We're way beyond the slippery slope. We're heading to the abyss. Rob Reiner

[jodymarie aimee]

Rob Reiner

Democracy is being dismantled in front of us. The fact that no Democrats are invited to the DOJ briefing on the FBI informant screams politics, Trump's national security, and the rule of law. We’re way beyond the slippery slope. We’re heading to the abyss.

[global1]

1. Hey Rob - Call It Like It Is - We Are In The Midst Of A Constitutional Crisis....

Eugene Robinson said this yesterday and I thought the MSM would run with that and so far - crickets.

[Hortensis]

36. Yes, but there could be advantage to being right off the cliff.

Many are of course worried that these concessions made, to get time to continue the investigation, will become new precedents.

It may instead be that the more renegade and lawless this administration is, the less able anyone is going to be able to claim valid precedent status. Quite the contrary as our nation reacts to the incredible corruption and destruction and moves to the repair and never-again stage.

"Yes, but that was during the Trump administration." "Oh."

[TNNurse]

42. Does calling it a Constitutional Crisis accomplish anything???

Been seeing and hearing the phrase for months but things continue to deteriorate.

[Pepsidog]

2. More like an existential crisis

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. I think you may be responding to Post #1 by global1. Best to use "Reply to this post" link low right

[Pepsidog]

41. Yes. My mistake

[Nay]

3. What I want to know is: why aren't some of our Democratic

Congresspeople going to the meeting anyway? Insisting on entering? Now, if the meeting was secret, is already over, and they only knew about it afterwards, why haven't they insisted on another meeting including them?

It sound like the meeting hasn't been held yet -- are Dems going to show up anyway and force the issue? Can they get a court ruling over being denied entry? Or are they going to keep their powder dry as usual?

[CrispyQ]

8. They weren't invited & the dems are polite & would never crash a party.

I wonder the same thing about the Sunday morning news shows - why is it predominately republicans? If it's because the dems don't get an official invite from the network, that's bullshit. Show up at the studio & make a stink until they put you on the air. You are US Congresspersons after all! Like it or not, a big part of politics is now marketing & the dems suck at it.

[calimary]

18. THIS!!!!!

Why aren’t they out there 24/7/365 pushing the MESSAGING???

EVERY Congressional/Senate/state-level office should have people on staff to do AGGRESSIVE outreach to media.

YES have staffers specifically assigned to call the bookers of ALL the shows, radio/TV/cable/internet, ALL the shows, forcing bookings.

YES have deputies or even the reps themselves if possible - SHOWING UP at these things and forcing their way into the green rooms and onto the stages and sets.

Do they all have media bookers? Do they all understand the simple strategy of repetition? Do they have ANY concept about the power and urgency of public relations? And if they don’t, why-the-hell not???

[calimary]

30. And did I say MESSAGING?????

Look what just popped up on my phone’s newsfeed:

Most Americans Don’t Realize Robert Mueller’s Investigation Has Uncovered Crimes
https://apple.news/A_t2RmsfWTR2h3r9QQqi-qg

It’s a report about how a majority -repeat: a MAJORITY of Americans have no idea that the Mueller investigation has already produced results INCLUDING multiple indictments AND guilty pleas. No idea. Never heard of such a thing. W. T. F. ?????

We HAVE TO ask “why not?” WHY is this so?

And unfortunately, we have a partial answer. The bad guys have built media empires. Big ones. They’ve spent years - decades - building this. Since the late 80s when Reagan did away with the ownership restrictions, in the last year or so of his administration. A feeding frenzy followed almost immediately. This was at a time many referred to as the “Go-go 80s” when the regulatory reins were lifted off big business and corporate America and this freakin’ ORGY of buying and selling radio and local television properties.

Remember the original Oliver Stone movie “Wall Street” - and its madly popular buzz phrase “greed... is GOOD.” ? That film was released on December 11, 1987. We were into Reagan’s final year in office. Wall Street traders and young hotshots and high-rollers and widely-admired risk-takers and other assorted self-proclaimed “masters of the universe were envied and damn near worshipped! Unfettered Capitalism was our state-sponsored religion. And profit was god.

And there was this rampage of mergers and acquisitions as corporations sought to buy up as many media properties as possible, often at ridiculously inflated prices, they were leveraged up the ting-yang and the “owners” plunged deeply into debt, just knowing that things were just permanently gonna grow, Grow? GROW!!! And for the mom-‘n’-pop local stations whose owners saw an obscenely big profit if one of these big boys swooped in and offered more money than they’d ever imagined before, they eagerly cashed out.

[calimary]

31. And that aggressive media shopping spree changed the information calculus.

Last edited Thu May 24, 2018, 08:42 PM - Edit history (1)

This allowed these corporate giants to cobble together networks. That begat a frenzy of syndication companies that would pump out Howard Stern and Don Imus and Limbaugh and a handful of others in timeslots serving every little town in America - where listeners didn’t consider that the rude funny dude or loud in-yet-face grumper saying all those things that you felt but didn’t have the nerve to say in public (cuz it wasn’t “PC”).

For folks like me, it meant watching friends get laid off and sometimes entire departments get drastically cut back to save money. Which was because the owners’ eyes were bigger than their stomachs and they acquired WAY more than they could pay for. Big companies went bankrupt. That means MORE firings and layoffs and cutbacks as the staff had to absorb the brunt of the owners’ greedy idiocy.

When I was still working, ownership was restricted to THREE. Period. Could be three radio stations; or an AM, an FM, and a TV station, but no more. And you had to prove you were responsive to your community’s needs and issues and wants, through an active outreach procedure called “ascertainment”.

That was a management obligation to reach out to community leaders of all stripes and ask them what THEY thought were the critical issues facing the community. And you’d fill out a form with their names, credentials, and their responses. That somewhat tedious job most often fell to us news directors and public affairs directors. And we’d do those interviews and fill out those forms and submit the forms to the front office to file in huge binders that were kept open to public inspection at all times. Important to have for license renewal which came around at regular intervals. Personally, all told, I must have done hundreds of them. Then we’d “respond” to those interview comments by developing programs - public affairs interview shows mainly - to present discussion of those issues on the air. Usually offered another opportunity for another ascertainment interview and another completed ascertainment form for that big ol’ binder in the front office.

That “prove you’re worthy to hold that broadcast license” rule also went on the scrap heap at the same time.

[calimary]

35. Sorry about the length. It's complicated.

Last edited Thu May 24, 2018, 08:47 PM - Edit history (1)

And for me it’s not just the “I saw my friends get laid off” thing. That’s just the beginning of a rough time for those directly involved.

I’ve seen marriages break up and families disrupted because one of my friends got fired. Who brings home the paycheck to get you through this til you can find another gig? Your partner? Got kids? Does that partner then have to go look for a job too? What about childcare if both of you work? And if you land a new gig, where is it? Not in town? Are you gonna have to drive two-and-a-half hours? Or move? Family can come with? Family doesn’t want to or can’t come with? It’s really endless, an endless domino effect. I knew one guy working on his fourth marriage because he’d had to hop around that much for jobs. Each wife had trouble with all that disruption and instability.

It’s rough out there. I knew and still know people who left the business as the jobs got more scarce, and got into something different. I knew one or two who moved alright. Straight into a liquor bottle. And with the mess deregulation caused, so much local talent got kicked to the curb. AND, some big-name talent, like those prominent jocks in morning drive - many of them had worked their way up the salary ladder that they were often shown the door to save the company those star-quality paychecks - regardless how well-known or well-respected or popular or highly-rated they were. Bring in somebody cheaper and hope for the best. Or maybe call the syndicators and arrange to start funneling Howard Stern into the lineup - or what was left of the lineup.

Greed is NOT that good.
Greed begets gluttony.
Hmmm... two of the “Seven Deadly Sins”.

Suppressing, curbing, managing, or regulating greed is a must! For Pete’s Sake, that’s all that makes us civil! Take away regulations and you get an orgy - which always winds up with somebody getting hurt. Sometimes seriously so. Much more often than not, overdoing it doesn’t end well.

[pangaia]

43. Great work, Calimary. Thank you for taking the time.

I lived through all that but certainly never would be able to put it together like you have.

[calimary]

44. Thanks! One of the license challenges to a station where I worked was actress Marla Gibbs.

Last edited Thu May 24, 2018, 08:52 PM - Edit history (1)

She was best known for her role in the sitcom “The Jeffersons”. She was part of a group challenging the station’s last cense. Man were we super conscious of making sure that big binder of ascertainment interviews was current and relevant, thorough and impeccable. Oy...

The upshot, though, for both my pal the Public Affairs Director and me (News Director) was that management knew they had to step gingerly around the both of us. They didn’t dare try to fire either one of us. The station was under scrutiny, at the same time, for malfeasance that had been committed by its parent company long ago, and any license challenge that had even one tiny chipped tooth to it made the sphincters tighten and the Maalox bottles come out among the corporate types hoping to hang onto that expensive and highly-coveted broadcast license.

They didn’t dare mess with us or cut us or our departments back. That wouldn’t have looked good - to cut back on news and public affairs during a serious license challenge, when news and public affairs were where they could present proof of responsiveness to community issues and concerns as part of the privilege of holding that license in the public interest. So it meant that my job was safe until I decided to leave it. And I decided. NOT management, looking to cut more overhead, cut back on local news and public affairs (which of course included staffers), and just play more hits and commercial clusters.

Wild times. Weird, too, that some corporate monkey business years earlier and on a whole other continent would mean job security for me.

And broadcast deregulation changed ALL of that, and not in a good way.

[yonder]

47. ditto on the thanks!

Sounds like you've been in the trenches and over the top too; you could write a book (if you haven't). There's a lot of history there.

Regarding the greed/regulation issue, I heard a simple phrase a couple of years ago that has stuck with me. It applies here and anytime people complain about regulation: "Capital will always outrun regulation". Greed moves in, extracts what it can and moves on (if necessary) long before any negative outcomes can be controlled. Regulation has to be in place and adjusted as necessary because it will never win that race.

Thanks again.

[uponit7771]

25. +1

[RiverStone]

9. Great question! Why don't Dems show up and push back on a locked door?

This is authoritarian rule plain & simple.

The press could go big with this story, if Dems show up in force and call b.s. on it.

[calimary]

24. THIS!!!!

Force the issue if that’s what it takes. Then hold a MASSIVE press availability- OUTSIDE those locked doors and make a big public stink about being locked out.

[ecstatic]

34. Exactly. Cable news loves drama.

Can you imagine the ratings, but more importantly, the American people would be alerted to the facts regarding Dump & the GoP's actions.

[calimary]

38. And sometimes they prefer somebody who puts up a fight.

Not the person who’s reasonable. They want to see conflict. Things stirred up. Disruption. Yeah. Even chaos. I guess it’s similar to liking or disliking roller coasters. The shit-stirrers do have their fans.

Reminds me of some past campaign or some such. The female GOPer declared that her party led in her area because the voters like that. “Cuz We FIGHT.” As opposed to lying down and going along, I guess. But her assertion was clearly that this “cuz We FIGHT’ was a good thing.

And I remember thinking to myself - “yeah, fighting. ‘Cuz We FIGHT!” that’s all you guys do. Fighting. Always gotta be fighting.”

But maybe some people like that. Hard to figure.

[RiverStone]

39. Yes!! Let's see if Dems on The Hill bang on that locked door!!

Anything less will be one step farther in the erosion of our democracy!

[KY_EnviroGuy]

10. More on that here:

See: https://twitter.com/OversightDems

@RepCummings: “This makes a mockery of our constitutional system—Trump’s top aides in the WH are orchestrating a meeting exclusively for his GOP fixers in Congress to obtain secret information from the Justice Department and FBI about the investigation of the President himself.”

and
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/388861-no-dems-invited-to-attend-meeting-on-russia-docs

White House chief of staff John Kelly helped broker the meeting but will not be there himself. No White House officials will be in attendance, according to Sanders.

In previous Justice Department briefings given to Nunes related to his requests for information on the Russia probe, the department has also given an identical but separate briefing to ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).

......

[Laura PourMeADrink]

11. Like it really matters that no WH officials present - all it takes is one late

night cheeseburger and a non-secure cell phone for them to get filled in.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

15. Obstruction of Justice. Nunes will pipleline it to WH. Then make unverifiable lies about it to media

[KY_EnviroGuy]

19. From another article...

(snips)

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) on Wednesday criticized the White House for excluding Democrats from a meeting with top intelligence officials about a confidential FBI source in the Russia probe.

“This is not right. Briefings like this should be bipartisan,” Flake tweeted.

Won't do much good for Flake to bitch if McConnell or Ryan don't put their foot down and stop the obstruction.
and...

The FBI source has become a source of controversy in recent weeks. President Trump has fixated on it, claiming without evidence that the FBI spied on his campaign for political purposes.

On Wednesday morning, the president dubbed the matter "Spygate," and claimed it could be "one of the biggest political scandals in history."

No doubt what you say is correct and tRump just loves digging the hole a little deeper.......

[Grammy23]

4. They have told us over and over that we're headed for a constitutional crisis.

Some have attempted to explain what the crisis would look like.

Can no one admit that the crisis began when tRump was “elected” in 2016 by an electoral process that had been effectively hijacked by the Russians with assistance by the Republicans?? Everyone acts like this process of usurping our electoral system was all on the Russians and the tRump campaign. This is bullsh*t. Key members of the Republican Party joined in with the others to pull this off. They are up to their eyeballs in this debacle. In too deep and now have no way out without exposing everything and everybody. So they keep shoveling and trying to cover it up. Just act like all of this is normal which it is not.

The alarm bells should be ringing in a cacophony of sounds loud enough to raise the dead! We are in a full blown constitutional crisis but no one seems to be doing anything about it except debate the definition. I am more and more convinced the grand experiment called the US of A is over and we, the people, lost.

[StevieM]

5. Our own FBI was even more culpable than the Russians. (eom)

[maddiemom]

6. After head "deplorable" McConnell denied President Obama his S.C.Court nominee

in an unprecedented move---and got away with it---the die was cast.

[maxsolomon]

27. If the Senate declined "Advice and Consent", they must not have cared much.

GO AHEAD AND SWEAR GARLAND IN.

Obama's failure to fight back on Garland will forever be my biggest disappointment in him. He had nothing to lose at that point.

[Marcuse]

7. Ask Not What Your Country Can Do For You

Ask what your country can do for me.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

12. Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

[calimary]

22. The last admirable Republican we've had.

[MariaCSR]

13. If Dems don't show up and crash this party tomorrow, I'm done.

i swear. I'm tired of these weak ass polite people.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

16. OK. We were hoping Democratic supporters would set an example they want leadership to follow

... and not be "weak ass" and say "I'm done".

[Nay]

20. Huh? The hundreds of thousands who recently marched? The teachers' strikes?

The Parkland High kids? The 2003 March against the War? The Occupy Wall Street movement?The Women's March? The march against the Nazi/authoritarian assholes, where a woman was killed? That's the "example (we) want them to follow."

THEY ARE IGNORING OUR EXAMPLES. What else does the Dem leadership want? Pitchforks and torches? Being thrown out of office wholesale? You are discounting the feeling that we all are getting -- they don't want to rock the boat NO MATTER HOW BAD THINGS GET, because they still profit. It's not a matter of them saying to themselves: "Oh, gee, the base isn't burning down the country, so I guess they like things just the way they are. Oh, well. That means we shouldn't do our Constitutional duty. Too bad. Sigh."

We've been pulling our weight this whole time. I'm tired of getting blamed for doing nothing.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

23. I was responding specifically to one poster. Please reread in that context.

Your cue is the 'say "I'm done".' with the "I'm done" a direct quotation.

[MariaCSR]

37. THANK YOU. I AM TIRED.

[Nay]

40. You're very welcome. I'm tired, too -- of being told we, out here, are hurting the

Democratic Party's chances by saying we're pissed and tired. We do everything we are supposed to do -- march, write, demonstrate, demand -- and we get a Party that acts like it doesn't know what we want them to do.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

48. Of course. We are ALL tired. But you don't have to project it onto your Democrats

They are not "weak ass" as you call them. While you were complaining, Pelosi and Schumer were working and pushing hard.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100210651797

Schiff will now attend BOTH briefings, including the Nunes/Gowdy/Ryan briefing at noon,
Yet another change of plans to briefing over confidential FBI source: Pelosi says that Schiff will now attend BOTH briefings, including the Nunes/Gowdy/Ryan briefing at noon, per @ElizLanders

Schiff tells me he IS now attending the 12pm briefing with Nunes and Gowdy. He says the minority leader Pelosi was invited and he's attending in her place

[MariaCSR]

49. Thanks for showing me this.

Don't judge me man, thaT MF Trump got me shook lol

[Bernardo de La Paz]

50. No question, we hear you. tRump has everyone shook up for no vision except his own corruption. . .nt

[niyad]

17. I think Rob is being optimistic.

[Johnny2X2X]

21. Crooks

These guys that are in power now want money. How much money do they want? All of it! It's going to take a crowbar to get them out now.

And let's not forget what started this group of Right Wing extremists down this crazy path. The New Deal, worker's rights, women's rights, gains made by the middle class since WWII. They want it all for the rich. Social Security, retirements, the whole damned treasury, they want every last penny.

[walkingman]

26. White America at it's finest.

[maxsolomon]

28. Care to expand on that comment? Since it makes zero sense?

Rob Reiner's opinion is White America at it's finest?

[Duppers]

32. ????

I agree with maxsolomon that your comment is nonsensical.

Please explain. It's the polar opposite of saying "black America...."

[samnsara]

29. theres a cpl good guys in there..they will share their lunch.

[Duppers]

33. K & R whole thread. nt

[BlueWI]

45. Agreed. Great thread.

Questioning myself and how much fire I have shown in my circle of influence. Not enough to this point, and election day (judgement day) is coming. What will be said about how we responded to this clear and present danger to democracy???

[Duppers]

46. Yes.

I am approaching strangers in our nearest supermarket where most shoppers are poc. I strike up conversations and ask if they are regristered to vote. I encourage them to act. I love their reactions.
Cannot talk to my neighbors which are mainly 80% retired military. They're hardcore FauxBots. It's depressing.

- Living in a red area of a beautiful Blue state