KPFA shows us how to do convention coverage

08.31.12 - 12:16 pm | Tim Redmond |

(149)

I watched and I listened as the Republicans alienated much of America and the TV announcers made fools of themselves and the big newspapers reported what happened without much perspective or criticism. But the best coverage of he GOP convention came from a local outlet: KPFA's Mitch Jeserich, Davey D Cook, and Margaret Prescod had it nailed.

We got the word from the streets, the word from inside, great analysis of the issues and the speakers, all in a lively way that made me want to keep listening. Great interviews, great commentary, great back-and-forth between Mitch and Davey D, who are very different reporters with different styles... good work, folks.

Comments

"Guest," I asked you for a citation for your claim, not more

doubletalk.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 05, 2012 @ 6:40 pm

Yes, The Dems lost the House

Yes, The Dems lost the House because of Obamacare, it mobilized the opposition while not mobilizing the base.

The anti-Obama opposition is irrational and responded as the campaign to elicit the desired response wanted.

The Democrat base is much more rational and Obama was unable to paint lipstick on the Romney, Gingrich, Heritage Foundation and Max Baucus wet dream of health insurance subsidy.

One side was mobilized to go to the polls, the other not mobilized to defend the gains made 2 years earlier because those gains were achieved through electoral deception.

Posted by marcos on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 8:22 pm

In the early 80's the far

In the early 80's the far right was up in arms with Reagan not being a true conservative.

Now they all pretty much claim him and want to be considered the next Reagan, if Obama wins this time around in thirty years all the far left will be trying to be the next Obama.

Posted by matlock on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 2:26 pm

Obama is the square root of

Obama is the square root of Jimmy Carter.

Posted by marcos on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 8:23 pm

Polling regularly shows the American people are far to the left

of the government they are getting. That's based on issues -- not "labels."

I see you confess to not being around that long. That is good; a start.

It is perhaps telling that you avoided mention of G.W. Bush and his rightward lurch *each* *time* he was elected -- ("elected") -- that completely blows your theory out of the water.

Remember "I'm a uniter, not a divider?" Remember how after he won in 2004, he immediately set to trying to sell the American people on the widely unpopular idea of privatizing Social Security?

Posted by Guest on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 6:39 pm

I disagree with the "conventional wisdom" that candidates always

move to the center.

It's a great theory on paper, but does not appear to apply in the real world of U.S. politics; the predominant case is that they move to the right.

The last president to have moved to the center was George H.W. Bush. Before that, who?

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 7:04 am

... and marcos did *not* express a naive view of Obama.

That is exactly what has happened. Again.

And Mitt Romney to the left of the Republican Party? That's absolute crap.

The Republican Party is made up of a bunch of ignoramuses with a small elite at the top who tell them what to think and say. Romney is of that elite.

Claiming that Romney is to the left of the party is like saying your brain is to the left of your body.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 12:40 pm

I voted for Obama for one

I voted for Obama for one reason: because he is black and I wanted for every cracker in Texas to go to sleep in their trailer crying at the thought that a black family was living in the White House.

I also warned my liberal and progressive younger friends to not get their hopes up too high or at all if history was any guide and it was.

Now that we've passed that national turd...

Posted by marcos on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 1:52 pm

Davey and the Democrats

I liked the part when Davey reported that all the protestors they talked to in Tampa said they didn't expect anything better from the Democrats.

Posted by Guest Ann Garrison on Sep. 01, 2012 @ 2:49 pm

Ann, Americans are a moderate, middle-of-the-road people who are

wary of extremists whether on the left or right.

The majority may be "silent", to use Nixon's phrase, but they have the power at election time.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 02, 2012 @ 1:30 pm

Nixon was a bullshit anti-communist demagogue and a

corporate shill, and his "silent majority" slogan was bullshit code for the intention to dispense with democratic limits on power.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 02, 2012 @ 2:03 pm

As a Communist I call them like I see them

And Nixon damaged our expansion efforts all over the world - not as much as Reagan who hated us and fought us tooth and nail in places like Afghanistan and Angola, but Nixon was still pretty awful. We especially resented his efforts to drive a wedge between two of the world's greatest people's democracies - China and the Soviet Union. If it hadn't been for the misguided efforts of the "Little Generals" of the Great Cultural Revolution China could have backed the USSR in its attempts to destroy the capitalist stranglehold over the world's oppressed peoples.

We can still dream...

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 02, 2012 @ 3:11 pm

So, you admit to be a Communist then, Lilli?

You must be so proud of how well it worked out in so many countries.

Not.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 02, 2012 @ 5:06 pm

I generally prefer the anarcho-syndicalist label if I'm going to

brand myself with one at all; primarily because it can't be used to falsely impute support for specific discredited policies and practices of the past.

Capitalism has a serious case genital herpes -- or do you pretend not to notice?

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 02, 2012 @ 7:10 pm

I don't mean to suggest Communism has been discredited

Because it hasn't. I look to the self-reliance philosophy, Juche, of the Great Kim il-Sung of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), commonly referred to as North Korea, as a way forward for the oppressed peoples of the world. Here you have a strong, proud and pure nation of comrades dedicated to self-reliance and steadfast in their refusal to bow to the sick bastards of Amerikkka - who seek to oppress them and destroy the beautiful state they have built.

Here we see a beacon - here we see hope.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 02, 2012 @ 7:25 pm

Yes, be careful to pick a label that has never been tried in

practice so that you can avoid any criticism about how and whether it actually works.

But I can guarantee you that nobody cares how you stereotype yourself.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 4:53 am

Obviously you care quite a bit how I "stereotype myself."

No. The whole point, simple, is that you can't disparage me by drawing false assumptions by following a script engineered by your intellectual betters and cued by some familiar label.

Worked perfectly.

And, incidentally, I once heard Chomsky refer to himself in that manner and I believe he explained it in that exact way.

Now -- off to see the Mime Troupe!

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 9:36 am

LOL, a communist who likes mime.

You just get funnier and funnier.

I'm starting to think you're a right-wing troll masquerading here as an "anarcho-syndicalist" in order to discredit the genre.

You're succeeding. Keep it up.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 10:20 am

You could also call me a Stalinist

He's a big hero of mine for so many reasons - he smashed the bourgeoisie amongst the peasantry and rapidly industrialized the Soviet Union while defeating fascism in Nazi Germany. We could learn a lot from Joseph Stalin - a man who has been unfairly maligned by revisionists everywhere.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 11:03 am

Lilli, don't you have a "mime" to attend?

Nobody cares how you define yourself. There are some other things I could call you, but this is a family forum.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 11:34 am

Being "imp'd" again.

I look at it as a compliment. Of course it would mean even more if the simple troll doing so exhibited a slightly higher intellectual capacity.

Troll, please try a bit harder. I'd prefer my imp to seem at least "average."

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 4:05 pm

Wrong again Troll

I'm being imp'd and not very well. I stand by what I wrote earlier - in addition to being a lover of the fine art of mime I am also a Stalinist.

Posted by The REAL lillipublicans on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 5:40 pm

It's obvious who the real imp is, Mr. REAL lillipublicans

I'm a longtime progressive, and no prog I know has EVER identified with Stalin. To any self-respecting progressive, Stalin is anathema. So either you're a right wing troll pretending to be a prog or you're imping Lillipublicans. Dumb move because it's pretty obvious what you're doing.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 11:46 am

Just because you may not have liked Nixon's policies does not

necessarily mean that his categorization of most Americans as being quiet moderates is incorrect.

As we saw in Lee's recent election landslide win, it's not the noisey left that consititute the majority, but the moderate center.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 02, 2012 @ 5:08 pm

It seems false to refer to Lee's election as a "landslide."

Lee just isn't that popular -- especially in view of his recent performance -- and sixty-forty in this type of a single-candidate election should qualify as "landslide" in any case.

If there was a ten percent shift of voters away from Lee, then he'd have a bare majority -- and simply preventing Lee campaign apparatchiks from filiing in his name on people's mail-in ballots would account for some of that.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 7:23 am

The technical definition of a landslide election win is 60%.

Although of course that assumes a runoff between two candidates or measures. And of course still falls short of the 2/3 requirement for some voter initiatives.

Lee got just over 60% in the "runoff".

But look at it another way. In the runoff, 50% more people voted for Lee than Avalos. That's a stunning margin by any standard.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 9:27 am

60% seems arbitrary for "landslide." In fact, the term seems

most applicable in terms of "electoral landslide," in the case of parlamentary seat landslide, or perhaps, in cases of far greater disparity that 60-40 with respect to this kind of mayoral election.

That's my opinion, but I think others will agree that "landslide" is *way* overused -- and seemingly always for the purpose of claiming some sort of "popular mandate" which is anything but in service to popular interests.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 03, 2012 @ 3:59 pm

I think his point was that Lee won by a country mile

And he did.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 7:46 am

Sure. "Landslide" or "country mile," Mirkarimi got more votes.

He got more votes.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 12:24 pm

Why the Petaluma LL team is better than the Giants

Mirkarimi got more votes than Lee?

Do you have any idea how WEAK that argument is? It was two different elections. You do realize that? Right? Stomp your foot once if you inderstand.

Hey...a few days ago the Petaluma Little League team scored 15 runs. On the same day the Giants scored something like 5. So in your troubled mind the Petaluma team is better than the Giants??

You do realize that if you picked an average guy on the street and ran him for Sheriff against Maddoff and Sandusky that he would also get more votes than Lee did running against Chiu, Avalos, Dufty, Yee, Hererra and about 10 others.

I enjoy reading all of the comments on the board but you, @lillipublican, seem to be especially dim witted (no offense). But tell me that even you can understand that comparing votes from two elections for two different offices against vastly different set of opponents doesn't tell you anything.

Come on, I'm pulling for you...try to grasp this elementary concept.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 1:43 pm

All those words for a false analogy; tsk, tsk.

Ed Lee and Ross Mirkarimi faced the exact same voters; oh, a little detail you "forgot" to incorporate in your silly post.

I take absolutely no offense from being called "dim witted" by you, dimwit.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 6:30 pm

Yes,

But Lee had significantly more opponents. A very different election.

Posted by D. Native on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 8:45 pm

The electoral math is quite simple, but sadly...

He can't get it, I'm afraid. Lee ran against 14 opponents, at least 6 of which got respectable totals. Mirkarimi ran against 3. Lee wound up with 60% of the 'non exhausted ballots', Mirkarimi, 54%.

But you're never going to be able to explain those concepts to lilli. It's like trying to teach algebra to an eggplant. He's just not equipped, sadly.

Wait...let me try one last thing.

Lilli, using your own system the much hated ex Republican George Gascon got 13,700 more votes than Mirkarimi did. How did that happen?

If you smell wood burning while trying to figure it out then just stop and lie very still for awhile.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 9:18 pm

...and yet more doubletalk from the anti-Mirkarimi haters.

I *know* that if the situation was reversed, you'd be shouting it to the moon. More voters selected Mirkarimi for the office of sheriff than selected Lee for mayor. It really is just that simple.

As for the relative popularities of Lee and Gascon now, I imagine that they have also suffered a loss of public esteem from this case.

A momentary arm grab was turned into a pretext to overturn an election and no care whatsoever was given to the effects of this political power play on a San Francisco family.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 05, 2012 @ 6:48 pm

Yeah but Lee didn't celebrate his victory by bruising his wife.

It makes a difference. So if an election were held today, Lee would still win but Mirk would not.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 4:31 pm

Nobody "celebrated" by grabbing his wife's arm,

and we don't know if Lee ever grabbed *his* wife's arm because, for one, Ivory Madison doesn't live next door to them.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 6:32 pm

So in your mind, Lilli, Mirk is as innocent of DV as Lee is?

That's an extraordinarily perverted view of events, given what we know.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 05, 2012 @ 6:27 am

"Given what we know," Mirkarimi is not a wife abuser.

Given what we know, Eliana Lopez never called the police.

We know that though being accused of all manner of in-office malfeasance, that no credible evidence against Ross Mirkarimi establishing such could be produced by the mayor despite an overwhelming effort to do so.

The only reason we know what "we know" -- that Ross turned the family van around and subsequently grabbed his wife's arm with no intention to cause injury during a heated argument -- is that Ivory Madison conned Eliana into making a video under pretext of legal representation, and then shared it with Sheriff Mirkarimi's political enemies.

Take Ivory Madison's extra-legal freelancing out of the picture, and we know just as much about Ed Lee.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 6:21 am

No, we also know that Mirk pleaded guilty to a DV-related crime

Lee has not been found so guilty by a court of law.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 10:27 am

Ross Mirkarimi, faced with a trial in a courthouse shaded by

billboards which proclaimed his guilt, against an array of city lawyers doing the mayor's bidding, and amid the mayor's usurpationary deprivation of his livelihood he might use to pay for a competent defense, forcibly separated from his family, pled guilty to turning the family van around.

"Domestic-violence related" is not a legal term, and a conviction for misdemeanor false imprisonment -- unlike a domestic violence crime -- does not preclude the sheriff from carrying a firearm and performing the duties of his office, no matter how much hot air you expel about it.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 11:12 am

Ross is a big boy with an army of lawyers.

If he pled guilty to a lessor crime then it was because he knew the evidence was stacked against him. The video was damning and he knew it.

His crime was DV-related. Constraining your wife and not allowing her the free to move about is DV in all but name, and it is significant that Ross's punishment was exactly the same as a DV rap. The 52 week DV class is not mandated for "false imprisonment" and yet he is there every week discussing his abusive behavior with DV perps. Nuff said.

He also said on video that "I committed an act of violence against my wife" and he apologized for that, although you deny it.

Compared with that, what is there on Lee to indicate a similar level of prosecutable misdemeanors? Nothing.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 11:31 am

Felony perjury is prosecutable but it's not being investigated.

Maybe that's because Ed Lee and Gascon are playing on the same team against the sheriff?

As for my continued denial that Mirkarimi is on video saying the quote you attribute to him is because I haven't seen it, couldn't find it, and you have repeated refused to provide a citation or a link for it.

I've already said that the only rationale I could come up with for your serial mendacity in this regard is that despite Sheriff Mirkarimi having admitted to the mistake he made on New Years Eve of last year, and despite him having honestly and correctly identified the character of that mistake, what he said does not fit the soundbite you anti-Mirkarimi haters evidently feel you need to "properly" continue crucifying him and his family.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 12:20 pm

There is no evidence of any perjury

Just the hopelessly biased bitter loser Debra Walker alleging things happened when all witnesses to the cited conversation deny that.

The DA doesn't investigate flimsy cases with a biased, unreliable witness like Walker.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 3:23 pm

Yes. Just the word of Debra Walker... and Aaron Peskin... and...

Aaron Peskin's phone records... and Olague's interesting pause and reaction to being questioned about Walker's claim...

but of course if no investigation is done then the accusation will continue to have "no evidence" to back it up.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 4:33 pm

SF Dems Call for Criminal Probe of Mayoral Perjury

"Perjury is considered a serious offense as it can be used to usurp judicial power resulting in miscarriages of justice. [...]

"The RDDC, a Democratic County Central Committee chartered club, said it expects all elected officials to adhere to the highest ethical standards.

'We further believe that such ethical standards must be enforced consistently and without the appearance of political motivation and that the enforcement of these ethical standards should be made without embellishment of the facts, especially when the result may lead to the removal of a democratically-elected official from office,' the club said."

http://www.fogcityjournal.com/wordpress/5025/sf-democrats-call-for-crimi...

Posted by Guest on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 12:26 pm

Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?

But I'm yet to see a credible shred of evidence that a crime has been committed.

Other than the one Mirk admits and apologized for, of course.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 06, 2012 @ 3:25 pm

Lilli, please justify your comment

That Lee is not as popular. I would like actual polling data and proof it was not a push poll. Thanks

Posted by D. Native on Sep. 04, 2012 @ 8:42 pm

I've said it before you idiot

The only poll I believe in is the one where I talk to my friends and neighbors and fellow Rainbow Grocery shoppers. Anything else is corporate-controlled media crap and I ignore it.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 05, 2012 @ 6:59 pm

The poll I'm citing is the election results.

Even you, D'naive, should be able to locate it on the SFgov website.

My point, to recap, is that 60% -- even if you take every Lee vote at face value despite the fact that some of the absentee ballots apparently were filled-in by other than the registered voters -- does *not* constitute a "landslide" except for propagandistic purposes.

Calling 60% a landslide is foolish; that isn't even a "supermajority."

And imp, simp, dimwit -- please try a bit harder to sound intelligent. I would find your imping so much more weighty a compliment then.

Posted by lillipublicans on Sep. 05, 2012 @ 7:36 pm

Um...it is the definition of a landslide

Calling 60% a landslide is foolish????

So when FDR beat Alf Landon 61% to 37% in 1936 it WASN'T a landslide? We need to re-write all the history books?

Lilli, I'm telling you this for your own good...you have no idea what a blithering idiot you are. I know that you're being imped only when you posts seem like they have a small measure of intelligence to them. Those are the ones that are faked.

Posted by Guest on Sep. 05, 2012 @ 8:11 pm