MSNBC Demotes Al Sharpton as the Public Continues Losing Faith in the Corporate-Run Mainstream Media

Following a decision in July to cancel three daytime programs, MSNBC President Phil Griffin has announced yet another far-left host will see their daytime program eliminated (or in this case, relegated to a new, less prominent, time slot). Al Sharpton, who has hosted PoliticsNation on MSNBC since August 2011, will see his previously five night per-week show relegated to Sunday mornings at 8 AM.

Despite the apparent demotion, Sharpton is taking his show’s removal from the weekly daytime line-up well. “First, I can reach a wider audience of people who don’t get home by 6 at night. Second, I can now get the A-list guests and newsmakers I want. And third, a Sunday morning host is what I always wanted to be,” he told New York Daily News. Never one for modesty, he continued, “I never wanted to be a weeknight pundit. I wanted to be a Sunday morning newsmaker. I wanted to be Dr. Martin Luther King, not Larry King.”

Sharpton’s demotion comes as three other far-left programs were eliminated at MSNBC. “The Cycle,” “Now with Alex Wagner” and “The Ed Show” were canceled in late July as the station’s management sought a shift away from ‘Progressive’ opinion-oriented shows to breaking news coverage.

“Change can be hard,” MSNBC President Phil Griffin wrote in an emailed memo to the channel’s staff. “There’s no doubt it’s been a difficult time, but we have exciting opportunities ahead.” Reportedly, the shake-up was ordered by the new chairman of NBC News (which itself owns MSNBC), Andrew Lack. According to the memo, the goal is for MSNBC to cover breaking news daily from 9 AM – 5 PM, with opinion-oriented shows to follow.

Griffin and Lack undoubtedly saw the writing on the wall: MSNBC has witnessed a dramatic decline in viewership as the American people lose faith in the honesty and integrity of the corporate-dominated mainstream media. A review of the 2015 Q2 Nielsen ratings report by Politico stated the following: “Meanwhile, MSNBC continues to struggle with its ratings, as viewership declined 17 percent in the total day demo. MSNBC currently sits in fourth-place in the demo for total day with just 86,000 viewers, behind CNN sister network HLN.”

According to a Gallup poll conducted from June 2-7 2015, only 24% of Americans have confidence in newspapers, while only 21% have confidence in television news. Both numbers are down from historical norms.

A poll conducted among 18-29 year-olds by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics found just 2% trust the media to “do the right thing” all the time; a result referred to by the Washington Examiner writer Paul Bedard as “the latest nail in the media’s coffin, a downward spiral that has resulted in fewer younger Americans reading traditional media and especially traditional platforms such as newspapers and magazines.”

The Creeping Specter of War With Russia: a War the Pentagon is Unsure it Can Win

As the ominous specter of war with Russia appears all but certain, a series of classified exercises conducted over the summer by the Pentagon has left many at the Pentagon unsure the United States could defeat Russia in a protracted war. “Could we probably beat the Russians today [in a sustained battle]? Sure, but it would take everything we had,” one defense official told The Daily Beast. “What we are saying is that we are not as ready as we want to be.”

After nearly 15 years of continuous war in Afghanistan and Iraq, American ground troops are unprepared to sustain the troop levels or logistics necessary to defeat Russia in a protracted war. One of the tabletop exercises conducted by the Department of Defense “told us that the wars [in Iraq and Afghanistan] have depleted our sustainment capability,” according to two defense officials.

The overthrow of the Russian-backed, and Democratically-elected, President of Ukraine Viktor Yanukovych by Western and George Soros-backed protestors, and the subsequent civil war that pitted the new government against rebels (backed by Russia) in the predominately Russian-speaking eastern half of the country has significantly contributed to the souring of relations between Russia and NATO. The presence of American troops in Ukraine training government forces has only further stoked Russian fears as NATO continues to encroach on its borders.

The European Leadership Institute, in a policy brief, asserts that there is another contributing factor in the decline of relations between Russia and the West: “the increased scope and size of the military exercises conducted by both Russia and by NATO and its partners in the Euro-Atlantic area since the Ukraine crisis began.” The policy brief points to two specific exercises:

1.) A Russian snap military exercise that occurred in March, 2015. The exercise began with approximately 12,000 troops in the far north of Russia, and grew to include 80,000 troops, 12,000 pieces of heavy equipment, 65 naval vessels, 15 submarines and 225 aircraft. The exercise encompassed: Northern Fleet coastal defense forces moving to designated defensive positions on the Kola Peninsula; airborne divisions preparing for a mock emergency deployment; aerial anti-submarine operations; emergency forward deployment of aircraft in Russia’s Western military district; anti-aircraft missile system testing; surface and anti-air action by Russia’s Northern Fleet, Baltic Fleet and Black Sea Fleet; activation of marines in the Black Sea Fleet; activation of military forces in Sakhalin and in the Kuril Islands; deployment of strategic bombers, fighter escorts and airborne troops to remote Arctic Islands; responses to simulated air, naval and ground attacks.

2.) NATO’s Operation Allied Shield, which occurred in June, 2015. Allied Shield was an umbrella term for four separate training exercises, including BALTOPS 15 (anti-submarine, air defense, surface warfare and amphibious landings conducted by 49 ships, 61 aircraft, one submarine and nearly 700 American and Swedish troops), Saber Strike 15 (conventional airborne and armored engagements in Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland), Noble Jump (deployment of NATO’s new Very High Readiness Joint Task Force in Poland to detect and defeat special forces and irregular troops), and Trident Joust (command and control exercise to test redeployment of a mid-sized NATO HQ).

While it may seem that the conflict in Ukraine is the sole catalyst for the rising tensions between Russia and NATO, history shows that to not be the case. While a significant undertaking, Russia’s snap exercises in 2015 were not the largest military exercise conducted by Russia in recent memory. In 2013, Russia conducted its largest military exercise since the collapse of the Soviet Union; the exercise itself involved 160,000 troops and nearly 5,000 tanks from Siberia to Russia’s Far-Eastern territory bordering China and islands bordering Japan. According to Fox News, “Konstantin Sivkov, a retired officer of the Russian military’s General Staff, told the daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta that the Sakhalin part of the maneuvers was intended to simulate a response to a hypothetical attack by Japanese and U.S. forces.”

It is clear that Russia viewed the United States and NATO as a fundamental threat to its national security prior to the war in Ukraine. The United States’ proposed missile shield in Eastern Europe, long claimed to be directed at “rogue regimes” like Iran and North Korea, is widely (and correctly) speculated to actually be aimed at preventing Russia from deploying nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistic missiles in the event of a war with the West. With a tentative nuclear deal reached between the United States and Iran, Russia is now calling for the missile shield plans to be scrapped all together.

Apparently not content with the prospect of eliminating Russia’s nuclear deterrent, Western governments fermented the overthrow of one of the last Russian-friendly governments in Eastern Europe with the expectation Russia would capitulate and allow a new Western (and NATO) oriented government to assume control. However, the West made one grave miscalculation: misjudging how far Russia was willing to go to protect the home of its Black Sea Fleet: Sevastopol, on Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

Russia amended its military doctrine in December 2014 to specify NATO as its number one strategic threat, and outlined a new policy of using nuclear weapons “as part of strategic deterrent measures.” President Vladimir Putin just recently announced the approval of a revised naval policy with a renewed focus on the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dimitry Rogozin stated the focus on the Atlantic is due to “NATO expansion, the need to integrate Crimea and the Sevastopol naval base into the Russian economy, and to re-establish a permanent Russian Navy presence in the Mediterranean,” while the focus on the Arctic is due to “growth of the Northern Sea Route, the need for free entry into the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and the wealth of the continental shelf.”

As Russian nuclear-capable Tu-95 Bear bombers regularly test the air-defense capabilities of the United States, and Russia recently announced the deployment of 40 more nuclear missiles, the prospect of a cataclysmic nuclear war is all too real.

Target to Drop “Offensive” Gender Labels From Kids Sections in Latest Case of Political Correctness Gone Awry

In yet another case of political correctness gone awry, the retailer Target has announced its intention to phase out gender labels from several kids sections after “outrage” from customers. According to Bloomberg, the apparent outrage boiled over when an Ohio mother posted a photo on Twitter in June showing a sign for “Girl’s Building Sets”, similar to the type sold by the company Goldieblox, directly adjacent to a sign for regular “building sets”.

“It stood out to me as a good example of the way our culture tends to view boys and men as the default, normal option and girls and women as the specialized option,” Amy Bechtel, the Ohio mother in question, told CNN at the time.

According to a statement posted on its website, Target announced several changes aimed at placating customers. In the children’s bedding area, for example, “signs will no longer feature suggestions for boys or girls, just kids”. In addition, Target has pledged to remove “reference to gender, including the use of pink, blue, yellow or green paper on the back walls of our shelves,” in toy aisles.

The attempt by the far-left to eliminate “offensive” gender labels is not unheard-of. The Lincoln Public Schools District in Nebraska sought to end usage of words like “boy” and “girl” due to their allegedly offensive manner; rather, all children were to be called “Purple Penguins”. The school district ultimately scrapped the proposal after outrage from parents.

While some toys and other products are marketed as for boys or girls specifically, there is no law that prohibits a parent from buying their daughter a Darth Vader costume. However, those leading the gender labeling crusade are not content with ending labels on toys or other products; the mere mention of the words “boy” and “girl” are now being construed as offensive. The very notion that boys and girls are different in any way is now an offensive and sexist statement. It seems that the most radical gender labeling crusaders will not be satisfied until we are a completely unisex society with absolutely no distinguishable differences between men and women.

Of course, their attempt to end “gender division” in the name of “equality” will not stop the far-left from promoting racial, ethnic and class division to ensure we are all too busy fighting with one another to notice control of our government and both political parties have been usurped by off-shore mega banks, the military-industrial complex, and other crony corporate interests.

FEC Renews Internet Power Grab; Claims Power to Regulate Campaign and Political Speech Online

After a prior attempt by the Democratic members of the FEC to regulate election-related videos online, effectively granting the FEC power to silence Libertarian and Conservative-leaning websites like Drudge Report, failed after strong public outcry, the new head of the FEC has recently signaled her intent to push for greater regulations on political speech online.

Ann Ravel, the current head of the FEC, spoke during a conference hosted by the Brennan Center for Justice, the New York City Campaign Finance Board, and the Committee for Economic Development. When asked about regulating political activity on the internet, Ravel asserted it was under the “purview” of the FEC to oversee online political activities such as fundraising and donation-collecting.

“It would be under the purview of the FEC to look at some of the issues that arise in new media and the impact of new media, in particular with respect to disclosure and ensuring that there is no corporate contributions, for example excessive contributions or contributions to a particular candidates for example,” Ravel said.

This is not the only example of Ravel seeking to expand the regulatory power of the FEC to encompass political activity on the internet. In October, 2014, while Vice-Chair, Ravel sought to introduce regulations targeting online campaigns and videos, arguing, “a reexamination of the commission’s approach to the internet and other emerging technologies is long over due.”

The FEC Chairman at the time, Republican Lee E. Goodman, warned the Democrats on the FEC sought to use those proposed new powers target Conservative and Libertarian-leaning online media. “There are hundreds of thousands of blogs, websites, podcasts, webcasts, and I can’t image a regulatory regime where the federal government starts culling websites and YouTube posts on a daily basis to identify those that might not have registered and reported their expenditures,” Goodman told Fox News. “It really is a specter of a government review board culling the Internet daily. … I don’t know how we could begin to regulate all the hundreds of thousands of political commentaries online.”

Goodman had similar concerns earlier that year, arguing Conservative media like Drudge Report and Sean Hannity were facing regulations similar to PACs. “The picking and choosing has started to occur….There are some in this building that think we can actually regulate [media]. And if that occurs, then I am concerned about disparate treatment of conservative media.”

The use of governmental regulations to silence political speech and identify political dissidents is something not unheard of in totalitarian societies, as well as societies that masquerade as free and open.

In Venezuela, eight people have been jailed over the last eleven months for tweeting messages the Socialist government under Nicolas Maduro found “offensive”. Charges for those imprisoned include conspiracy, instigating hatred to espionage, espionage and “causing anxiety.”

In supposedly Democratic Spain, the government recently adopted the “Basic Law for the Protection of Public Security,” condemned by rights organizations as an attempt to “gag” political speech. According to the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), the law “introduces administrative sanctions, some very severe, aimed at dissuading citizens from expressing their concerns through public demonstrations. This law criminalizes new forms of collective action and expression that have developed in recent years, including escraches (‘demonstrations aiming at public denunciations’), sit-ins, ‘occupying’ public spaces, peaceful ‘surrounding’ of parliaments and ‘concerts of pots and pans’.”