In a completely surprising development, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting analyzes front-page election coverage at three major print dailies and finds "a strong emphasis on horserace politics at the expense of issue coverage." Plus you get more coverage of terrorism than climate change, and guess which one of those two might actually destroy our civilization? Reporting on voters' concerns isn't nonexistent, but it sure does look like the major dailies want you to think the election is a giant sporting event that you're supposed to watch and not play in. I wonder why they would want you to think that.
PayPal co-founder/Trump shill Peter Thiel says -- in defending his decision to fund Hulk Hogan's lawsuit against Gawker, which essentially drove Gawker out of business -- that "a single-digit millionaire...(has) no effective access to our legal system." If you were ever held in jail for weeks on end for a crime you didn't commit because you and your family and friends couldn't raise the bail money, of course, you might feel differently.
And it begins: Heritage Action just comes out and says Republicans should not confirm "any liberal nominated to the Supreme Court" if Hillary Clinton wins tomorrow. That's a bit different from the wait-until-the-people-speak line the right has peddled up to now, you notice. And if Ruth Bader Ginsberg were to succumb tomorrow, God forbid, you better believe they'd change their tune, and then they'd call you un-American for noticing they'd changed their tune.
Ho hum, the Center for Media and Democracy finds the gnarled hands of the Koch brothers behind an effort to defeat a campaign finance disclosure/public campaign financing ballot initiative in South Dakota. South Dakota will go hard for Mr. Trump tomorrow, and Sen. Thune will inflict a 30- or 40-point beating on his opponent, but I bet Measure 22 passes rather easily, regardless of what the Koch brothers want or do. That's because I think people are good and wise stewards of democracy -- once you remind them they're people, and not players on some team or other.
Finally, Theo Anderson at In These Times summarizes major ballot initiatives at the state level that liberals ought to attend. California will vote on legalizing recreational use of marijuana and banning single-use plastic grocery bags (which latter item I find infinitely preferable to a plastic-bag tax), Colorado will vote on a single-payer health care system, four states will vote on minimum wage hikes (as we discussed last week), Washington state will vote on a public campaign finance system, and Maine will vote on a ranked-choice voting initiative, which might as well be called the "No More Paul LePages Please" initiative. (Note, also, the South Dakota campaign finance initiative described above, and Missouri's initiative that would amend the state constitution to permit campaign donation limits.)
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