Today in 1962, the BBC banned playing the newly released “Monster Mash” by Bobby “Boris” Pickett on the grounds that it was offensive. To use today’s vernacular, really?
Eleven years later, the BBC banned the Rolling Stones’ “Star Star,” but if you play the clip you can hear why (really):
The Kinks had the number one song today in 1964:
KOMO radio in Seattle reports:
Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Doug Baldwin tweeted Thursday that the team “will honor the country and flag” in a “demonstration of unity” prior to Sunday’s season opener against Miami.
When approached in the locker room by reporters, Baldwin declined to elaborate further saying, “you’ll see on Sunday.”
Former Green Beret and one-time Seahawks long-snapper Nate Boyer later tweeted that he had spoken with the Seahawks players about their plans and wrote, “what the team will do is a powerful sign of unification + respect for the Anthem + those that fight for our Freedom!”
In an interview with Fox Sports Radio later Thursday, Boyer expanded on his tweet .
“I spoke with the players, and they realize that 9/11 is a very important day in our nation’s history. The Seahawks, and probably every team, will be honoring those who serve in camouflage, and also those in blue who served on such a difficult day,” Boyer said. “Shortly after 9/11 our country seemed more unified than I had ever experienced, and was the most unified it has been since I have been alive. Since that date, we have grown farther apart in our unity. Standing together this Sunday is key to making progress. What the team will do is a powerful sign of unification.”
That came after previous reports that the Seahawks were planning to emulate in some fashion San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who first sat during the National Anthem, then one week later knelt because, as he told NFL Media two weeks ago …
“I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color,” Kaepernick told NFL Media in an exclusive interview after the game. “To me, this is bigger than football and it would be selfish on my part to look the other way. There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder.”
Just in case it isn’t obvious: The “people” Kaepernick is referring to is the police.
The 49ers issued a statement about Kaepernick’s decision: “The national anthem is and always will be a special part of the pre-game ceremony. It is an opportunity to honor our country and reflect on the great liberties we are afforded as its citizens. In respecting such American principles as freedom of religion and freedom of expression, we recognize the right of an individual to choose and participate, or not, in our celebration of the national anthem.”
Niners coach Chip Kelly told reporters Saturday that Kaepernick’s decision not to stand during the national anthem is “his right as a citizen” and said “it’s not my right to tell him not to do something.”
The NFL also released a statement, obtained by NFL Media Insider Ian Rapoport: “Players are encouraged but not required to stand during the playing of the national anthem.”
By taking a stand for civil rights, Kaepernick, 28, joins other athletes, like the NBA’s Dwyane Wade, Chris Paul, LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony and several WNBA players in using their platform and status to raise awareness to issues affecting minorities in the U.S.
However, refusal to support the American flag as a means to take a stand has brought incredible backlash before and likely will in this instance. The NBA’s Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf of the Denver Nuggets, formerly Chris Jackson before converting to Islam, refused to acknowledge the flag in protest, citing similar reasons as Kaepernick and saying that it conflicted with some of his Islamic beliefs.Abdul-Rauf drew the ire of fans and was briefly suspended by the NBA before a compromise was worked out between the league and player, who eventually stood with his teammates and coaches at the playing of the national anthem.
Kaepernick said that he is aware of what he is doing and that he knows it will not sit well with a lot of people, including the 49ers. He said that he did not inform the club or anyone affiliated with the team of his intentions to protest the national anthem.
“This is not something that I am going to run by anybody,” he said. “I am not looking for approval. I have to stand up for people that are oppressed. … If they take football away, my endorsements from me, I know that I stood up for what is right.”
Kaepernick said that he has thought about going public with his feelings for a while but that “I felt that I needed to understand the situation better.”
He said that he has discussed his feelings with his family and, after months of witnessing some of the civil unrest in the U.S., decided to be more active and involved in rights for black people. Kaepernick, who is biracial, was adopted and raised by white parents and siblings.
Kaepernick was supported by soccer player Megan Rapinoe, as Sam Laird reported:
Rapinoe, a star on the powerhouse U.S. women’s soccer team, took a knee during the national anthem before a Sunday National Women’s Soccer League match between her Seattle Reign and the Chicago Red Stars. Afterwards, she was direct in explaining what went into the decision.
“Being a gay American, I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties,” she told American Soccer Now. “It was something small that I could do and something that I plan to keep doing in the future and hopefully spark some meaningful conversation around it.”
Whatever Rapinoe planned to do for her next protest wasn’t seen in public, because the Washington Spirit’s national anthem was played Spirit and Reign players were in the locker room the next week. This is the case in many high school, college and NFL games, and this may well become the norm soon if players decide to protest instead of stand in something approximating attention.
The most famous National Anthem protest took place in Mexico City during the 1968 Olympic Games:
Readers know I have an odd history (“Now he tells us,” readers say) around the National Anthem. Before two 1984 UW games an anti-nuclear dance group called Nu Parable ran out onto the Camp Randall Stadium turf (really green-painted asphalt, but only my joints below my hips find that important right now) when the UW Marching Band got to “And the rockets’ red glare.” (Which was, to say the least, not what I expected to be seeing standing on the field playing trumpet.) This was Nu Parable’s way of showing that Ronald Reagan, having unaccountably failed to destroy the world during his first term in office, would undoubtedly accomplish that in his second term. One of the Nu Parables was literally punted by a band member (and Marine reservist) who found the NuP in his way while marching, and the rest of them were stared at by our drum major, who always struck me as resembling the Grim Reaper (and if looks could kill all the NuPs would have decomposed upon drum major’s sight), while being arrested by UW police.
The next home game before the election, the Nu Parables stayed well clear of the band, while being loudly booed by the crowd, which previously acted confused at what they were seeing. (UW students both weeks chanted “Nuke ’em! Nuke ’em!”, which might indicate that UW students who go to Badger games may not be, or have been, as liberal as popularly portrayed.
There is no First Amendment cause to ban Kaepernick, Baldwin, Rapinoe or anyone else from doing something other than standing at attention. The First Amendment bans government from banning freedom of expression. (Although I’m pretty sure the Nu Parable dancer/protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct or something.) Perhaps surprisingly, the NFL hasn’t censured Kaepernick either. I’m not surprised the 49ers haven’t, although it should be obvious that such a protest would be supported more in some markets than in others, such as Green Bay.
The next time you’re at a sporting event and the National Anthem is played, observe what others do. (Hopefully it’s a live performance and not a recording.) Media types rarely stand at attention hand on heart, in large part because they’re carrying cameras or other equipment, or because they’re inside the press box, which they assume isn’t inside the stadium, or something like that. I’ve seen girls teams link hands and start swinging them toward the end, which must offend traditionalists, or so you’d think. Atlanta Braves fans have amended the last line of the first verse to “And the home of the Braves!” North Dakota hockey fans amended the last line of the first verse to “And the home of the SOOOOOOOOOOO!” before the Boys Named Sioux were divested of their supposedly racist nickname.
Were these not affronts to the National Anthem as well?
(The last video is of the National Hockey League All-Star Game in Chicago during Operation Desert Storm. Notice few people are at attention or singing.)
Some people thought these were too:
It could even be claimed that singers who change the 3/4 Anthem into a 4/4 song (including, among others, Super Bowl singers Whitney Houston and Lady Gaga) are similarly disrespecting the Anthem. There are even those who assert that the Star Spangled Banner should not be the National Anthem because of, among other reasons, the difficulty of singing it.
There is an obvious dividing line during my lifetime in attitudes about the Star Spangled Banner. The line was drawn first during Operation Desert Storm (when Whitney Houston sang arguably the most famous performance at Super Bowl XXV), and the line became a wall after 9/11. (It takes real nerve to protest your country on the anniversary of 9/11, which will be Sunday.)
The cynical note the hypocrisy of claims of oppression by someone getting paid more than $100 million to play professional sports, particularly someone being paid eight digits per year to sit on the bench. (Kaepernick is no longer the starting quarterback, and if anonymous quotes are to be believed he may never play for the 49ers or any other NFL team again, though he is officially the 49ers’ backup QB.)
Some Kaepernick supporters claim (based on two lines of a four-verse song) that the Star Spangled Banner is itself racist, which is a ridiculous assertion. (To wit: “No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,” referring to slaves apparently impressed by the British during the beginning of the War of 1812.) That is as irrelevant, regardless of the level of veracity, as the Star Spangled Banner’s melody coming from a British drinking song.
More importantly, Kaepernick’s protest is based on a false premise, the supposed war on blacks by police. If anything, as scholar Heather Mac Donald points out, there is a war on police and, by the way, on inner-city minority residents by minority inner-city criminals:
Incarceration is not destroying the black family. Family breakdown is in fact the country’s most serious social problem, and it is most acute in black communities. But the black marriage rate was collapsing long before incarceration started rising at the end of the 1970s, as my colleague Kay Hymowitz has shown. Indeed, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan issued his prescient call for attention to black out-of-wedlock child-rearing in 1965, just as that era’s deincarceration and decriminalization movement was gaining speed.
It is crime, not incarceration, that squelches freedom and enterprise in urban areas. And there have been no more successful government programs for liberating inner-city residents from fear and disorder than proactive policing and the incapacitation of criminals. …
Violent crime is currently shooting up again in cities across the country. Police officers are backing away from proactive enforcement in response to the yearlong campaign that holds that police are the greatest threat facing young black men today. Officers encounter increasing hostility and resistance when they make a lawful arrest. With pedestrian stops, criminal summons, and arrests falling precipitously in urban areas, criminals are becoming emboldened.
That is what Kaepernick should be protesting, but of course that isn’t what he’s protesting. Of course, the First Amendment gives you the right to be wrong. The First Amendment does not protect you from the consequences of your free expression.
Today in 1926, Radio Corporation of America created the National Broadcasting Co. …
… which later returned to RCA’s parent, General Electric Co., and now is part of what used to be Universal Studios …
… and is part of Comcast cable TV.
The number one single in Britain today in 1965:
Today in 1971, five years to the day after John Lennon met Yoko Ono, Lennon released his “Imagine” album:
Tonight 50 years ago premiered …
Although Burt Reynolds was a megastar, the more important TV program premiered right now 50 years ago (in the Eastern, Central and Pacific time zones) on your favorite NBC station:
At a minimum, Star Trek was the best non-anthology science fiction TV series to that point, and for years afterward. Other than “The Twilight Zone” (hence my “non-anthology” description), most science fiction on TV was monster-related or rocket-related, each with bad special effects.
There has been considerable revisionist history in the ramp-up to Star Trek’s 50th anniversary. The hard truth is that Star Trek was not a commercial success in its first iteration. Despite having a lead-in of “Daniel Boone,” rated 25th, and followed by eventually the color version of “Dragnet,” rated 21st, and “The Dean Martin Show,” rated 14th, Star Trek was third in its time period, behind ABC’s “Bewitched,” rated seventh, and CBS’ “My Three Sons” and “The CBS Thursday Night Movie,” rated 29th. The second-season ratings were bad enough (CBS had “Gomer Pyle, USMC,” rated third) that NBC considered canceling the series. Star Trek was canceled after its third season, unable to compete against CBS’ Friday movie and ABC’s “Judd for the Defense.”
Or was it a commercial flop? Star Trek Fact Check suggests otherwise:
Recently, however, author Marc Cushman has been challenging this account in a series of self-published books and a flurry of interviews promoting them (my review of Cushman’s first volume, These Are The Voyages: TOS – Season One, can be found here). In one of those interviews, at Trek Core, Cushman said:
Star Trek was not the [ratings] failure that we had been led to believe.
It was NBC’s top rated Thursday night series and, on many occasions, won its time slot against formidable competition, including Bewitched, ABC’s most popular show. And when they banished it to Friday nights, as Book Two will reveal, it was the network’s top rated Friday night show. Yet NBC wanted to cancel it! Even when they tried to hide it from the fans at 10 p.m., during Season Three, it’s [sic] numbers were not as bad as reported. So, once I made this discovery, then, of course, I needed to find out the real reason for the way the network treated Star Trek, and the documents regarding that, which build as we go from Book One to Two and then Three, are quite fascinating.
Cushman elaborates upon his argument near the end of his first volume, These Are The Voyages: TOS – Season One:
One must wonder why a network would even consider cancelling a Top 40 series that was almost always a solid second place in the ratings — often hitting the No. 1 spot in its timeslot — against formidable competition, pulling in, on average, just under 30% of the TVs in use across America. (On the few occasions when it slipped to third place, it was always in a close race for the number two spot.)
– Marc Cushman with Susan Osborn, These Are The Voyages – TOS: Season One (2013), p. 541
The views expressed in These Are The Voyages about Star Trek‘s ratings performance are, needless to say, irreconcilable with previous accounts. Either the series was a ratings failure — as has been so often understood — or it was, as Cushman argues, a ratings success. …
Marc Cushman closes These Are The Voyages – TOS: Season One by asking why NBC would even consider cancelling Star Trek at the end of its first broadcast season. This question, however, is predicated on the assumption that Mr. Cushman’s argument about the ratings is correct. I believe I have pointed out enough flaws in his reasoning and presented enough counter-evidence that such claims should be held in considerable doubt.Therefore, I believe a more appropriate question to ask would be this: why was Star Trek renewed for a second season? After all, the show was an expensive one to produce, and following an initial flash of success, its ratings had dropped to a level that was nothing to shout about. I can think of three reasons which may have been the tipping point convincing NBC to go forward with the program – although I hope my readers will be able to come up with others that I haven’t considered.
First, Star Trek had garnered some awards recognition at the close of its first season, with five Emmy nominations (including the Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series) and a Hugo Award (for “The City on the Edge of Forever”). NBC may have hoped the publicity surrounding this recognition would have translated into increased viewership.
Second, as argued by Solow and Justman in their book, Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, at the time the series was produced, RCA was the parent company of NBC, and Star Trek helped sell color television sets for RCA:
In 1966, NBC, at the behest of RCA, commissioned the A.C. Nielsen Company to do a study on the popularity of color television series as opposed to all television series. The results were expected–and very unexpected.
Favorite series were popular whether or not they were viewed in color. For example, NBC’s Bonanza series was a top-rated series on the overall national ratings list as well as on the color ratings list.
However, in December 1966, with Star Trek having been on the air only three months, an NBC executive called with some news. The Nielsen research indicated that Star Trek was the highest-rated color series on television. I distributed the information to the Star Trek staff. We thought it was all very interesting, nothing to write home about, and went back to work. We were wrong; we failed to see the importance of the research
Perhaps those initial and subsequent Nielsen color series ratings contributed to giving Star Trek a second year of life. Putting aside low national ratings and lack of sponsors, perhaps a reason for renewing Star Trek, other than all the phone calls, letters, and demonstrations at NBC, was its position as the top-rated color series on the ‘full color network.’ NBC’s parent company was RCA. Star Trek sold color television sets and made money for RCA.
– Herbert F. Solow, Inside Star Trek: The Real Story (1996), p.305
Third, NBC may have simply had nothing better to replace the series with. Star Trekwasn’t generating huge ratings, but the ratings weren’t disastrous, either, at least not during its first season. According to Television Magazine in 1967:
Disaster…is the shock word in network programming. One of the best ways to avoid it is to put on even a weak grey-area show [a show ranked 30th-70th in the ratings] rather than take a chance with the least promising of the new batch of programs.
Fourth, renewing the series might have made sense because of the overall younger demographic it appealed to, which even in the late 1960s was becoming more important to advertisers. Paul Klein, the vice president of research for NBC, told Television Magazine in 1967 that “a quality audience – lots of young adult buyers – provides a high level that may make it worth holding onto a program despite low over-all [sic] ratings.” He went on to tell the magazine that, “‘quality audiences’ are what helped both Mission Impossible and Star Trek survive another season.” In a later TV Guide interview, Klein specifically mentioned Star Trek again, telling the magazine that the series was renewed in spite of weak ratings, “because it delivers a quality, salable audience…[in particular] upper-income, better-educated males.”
Even one of the writers most recognized for the series, David Gerrold, called “The Man Trap” “The Giant Salt Vampire.” It was not the best first episode the series could have begun with; the first filmed episode, “The Corbomite Maneuver,” would have been better.
At least the series got going by halfway through the first season, unlike Star Trek: The Next Generation, which took two seasons. (No series with episodes as poor as some of TNG’s were would have survived to two years had it not been for TOS’ post-cancellation popularity.)
Certainly TV critics weren’t fans, as StarTrek.com reveals from newspaper clippings:
They may not have been fans because of what had passed for sci-fi on TV before then, including CBS’ “Lost in Space,” the supposed reason CBS rejected Star Trek. (Interestingly, CBS now owns the Star Trek franchise thanks to being part of the Paramount world; Paramount purchased Lucille Ball’s Desilu studio, the original producer.)
Everything seems obvious in retrospect, and it’s obvious why Star Trek should have been able to be on the air longer. What creator Gene Roddenberry described as “‘Wagon Train‘ to the stars” (referring to an eight-season Western) was an ideal format for whatever kind of episode you wanted — adventure, action, drama, comedy, romance, camp, and whatever “Spock’s Brain” was. The format also allowed old stories (Moby Dick) and movies (“The Enemy Below”) to be recast as outstanding episodes (“The Doomsday Machine” and “Balance of Terror,” respectively). Roddenberry also demonstrated rare (for the period) ingenuity and courage in using the format to explore contemporary issues, including racism and war. (Not sexism, because this was the swinging ’60s.)
The series worked because of the characters Roddenberry created — characters that haven’t been equaled in any Star Trek iteration since then. James T. Kirk is one of the ultimate commanders in fiction. There was no character in fiction like Spock before Spock. In Kirk’s world Spock was his brain and McCoy was his heart. And the other characters as well — the always-loyal and inventive engineer Mr. Scott, Lt. Uhura, whose impact exceeded her role, and the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (or they could have been had they been used more together), Sulu and Chekov — if Roddenberry’s work before and after Star Trek left a mixed record (quick: name something else Roddenberry did), Roddenberry hit a grand slam with Star Trek’s characters. (Which is one reason for the negative reaction to the J.J. Abrams reboots — he screwed around with the characters.)
I have written a lot about Star Trek on this blog, including about its failings, including bad economics and an excessively Utopian view of human nature. Another problem specific to the series that premiered 50 years ago tonight was the realities of 1960s TV. NBC at the time was the second-place network unwilling to devote enormous resources to something the suits probably didn’t understand. By the third season Star Trek was already recycling tropes from the first two seasons’ episodes, leading to Gerrold’s description of …
“The Enterprise approaches a planet (…) Kirk, Spock, and McCoy get captured by 6-ft green women in steel brassieres.
“They take away the spacemen’s communicators because they offend the computer-god these women worship.”
“Meanwhile, Scotty discovers that he’s having trouble with the doubletalk generator, and he can’t fix it. The Enterprise will shrivel into a prune in 2 hours unless something is done immediately. But Scotty can’t get in touch with the Captain.”“Of course he can’t. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy have been brought before the high priest of the cosmic computer, who decides that they are unfit to live. All except the Vulcan, who has such interesting ears. She puts Spock in a mind-zapping machine which leaves him quoting 17-syllable Japanese haiku for the next 2 acts.
“McCoy can’t do a damn thing for him. “I’m a doctor, not a critic!” he grumbles. Kirk seduces the cute priestess.”
“On the ship, sparks fly from Chekov’s control panel, and everyone falls out of their chairs. Uhura tries opening the hailing frequencies, and when she can’t, she admits to being frightened… Scotty figures there’s only 15 minutes left. Already the crew members are wrinkling as the starship begins to prune.”“Down on the planet, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are being held in a dungeon.”
“The girl Kirk’s seduced decides that she has never had it so good in her life and discards all of her years-long training and lifetime-held beliefs to rescue him, conveniently remembering to bring him his communicator and phaser. Abruptly, Spock reveals how hard he has been working to hide his emotions and then snaps back to normal. Thinking logically, he and Kirk then drive the computer crazy with illogic.
“Naturally, it can’t cope, its designers not having been as smart as our Earthmen. (…) It shorts out all its fuses and releases the Enterprise just in time for the last commercial. For a tag, the seduced priestess promises Kirk that she will work to build a new civilization on her planet – just for Kirk – one where steel brassieres are illegal.”“GREEN PRIESTESSES OF THE COSMIC COMPUTER has no internal conflict; it’s all formula. Kirk doesn’t have a decision to make (…) It’s a compendium of all the bad plot devices that wore out their welcome on too many Star Trek episodes. It’s all excitement, very little story. (…) FORMULA occurs when FORMAT starts to repeat itself. Or when writers are giving less than their best. (…) Flashy devices can conceal the lack for awhile, but ultimately, the lack of any real meat in the story will leave the viewers hungry and unsatisfied.”
By that point Roddenberry was Executive Producer In Name Only, already thinking of his next project. Star Trek’s current existence may be to the credit, almost as much as Roddenberry, as Lucille Ball, whose Desilu Studios produced Star Trek until Paramount purchased Desilu. From all indications, Ball was as ardent a supporter of the series as anyone. (Which makes it too bad that there was never an on-camera role for Ball during the series, though screwball comedy was probably one of the few formats that didn’t fit into the series.)
It should be obvious that Star Trek went far beyond what even its creator, Roddenberry, thought it was capable of doing. Roddenberry was certainly a visionary, but necessarily imperfect, because the future is very difficult to predict, as the fact that we already have communicator- and tricorder-like devices, but we haven’t had a third world war, nor a eugenics war. As I’ve stated before, Roddenberry was, and Star Trek’s most ardent fans are, wrong about at least two things — (1) the idea that economic realities will go away in 300 years even if everything can be made in a replicator, and, even more importantly, (2) the fairytale that human nature will be overcome 300 years from now.
Given all of that, what has happened after Star Trek’s cancellation is nothing short of remarkable. Had you told me upon my fourth birthday, when the last (and arguably worst) TOS episode, “Turnabout Intruder,” aired, that the canceled series would be remade into six movies, four spinoff series (and three movies from the original spinoff), remade in its original premise into three movies, and spawn an entire universe of fan fiction, I wouldn’t have known what you were talking about, and neither would have anyone else with more knowledge than a 4-year-old has about the TV business.
At an absolute minimum, Star Trek was entertaining TV, and TV that even in its original iteration stands up better than most of what else was on TV in the late 1960s. Regardless of the series, there is no substitute for good characters and good stories.
Jon Gabriel watched NBC’s Commander-in-Chief Forum last night so you didn’t have to:
Wednesday night, NBC News held their Commander-in-Chief Forum, a chance for voters to spend an hour assessing the capabilities of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Focused on the most important facet of the presidency, our nation’s defense, it was hard not to feel queasy by the end of it. I’m sure I wasn’t the only viewer muttering, “In 135 days, one of these people is going to be the President of the United States.” (Full disclosure: I might not have used the word “people.”)
Matt Lauer first welcomed Hillary Clinton for her 30-minute shift in front of the small audience of veterans aboard the USS Intrepid in New York. If there was any question if Lauer — a Clinton Foundation “Notable Member” — would take it easy on the Democrat, it was answered with a resounding “no.”
Lauer laid into the former Secretary of State about her use of personal e-mail and a server to discuss obviously classified issues, even when she was overseas. “Why wasn’t it disqualifying,” he asked, “if you want to be commander-in-chief?” Predictably Clinton hedged on the issue, noting her vast experience in handling classified material yet insisting that “none of the e-mails sent or received by me” bore a classified header. Left unmentioned was the fact that the FBI refutes this claim.
When Lauer noted that FBI Director James Comey said it’s possible that hostile actors gained access to her e-mail, Clinton replied, “There is no evidence,” but added, “of course anything is possible.” Hardly a comfort to America’s 1.3 million active service members or her 21.8 million veterans.
Questions from the audience were equally tough. Retired Air Force Lt. Jon Lester asked “Secretary Clinton, how can you expect those such as myself who were and are entrusted with America’s most sensitive information to have any confidence in your leadership as president when you clearly corrupted our national security?”
Former Army Captain Ernie Young asked how Clinton “will determine when and where to deploy troops directly into harm’s way.” Clinton then laid out her policy toward ISIS which was an uninspiring as one might imagine. She basically reiterated the Obama administration’s strategy of air power and support for the Arabs and the Kurds fighting the terror group. But then Clinton claimed, “they are not going to get ground troops. We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again. And we’re not putting ground troops into Syria. We’re going to defeat ISIS without committing American ground troops.”
There are currently ground troops in both Iraq and Syria.
After a commercial break, Lauer welcomed Trump to the stage, in which the GOP nominee tried to play out the clock with the greatest hits from his rallies. When the host asked what Trump thinks prepares him for the role of commander-in-chief, he answered, “Well, I’ve built a great company. I’ve been all over the world. I’ve dealt with foreign countries. I’ve done very well, as an example, tremendously well dealing with China and dealing with so many of the countries that are just ripping this country.”
He continued: “I think the main thing is I have great judgment. I have good judgment. I know what’s going on. I’ve called so many of the shots.” Trump also countered Clinton’s accurate claim that he supported the Iraq War, recommending that Lauer read a 2004 issue of Esquire magazine.
He then bragged about his primary victory, saying, “I beat 16 people and here I am… and that was a lot of people. That was a record, Matt. That was a record in the history of Republican politics. I was able to get more votes than anybody ever has gotten in the history of Republican politics.”
Lauer moved on to Trump’s claim that he will always tell the truth, noting another of his claims: “I know more about ISIS than the generals do. Believe me.” Trump replied that “the generals have been reduced to rubble. They have been reduced to a point where it’s embarrassing for our country. You have a force of 30,000 or so people. Nobody really knows.”
Phillip Clay, a former public affairs officer in the Marine Corps, asked the candidate, “you’ve claimed to have a secret plan to defeat ISIS. But you’re hardly the first politician to promise a quick victory and a speedy homecoming. So assuming we do defeat ISIS, what next? What is your plan for the region to ensure that a group like them doesn’t just come back?”
Trump replied that “Iran is going to be taking over Iraq,” and then outlined his “secret plan.” Kinda:
The — and I think you know — because you’ve been watching me I think for a long time — I’ve always said, shouldn’t be there, but if we’re going to get out, take the oil. If we would have taken the oil, you wouldn’t have ISIS, because ISIS formed with the power and the wealth of that oil.
Just we would leave a certain group behind and you would take various sections where they have the oil. They have — people don’t know this about Iraq, but they have among the largest oil reserves in the world, in the entire world.
And we’re the only ones, we go in, we spend $3 trillion, we lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then, Matt, what happens is, we get nothing. You know, it used to be to the victor belong the spoils. Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There was no victor. But I always said: Take the oil.
One of the benefits we would have had if we took the oil is ISIS would not have been able to take oil and use that oil to fuel themselves.
Of course, Trump’s main issue hasn’t been national defense, but immigration. When an audience member asked him if an undocumented person who wants to serve in the armed forces deserves to stay in this country, he responded positively. “I think that when you serve in the armed forces,” Trump said, “that’s a very special situation, and I could see myself working that out, absolutely.”
Trump was also asked about his praise for Vladimir Putin, which he said was fine because the Russian autocrat has “an 82 percent approval rating.” Lauer countered, “He’s also a guy who annexed Crimea, invaded Ukraine, supports Assad in Syria, supports Iran, is trying to undermine our influence in key regions of the world, and according to our intelligence community, probably is the main suspect for the hacking of the DNC computers.”
Trump was skeptical. “Well, nobody knows that for a fact. But do you want me to start naming some of the things that President Obama does at the same time? …I think when he calls me brilliant, I’ll take the compliment, OK? …The fact that he calls me brilliant or whatever he calls me is going to have zero impact.” Trump then praised Putin for his leadership because “the man has very strong control over a country.”
In a few months, Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will have strong control over our country. To current service members and my fellow veterans, I can offer only condolences.
Too bad Evan McMullin wasn’t invited to participate. In addition to knowing what Aleppo is (the Syrian refugee issue, on which Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson swung and missed), McMullin probably could give non-eye-rolling answers to all these questions.
It is hard to remember that the “real” candidates are supposedly a vitriolic real estate mogul and a woman whose ethical radar is permanently on the fritz. It is, however, the guy who got into the race just four weeks ago with no political experience and no experience in pay-to-play malfeasance who is composed, thoughtful and — like a lot of Americans — stunned that we have these two candidates running for the highest office.
In a conference room in his campaign’s D.C. office, Evan McMullin has tough words for both the major-party candidates. “I think both of these candidates are terribly corrupt,” he says. “Donald Trump says he is not beholden to anyone, but he’s beholden to the Kremlin.” He points to the farcical scene on Tuesday where retired Lt. Gen. Mike Flynn, one of many Trump advisers with Russia ties, questioned Trump on foreign policy. “Trump took the opportunity to advocate for closer relations with Russia even while Vladimir Putin is engaged in undermining our democracy,” McMullin says incredulously in pointing to the leaks from hackers tied to the Kremlin. “Donald Trump is being played by Russia, is being manipulated by them.” McMullin, a former CIA operations officer, should know a professional infiltration operation when he sees one.
McMullin just announced that he has qualified for the ballot in South Carolina, the 20th state where he is either on the printed ballot or a registered write-in. He notes that current Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), after losing the GOP primary, won her seat with a write-in campaign, and past presidential candidates have won primary states by write-in. Beyond his home state of Utah, McMullin sees the Mountain West, where both Clinton and Trump did poorly in the primaries, as fertile ground for his efforts, along with Minnesota (which has a history of electing independents) and Virginia, home to many military personnel, where he managed to clear the ballot requirements that have tripped up many professional politicians.
McMullin does not have the artificial confidence and bluster of most politicians. In person, he is soft-spoken but precise with his words. He doesn’t pretend that the day-to-day grind of raising money and sitting for interviews is “fun.” “It is gratifying,” he says. He took on the arduous task of running for president as an unknown because he felt he had to do something. Plainly he is taken aback by the GOP’s willingness to stand behind Trump. “How many members of Congress are remaining silent or even supporting him? This is our problem.” He notes the Founders risked their lives for their country. “Here politicians won’t even risk speaking up for fear of losing the next election.”
Alarmed by the potential for bad precedent in presidential elections, McMullin bashes Trump for refusing to release his taxes and medical records. “It’s absolutely unacceptable that we’d consider for president someone who hasn’t released his taxes and health records.” In using an alleged audit to avoid releasing his taxes, Trump “is putting his own interests above those of Americans.”
McMullin says he has several goals in running. One is to block both major candidates from getting to 270 electoral votes, throwing the election to the House. He concedes that will be “very difficult.” However, “Another goal is to give conservatives who were going to sit home a reason to vote,” he says. That would surely help down-ticket Republicans. “Just as important are goals for the country,” he says. “Being a voice for tolerance and liberty in an election that lacks both [values].” He continues, “If we are only successful in one category, it will have been worth it.”
He urges newspaper editorial boards, some of which have interviewed Libertarian Gary Johnson, to meet him. “I think it would be to the benefit of the American people and their readers if editorial boards were to hear from more than two parties, especially when 42 percent of Americans are independents and the [major-party] candidates are so disliked.” Indeed, editorial boards could interview the GOP, Democratic and Libertarian candidates this time and never hear an argument for a strong American presence in the world.
McMullin’s candidacy has gotten a surprisingly robust response in just four weeks. They have 60,000 volunteers willing to help with ballot qualification, outreach and other jobs. “They’re self-organizing faster than we can organize,” McMullin observes. In particular, he is getting a positive response from millennials, who view both major candidates warily.
Indeed, it is with the millennial generation that the future of a center-right party may rest. This is the generation empowered by technology, wary of top-down government and, says McMullin, looking for “tolerance, a little kindness.”
It is not at all clear to him that the Republican Party will survive and provide those and other voters with an alternative to the Democratic Party going forward. The taint of Trump is going to last a while. “It is going to be very, very difficult for the Republican Party to recover — not impossible, but difficult,” he remarks. Whether it does survive, he argues, depends on what Republicans do in this election. “If they didn’t repudiate Trump before the election, they will have significantly less credibility when they try to do so after the election.” He argues, “There is still time to repudiate his misogyny, bigotry, foreign policy ideas and lack of fiscal responsibility.”
McMullin might tip the balance in some states, but his highest calling may be summoning Republicans to avoid besmirching their own reputations and the image of the party by going down with the Trump Titanic. He says, “This is a litmus test for leadership.” Republicans might consider that admonition when deciding after the next Trump outrage comes — and it will — whether they should jump off the Trump train to political and moral safety. The ones who do will be much better positioned to clean up the pieces after November.
Today in 1956, Harry Belafonte’s “Calypso” went to number one for the next 31 weeks:
Today in 1965, Daily Variety included this ad:
Madness! Running parts for four Insane Boys age 17-21.
The phony maverick Russ Feingold believes the federal government should run the Internet. Kevin Binversie explains why that’s a terrible idea:
It’s often rare for Russ Feingold to expose his true inner left-winger during campaign season; but we got just that according to a report from the La Crosse Tribune on Thursday . They reported the former U.S. Senator believes the time has come for the U.S. government re-classify the Internet as a government-regulated utility.
Democrat Russ Feingold called Thursday for the federal government to treat broadband internet service as a public utility as part of his Badger Innovation Plan.
[…]
Feingold called for a “robust” federal program of broadband build-outs by both private and public providers to bring rural residents up to the same level of service as people in the city, at similar rates — similar to federal subsidies in the 1930s that expanded electricity to those same areas.
“This needs to be a utility,” Feingold said. “Everybody needs to have it. You can’t let these three big companies have control.”
Feingold’s plan criticizes congressional efforts to pass legislation limiting net neutrality, which would allow Comcast, AT&T and Charter to charge websites such as Netflix and Google for faster content delivery.
“We have to break the hold of these corporate interests when it comes to something like this,” Feingold said.
If you know anything about the debate over so-called “Net Neutrality,” there are actually three main arguments going on. One on the left, one in the middle being used by those on the left, and one on the right.
Those on the Hard Left, like Feingold and a group known as “Free Press” (which has the Madison Cap Times’ own John Nichols as a co-founder who serves on their board of directors ) which want a government-run Internet. One which they say will better service the people, but will more than likely lead to control on the speed, flow, and content of what people see.
The one in middle, are your typical techno-advocates calling for what they call “The Open Internet” or “Net Neutrality.” Their position can more or less be generalized to “All data should to be treated the same” on the Internet.
That’s fine and all, but no one has yet to find any Internet provider who’s actually has done what they claim could happen if “Net Neutrality” isn’t enacted. What this group actually is, are nothing more than willing patsies who will open the door to federal regulation so the Government-Run Internet guys can get what they want further down the road.
On the Right are critics of the first two groups, who advocate for letting the market do it thing and letting innovation rule the Internet – as it has since Day One. They also point out, that with more and more of the Internet going to mobile devices (iPhones, other mobile devices), that the “Public Utility” folks are tying people down to cords within their homes and other stationary locations.
That’s exactly the point made by Larry Downes, the director of Georgetown University’s Center for Business and Public Policy, in an op-ed to the Washington Post this past July. Downes writes making the Internet a utility; as Feingold now advocates, would be a disaster.
Public utilities don’t compete. Utilities are regulated as monopolies, even if they are not. So any benefits consumers and businesses have realized from competition among broadband-access providers will quickly disappear. And those benefits have been substantial. During the 20 years in which U.S. Internet infrastructure was left largely to engineering-driven self-governance, investors pumped nearly $1.5 trillion into competing network technologies and competing providers, giving the United States four times as many wired connections as any other country, along with the most advanced mobile networks and the most fiber. More U.S. homes have access to broadband than they do indoor plumbing. And except for the very newest high-speed services, U.S. broadband prices are actually lower than they are in price-regulated Europe.
Public utilities don’t innovate. Regulated utilities have no financial incentive to embrace change. As fossil fuels become unsustainable, for example, disruption is now essential in sleepy power utilities. But a recent article in the New Yorker magazine describes how providers often can’t legally invest in alternative energy sources even if their regulated management wanted to, which they don’t. Utilities see increasingly efficient solar power not as a potentially better and cheaper solution but rather as an “existential threat,” the beginning, according to the trade group Edison Electric Institute, of “a death spiral” for its members. “Whereas most enterprises are about risk, utilities are about safety,” the article concludes. “Safe power supply, safe dividends. No surprises.”
Public utilities don’t serve consumers. The cozy relationship between regulated industries and their regulators — their true customer, not us lowly rate payers — invariably leads to competitive inertia, corruption and deteriorating facilities. The American Society of Civil Engineers gives America’s overall infrastructure — both public and public utility — an overall grade of D-minus, requiring an estimated $3.6 trillion just to repair. With the FCC and state regulators already moving to apply their newly discovered regulatory powers to set prices and define specific business practices of broadband-access providers, why do advocates who gripe every time even a modest storm knocks out their electricity imagine anything better for a public-utility Internet?
What Feingold’s really wanting by calling for the Internet to become a public utility isn’t a better experience for consumers; he’s calling for a government takeover; one where he hopes his long-time union buddies get a cut.
Binversie didn’t mention what Feingold, the First Amendment opponent as proven by his unconstitutional McCain-Feingold campaign finance deform bill — government control of Internet content.
Start four years ago:
Four years later, John Sexton reports:
Ben Ray Luján, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), sent a letter to his Republican counterpart Monday asking that information in leaked documents not be used against Democratic candidates. The letter from Luján reads in part:
The Russians have a long track record of doctoring documents acquired through cyberattacks, and while we cannot confirm their authenticity, their appearance online is certainly a notable concern…
I write with the assumption that you are not aware of the troubling action your Committee undertook last week to take advantage of this Russian cyberattack ahead of this week’s Democratic primary in Florida. In a digital advertisement attacking Mr. Randy Perkins in the 18th Congressional District, your staff used content from documents stolen by the Russian hackers.
I know you to be an honorable person, and this disturbing action by your Committee is genuinely shocking. The NRCC’s use of documents stolen by the Russians plays right into the hands of one of the United States’ most dangerous adversaries. Put simply, if this action continues, the NRCC will be complicit in aiding the Russian government in its effort to influence American elections.
Luján asks that the NRCC forswear any further use of leaked information. The letter concludes, “This is the only appropriate and patriotic way to respond to this Russian attack on our democracy.”
Several points on this. First, you have to love that the DCCC now refers to Russia as “one of the United States’ most dangerous adversaries.” That’s quite a change from where the party was four years ago. …
Second, does anyone think that if the shoe were on the other foot, i.e. if oppo research material on Republicans had been dropped in the lap of Democrats, they would forswear using it as a matter of patriotism? I don’t buy it for a moment.
Third, the DCCC is suggesting that Russia may have doctored the documents. It’s true that Russia probably would do this, however the DCCC has yet to indicate this has actually happened. Politico reports, “The DCCC, however, refuses to say whether the information in the DCCC memo was altered or not, citing an ongoing FBI investigation.”
Which brings me to my fourth and final point. The one instance Luján mentions of this leaked material being used in an ad didn’t involve any secret information about the candidate. From Politico:
The NRCC sparked the debate last week when it aired a digital ad attacking Randy Perkins, a Democrat running in Florida’s 18th District, over his company’s alleged over-charging of a school district for contracted work. Florida press had covered the legal dispute, and the back-and-forth was listed on the hacked DCCC internal memo as potentially problematic for their candidate.
“Even Democratic Party bosses are questioning his character,” the narrator said in the ad, which included a photo of the internal memo.
So that’s the extent of this so far. Republicans mention that a DCCC file pointed to already public information which made the Democratic candidate look bad. You can argue whether or not that’s fair game but it’s not as if this was some deep, dark secret only revealed by the hack.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 