Biden for PREZ?!?!?!

[Cow Poke]

US politicians and media on the other hand tend to be owned by and in the pocket of big money interests and skew way to the right of center.

Um...... The US media - as a whole - "way to the right of center"?

[Starlight]

CP,
When ultra-rich people own the big media companies, the politics they allow those companies to put out are favorable to the interests of the ultra-rich not the average person. They also tend to try to appease companies who spend a lot of money advertising with them, who themselves tend to be companies run by the rich and powerful (pharmaceutical companies, oil and gas companies, etc). They also have a tendency to suck up to those in government in order to get repaid with interviews and leaks and scoops which will get them viewers. More than a few people have observed over the years that as a result, corporate media tends to be very biased, usually far more than state-run media like the BBC or Al Jazeera.

Now, something which you perhaps don't pay much attention to as a conservative, is the divisions within the Democratic party. The Democratic party is currently split about 55% to 45% into two major factions: What I will call the 'centrists' which is the 'establishment' Clinton-Obama wing of the party that has held the reins of power in the Democratic party since Bill Clinton but are slowly losing it, and the 'progressives' which is the Sanders-Warren wing of the party who have had rapid growth over the last decade or so and will probably become by majority in 2020 and who are pushing for actual left-wing policies. These factions have had two quite close races recently: Hillary vs Bernie in 2016, and then for the DNC chair Tom Perez vs Keith Ellison, and the centrist faction won both by a very small margin.

So... simple question: Of all the many and various mainstream media outlets in the US, how many and which of them typically favor the 'progressive' faction? i.e. of all the US media outlets, which ones favor the left-wing half of the Democratic party?

Answer: Zero. Zilch. You need to go online to outlets like The Young Turks to find pro-progressive media.

In fact, mainstream media outlets in the US universally love to hate on progressives. Washington Post managed to publish 16 anti-Bernie stories in a 16 hour period when he ran against Hillary. At the NYT Paul Krugmann weekly published vicious and deranged attacks on Bernie throughout the primary.

Here's a recent story of ex-MSNBC commentator Ed Schultz, talking about MSNBC's coverage of the Bernie-Hillary race:

SCHULTZ: ...I want to make this very clear and I hope your audience consumes this. There was more oversight and more direction given to me on content at MSNBC than there ever has been here at RT and I think it's very sad that that story is not getting out. Many times I was told what to lead with on MSNBC. Many times I was told what I was not going to do. And I've got a story that had I not been involved in it I would never have believed it and Phil Griffin [head of MSNBC] who I consider a friend to this day was a watchdog far more than anything I am exposed to here at RT America.

WEINSTEIN: Did he tell you what to say? Did he tell you an angle to take?

SCHULTZ: Often. In fact, when Bernie Sanders was announcing that he was going to be a candidate for the nomination of the Democratic Party in Burlington, Vermont I was the only cable host between FOX, MSNBC, and CNN that was there to cover it live. Now there were live cameras there but we had coordinated with the Sanders campaign that at 5 o'clock that he was going to make his announcement and we were going to cover this on the Ed Show. I go to Bernie Sanders house that afternoon and interview in the backyard. About a 15 minute interview. The grandkids are running around. It's a big day for the Sanders family. He's going to announce that he's running for president. We're gonna carry it live later on in the day and we're gonna run this one-on-one tape with Bernie. Three thousand people are there on Lake Champlain.

It's five minutes to air and I get a phone call from Phil Griffin: "You're not covering this!"

I said, "Phil, Bernie Sanders is announcing he's running for president. He's gonna be president."

"I don't care, you're not covering this!"

And it got rather contentious... Now let me give you the opinion. I think the Clintons were connected to Andy Lack, connected at the hip. I think they didn't want anybody in their prime time or anywhere in their lineup supporting Bernie Sanders. I think that they were in the take for Hillary Clinton. And I think it was managed and 45 days later I was out at MSNBC and I thought it stunk.

Ed Schultz was regarded as the major progressive voice on MSNBC during his time there, and that was his experience. The other ex-MSNBC progressives all seem to have similar tales about being told not to support progressives. Ultimately the people with the power to hire and fire are the ones who get to control who says what and who stays on, and which stories get run and which don't.

Instead MSNBC, which is supposedly the outlet most generally favorable to the Democratic party, likes to have hosts like conservative ex-Fox host Meagan Kelly, or ex-Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough. Wow, what a 'left-wing' channel... not.

Whereas Fox just openly basks in its love of the right-wing. There is no mainstream media entity remotely comparable to that on the left-wing in the US.

I'll leave you with this question: When was the last time you saw a mainstream media segment in the US that was definitively pro-unions?

[rogue06]

In recent years the ultra-rich have been supporting the left especially after they discovered that they would offer them protection in exchange for their support -- and become targets if they didn't.

A great example of this is Wal-Mart which for most of its history studiously tried to stay out of politics completely and became a prime target for liberal vitriol. Then they started supporting a number of liberal causes and the attacks from the left have markedly dropped.

[Cow Poke]

In recent years the ultra-rich have been supporting the left especially after they discovered that they would offer them protection in exchange for their support -- and become targets if they didn't.

A great example of this is Wal-Mart which for most of its history studiously tried to stay out of politics completely and became a prime target for liberal vitriol. Then they started supporting a number of liberal causes and the attacks from the left have markedly dropped.

Kinda reminds one of the "shakedown" tactics of the Reverend Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition.

[rogue06]

Until relatively recently Republicans enjoyed an advantage in getting support from the ultra-rich but this has flipped. In the last election an examination of the data provided by OpenSecrets found that of the 22 billionaires pumping money into campaigns and causes over half (13) gave money to the left with the remaining 9 donating to conservatives or equally splitting donations between the left and right. And of those giving the most, liberal billionaires easily led the list way outspending conservatives^[1].

If you have any doubts keep in mind how often Bernie sanders blasted Hillary Clinton’s reliance on the support of the "1%" (it was one of his campaign's biggest themes in the Democratic primaries).

And the same was true in the 2014 election where the 100 biggest donors during that election cycle gave approximately $174 million to Democrats in comparison to $140 million to Republicans.

Much of this has been brought up previously when starlight complained about billionaires giving money to Republicans:

Not just George Soros (who made much of his money trying to wreck the British economy^[1] and convicted of breaking inside trader laws) but James Simons, Peter Lewis and Warren Buffett. And then there are Tom and Jim Steyer.

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used to rarely let a day go by without wringing his hands about the influence that the Koch brothers supposedly had over the Republican party while remaining silent over the influence that folks like the Steyers wield over Democrats. For instance, in 2014 Tom Steyers gave $5 million to Senate Majority PAC, the pro-Democratic Super PAC run by former Reid aides. The New York Times reported that as of April 2014 "Mr. Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, were the top source of super PAC money in the country this election cycle, contributing a total of more than $11 million."

Steyer offered $100 million to Democrats that promised to support his energy agenda, chiefly blocking the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (which would cost him financially if it were built) but also includes massive new energy taxes and support for various "green energy" schemes that he is invested in.

But its only Republicans who have a problem with billionaire donors















1. Even liberal economic icon Paul Krugman has been highly critical of how Soros gets wealthy wrecking economies and financial markets writing "[N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is 'Soroi'."

1. The two top liberal donors in 2016 each gave more money than all the conservative donors did combined! Tom Steyer gave in excess of $11 million (and gave a whopping $74 million in 2014) and has pledged to spend at least another $50 million whereas the top conservative donor contributed a comparatively paltry $2.5 million.

[rogue06]

Until relatively recently Republicans enjoyed an advantage in getting support from the ultra-rich but this has flipped. In the last election an examination of the data provided by OpenSecrets found that of the 22 billionaires pumping money into campaigns and causes over half (13) gave money to the left with the remaining 9 donating to conservatives or equally splitting donations between the left and right. And of those giving the most, liberal billionaires easily led the list way outspending conservatives^[1].

If you have any doubts keep in mind how often Bernie sanders blasted Hillary Clinton’s reliance on the support of the "1%" (it was one of his campaign's biggest themes in the Democratic primaries).

And the same was true in the 2014 election where the 100 biggest donors during that election cycle gave approximately $174 million to Democrats in comparison to $140 million to Republicans.

Much of this has been brought up previously when starlight complained about billionaires giving money to Republicans:

Not just George Soros (who made much of his money trying to wreck the British economy^[1] and convicted of breaking inside trader laws) but James Simons, Peter Lewis and Warren Buffett. And then there are Tom and Jim Steyer.

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid used to rarely let a day go by without wringing his hands about the influence that the Koch brothers supposedly had over the Republican party while remaining silent over the influence that folks like the Steyers wield over Democrats. For instance, in 2014 Tom Steyers gave $5 million to Senate Majority PAC, the pro-Democratic Super PAC run by former Reid aides. The New York Times reported that as of April 2014 "Mr. Steyer and his wife, Kat Taylor, were the top source of super PAC money in the country this election cycle, contributing a total of more than $11 million."

Steyer offered $100 million to Democrats that promised to support his energy agenda, chiefly blocking the proposed Keystone XL pipeline (which would cost him financially if it were built) but also includes massive new energy taxes and support for various "green energy" schemes that he is invested in.

But its only Republicans who have a problem with billionaire donors















1. Even liberal economic icon Paul Krugman has been highly critical of how Soros gets wealthy wrecking economies and financial markets writing "[N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is 'Soroi'."

1. The two top liberal donors in 2016 each gave more money than all the conservative donors did combined! Tom Steyer gave in excess of $11 million (and gave a whopping $74 million in 2014) and has pledged to spend at least another $50 million whereas the top conservative donor contributed a comparatively paltry $2.5 million.

And speaking of Soros...

Source: GEORGE SOROS COMPLAINS: ‘EVERYTHING THAT COULD GO WRONG, HAS GONE WRONG’

George Soros recently lamented the rise of President Trump and anti-establishment parties across the globe, saying “everything that could go wrong, has gone wrong.”

Soros made the comment in an interview with The Washington Post published Saturday. He also said that he did not expect Trump’s election, saying, “Apparently, I was living in my own bubble.”

The activist billionaire also made the bizarre claim that President Trump would be “willing to destroy the world.”

Soros has become known for using his immense wealth to influence politics in the United States and around the world.

He pushes for liberal values, has supported refugee resettlement, and was a major supporter of Hillary Clinton in 2016.




Source

© Copyright Original Source

Considering how he gets rich by destabilizing countries this is indeed good news.

[Cow Poke]

CP

SL

Your "proof" is really misguided - that whole cite you provided was about the media being in the tank for Hillary - she was to be the next President - period, and they didn't want Bernie to mess that up. Read the very last paragraph of...

here, I'll post it for you...

And it got rather contentious... Now let me give you the opinion. I think the Clintons were connected to Andy Lack, connected at the hip. I think they didn't want anybody in their prime time or anywhere in their lineup supporting Bernie Sanders. I think that they were in the take for Hillary Clinton. And I think it was managed and 45 days later I was out at MSNBC and I thought it stunk.

How could you get that so wrong?

I'll leave you with this question: When was the last time you saw a mainstream media segment in the US that was definitively pro-unions?

Unions? That's your gold standard?

Unions are dying. Nobody wants to be a champion of something that was so "yesterday".

Union membership hits new low

Fewer American workers belong to labor unions than at any time since the government began tracking membership, according to a new report released Thursday.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said just 10.7 percent of American workers were members of labor unions in 2016, down from 11.1 percent the previous year, and down from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year the bureau collected union statistics. The number of union workers dropped almost every year during the Obama administration.

“These numbers bear out a trend that’s been underway for some years, and it puts into starker relief the urgency of the moment for labor, now that the Trump administration is in power,” said Joseph McCartin, director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.

In 27 states, fewer than one in 10 workers are union members. Just 1.6 percent of South Carolina workers are members of labor unions.

On the other end of the spectrum, nearly a quarter of New Yorkers are members of a union, and almost 20 percent of those employed in Hawaii pay union dues.

More than half of the 14.6 million union workers in the nation live in just seven states — California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio.

The long-term decline in union membership comes as the American manufacturing industry has fallen precipitously. The automotive industry alone, once the bedrock of the labor movement, now employs far fewer people than it did during its heyday.

I'll leave you with this question: What's the price of rice in China?

[One Bad Pig]

SL

Your "proof" is really misguided - that whole cite you provided was about the media being in the tank for Hillary - she was to be the next President - period, and they didn't want Bernie to mess that up. Read the very last paragraph of...

here, I'll post it for you...

And it got rather contentious... Now let me give you the opinion. I think the Clintons were connected to Andy Lack, connected at the hip. I think they didn't want anybody in their prime time or anywhere in their lineup supporting Bernie Sanders. I think that they were in the take for Hillary Clinton. And I think it was managed and 45 days later I was out at MSNBC and I thought it stunk.

How could you get that so wrong?



Unions? That's your gold standard?

Unions are dying. Nobody wants to be a champion of something that was so "yesterday".

Union membership hits new low

Fewer American workers belong to labor unions than at any time since the government began tracking membership, according to a new report released Thursday.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said just 10.7 percent of American workers were members of labor unions in 2016, down from 11.1 percent the previous year, and down from 20.1 percent in 1983, the first year the bureau collected union statistics. The number of union workers dropped almost every year during the Obama administration.

“These numbers bear out a trend that’s been underway for some years, and it puts into starker relief the urgency of the moment for labor, now that the Trump administration is in power,” said Joseph McCartin, director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.

In 27 states, fewer than one in 10 workers are union members. Just 1.6 percent of South Carolina workers are members of labor unions.

On the other end of the spectrum, nearly a quarter of New Yorkers are members of a union, and almost 20 percent of those employed in Hawaii pay union dues.

More than half of the 14.6 million union workers in the nation live in just seven states — California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio.

The long-term decline in union membership comes as the American manufacturing industry has fallen precipitously. The automotive industry alone, once the bedrock of the labor movement, now employs far fewer people than it did during its heyday.

I'll leave you with this question: What's the price of rice in China?

Note that Starlight considers Hillary to be rather right-wing - so the media being in the tank for her would make them right-wing, too.

[Cow Poke]

Note that Starlight considers Hillary to be rather right-wing - so the media being in the tank for her would make them right-wing, too.

[KingsGambit]

Eh? I think the US populace on average skews slightly progressive, and would say they are slightly left of center.

Where do you get this, out of curiosity?

[Starlight]

Where do you get this, out of curiosity?

From polling regarding what policies people support. Ignoring for a moment how people label themselves, if you give them a list of policies to like or dislike, the ones they like on average are a bit to the left of center. My conclusion is that people aren't very good with labels or understanding how to apply them accurately to themselves, but when you get to the question of the actual things they'd like the government to do / not do, the populace is reasonably left-wing on average. Bernie Sanders doesn't consistently poll as the most popular US politician for no reason.

Unions? That's your gold standard?

Unions are dying. Nobody wants to be a champion of something that was so "yesterday".

It's a random pick of something leftist. As you note, NOBODY in mainstream US media champions unions, hence my point that US MSM skews right-wing. You're effectively admitting my point.

Do you know who does champion unions? Bernie Sanders. Jeremy Corbyn. My own country's left-wing leader Jacinda Ardern. The left in general.

Even the IMF, hardly a bastion of leftism, has acknowledged that the reason wages haven't increased much in the last few decades, despite massive increases in productivity, is the loss of unions:


The Scandinavian countries that leftists typically point to as successful models, mostly retain very strong unions to this day.

And NOBODY in the US MSM likes unions, because none of them are actually left wing.

[Starlight]

Note that Starlight considers Hillary to be rather right-wing - so the media being in the tank for her would make them right-wing, too.

Yes. I view Hillary to be right-wing, in a similar manner to how a lot of Americans view European countries as 'socialist'.

When I say that US media is strongly right-wing, I am not meaning that it favors US Republicans (whom I consider ultra-right-wing) over US Democrats (who I consider to vary from left wing through centrist through right wing), I am meaning:

1. that on any sort of typical OECD country left-right spectrum, US media is blatantly right-wing

2. within the US spectrum, US media actively dislikes and actively opposes the progressive wing of the democratic party (i.e. actual leftism), while it is tolerant of or favorable to the most right-wing elements of the Republican party (Trump, alt-right, Tea Party etc) and will quite happily give those a lot of air-time and focus (even if some of the coverage is negative they'll still give it the time of day and take it seriously), whereas with the left-wing of the Democratic party they will typically do their absolute best to pretend it doesn't exist or that it doesn't matter and not cover it as much as possible.

3. that US media is far to the right of the views of the actual US populace, and keeps trying to push the populace to the right. As I have noted, I think if you poll the populace on policy issues you get center-left answers on average. But if you look at what policies the MSM pushes for on average the answer is center-right policies. US mainstream media seems to act as a sort of indoctrinating force to tell the populace to stop their 'unrealistic' hippy love for the left wing policies that other countries have and to 'get serious' and support the right-wing policies that favor the rich.

[Cow Poke]

It's a random pick of something leftist. .

A "random pick". Then you have to go to great lengths to try to pretend....

You are amusing.

[Starlight]

A "random pick".

Okay. Let's pick something else leftist. Cooperatives. When was the last time you heard on US mainstream media that Cooperatives are more successful on average and last longer on average than standard capitalist businesses?

Okay, something else. When was the last time you heard US mainstream media championing having worker representation on the board of companies?

Okay, a different random pick. When was the last time you heard US mainstream media suggesting the US should change the law so that companies are not legally obligated to maximize profit for the shareholders, and instead be legally required to pay attention to a variety of factors (e.g. copy UK law on the subject)?

Okay, something else. When was the last time you heard US mainstream media complaining that the US spends waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much on the military and that military spending should be cut by half?

When was the last time you heard the US mainstream media complaining about the US being complicit in the current genocide in Yemen? Or them complaining about how the US is drone striking 8 different countries and doing ~100 simultaneous military missions in Africa.

Etc. Pick any leftist policy and the US media is either not talking about it or actively hating on it.

[Cow Poke]

Okay. Let's pick something else leftist. Cooperatives. When was the last time you heard on US mainstream media that Cooperatives are more successful on average and last longer on average than standard capitalist businesses?

Okay, something else. When was the last time you heard US mainstream media championing having worker representation on the board of companies?

Okay, a different random pick. When was the last time you heard US mainstream media suggesting the US should change the law so that companies are not legally obligated to maximize profit for the shareholders, and instead be legally required to pay attention to a variety of factors (e.g. copy UK law on the subject)?

Okay, something else. When was the last time you heard US mainstream media complaining that the US spends waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much on the military and that military spending should be cut by half?

When was the last time you heard the US mainstream media complaining about the US being complicit in the current genocide in Yemen? Or them complaining about how the US is drone striking 8 different countries and doing ~100 simultaneous military missions in Africa.

Etc. Pick any leftist policy and the US media is either not talking about it or actively hating on it.