Like Judas, Trump Insists God Is On His Side-- How Many Evangelicals Actually Believe Him?

That video above is Bob Dylan and Joan Baez at the Newport Folk Festival in 1963, singing one of my favorite songs of his, “With God On Our Side” (which hadn’t been released yet). Down at the bottom is a cover by Wire Train, one of the bands on my old indie label, 415 Records. Great version— and this clip has all the lyrics shown plainly on the screen. Trump should have watched it before he went down to Miami on Friday to rally evangelical voters. All the regular fare you get at any of Trump’s standard hate rallies— but tailored specifically for evangelicals, who he fears are starting to slip away from his grasp, something that would spell the end of any chance he has for a second term.

Democrats, he insisted are “radical” leftists pursuing an “extreme, anti-religious and socialist” agenda… Evangelicals, Christians of every denomination and believers of every faith, have never had a greater champion in the White House-- not even close-- than you have right now. Together, we’re not only are we defending our Constitutional rights, we’re also defending religion itself, which is under siege. Every Democrat candidate running for president is trying to punish religious believers and silence our churches and our pastors,” he hectored the most easily gaslighted sector of the population.

And then came this from his speech-writer: “I do really believe we have God on our side. Or there would have been no way we could have won.”

Really? God’s on his side? The lyrics of the Dylan song are all about how we Americans believe that God will invariably side with us, leaving no need to question the morality of wars fought and atrocities committed by our country. Convenient  Dylan is certainly attempting get across a sense of historical sickness which might not be comprehensible to Trump or his evangelical supporters. A little too abstract maybe?

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And that land that I live in
Has God on its side.

Oh the history books tell it
They tell it so well
The cavalries charged
The Indians fell
The cavalries charged
The Indians died
Oh the country was young
With God on its side.

Oh the Spanish-American
War had its day
And the Civil War too
Was soon laid away
And the names of the heroes
I's made to memorize
With guns in their hands
And God on their side.

Oh the First World War, boys
It closed out its fate
The reason for fighting
I never got straight
But I learned to accept it
Accept it with pride
For you don't count the dead
When God's on your side.

When the Second World War
Came to an end
We forgave the Germans
And we were friends
Though they murdered six million
In the ovens they fried
The Germans now too
Have God on their side.

I've learned to hate Russians
All through my whole life
If another war starts
It's them we must fight
To hate them and fear them
To run and to hide
And accept it all bravely
With God on my side.

But now we got weapons
Of the chemical dust
If fire them we're forced to
Then fire them we must
One push of the button
And a shot the world wide
And you never ask questions
When God's on your side.

In a many dark hour
I've been thinkin' about this
That Jesus Christ
Was betrayed by a kiss
But I can't think for you
You'll have to decide
Whether Judas Iscariot
Had God on his side.

So now as I'm leavin'
I'm weary as Hell
The confusion I'm feelin'
Ain't no tongue can tell
The words fill my head
And fall to the floor
If God's on our side
He'll stop the next war.

Ever read ‘em? You should, carefully. Evangelical voters should too. Know any you could send them to?

This morning John Pavlovitz wrote about the kind of Christians who are still followers of Jesus-- Christians are Supposed to Care About People--and those who only claim to be. He wrote that as a result of "decades immersed in the Christian tradition both personally and vocationally, I thought I had at least the gist of Jesus. Now I think maybe I’ve been doing this wrong all these years. For my entire life I assumed something that perhaps I shouldn’t have: I thought Christians were supposed to care about people. Not necessarily agree with them or believe what they believe or even like them-- but see them each as specific and unique image-bearers of the divine, to want and to work for Shalom for them: wholeness, happiness, peace, safety, rest. I grew up believing that one of the markers of a life emulating Jesus, was a heart capable of being broken at the distress of other human beings around you: when they are hungry and hurting, when they are homeless and afraid, when they grieve and feel alone, when they believe they are unloved and forgotten, when tragedy befalls them and when injustice assails them. These things are supposed to move the needle within us if Jesus is present."

• I never once see a Jesus brandishing a “Don’t Tread On Me” bravado in the face of dire need.
• I don’t see him lecturing the poor and the afflicted to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
• I can’t find him inviting war or celebrating bloodshed or reveling in loss of life for any reason.
• 
I don’t encounter him trolling those who express sadness or worry or struggle.

• I don’t see Jesus tossing off a defiant middle-finger contempt for those who came seeking refuge in him.

• I see no arrogance that inflates his worth at the expense of someone else’s.

...If you profess to be a follower of Jesus, I’m not concerned with your politics and I don’t care about your doctrine. I’m not interested in the Scriptures you can recite or the prayers you utter out loud. Show me a working theology of empathy. Show me that you actually give a damn about people: not just Republican people or American people or Christian people or white people-- but the disparate parade of human beings in every way you encounter them, in every condition they arrive, with whatever backstory they’ve lived through.

If you tell me you’re a Christian, be someone who, like Jesus-- looks at the crowds and has a compassion for them that propels them into proximity with their pain.

Because if you aren’t deeply burdened to live from a place of expansive, sacrificial, selfless love toward your neighbor, not moved to alleviate anguish or reduce suffering, not compelled to leave people better than you found them-- honestly I’m not sure what the point of calling yourself a Christian is.

Bloomberg's Ugly Trump-Like Sexism Makes Him Absolutely Unfit To Be The Democratic Nominee

Bloomberg is running in 3 super-Tuesday states so far: Alabama Arkansas and Tennessee but his campaign always says he hasn't decided if he's running for president or not yet. Sounds crazy to me but... he's also spending $100,000,000 on digital ads in battleground states the way you or I might spent $100. Michael Scherer and John Wagner, writing for the Washington Post, reported that the first ads popped up yesterday in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Arizona and that "the outlay far exceeds what any other Democrat already in the race has spent on advertising."

The New York Times reported that the ads will stay up through the primary season even if Bloomberg ultimately decides to run only in Alabama Arkansas and Tennessee. (He's not actually in the ads.)

The announcement of the ad campaign might take some of the attention off all the stories that inundated the press this week about Bloomberg's sexism. Bloomberg's arrogance makes him incapable to responding directly to a long litany of example of his misogyny but he did have a lackey, tell the media that "Mike has come to see that some of what he has said is disrespectful and wrong. He believes his words have not always aligned with his values and the way he has led his life."

On Thursday Mediaite reported that "Bloomberg’s demeaning or outright disturbing comments about women and sexual assault date back decades. In mid-to-late ’90s, four women sued Bloomberg LP for sexual harassment and details that came out of the suit include the billionaire allegedly demanding a woman sales executive 'Kill it!' when she announced that she was pregnant. While discussing the same sales executive getting engaged, the lawsuit claimed Bloomberg looked at her engagement ring and said, 'What, is the guy dumb and blind? What the hell is he marrying you for?' before asking several days later if she was 'still engaged,' adding, 'What, is he that good in bed, or did your father pay him off to get rid of you?' In an incredible argument insisting he did not make sexually inappropriate comments about the sales executive, Bloomberg said in a deposition that he thought the phrase 'I’d do her' was a reference to having a friendship with someone, not sex. The suit was settled out of court and Bloomberg claims he passed a lie-detector test proving his innocence, but the supposed test results were never released."

In a late ’90s lawsuit over Bloomberg LP’s sexist work culture, a woman employee claimed she had been raped by her superior, but in a deposition, Bloomberg suggested that she was lying by saying that the only time he believes rape accusations are when there’s “an unimpeachable third-party witness” vouching for the victim. The suit accused Bloomberg of using phrases like, “I’d do that piece of meat” and “I’d do her in a second;” the billionaire took issue with just one part of those comments, saying, “I don’t recall ever using the term ‘meat’ at all.” A Village Voice report from 2001 suggested that Bloomberg may have quietly settled the suit out of court with the woman, like he did in the lawsuit years previous.

In a book from the early ’90s-- titled, The Portable Bloomberg: The Wit and Wisdom of Michael Bloomberg-- written by Bloomberg LP staffers to canonize some of their boss’s most memorable quotes, the lines "If women wanted to be appreciated for their brains, they’d go to the library instead of to Bloomingdale’s" and "I know for a fact that any self-respecting woman who walks past a construction site and doesn’t get a whistle will turn around and walk past again and again until she does get one" are attributed to the billionaire. When journalist Michael Wolff wrote about the book, he reached out to former Bloomberg LP executive Elisabeth DeMarse, who confirmed that the quotes were accurate, adding that Bloomberg “was touched” by it because “He loves things that are about himself.”

Business Insider made him sound like Trump! "In his 1997 autobiography, Bloomberg wrote that he kept 'a girlfriend in every city' during his years on Wall Street in the 1960s and 70s. And he once told a reporter, 'I like theater, dining, and chasing women ... Let me put it this way: I am a single, straight billionaire in Manhattan. What do you think? It's a wet dream.'... In 2008, at least 58 women filed a class-action lawsuit against Bloomberg LP alleging pregnancy discrimination. The women alleged they were demoted, had their salaries cut, or were otherwise mistreated after they returned from maternity leave. One of the women's complaints alleged that an executive at the company said, 'I'm not having any pregnant bitches working for me.'" A Democratic Party presidential nominee? Maybe in Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee... nowhere else.

Some Polls Come Up With Conclusions First-- And Then Fill In The Numbers... Especially When They Think God Is On Their Side

Unscientific Twitter poll makes a point without body language analysis

I ran a little twitter poll on Friday and I was surprised that so many respondents sawbthe possibilities inherent in political polling the same way I did. Three days later I ran across an extremely detailed look at one specific poll that looked completely phony and manipulative when I originally saw the poll a few days ago: Manufacturing Consent-- How Democratic operatives are undermining Bernie Sanders 2020 candidacy. "Manufacturing consent," asserted the author, "has been the modern means by which the few powerful gets to control the many powerless. Since the many won’t give up their power so easily, the powerful must find new ways of convincing the many-- that the candidate of their choice does not enjoy popular support-- so they must pick a more reasonable choice to rule over them." He's talking about the dilemma faced by many in the establishment who know in their hearts Biden could never win an election-- and that their second choice May Pete is a joke-- but who, deep in their souls fear the change Bernie embodies. They may not want Elizabeth Warren, but they'll take her if it will save them from Bernie without having to resort to another four years of a fascist and authoritarian coining into his own. In his own words: "Democratic party insiders are trying manufacture consent in the current 2020 Democratic primary season. Specially, they are trying to prop up the candidates of their choice-- Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren & Pete Buttigieg-- while undermining the candidates like Bernie Sander’s candidacy thru self-serving polls." This is the bullshit poll that made no sense to anyone last week but that has been widely reported:

The somewhat absurd "Focus on Rural America" Iowa "polling" doesn't jive at all with the most recent polling from a credible polling firm, YouGov's CBS News Battleground Tracker for Iowa:

Meanwhile, the author points to patently dishonest political players-- good examples were David Axelrod, whose son was not disclosed as being part of the polling firm and the laughable Nate Silver. Silver:

The poll was published by Jeff Link's "Focus on Rural America." Link, a former Bill Clinton staffer, and another "Focus on Rural America," principle, right-of-center establishment Democrat Patty Judge (Monsanto-IA), no doubt feel they are serving a greater good by sabotaging Bernie. Another "Focus on Rural America" connection is Sam Roecker, until recently the Iowa state director for FRACKENLOOPER. The pollster working for "Focus on Rural America" is David Binder, formerly an in-house Obama pollster who method is described as "qualitative" rather than quantitative. In other words-- much like Rasmussen does on the right, he's just coming up with the conclusion first and then justifying it with cooked top "results." A positive spin on what he does: "Binder specializes in qualitative rather than quantitative research. His focus is on assessing subjective factors such as language, emotion, and attitudes."

To me, all this word salad means only one thing. It means he mind-reads potential voters when conducting his polling. In simple terms the polls capture his fellings of voter’s feelings about politicians.

I have never heard a worse way to describe a pollster than this. Given that only the memo is published without the underlying dataset, I am assuming that this poll is based on the feelings of David Binder staff about which democratic candidate gets what percentage of votes in Iowa in the upcoming democratic primary election.

Also, when you look at the staff page of David Binder Research, one of the name caught my eye. His name is Ethan Axelrod.

He is the son of David Axelrod, who happen to be the chief strategist for Obama’s presidential campaigns.

An organization called Focus on Rural America-- that’s founded by someone who worked for Bill Clinton, ran paid campaigns for Obama-- that’s advised by someone who worked as State director for Hickenlooper-- that’s chaired by someone who has apparent allegiance to one of the Democratic primary candidates-- specifically-- Elizabeth Warren-- publish just memo of the poll where Bernie is getting lower vote share than Pete Buttigieg.

These polls are conducted by ex-Obama pollster-- with a staff member whose father worked for Obama as chief strategist-- publishes just memo of the poll -- with numbers that are complete outliers-- with no information on the methodology/demographic breakdown-- which then are picked-up by mainstream media-- use this poll to push free propaganda for Warren & other corporate dems-- while undermining Bernie’s campaign-- till this propaganda becomes reality in the minds of undecided voters.

Most outlets that reported these finding did not mention that the polling is done by people who worked for corporate democrats in the past & are commissioned by people who are currently batting for Warren, a candidate in the current democratic primary.

What else do you call this other than Manufacturing Consent by democratic establishment-- in connivance with their toadies in the mainstream media-- to push a corporate democratic candidate?

Marie Solis' piece for Vice Friday, Young Women Actually Make Up More of Bernie's Base Than Men Do, comes at the establishment's full frontal attack on Bernie's campaign from another perspective. This time, it's how credible polling shows the establishment's narratives to be false and manipulative, desperately fighting to uphold the status quo, sometimes by sad, well-intentioned morons who don't even understand they're fighting against life itself.

New findings from The Economist show that women under 45 make up a larger share of Bernie Sanders’ base than do men in their same age group, contradicting a popular narrative that says the 2020 Democratic candidate's supporters are overwhelmingly white and male, to the virtual exclusion of other groups.

This narrative often hinges on the “Bernie Bro,” a term Atlantic writer Robinson Meyer coined during the 2016 election to describe a type of mansplaining internet harasser that some came to see as representative of all Sanders voters. Bernie Bros were a “mob” flooding the Twitter mentions of Hillary Clinton supporters; they were “sexist,” even “enthusiastically” so; and they were loud and aggressive when expressing their uncompromising support for their candidate.

Polling has continually proven that Sanders’ base is much more diverse than the figure of the Bernie Bro would suggest: An analysis of polling between November 2018 and March 2019 found both that Sanders was more popular among people of color than among white people, and that women supported Sanders just as much as men did, “if not more,” according to Vox. Earlier this month, a Univision Noticias poll found Sanders was the candidate Latino voters favored most after current Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden. And The Economist’s latest numbers show Sanders in the number-two spot behind Biden with Hispanic and Black voters.

Yet the Bernie Bro concept continues to endure, much to the chagrin of Sanders’ women supporters, who say it ignores a significant portion of the Vermont senator’s base.

...“Why would Democratic voters choose Sanders when Warren is running?” Guardian columnist Moira Donegan wrote the day after Sanders announced his presidential bid in February. “The two are not ideologically identical, but the differences between their major policy stances…are relatively minor, especially compared to the rest of the field.”

Whether there are consequential differences between Warren and Sanders’ campaign platforms is an ongoing subject of debate on the left, particularly as Warren has begun to edge past Sanders in the polls.

Mia Arievitch, a 24-year-old socialist who attends the City University of New York School of Labor and Urban Studies, believes Sanders and Warren are running completely different presidential campaigns, with Sanders focusing on grassroots movement-building while Warren homes in on federal policy. Lauren Christianson, a native Wisconsinite now based in New York, said that while she loves Warren for “supporting many of the same progressive platforms as Bernie,” she doesn’t find her to be “as progressive” as Sanders. Magray said she believes there’s a “wide gulf” between the two candidates’ politics, emphasizing that Sanders is a democratic socialist while Warren is a self-professed capitalist “to her bones.”

...A significant share of Sanders supporters-- Magray included-- consider Warren their second choice, and if she wins the party’s nomination, would cast a ballot for her with little to no hesitation. But in the meantime, many of them will continue to be frustrated by the way Sanders’ supporters are portrayed, and the looming specter of the Bernie Bro.

In 2016, the idea that Sanders supporters were, by default, white and male made Christianson “feel like [she] had to choose between being a woman and supporting the candidate who inspired me the most.”

“It was also a quick way to stop any conversation about actual policy and ideals,” she added. “I hated it. I still hate it.”

The Trumpist War Against Pope Francis

Like Hitler, about a third of Germans had been born into Catholism in the 1930s. (Hitler himself had already found a different god by then.) As the Nazis came to power they recognized the Church as an enemy. They banned the Catholic-aligned Centre Party in 1933 and although the Reichskonkordat treaty with the Vatican that year guaranteed religious freedom for Catholics, the Nazis confiscated Church property and closed down Church schools and youth organisations and banned the Catholic press. Pope Pius Xi and, after 1939, Pius XII were the popes during Hitler's rise and fall.Pius XII's obsession with hatred of communism was helpful to the Nazis. He was more inclined to condemn "the evils of modern warfare" than the Nazis.

His silence gave license to Catholic members of the SS to shoot the Jewish men, women and children as they cowered on the edge of the massive graves, to turn on the gas in the concentration camp chambers and then to go to confession with untroubled conscience. It encouraged the Germans in the belief that God was still on their side... The Nazis desperately needed the Pope's silence for that very reason. They knew that any complaint my the Pontiff would damage the war effort and slow the progress of the Final Solution... It gave some Catholics-- including quite a few priests-- the excuse to man the rat-lines to help the SS criminals escape, after the war, to Latin America. The Pope's silence in face of this overwhelming evil was a deliberate choice.

Like Hitler, the Trumpists were alarmed that the Vatican could be a center of opposition to its plans and since Trump occupied the White House, his men have been attacking Pope Francis for not being more like Pius XII. The Trumpists have backed an American fascist cardinal, Raymond Burke in his schemes against Pope Francis. Two years ago the Real News Network started covering this. Sunday MSNBC is running a Richard Engel one-on-one interview with Steve Bannon about his war against Pope Francis. This morning he previewed it on Morning Joe:



Engel also penned a piece about it today for NBC New, Steve Bannon and U.S> ultra-conservatives take aim at Pope Francis. "The populist political consultant has a new target in his crusade against 'globalism'-- Pope Francis," wrote Engel. "'He’s the administrator of the church, and he’s also a politician,' said Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump. 'This is the problem... He’s constantly putting all the faults in the world on the populist nationalist movement.'" To attack the Pope, Bannon and the fascists are trying to pin the Vatican sex abuse scandals on him.

Since becoming pope in 2013, Francis has expressed a consistent message on the type of “America First” nationalism championed by Bannon.

Two years ago, the pope cautioned against growing populism in Europe, warning it could lead to the election of leaders like Hitler.

He has called for compassion toward migrants, saying that fearing them "makes us crazy," as well as other marginalized groups including the poor and gay people. He has also defended diversity.

Bannon alleges that Francis has mismanaged numerous sex abuse scandals roiling the church, and says the pope is not treating the issue seriously enough.

"The Catholic Church is heading to a financial crisis that will lead to a bankruptcy," he said. "It could actually bring down, not the theology, not the teachings, not the community of the Catholic Church, but the physical and financial apparatus of this church."

In a speech ending a landmark Vatican conference on the issue of clerical sexual abuse in February, the pope vowed to "decisively confront the phenomenon," adding: "The church will never seek to hush up or not take seriously any case."

But Bannon is not alone in criticizing the pontiff. A raft of conservative Catholics, from bishops to lay theologians to firebrand pundits, have attacked Francis.

They were supporters of Francis’s traditionalist predecessor, Benedict XVI, who unexpectedly resigned in 2013. On Thursday, Benedict published a letter outlining his views on the sex abuse crisis. "The crisis, caused by the many cases of clerical abuse, urges us to regard the church as something almost unacceptable, which we must now take into our own hands and redesign," he wrote.

Bannon has found an ideological ally in conservative Cardinal Raymond Burke, a former archbishop of St. Louis who was demoted by Francis and has supported calls for the pope's resignation.

Burke and Bannon reportedly met at the Vatican in 2014 and are both involved in building an incubator for budding right-wing ideologues in Italy. Bannon described the project as "an academy that brings the best thinkers together" to train "modern gladiators."

Other American theologians have openly attacked Francis for “devaluing the doctrines of the church.”

The center of the anti-Francis backlash is in the U.S., according to Massimo Faggioli, a liberal professor of theology at Villanova University. "There is no question about that," he said.

Francis, the first pope from the Southern Hemisphere, was a trailblazer and an outsider from the start, and the elevation of an Argentine brought a new “geopolitical perspective” and priorities to the papacy, Faggioli said.

While Benedict saw Catholicism’s future squarely within the Western world, Francis has espoused a vision of “global Catholicism” in which issues of social justice are paramount.

He has turned support for the poor and the environment into the key issues of his pontificate, while warning against consumerism and unfettered capitalism.

Francis has set precedents by condemning the death penalty in all cases and signaling that divorced and remarried Catholics should be able to receive Communion.

John Carr, director of the Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life at Georgetown, said this reformist impulse has rankled church traditionalists. Accustomed to favorable treatment from the Vatican, many American Catholics saw themselves sidelined by Francis' progressive agenda.

“If you’re an archbishop living in a big house with a big car and he says you need to have the smell of the sheep, that’s threatening,” Carr added. “He looks at the world from the bottom up and from the outside in. If you’re on top, if you’re an insider in the church, in the economy, in politics, he can threaten you.”

The backlash has been swift. Weeks after Francis’s election, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia, a prominent conservative, announced that members of the right wing within the church had “not been really happy.”

Robert Sirico, the founder of the Acton Institute, a Michigan-based think tank, considers Francis to be sympathetic to socialism.

“His dominant understanding of what business is is selfish and doing things to benefit only themselves rather than the poor,” said Sirico, who met Francis in 2013.

The Acton Institute’s mission is to integrate free market principles with Christian theology, and Sirico disagrees with the pope about issues including welfare, taxation and climate change.

While both Sirico and Bannon say they don't believe the pope should step down, others go further.

They have adopted an extremist, “take-no-prisoners” approach unlike any opposition to John Paul II or Benedict, according to Faggioli.

The Vatican’s former ambassador to America, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, wrote a letter last August claiming that Francis had covered up misconduct by Theodore McCarrick, a disgraced ex-cardinal.

“Homosexual networks” within the clergy, Viganò wrote, were responsible for the high incidence of abuse and were “strangling the church.” The Vatican has not commented on Viganò's allegations.

To moderate and liberal Catholics, such weaponization of the sex abuse crisis is aimed at undermining Francis.

His critics want to tarnish “the affection people have for him as pope,” according to Carr.

“The irony is that they don’t have any particular history of standing up for victims and in some cases were allies of those who were involved in the crisis,” added Carr, who is himself a survivor of clerical sexual abuse.

Video Was Adopted Fast By Bands And Labels With Nothing To Lose

What do Randy Bryce, Amy McGrath, MJ Hegar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez all have in common? Well, if you hit the links, you'll probably know what I'm talking about. None of those are expensive 30 second TV spots. No one ever heard of any of the candidates before those videos launched them onto the public consciousness. All have been seen by millions of people-- and all have brought in huge numbers of small, grassroots contributions.

Neither Paul Ryan nor Lyin' Bryan Steil, Randy's two GOP opponents, would ever or could ever do that kind of a video. Nor would Jim Gray-- much better known and very rich and favored opponent of McGrath-- or Andy Barr, the Republican she's duking it out with now. Ditto for John Carter in Texas and for Joe Crowley in Queens. Joe Crowley (D-NY), John Carter (R-TX), Andy Barr (R-KY), Jim Gray (D-KY), Paul Ryan (R-WI)/Lyin' Bryan Steil (R-WI) are all old school, very, very old school. They spend small fortunes for some hired guns to create basically meaningless, unmemorable 30 second TV spots for them that clutter up the airwaves and piss people off.

I slip so often on the phone and refer to the Blue America candidates as "artists." That's because I'm from the music business and I deal with the candidates the same way I dealt with the artists of my label. Randy is like Neil Young, Alexandria is like Joni Mitchell, Ammar is like Billie Joe Armstrong, Kara is like Chaka Khan, Katie is like Madonna, Jared is like Ice-T... they all remind me of someone I had to deal with as a record company executive. In my earliest days in the music biz I had an indie label in San Francisco, 415 Records. My partner Chris and I rented some space in a dilapidated old fire house in the pre-gentrified Mission District and ran our label out of that. Who would ever think we could have a #1 record? And that's why I have that Buggles song up top. Let me explain.

Before MTV came along-- and there was no viable internet or social media at the time-- the only way to promote a song nationally was on radio. And the only way to get on radio was to pay immense bribes. It cost thousands of dollars to bring a song into the national top ten-- out of the question for a small company like 415 Records. We worked college radio and new wave specialty shows and sometimes we could break through on one or two big stations like WBCN in Boston or KROQ in L.A. But Top 40 or slickly formatted AOR? Not a chance. So along came MTV. The big record companies and big artists looked at it like some kind of alien life form-- interesting... but what kind of interplanetary disease was it carrying? Would it turn vicious and eat you? The big artists and labels-- like Joe Crowley and Jim Gray and Paul Ryan-- didn't make videos. We saw an opportunity and we quickly filled the void. We had massive hits (for us) with Romeo Void, the Red Rockers (our first #1), Translator and Wire Train (below).

The same folks who put together the smash Randy Bryce hit, just did one for California insurgent Kevin de León, the progressive candidate for the U.S. Senate seat held by Dianne Feinstein who's been in it since California first became a state in 1850. The video is spectacular-- emotive, compelling, incredibly powerful.-- easily one of the best this year.



You think Dianne Feinstein could or would ever do a video like that? You want to talk about "old school?" If enough California voters see it, Kevin's going to win-- even though Feinstein put $5,006,050 of her own loot into her campaign and raised another $10,000,000... compared to Kevin's $1,310,851. (Please contribute to Kevin's campaign here so he can get that out more widely.)

This week our old friend Eric Hogensen has some video tips for struggling political campaigns, 3 Tips for Using Affordable Videos for Your Campaign:

"Only a few years ago," he wrote, "videos were a medium that only large, TV-focused campaigns could afford. That's all changed. Videos are incredibly captivating, and thanks to several new services, producing them and getting views is easier than ever before. Here are our 3 tips for using inexpensive videos for your campaign.

1. Pick a service for creating simple videos.

There are many options to choose from. 30Second Explainer Videos creates short, animated videos for businesses, but the Whiteboard style also works great for candidate campaigns. There are also several companies (Rocketium, Animoto / Animaker, Showbox) that allow you to create your own videos in-house, even if you don't have any experience with editing. These cater well to social media feeds.

2. Plug your videos into social media.

Whether you are doing expensive, professionally-produced videos meant for television, or affordable explainer videos like the ones described above, you need to be advertising them on social media, particularly YouTube and Facebook. Services like HootSuite can help. Boosting the ads to your target audience is easy and, for local races, is one of the best ways to raise your name ID.

3. This can't wait until the last minute.

Developing your social video plan early will allow you to tell your story to voters over the course of several weeks. Plus you'll want to get registered as a political advertiser with Facebook right away. The process takes several weeks, so you'll want to start it at least a month before Election Day!

Let's Face It, Men Are Pigs

For society, the sexual harassment scandals should be about two things:

1- mending the patriarchal environment we live in to change, over the long-term, the way men think they are entitled to behave

2- (a corollary)- dealing very harshly with instances of men using power relationships to prey on people dependent on them for careers

I used to be an astrologer. I studied it in Amsterdam, took it very seriously. I was good at it too-- really good. It was a gift. But the gift came with a warning: use this gift to further your own material desires and kiss the gift goodbye. So I never charged for my services and I never used my abilities to try to seduce anyone. I can't remember exactly what I did wrong, just that I did do something-- this was like decades ago-- and BOOM! it was gone. I don't know a Gemini from a Mars-Mercury conjunction in Sagittarius any more. No, really, I have books of charts I drew for people and now I not only couldn't draw a chart if my life depended on it, I can't even read them. Fortunately my full-time gig was chef at the time.

Much later I wound up in the music business. Were there men who used their positions of power to seduce aspiring artists? Well... let me think about that for a second. Um... yes, everything single day, in every single way. Kind of horrifying-- and real life in the fast lane. And, yeah, there were some guys who didn't believe in that and didn't do it. (I mostly hung out with those kinds of people, because... who wants to be around a pig too much?)

I'm gay and a couple times men with some kind of career power hit on me when I was much younger. I found those situations easy to navigate and I think most men do, not all men... most men. One guy with huge power tried to sleep with me. I was very friendly, very not freaked out and very firm that that was never going to happen. He could have hurt me real bad, career wise, but he did the opposite. He did the same thing with lots of other young males. He would come on to guys-- sometimes a singer would fall for it and put out, but mostly they didn't. I never saw him react vindictively towards anyone who turned him down. He pretended he'd use his power to hurt some of them, but to my knowledge he never did.

Once he was in the front seat of my car and a much younger guy was in the backseat. He tried imposing, very aggressively, on the younger guy, who was looking for a job (actually desperately looking for a job). The younger guy was straight and very clear he wasn't playing that game. The older guy persisted, even physically. The younger guy rolled up a newsprint magazine and when the older man turned around and lurched at him, he slammed him across the snout with the rolled up magazine-- it was BAM. The older guy started screaming the kid would never work at our company. But the younger guy soon was working at our company and, in fact, eventually the power dynamic changed and it's the old reprobate who comes to him for industry favors now-- favors never granted. Straights can be vindictive like that I guess.

There was another senior executive at one of the top labels who was obsessed with penis size. You know how a normal person shakes hands when he meets someone? If the judged the power dynamic amenable, he would grab a guys crotch to be able to estimate dick size (instead of shaking hands). It certainly would make a lot of people uncomfortable. He got arrested one time when he played that with an undercover cop-- maybe twice if I recall correctly. But that guy never held it against anyone either. He seemed to handle the rejection well, kind of made a big joke out of it-- ha, ha. Once he did it to another executive's young relative, very young relative. That wasn't funny at all and the kind was traumatized. That was bad and there were a lot of social repercussions, though no one called the police or anything like that.

I don't think Al Franken should resign. His career is over; he's a pariah. I bet he doesn't get reelected. My opinion would change if it comes out that he acted inappropriately towards one of the women in his office or who he came in contact with because he was a senator. But slapping a woman's butt? Disgusting and reprehensible behavior. He's a pig and should be treated like one. But forced to resign? I don't think so.

I'm worried that there are going to be tendencies-- we see them already-- for people to look at this kind of behavior through self-serving lenses. There's no doubt in my mind that Alabama voters should refrain from voting for Roy Moore, a Republican-- and I felt the same way before the news about him molesting children came out. Now it's another cudgel to beat him up with. I heard a political woman saying the other day that not only should Al Franken be forced to resign but that he should be replaced by a woman. I see this going into bad places-- as well as good places (see numbers 1 and 2 above. We're evolving as a species and those not evolving are busy dying.

Look, one more thing, before the NPR report. I used to run the concert program at my college. It was the mid-60's. Bands always wanted to score and it was easy as pie for them. The young women concert-goers were very willing. I never quite understood why women threw themselves at band members-- not just sensitive songwriters but even drummers and bass players. Women that persuasion used to always offer me bribes to let them to backstage so they could meet the bands. It was pretty sordid. Years later a band I was looking after, Wire Train was playing at a small punk club in San Francisco, the Mab. Some gross little groupie-- underage-- was making a big scene about getting backstage. The band told me to get rid of her. I didn't especially care one way or the other-- except you always have to do what the band says-- so I told her, nicely, that the band wasn't seeing any guests before the show. That night I had a sleepover guest and we were awoke by a tremendous explosion. And then we both fell back asleep. When I woke up in the morning and went outside, what was felt of my yellow Renault was a smoldering wreck. Who the hell blew up my car? I never did figure it out. But a couple of decades later, that gross little groupie messaged-- a drugged up mess-- asked me if I remembered when she had blown up my car. How many people do you know who can say Courtney Love blew up their car? I still do buy into the phrase though, "believe women." It doesn't mean throw caution to the wind though. It means never thinking about dismissing a woman's testimony (always an integral party of patriarchal society).

But take it easy and let's call out the self-serving we see as well, as this social crisis-- with its opportunities and pitfalls-- continues to unfold. The backlash could be horrifying; it probably will be. This report from NPR on sexual harassment in our country is worth listening to:

Whose Side Is God On? Kony's? Roy Moore's

Take religion or leave it. Some people get a lot of comfort from it. My problem has never been with religion per se; it's always been with armed religion. If God's on your side... well, anything goes. Right from the days of the Bible you had permission-- even a duty to-- butcher women and children... as long as you're doing God's work. The conquistadors enslaved and wiped out most of the population of what's now known as Latin America, in the name of Jesus. You know what those beheadings by ISIS are all about? Right, God's will. Religions and weapons... always bad. Never good. Never.

I worry that all the fake religionists down South-- the Trump base-- are so heavily armed. These people shouldn't be allowed to play with butter knives unsupervised and now the Republicans are making sure they can turn their legal semi-automatic weapons into machine guns with the bump stock devices Paul Ryan refuses to allow a vote on.

It wasn't that long ago that these same religionist freaks were funding Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in Uganda. Remember them? About 5 years ago I read a piece in The Atlantic about Kony's crazy war and how he had God on his side. Josh Kron wrote about a "powerful network of [American] Christian activists, traditionally dominated by the Christian right, that has at times brought mass attention, almost single-handedly, to some of Africa's worst and most ignored conflicts, from South Sudan to the Nuba Mountains, Darfur to the Lord's Resistance Army. The movement has also sparked controversy. It is a community of activists that wields disproportionate influence over African affairs, from military politics to public health to social policy. As they work to organize a global effort to catch the leaders of the Lord's Resistance Army, a distinct but not-so-distant wing of the same movement helped to implement Uganda's notorious anti-gay law, which legalizes the killing of 'repeat' gay men." Right wing activists in America funded Kony's slaughter of as many as 100,000 people in Uganda. You know... God on their side. He says his army is fighting for the Ten Commandments-- like Roy Moore, another armed religionist crackpot who believes God's on his side too.

This week NPR interviewed Alexis Okeowo, author of A Moonless, Starless Sky, "about about ordinary Africans who are standing up to extremism, people who are in their own ways resisting religious and cultural fundamentalism in acts of everyday bravery." It's worth listening to:


The whole idea of Kony's Lord's Resistance Army was-- of course-- to turn Uganda into a theocracy... so he would cut off people's hands if they worked on the Sabbath. And kidnap 60,000 children and make them fight in his army when he needed to do "God's work." Like all religionist crackpots, Kony, who thinks he's a fundamentalist Christian, says he's "the spokesperson of God." He's supposedly still roaming around in the remote bush of the Central African Republic, avoiding an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.