Can Elon Musk buy an election? Silly and serious takes on the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest

I'm closing out March's blogging by sharing silly and serious takes on tomorrow's election for Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice, beginning with The Daily Show's Elon Musk & Billionaires Flood the Zone in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race.

Ronny Chieng covers the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election, including Elon Musk’s $20 million intervention in Republican Brad Schimel’s campaign, attack ads against the wrong Susan Crawford, and alternating pro-pedophilia smear campaigns. Plus, Grace Kuhlenschmidt sees how billionaires are turning elections into games.

The preview image asked "Can Elon buy a Wisconsin election?" That was the silly take. I begin the serious takes with Democracy Now! asking the nearly identical question, Can Elon Musk Buy Wisconsin? Ari Berman on Billionaire-Funded Attempt to Flip State Supreme Court.

After spending over a quarter of a billion dollars on Donald Trump's presidential election campaign, Elon Musk is pouring money into a Supreme Court election in Wisconsin. Musk has spent more than $18 million to support Trump-backed candidate Brad Schimel over liberal Susan Crawford and has been paying Wisconsin voters $100 to help flip the state's top court. This election could impact abortion rights, unions and Republicans' ability to keep gerrymandered districts in place to control Congress. "The level of corruption at play here, the level of money at play here, really is a warning sign for what's happening to our democracy," says Ari Berman, voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones magazine.

Amy Goodman and Ari Berman are right; this is part of a larger project that includes Hoover Cleveland's power grab in the form of an executive order regarding elections. The voters can stop it, but only if they demonstrate that the answer to The Daily Show's and Democracy Now's question is "no." To that end, I'm embedding NBC News's Steve Kornacki: Wisconsin Supreme Court race will test Democrat’s off-year turnout 'advantage'.

NBC News National Political Correspondent Steve Kornacki digs into battleground Wisconsin ahead of the state’s Supreme Court election.

I'd like to think Democrats still have the turnout advantage in off-year elections they've had since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Hoover Cleveland won states like Wisconsin and Michigan through "bullet ballots" — people voting for him but no one else. They didn't vote for downballot contests and aren't likely to vote in an election where Trump is not on the ballot. That reminds me of an answer to the question I asked in I ask The Archdruid and his readers 'Can you show us on the doll exactly where the educated professionals hurt you?' The answer is turn against Republicans and deny them downballot victories. I hope that happens tomorrow in Wisconsin and other states where there are off-year and special elections.

That concludes March's blogging. Stay tuned for a retrospective about holidays on April Fools Day.

'Teenage Dream' and 'The Lost Class' — two PSAs about gun violence nominated for Outstanding Commercial at the 2022 Emmy Awards

As I have since 2019, I begin my coverage of this year's Primetime and Creative Arts Emmy Awards, which the Television Academy announced earlier this week, with the nominees for Outstanding Commercial. I'm featuring the two Emmy-nominated Public Service Announcements (PSAs) about gun violence in general and school shootings in particular above the jump, beginning with past nominee and winner Sandy Hook Promise, whose nominated PSA this year is Teenage Dream.

Gun violence shouldn't be part of growing up.
...
*** This video contains sensitive content related to gun violence that may be triggering for some viewers. ***

The irony of these school shooting survivors singing Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream" was not lost on me, which was the point, as News 12 in New York highlighted in Sandy Hook Promise’s ‘Teenage Dream’ PSA aims to prevent further gun violence.

Sandy Hook Promise tapped survivors of gun violence in schools from around the country to recite the lyrics to the Perry tune.

That was one of the adults behind the PSA. Good Morning America interviewed the teens themselves in Survivors share how their ‘teenage dreams’ disappeared after school shootings l GMA.

A new PSA from Sandy Hook Promise features survivors of school shootings reciting the lyrics of the popular Katy Perry song in hopes of preventing others from experiencing the same grief.

Yes, you heard that right; gun violence was the number one cause of death among U.S. children and teens in 2020, passing auto accidents. That stat deserves a post of its own, so I'm moving on.

Normally, Sandy Hook Promise would have gun violence to themselves, but this year, Change the Ref joined them with Lost Class 1/3.

This year, 3,044 students won’t get the chance to graduate because they were killed by a gun. It’s time we pass universal background checks, so we can protect our students and make sure more of them make it to their graduation day.

By donating to Change the Ref, you’re helping in the fight against the gun violence epidemic. Change the Ref uses the funds raised to keep applying pressure to our politicians and policymakers through creativity, creating more campaigns like The Lost Class. Together, we can change the perception of guns in America and inspire change that will keep the futures of our students safe from guns.

In its own way, showing all those empty chairs and switching the audio between the commencement address and the 911 calls is even more effective than Sandy Hook Promise's PSA. Also, convincing a former head and current board member of the NRA to address 3,044 empty chairs is quite a feat. Democracy Now examines how that happened in Meet the Father Who Tricked Ex-NRA Head into Addressing 3,044 Empty Chairs for Gun Violence Victims.

The parents of a student killed in the 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School duped a former president of the National Rifle Association into giving a high school graduation speech defending gun rights in front of 3,044 empty white chairs — one chair for each student who could not graduate this year because they were killed by gun violence. David Keene, who still serves on the NRA board, thought he was giving a rehearsal speech for graduating students at the James Madison Academy in Las Vegas, but no such school exists. Video of the speech was turned into a viral video promoting universal background checks. The stunt was organized by the group Change the Ref, which was founded by Manuel and Patricia Oliver, whose son Joaquin was shot dead in the Parkland, Florida, massacre. Manuel Oliver says the video has led to an outpouring of support from across the U.S. “We need to do these more often, because it shows that the NRA, the gun industry and the gun lobby are not as powerful as they say,” he says.

This clip includes not only the commercial I embedded above, but parts of the other two videos in the series, so not only does it explain what's went on, but saves me the trouble of embedding them, too. Thank you.

Follow over the jump for the other four nominees.

Democracy Now, Euronews, and NBC News on World AIDS Day — remembering one pandemic in the midst of another

Today is World AIDS Day, a day I haven't observed here for six years and both of those times I was late.* Today, I am finally celebrating it on time with three video stories about the AIDS pandemic in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I begin with Democracy Now's World AIDS Day Is Grim Reminder of an Ongoing Epidemic, with 700,000 Dead from HIV/AIDS in 2019.

December 1 is World AIDS Day, and as the world waits on an effective vaccine for COVID-19, we look at the ongoing AIDS epidemic and how the coronavirus has threatened treatment for those living with HIV. Author and journalism professor Steven Thrasher says the coronavirus has amplified racial, class and other disparities, just as AIDS has done for decades, and that treatments must have an antiracist and anti-capitalist foundation in order to be successful. "HIV/AIDS has continued to kill way too many people. Almost 700,000 people died last year," says Thrasher. "The problem is not just the drugs. It's the conditions around people's lives that lead them to become affected by viruses."

Including this video reminded me of two things unrelated to either HIV or coronavirus. First, although I have a label for Democracy Now, I haven't used it since 2013. The second is about Democracy Now's position on the Media Bias Chart. Ad Fontes Media, the organization that created and maintains the Media Bias Chart, "rates Democracy Now as hyper-partisan left in terms of bias and as mixed reliability in terms of reliability." That's probably why I haven't used Democracy Now as a source of serious news during the past seven years. Still, it did a good job of reporting on the story even as it filtered the news through its point of view, which is very anti-capitalist. I don't think they're wrong, but I am taking their perspective into account.

The next video I'm sharing, World Aids day: WHO calling on leaders [to] maintain HIV services during pandemic from Euronews in English, frames its story from a more neutral and international position.



WHO calling on leaders [to] maintain HIV services during pandemic
HIV testing and other services are like all other medical services during the COVID-19 pandemic; people are taking less advantage of them and resources are being diverted to treating people infected with the novel coronavirus. That's not good for the patients of other diseases.

By the way, the original video had "ton" instead of "to." The prompted me to respond with "To maintain, not 'ton maintain,' although the services are worth 'a ton,' whether it's 2000 pounds or 1000 kg." I hope that gentle reminder inspires them to correct the title and video description.

Finally, I am sharing AIDS Victims Remembered By Loved Ones In World AIDS Day Tribute from NBC News.

Watch as loved ones of AIDS victims share their emotional stories and tributes from the AIDS Memorial Instagram account on World AIDS Day.

In addition to remembering to care for the living, we should remember the many dead from the disease.

*Today is also Giving Tuesday and one of two Rosa Parks Days. I celebrated Giving Tuesday this year over at the Coffee Party USA blog. Please surf over there to support my favorite nonprofit. I last celebrated Rosa Parks Day in 2018. When I next honor her memory, I might follow through on writing about her Detroit connections, which I wrote were "a story for another day." Not today, but maybe next year. Stay tuned.

ABC News and Democracy Now on comfort food

Yesterday's and today's prompts are about comfort food.

Monday, May 6, 2013
What is your biggest comfort food?  Share the recipe if you have one.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013
What makes you reach for a comfort food?

I already blogged about comfort food on Sunday, so that takes care of one prompt.  Now I'll share some more videos about the dark side of comfort food from my YouTube feed on Monday.

First, ABC News presents Hunger Games in the Supermarket.  I know, I couldn't resist the title.



Secret things your brain can't control when you go shopping.
Grocery shopping while hungry induces one to go for comfort food, not more food.  That means it's still a bad idea to shop while hungry, but for a different reason.

Next, Democracy Now has a series of clips from an interview with food author Michael Pollan, who is one of the experts featured in Food, Inc., about his new book "Cooked."

Michael Pollan on How Reclaiming Cooking Can Save Our Food System, Make Us Healthy & Grow Democracy

We spend the hour with Michael Pollan, one of the country's leading writers and thinkers on food and food policy. Pollan has written several best-selling books about food, including "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and "In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto." In his latest book, "Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation," Pollan argues that taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make our food system healthier and more sustainable. "There is a deliberate effort to undermine food culture to sell us processed food," Pollan says. "The family meal is a challenge if you're General Mills or Kellogg or one of these companies, or McDonald's, because the family meal is usually one thing shared." Pollan also talks about the "slow food" movement. "Slow food is about food that is good, clean and fair. They're concerned with social justice. They're concerned with how the food is grown and how humane and chemical-free it is." He adds, "Slow food is about recovering that space around the family and keeping the influence of the food manufacturers outside of the house. ... The family meal is very important. It's the nursery of democracy."

Follow over the jump for Pollan and Amy Goodman swapping bread tips (I'm following today's prompt after all) along with Pollan explaining how the makers of fast and processed food have coopted our meals.

Second anniversary of Japanese earthquake, tsunami, and meltdown: video tributes

To follow up to last year's video memorial, I commemorate the second anniversary of the event with videos about the event from the last 12 hours of my YouTube subscription feed.  I begin with a local angle from WOOD-TV.

Japan Earthquake: Two Years Later

THERE IS STILL DAMAGE LEFT BEHIND FROM THE DISASTER... NOW TWO YEARS LATER.
WE WANTED TO KNOW HOW JAPAN IS COPING WITH THE AFTERMATH AND HOW FAR THEY'VE COME. JOINING 24 HOUR NEWS 8 FOR SOME INSIGHT IS JOHN PARKER, CHIEF SALES OFFICER FOR AMWAY.

Next, an overview from a more sophisticated international source, Link TV.

3/11, Two Years Later: How is Japan Coping Today? (LinkAsia: 3/8/13)

March 11th marks two years since Japan's devastating triple disaster of a massive earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown that left 20,000 people dead or missing. LinkAsia's Toshi Maeda reports from Tokyo on how people in Japan are coping today with the aftermath.

More videos over the jump.