Author: Spocko

Does Rep. Collins have insurance for a gun accident?

by Spocko

Congressman Chris Collins Gun Wanter CREDIT MICHAEL MROZIAK, WBFO

Congressman Chris Collins (R) New York wrote an opinion piece titled:

Okay Rep. Collins. I hear you, now I have a few questions I think the public has a right to know, especially those who are physically in the same place as you and your gun.

(Not that I expect he will answer them, he wouldn’t say whether or not he was wearing a gun today while a chamber of commerce event at Micheal’s Catering & Banquet in Blasdell NY. I have more on possible reasons why he didn’t answer below*.)

Congressman, you have stated you will be carrying a gun everywhere in your district.

The Personal Questions

1. Do you have liability insurance in case you have an accident with the gun and injure someone?
2. What does your policy cover? What is exempt?
3. What are the limits of your insurance coverage?
4. If you have gun insurance, how much does it cost every year?
5. How does gun insurance costs compare to your auto insurance? Homeowners Insurance? Your umbrella liability policy?
6. Who pays for your insurance? You or taxpayers?

To put liability limits in terms of your state-required auto insurance, for example:

• New York auto insurance minimums are $25,000 – $50,000 limits for bodily injury for each person accidently injured in a car accident.  Gun injuries can cost much more. For gunshot survivors, the cost is much more than a single bullet. (Link)
  

  “It’s not uncommon for us to have a patient who has a total hospital bill for their acute inpatient hospitalization of over a million dollars,” Doherty said. “And in that situation, that patient has no insurance. Essentially, that’s free charity care provided by the (Advocate Christ) hospital.”  American Aljazeera, 2015 by Sarah Hoye

How Big Is Your Gun Insurance Coverage?

• Is there a lifetime cap on the medical bills it will pay?
• What if you injure someone with your gun and your insurance policy tops out? Do you have additional coverage such as an umbrella policy on your homeowners insurance?
• Would your homeowners’ insurance cover this? Some policies won’t cover you if you are breaking the law when your gun accident happens. ( I don’t know how much training you have, but my gun-carrying friends remind me that “negligent discharge of the firearm” is a more accurate phrase than “gun accident” which the media uses.)

Example: Let’s say you hold one of your fundraisers in a gun-free zone. (I was going to say a Town Hall, but you haven’t had one since you were elected in 2012!)

 You decide to break that law and carry your gun concealed into the gun-free zone then BANG!  You didn’t intend to have an accident, but you did intend to break the law by bringing your gun into a place it was prohibited.  Violating that law could mean you are not covered by insurance.

Collins’ lunch was at Micheal’s Catering & Banquet. They hold weddings where alcohol is served.

* Micheal’s Catering & Banquet probably has a policy banning guns except those carried by licensed security guards and police officers. That might have been the reason Collin didn’t answer the question if he was carrying a gun. Property owners can ban guns on their property, they have that right.

Micheal’s also has a financial reason to ban guns at their events. They hold wedding and events where alcohol is served and people get rowdy (see photo). For insurance reasons they might ban guns on their property.

If they do not allow guns on their property and Collins defied them, their insurance carrier should be informed.  Yes it’s after the fact, but insurance carriers either raise rates or cancel policies if they find out management allows people who have unknown levels of training and blood alcohol carrying guns onto their property.

The Big Questions

• Who pays for the medical costs of the person injured by Collin’s gun?
• What if the injured person needs long-term medical care? 
• What happens if the injured person has a pre-existing condition because of the gun shot?

Congressman Collins voted yes on HR1628, the Trump/Ryan Bill on American Medical Care.

That bill blocked people with pre-existing conditions from getting coverage if they were without coverage for over 30 days. (Say for example they lose their job during the weeks it takes to recover from a gunshot wound. That job loss also means losing their employee health care. )

If someone who is injured with the congressman’s gun now has a pre-existing condition, they would be denied medical insurance in the future.

Gun owners are not required to be financially responsible for the gun accident injuries they cause while legally carrying guns in public.

Is Collins financially responsible for the consequences of decision to carry a gun everywhere? If not, why not?

Who should pick up the medical bill for gun injuries if the responsible gun owners who caused them won’t?

If the congresspeople start carrying everywhere the public should know:

1. How well trained are they? 
2. When they are carrying a gun. People should be able to choose not to be in the same room with them.
3. If they are following the law when they are carrying. In many states it’s prohibited to drink alcohol while carrying. 
4. If they cause an accident while carrying the medical bills of the injured will be paid. 
5. The injured will have guaranteed health care if they have a pre-existing condition that arises from being accidently shot by a congressman.

The Royal We vs The Country I. Lewandowski’s Trump Spin
By Spocko

We all know about The Royal We. Today Cory Lewandowski described what I’m calling “The Country I.”

According to Lewandowski, when the President said to Comey “I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.” what he was REALLY talking about loyalty to the country.
That’s some 10,000 RPM spin non-people.

Tucker Carlson, in his role as TV host like substance, was totally was down with that.

TUCKER CARLSON (HOST): So, you just heard Congressman Swalwall bring up almost first thing this statement from the former FBI director that says President Trump asked for his quote, “loyalty.” Now assuming that’s true, why would the president ask for loyalty from an FBI director? What does that mean?

COREY LEWANDOWSKI: Look, what the president asked for was loyalty to the country, and loyalty to make sure that the American people have the justice system that they want. That’s not unheard of, that’s not uncalled for. What the president asked for as a president-elect, was to develop a rapport with the incoming FBI director. If you read the statement that the FBI director, what he said was in his entire tenure he had two conversations with Barack Obama when he was the president of the United States. One was to simply say goodbye. And in the time that President Trump has taken office, from the time he was the president-elect til the time Jim Comey was fired for not performing his job well he had nine separate conversations with the president and multiple meetings. The difference is this president is hands-on, wants to make sure the best Justice Department available, and he made the decision as the commander in chief to relieve a person from duty who was no longer capable of running the FBI. 

CARLSON: Well that’s for sure, and you’ll get no disagreement from me, by the way, privately from a lot of Democrats, that Comey was out of control because he was.

via Media Matters

From Comey’s statement.

‘I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.’ I didn’t move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence.”

Shorter Lewandowski:

“The President identifies so strongly with the country that when he said “I” he also means The Country. It’s almost Arthurian.”

Wanted: Role Model Of Strength & Restraint For TV Appearance

By Spocko

My friend Will Bunch wrote a book about Reagan “Tear Down This Myth: The Right-Wing Distortion of the Reagan Legacy” in which he recounted how profoundly the movie The Day After affected Reagan. After watching it, he started reducing our nuclear arsenal.

Reagan needed to see the darkest timeline play out on TV in a serious fashion. That was how he absorbed information, via a visual story that kept him engaged for two hours and 7 minutes. It was a story that emotionally pulled him in. It showed him characters he could care about and identify with.

As an actor Reagan understood the role appearance plays in people’s perceptions and self identification.  During his presidency he must have had people telling him. “Look strong against the commies!”  There also had to be others telling him about the danger of brinkmanship with nukes on a hair trigger.  A nuclear exchange is not something we can recover from.  

Fortunately, something about that movie reached Reagan. It got him to reconfigure his world view.  Was it the images of destruction of our country? Did he relate to the characters who were like his own family and friends? Did he put himself in the picture, seeing a leader who failed to protect his country?

People joke about how Trump’s staff structured briefings to included his name every third sentence, just so he would pay attention. I say great! Well done! Do what you must to get him to pay attention. Maybe if Condi Rice did something like that with the Presidential Daily Briefing we would be in a different timeline.

In one timeline everyone has goatees

We’ve seen how DJT takes situations and turns them into personal win or lose contests. He has an idea of what it means to be a man in his personal life and business life.  They have worked for him. He can say, “I’ve got a hot wife and I’m rich! Why should I listen to anyone?”

However, in the area of international relations, and situations that could lead to war, his model of strength is not working for him–or the US. Trump needs someone to show him that a peaceful solution, instead of a violent one, is a stronger solution.

I have some friends who were serious warriors in the military. Their stories of war curl my straight Vulcan hair. They are now artists, musicians and writers, they are also profoundly anti-war. These are the type of male role models I would want Trump to talk with.

If I wanted to help prevent Trump from starting a war, an armed conflict or a nuclear catastrophe, I would look for men who embodied the strength of NOT starting a fight. These men could describe all the ways that showing restraint is real power.

 I would then try and get these guys in front of Trump to explain how and why restraint will make the mocking stop.  These could be in person meetings but getting them on TV would also reach Trump’s base at the same time. My preferred venue for these guys is Fox and Friends (I’m very serious. The producers of that show have tremendous power right now. I don’t think I need to quote Uncle Ben to them, but it’s true. The good news is that they live on the same planet as we do and many of them have children.)

Attractive humans who solve problems with their brains

I’m a fan of the TV show Madam Secretary. The show depicts real-life solutions to global crisis situations that have been fictionalized. Its lead characters are people who understand what an international crisis situation means on the surface as well as under the facade. The characters know the people and cultures involved in a situation and our history with them.

When it comes time for solutions in the show, there is usually a Security Persona offering the military option which is held off until our heros can find a solution that doesn’t lead to war or de-escalates the conflict.  (The Security Persona isn’t always rejected, unlike Worf in ST:TNG. )

Yes, I am drawn in by the attractive human female lead that’s part of what keeps me engaged. But I also love the banter and how these characters solve problems. That is another form of attraction that keeps me coming back.  What can I say, I’m a sucker for Kobayashi Maru scenarios.  I give credit to the writers Alexander Maggio, Alex Cooley and series creator Barbara Hall for that.

If Trump, like Reagan, needed a fictional show to help him visualize successful crisis management that doesn’t involve going to war, I’d recommend this show. But sadly Madam Secretary probably isn’t the best show for him.  The good news is we can show Trump the reality of successful solutions to problems that did not lead to war.

For example, look at this real-life success from January 2016 Iran releases 10 US Navy sailors after boat drifted in Persian Gulf

The same career military and state department who worked out that deal are most likely still in place. They could point to that diplomatic solution as a model. But would they even get a chance to talk about it to the president?

This is where my friends in the military, the media, communications and the peace movement could work together.  We could call it the “Let’s not blow up the world” coalition.

Is there a retired Navy Admiral who can go on TV and explain how smart the handling of that whole incident was, and how it was a win for the US? (I picked this account because it was recent and public, but I know it has baggage since it involved John Kerry, the Iranians and Obama.)  But if this isn’t the right example, and the person in charge isn’t the right one to speak, find the ones that can be used.

I like that incident because it was short and appears simple.

1) Nobody died, a war wasn’t started and our people were returned safe.

WIN!   OR

2) We start a war, killing 100’s of thousands and costing billions of dollars.

LOSE, bigly!

These are the stories Trump needs to know about. And they need to come from people he trusts, or from people he wants approval from. With Trump who is telling the story is as important as what the story is.

A friend of mine knows the people who helped produce The Day After. They didn’t know it at the time, but that movie helped save the world.  Maybe people told them it wouldn’t make a difference. “Reagan’s set in his ways” they said, “He’s 72, he’s not going to change his mind now!”

Bear baiting is fun for some people. The media love it. It’s dramatic! There will be news!  But the campaign is over, to avoid a tragedy we need to add to our strategy of mocking and blocking.

I know that right this instant there are people in this country figuring out ways to prevent wars and save lives–by understanding how best to interact with President Trump.

To those of you who are working to prevent the darkest timeline, thank you. Keep working. I can’t show you the future, but I can remind you that there are people from the past who did avert wars. Lives were saved because people found another way.  You might be alive because they succeeded, and you didn’t even know it. Find those people, help them tell their stories.

The Instant Trump decided to leave the Paris accords [UPDATED]

By Spocko

Watch this video.
UPDATE BELOW

At about 23 seconds in you can see the moment when Trump decided to leave the Paris accords.

I’m quite serious. The “President of Paris” humiliated him on the world stage. They all laughed at him. Trump strikes back in the biggest way he can.

“You all got together with Obama and made a deal? Guess what? I’m the big dog now and I’m going to piss on your deal.”

Any talk you hear later about saving coal jobs is simply backfill–after the fact reasons to make the decision seem reasonable to others.

 I’ve seen this behavior many times with powerful men, a decision is made for purely emotional reasons then the people around him scramble to create an acceptable reason for why it was done.

This is revenge for a personal slight. It will end up hurting America economically and could lead to the death of millions around the world. But the important thing is that Trump  “won” the handshake game.

Just read this in the Washington Post. It WAS a handshake that made the decision for him!

If he needed a nudge, though, one came from France over the weekend. Macron was quoted in a French journal talking about his white-knuckled handshake with Trump at their first meeting in Brussels, where the newly elected French president gripped Trump’s hand tightly and would not let go for six long seconds in a show of alpha-male fortitude.

“My handshake was not innocent,” Macron said. He likened Trump to a pair of authoritarian strongmen — Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — and said that he was purposefully forceful because he believed his encounter with Trump was “a moment of truth.” 

Hearing smack-talk from the Frenchman 31 years his junior irritated and bewildered Trump, aides said.

A few days later, Trump got his revenge. He proclaimed from the Rose Garden, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.”

 Trump will punish the whole world over a slight.

It was fun to poke the bear during the campaign. We now know what he does when he has power. This isn’t fun.

 Sam Seder and Cliff Schecter talked about it this morning on the Majority Report and came to the same conclusion that I did about Trump’s BS reasons, but whereas Sam thinks it’s okay for Marcon to keep trolling him, I don’t.

There is a line from the movie Broken Arrow

How many times do I have to tell you, please don’t shoot at the thermal nuclear weapons.

This is real life example of the old, “maybe he is crazy enough to do it” strategy about nukes. Only I don’t think it’s a strategy.

This is Trump pushing the red button. It’s just in slow motion.

What to Read While Waiting for Trump’s Comeuppance

By Spocko

Great piece by Rebecca Solnit. The Loneliness of Donald Trump. On the corrosive privilege of the most mocked man in the world

I have often run across men (and rarely, but not never, women) who have become so powerful in their lives that there is no one to tell them when they are cruel, wrong, foolish, absurd, repugnant.

Solnit talks about not just Trump, but the people like him who live in a world without honest mirrors.

I’ve worked with and trained smart people who have become some of the richest, most powerful people in the world –Brin, Page, Musk, Sandburg, Mayer and many others. One of the reasons they got to where they are is the people around them (usually women, professional communicators) knew these people needed to see how they were coming across to others. Obliviousness could end up hurting them professionally (and often personally) unless they dealt with it.  These women brought me and my training partners in to hold up a mirror to these people and say, ‘This is how you come across to the media, to investors, to employees. Is that really what you want?”

Dave, one of my training partners, used to quote Emerson to them:

“What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary.”

As people get more and more powerful, it can become harder for them to listen to and accept what others say, especially if they don’t see the person as an equal, someone worth listening too. More from Solnit’s piece.

Equality keeps us honest. Our peers tell us who we are and how we are doing, providing that service in personal life that a free press does in a functioning society. Inequality creates liars and delusion. The powerless need to dissemble—that’s how slaves, servants, and women got the reputation of being liars—and the powerful grow stupid on the lies they require from their subordinates and on the lack of need to know about others who are nobody, who don’t count, who’ve been silenced or trained to please. This is why I always pair privilege with obliviousness; obliviousness is privilege’s form of deprivation. When you don’t hear others, you don’t imagine them, they become unreal, and you are left in the wasteland of a world with only yourself in it, and that surely makes you starving, though you know not for what, if you have ceased to imagine others exist in any true deep way that matters. This is about a need for which we hardly have language or at least not a familiar conversation.

The right wing radio and tv hosts gave an entire group of people a mendacious narrative to internalize and then permission to, as Janeane Garofalo put it, “Bring out their inner asshole.” Tim, one of my best friends back on Vulcan had a response to the phrase, “If you are so smart, why aren’t you rich?” It was, ‘If you are so rich why aren’t you nice?”

I’ve been instrumental in the financial destruction of the right wing media’s advertising revenue stream, which led to the ousting of some of their biggest names. I’ve very proud of that, and while it is satisfying to see them get their comeuppance, during the time prior to their fall they spread hate, envy and anger. This is the right wing strategy and it is a national tragedy. I just wish my friends and I could have made it happen faster.

During this time I’ve learned there is more to the phrase “Speaking truth to power” than most people realize. Power usually doesn’t want to hear your truth. And, contrary to schoolyard wisdom, when you stand up to a powerful bully they don’t just back down. They fight back, often with lawyers, guns and money. So you must persist.

One of the things that I’ve learned is that even powerful people need allies. People who get something in exchange for their help. We focus on Trump because he is the face of this coalition of craven allies. But if those allies see the cost of support is greater than the benefit, they will find an excuse to walk away.

Before we alerted the advertisers that the cost of sponsoring right wing media was greater than the benefit, the RW media distributors made a lot of money. We gave advertisers an excuse to walk away, “The hosts are tainting our brand.” Later, we gave media institutional investors an excuse to push the hosts off radio and TV. “We aren’t making enough money on them this quarter.”

The media should now ask Trump’s allies,”Is the cost of supporting Trump greater than the benefit?” If yes, what are you going to do about it?

Read the whole piece. It’s great.

BTW, Mrs. Spocko spotted Solnit grocery shopping the other day. I wish I had run into her after I had read this piece. I would tell her how spot on it is. I would also ask her if she has tried the bulk curry (which is wonderful) or the chocolate almond milk ice cream, since I like to share the things I love with my fellow Americans, no matter what side of the aisle they are on.

Who protects gun victims from bearing the costs of their wounds?

by Spocko

Gun goes off at health clinic after woman drops purse; 1 shot in leg

May 25, 2017 –Jackson Mississippi

Woman drops her gun in hospital waiting room, shoots another patient in the leg

The patient was hospitalised but said to have suffered “non life-threatening” injuries.

The question I’d like journalists to ask every time this happens:

Who will pay for the injured person’s health care?

In this story in Politico about insurance they talk about the difference between the insurance that the states want to require gun owners to have, and the insurance the NRA is selling.

“Government-mandated firearms insurance shouldn’t be confused with the NRA’s insurance product—the former protects gun victims from bearing the costs of their wounds; the latter protects gun bearers from carrying the costs of their wounded.”
– Matt Valentine, Politico

Gun owners are not required to have any liability insurance, but some have it; what does it pay for? Full medical care? Rehabilitation? Loss of time at work? Long term disability? Pain and suffering?

What if the injured person ends up having a pre-existing condition now because of the injury? “Non-life threatening” doesn’t mean it’s not life changing.

Journalists don’t usually ask questions of who is going to pay for medical care, but given our current President and the hostility toward providing health care by the GOP, this needs to be asked right now. Lawmakers in Massachusetts, Washington, North Carolina, New York and Hawaii have introduced bills this year that would require gun owners to carry liability insurance. But all state and national level politicians need to be asked, “How are the costs of guns and health care going to be dealt with in your community?”

Watch the video and note how the UMMC police officer talks about what was legal or not legal. Part of this information will be used in the eventual criminal case–but it can also apply to civil legal cases. If the gun owner did something illegal, it changes things for the criminal prosecution case, but there is still a civil case that can–and should–be brought by the injured against the gun owner. If something is declared illegal it might also change what the insurance company does. They can decide not to defend a person insured or not pay out on a policy because of exclusions.

But gun owners aren’t required to have insurance, so who pays for the injuries their negligence caused? The individual shot, and the community that picks up the bill. The gun lobby has blocked efforts to require “good guys with guns” to have insurance, complaining that they have to pay when criminals do not.

Debra McQuillen. photo, HCSO

Debra McQuillen had a permit. She was still a law abiding citizen–up until the time she ignored the hospital’s NO GUNS signs. If she was required to have liability insurance before she broke the law, she would be able to pay for the medical care of the woman she injured–due to her negligence.

When the argument is that law abiding gun owners shouldn’t have to have insurance, since criminals don’t, it exempts all the gun owners who go from law abiding to law breaking in an instant. This is also why the NRA works so hard to get rid of laws that make their members law-breakers. (Even acts that make gun owners an “accidental lawbreaker.” if they bring their gun to a place that doesn’t allow guns)

This line of reasoning –that members are super worried about being “accidental lawbreakers” –is used so that individuals can claim the “law-abiding citizen” moniker. But primarily it is used as a strategy by the gun lobby to avoid criminal prosecution and civil liability for gun owners.

If McQuillen did everything the same, except it was in a location where it was okay to bring in her guns, the injury would still happen. No law would have been broken, no criminal charges would be filed–but there could still be a civil case brought by the injured person against the gun owner. This is a key part of the way financial responsibility is avoided by the gun lobby. They shift the status from illegal to legal. Intent is a huge part of the issue, and by having the police and the media verbalize the word accident and legal instead of negligence and illegal they change the perception of what is happening.

I don’t expect journalists to start asking these questions, so we will need to prompt them. I don’t expect gun owners to accept being financially responsible for the damage their negligence caused as part of being a responsible gun owner. We will need to ask them. The next time you are in person talking to a gun owner ask them, (And I recommend doing this in person, because online no one is under oath, and you can’t see their eyes if they lie to you.)

“Do you have liability insurance? Who provides it? What does it cover? Does the insurance cover you or the person who is injured? Do you think all gun owners should be required to have liability insurance? Why or why not?”

There are a lots of different gun shooting scenarios to ask about. If you need one to choose use this one with McQuillan, or the one I wrote about last week with a 7-year old boy, Gage Meche or the one tomorrow, or the next day and the next and the next…

Fiscal responsibility must be part of the definition of a responsible gun owner.

Why Bill O’Reilly is out at Fox News

By Spocko

Bill O’Reilly is out at Fox News. This is excellent news.

I’m going to brag about WHY he is out at Fox News. Not that he is out, but why. Because there is a significant point I want to make.

O’Reilly didn’t get pushed out because he is a serial sexual harasser, or because he called for the killing of Dr. Tiller. He wasn’t pushed out because he cost Fox News millions in lawsuits (he generated more in revenue than the lawsuits.)

He was pushed out because he didn’t generate *enough* revenue — this quarter. That, combined with advertisers not wanting to link their brand with his, is what got him pushed out.

Also, new management, the Gretchen Carlson lawsuit and additional pending lawsuits, all played a role.

When I wrote this last week I ended with the line “What to do next about O’Reilly.” Hint- Institutional investors

As we can see the answer was: Get rid of Bill O’Reilly.

The ratings for a show can be huge, but if they aren’t making money, something needs to change. I looked at what the interested third parties (institutional investors) wanted, and what they didn’t want, and I appealed to them. Those people had more power over the fate of O’Reilly than even Rupert Murdoch.

Because when people who expect their investment to earn money don’t get what they want, they act. The investors needed an excuse to get rid of O’Reilly, one that would fit into what they want.– which is more money– this quarter. As long as he generated money for them, he could keep going.

In firing Bill O’Reilly, Fox News sends a strong signal that sexual harassment will not be tolerated once it affects ad revenue.

— (((Jeff Tiedrich))) (@jefftiedrich) April 19, 2017

People like Murdoch, and the Mercers, are still willing to “invest” money in right wing media in exchange for pushing propaganda. Murdoch does this with The New York Post even though he loses $110 million every single year.

The Mercers gave Breitbart and Steve Bannon $10 million–with no expectation of them generating revenue, just the propaganda.  The Heritage Foundation gives Rush Limbaugh millions now since most customer-facing advertisers won’t advertise.

But public media companies–with non-family stockholders–expect the shows to generate revenue.  That is why back in 2005 I focused on methods to reduce the revenue the right-wing radio and TV hosts generated.  Reducing the revenue the hosts generated, reduced their support for them. That is the equation.

As always, Star Trek has a perfect quote:

Ruk: THAT was the equation. EXISTENCE!… SURVIVAL… must cancel out… programming!

Paramount Pictures “Star Trek: What Are Little Girls Made Of? (#1.7)” (1966)

.
Why I don’t rub Trump voters’ noses in his failures

By Spocko

Great cartoon. Is this really how the conversations go? I don’t think so. Most folks on the left don’t get a kick out of baiting the right and rubbing their noses in their electoral choices.

Why is that?

I could seek out Trump voters and rub their faces in his failures. Why don’t I?

The right does. It’s fun for them.

“I don’t want or need government help! Repeal Obamacare! I don’t need it. I pulled myself up from my own bootstraps!” (They pull themselves up from their bootstraps so hard I’m surprised they don’t fly around the room!)

I could go into “rubbing it in mode,” by pointing out all the government help they get. I could “win” the conversation.

If I wanted to, I could even do it in front of others. I could humiliate them, crush them. I could make them angry and sputtery.

“But, but, Benghazi… Hillary, Benghazi! …”

But why stop at making them sputter? Why not keep crushing them?

When Trump’s actions hurt them or their family, I could bring it up. Force them to acknowledge it.

I’m not going to convert them, so why not mock them? If THEY were in my shoes, that is what they would do. In fact, that IS what they do!

But, I don’t. Because it isn’t really fun to punch down — with most people. However… sometimes it is appropriate, but just be prepared for their backlash. When some RWNJs feel humiliated, they kill people.

Can you imagine anyone who, if they feel they are being disrespected, react by killing people? What kind of person, when it’s proven that they made a mistake, an error in judgement in selecting someone, blames everyone but themselves, and then lashes out at others?

I’m not interesting “winning” conversations with people who “double down” on mistakes rather than admit them and make changes.

So I go around them, and focus on defeating the people who they voted for. I focus on defunding the people whose words and actions make America less safe, less honorable and more divisive.

Then I check in with Trump voters.

Values: Brand, Corporate & Bill O’Reilly’s

By Spocko

I was very pleased and gratified to see the Spocko Method being used on Bill O’Reilly this week. (Up to 70 so far!)

Now he announces he’s taking a vacation amid the sexual harassment scandal (My friend Jeff wondered where, “Thailand?”)

I was thrilled to hear its principles, and some of the specific language I created over a decade ago, being spoken by Anita Hill on Saturday’s Weekend Edition on NPR. (And no, it’s not plagiarism when she uses my language, so bite me wingnuts.)

“I think the message is clear from advertisers as well as from consumers – direct consumers of the media that this is not tolerable, that the advertisers and consumers understand that they have a vested interest in this. The realization from advertisers, of course, is that the ads being associated with the show is not good for their brand. It’s not good for their bottom line. And it also, perhaps, doesn’t reflect their own business values internally.” —

    Anita Hill, Brandeis University Professor of Social Policy, Law, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies

Professor Anita Hill

I’ve been following the stories about this, and, believe it or not, reading the comments about it all week. I read them to understand what people who comment think about it and how they talk about it. What I’m pleased to see is that people on OUR side now understand what this action is and what it is not.

1) It is not a boycott
Even though the media keep trying to call it that, this is not about people calling up advertisers and saying, “I’m not going to buy your product or service unless you do X.” (My friend Sara Robinson said when my method is used it should be called being “Spockoed,” sadly it didn’t take. Sometimes you just can’t make fetch happen.)

2) This is about advertisers being alerted to what they are sponsoring, so they can choose what to do
As they get the whole picture, they can choose to leave or continue to sponsor the show. The key is to point out what they say internally about themselves, then they can decide. I would helpfully provide links to the appropriate sections on their own web page

3) This is about ALL of their stated values
What does their mission statement say? What do their HR guidelines say? If they are a public company, do they have corporate governance documents?Regulation that they are legally required to follow? Vendor ethics agreements? Core brand value statements? They can then answer the question: “Are we true to our values?  Is this what we want people to associate our brand with?”  Then, if what they are sponsoring doesn’t line up with their own stated values, they can decide to make a change.

4) The advertiser is not the enemy, they can be an ally

When I was first writing advertisers I realized I didn’t want to punish them for something they might not have even been aware of. This was because I knew the people who worked at these companies. They were my friends and colleagues. I also knew that threats from outside aren’t usually appreciated. (Even from a beloved character from Star Trek!)  So first I wanted to them to investigate themselves and then make a choice. Some chose to stay, that’s fine, it’s a free market! (For example, the Glenn Beck show never lost their gold advertisers.)

If advertisers chose to leave, they would then have multiple reasons to give if questioned why. Part of this process is making it easy for people inside to explain to others why they made a decision. Having them point to their own values, guidelines and rules makes it easier.

Values Smalues. What’s the Bottom Line?

I also knew that there are people inside companies who believed that while those stated values are nice on paper, the ultimate value is money. These people can only see how other values mattered if they can be shown they either increase the bottom line or, if not followed, would cost the company more money then breaking them can earn.

Part of the education process of the Spocko Method is to remind the company about how it talks to itself already, and what happens to morale and external perception when what they say doesn’t match what they do. The HR, PR and marketing people understand this. But in many companies you will find people who look only at the stock price, or quarterly earnings as representative of value. For them it takes what the financial people call a “material event” to get them to notice.

You will find that when companies talk to investors they bury bad numbers using multiple generally accepted account principle techniques. Big media companies don’t have to disclose details because they are so big.

 They might have a line item for hush money, but they won’t call it that on the books.  You won’t see the costs of: The private investigators digging up dirt on women or the people hired to plant the dirt in tabloids.

Last week on the Majority Report, Michael Brooks and Sam Seder commented on how Fox News corporate attacked O’Reilly’s sexual harassment survivors, the ones whose cases they weren’t able to seal with a financial settlement. Nasty stuff.

Fifth, the government is not violating O’Reilly’s 1st Amendment rights
I had to keep reminding people on our side that advertisers leaving the show is not a 1st Amendment issue.  A sponsor deciding to not buy ads was not the same as the government making a law. (Ironically broadcast talk radio actually DOES have government regulations on what hosts could say, like profanity, the right-wing Christianist group Focus on the Family used it against Howard Stern.)

Taking The Fight To the Next Level

I said at the beginning of the Trump era that this will be a great time for activists. And it is. Sometimes it takes a monster for the village to awaken.

Part of the Spocko Method involves figuring out the next level of the fight. My friends at Color of Change did amazing work convincing 81 advertisers to leave the Glenn Beck show back in 2009/2010, then the effort stalled. I spent three months researching News Corporation Institutional investors and contacting them to point out that hours of prime ad space were not generating revenue. I suggested they ask their contacts when the show would return to profitability. I also researched and contacted financial analysts who covered News Corp and suggested they ask how this loss of advertising revenue is going to impact the earnings of NewsCorp.

Then I asked the question of Rupert Murdoch that any normal financial analyst would ask of a public corporation during a financial conference call, when what was an asset had become a liability.

“I know that you don’t break out revenue numbers for Fox News beyond the top line, but with 81 advertisers leaving the Glenn Beck show following the Color of Change action, the show now seems limited to in-house ads and gold ads. Do you have a time frame for how long Fox will subsidize the show until it to starts to generate revenue in line with its ratings? “

I wonder if some intrepid analyst will ask the same this quarter?

I also contacted the business press and suggested they dig a little deeper into this story. If Beck wasn’t making money, who was subsidizing him? Was this coming out of News Corp’s revenue or Murdoch’s pocket? Was there a Roger Ailes slush fund? Also, how many advertisers have left?

I knew, from my previous experience, more advertisers leave that are willing to admit or I could confirm. This means a bunch of pissed off ad sales reps at Fox News weren’t making money on the Glenn Beck show. They were happy to leak and like a sieve they did. The New York Times reported that as of Sept. 21, 2010,  296 advertisers had asked that their commercials not be shown on Beck’s show.  

I still didn’t know exactly what that meant in millions of dollars, but it was more information to get to institutional investors. They would want to know “Who is paying for this money losing show and what are you doing to fix it?”
Here is a list of the top institutional investors in Newscorp

Coming next week, “What to do next with O’Reilly.”

Are you arguing about heathcare with a sockpuppet?

Sheri Lewis and Lamb Chop, a good sock puppet

I was out-of-town* away from electronic communications last week, when I got home I heard and read about the successes of all my various activist friends in the healthcare front. Good job folks!

Woman posing in front of future sockpuppet army

BTW, Homeland just included a storyline about sockpuppets. It was filled with lots of exposition about it and all the laws that were being broken–if it came from within the government. But these healthcare insurance sockpuppets aren’t coming from governments. They are coming from private companies, who keep their clients’ identities private.

These healthcare insurance companies spend millions to keep the spice money flowing. I know this not from my time traveling, but from listening to the actual financial conference calls of health insurance companies, reading the required reports of public drug companies and talking to insurance experts like my friend Wendell Potter. (I’m looking forward to his new non-profit, Tarbell, investigating this.)

There is public information that these healthcare insurance companies all got assurances from Republicans that they were going to get at least 18 months where nothing would impact their positive cash flow. This includes guarantees of no cuts in drug profits. And they got what they wanted.

The truth is out there, it’s just not tweeted.

Newly created sock puppets ready to decieve. Will they push healthcare insurance company propaganda, or climate change denial?

What this means is that healthcare insurance companies were allies in keeping the ACA going. Especially the parts that kept money flowing to them.

Now they will pivot to figuring out ways to “improve the ACA” and by improve I mean get rid of anything that costs them money. They will hire the usual paid protesters (aka lobbyists) to bring back lifetime caps and to kick people with pre-existing conditions out of the insurance pool. They will frame this as “relief” from the horrible regulations of Obamacare. They will claim it is bankrupting them so they have to leave states and exchanges (specifically the ones that aren’t subsidized.) Then, in the next quarterly conference call, they will tell investors the steady infusion of government cash will not stop and profits are steady.

The push to “fix” the parts of ACA that COSTS healthcare insurance companies money will happen out of the headlines and at super PAC fundraisers. Now that Trump, Ryan and the Freedom Cactus did us a favor by bringing the benefits of ACA to the surface, the healthcare insurance lobbyists will hire firms to push the parts of Obamacare they reluctantly accepted, like removal of lifetime caps and being forced to accept people with pre-existing conditions. They will also employ an army of sockpuppets.

Coming next. “Exposing Sockpuppets.”

Desert Cactus from *Anza Borrego  during super bloom.   Not to be confused  with the Freedom Cactus.