Helen H. Moore's Blog, page 840
March 9, 2016
The Marco Rubio post-mortem: How a supposedly ready-made GOP nominee crashed and burned
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come not to praise Marco Rubio – dear God, never, ever that – but to bury him. And then to salt the earth in the hope that he will never come back. The Rubio campaign is on its last legs, stumbling dehydrated and desperate through the Florida Everglades like the heroine in the second act of a Carl Hiaasen novel, trying to stay one step ahead of the bloodhounds who want nothing more than to drag the Florida senator into the swamp and tear his throat out, or at least convince him to join with Ted Cruz on some sort of unity ticket to stop Donald Trump, which might be an even worse fate. The establishment is telling Rubio his dropping out would be for the good of the Republican Party. Which is why he’ll probably at least consider it. He is a party man through and through, and since he gave up his Senate seat to run for president, he’s going to want to come out of this cluster-screw of a campaign with something to show for it besides the humiliation of a crushing defeat in his home state’s primary on Tuesday. Run for vice-president on a ticket with Cruz, the party will whisper in his ear, and when he gets destroyed in the general election in the fall and the country suffers through four years of socialism under a Democrat, you’ll be perfectly positioned to be the 2020 nominee. What’s not to like about that scenario? And why wouldn’t you trust a GOP establishment that has displayed such a sharp political acumen this cycle that it just about handed its nomination over to a jar of orange marmalade in a bad wig before it knew what hit it? Rubio might not be smart, but he’s a politician who can read poll numbers. It must have sunk in by now that his “Baghdad Bob” primary strategy (claim victory even when you came in a distant third/the American military is a block away and roaring towards you unopposed) has been a galactic failure. With even his financial backers and editorial page cheerleaders telling him it’s time, he must feel like Butch Coolidge getting the order to take his ass down in the fifth. The post-mortem on Rubio’s campaign will point to many, many moments that sealed his fate. The base never fully trusted him after his role in the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill in the Senate, which he later had to renounce in the hope of pacifying the conservative mouth-breathers who were inundating his office with hate mail. There was his apparent circuit-breaker malfunction in the New Hampshire debate against Chris Christie. There was his late-in-the-campaign attempt to turn into Don Rickles in order to stand up to Trump, which only seemed to cause his poll numbers to crash. There were his ham-handed attempts to get to the farthest right edge of the Republican field on every issue from abortion to fighting terrorism, the latter of which resulted in his spouting the sorts of fearful, doom-laden paranoia about ISIS terrorists coming ashore in Biscayne Bay that might tickle the GOP base but erased Rubio’s image as the sunny and optimistic young man who could lead America into a booming future. It is that last one that I think comes closest to explaining his flameout. It stems from the 30,000-feet view of Marco Rubio the politician, an ambitious young man with no accomplishments or real-world experience to qualify him, who would don whatever suit – neocon hawk, religious extremist, crazy guy hollering about a war on Christianity from a steam grate – he or his advisers thought the GOP electorate wanted at any given moment, no matter how awkward the fit. He was the best example of a blow-dried establishment candidate this cycle, so perfect he might have been grown in that space station lab in “Alien: Resurrection” where they kept all those malformed Ripley clones, and raised to be the great hope of the Republican Party. In an era where carefully maintaining and presenting a focus group-approved persona to the world is the paramount goal of almost every politician at the national level, Rubio still stood out for how many of his edges had been sanded off. Rubio was the product of personal ambition in overdrive and married to a Republican Party that has bought so fully into the idea that our current president was elected despite being an unaccomplished lightweight, all it had to do was roll out another young, telegenic pol with a non-WASPy last name and the White House would be the GOP’s to lose. Never mind the lack of accomplishments, or the fact he was a career politician who had barely seen a time in his adult life when he wasn’t collecting a government paycheck while dining with lobbyists. Never mind that when he spoke in debates, his talking points, which were mostly warmed-over standard-issue conservative pabulum, all sounded so memorized that you could half-imagine him cramming with flash cards the night before in a dorm room decorated with a Dan Marino poster. Never mind the awkward attempts to connect with young people – did you know that Marco loves the rap music? – while spouting anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage positions that are as out of place in the twenty-first century as a horse and buggy. It would have been much more hilarious, if it hadn’t also felt so desperate. Rubio and his handlers seemed to think he could cruise to the nomination on the strength of an appeal that was as chimerical as a unicorn. To that end, he never really built much of a ground game for his campaign, a fact that observers have been harping on for months. His team seemed to think that it was running some sort of high-tech, futuristic operation where retail politics didn’t matter, where you could, as one adviser infamously put it, save on office rent by having your entire team set up in a Starbucks and use the free wifi. Meanwhile, he seemed to spend as much time huddling with wealthy financial backers behind closed doors as he did getting in front of voters. And while he was flying around being not quite as visible as he needed to be to voters, Rubio missed so much time at his day job, and publicly proclaimed he didn’t care because the Senate bored him anyway, that it became easy to view him as a lazy, entitled dilettante. No amount of repeating the story of his humble beginnings – did you know his dad was a bartender? – was going to overcome that. It’s possible he could still come back and run for statewide office in Florida, but one has to think Rubio’s career in national politics is over. Whatever has been loosed in the electorate that gave rise to Donald Trump is not likely to fade anytime soon. There is no room in that space for a guy so transparent, if you squint hard enough you can see what he ate for lunch. All the image consultants in the world can’t cover that up.Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears. I come not to praise Marco Rubio – dear God, never, ever that – but to bury him. And then to salt the earth in the hope that he will never come back. The Rubio campaign is on its last legs, stumbling dehydrated and desperate through the Florida Everglades like the heroine in the second act of a Carl Hiaasen novel, trying to stay one step ahead of the bloodhounds who want nothing more than to drag the Florida senator into the swamp and tear his throat out, or at least convince him to join with Ted Cruz on some sort of unity ticket to stop Donald Trump, which might be an even worse fate. The establishment is telling Rubio his dropping out would be for the good of the Republican Party. Which is why he’ll probably at least consider it. He is a party man through and through, and since he gave up his Senate seat to run for president, he’s going to want to come out of this cluster-screw of a campaign with something to show for it besides the humiliation of a crushing defeat in his home state’s primary on Tuesday. Run for vice-president on a ticket with Cruz, the party will whisper in his ear, and when he gets destroyed in the general election in the fall and the country suffers through four years of socialism under a Democrat, you’ll be perfectly positioned to be the 2020 nominee. What’s not to like about that scenario? And why wouldn’t you trust a GOP establishment that has displayed such a sharp political acumen this cycle that it just about handed its nomination over to a jar of orange marmalade in a bad wig before it knew what hit it? Rubio might not be smart, but he’s a politician who can read poll numbers. It must have sunk in by now that his “Baghdad Bob” primary strategy (claim victory even when you came in a distant third/the American military is a block away and roaring towards you unopposed) has been a galactic failure. With even his financial backers and editorial page cheerleaders telling him it’s time, he must feel like Butch Coolidge getting the order to take his ass down in the fifth. The post-mortem on Rubio’s campaign will point to many, many moments that sealed his fate. The base never fully trusted him after his role in the Gang of Eight immigration reform bill in the Senate, which he later had to renounce in the hope of pacifying the conservative mouth-breathers who were inundating his office with hate mail. There was his apparent circuit-breaker malfunction in the New Hampshire debate against Chris Christie. There was his late-in-the-campaign attempt to turn into Don Rickles in order to stand up to Trump, which only seemed to cause his poll numbers to crash. There were his ham-handed attempts to get to the farthest right edge of the Republican field on every issue from abortion to fighting terrorism, the latter of which resulted in his spouting the sorts of fearful, doom-laden paranoia about ISIS terrorists coming ashore in Biscayne Bay that might tickle the GOP base but erased Rubio’s image as the sunny and optimistic young man who could lead America into a booming future. It is that last one that I think comes closest to explaining his flameout. It stems from the 30,000-feet view of Marco Rubio the politician, an ambitious young man with no accomplishments or real-world experience to qualify him, who would don whatever suit – neocon hawk, religious extremist, crazy guy hollering about a war on Christianity from a steam grate – he or his advisers thought the GOP electorate wanted at any given moment, no matter how awkward the fit. He was the best example of a blow-dried establishment candidate this cycle, so perfect he might have been grown in that space station lab in “Alien: Resurrection” where they kept all those malformed Ripley clones, and raised to be the great hope of the Republican Party. In an era where carefully maintaining and presenting a focus group-approved persona to the world is the paramount goal of almost every politician at the national level, Rubio still stood out for how many of his edges had been sanded off. Rubio was the product of personal ambition in overdrive and married to a Republican Party that has bought so fully into the idea that our current president was elected despite being an unaccomplished lightweight, all it had to do was roll out another young, telegenic pol with a non-WASPy last name and the White House would be the GOP’s to lose. Never mind the lack of accomplishments, or the fact he was a career politician who had barely seen a time in his adult life when he wasn’t collecting a government paycheck while dining with lobbyists. Never mind that when he spoke in debates, his talking points, which were mostly warmed-over standard-issue conservative pabulum, all sounded so memorized that you could half-imagine him cramming with flash cards the night before in a dorm room decorated with a Dan Marino poster. Never mind the awkward attempts to connect with young people – did you know that Marco loves the rap music? – while spouting anti-abortion and anti-gay marriage positions that are as out of place in the twenty-first century as a horse and buggy. It would have been much more hilarious, if it hadn’t also felt so desperate. Rubio and his handlers seemed to think he could cruise to the nomination on the strength of an appeal that was as chimerical as a unicorn. To that end, he never really built much of a ground game for his campaign, a fact that observers have been harping on for months. His team seemed to think that it was running some sort of high-tech, futuristic operation where retail politics didn’t matter, where you could, as one adviser infamously put it, save on office rent by having your entire team set up in a Starbucks and use the free wifi. Meanwhile, he seemed to spend as much time huddling with wealthy financial backers behind closed doors as he did getting in front of voters. And while he was flying around being not quite as visible as he needed to be to voters, Rubio missed so much time at his day job, and publicly proclaimed he didn’t care because the Senate bored him anyway, that it became easy to view him as a lazy, entitled dilettante. No amount of repeating the story of his humble beginnings – did you know his dad was a bartender? – was going to overcome that. It’s possible he could still come back and run for statewide office in Florida, but one has to think Rubio’s career in national politics is over. Whatever has been loosed in the electorate that gave rise to Donald Trump is not likely to fade anytime soon. There is no room in that space for a guy so transparent, if you squint hard enough you can see what he ate for lunch. All the image consultants in the world can’t cover that up.
“I’m feeling my way through the dark”: Grant-Lee Phillips on writing songs as a reflection of life
Grant-Lee Phillips' songwriting has always been distinguished by two things: its immense curiosity, and an intense yearning for connection. The musician has often used a historical backdrop to try to make sense of the past, present and future, or crafted ornate travelogues where the endgame is trying to conquer—or at least illuminate—the restlessness inherent in those who are always searching for life's elusive answers. Wrestling with the romance of emotional and physical displacement is what made the four albums Phillips released with '90s band Grant Lee Buffalo so appealing and enduring, and it's part of what's made his subsequent solo career so compelling. In fact, the Nashville-via-California singer-songwriter's forthcoming new album, "The Narrows," might be his most accomplished work yet. Recorded at Dan Auerbach’s studio, the LP is both immediate-sounding and intimate: Standout "Smoke and Sparks" boasts fluid, gamboling acoustic guitars and shaded piano, while "Loaded Gun" is hot-rodding honky-tonk and "San Andreas Fault" is gentle, pedal steel-varnished folk. Another highlight, the whispering roots-rocker "No Mercy in July," features evocative bass from one-time Johnny Cash collaborator Dave Roe. Back in February, before the Cleveland stop of his co-headlining tour with fellow singer-songwriter Steve Poltz, Phillips discussed how his move to Nashville and father's death influenced "The Narrows," as well as how his creative process has changed and evolved through the years. (And, of course, he also discussed reprising his role as the town troubadour on "Gilmore Girls.") How has it been being in the Nashville music community? What has it been like for you as a musician? It's been really inspiring. I recorded this new album in Nashville. Jerry Roe, the drummer, he grew up there: His grandfather was Jerry Reed, so he basically grew up around all of these country legends. He's a hard-hitting drummer. I had met him before moving out there, and he was the one who really introduced me to the team put together to make the record. [But] yeah, I'm still meeting folks. There are so many different songwriters and people who live outside of that country mainstream, who are really adventurous musicians. It's great. I find it really inspiring. Have you done any songwriting for other artists yet? I know a lot of people do that. The town is really big on co-writing and all that. Most of my efforts have remained on developing this album in particular. From time to time, I have found myself in one of those little rooms writing with other people. A guy named Graham Colton, who's actually from Oklahoma, he came to town and we did some writing together. And then my friend Donavon Frankenreiter covered that song on his new album. I wrote with Donavon for his record, too. I'm not necessarily plugged in to that same world. My focus is really all on putting out my own records and touring. But I'm open to it—I'm curious about it, how a guy like me fits into that kind of thing. It strikes me as being somewhat regimented. Songwriting works that way sometimes, but not always. You've said that the through-lines and themes for your records tend to reveal themselves organically. After "The Narrows" was completed, what did you discover? What were the themes that stood out to you? Like a lot of my songs, it's about navigating tough waters. Trying to keep your head above the water, and keeping the shore in sight. A lot of these songs are like that. They are moving away from one thing and towards the next, and maybe that destination is unknown at the time, but I'm still moving forward towards it. I'm feeling my way through the dark. Life is that way, and writing is like a reflection of that. I left California after being there for all of my life, so that was a big one. It meant uprooting and going through the whole physical exhaustion of that choice. But it also represented some new adventure. [But] my family—my parents—they were still in California. And no sooner did I arrive in Nashville, maybe a month later or so, my dad—who had suffered bad health for a long time—his health plummeted, and he passed away in the latter part of 2013. That was also something that weighed heavily on my mind, something that I was processing at the same time. The record opens up with "Tennessee Rain," it's kind of me looking towards something hopeful. Somewhere near the end, you hear a song like "San Andreas Fault," which is sort of my violent farewell to the place that I was born in. [Laughs.] It's a road record in that way. It's not exactly a "Road to Bali"—or "Easy Rider"—but it's my kind of travelogue. I did notice that the songs used a sense of place or location—and what that means and how that influences people—maybe more prominently than some of your recent records. I'm frequently moved by the new places that I see. Even with Grant Lee Buffalo, when we first went out on the road, we were driving across Texas for a few days, I wrote "Lone Star Song." A lot of it I trace back to when I was a kid, and I used to travel around with my grandma. My grandma, she would get a wild hair that we had to travel, and my parents would let me go off with her. She'd take me to Montana and Utah, all across that part of the country. My grandpa drove a big rig, so I would travel with him too. I developed that sense of romance for travel, and it does turn up in the songs from time to time. In this case, it's literally rooted in leaving California and moving to the Southeast. You worked with drummer Jerry Roe and multi-instrumentalist Lex Price on the record. How did they influence the way the song on "The Narrows" unfolded when you went to record them? They brought great sensitivity to the songs. They're able to give it some muscle when that's what it called for, and able to step back and just let the song be, as well, let the guitar and the voice be the centerpiece. That's kind of where I begin when I sit down to write, and actually how I perform so much these days. I tour solo acoustically so much, that has become my real baseline. I wouldn't say it's my comfort zone, because it's also a place where there's room to screw it up as well. But there's nothing to hide behind, in other words. And I have increasingly been drawn to that kind of record-making, where there's less and less between me and the song and the end result. That sensitivity—and that sense of knowing when enough was enough. [Laughs.] And making that basic performance be the thing we were after. A little sprinkling, here and there, of overdubs. But not so much that I would've been prone to in the old days. You get in the studio, and it's so easy to be like, "One more thing!" Knowing when to stop is such a gift, and such a talent. It's true. And you can really build yourself a house of cards where, "C'mon, one more card. One more paper-thin wafer!" [Laughs.] It's quite easy for it to topple over, when someone else begins to take it all in. I'm learning about that more and more as I go, the whole "less is more" thing. Jerry Roe's dad, Dave, who played bass with Johnny Cash, played on "No Mercy in July." Did you pump him for information? Did he have any good Johnny Cash stories? Talk about historic. [Laughs.] I was delicate, but yeah, I would love to know some of what he has to convey. We chatted a bit, as I was getting my guitar set up—I played a few licks from "Wreck of the Old 97," just to let him know that I knew that lick. I don't know why. [Laughs.] That was a cool thing: He came in some months after our basic session. It was a cool thing to see Jerry and his dad, Dave, interact and perform on the same track together. And I love the idea of having that energy. My dad, his passing had a great deal to do with how this record turned out. I like the idea of having that energy [of] a father and a son playing on the album. Did your dad's passing have a direct or indirect influence on "The Narrows"? How did it influence what you did? My mom's from Oklahoma, my dad was from Arkansas. Although I was born in California, if you ever visit Stockton, which is very rural, you'll find the people there are a lot like those you would find in Oklahoma or Arkansas, because so many of them made that move in the '40s, '30s. When I went to Nashville, I felt very at home. There's something very familial about it. And, musically speaking, all of that stuff that they listened to affected me when I was growing up. And so part of me has been on that continual quest to find the core of what my musical loves are, where the real raw nerve is, in terms of my inspiration. I like a lot of different types of music, but in some ways that dual desire to be in a place that felt at home—[and] where there was that musical legacy I was connected to—I felt like both of those things were fused in that move to Nashville. As I look back, my desire to create the kind of music I do is some kind of yearning to have a connection with family as well. One could say, "Well, why don't you just stay in the town you grew up with, and have that literal connection?" The fact is, that wasn't in my cards. I had to go out into the world and find my voice this other way. I knew that from a very early age. I don't know: In some ways, I suppose music is a way of trying to stitch up a situation. [Laughs.] It's a hard thing to articulate. But your question was, how did it impact the writing? My dad was sick for a long time. He was suffering from emphysema and other things. The man had to carry around an oxygen tank for the last 10, 15 years. And so it was kind of like you saw death coming like a slow-moving train, you know? I wasn't altogether shocked, [but] when that moment comes, it's still something you can't really prepare yourself for. Some of the songs I had begun to write in anticipation. Like that song "Moccasin Creek," my dad was alive when I was still writing that song. And the idea behind it is kind of trying to go to that place where your ancestors have come from, your family, your grandfathers, grandmothers. But I never played it for him when he was still alive. I recorded it after he had passed. It takes on a deeper meaning in that light. Trying to touch that solid ground that connects you to where you came from. It's a bit like my interest in my ancestry, my Native American ancestry. Same thing. That's what you said in the bio for the record, that you are back in the land of your ancestors, and there's as lot of inspiration there as well. It's true. I mean, the name Grant Lee Buffalo is sort of a hint to my preoccupation with this subject matter. And there were songs that I wrote that may have not got as much attention back when I was with Grant Lee Buffalo that were also touching upon some of these same things that I revisit from time to time—native history and mythology. For me, it's all the same pursuit, trying to understand where we're going as a people, and what I come from as an individual. All of it. And music is such a good indicator of that. We don't really have a lot of recorded music—there are people who have recorded traditional music, but in general, songs tell you so much more about a civilization at a particular point in time than the history books would. They give you a glimpse into the subtext, some other kind of truth about a time. That's what always keeps me interested in listening to records, time and time again. They reveal different things and you find different nuances, and at different times in your life, you resonate with things differently. It's a continual search. Yeah, it is. That's the thing I love about what I do: I can be presented with new challenges in terms of how I go about it, how I write a song. That always happens. Every time I finish writing one record and I begin to make another one, I ask myself, "How did I do that? How do I do that again?" It's like someone goes through and changes all the locks, and you have to find a new way inside the building. [Laughs.] You gotta climb through the window, or through the crawlspace. There's a way, but you have to find some kind of new inroad to get yourself inspired. And that's where it begins. Grant Lee Buffalo's "Copperopolis" turns 20 years old this year, which blew my mind a little bit. Wow. Right? Looking back now, with 20 years of hindsight, what are your thoughts on the songs on that record? Now and then I run into people that tell me that's one of their favorite albums, if not their very favorite. That was an album we really fretted over. I know personally I did, as far as the writing. It wasn't an easy time, you know, to kind of figure out what we were supposed to do next, and [we were] really trying to be as adventurous as we could allow ourselves to be. There are a few songs on that I have rediscovered, like "Arousing Thunder." That is one I seem to play more and more. I haven't gone back and listened to those early albums very much. Only when Grant Lee Buffalo went back out on the road and did a few reunion dates did I sit down and try to learn the songs again, because they had grown new limbs and branches as I played them by myself. It's a strange sensation to listen to my voice from 20 years ago. It's like I'm listening to a wax cylinder or some sort of angry elf. I can't really relate to it in the same way. I don't know what happens, if we get different chemicals in our brains at a certain point, but I feel like I've got a different brain, in some ways. It feels more conscious, believe it or not. Maybe the writing process becomes a little more aware. It doesn't feel like one of those dreams where the steering wheel isn't working. That's how it was a lot when I was younger. I love that sensation, and maybe it's something that maybe it's a different way of approaching it that you only get when you're a younger writer. I like being able to sit with a song and not force it, and know the rest of it will arrive eventually—or it won't. and if it doesn't, then I move on. There was a lot of anxiety that came with the creation of those early albums, the fear that this would be both the first and the last outing. I've got over that anxiety, and that's a really good feeling, to be able to enjoy this process. Or at least enjoy knowing it will, at some point, be done. [Laughs.] I would have to imagine that in the '90s when you were writing songs, there was that whole other layer of major label pressure. The industry was so different. Just being in that pressure cooker environment seems like it would be a nightmare for creativity. You're right—it probably had its pros and cons. I suppose if I would've waited a bit longer then maybe I would've put out a different record at a given time. Or maybe we would've made other choices. What kind of happens is, you got one album when your debut comes out, and then you go out and play it and play it to death onstage. A lot of routine can settle in. That's when it gets tough; that's when it seems like that creative machine gets very gunked up, when you're doing the same thing over and over again. I was always fighting against that, but we had to do a lot of that kind of stuff, playing the same songs. You feel a little trapped in this thing of your own making. And you try to get a handle on it, like, "What is this band about?" Almost as soon as you've got a handle on it, it's become something else, because it's an entity as well. I don't know—it's kind of like when a crowd of people decides to rush for a fire escape. Bands sort of do the same thing, behave in ways that maybe the individuals wouldn't normally do, but as a group we do this other thing. [Laughs.] It's strange. I feel like there's a psychological term for that. It's not exactly groupthink. That is the great thing about a band: Everybody kind of stands back from it and beholds this phenomenon, like, "Look at what we can do! Each of us with our index finger pointed can lift a human off the ground! We can lift the Titanic off the ground if we all concentrate!" It really is amazing in that way. And I think we had a real magic with Grant Lee Buffalo when we came together with that intention. It was flashing before us so quickly that I don't think we could always take it in [or] enjoy it in the way that I wish we could've. I like this pace of things here in the passenger seat of a Chevy Impala with Steve Poltz, down by the river in Cleveland, stopping at a Cracker Barrel now and then. [Laughs.] It's a nice pace. There's something very civil about it.Grant-Lee Phillips' songwriting has always been distinguished by two things: its immense curiosity, and an intense yearning for connection. The musician has often used a historical backdrop to try to make sense of the past, present and future, or crafted ornate travelogues where the endgame is trying to conquer—or at least illuminate—the restlessness inherent in those who are always searching for life's elusive answers. Wrestling with the romance of emotional and physical displacement is what made the four albums Phillips released with '90s band Grant Lee Buffalo so appealing and enduring, and it's part of what's made his subsequent solo career so compelling. In fact, the Nashville-via-California singer-songwriter's forthcoming new album, "The Narrows," might be his most accomplished work yet. Recorded at Dan Auerbach’s studio, the LP is both immediate-sounding and intimate: Standout "Smoke and Sparks" boasts fluid, gamboling acoustic guitars and shaded piano, while "Loaded Gun" is hot-rodding honky-tonk and "San Andreas Fault" is gentle, pedal steel-varnished folk. Another highlight, the whispering roots-rocker "No Mercy in July," features evocative bass from one-time Johnny Cash collaborator Dave Roe. Back in February, before the Cleveland stop of his co-headlining tour with fellow singer-songwriter Steve Poltz, Phillips discussed how his move to Nashville and father's death influenced "The Narrows," as well as how his creative process has changed and evolved through the years. (And, of course, he also discussed reprising his role as the town troubadour on "Gilmore Girls.") How has it been being in the Nashville music community? What has it been like for you as a musician? It's been really inspiring. I recorded this new album in Nashville. Jerry Roe, the drummer, he grew up there: His grandfather was Jerry Reed, so he basically grew up around all of these country legends. He's a hard-hitting drummer. I had met him before moving out there, and he was the one who really introduced me to the team put together to make the record. [But] yeah, I'm still meeting folks. There are so many different songwriters and people who live outside of that country mainstream, who are really adventurous musicians. It's great. I find it really inspiring. Have you done any songwriting for other artists yet? I know a lot of people do that. The town is really big on co-writing and all that. Most of my efforts have remained on developing this album in particular. From time to time, I have found myself in one of those little rooms writing with other people. A guy named Graham Colton, who's actually from Oklahoma, he came to town and we did some writing together. And then my friend Donavon Frankenreiter covered that song on his new album. I wrote with Donavon for his record, too. I'm not necessarily plugged in to that same world. My focus is really all on putting out my own records and touring. But I'm open to it—I'm curious about it, how a guy like me fits into that kind of thing. It strikes me as being somewhat regimented. Songwriting works that way sometimes, but not always. You've said that the through-lines and themes for your records tend to reveal themselves organically. After "The Narrows" was completed, what did you discover? What were the themes that stood out to you? Like a lot of my songs, it's about navigating tough waters. Trying to keep your head above the water, and keeping the shore in sight. A lot of these songs are like that. They are moving away from one thing and towards the next, and maybe that destination is unknown at the time, but I'm still moving forward towards it. I'm feeling my way through the dark. Life is that way, and writing is like a reflection of that. I left California after being there for all of my life, so that was a big one. It meant uprooting and going through the whole physical exhaustion of that choice. But it also represented some new adventure. [But] my family—my parents—they were still in California. And no sooner did I arrive in Nashville, maybe a month later or so, my dad—who had suffered bad health for a long time—his health plummeted, and he passed away in the latter part of 2013. That was also something that weighed heavily on my mind, something that I was processing at the same time. The record opens up with "Tennessee Rain," it's kind of me looking towards something hopeful. Somewhere near the end, you hear a song like "San Andreas Fault," which is sort of my violent farewell to the place that I was born in. [Laughs.] It's a road record in that way. It's not exactly a "Road to Bali"—or "Easy Rider"—but it's my kind of travelogue. I did notice that the songs used a sense of place or location—and what that means and how that influences people—maybe more prominently than some of your recent records. I'm frequently moved by the new places that I see. Even with Grant Lee Buffalo, when we first went out on the road, we were driving across Texas for a few days, I wrote "Lone Star Song." A lot of it I trace back to when I was a kid, and I used to travel around with my grandma. My grandma, she would get a wild hair that we had to travel, and my parents would let me go off with her. She'd take me to Montana and Utah, all across that part of the country. My grandpa drove a big rig, so I would travel with him too. I developed that sense of romance for travel, and it does turn up in the songs from time to time. In this case, it's literally rooted in leaving California and moving to the Southeast. You worked with drummer Jerry Roe and multi-instrumentalist Lex Price on the record. How did they influence the way the song on "The Narrows" unfolded when you went to record them? They brought great sensitivity to the songs. They're able to give it some muscle when that's what it called for, and able to step back and just let the song be, as well, let the guitar and the voice be the centerpiece. That's kind of where I begin when I sit down to write, and actually how I perform so much these days. I tour solo acoustically so much, that has become my real baseline. I wouldn't say it's my comfort zone, because it's also a place where there's room to screw it up as well. But there's nothing to hide behind, in other words. And I have increasingly been drawn to that kind of record-making, where there's less and less between me and the song and the end result. That sensitivity—and that sense of knowing when enough was enough. [Laughs.] And making that basic performance be the thing we were after. A little sprinkling, here and there, of overdubs. But not so much that I would've been prone to in the old days. You get in the studio, and it's so easy to be like, "One more thing!" Knowing when to stop is such a gift, and such a talent. It's true. And you can really build yourself a house of cards where, "C'mon, one more card. One more paper-thin wafer!" [Laughs.] It's quite easy for it to topple over, when someone else begins to take it all in. I'm learning about that more and more as I go, the whole "less is more" thing. Jerry Roe's dad, Dave, who played bass with Johnny Cash, played on "No Mercy in July." Did you pump him for information? Did he have any good Johnny Cash stories? Talk about historic. [Laughs.] I was delicate, but yeah, I would love to know some of what he has to convey. We chatted a bit, as I was getting my guitar set up—I played a few licks from "Wreck of the Old 97," just to let him know that I knew that lick. I don't know why. [Laughs.] That was a cool thing: He came in some months after our basic session. It was a cool thing to see Jerry and his dad, Dave, interact and perform on the same track together. And I love the idea of having that energy. My dad, his passing had a great deal to do with how this record turned out. I like the idea of having that energy [of] a father and a son playing on the album. Did your dad's passing have a direct or indirect influence on "The Narrows"? How did it influence what you did? My mom's from Oklahoma, my dad was from Arkansas. Although I was born in California, if you ever visit Stockton, which is very rural, you'll find the people there are a lot like those you would find in Oklahoma or Arkansas, because so many of them made that move in the '40s, '30s. When I went to Nashville, I felt very at home. There's something very familial about it. And, musically speaking, all of that stuff that they listened to affected me when I was growing up. And so part of me has been on that continual quest to find the core of what my musical loves are, where the real raw nerve is, in terms of my inspiration. I like a lot of different types of music, but in some ways that dual desire to be in a place that felt at home—[and] where there was that musical legacy I was connected to—I felt like both of those things were fused in that move to Nashville. As I look back, my desire to create the kind of music I do is some kind of yearning to have a connection with family as well. One could say, "Well, why don't you just stay in the town you grew up with, and have that literal connection?" The fact is, that wasn't in my cards. I had to go out into the world and find my voice this other way. I knew that from a very early age. I don't know: In some ways, I suppose music is a way of trying to stitch up a situation. [Laughs.] It's a hard thing to articulate. But your question was, how did it impact the writing? My dad was sick for a long time. He was suffering from emphysema and other things. The man had to carry around an oxygen tank for the last 10, 15 years. And so it was kind of like you saw death coming like a slow-moving train, you know? I wasn't altogether shocked, [but] when that moment comes, it's still something you can't really prepare yourself for. Some of the songs I had begun to write in anticipation. Like that song "Moccasin Creek," my dad was alive when I was still writing that song. And the idea behind it is kind of trying to go to that place where your ancestors have come from, your family, your grandfathers, grandmothers. But I never played it for him when he was still alive. I recorded it after he had passed. It takes on a deeper meaning in that light. Trying to touch that solid ground that connects you to where you came from. It's a bit like my interest in my ancestry, my Native American ancestry. Same thing. That's what you said in the bio for the record, that you are back in the land of your ancestors, and there's as lot of inspiration there as well. It's true. I mean, the name Grant Lee Buffalo is sort of a hint to my preoccupation with this subject matter. And there were songs that I wrote that may have not got as much attention back when I was with Grant Lee Buffalo that were also touching upon some of these same things that I revisit from time to time—native history and mythology. For me, it's all the same pursuit, trying to understand where we're going as a people, and what I come from as an individual. All of it. And music is such a good indicator of that. We don't really have a lot of recorded music—there are people who have recorded traditional music, but in general, songs tell you so much more about a civilization at a particular point in time than the history books would. They give you a glimpse into the subtext, some other kind of truth about a time. That's what always keeps me interested in listening to records, time and time again. They reveal different things and you find different nuances, and at different times in your life, you resonate with things differently. It's a continual search. Yeah, it is. That's the thing I love about what I do: I can be presented with new challenges in terms of how I go about it, how I write a song. That always happens. Every time I finish writing one record and I begin to make another one, I ask myself, "How did I do that? How do I do that again?" It's like someone goes through and changes all the locks, and you have to find a new way inside the building. [Laughs.] You gotta climb through the window, or through the crawlspace. There's a way, but you have to find some kind of new inroad to get yourself inspired. And that's where it begins. Grant Lee Buffalo's "Copperopolis" turns 20 years old this year, which blew my mind a little bit. Wow. Right? Looking back now, with 20 years of hindsight, what are your thoughts on the songs on that record? Now and then I run into people that tell me that's one of their favorite albums, if not their very favorite. That was an album we really fretted over. I know personally I did, as far as the writing. It wasn't an easy time, you know, to kind of figure out what we were supposed to do next, and [we were] really trying to be as adventurous as we could allow ourselves to be. There are a few songs on that I have rediscovered, like "Arousing Thunder." That is one I seem to play more and more. I haven't gone back and listened to those early albums very much. Only when Grant Lee Buffalo went back out on the road and did a few reunion dates did I sit down and try to learn the songs again, because they had grown new limbs and branches as I played them by myself. It's a strange sensation to listen to my voice from 20 years ago. It's like I'm listening to a wax cylinder or some sort of angry elf. I can't really relate to it in the same way. I don't know what happens, if we get different chemicals in our brains at a certain point, but I feel like I've got a different brain, in some ways. It feels more conscious, believe it or not. Maybe the writing process becomes a little more aware. It doesn't feel like one of those dreams where the steering wheel isn't working. That's how it was a lot when I was younger. I love that sensation, and maybe it's something that maybe it's a different way of approaching it that you only get when you're a younger writer. I like being able to sit with a song and not force it, and know the rest of it will arrive eventually—or it won't. and if it doesn't, then I move on. There was a lot of anxiety that came with the creation of those early albums, the fear that this would be both the first and the last outing. I've got over that anxiety, and that's a really good feeling, to be able to enjoy this process. Or at least enjoy knowing it will, at some point, be done. [Laughs.] I would have to imagine that in the '90s when you were writing songs, there was that whole other layer of major label pressure. The industry was so different. Just being in that pressure cooker environment seems like it would be a nightmare for creativity. You're right—it probably had its pros and cons. I suppose if I would've waited a bit longer then maybe I would've put out a different record at a given time. Or maybe we would've made other choices. What kind of happens is, you got one album when your debut comes out, and then you go out and play it and play it to death onstage. A lot of routine can settle in. That's when it gets tough; that's when it seems like that creative machine gets very gunked up, when you're doing the same thing over and over again. I was always fighting against that, but we had to do a lot of that kind of stuff, playing the same songs. You feel a little trapped in this thing of your own making. And you try to get a handle on it, like, "What is this band about?" Almost as soon as you've got a handle on it, it's become something else, because it's an entity as well. I don't know—it's kind of like when a crowd of people decides to rush for a fire escape. Bands sort of do the same thing, behave in ways that maybe the individuals wouldn't normally do, but as a group we do this other thing. [Laughs.] It's strange. I feel like there's a psychological term for that. It's not exactly groupthink. That is the great thing about a band: Everybody kind of stands back from it and beholds this phenomenon, like, "Look at what we can do! Each of us with our index finger pointed can lift a human off the ground! We can lift the Titanic off the ground if we all concentrate!" It really is amazing in that way. And I think we had a real magic with Grant Lee Buffalo when we came together with that intention. It was flashing before us so quickly that I don't think we could always take it in [or] enjoy it in the way that I wish we could've. I like this pace of things here in the passenger seat of a Chevy Impala with Steve Poltz, down by the river in Cleveland, stopping at a Cracker Barrel now and then. [Laughs.] It's a nice pace. There's something very civil about it.
The N-word, in terrible context: Period pieces “Hap and Leonard” and “Underground” expose the long roots of racism
It is—or it should be—extremely startling to hear a white person use the N-word in 2016. Weirdly, this month on television, there are a lot of opportunities to hear just that. Last night, for example, on “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” F. Lee Bailey (Nathan Lane) asked Mark Fuhrman (Steven Pasquale) if he’s ever used the slur, and in asking says the word, dispassionately, six separate times. But, of course, that scene comes from the real-life incident where Bailey asked Fuhrman those questions from the staid chambers of a courtroom in 1995, broadcast nationally to audiences everywhere. Sitcoms from “All in the Family” to “Black-ish” have devoted space to exploring the impact of the word, and network dramas have found a way to incorporate the slur into their own Very Special Episodes, as Josh Kurp details. But the preponderance of uncensored cable television has ushered in a new era of televisual profanity, and though shows like “Oz” and “The Wire” have gone whole-hog with every kind of insult, slur and derogatory phrase, there is something different about the language in two new cable shows: “Hap and Leonard,” on SundanceTV, and “Underground,” on WGN. Both shows are period pieces in the South, though of very different eras. “Underground,” which debuts tonight, takes place in plantation-era Georgia, and most of the characters are enslaved. “Hap and Leonard,” which debuted last week, takes place in East Texas in the ‘80s, at the height of the Reagan administration. And in both, the black leads are pointedly subject to racist language, including copious use of the N-word. It’s not pleasant, but it goes a ways toward exposing the long roots of racism in America. That a few assholes in the ‘80s would be fine with throwing the word around while pointing a gun at Leonard (Michael K. Williams) is perhaps not surprising. But watching the look on Leonard’s face as the scene unspools is surprising; the typically brash, shit-talking drifter is stunned into a self-preserving silence, and even his stance seems to diminish, shrinking into himself as the scene continues. “Hap and Leonard” is a type of television show that would be, in many other iterations, not much to comment on. The show is based on the mystery novels of Joe R. Lansdale, and as so many mystery stories do, takes the procedural structure as an excuse to spend a lot of time with its characters and its setting. The six episodes of the first season have the characters trekking through swamplands, encountering gators, skeet shooting, and listening to country-western LPs. It is normal in every way, and also, Leonard is a gay black man. And this willingness to, for lack of a better descriptor, go there is what makes the show strangely addictive and memorable, just in the way a particularly compelling mystery novel is. There’s a degree of formula at work, but at the same time, an enticing wrench thrown into the works. Similarly, “Underground” has a certain degree of formula at work, albeit in what is a far more controversial and revolutionary setting—the Underground Railroad, in the late 1850s, in the shadow of the controversial Dred Scott v. Sanford case that denied citizenship to African-Americans. This is not, exactly, the bleak plantation life of “12 Years a Slave,” but it is not the sunny view of antebellum South depicted in “Point of Honor,” either. Instead, “Underground” approaches overthrowing slavery with a sense of vim and vigor that it is normally denied—infusing the characters’ struggles to escape their oppression with the righteous indignation of any adventurers fleeing their particular dystopia. This is aided by the soundtrack, which incorporates modern hip-hop and period-appropriate spirituals in equal turns. It is the type of cross-genre historical-ish drama that fuels the campy fun of “Sleepy Hollow” and “Reign,” in that it is a bit more invested in the splash of its plot twists than in the resonance. The difference is that “Underground” is the first show to use slavery and the Underground Railroad as its setting; it has available to it an entire resonant system of symbols that have yet to be turned into television. Much like “Hap and Leonard,” the fascinating element of this show is that it is willing to expand its lens of empathy beyond the usual suspects; and indeed, it’s that quality that is the best part of both shows, what makes them stand apart from their formulaic underpinnings. When the N-word is used in “Underground,” it is dropped in the casual invective of the white person; it permeates the landscape and peppers the foreground, re-creating a terrible power structure with mere language. Partly, the N-word is on television more than ever just because it can be said on cable. But partly, it is that there is an expanded slate of programming featuring black characters—characters who, crucially and obviously, encounter racism. It is just a word, but it has broad implications for how to think about the past. And that does make quite a difference when thinking about the future.It is—or it should be—extremely startling to hear a white person use the N-word in 2016. Weirdly, this month on television, there are a lot of opportunities to hear just that. Last night, for example, on “The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story,” F. Lee Bailey (Nathan Lane) asked Mark Fuhrman (Steven Pasquale) if he’s ever used the slur, and in asking says the word, dispassionately, six separate times. But, of course, that scene comes from the real-life incident where Bailey asked Fuhrman those questions from the staid chambers of a courtroom in 1995, broadcast nationally to audiences everywhere. Sitcoms from “All in the Family” to “Black-ish” have devoted space to exploring the impact of the word, and network dramas have found a way to incorporate the slur into their own Very Special Episodes, as Josh Kurp details. But the preponderance of uncensored cable television has ushered in a new era of televisual profanity, and though shows like “Oz” and “The Wire” have gone whole-hog with every kind of insult, slur and derogatory phrase, there is something different about the language in two new cable shows: “Hap and Leonard,” on SundanceTV, and “Underground,” on WGN. Both shows are period pieces in the South, though of very different eras. “Underground,” which debuts tonight, takes place in plantation-era Georgia, and most of the characters are enslaved. “Hap and Leonard,” which debuted last week, takes place in East Texas in the ‘80s, at the height of the Reagan administration. And in both, the black leads are pointedly subject to racist language, including copious use of the N-word. It’s not pleasant, but it goes a ways toward exposing the long roots of racism in America. That a few assholes in the ‘80s would be fine with throwing the word around while pointing a gun at Leonard (Michael K. Williams) is perhaps not surprising. But watching the look on Leonard’s face as the scene unspools is surprising; the typically brash, shit-talking drifter is stunned into a self-preserving silence, and even his stance seems to diminish, shrinking into himself as the scene continues. “Hap and Leonard” is a type of television show that would be, in many other iterations, not much to comment on. The show is based on the mystery novels of Joe R. Lansdale, and as so many mystery stories do, takes the procedural structure as an excuse to spend a lot of time with its characters and its setting. The six episodes of the first season have the characters trekking through swamplands, encountering gators, skeet shooting, and listening to country-western LPs. It is normal in every way, and also, Leonard is a gay black man. And this willingness to, for lack of a better descriptor, go there is what makes the show strangely addictive and memorable, just in the way a particularly compelling mystery novel is. There’s a degree of formula at work, but at the same time, an enticing wrench thrown into the works. Similarly, “Underground” has a certain degree of formula at work, albeit in what is a far more controversial and revolutionary setting—the Underground Railroad, in the late 1850s, in the shadow of the controversial Dred Scott v. Sanford case that denied citizenship to African-Americans. This is not, exactly, the bleak plantation life of “12 Years a Slave,” but it is not the sunny view of antebellum South depicted in “Point of Honor,” either. Instead, “Underground” approaches overthrowing slavery with a sense of vim and vigor that it is normally denied—infusing the characters’ struggles to escape their oppression with the righteous indignation of any adventurers fleeing their particular dystopia. This is aided by the soundtrack, which incorporates modern hip-hop and period-appropriate spirituals in equal turns. It is the type of cross-genre historical-ish drama that fuels the campy fun of “Sleepy Hollow” and “Reign,” in that it is a bit more invested in the splash of its plot twists than in the resonance. The difference is that “Underground” is the first show to use slavery and the Underground Railroad as its setting; it has available to it an entire resonant system of symbols that have yet to be turned into television. Much like “Hap and Leonard,” the fascinating element of this show is that it is willing to expand its lens of empathy beyond the usual suspects; and indeed, it’s that quality that is the best part of both shows, what makes them stand apart from their formulaic underpinnings. When the N-word is used in “Underground,” it is dropped in the casual invective of the white person; it permeates the landscape and peppers the foreground, re-creating a terrible power structure with mere language. Partly, the N-word is on television more than ever just because it can be said on cable. But partly, it is that there is an expanded slate of programming featuring black characters—characters who, crucially and obviously, encounter racism. It is just a word, but it has broad implications for how to think about the past. And that does make quite a difference when thinking about the future.
5 things you should know about methamphetamines — the “all-American” drug
Methamphetamine is a much-maligned drug. Even lots of people sympathetic to drug use or drug law reform scorn it. "I'm for legalizing weed, but meth? Never!" is a commonly heard refrain. There are good reasons for the disdain. Meth can create psychological dependence; people can behave bizarrely and unpredictably under its influence; and it can have deleterious health consequences ranging from dental problems to heart attacks and strokes to paranoia, anxiety and insomnia. Yet people continue to use it. It is an all-American drug, in the sense that people use it to work more. It provides a euphoric initial high, followed by an increase in energy and alertness that can last for up to 12 hours. Meth users feel higher motivation to accomplish goals and greater confidence in intellectual and problem-solving abilities—at least at first. But meth is no more harmful than any other substance taken in proper dosage. And government efforts to repress it have been ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. Here are five things you need to know about meth. 
1. Meth is a prescription drug. Yes, that drug so terrible it should never be legalized is already available from your local doctor. Pharmaceutical-grade methamphetamine is produced by Abbot Laboratories under the brand name Desoxyn. It is a Schedule II controlled substance, like many prescription opioids and amphetamines, not a Schedule I drug with no accepted medical use, like heroin, LSD and even marijuana. It is prescribed for ADD, ADHD, narcolepsy, and obesity, although in small quantities because of fears of abuse and misuse. Still, at least some ADD/ADHD patients swear by it. 2. Meth is very similar to other amphetamine-type drugs. All those people taking Adderall (dextroamphetamine), Adzenys (amphetamine), Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine), Dynavel (amphetamine), Evekeo (amphetamine), Liquadd (dextroamphetamine), and ProCentra (dextroamphetamine) are using drugs very similar in chemical structure and effect to methamphetamine. A related class of drugs, the methylphenidates, which includes drugs such as Ritalin, acts like amphetamines in their dopamine reuptake inhibiting effect, but lack the dopamine releasing quality that amphetamines have. Different subjective experiences from these drugs results more from dosage and means of administration than differences in their chemistry. 3. There are about half a million regular meth users at any given time. According to the most recent survey, the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, there were 569,000 "past month" meth users, or 0.2% of the population. That number has been roughly stable over the past decade. But nearly twice as many people—about a million—were nonmedical users of other stimulants. The number of current meth users is smaller than the current number of nonmedical pain pill users (4.3 million), nonmedical tranquilizer users (1.9 million), cocaine users (1.5 million, including crack cocaine), and ecstasy users (609,000), but greater than the number of current heroin users (435,000), crack users (354,000) and LSD users (287,000). 4. Meth is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. The authors of
The Methamphetamine Industry in America
put the size of the illicit meth wholesale trade at $3 billion a year. The authors may overstate the size of the industry—they assume that every "past month" user is actually a daily user, which is certainly not the case—but they also note that they are looking at wholesale, not retail, so even if their wholesale estimate is too high, retail meth sales most definitely account for at least $3 billion in annual revenues. That's not a huge industry by national standards, but it is significant. It's about the same size as the tattoo parlor industry, the tanning salon industry, the online job search industry, or the baby formula industry. 5. And most of the profits now go to Mexican cartels. Thanks to state and federal legislation aimed at disrupting the home meth cooking trade by making crucial ingredients, such as pseudoephedrine, more difficult to obtain, what was once an industry dominated by biker gangs and small-scale, mom-and-pop labs producing relatively small amounts of meth for small numbers of people has now become an industry dominated by high-quality methamphetamine produced by Mexican drug cartels in "super labs" in Mexico, and increasingly, in the Southwestern U.S. As the authors of The Methamphetamine Industry in America note, the DEA estimates that Mexican cartels now account for 80% of meth consumed in the U.S. and they produce it with a stunning 90% or greater purity. These state and federal legislative efforts aimed at home meth labs have not reduced meth consumption, but they have reshaped the industry. They might as well carry the generic name the Mexican Methamphetamine Market Share Enhancement Act. Phillip Smith is editor of the AlterNet Drug Reporter and author of the Drug War Chronicle.
Methamphetamine is a much-maligned drug. Even lots of people sympathetic to drug use or drug law reform scorn it. "I'm for legalizing weed, but meth? Never!" is a commonly heard refrain. There are good reasons for the disdain. Meth can create psychological dependence; people can behave bizarrely and unpredictably under its influence; and it can have deleterious health consequences ranging from dental problems to heart attacks and strokes to paranoia, anxiety and insomnia. Yet people continue to use it. It is an all-American drug, in the sense that people use it to work more. It provides a euphoric initial high, followed by an increase in energy and alertness that can last for up to 12 hours. Meth users feel higher motivation to accomplish goals and greater confidence in intellectual and problem-solving abilities—at least at first. But meth is no more harmful than any other substance taken in proper dosage. And government efforts to repress it have been ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. Here are five things you need to know about meth. 1. Meth is a prescription drug. Yes, that drug so terrible it should never be legalized is already available from your local doctor. Pharmaceutical-grade methamphetamine is produced by Abbot Laboratories under the brand name Desoxyn. It is a Schedule II controlled substance, like many prescription opioids and amphetamines, not a Schedule I drug with no accepted medical use, like heroin, LSD and even marijuana. It is prescribed for ADD, ADHD, narcolepsy, and obesity, although in small quantities because of fears of abuse and misuse. Still, at least some ADD/ADHD patients swear by it. 2. Meth is very similar to other amphetamine-type drugs. All those people taking Adderall (dextroamphetamine), Adzenys (amphetamine), Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine), Dynavel (amphetamine), Evekeo (amphetamine), Liquadd (dextroamphetamine), and ProCentra (dextroamphetamine) are using drugs very similar in chemical structure and effect to methamphetamine. A related class of drugs, the methylphenidates, which includes drugs such as Ritalin, acts like amphetamines in their dopamine reuptake inhibiting effect, but lack the dopamine releasing quality that amphetamines have. Different subjective experiences from these drugs results more from dosage and means of administration than differences in their chemistry. 3. There are about half a million regular meth users at any given time. According to the most recent survey, the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, there were 569,000 "past month" meth users, or 0.2% of the population. That number has been roughly stable over the past decade. But nearly twice as many people—about a million—were nonmedical users of other stimulants. The number of current meth users is smaller than the current number of nonmedical pain pill users (4.3 million), nonmedical tranquilizer users (1.9 million), cocaine users (1.5 million, including crack cocaine), and ecstasy users (609,000), but greater than the number of current heroin users (435,000), crack users (354,000) and LSD users (287,000). 4. Meth is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. The authors of
The Methamphetamine Industry in America
put the size of the illicit meth wholesale trade at $3 billion a year. The authors may overstate the size of the industry—they assume that every "past month" user is actually a daily user, which is certainly not the case—but they also note that they are looking at wholesale, not retail, so even if their wholesale estimate is too high, retail meth sales most definitely account for at least $3 billion in annual revenues. That's not a huge industry by national standards, but it is significant. It's about the same size as the tattoo parlor industry, the tanning salon industry, the online job search industry, or the baby formula industry. 5. And most of the profits now go to Mexican cartels. Thanks to state and federal legislation aimed at disrupting the home meth cooking trade by making crucial ingredients, such as pseudoephedrine, more difficult to obtain, what was once an industry dominated by biker gangs and small-scale, mom-and-pop labs producing relatively small amounts of meth for small numbers of people has now become an industry dominated by high-quality methamphetamine produced by Mexican drug cartels in "super labs" in Mexico, and increasingly, in the Southwestern U.S. As the authors of The Methamphetamine Industry in America note, the DEA estimates that Mexican cartels now account for 80% of meth consumed in the U.S. and they produce it with a stunning 90% or greater purity. These state and federal legislative efforts aimed at home meth labs have not reduced meth consumption, but they have reshaped the industry. They might as well carry the generic name the Mexican Methamphetamine Market Share Enhancement Act. Phillip Smith is editor of the AlterNet Drug Reporter and author of the Drug War Chronicle.
Methamphetamine is a much-maligned drug. Even lots of people sympathetic to drug use or drug law reform scorn it. "I'm for legalizing weed, but meth? Never!" is a commonly heard refrain. There are good reasons for the disdain. Meth can create psychological dependence; people can behave bizarrely and unpredictably under its influence; and it can have deleterious health consequences ranging from dental problems to heart attacks and strokes to paranoia, anxiety and insomnia. Yet people continue to use it. It is an all-American drug, in the sense that people use it to work more. It provides a euphoric initial high, followed by an increase in energy and alertness that can last for up to 12 hours. Meth users feel higher motivation to accomplish goals and greater confidence in intellectual and problem-solving abilities—at least at first. But meth is no more harmful than any other substance taken in proper dosage. And government efforts to repress it have been ineffective at best and counterproductive at worst. Here are five things you need to know about meth. 1. Meth is a prescription drug. Yes, that drug so terrible it should never be legalized is already available from your local doctor. Pharmaceutical-grade methamphetamine is produced by Abbot Laboratories under the brand name Desoxyn. It is a Schedule II controlled substance, like many prescription opioids and amphetamines, not a Schedule I drug with no accepted medical use, like heroin, LSD and even marijuana. It is prescribed for ADD, ADHD, narcolepsy, and obesity, although in small quantities because of fears of abuse and misuse. Still, at least some ADD/ADHD patients swear by it. 2. Meth is very similar to other amphetamine-type drugs. All those people taking Adderall (dextroamphetamine), Adzenys (amphetamine), Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine), Dynavel (amphetamine), Evekeo (amphetamine), Liquadd (dextroamphetamine), and ProCentra (dextroamphetamine) are using drugs very similar in chemical structure and effect to methamphetamine. A related class of drugs, the methylphenidates, which includes drugs such as Ritalin, acts like amphetamines in their dopamine reuptake inhibiting effect, but lack the dopamine releasing quality that amphetamines have. Different subjective experiences from these drugs results more from dosage and means of administration than differences in their chemistry. 3. There are about half a million regular meth users at any given time. According to the most recent survey, the 2014 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, there were 569,000 "past month" meth users, or 0.2% of the population. That number has been roughly stable over the past decade. But nearly twice as many people—about a million—were nonmedical users of other stimulants. The number of current meth users is smaller than the current number of nonmedical pain pill users (4.3 million), nonmedical tranquilizer users (1.9 million), cocaine users (1.5 million, including crack cocaine), and ecstasy users (609,000), but greater than the number of current heroin users (435,000), crack users (354,000) and LSD users (287,000). 4. Meth is a multibillion-dollar-a-year industry. The authors of
The Methamphetamine Industry in America
put the size of the illicit meth wholesale trade at $3 billion a year. The authors may overstate the size of the industry—they assume that every "past month" user is actually a daily user, which is certainly not the case—but they also note that they are looking at wholesale, not retail, so even if their wholesale estimate is too high, retail meth sales most definitely account for at least $3 billion in annual revenues. That's not a huge industry by national standards, but it is significant. It's about the same size as the tattoo parlor industry, the tanning salon industry, the online job search industry, or the baby formula industry. 5. And most of the profits now go to Mexican cartels. Thanks to state and federal legislation aimed at disrupting the home meth cooking trade by making crucial ingredients, such as pseudoephedrine, more difficult to obtain, what was once an industry dominated by biker gangs and small-scale, mom-and-pop labs producing relatively small amounts of meth for small numbers of people has now become an industry dominated by high-quality methamphetamine produced by Mexican drug cartels in "super labs" in Mexico, and increasingly, in the Southwestern U.S. As the authors of The Methamphetamine Industry in America note, the DEA estimates that Mexican cartels now account for 80% of meth consumed in the U.S. and they produce it with a stunning 90% or greater purity. These state and federal legislative efforts aimed at home meth labs have not reduced meth consumption, but they have reshaped the industry. They might as well carry the generic name the Mexican Methamphetamine Market Share Enhancement Act. Phillip Smith is editor of the AlterNet Drug Reporter and author of the Drug War Chronicle.
It should be over for Hillary: Party elites and MSNBC can’t prop her up after Bernie’s Michigan miracle
You wouldn’t know it from watching TV last night or reading the national papers this morning but Bernie Sanders’ Michigan win ranks among the greatest upsets in presidential primary history. Should he win the nomination it will be go down as the biggest upset of any kind in American political history. If he wins the election it will change the fundamental direction of the nation and the world. Some key lessons, obvious to everyone but the media: 1. The old politics is over. The fault lines of the new politics are not cultural issues like guns, abortion and same-sex marriage that divide the Democratic and Republican bases. They are issues of political reform and economic justice that divide both party’s elites from both parties’ bases, and the American people from their government. On these issues we find the elites of both parties shockingly alike. Among them: global trade; financial deregulation and prosecution of financial crimes; the social safety net including Social Security, Medicare, a living wage and health care for all; above all, the “soft corruption” of pay to play politics. There’s a name for the bipartisan consensus of party elites: neoliberalism. It is an inconvenient name for many reasons but mostly because it seems odd that the worldview of the Republican elite would be an ideology with the root word ‘liberal’ in its name but it is true, nonetheless. and may even shed a little light on the open, bitter breach between GOP elites and the party base. Democrats stayed loyal longer to their elites for two reasons. One is their love of two very talented politicians, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, whose charm and verbal dexterity masked deep differences with the base. The other is their fear of Republicans. I often talk to Democrats who don’t know Obama chose not to raise the minimum wage as president even though he had the votes for it; that he was willing to cut Medicare and Social Security and chose not to prosecute Wall Street crimes or pursue ethics reforms in government. They don’t know he dropped the public option or the aid he promised homeowners victimized by mortgage lenders. They don’t know and don’t want to know. Their affection for Bill and Barack -- and their fear of Republicans -- run too deep. 2. Hillary Clinton has neither their deft personal touch nor protean verbal skills. When she tries to distract the base or paper over its differences with elites, voters see through her, even if, in their hearts, they don’t want to. In Michigan she tried to smear Sanders as a foe of the auto bailout. Before that she sent Chelsea and Bill out to say Bernie would kill Medicare. Each time she ended up only hurting herself. She has tried to co-opt Sanders’ positions on global trade, climate change, military adventurism, a living wage and universal health care. It’s always too little, too late. Voters sense she’s just moving pawns on a chess board in part because she can never explain her change of heart and often doesn’t even try. She switched horses on global trade in a blog post, on the Keystone pipeline at a grammar school event. In a recent debate she left fracking to the GOP governors who covered themselves in glory on Obamacare, as if it were a states’ rights issue. With her Super PAC (and hers and Bill’s breathtaking haul of $153 million in mostly corporate speaking fees), she is the living avatar of pay to play politics. She shouldn’t be the Democratic nominee for president because she doesn’t even know it’s wrong. She remains woefully out of touch with the public mood in other ways. This week she began telling voters she and Bernie were pals and that it was time to wrap up their little primary so she could focus on the Republicans. As anyone outside her tone deaf campaign could have told her, she came off as entitled, presumptuous and condescending. The voters aren’t done deciding yet. When they are, they’ll let the candidates know. When party and press elites parroted her line, it had the same effect on Democrats as Mitt’s anti-Trump speech had on Republicans. 3. The performance of the press has been abysmal. Watching CNN and MSNBC last night was painful, as was reading the Washington Post or the New York Times this morning. The TV coverage was of a piece with all other 2016 election coverage. Last night FOX, CNN and MSNBC kept cameras glued on Trump for 40 minutes as he delivered a bizarre, rambling rant in which he talked about himself, his opponents and some steaks he was either selling or giving away. As Bernie made history, CNN kept sending poor John King to its political trivia JumboTron to relate what various Michigan counties did in primaries or caucuses eight or 20 years ago. An MSNBC panel consisting of Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow, Gene Robinson, Lawrence O’Donnell and Chuck Todd dove right into a discussion of who Hillary might choose as her running mate; an actual progressive perhaps, given Bernie’s little showing in Michigan. They agreed it would probably be Elizabeth Warren, who sat this one out; or Sherrod Brown, the Ohio populist whose wife they all knew and liked. Really. The segment closed with everyone sharing a laugh about how mad Brown's wife would be to hear them flatter her. The hour ended with Maddow summarizing the state of play this way: “The frontrunners had a good night.” This morning the Times led the story this way: “Senator Bernie Sanders’s defeat of Hillary Clinton prolongs a race she seemed to have locked up, although she won Mississippi handily.” He sure did. Clinton has been helped in her quest by her party, by big business, and by top-down endorsements from progressive lobbies many of which broke members’ hearts to deliver them. But no one’s helped her more than the media. I know full well this hasn’t always been true for the Clintons and I also know not all the help is intentional. But the media helps her in several ways. One way it helps is just by sharing her ideology. This is especially true of younger journalists at establishment venues like the Times and NBC or at web sites like Vox. These are mostly very bright people who see the world as Hillary does. (I’d call it neoliberalism 2.0 but it’s just like the Beta version.) They are Democrats first for cultural issues. They identify with elites, even know a few power couples and view the current corrupt rules of the game as laws of nature. It’s one reason why not one of them saw any of this coming. But it’s not the only reason. Their employers put horse-race journalism ahead of all else, so nothing ever gets illuminated -- not Trump’s business resume or Hillary’s or Bernie’s political resumes, or their very real policy differences. When Hillary sweeps vital differences under the rug to be replaced with stale tactical arguments, the reporters are perfect patsies -- because all they know are tactics. In the end, thinking only tactically makes you a bad tactician. When revolution’s in the air polls, money and ads mean far less. Reporters who know nothing else can’t conceive how voters choosing among a democratic socialist, a pay-to-play politician and a fascist might pick door number one. They bought Hillary’s myth of inevitability, but as Lawrence of Arabia told Prince Ali in the desert, nothing is written. If Democratic voters really use their heads, they’ll see through the tactical arguments just like the voters of Michigan did -- and then walk into voting booths all over America and vote their hearts. Then there will be change.You wouldn’t know it from watching TV last night or reading the national papers this morning but Bernie Sanders’ Michigan win ranks among the greatest upsets in presidential primary history. Should he win the nomination it will be go down as the biggest upset of any kind in American political history. If he wins the election it will change the fundamental direction of the nation and the world. Some key lessons, obvious to everyone but the media: 1. The old politics is over. The fault lines of the new politics are not cultural issues like guns, abortion and same-sex marriage that divide the Democratic and Republican bases. They are issues of political reform and economic justice that divide both party’s elites from both parties’ bases, and the American people from their government. On these issues we find the elites of both parties shockingly alike. Among them: global trade; financial deregulation and prosecution of financial crimes; the social safety net including Social Security, Medicare, a living wage and health care for all; above all, the “soft corruption” of pay to play politics. There’s a name for the bipartisan consensus of party elites: neoliberalism. It is an inconvenient name for many reasons but mostly because it seems odd that the worldview of the Republican elite would be an ideology with the root word ‘liberal’ in its name but it is true, nonetheless. and may even shed a little light on the open, bitter breach between GOP elites and the party base. Democrats stayed loyal longer to their elites for two reasons. One is their love of two very talented politicians, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, whose charm and verbal dexterity masked deep differences with the base. The other is their fear of Republicans. I often talk to Democrats who don’t know Obama chose not to raise the minimum wage as president even though he had the votes for it; that he was willing to cut Medicare and Social Security and chose not to prosecute Wall Street crimes or pursue ethics reforms in government. They don’t know he dropped the public option or the aid he promised homeowners victimized by mortgage lenders. They don’t know and don’t want to know. Their affection for Bill and Barack -- and their fear of Republicans -- run too deep. 2. Hillary Clinton has neither their deft personal touch nor protean verbal skills. When she tries to distract the base or paper over its differences with elites, voters see through her, even if, in their hearts, they don’t want to. In Michigan she tried to smear Sanders as a foe of the auto bailout. Before that she sent Chelsea and Bill out to say Bernie would kill Medicare. Each time she ended up only hurting herself. She has tried to co-opt Sanders’ positions on global trade, climate change, military adventurism, a living wage and universal health care. It’s always too little, too late. Voters sense she’s just moving pawns on a chess board in part because she can never explain her change of heart and often doesn’t even try. She switched horses on global trade in a blog post, on the Keystone pipeline at a grammar school event. In a recent debate she left fracking to the GOP governors who covered themselves in glory on Obamacare, as if it were a states’ rights issue. With her Super PAC (and hers and Bill’s breathtaking haul of $153 million in mostly corporate speaking fees), she is the living avatar of pay to play politics. She shouldn’t be the Democratic nominee for president because she doesn’t even know it’s wrong. She remains woefully out of touch with the public mood in other ways. This week she began telling voters she and Bernie were pals and that it was time to wrap up their little primary so she could focus on the Republicans. As anyone outside her tone deaf campaign could have told her, she came off as entitled, presumptuous and condescending. The voters aren’t done deciding yet. When they are, they’ll let the candidates know. When party and press elites parroted her line, it had the same effect on Democrats as Mitt’s anti-Trump speech had on Republicans. 3. The performance of the press has been abysmal. Watching CNN and MSNBC last night was painful, as was reading the Washington Post or the New York Times this morning. The TV coverage was of a piece with all other 2016 election coverage. Last night FOX, CNN and MSNBC kept cameras glued on Trump for 40 minutes as he delivered a bizarre, rambling rant in which he talked about himself, his opponents and some steaks he was either selling or giving away. As Bernie made history, CNN kept sending poor John King to its political trivia JumboTron to relate what various Michigan counties did in primaries or caucuses eight or 20 years ago. An MSNBC panel consisting of Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow, Gene Robinson, Lawrence O’Donnell and Chuck Todd dove right into a discussion of who Hillary might choose as her running mate; an actual progressive perhaps, given Bernie’s little showing in Michigan. They agreed it would probably be Elizabeth Warren, who sat this one out; or Sherrod Brown, the Ohio populist whose wife they all knew and liked. Really. The segment closed with everyone sharing a laugh about how mad Brown's wife would be to hear them flatter her. The hour ended with Maddow summarizing the state of play this way: “The frontrunners had a good night.” This morning the Times led the story this way: “Senator Bernie Sanders’s defeat of Hillary Clinton prolongs a race she seemed to have locked up, although she won Mississippi handily.” He sure did. Clinton has been helped in her quest by her party, by big business, and by top-down endorsements from progressive lobbies many of which broke members’ hearts to deliver them. But no one’s helped her more than the media. I know full well this hasn’t always been true for the Clintons and I also know not all the help is intentional. But the media helps her in several ways. One way it helps is just by sharing her ideology. This is especially true of younger journalists at establishment venues like the Times and NBC or at web sites like Vox. These are mostly very bright people who see the world as Hillary does. (I’d call it neoliberalism 2.0 but it’s just like the Beta version.) They are Democrats first for cultural issues. They identify with elites, even know a few power couples and view the current corrupt rules of the game as laws of nature. It’s one reason why not one of them saw any of this coming. But it’s not the only reason. Their employers put horse-race journalism ahead of all else, so nothing ever gets illuminated -- not Trump’s business resume or Hillary’s or Bernie’s political resumes, or their very real policy differences. When Hillary sweeps vital differences under the rug to be replaced with stale tactical arguments, the reporters are perfect patsies -- because all they know are tactics. In the end, thinking only tactically makes you a bad tactician. When revolution’s in the air polls, money and ads mean far less. Reporters who know nothing else can’t conceive how voters choosing among a democratic socialist, a pay-to-play politician and a fascist might pick door number one. They bought Hillary’s myth of inevitability, but as Lawrence of Arabia told Prince Ali in the desert, nothing is written. If Democratic voters really use their heads, they’ll see through the tactical arguments just like the voters of Michigan did -- and then walk into voting booths all over America and vote their hearts. Then there will be change.
Florida’s war on women: State passes massive anti-choice bill to shut down access to abortion and contraception
Even though a law almost exactly like it is still being reviewed in the Supreme Court, the state of Florida just passed a massive anti-choice bill that, under the guise of supporting women's health, is aimed at cutting off as many women as possible from abortion, contraception, and STI prevention and treatment services. Most of the bill is modeled after the one in Texas, the one the court is currently reviewing, which uses medically unnecessary red tape to regulate abortion clinics out of existence. Supporters of the Texas abortion ban "flash their big anime doe eyes up toward the bench and say they are merely concerned about maternal health," Dahlia Lithwick writes in Slate, but that's just a "winking, pretextual shell game" to shut down access to abortion care. The same stupid, nakedly dishonest (wasn't Jesus against lying?) game is going on in Florida. "Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, said her bill is not intended to outlaw abortion — which she admitted she would like to do, if the courts would allow it — but to end a 'double standard' in clinic regulation," Bill Cotterell of the Tallahassee Democrat writes. "She said doctors doing colonoscopy or liposuction have to meet higher standards than those performing abortions." This is unvarnished horseshit. Liposuction — which, unlike abortion, requires cutting — is 30 times more dangerous than abortion, but it's still classified as a Level I outpatient procedure in Florida, which means that it is not subject to regulations like requiring hospital admitting privileges. In fact, and this cannot be emphasized enough, many abortions don't even occur in the clinic. You take some pills and go home and, to be blunt, the pregnancy comes out in the toilet. This bill would require doctors to have a full surgical suite to hand out pills. That's the level of bad faith that's going on here. The anti-woman, anti-sex motives behind this bill are poorly hidden, because, on top of the medically unnecessary regulations, there are also huge cuts to spending on contraception and STI services. Anti-choice legislators are using "abortion" as a pretense, only cutting funding to organizations, like Planned Parenthood, that offer abortion, as well. Similar cuts in Texas led to a massive spike in unplanned pregnancies, which, despite all their doe-eyed claims of innocence otherwise, is exactly the result anti-choicers likely seeks. After all, none of the money being cut went to abortion services. At a certain point, you have to accept that people are taking away birth control because they have a problem with birth control. The war on women's health care has been sleazy everywhere it's being waged, but especially so in Florida. Over the summer, the state, using the pretext of those hoax videos making false accusations about Planned Parenthood, launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood. When investigators in the state found no evidence for accusations that Planned Parenthood was mishandling fetal remains, Gov. Rick Scott's office literally rewrote the press release to conceal the findings clearing the organization. The sleaze is clearly not stopping there. This bill proves yet again that conservatives will tell any lie and stomp all over basic ethical standards in their eagerness to punish women for having sex. Unfortunately, as Gov. Scott is the sleaziest of them all, there's almost no chance he won't sign this into law. Even though a law almost exactly like it is still being reviewed in the Supreme Court, the state of Florida just passed a massive anti-choice bill that, under the guise of supporting women's health, is aimed at cutting off as many women as possible from abortion, contraception, and STI prevention and treatment services. Most of the bill is modeled after the one in Texas, the one the court is currently reviewing, which uses medically unnecessary red tape to regulate abortion clinics out of existence. Supporters of the Texas abortion ban "flash their big anime doe eyes up toward the bench and say they are merely concerned about maternal health," Dahlia Lithwick writes in Slate, but that's just a "winking, pretextual shell game" to shut down access to abortion care. The same stupid, nakedly dishonest (wasn't Jesus against lying?) game is going on in Florida. "Sen. Kelli Stargel, R-Lakeland, said her bill is not intended to outlaw abortion — which she admitted she would like to do, if the courts would allow it — but to end a 'double standard' in clinic regulation," Bill Cotterell of the Tallahassee Democrat writes. "She said doctors doing colonoscopy or liposuction have to meet higher standards than those performing abortions." This is unvarnished horseshit. Liposuction — which, unlike abortion, requires cutting — is 30 times more dangerous than abortion, but it's still classified as a Level I outpatient procedure in Florida, which means that it is not subject to regulations like requiring hospital admitting privileges. In fact, and this cannot be emphasized enough, many abortions don't even occur in the clinic. You take some pills and go home and, to be blunt, the pregnancy comes out in the toilet. This bill would require doctors to have a full surgical suite to hand out pills. That's the level of bad faith that's going on here. The anti-woman, anti-sex motives behind this bill are poorly hidden, because, on top of the medically unnecessary regulations, there are also huge cuts to spending on contraception and STI services. Anti-choice legislators are using "abortion" as a pretense, only cutting funding to organizations, like Planned Parenthood, that offer abortion, as well. Similar cuts in Texas led to a massive spike in unplanned pregnancies, which, despite all their doe-eyed claims of innocence otherwise, is exactly the result anti-choicers likely seeks. After all, none of the money being cut went to abortion services. At a certain point, you have to accept that people are taking away birth control because they have a problem with birth control. The war on women's health care has been sleazy everywhere it's being waged, but especially so in Florida. Over the summer, the state, using the pretext of those hoax videos making false accusations about Planned Parenthood, launched an investigation of Planned Parenthood. When investigators in the state found no evidence for accusations that Planned Parenthood was mishandling fetal remains, Gov. Rick Scott's office literally rewrote the press release to conceal the findings clearing the organization. The sleaze is clearly not stopping there. This bill proves yet again that conservatives will tell any lie and stomp all over basic ethical standards in their eagerness to punish women for having sex. Unfortunately, as Gov. Scott is the sleaziest of them all, there's almost no chance he won't sign this into law.
Steak-gate! Donald Trump called out for pretending Bush Brothers sirloins are his failed Trump Steaks
Whether you like Donald Trump or not, you have to appreciate that he doesn't operate within the boundaries of established political discourse, but rather tests the limits of what he can get away with (so far, everything) and still continue to dominate GOP primaries. It's perversely hilarious. Take Tuesday night's victory presser in Pensacola, Florida. Every other candidate would have done it differently, and for good reason. Trump thrashed "little Marco" Rubio, "lyin' Ted" Cruz, and "failed candidate" Mitt Romney with the same inflammatory remarks that led to Rubio's fall from establishmentarian grace. He dodged reporters' questions with the same "make America great/whole again" empty rhetoric that makes Hillary Clinton seem insincere to voters. Short of shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, Trump gave another shot at political mortality by forging the resurrection of Trump Steaks as if it hadn't ceased to exist almost a decade ago. The display was sad enough — due to its petty likeness to an infomercial — before it was reported that the steaks weren't even Trump Steaks. Press on hand started tweeting pictures last night of the wrapped steaks, labelled Bush Brothers, the West Palm Beach butcher that supplies all of Trump's South Florida properties, a rep for the company told TMZ. https://twitter.com/GPollowitz/status... It should have been a wakeup call to the millions of Trump voters who aren't in on the joke and think he's a viable presidential candidate. But something tells me that, unlike his steaks, Trump is here to stay.Whether you like Donald Trump or not, you have to appreciate that he doesn't operate within the boundaries of established political discourse, but rather tests the limits of what he can get away with (so far, everything) and still continue to dominate GOP primaries. It's perversely hilarious. Take Tuesday night's victory presser in Pensacola, Florida. Every other candidate would have done it differently, and for good reason. Trump thrashed "little Marco" Rubio, "lyin' Ted" Cruz, and "failed candidate" Mitt Romney with the same inflammatory remarks that led to Rubio's fall from establishmentarian grace. He dodged reporters' questions with the same "make America great/whole again" empty rhetoric that makes Hillary Clinton seem insincere to voters. Short of shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, Trump gave another shot at political mortality by forging the resurrection of Trump Steaks as if it hadn't ceased to exist almost a decade ago. The display was sad enough — due to its petty likeness to an infomercial — before it was reported that the steaks weren't even Trump Steaks. Press on hand started tweeting pictures last night of the wrapped steaks, labelled Bush Brothers, the West Palm Beach butcher that supplies all of Trump's South Florida properties, a rep for the company told TMZ. https://twitter.com/GPollowitz/status... It should have been a wakeup call to the millions of Trump voters who aren't in on the joke and think he's a viable presidential candidate. But something tells me that, unlike his steaks, Trump is here to stay.Whether you like Donald Trump or not, you have to appreciate that he doesn't operate within the boundaries of established political discourse, but rather tests the limits of what he can get away with (so far, everything) and still continue to dominate GOP primaries. It's perversely hilarious. Take Tuesday night's victory presser in Pensacola, Florida. Every other candidate would have done it differently, and for good reason. Trump thrashed "little Marco" Rubio, "lyin' Ted" Cruz, and "failed candidate" Mitt Romney with the same inflammatory remarks that led to Rubio's fall from establishmentarian grace. He dodged reporters' questions with the same "make America great/whole again" empty rhetoric that makes Hillary Clinton seem insincere to voters. Short of shooting someone on Fifth Avenue, Trump gave another shot at political mortality by forging the resurrection of Trump Steaks as if it hadn't ceased to exist almost a decade ago. The display was sad enough — due to its petty likeness to an infomercial — before it was reported that the steaks weren't even Trump Steaks. Press on hand started tweeting pictures last night of the wrapped steaks, labelled Bush Brothers, the West Palm Beach butcher that supplies all of Trump's South Florida properties, a rep for the company told TMZ. https://twitter.com/GPollowitz/status... It should have been a wakeup call to the millions of Trump voters who aren't in on the joke and think he's a viable presidential candidate. But something tells me that, unlike his steaks, Trump is here to stay.
Donald Trump may be an actual fascist. Ted Cruz is still more dangerous
As the 2016 primary season continues, the notion that Ted Cruz might be the Republican Partyâs last best chance to save itself from Donald Trumpâs takeover is a spectacle all by itself. Cruz, the most mistrusted and reviled Republican senator, a serial liar who led the 2013 government shutdown and called Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a fraud on the Senate floor, is now the partyâs great savior? It may be that Republicans would prefer the right-wing devil they know rather than the one they do not. Their fears of Trump resemble wide swings of a pendulum. On some issues itâs his ugly, bigoted and juvenile rhetoric and strongman posturing that repulses. On the other extreme lurks a sneaking suspicion among GOP luminaries that he might be too liberal and malleable, not just unpredictable, for conservatives to stomach. Trump is the more offensive presidential candidate, but Cruz is far more dangerous. As Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post columnist, wrote in December, âIf Ted Cruz is the Republican Partyâs cure for Donald Trump, the antidote may be worse than the poison.â That verdict is not unique. Cruz is not just a serial exaggerator and liar. Heâs a conniving, uncompromising, power-hungry demagogue whose antics and beliefs would be right at home in the crusades of Sen. Joseph McCarthyâs 1950s America, many campaign fact-checking websites, longtime politicos and pundits have warily noted. Thatâs why former president Jimmy Carter recently told the British House of Lords, âI think I would choose Trump⦠which may surprise some of you, but the reason is Trump has proven already that heâs completely malleable. I donât think he has any fixed opinions that he would really go to the White House and fight for.â Indeed, thereâs much more to this than merely pointing out that Cruz is more extremist than Trump. Trump may pledge to order U.S. troops to torture any suspected enemy and break international laws of war, but Cruz implied heâd use nuclear arms to make the Middle Eastâs desert sands âglow in the dark.â Trump said he would defund Planned Parenthood as long as it provides abortions, though he notes it provides other valuable womenâs health care. Cruz not only wants to defund and shut down Planned Parenthood, he wants to prosecute the organization. Thatâs what he said last summer after doctored videos appeared making allegations that Planned Parenthood was selling aborted baby parts. A Texas Court found this claim such a lie it indicted the videomakers on criminal charges. The reasons Cruz is a bigger liar than Trump start with a basic fact noted by Robert Reich in January: âHeâs more fanatical.â âTrump is a bully and bigot but doesnât hew to any sharp ideological line,â Reich wrote. âCruz is a fierce ideologue: He denies the existence of man-made climate change, rejects same-sex marriage, wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, believes the Second Amendment guarantees everyone a right to guns, doesnât believe in a constitutional divide between church and state, favors the death penalty, opposes international agreements, embraces a confrontational foreign policy, rejects immigration reform, demands the repeal of 'every blessed word of Obamacare,' and takes a strict 'originalist' view of the meaning of the Constitution.â Cruz not only believes that and more, he eagerly embraces whatever rhetorical or political tactic he can to try to impose an ultra-right-wing social agenda and equally right-wing pro-corporate agenda on others. Trump says whatever seems to pop into his mind at the moment. Cruz, in contrast, has been a skilled debater since college and intuitively twists and exaggerates facts or spouts inflammatory lies, all in the service of promoting himself and his beliefs. There are almost too many examples to categorize and count. After a mass shooting and killings at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic in November, by a man who reportedly told police he was motivated by the faked video, Cruztold reporters before the Iowa caucuses the murderer was a âtransgendered leftist activist.â In this same category of toxically mistaken beliefs, Cruz told the Conservative Political Action Conference that Democrats threatened the Catholic Church to âchange your religious beliefs or weâll use our power in the federal government to shut down your charities and your hospitals.â Politifactcalled this remark âboth incorrect and ridiculous.â As the Nation noted, âCruz said ISIS is âright now crucifying Christians in Iraq, literally nailing Christians to trees.â It wasnât, and Cruz wasnât able to offer any evidence. Cruz described a "strong bipartisan majority" in the House that voted to repeal Obamacare; two Democrats had joined the Republicans. He bluntly claimed that âthe jurisdictions with the strictest gun control laws, almost without exception⦠have the highest crime rates and the highest murder rates.â This isnot true. These examples were from the early days of his presidential bid. Since then, as Politifact.com has documented, itâs only gotten worse. Politifact shows heâs a serial distorter of anything inflamatory, such as Trumpâs political contributions to Hillary Clintonâs past campaigns; Arizonaâs social welfare cuts as a purported result of tougher immigration enforcement; Trump on supposedly supporting socialized health care; Cruz saying itâs a tradition that Supreme Court nominees donât get confirmed in presidential years; exaggerating how much incomes rose under Ronald Reagan; or saying Obamaâs 2013 immigration bill would ease up on background checks. His outright lies have grown, too. According to Politifact, he lied about Ben Carson leaving the race just days before the Iowa caucus; that Obamacare is the biggest job-killer in the U.S.; that gun control proponents want to confiscate all guns; that Obama hasnât bombed ISILâs oil fields because heâs worried about global warming; that most violent criminals are Democrats; that under Obama the median wage for women fell; that Obamaâs Iranian nuclear deal lets Iranians self-inspect, and more. Whatâs notable is not how much Cruz lies, but how easily lying comes to him. As one Huffington Post columnist noted last September, âCan any other politician lie with the gall, the unflappability, and the effortlessness of Senator Ted Cruz?â The biggest example from before the current campaign season were his calculated tirades that led to the federal government shutdown in late September 2013, primarily over the opposition to funding Obamacare, which he has called âthe epic battle of our generation.â Readers may recall his 21-hour filibuster, in which he read Dr. Seussâ Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor and encouraged the House Tea Partiers to join him. But there was even more intentionally deceitful demogoguery from Cruz, who after the shutdown went to the Vietnam War Memorial and falsely blamedObama for not allowing veterans and their family members to honor that warâs deadâeven though it was Cruz's antics that were responsible for closing federal parks. If you watch Cruz flat-out lie in his remarks on the Washington mall, where he speaks with twisted candor and no shame and stands next to Sarah Palin and Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, what you see is a politician who is as disturbing as he is dangerous. In other words, a demagogue. Retired General Wesley Clark, who has run for president as a hawkish Democrat, told Fox News late last year that thatâs exactly what Cruz is. âHeâs a Princeton graduate, and a Harvard guy and a 150 IQ so something, heâs supposed to be a brilliant guy, he doesnât know the first thing about military operations, or more disturbing is heâll simply says whatever draws an applause, and thatâs the definition of a demagogue,â Clark said. Ruth Marcus, another Washington Post columnist, has also written that Cruz is âmore dangerousâ than Trump and gave further examples of his demagoguery, comparing his behavior in the Senate to one of the 20th centuryâs most notorious senators, Republican Joseph McCarthy, whose anti-communist crusade destroyed hundreds of lives. âWhere Trump needs the ego balm of adoring masses, Cruz couldnât care lesswhat others think of him, except to the extent it might interfere with his ability to achieve his end,â Marcus wrote. âJust ask the Senate colleagues who join in remarkable, scarcely contained bipartisan loathing of the man.â She continued, âHe revealed his true character even earlier in his Senate tenure when he went after former senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), President Obamaâs nominee for defense secretary. In a manner that evoked the worst of Joseph McCarthy, Cruz smeared Hagel with unsupported insinuations that the nominee received money from foreign governments or extremist groups. There seems to be no argument too low for him to makeâfor example, his recent,four-Pinocchio claim that 'the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats.'" Now He's the Partyâs Savior? The Republican Partyâs establishment-led Stop Trump wing is now spending millions on TV ads in a desparate 11th-hour effort to block Trump from winning the next big states to vote for a GOP nominee: Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina. But putting Cruz at the top of their ticket is as dicey as Trumpâand more dangerous. Trump, for all his ugly bluster, says he knows how to negotiate. That means compromise. Thatâs not the case with Cruz, whose views are far from the U.S. mainstream, believes Obama is the most radical president ever, and even though he was a clerk for a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, has railed against its rulings upholding Obamacare and same-sex marriage as âthe very definition of tryanny.â âTrump, at least, cloaks his unthinkable policies beneath a certain populist appeal,â wrote the Post's Eugene Robinson. âCruzâs self-assured extremism tells whole classes of votersâindependents, minorities, womenâto look elsewhere. He would be like Barry Goldwater without the avuncular charm.â What will unfold in coming days will determine the future of the Republican Party. Either way, Trump or Cruz, does not bode well. Trump may epitomize the worst impulses the GOP has been stalking for yearsânativist, racist, vindictive and angry white men who will take others down to build themselves up. But Cruz is a darker character whose uncompromising warmongering, intolerances, vain pieties, chronic lying and eager embrace of scorched-earth tactics is a more toxic and ruinous brew for America. As the Republican Partyâs longstanding power brokers cheer for Trumpâs demise and Cruzâs improbable ascent continues, the rest of America should remember that of the two, itâs Cruz, not Trump, who would be more dangerous in the Oval Office.
As the 2016 primary season continues, the notion that Ted Cruz might be the Republican Partyâs last best chance to save itself from Donald Trumpâs takeover is a spectacle all by itself. Cruz, the most mistrusted and reviled Republican senator, a serial liar who led the 2013 government shutdown and called Majority Leader Mitch McConnell a fraud on the Senate floor, is now the partyâs great savior? It may be that Republicans would prefer the right-wing devil they know rather than the one they do not. Their fears of Trump resemble wide swings of a pendulum. On some issues itâs his ugly, bigoted and juvenile rhetoric and strongman posturing that repulses. On the other extreme lurks a sneaking suspicion among GOP luminaries that he might be too liberal and malleable, not just unpredictable, for conservatives to stomach. Trump is the more offensive presidential candidate, but Cruz is far more dangerous. As Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post columnist, wrote in December, âIf Ted Cruz is the Republican Partyâs cure for Donald Trump, the antidote may be worse than the poison.â That verdict is not unique. Cruz is not just a serial exaggerator and liar. Heâs a conniving, uncompromising, power-hungry demagogue whose antics and beliefs would be right at home in the crusades of Sen. Joseph McCarthyâs 1950s America, many campaign fact-checking websites, longtime politicos and pundits have warily noted. Thatâs why former president Jimmy Carter recently told the British House of Lords, âI think I would choose Trump⦠which may surprise some of you, but the reason is Trump has proven already that heâs completely malleable. I donât think he has any fixed opinions that he would really go to the White House and fight for.â Indeed, thereâs much more to this than merely pointing out that Cruz is more extremist than Trump. Trump may pledge to order U.S. troops to torture any suspected enemy and break international laws of war, but Cruz implied heâd use nuclear arms to make the Middle Eastâs desert sands âglow in the dark.â Trump said he would defund Planned Parenthood as long as it provides abortions, though he notes it provides other valuable womenâs health care. Cruz not only wants to defund and shut down Planned Parenthood, he wants to prosecute the organization. Thatâs what he said last summer after doctored videos appeared making allegations that Planned Parenthood was selling aborted baby parts. A Texas Court found this claim such a lie it indicted the videomakers on criminal charges. The reasons Cruz is a bigger liar than Trump start with a basic fact noted by Robert Reich in January: âHeâs more fanatical.â âTrump is a bully and bigot but doesnât hew to any sharp ideological line,â Reich wrote. âCruz is a fierce ideologue: He denies the existence of man-made climate change, rejects same-sex marriage, wants to abolish the Internal Revenue Service, believes the Second Amendment guarantees everyone a right to guns, doesnât believe in a constitutional divide between church and state, favors the death penalty, opposes international agreements, embraces a confrontational foreign policy, rejects immigration reform, demands the repeal of 'every blessed word of Obamacare,' and takes a strict 'originalist' view of the meaning of the Constitution.â Cruz not only believes that and more, he eagerly embraces whatever rhetorical or political tactic he can to try to impose an ultra-right-wing social agenda and equally right-wing pro-corporate agenda on others. Trump says whatever seems to pop into his mind at the moment. Cruz, in contrast, has been a skilled debater since college and intuitively twists and exaggerates facts or spouts inflammatory lies, all in the service of promoting himself and his beliefs. There are almost too many examples to categorize and count. After a mass shooting and killings at a Colorado Planned Parenthood clinic in November, by a man who reportedly told police he was motivated by the faked video, Cruztold reporters before the Iowa caucuses the murderer was a âtransgendered leftist activist.â In this same category of toxically mistaken beliefs, Cruz told the Conservative Political Action Conference that Democrats threatened the Catholic Church to âchange your religious beliefs or weâll use our power in the federal government to shut down your charities and your hospitals.â Politifactcalled this remark âboth incorrect and ridiculous.â As the Nation noted, âCruz said ISIS is âright now crucifying Christians in Iraq, literally nailing Christians to trees.â It wasnât, and Cruz wasnât able to offer any evidence. Cruz described a "strong bipartisan majority" in the House that voted to repeal Obamacare; two Democrats had joined the Republicans. He bluntly claimed that âthe jurisdictions with the strictest gun control laws, almost without exception⦠have the highest crime rates and the highest murder rates.â This isnot true. These examples were from the early days of his presidential bid. Since then, as Politifact.com has documented, itâs only gotten worse. Politifact shows heâs a serial distorter of anything inflamatory, such as Trumpâs political contributions to Hillary Clintonâs past campaigns; Arizonaâs social welfare cuts as a purported result of tougher immigration enforcement; Trump on supposedly supporting socialized health care; Cruz saying itâs a tradition that Supreme Court nominees donât get confirmed in presidential years; exaggerating how much incomes rose under Ronald Reagan; or saying Obamaâs 2013 immigration bill would ease up on background checks. His outright lies have grown, too. According to Politifact, he lied about Ben Carson leaving the race just days before the Iowa caucus; that Obamacare is the biggest job-killer in the U.S.; that gun control proponents want to confiscate all guns; that Obama hasnât bombed ISILâs oil fields because heâs worried about global warming; that most violent criminals are Democrats; that under Obama the median wage for women fell; that Obamaâs Iranian nuclear deal lets Iranians self-inspect, and more. Whatâs notable is not how much Cruz lies, but how easily lying comes to him. As one Huffington Post columnist noted last September, âCan any other politician lie with the gall, the unflappability, and the effortlessness of Senator Ted Cruz?â The biggest example from before the current campaign season were his calculated tirades that led to the federal government shutdown in late September 2013, primarily over the opposition to funding Obamacare, which he has called âthe epic battle of our generation.â Readers may recall his 21-hour filibuster, in which he read Dr. Seussâ Green Eggs and Ham on the Senate floor and encouraged the House Tea Partiers to join him. But there was even more intentionally deceitful demogoguery from Cruz, who after the shutdown went to the Vietnam War Memorial and falsely blamedObama for not allowing veterans and their family members to honor that warâs deadâeven though it was Cruz's antics that were responsible for closing federal parks. If you watch Cruz flat-out lie in his remarks on the Washington mall, where he speaks with twisted candor and no shame and stands next to Sarah Palin and Sen. Mike Lee, R-UT, what you see is a politician who is as disturbing as he is dangerous. In other words, a demagogue. Retired General Wesley Clark, who has run for president as a hawkish Democrat, told Fox News late last year that thatâs exactly what Cruz is. âHeâs a Princeton graduate, and a Harvard guy and a 150 IQ so something, heâs supposed to be a brilliant guy, he doesnât know the first thing about military operations, or more disturbing is heâll simply says whatever draws an applause, and thatâs the definition of a demagogue,â Clark said. Ruth Marcus, another Washington Post columnist, has also written that Cruz is âmore dangerousâ than Trump and gave further examples of his demagoguery, comparing his behavior in the Senate to one of the 20th centuryâs most notorious senators, Republican Joseph McCarthy, whose anti-communist crusade destroyed hundreds of lives. âWhere Trump needs the ego balm of adoring masses, Cruz couldnât care lesswhat others think of him, except to the extent it might interfere with his ability to achieve his end,â Marcus wrote. âJust ask the Senate colleagues who join in remarkable, scarcely contained bipartisan loathing of the man.â She continued, âHe revealed his true character even earlier in his Senate tenure when he went after former senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), President Obamaâs nominee for defense secretary. In a manner that evoked the worst of Joseph McCarthy, Cruz smeared Hagel with unsupported insinuations that the nominee received money from foreign governments or extremist groups. There seems to be no argument too low for him to makeâfor example, his recent,four-Pinocchio claim that 'the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats.'" Now He's the Partyâs Savior? The Republican Partyâs establishment-led Stop Trump wing is now spending millions on TV ads in a desparate 11th-hour effort to block Trump from winning the next big states to vote for a GOP nominee: Michigan, Florida, Ohio, Illinois and North Carolina. But putting Cruz at the top of their ticket is as dicey as Trumpâand more dangerous. Trump, for all his ugly bluster, says he knows how to negotiate. That means compromise. Thatâs not the case with Cruz, whose views are far from the U.S. mainstream, believes Obama is the most radical president ever, and even though he was a clerk for a former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, has railed against its rulings upholding Obamacare and same-sex marriage as âthe very definition of tryanny.â âTrump, at least, cloaks his unthinkable policies beneath a certain populist appeal,â wrote the Post's Eugene Robinson. âCruzâs self-assured extremism tells whole classes of votersâindependents, minorities, womenâto look elsewhere. He would be like Barry Goldwater without the avuncular charm.â What will unfold in coming days will determine the future of the Republican Party. Either way, Trump or Cruz, does not bode well. Trump may epitomize the worst impulses the GOP has been stalking for yearsânativist, racist, vindictive and angry white men who will take others down to build themselves up. But Cruz is a darker character whose uncompromising warmongering, intolerances, vain pieties, chronic lying and eager embrace of scorched-earth tactics is a more toxic and ruinous brew for America. As the Republican Partyâs longstanding power brokers cheer for Trumpâs demise and Cruzâs improbable ascent continues, the rest of America should remember that of the two, itâs Cruz, not Trump, who would be more dangerous in the Oval Office.
Theyâre giving him free advertising: Les Moonves, Jeff Zucker and the mediaâs dangerous obsession with Donald Trump
Right after the Feb. 25 Republican debate, front-runner Donald Trump was interviewed at length on the debate stage by CNN's Chris Cuomo. The move seemed a bit odd, since during the debate Trump dominated the speaking time compared to the other candidates. And now he was given even more time, immediately after the showdown, to address the CNN audience. (Sen. Ted Cruz was later interviewed, but Trump's immediate interview seemed like an attachment to the actual debate.) But it didn't end there. Less than an hour later, Trump reappeared for another lengthy CNN one-on-one interview, this time with Anderson Cooper. Some viewers started to wonder if this was a debate broadcast or a paid commercial for the Republican. "Its [sic] official. CNN is your 24-hour Trump channel," tweetedWashington Post writer Joe Heim. That Trump receives an unprecedented amount of media attention, and especially free television time, has been well documented in recent months. (Even Fox News is marveling at the "clear imbalance.") But to date, the press hasn't been especially honest about the wild disparity. Still clinging to the traditional campaign model that suggests candidates receive the amount of coverage that mirrors their importance and their standing in the race, the press insists the never-ending gusher of Trump media attention simply reflects his political significance. Or, that Trump just really likes to give interviews. Here's how CNN president Jeff Zucker explained the channel's tidal wave of Trump attention:
"You can say what you want, but Donald Trump has been willing to subject himself to interviews," Mr. Zucker said. "And just because he's willing to do it and others weren't necessarily willing to do it, doesn't mean that he should be penalized because the others won't do it. And we shouldn't be penalized for not doing it because the others won't do it."Trump is drowning in CNN attention because he says yes to interview requests? That doesn't add up. It doesn't explain, for instance, why CNN and the other cable news channels often cover Trump rallies live and interrupted. There's nothing especially newsworthy about most of the rah-rah events. So why block off hour after hour and allow the GOP frontrunner to speak uninterrupted while being showered in adulation from his fans? Where's the "news" in that? "I find the coverage of Trump, the over-coverage, the fawning coverage of Trump on TV, allowing him to call in, to be one of the most shocking things of the last 30 or 40 years," Walter Shapiro recently told Media Matters. A campaign veteran, Shapiro covered White House runs over several decades for outlets like The Washington Post and Newsweek. We seem to have entered unchartered territory where campaign coverage, at least Trump's campaign coverage, is based on what's popular (or what makes money for news outlets), and not based on what's newsworthy. Casting aside decades of precedent, campaign journalism seems to have almost consciously shifted to a for-profit model. "The news channels have always seen their revenue driven by major news events, many of which are unplanned, but elections are an exception because they are predictable," Derek Baine, a research director at SNL Kagan market analysis company, recently explained to U.S. News. Writing at The Observer, Ryan Holiday suggested a new paradigm is in play this campaign season:
Politicians have always sought to manipulate the public. What's changed is that media is now not only a willing co-conspirator, they are often the driving force behind the manipulation. No longer seeing itself as responsible for reporting the truth, for getting the facts to the people, it has instead incentivized a scrum, a wild fight for attention in which anything that attracts an audience is fair game. And as long as theirs is the ring where the fight goes down, they'll happily sell tickets to as many as will come.Is Trump's backstory of being a political novice, a bigot, and former reality TV star unusual for a presidential campaign? Yes it is. Is Hillary Clinton's backstory of trying to become the first female president in American history unusual? Yes it is. So why does Trump land double and even triple the TV airtime that the historic Democratic front-runner gets? The press celebrates Trump as a political phenomenon even though Clinton has quietly accumulated a larger share of votes than him this primary season. Last year, Trump received 327 minutes of network evening news coverage, compared to Clinton's 121 minutes, according to television news analyst Andrew Tyndall. Bloomberg News calculated that Trump's network TV tally was worth approximately $23 million in free television time. And that was just counting the evening newscasts. In February, Trump tallied 69 minutes of evening network news time, compared to Clinton's 31, according to numbers Tyndall provided to Media Matters. More data: In the last 60 days, Clinton has been mentioned approximately 45,000 on cable news,according to the GDELT Project using data from the Internet Archive's Television News Archive. Trump? 95,000 mentions. Today's revolutionary campaign coverage has been sparked by the fact that Trump can create big bucks for news outlets via clicks and ratings. For instance, primary season debates in the past were never considered big moneymakers. They drew modest television audiences and were carried by news divisions as a way to forge their brand and build goodwill. But when the first Republican primary debate of the season last year drew an astounding 24 million viewers, everything changed. CNN's "five highest-rated moments since January 2015 are all from presidential debates," The New York Times reported. That kind of windfall has created the unsettling suspicion that Trump is awarded unending, and not-very-pointed, coverage in order to generate a news profit. It's created the lingering distrust that the campaign press no longer works as a check on abuses and excesses, but has become part of the formula that celebrates abuse and excess. "Donald Trump may be good for ratings, but in its determination to court him, TV news has sacrificed its duty to interrogate the Republican candidate and his policies," wrote Lloyd Grove at the Daily Beast. "Wall-to-wall coverage doesn't necessarily mean sharp critical scrutiny." And that's this campaign season's big question: Are journalists going easy on Trump because he represents the goose now laying the golden eggs? Note that the cable news town hall forums "have also become a moneymaker for CNN," according to the Times. And yes, these were some of the questions put to Trump at CNN's last town hall: "What do you eat when you roll up at a McDonald's, what does - what does Donald Trump order?" "What's your favorite kind of music?" "How many hours a night do you sleep?" "What kind of a parent are you?" "What is one thing you wish you didn't do?" Watching a different, albeit equally soft, Trump town hall on MSNBC, Slate's Isaac Chotiner bemoaned how "It remains shocking that after months of bigoted comments and almost pathological dishonesty, Trump still lands these types of interviews." Indeed, why would a candidate who spouts so many ugly, bigoted and juvenile comments often be subjected to such soft coverage? ("It's pathetic," says former CBS reporter Eric Engberg.) And is there a quid pro quo for access? Remember that CBS executive chairman, president, and CEO Les Moonves recently insisted the Trump campaign "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS," adding, "Donald's place in this election is a good thing."Right after the Feb. 25 Republican debate, front-runner Donald Trump was interviewed at length on the debate stage by CNN's Chris Cuomo. The move seemed a bit odd, since during the debate Trump dominated the speaking time compared to the other candidates. And now he was given even more time, immediately after the showdown, to address the CNN audience. (Sen. Ted Cruz was later interviewed, but Trump's immediate interview seemed like an attachment to the actual debate.) But it didn't end there. Less than an hour later, Trump reappeared for another lengthy CNN one-on-one interview, this time with Anderson Cooper. Some viewers started to wonder if this was a debate broadcast or a paid commercial for the Republican. "Its [sic] official. CNN is your 24-hour Trump channel," tweetedWashington Post writer Joe Heim. That Trump receives an unprecedented amount of media attention, and especially free television time, has been well documented in recent months. (Even Fox News is marveling at the "clear imbalance.") But to date, the press hasn't been especially honest about the wild disparity. Still clinging to the traditional campaign model that suggests candidates receive the amount of coverage that mirrors their importance and their standing in the race, the press insists the never-ending gusher of Trump media attention simply reflects his political significance. Or, that Trump just really likes to give interviews. Here's how CNN president Jeff Zucker explained the channel's tidal wave of Trump attention:
"You can say what you want, but Donald Trump has been willing to subject himself to interviews," Mr. Zucker said. "And just because he's willing to do it and others weren't necessarily willing to do it, doesn't mean that he should be penalized because the others won't do it. And we shouldn't be penalized for not doing it because the others won't do it."Trump is drowning in CNN attention because he says yes to interview requests? That doesn't add up. It doesn't explain, for instance, why CNN and the other cable news channels often cover Trump rallies live and interrupted. There's nothing especially newsworthy about most of the rah-rah events. So why block off hour after hour and allow the GOP frontrunner to speak uninterrupted while being showered in adulation from his fans? Where's the "news" in that? "I find the coverage of Trump, the over-coverage, the fawning coverage of Trump on TV, allowing him to call in, to be one of the most shocking things of the last 30 or 40 years," Walter Shapiro recently told Media Matters. A campaign veteran, Shapiro covered White House runs over several decades for outlets like The Washington Post and Newsweek. We seem to have entered unchartered territory where campaign coverage, at least Trump's campaign coverage, is based on what's popular (or what makes money for news outlets), and not based on what's newsworthy. Casting aside decades of precedent, campaign journalism seems to have almost consciously shifted to a for-profit model. "The news channels have always seen their revenue driven by major news events, many of which are unplanned, but elections are an exception because they are predictable," Derek Baine, a research director at SNL Kagan market analysis company, recently explained to U.S. News. Writing at The Observer, Ryan Holiday suggested a new paradigm is in play this campaign season:
Politicians have always sought to manipulate the public. What's changed is that media is now not only a willing co-conspirator, they are often the driving force behind the manipulation. No longer seeing itself as responsible for reporting the truth, for getting the facts to the people, it has instead incentivized a scrum, a wild fight for attention in which anything that attracts an audience is fair game. And as long as theirs is the ring where the fight goes down, they'll happily sell tickets to as many as will come.Is Trump's backstory of being a political novice, a bigot, and former reality TV star unusual for a presidential campaign? Yes it is. Is Hillary Clinton's backstory of trying to become the first female president in American history unusual? Yes it is. So why does Trump land double and even triple the TV airtime that the historic Democratic front-runner gets? The press celebrates Trump as a political phenomenon even though Clinton has quietly accumulated a larger share of votes than him this primary season. Last year, Trump received 327 minutes of network evening news coverage, compared to Clinton's 121 minutes, according to television news analyst Andrew Tyndall. Bloomberg News calculated that Trump's network TV tally was worth approximately $23 million in free television time. And that was just counting the evening newscasts. In February, Trump tallied 69 minutes of evening network news time, compared to Clinton's 31, according to numbers Tyndall provided to Media Matters. More data: In the last 60 days, Clinton has been mentioned approximately 45,000 on cable news,according to the GDELT Project using data from the Internet Archive's Television News Archive. Trump? 95,000 mentions. Today's revolutionary campaign coverage has been sparked by the fact that Trump can create big bucks for news outlets via clicks and ratings. For instance, primary season debates in the past were never considered big moneymakers. They drew modest television audiences and were carried by news divisions as a way to forge their brand and build goodwill. But when the first Republican primary debate of the season last year drew an astounding 24 million viewers, everything changed. CNN's "five highest-rated moments since January 2015 are all from presidential debates," The New York Times reported. That kind of windfall has created the unsettling suspicion that Trump is awarded unending, and not-very-pointed, coverage in order to generate a news profit. It's created the lingering distrust that the campaign press no longer works as a check on abuses and excesses, but has become part of the formula that celebrates abuse and excess. "Donald Trump may be good for ratings, but in its determination to court him, TV news has sacrificed its duty to interrogate the Republican candidate and his policies," wrote Lloyd Grove at the Daily Beast. "Wall-to-wall coverage doesn't necessarily mean sharp critical scrutiny." And that's this campaign season's big question: Are journalists going easy on Trump because he represents the goose now laying the golden eggs? Note that the cable news town hall forums "have also become a moneymaker for CNN," according to the Times. And yes, these were some of the questions put to Trump at CNN's last town hall: "What do you eat when you roll up at a McDonald's, what does - what does Donald Trump order?" "What's your favorite kind of music?" "How many hours a night do you sleep?" "What kind of a parent are you?" "What is one thing you wish you didn't do?" Watching a different, albeit equally soft, Trump town hall on MSNBC, Slate's Isaac Chotiner bemoaned how "It remains shocking that after months of bigoted comments and almost pathological dishonesty, Trump still lands these types of interviews." Indeed, why would a candidate who spouts so many ugly, bigoted and juvenile comments often be subjected to such soft coverage? ("It's pathetic," says former CBS reporter Eric Engberg.) And is there a quid pro quo for access? Remember that CBS executive chairman, president, and CEO Les Moonves recently insisted the Trump campaign "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS," adding, "Donald's place in this election is a good thing."
