terms,” it proclaimed that “an end to the Afghan war is desirable, but not at the expense of everything the United States has helped to build there since 2001.” -- FAIR

Tell us, WaPo. What exactly has the U.S. built there? The truth, this time please.  

Better to teach journalistic ethics by example

Why were faces blurred in this Facebook photo used in the Sun-Times story?

A routine news story became a viral controversy Sunday night after the editors of Northwestern University’s student-run newspaper issued an apology for interviewing and photographing campus protesters. Journalists from around the country quickly took to Twitter to attack the paper’s staff, saying they shouldn’t apologize for doing their job. -- WBEZ

It reads like a Who's Who in Chicago news reporting. I'm referring to the list of TV and newspaper reporters who have been lining up to teach a lesson to the students who staff the Daily Northwestern. The hubbub and overkill is about the paper's recent editorial apologizing for the way they covered the campus protest over the university's speaking invitation to arch segregationist and former Trump Atty. General, Jeff Sessions.

It was an unnecessary apology for interviewing and photographing campus protesters in a way that might put them in jeopardy. It's not the job of the press to protect the identities of protesters, say the critics and I generally agree. But I also applaud the student journalists for at least wrestling with the moral implications and unintended consequences of their actions and how their coverage might impact the lives and security of their fellow students. This, at a time when student activists, especially students of color, are often targeted for expulsion or arrest when they exercise their constitutional right to protest.

This kind of ethical and moral questioning goes to the very heart of democratic education and is something we rarely see among members of the corporate media.

There's no clearer example than the Sun-Times own coverage of a different sort of protest back in April when the racist FOP and other fascist and white nationalist groups marched in Chicago in an attempt to take down progressive States Attorney Kim Foxx and raise their profile in the city. While the article was a good exposure of some of the extremist groups involved, the Sun-Times editors also made a decision to blur the faces of some of the cops participating in the rally.

Who made the decision to blur the faces in the photo? Why wasn't there the same kind of critical response and ethical questioning from the professionals as there was around the Northwestern student editorial? I raised the question about the blurred faces at the time to a member of the Sun-Times editorial board who told me they would get back to me with an answer. Seven months later, I am still waiting for their explanation.

So until then, the pros who were silent back in April would do well to save the lecturing and teach by example.

This from Northwestern Daily's Editor Troy Closson.

/3 One of the first things I was told when I came into this position was that I was the third black EIC in The Daily’s more than 135 years of publication. I knew that would come with a lot of pressure, but didn’t realize how much until over the past two weeks.

— Troy Closson (@troy_closson) November 12, 2019

Chicago reporters broke the story wide open. Mayor Lightfoot went to New York!

Jet-setters? Really?

Chicago's ace political reporters, Fran Spielman of the Sun-Times and wing-nut Kristen McQueary of the Trib, broke the story wide open. It's all about Lori Lightfoot, the city's first black, gay, woman mayor and it's a doozie.

No, she didn't close 50 public schools or cover up a police murder, like her predecessor, Rahm Emanuel. No, she didn't sell off the Skyway or the city's parking meter business for pennies on the dollar like Mayor Daley. No, it's worse. So much worse.

You see, Lightfoot WENT TO NEW YORK, home of the hated Mets and Yankees, raised big money for city projects, Democrats and LGBTQ causes and then, wait for it... she went on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. 

She told the donors the Democratic 2020 presidential contenders have to put more on the table than just being anti-President Donald Trump. 

She got that right.

The mayor said in her DNC speech, “I’m proposing that we pledge to work together to defend our democracy, promote equality for all, and refashion the values that our movement forged so many years ago after Stonewall.

“Let’s stand together, stick together, and work together for justice of every description. Racial justice. Gender justice. Immigrant justice. Economic justice. Environmental justice.”

The Horror...

According to Lynn Sweet who sat in Colbert's audience,

 The audience of about 420 in the Ed Sullivan Theater, where Colbert is taped, gave Lightfoot a standing ovation after Colbert introduced her. They laughed at his jokes — and hers.

But McQueary, who once famously editorialized for a Mussolini-type dictator to run Chicago schools and prayed for a Hurricane Katrina to ravage the city, wasn't impressed:

Most Chicagoans didn’t expect Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor and non-fashionista, to be popping up in their Instagram feeds. But there she is draped in Oprah’s embrace in the foyer of the media mogul’s estimated $90 million mansion.

 But it is surprising to see Lightfoot, four weeks on the job, already hopping on and off airplanes...We’ve got plenty of problems in Chicago. They don’t require commercial airline travel. 

Actually, hopping on and off an airplane is not easy. Try it some time, Kristen.

Spielman, a born-again Lightfoot hater, then echoes McQuery,

Four weeks after taking office, Mayor Lori Lightfoot has already stumbled in a way that might make it a bit more difficult for her to govern. From going to war with a police union that didn’t trust her to begin with, to hobnobbing with Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Colbert during fundraising trips to both coasts, Lightfoot appears to be repeating some of her predecessor’s early mistakes.

Then she sings a Daley praise...

 What former Mayor Richard M. Daley knew in his soul, but Emanuel never took to heart, is that Chicagoans believe the sun rises and sets in Chicago. 

She does have a point there. The sun does rise each morning and set each evening in our fair city. Doesn't mean we have to spend each day of our lives here, however.

Then for a topper, Spielman charges LL with spanking Eddie Burke publicly and having a nasty exchange with leaders of the Fascist Fraternal Order of Police (FOP). You know, the ones that supported Jon Burge and his torturing Midnight Crew.

It's about time someone took 'em on.

Nice work, Fran and Kristen. Could be story of the year. I see Pulitzers in your future.

Problem: How to talk about Chicago politics on community radio?

Amisha Patel of the Grassroots Collaborative, will be our guest Friday on Hitting Left

Friday's Hitting Left show should be a good one. Brother Fred will be back from vacation and Amisha Patel from Grassroots Collaborative will be our in-studio guest. As you might expect, we'll be talking about the current list of Chicago's pay-for-play politics and machine scandals in the roll-up towards election day.

These will include, of course, the mayor's Lincoln Yards/Sterling Bay land giveaway which was being greased up until recently by prison-bound real estate attorney, Ald. Ed Burke. Sterling Bay had to dump him after the the feds arrested him. And then there's the little problem of having possibly the dirtiest alderman of 'em all, wire-wearing Danny Solis, sitting atop the zoning committee.

Amisha and her group have been in the forefront of the struggle to put the Lincoln Yards project on hold, at least until the new administration comes in and the city council has time to vet it. Problem is, it's looking now like the top-monied mayoral candidates all have strong Burke/Solis machine ties and unless the polls are way off (entirely possible) City Hall will likely remain in hands that are just a corrupt as Rahm's, or even worse.

Let's hope there's at least some progressive change coming in the aldermanic races, where some insurgents, women, teachers, and candidates of color have a chance to unseat the incumbents.

As listeners know, Hitting left is aired on a community radio station WLPN 105.5 FM in Chicago. It is live-streamed on lumpenradio.com every Friday from 11-noon CT. According to latest numbers I have received Friday, 30-50 thousand listeners are regularly tuned in to Lumpen Radio, with many more listening to our show each week on Mixcloud or downloading it on podcast.

I love being a part of community radio and that's exactly what our show is all about-- community building. But having a political show on a community radio station also has its drawbacks. One of which is language censorship. We cannot uses language that is considered obscenity based on "community standards" without facing serious fines.

As far as Fred and I are concerned, that's not a problem. Mom raised us right and we've managed to get most of our guests to clean up their act for our show. Our producer also keeps a hand on the red bleep button and he's had a pretty strict interpretation of allowable words.

Here's the problem. We're talking about politics and politicians from the likes of our "pussy grabbing" president to Alds. Burke and Solis here in Chicago. We often find ourselves unable to quote them directly or even report the news accurately without resorting to metaphors and code language.

For example, the Sun-Times reports:

The affidavit, sworn out by FBI special agent Steven Noldin, portrays Solis as deeply in debt and routinely on the prowl for sex, Viagra, campaign contributions and other favors.

...In July 2015, Solis called Caldero with another request.
“I want to get a good massage, with a nice ending. Do you know any good places?” the alderman said.

 When Caldero promised to arrange the liaison, Solis asked, “What kind of women do they got there?” “Asian,” Caldero said. Oh good. Good, good, good. I like Asian,” Solis said.

See what I mean? Chicago politics is so vulgar, is so racist, it's unfit for community radio standards. So we have to constantly find alternative ways to talk about it while still keeping our political edge. Actually, it's not such a problem that we can't and don't have fun with it.

Thanks for sticking with us.

Launching our tour from Lincoln Yards to uplift Mayor’s latest proposal to give away $1.5 bill in tax $ to mega developers like Sterling Bay. We must outline what a new Mayor can do differently. #ReimagineChicago pic.twitter.com/SSZ9uDLQBd

— Grassroots Collab (@GrassrootsChi) November 13, 2018

Klonsky Bros. will return to the air next week

Don Rose

The past two Fridays, the K Bros. were like Trump at a French military cemetery -- No Shows. This time off has been great for our own R&R and especially for badly needed recovery time after my knee replacement surgery last Friday. 

But I guess withdrawal pains can't be handled with opioids so I'm planning on hobbling back to Bridgeport next Friday when Fred and I will be back on air. Our in-studio guest will be the legendary, progressive Chicago political consultant, Don Rose. Among Rose's many attributes was his role as both Dr. Martin Luther King's and Chicago Mayor Harold Washington's press secretary.

We will also take some time to commemorate the life of  another progressive Chicago political strategist, Brian Sleet, who’s death was reported Wednesday. Brian's career, though cut-short at age 41, has been on a path similar to that of Rose's. He was also a friend of Hitting Left, having appeared on the show back in March, 2017 along with my favorite Chicago political strategist and media mover and shaker, Joanna Klonsky. 

The two have worked together on several hot political campaigns over the years, including that of State's Atty. Kim Foxx. Joanna is quoted in today's Trib, paying tribute to Sleet, whose life is being celebrated is many disparate Chicago political circles and all over local social media.

Brian Sleet on Hitting Left, March, 1917.

Close Sleet friend Joanna Klonsky echoed that in an interview, saying he was the sort of man who “would show up for people.”

“If you needed him he would be there, and that really matters in a business that is so often transactional,” Klonsky said.

According to Foxx, without Sleet's sage advice, her own campaign might not have succeeded.

In 2015, Sleet threw his energy into Foxx’s reform campaign. Before she decided to run, Sleet talked with her about how to approach black voters and how to dissect complicated issues. And then he guided her through messaging at a time of high tension and anxiety related to the the police slaying of Laquan McDonald and how it was handled.

“Brian understood and embodied nuance in politics, whereas everybody is about simple messages and simple answers,” Foxx said. “He knew people in the community. With him, I was asking, ‘What do I do? What do I say? How do I navigate this time?’ He was really blunt: ‘You don’t pander. … Walk through this period in your voice, doing the things that make sense for you.’”

Tune in Friday, January 4th, 11-noon at WLPN 105.5 FM in Chicago, streaming live across the globe at lumpenradio.com.

Some shocking news on this gray Chicago morn. Our friend Ben Joravsky has been fired from WCPT, Chicago so-called "Progressive Talk Radio".

According to Mark Pinski, general manager of WCPT,  “Ben did a great job of moving our brand forward, and we want our next host to take us to the next level.” 

I hate to break it to Mr. Pinsky, but Ben was the "next level". You blew it.

Until he lands another paid gig, Benny J is always welcome to sit in with us at Hitting Left.

Fans of the Ben Joravsky show: mobilize for WCPT to Bring Back the Ben Joravsky @BennyJshow - Sign the Petition! Sign & SHARE away! Don't let Ben's strong progressive voice be silenced! https://t.co/sZVqHBkNhi via @Change #twill

— Susana A. Mendoza (@susanamendoza10) December 28, 2018

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Susan Bro, Heather Heyer's mother

Susan Bro

Bro told reporters to “please remember not to think of Heather, but why she was here. She was here to support equality, she was here to support affordable housing, she was here to support taking care of people the way you would want to be taken care of". -- The Hill

Issac J. Bailey, author of the memoir My Brother Moochie

"Charlottesville was where white supremacists were welcomed back into the mainstream." -- Politico

Dave Zirin

The Nazis have scurried out of Lafayette Park. There were thousands of us anti-Nazis. There were 30 of them.....and then on cue, the rain did fall. I have to say it was a good day. -- FB

Chicago developer, Gene Bernshtam

“You’re not going to be able to recognize the surrounding blocks in the next few years, and I think that it’s going to be for the better. There’s a much better caliber of people moving in, enjoying what we have.” -- Block Club Chicago

WEEKEND QUOTABLES

Ocassio-Cortez at Netroots: “Our swing voter is not red to blue. It's non-voter to voter." 

Anoa Changa at Netroots

“I think Trump’s win scared the shit out of everybody. I think it’s been a wakeup call for a lot of people that we have to invest. We can’t just do the traditional model where we only talk to super-voters.”

That doesn’t mean ignoring whites and Trump voters. Instead, "it’s rejecting the notion that our way to victory is having a centrist, moderate right-leaning strategy that feels like we could peel off Romney Republicans, versus investing in communities of color, marginalized groups and progressive white people." -- The Atlantic

Unite the Right comes to D.C.

Jackie Jeter ATU Local 689 President 

“More than 80% of Local 689’s membership is people of color, the very people that the Ku Klux Klan and other white nationalist groups have killed, harassed and violated. The union has declared that it will not play a role in their special accommodation.” -- Think Progress

Michael Jordan

"I support L.J.," Jordan told NBC News through a spokesperson. "He's doing an amazing job for his community." -- The Hill 

Elijah Edwards, Pres. AFSCME Local #2858

Since the Janus decision, "District 31's membership has gone up..." -- Hitting Left

Kimberly Wasserman, executive director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

“There’s been enough injustice done in different communities. We’re starting to fight back.”

At this time & place for any African American, @KingJames @donlemon @RepMaxineWaters @repjohnlewis & #NFL plyrs to be criticised by @realdonaldtrump means you must be doing something right! As I have said before- Its the biggest compliment you can get. @TwitterSports @MSNBC @CNN

— TheBillRussell (@RealBillRussell) August 5, 2018