Brian Tyler Cohen - So You Say You Want Truth...

https://www.youtube.com/@briantylercohen

Weekly Interest



332 Landslide

332 Landslide
Showing posts with label dailyshow. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dailyshow. Show all posts

February 24, 2008

Nader means Change - For Real




Nader will run for president

Feb 24: Ralph Nader announces his third bid for the White House while speaking with NBC’s Tim Russert of “Meet the Press”.


Why Not? Hillary grew up as a Corporate attorney for WalMart of all places, WALMART! Yeah yeah, working for the poor's favorite store but look at what Walmart has done from a legal, or attorney's view point! If any corporation is going to be able to take advantage of her Walmart will be the one. Walmart has one of the worst records for a company it's size as far as it's employees are concerned, you know, The People. She is a corporate attorney.


Why Not? Barack grew up in Hawaii. So what you say? Lovely people with values. Yes, except Barack didn't spend much time with The People. He lived in a large expensive house and went to private schools. There is a huge wasteland of toxic goo under the Great Lakes causing low birth weights and excessive still births in the Chicago area...gosh I wonder why we haven't heard more about this? Personal gain trumps The People I guess.


Why Not? John tells us he is disgusted by the status quo in campaigning, lobbyists are bad he says. But only if he doesn't need a private jet ride somewhere I suppose. That makes him an ok guy, doesn't it? It was only PAX tv I guess, they are religious how can that be bad? Well, when the owner of Pax (before it was Pax quite yet, it was Paxon Communications then) was buying up all of the local stations (hey, isn't there an FCC rule about that?) he could get his hands on, he ran into a little trouble. He asked his friend John (in person, turns out despite John's denial http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022308C.shtml ) to write a letter to the FCC on his behalf. Not only did John do this for him, he did it twice, the second to the employees as opposed to the head when his initial letter to him got no response. The head of the agency wrote back to John letting him know he had crossed the line and his letter was "highly unusual". A subsequent review by the FCC General Counsel's Office determined that McCain had violated the commission's ex parte rules. But here is the kicker, the part we should all be paying attention to: Five days after McCain's second letter, the FCC voted 3 to 2 to approve the deal. The commission also imposed a condition prohibiting Cornerstone from "proselytizing." Cornerstone would not agree to those terms, and the deal collapsed.


proselytize \PROS-uh-luh-tyz\, intransitive verb:

1. To induce someone to convert to one's religious faith.2. To induce someone to join one's institution, cause, or political party.


transitive verb: 1. To convert to some religion, system, opinion, or the like.


Proselytize is formed from proselyte, "a new convert, especially a convert to some religion or religious sect, or to some particular opinion, system, or party,"

from Greek proselutos, "a proselyte, a newcomer," from pros, "toward" + elutos, from eluthon, "I came."


If the word of the day is "CHANGE" there is no better way to describe what Nader can do for us!
Oh, you didn't really mean change? You meant to just lean a little, no REAL change is needed... You are ok with the way things are going? You have accepted that hillary barack and john are really different enough? Click on the Photo caption to listen to what Nader has to say.

Looking for change? Really?

February 7, 2008

US Presidency (Minimum Investment $50k)



Did you ever wonder why more people don't run for president? I'm sure you are thinking "It's probably the money", and for the most part you would be right. But we are a rich country bred with loud voices, so there has to be more than a couple dozen, right?
Sure! But you wouldn't really know it by looking. Not even if you type "all candidates" or "presidential candidates" into a search bar. I've clicked through to dozens of sites, from 'candidate matchmakers' to video lists of debates so far and what I have found is that without 13 years of internet research behind me I would have quite a time finding candidates from any other party aside from the D's and R's.

To my ultimate disgust, even turning to the usa.gov search site nets me only "This list includes active campaigns that have raised or spent $50,000 or more, from sources other than the candidate himself or herself. " and promptly goes on to list and link to R and D candidates ONLY! It does note that over 1000 people have filed a Statement of Candidacy and/or Statement of Organization and provides a link to a listing (http://www.fec.gov/press/press.shtml) which simply leads to the general press page, where you must begin the search all over again, as there is no simple link to such a listing on the page. I never did find the list, and sent off an email to the noted address requesting help. (mailto:info@fec.gov) I did finally find what appears to be a comprehensive listing however, it is a wikipedia listing. I have never found any problems with the site, however I am aware that many others have, so even this information may be slanted/tainted/incorrect.

So apparently, there is a cost or a "Minimum Investment" required to even be recognized by the government as an actual candidate. Did I mention disgusted?

There is definitely a problem here! I went in search of some of the other candidates web sites, and mostly what I find is that elections haven't kept up with technology outside of the R&D parties. Simple websites with spelling errors and few if any recent updates, and no real online campaigns to speak of. I did come across one, ONE, exciting professional video for the Green party. It turned out to be from and for another country. Hopefully things will pick up as the election looms, and future elections will take advantage of the internet. I also hope that the rules will be changed to address the situation, that at least the usa.gov search site can contain an easily accessed list of ALL of the declared candidates.

I will list a few websites here for some of the other parties, but please send a request email to info@fec.gov for the link to a full listing of all declared candidates. This way maybe they will make the information more accessible in the future.


Green Party Candidate listing, last updated 12/17/07
Nader 2008 Presidential Exploratory Committee
Libertarian Candidates
Constitution Party though I found no candidates there.
Independents A wiki list.

EDIT: I went in search of an email address or blog for Jon Stewart or the daily show in hopes of adding my thoughts on this matter there. Sadly, I found the only candidates and parties featured were the R&D's..... C'mon Jon!

EDIT: 3/12/08 With so many joking about throwing their hats in the ring lately, I decided to renew my search for a comprehensive listing of properly declared candidates. I returned to the FEC site and began looking for the list. The cited page, as noted previously, did not have the list nor a direct link to the list. I entered 'all candidates' into the site search bar and clicked on the only relevant result, 'presidential campaign finance'. A nifty looking interactive US map graphic appears whereby hovering over a circle on the map pulls up the $ spent by that state. A very handy listing of "All Candidates" is provided on the left. It is summarized at the top into Democrat and Republican totals, and goes on to list many of the R&D candidates with their respective dollar amounts. Only R&D parties are included and no independent candidate is listed. I went back to the search results and combed over them again, no luck. It was then that I noticed, near the bottom of the page just above the footer links and legal language, 3 links of which one looked promising! "All Candidates, Current Presidential Filings" Yippee! I'd found it! I placed my cursor over the link preparing to click when I noticed it...the status bar announcing my intended destination... it was not an FEC.GOV address. It was not a .GOV address at all, it was a .COM address. By default I tell myself this must have been an 'ad by google' block, but how could that be on the fec.gov site? I looked again, no, no google logo..no logo at all. I hovered over the other 2 options I'd found lurking at the bottom of that fec.gov search result page, "Receipts of 2008 Presidential Campaign" indeed an fec.gov link. And "Presidential Campaign Finance Summaries: Current and Historical" also another fec.gov link. So, can ANYONE explain to me why the Federal Election Committee cannot or will not post a full listing of Presidential Candidates thus far for the 2008 election? Further, will anyone be able to explain why this .COM site bears the FEC seal?

http://www.fec.gov/DisclosureSearch/mapApp.do

http://query.nictusa.com/pres/2008/M2/ Incidentally, the site is titled a bit differently than the link: "Selected" Presidential Reports for the 2008 February Monthly and contains only 18 names. By poking around on this site, I was able to find a larger if not updated listing of candidates by searching for 2008 financial information: http://herndon1.sdrdc.com/cgi-bin/cancomsrs/ Again, why is this information being made available through a .COM site!

More info about the site, but please note that a search for "what is nictusa.com" pulled no real results...how very mysterious.. http://ww.quantcast.com/nictusa.com

Then by accident I found more information... it's actually NIC Inc. aka Nicusa.com aka Nictusa.com, the people behind egovernment! http://www.nicusa.com/html/ Huh?!! On the face of it I'm not happy....Stay tuned...

Edit 03/23/08 Thankfully and finally, Grist.org and Glassbooth.org have added an independent/3rd party to their listings! I hope I find more and more instances like this. Cheers guys!

The Center for Public Integrity

The 380,000-plus-word database presented here allows, for the first time, the Iraq-related public pronouncements of top Bush administration officials to be tracked on a day-by-day basis against their private assessments and the actual “ground truth” as it is now known. Throughout the database, passages containing false statements by the top Bush administration officials are highlighted in yellow. The 935 false statements in the database may also be accessed by selecting the “False Statements” option from the “Subject” pull-down menu and may be displayed within selected date ranges using the selection tool below. Searches may also be limited by person or subject, or both, by using the appropriate selections from the pull-down menus.