New Campaign Videos

Campaign videos don't have to be expensive to be effective. I asked Mike Siegel what this one cost him. I caught up with him just as he was headed out the door to meet Beto for a rally in Elgin. He told me the video was part of a package that includes 12 clips and some mailers, but that if you break down the package, you could say the video cost around $1,500. "This is what a resistance campaign in 2018 looks like," he told me. "Focused messages targeted at specific segments of voters. Our goal is to let the Texas 10th know how the current representative has betrayed their interests, and how specifically I will fight for them."

Nate McMurray is running against indicted Republican crook (and Trumpist) Chris Collins in the part of western New York between suburban Buffalo and suburban Rochester. Nate's campaign is very grassroots-oriented and very DIY--  and this pretty effective video cost them... exactly nothing (other than a donated ancient TV from somebody's basement).



It sure would be great if they had the money to put it up on the air in the two relatively inexpensive media markets in the district. If you'd like to help Nate-- and any of the other congressional candidates on this page-- they all happen to be Medicare-For-All supporters, so you can find them on this page and contribute to their campaigns.



This brand new Randy Bryce ad (above) starts running on TV this week. With Bryan Steil and his allies pouring over $2 million into a vicious personal smear campaign against Randy, he's sticking to the issues that southeast Wisconsin voters care about and hitting back by showing his opponent's record in the private sector.

Bryce's campaign manager, David Keith, thinks this video is going to have a strong impact on voters. "The standard Beltway Democratic formula is to ignore Trump his (and Ryan’s) horrid policies," he told us, "and just about anything else that motivates working class folks. The belief is that if you present yourself milk-toast on steroids, you win in this 'wave' environment. That may be so in Democratic seats currently held by Republicans, but it’s not so in swing seats. In Wisconsin-1 we are doing it much, much differently. We are drawing a bright blue line between Trump and the decent people of southeast Wisconsin. Those that stand with Trump, good for them. We believe southeast Wisconsin has a good bullshit meter and a whole lot more voters will stand with the true working class candidate, Randy Bryce. Let’s not forget what is on every voters mind in a mid term: Trump, who in this case, is a buffoon who represents neither working class values nor aspirations, but rather those of Wall Street, K street and... the Kremlin."



Andrew Gillum is on the top of the ticket in Florida. Democrats are counting on him to win the governor's seat, save Bill Nelson's Senate seat and drag a bunch of sub-par DCCC recruits over the finishing line and into Congress. This ad is exactly the kind of thing that could help. Andrew makes the crucial connection between the state's environmental catastrophe and special interest money that has turned Florida politics into a sewer. In a non-wave cycle an ad like this might make voters think not just about Ron DeSantis, Andrew's crackpot Trumpist opponent (currently hiding under his bed and refusing to come out), but also corrupt Democraps like Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Alcee Hastings, who take as much money from the same shady special interests that help Republicans.

It's an extraordinarily good ad and I sure hope Andrew's campaign gets it out widely in this state, which is one of the most expensive in the country for TV. You can help Andrew do that here.



Brave New Film's produced two high quality videos for two high quality progressive candidates, Kara Eastman (above) and J.D. Scholten (below). The top guy at the studio, Robert Greenwald, told me today that they "decided to get involved directly in the Kara Eastman and J.D. Scholten races because it seemed that:

1- They were  good progressive candidates who would benefit from video
2- What we do well at Brave New Films is tell stories, and both campaigns embraced and understood value of story telling. The narratives are about character... rather then just 30 second lists of facts or information
3- Both campaigns seem committed to multiple and wide use of the videos.

And this last one... well, I'll call this a free campaign song for Blue America, 2022. Listen closely, DCCC assholes:

And if it's a bunch of clowns you voted in
Election Day is comin' 'round again

Can Obama Save Us From A Koch Brothers Takeover?

It was almost as an afterthought that we appended an embed of the Robert Greenwald film, Koch Bros Exposed onto the end of a late Sunday night post about Romney and plutocracy. I can't emphasize enough how important it is for every swing state voter to see this movie before November 6... so here it is again. If you have concerns-- or doubts-- about the direction Romney would take this country should he get into the White House-- or what Republican control of the Senate and House will mean-- this documentary is an absolute must-see. Recall the speech Grover Norquist, the quintessential whore for plutocracy, gave at CPAC this summer:

All we have to do is replace Obama… We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget… We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it. The leadership now for the modern conservative movement for the next 20 years will be coming out of the House and the Senate... Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States. This is a change for Republicans: the House and Senate doing the work with the president signing bills. His job is to be captain of the team, to sign the legislation that has already been prepared.

David or Charles Koch-- let alone père Fred, the Bircher-- couldn't have summed up the right-wing case for Romney any better: a weak, vacillating nothing who will be what he's told by the Dark forces of American fascism.

Monday morning the Kochs must have killed a thousand kittens when they read the Washington Post report by Juliet Eilperin, Obama’s Record: Environmental Agenda Pushes Sweeping Attack On Air Pollution. I would have preferred to see the Obama Justice Department round up the banksters-- not to mention the Bush Regime war criminals-- and throw them in prison, but I've still be willing to give Obama the benefit of many doubts primarily because of his record on environmentalism. It's largely because of Obama that I drive a hybrid and that my home is powered by solar energy. That he's willing to stand up to the Kochs-- please watch the film-- is, alone, enough reason to reelect him.

The day after the November 2010 elections made clear President Obama’s greenhouse-gas legislation was doomed, he vowed to keep trying to curb emissions linked to global warming. There’s more than one way of “skinning the cat,” he told reporters.

Since then, Obama has used his executive powers-- including his authority under the 1970 Clean Air Act-- to press the most sweeping attack on air pollution in U.S. history. He has imposed the first carbon-dioxide limits on new power plants, tightened fuel-efficiency rules as part of the auto bailout and steered billions of federal dollars to clean-energy projects. He also has proposed slashing mercury emissions from utilities by 91 percent by 2016.

Obama’s end run around Republican opposition has delighted environmentalists, but it has drawn the ire of business groups and conservatives who argue he is crippling the coal industry, driving up energy costs and hurting the overall economy.

“Environmental regulation should be about protecting public health, and not about creating green jobs and mitigating hypothetical risk,” said Diane Katz, research fellow in regulatory policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “Being unemployed and poor from overregulation, or zealous regulation, is a greater risk than global warming.”

When Obama was elected in 2008, environmentalists were confident their most-cherished goals-- ending coal-fired power plants, limiting greenhouse-gas emissions and invoking new protections for public lands-- were finally within reach.

Following up on a campaign promise, the president backed legislation that would slash America’s carbon output by 80 percent by 2050. Under the proposed cap-and-trade legislation, companies would buy and sell emissions credits allowing them to pollute more.

The bill was passed by the House, which at the time was controlled by Democrats, but in June 2009 it was blocked in the Senate by Republicans and moderate [NOTE: in Washington circles the word "moderate" now connotes far right-wing reactionaries] Democrats. When Republicans won control of the House in the 2010 elections, the bill was dead.

The administration turned to the Clean Air Act, which Obama allies said the president became familiar with while serving on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Using the law’s extensive authority, the administration issued six major environmental rules, including ones that placed limits on toxic air pollutants, greenhouse gases, soot and smog-forming pollutants.

The strategy was bolstered by some outside factors. Its effort to limit carbon emissions was benefited by the natural-gas boom; many utilities are switching from coal to natural gas, which is more economical and emits much less carbon. The automobile bailout gave Obama the leverage to impose tougher fuel-efficiency standards, and the Environmental Protection Agency faced several lawsuits pending from the Bush administration that needed to be resolved.

Obama’s standards for new vehicles, said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club, rank as “the biggest move to get us off our oil dependence by any president ever.” The rules, which took effect this year, will require the U.S. auto fleet to average 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025.

Heather Zichal, deputy assistant to the president for energy and climate change, said the administration’s array of environmental rules go to the “sweet spot of energy security, economic opportunity and reducing pollution,” and fit into a favorite Obama theme during the 2008 campaign.

But the business community argues that the regulations are heavy-handed and are hurting the nation’s economic security.

“The utility sector, which we consider a part of the manufacturing sector, has been hit extremely hard,” said Ross Eisenberg, vice president of energy and resources at the National Association of Manufacturers.

Utilities, he said, are shuttering older plants and holding off expanding existing ones out of fear that the EPA will deny them permits.

Last month, urged on by several business and energy groups, the GOP-controlled House passed the Stop the War on Coal Act, which would reverse several Obama regulations and proposals. It would bar the EPA from regulating greenhouse gases, jettison the stricter fuel standards and give states primary authority over the storage and disposal of coal-combustion waste. But that bill has little chance in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Because the administration, faced by partisan polarization, has moved ahead on its own, opportunities for compromise have been lost, some say. Eisenberg notes that during former president Bill Clinton’s second term, the two parties negotiated passage of such significant environmental laws as the 1996 Safe Drinking Water Act.

“The big difference is you had a Congress and an administration a little bit willing to work together on the issues,” he said.

...Obama friends and foes agree on one thing: The president will probably pursue an even more aggressive environmental agenda if reelected.

House Natural Resources Committee Chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) said in a statement he would expect Obama to push for more national monument designations in a second term. “From nearly day one,” he said, “the Obama Administration has attempted to impose policies that would block public access to public lands and cause significant economic harm and job loss.”

When it comes to putting more public land off limits to development, he added, “Such decisions should not be made by unilateral orders from the president” using a 106-year old law.

Environmental leaders expect Obama to try to take tougher action on limiting greenhouse-gas emissions from existing power plants if reelected.

Obama hinted as much during a speech to a crowd of Colorado State University students in August.

“We’re on track to emit fewer greenhouse gases this year than we have in nearly 20 years,” he said. “You can keep those trends going. That all happened because of you.”

The bill Eilperin referred to above, H.R. 3409, which the GOP calls the Stop the War on Coal Act was introduced by a shill for the mine owners and polluters, Bill Johnson (R-OH) and had 19 consponsors who take large legalistic bribes from the anti-environmnetal polluters. Although 13 Republicans broke with their leadership to oppose it, it passed 233-175, as the Blue Dogs and New Dems rallied, to their corporate masters' sides (including, dangerously, Shelley Berkley, the exceptionally corrupt New Dem who would sell her grandmother for a nickel and is the Democratic candidate for the Nevada Senate seat and an even worse Blue Dog, Joe Donnelly, who the Democrats are running for the Indiana Senate seat). One of the co-sponsors of the bill was West Virginia corporate whore (and crooked multimillionaire) David McKinley. McKinely is always on the side of the mine owners and always against the miners... always. His opponent this year is an advocate for miner families, Sue Thorn. I can't imagine she would ever have voted for this unserious legislation. Thorn:

Being a "Friend of Coal" isn’t enough, especially when regulations concern worker safety. In the recent draft 2013 budget, House Republicans added language that would prevent the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) from implementing new limits on coal dust. An amendment by Congressman David McKinley will make it tougher to control combustible coal ash or unsafe air quality in mines, even though there is a surge in black lung cases. Black lung is now striking coal miners at younger ages and with less time in mines. This is no time to prevent the enforcement of these life-saving regulations.

When elected officials receive campaign contributions from coal barons they seem to ignore the needs of coal miners. I will always be a "Friend of Coal Miners."

The Koch brothers and the political whores like McKinley who are their willing puppets, are an existential threat to this country and to our families. It's enough of a reason to overlook Obama's many flaws and defeat Romney and it's enough of a reason to consider making a contribution to congressional candidates who will help the president along the way with a forward-looking environmental agenda.

"The Koch brothers want to destroy Social Security because it's a federal government program that has been enormously successful" (Bernie Sanders)

"The Koch brothers' job is to do everything they can to dismember government in general, and if you could destroy Social Security, you have gone a long way forward in that effort."

-- Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

by Ken

Wow, this is megaterrific, this new video from Robert Greenwald and BraveNewFoundation featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders tracing the how and why of the Koch brothers' echo-chambered campaign against Social Security. It's a shame TV networks and stations won't be running this as a "news" story, the way they so often have with right-wing propaganda plants.

There's no propaganda here, just facts, beginning with splendid visuals documenting the amounts contributed by the Koch brothers to their core constituency of "think tanks and other foundations," who form the sounding board of the Koch Echo Chamber, and then we get a gorgeous glimpse of that echo chamber at work, focusing on the assault on Social Security.

The video is organized around three Koch Echo Chamber Distortions, starting with:


Senator Sanders explains why this is important to the takedown of Social Security, and why it's wrong, and the video clips show us the actual ricocheting of the echo chamber.

The Koch brothers fund organizations, and you have economists and political scientists working there, and they are very, very good in getting on television [clips of Andrew Biggs of the Cato Institute, Veronique De Rugy of the Heritage Foundation, José Piñera of Cato, David Johns of Heritage, then a montage], and people will not know they represent an organization which is heavily funded by corporate interests. They are very effective in getting their positions out into the media [a host of network-talking-head clips sounding the theme, "raise the retirement age"].

At the same time the Koch brothers are putting huge amounts of money into campaign contributions [clips of Paul Ryan, $63K, "Sunny John" Boehner, $30K, Rand Paul, $17K], so you have an echo chamber which starts repeating a lot of misinformation. [Video graphics: "Position Papers," "Media," "Pundits," "Politicians."]

And then the whole thing is repeated for:

Koch Echo Chamber Distortion #1: Need to Raise the Age of Retirement

and

Koch Echo Chamber Distortion #3: We Should Privatize Social Security

I know it can sound awfully, even farfetchedly, abstract when we rail against the propaganda machine of the Right in general and the Koch brothers in particular. This video manages to give us a brief but powerful glimpse at the nuts-and-bolts of it. I hope everyone will watch the video, pass it along, and support BNF's continued efforts to fight the propaganda with truth.

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"A Sad Farewell to My Friend, Deborah Yesner" (my pass-along)

"Exhausted, frustrated, underpaid, she’d come home and -- how she found the energy I don’t know other than to say that it was a testament to how much she believed in what she was doing -- she’d monitor Bill O’Reilly; The Factor. (Can you imagine doing that after a hard day’s work?) . . . (ChrisBG, another member of our group, figured it out at one point: we were bringing in roughly 6¢ an hour for the hours we worked.)"

-- from "A Sad Farewell to My Friend, Deborah Yesner"

This post -- written by someone I don't know, about someone whose name I didn't even know while she was alive -- reached me through the common online pass-along route we're all familiar with. I'm not sure why it hit me so hard, but I think I know why I want to pass it along to you. It's a reminder of how many people are doing their share, or maybe more than their share, to do something about all the crappiness we see in the world around us. Goodness knows, they don't do it for recognition or praise. Somehow the loss of someone like Melanie's friend Deb demands some kind of acknowledgment, even celebration, even if it has to come posthumously. I wish I had something consoling to say to her family, except that their wife and mother isn't forgotten, least of all by them. -- Ken

A Sad Farewell to My Friend, Deborah Yesner

December 24, 2009

In January of 2004 I sent an email to Robert Greenwald, then an independent film producer, now the head of Brave New Films. That email changed my life; it resulted in me becoming one of eight researchers on Robert’s film, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism.

From there, we eight -- outraged at what we learned during the making of Outfoxed -- established the blog News Hounds in June of that year.

Among us we watched thousands of hours of Fox “News.” During the summer and fall of 2004 we watched in horror as Fox led the charge in the SwiftBoating of John Kerry and Kerry’s refusal (or inability, or whatever it was) to fight back. After the election, we were exhausted.

It was hard to get back on the horse but we all essentially committed to keep going; to keep exposing Fox for what it was — anything but “fair and balanced.” We hoped Democrats -- particularly Democrats who had a say in things -- were noticing what an amazing and well-oiled propaganda machine Fox was. Still don’t know if they were or are.

Deborah Yesner was one of us; one of the original eight. She taught special needs kids in her real life. She worked all day -- five days a week -- at that thankless job. Exhausted, frustrated, underpaid, she’d come home and -- how she found the energy I don’t know other than to say that it was a testament to how much she believed in what she was doing -- she’d monitor Bill O’Reilly; The Factor. (Can you imagine doing that after a hard day’s work?) She’d spend an hour watching the show and then an hour or three posting about it -- for four years -- for no pay mind you, other than the pittance in donations we’d split among us every quarter. (ChrisBG, another member of our group, figured it out at one point: we were bringing in roughly 6¢ an hour for the hours we worked.)

Then, in October of 2008, after suffering from very bad headaches for several days, Deborah -- Deb as we called her -- suffered a ruptured aneurysm in her brain. For the past year+ her husband and daughter have cared for her as she suffered infection after infection; was moved in and out of the hospital, back home and then to a nursing home and back to the hospital. On and on. The hospital took care of her physical needs, but the nursing home that her husband’s insurance would pay for was unequipped to care for her medical needs as well as provide the physical therapy required to give her a fighting chance to recover to the fullest extent. A facility like that was a step or ten above what his insurance would pay for and he couldn’t afford the out-of-pocket expense. (One can only imagine -- $10,000 per week?)

On Tuesday I learned that Deb had contracted a very serious infection. The doctors said there was nothing more they could do. Her husband and daughter decided to put her on a morphine drip and make her as comfortable as possible. Today her devastated and heartbroken family had the strength to inform us that Deb died later that day.

Deborah Yesner was a fierce believer in freedom of the press and in the freedom of speech. But she did not think it was right that a “news” network that claimed it was “fair and balanced,” but in reality was the primary propaganda outlet for the Republican party, should be allowed to use that slogan.

Deb was a jewel. She loved her husband and daughter with all her heart and soul. She was a wonderful person and a cherished friend. Her death is an indescribable loss to me and to the world.

Good-bye Deb. Love you (but I can’t believe I’m writing these words).

Melanie

Thanks to Melanie -- and to the other friends who passed this piece along till it reached me -- for sharing this remembrance on her Say It Ain't So Already blog. (Check the original of this post for links.)

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Help Robert Greenwald of Brave New Films prepare for his appearance Thursday on The Colbert Report

by Ken

Writing about Paul Krugman on the occasion of his Nobel award sent me shivering and quivering back to those awful dark years of the dawn of the century, when we liberals huddled in our caves in the face of the extreme-right-wing's seeming stranglehold on public discourse.

I don't know how I would have gotten through that time without the uncowed voices of Krugman, Frank Rich, and Jon Stewart. Oh, I'm sure there were other brave, unbloodied media heroes scattered around, and by all means add them to the list, but the mere fact that we can make a list of the voices for sanity reminds us how dark public discourse was in those awful years -- not to mention the awful consequences, starting with having the country bullied and hornswoggled into the catastrophic Iraq adventure.

>Happily, a lot has changed since then. Right now I would like to salute one important difference-maker is the emergence of Robert Greenwald and his Brave New Films organization as an indefatigable video truth-telling and rapid-response team. We all know only too well how preposterous the right-wing shibboleth about "liberal media" is. I don't think it's possible to overestimate how valuable it has been to have Robert and his team ever ready to blow the whistle on the conventional wisdom being spewed by the far-right-wing Infotainment News Media.

Now Robert has issued an appeal on the BNF website:

Help Robert Greenwald Nail Stephen Colbert This Thursday

I'm going to be on The Colbert Report this Thursday night, October 16, and I need your help.

As well prepped as I thought I was the last time I appeared on the show, Colbert caught me off-guard with his very first question: "Who hates America more, you or Michael Moore?" So now I implore you all, what questions do you think Colbert will ask me this time around? Which of our videos will he want to discuss? Will he ask about our most recent video, Tell McCain to End the Politics of Hate? Will he mock McCain's anger in John McCain's Rage Is a National Security Concern? Or will he ask about McCain's YouTube Problem Just Became a Nightmare, which is about to top a staggering 7 million views? And perhaps more importantly, what questions do you think I should ask Colbert? That is, if I get the chance.

Post your questions and any advice in the comments section below. Help me nail Colbert on Thursday! Then, watch the show Thursday night at 11:30pm on Comedy Central. And after the show, check our website for an exciting new contest about John McCain.

I've thrown in my two cents' worth:

Ken from DWT commented less than a minute ago:

Hey, Robert, as many commenters have already suggested, HAVE FUN with him.

I don't think I saw your earlier appearance, but I hope you busted a gut laughing at the Michael Moore question and then explained how much you have to love America to do what you and MM do.

One thing I would keep in mind is that Stephen is the one who gave us the concept of TRUTHINESS, as the common public substitute -- especially on the Right -- for truth. What is your work about (and MM's too) if not trying to bludgeon truthiness with truth?

I promise to watch this time!

Ken

Really, what could be more flattering to a dedicated truth-teller than to be bracketed with Michael Moore? Of course there's an important difference in their professional pace. Although Michael maintains a constant presence with his brilliant e-essays and public appearances, his medium is feature films, which have to be carefully targeted in subject matter and even at their fastest appear on the stately schedule of, well, feature films. BNF fills that gap with its dazzling barrage of carefully researched yet rapidly produced videos.

Anyway, I've had my say on the BNF website. Feel free to add yours. I hope Robert has a ball with Stephen tomorrow, and as I promised, I'll be watching.
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