Dustin Micheli Breaks down some of the Propositions and Amendments being offered up to Colorado voters. Ahead of election day, Including Propositions 112, 111 and more.
Tag: Press Monkey Media
Russia Gate 2.0: He Walks Before The Queen/ HR 50.
No Bad News: Press Monkey Media Update 6-28
Dustin Plays “No Bad News” by Diana Ross on the Mandolin, then gives a quick word on some top news stories and then some.. Announcement for new format to come.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugv3lG4GTHA
New Prime 8 Report New format and news updates 6/16
Activists Will Stand With Wikileaks: Free Julian Assange for Peace. #FreeJulian
By Dustin Micheli ~ Press Monkey Media.
It has been almost 11 weeks since Wikileaks founder and editor Julian Assange had his communication and internet connection access rescinded by the Ecuadorian Government, in the London based Ecuadorian embassy where he still is maintaining residence and asylum.
The Ecuadorian Government, who recently granted Assange citizenship and is also threatening to revoke his asylum, perhaps understandably felt more than pressured to capitulate to the bellicose and aggressive behavior of the dangerous government powers such as the United Kingdom and United States.
Assange’s calling into question the official UK government narrative launched before actual investigation was done on the poisoning of a former Russian Spy and his daughter was the least of Assange’s transgressions against the United States and United Kingdom governments.
The powers that be have made it clear that there is nothing they find to be more dangerous and harmful to them than being exposed to us. They feel threatened by the very idea that we might become less subordinate and more informed.
This is partially why what Assange and Wikileaks stand for and have done for us all is so important and so dangerous.
Wikileaks is a treasure trove of insight into the inner working of and dangerous dealings of the of the world political elites and what they are willing to do to further their totalitarian imperialist agendas.
Every person who values transparency, justice, truth and accountability should be calling for and demanding freedom and justice for Julian and exoneration from prosecution for publishing leaked documents. After all, if the government is supposed to work for us, then shouldn’t we be allowed to know exactly what it is doing? Shouldn’t exposing them be a matter of prudence and obligation of a democratic minded citizenry?
You owe it to yourself to spend some time looking over any number of the leaked documents and archived material published always first by WikiLeaks, because they do not release information already published in other publications, they have a more than ten year record of 100% accurate independently verified and authenticated information and leaks.
Quick FYI : WikiLeaks is a multi-national media organization and associated library of 100% accurate and verified leaks and information. It is free to visit the website and legal to download these archives and documents for your own information, research , and/ or reporting.
The numerous pages and volumes of information exposed in the publications of Wikileaks will keep a room full of journalists and activists busy for years to come trying to sift through the otherwise unknown information and documentation.
The hours I have spent looking over the text in WikiLeaks, from the Podesta files and emails, to the Afghanistan files, prisoner treatment in Cuba at GITMO and the exposure of the mass surveillance state and FISA courts have been invaluable.
To say there are some unfound and untold stories still undiscovered and unreported in the Wikileaks publications would be an understatement I assure you.
So anyone wishing to cut their shoestring journalistic teeth would be well served to glance over and consider examining and analyzing any number of the un reported on data and info provided by the Wikileaks.org website.
( Picture above: Julian Assange outside entrance to Ecuadorian embassy)
As Julian spends his sixth year holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy as a political pariah and prisoner, it’s hard to not think of him as a kind of Journalistic Lenny Bruce paying for the sins of transparency activists and journalists everywhere. Many of whom have benefited from or re reported on information and revelations uncovered by the WikiLeaks publications.
Picture: Lenny Bruce
Much as the comic and entertainment world benefited from the professional sacrifice that the late Lenny Bruce made for the sins of free speech and comic performance. Clearing the way for comics later to come and benefit from those battles and liberties already hard fought for and won.
One of the things I realized as I read through the WikiLeaks publications and archives was how dull all the communicates between many of them really are. No wonder regular people can’t stand to sit and read any of it. The dullness of the Podesta leaks that expose how the DNC, Hillary Clinton, many mainstream media outlets, the White House, department of Justice were all rigging the Democratic primary against Bernie Sanders and the progressive movement he represented before he threw the race and got behind Hillary “ Gold Standard” Clinton.
It all sounds juicier when I frame it like that than the actual communicates between the various parties would reflect. The impact of what they were saying and doing was far more substantial than the e mails themselves were colorful about their context. Perhaps, that is why for your casual observer the findings might seem, dry obscure or meaningless, but I assure you they are not.
Consider the gravity,implications and the amount of power and influence at play. Consider all the supposed talent and accomplishment that were coalescing around the Clinton campaign to try and make her the next President of the United States.
Considering everything they were willing to do and sacrifice to accomplish that, you might think that the vernacular they used would be a little more cleaver, creative, or colorful. The content of said e mails were so dry that it was surprising they were able to be “leaked” at all.
As a side note: Randy Credico to his cedit…O Got himself thrown out of the recent White House Press Correspondence Dinner before the show actually began.
( Picture above: Randy Credico)
Randy Credico, who is a comedian, activist and journalist was reported to be walking around the event loudly pronouncing his support as well as trying to enlist it from those in the room for the Wikileaks founder.
Credico is a known associate, acquaintance and friend of Julian Assange and one of the last non-official people to have contact with Assange besides Assange’s attorneys.
As a shoestring journalist, activist and truth bringer I feel that it is of paramount importance and responsibility for us to band together to support Julian Assange, we need to try and work for his secure release and relocation before something happens and it’s too late.
If Ecuador suspends or ends his asylum and forces him to leave the security of the embassy, what are we going to do? We cant just leave him to the mercy of the war hawks, we must try something.
I, Know, “but what? ”
I don’t know, but we better start thinking of something fast.
I would not be the activist or motivated truth bringer that I am today without the WikiLeaks publications and what they revealed to us and taught me.
Nor would I feel I have the obligation, and mandate to do so without the example of his courageousness and effort to inform us all in the face of murderous and powerful adversity that Julian Assange has demonstrated, yet here we are.
I don’t know what or how we are to do this, but we must try to secure Julian Assange’s release and safe transport to somewhere safe in Ecuador. Even if we have to have some covert extraction or massive human shield barrier between us and the aggressive authorities should they try to take him into custody.
I know this sounds like its scary, dangerous and an impossible situation. It is , but so is the impossible situation and choices we are left with. We cannot afford to shrug our responsibility to one of our fellows, one of our own and one who has achieved so much for the sake of truth and transparency. At least I cannot.
We should not just leave Assange to the tender mercy of the so-called justice system, run by the jackals that maintain torture prisons outside of Cuba ,whom are known torture whistle blowers as a matter of course like as what happened with Chelsea Manning.
Those who have officially called for his Assange’s assassination on more than a few occasions, branded him as a dangerous agent of Russian espionage or somehow worse. it’s hard to imagine he will be given any kind of fair adjudication or due process for whatever trumped up charged they decide to throw at him.
What Julian is and does is what represents truth and the ultimate challenge to holding power and corruption accountable when and where we can.
I think the urgency of these actions and spreading of the message to help free Julian Assange is one of the most important things we can do right now. Please, if you truly value a free media, transparency and holding those who are in power accountable then you will join us and speak out to Free Julian Assange. #FreeJulian for peace and transparency.
Peace, Activism, and Bananas My Friends
Clockwork “Tangerine”? The Anti-Trump Distraction
The original publishing of this article was on Facebook ·Saturday, February 18, 2017 and again on medium.com on Jun 24 2017.
By: Dustin Micheli (with editor/contributor Tiffany Wright)
Even the tiny hand of a broken clock is right twice a day. That’s what I keep telling myself as I witness the spectacle that is Donald Trump and find myself obliged to agree with him on occasion. His current sparring partner, the mainstream media, is manifestly consequential to us all. There is an inherent danger in the normalization of institutions that have routinely lied, colluded, sensationalized and conflated- without any real consequence, apology, or retraction. The mainstream, corporate media being at odds with Donald Trump should not overshadow the fact that they have become the entertainment division of the military industrial complex and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
These are also the same media outlets mechanically responsible for the election and popularity of Donald J. Trump. Not since Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal has a president garnered such media frenzy and attention. Trumps detractors have gone to great lengths to publicize almost every word he has spoken since he first entered the Republican primaries. No one in history has gotten this much free press to the exclusion of everyone and everything else. A wealth of media and press coverage was devoted to Donald Trump’s campaign, at the Democrats request: first on over-reporting, then on fear-mongering about his candidacy while sensationalizing every second of it at the same time.
Bernie Sanders’ campaign, with its populist message, managed to get more contributions from real individual people than any other candidate in U.S. history. It was absurdly under-reported by mainstream media at the behest of their corporate co-conspirators in the Democratic Party. These media inconsistencies are directly responsible for the peoples answer: to start creating and/or gravitating to small independent media outlets and whistle blower organizations (such as Wiki Leaks, Truth Dig, The Intercept and many others).
Literally millions of people have been murdered by our military and government at the behest of the military industrial complex- through warfare that funds the very media outlets that are conveniently failing to cover our military actions reliably. Every major conflict since before Vietnam to the current Russian conflation can be attributed to the collusion of corporate media and the military and securities industries- who consequently benefit from our failed foreign policies abroad. Our entire NATO alliance seems to be predicated on arms sales. The idea that Russia is always an imminent threat is one which our so-called allies Israel and Saudi Arabia also benefit greatly from, being the chief arms dealers in the region besides the United States.
Any of this ring a bell? Not if you’ve been watching CNN, Fox News, or MSNBC. The mainstream media is failing at its job and worse, working against us. The benefits or necessity of U.S. military conflicts and intrusions taking place in my lifetime have yet to be demonstrated without relying on false information. The buildups to these illegitimate conflicts seem to have some common denominators. An example of this is the repetition of assertions over facts for months on end. Those who benefit greatly from these conflicts are in direct relation to and in collusion with the very journalistic outlets that dominated our media spectrum up until the last 20 years. Part of the reason net neutrality became an issue is because the powers that be cannot censor that medium. If these groups hate anything more than the idea of losing their positions of power, it is transparency and open discourse. This contempt for free media shows the underlying fear that they may fail to subordinate a well-informed working class.
WikiLeaks documents prove and document much of this, but are far from the only source. A simple YouTube or Google search can produce countless clips and articles exemplifying our mainstream media outlets misrepresenting information. If it weren’t for independent investigative media and whistleblower organizations, many of those lies would have gone unexposed.
While the establishment left is proclaiming President Trump to be the ultimate enemy to freedom of the press, the ink is still wet on unconstitutional legislation just passed under Obama to attack dissenting and progressive journalism in McCarthy-era fashion. When considering the “Trump vs Fake News” theatrics currently on display, we may do well to remember that even the tiny hand of a broken clock is going to be right some of the time.
Buy, Buy Bernie: The People’s Revolution Placebo
Written By Dustin Micheli
Questioning the credibility, consistency and accountability of Sen. Bernie Sanders is not something I would have expected to see myself doing if I had been thinking of the possibilities a little more than a year ago.
My reasoning for doing so is that recently people have been beating a drum that is loud, but ringing hollow in its tone and depth of scope. That drum is the “Draft Bernie” movement.
To say I have bitter feelings from the recent presidential elections, especially the democratic primaries, would be putting it mildly. You see, I too was a Bernie supporter. From the time he announced his candidacy ( I created a local Facebook page that very day), until his failure to contest the rigged primaries and his subsequent politically correct backing of Hillary Clinton. Bernie himself gave us politics as usual when he had promised us bold changes and vision. The fact that he wouldn’t challenge an obviously rigged primary in order to facilitate a smoother campaign for HRC, and tried to shore up votes for someone who cheated us all, shows Bernie’s lack of consistency, credibility, and accountability. In my view, Bernie’s willingness to back Clinton for temporary political expediency is exactly the kind of maneuver that makes him unfit to lead any effective revolution for change.
My spouse and I supported Bernie in the ways we could, given we have two children and are a single income family. We were 2 of the 250,000 remarkable volunteers that made up the phenomenon that was the Sanders campaign. We talked about Bernie, chalked Bernie, donated money we could ill afford, walked for Bernie. We canvassed for Bernie, created Facebook groups, posted for Bernie, and handed out countless fliers. We bought Bernie paraphernalia and practically made our van a giant Bernie Revolution mobile advertisement. I even argued with rednecks about socialism for Bernie.
The reason I tell you this is to establish that we could “Feel the Bern” big time. So I hope you’ll understand that if you’re still an admirer or supporter of Bernie Sanders, this is as difficult for me to write as it might be for you to hear. If you are considering this new Bernie movement to be a good idea or time well spent, this is not an indictment of your values but an accounting of our collective purpose and energies.
The Bernie Sanders campaign ignited something deep within me as it did many of us. I thought we finally had a champion. A champion that I thought was the refined mirror image of my political ideals speaking to me from the floor of the Senate with a Brooklyn accent. I had long been an admirer of the good Senator and Bernie’s candidacy ignited something in me that had been waiting for a gust of wind to breathe life back into it. The fire it kindled burned as hot as a blacksmiths cauldron, refining and likewise purifying my most strongly held ideals and values. Among those emerging values was the sense of purpose and responsibility to stand up for those people and values that are most often disregarded or trampled upon. The need to push for and defend progressive ideals of hope for a better more peaceful future, to embrace and adopt bold solutions to our dire problems -economically, socially, geopolitically, and environmentally- became solidified for many of us.
People have asked me, “What should Bernie have done?” Well, I think he should have fought the good fight for us and contested the primary. He should have gone to the mat for us when it really counted. He could have taken the Green Party up on their offer and ran against Clinton and Trump on their ticket. (I still really think he would have won.) He should have done anything other than give up. Or at very least, not backed Hillary “Gold Standard” Clinton, the very kind of corporate establishment war monger that stands in the way of our progressive agenda and vision.
It doesn’t take a lot of mental gymnastics to land on the idea that perhaps Bernie should have contested the obviously biased and rigged primary, or made any effort to hold the DNC accountable for their fraud. It seems a bit more of a stretch, though, to accept Bernie’s parroting of the false establishment narrative about Russia hacking the elections, as well as his new rhetoric regarding Syria (a seeming reversal of his anti-regime change and intervention stance). The idea that Bernie could be a reliable member of, much less lead, any effective movement for change or revolution seems to be more of a leap than a stretch. Mounting another prospective or credible presidential campaign seems even less likely, especially considering Bernie has not made any indication of his willingness or want to do so. In many respects the “Draft Bernie” movement is a “Bernie or Bust” that doesn’t realize that it has already deflated.
I cannot attest to the placebo effect many seem to be getting from the continued personality cult of Bernie Sanders, other than to point out the obvious continuation of his abnormal and latent popularity. The placebo effect comes from a place and desire for change or relief from our political pains and ailments as they are. That people want and see the need for change and even revolution is encouraging, but to think Bernie might mount another credible campaign when he has so many inconsistencies to answer for, might be a bit more than anyone should expect of placebo or real medicine. The real solution, like much illness in physical health, lies in changing our political diet and exercising more, not trying to find different ways to disguise the symptoms.
Many thought they were joining a grassroots movement for bold change, but it went on to become the shoring up and sheep dogging of progressive voters to the point of coercion. The constant fear mongering chorus became a noisy, ignorant- “TRUMP BAD!”- guilt tripping progressives that wouldn’t fall in line. This tactic backfired, further highlighting the difference in values between establishment Democrats and progressive voters, which became a bigger elephant in the room than the 16 Republicans that had been running for the GOP nomination.
As the Republicans and Trump- still power drunk from their electoral wins across the country- go about the process of dismantling the traditional institutions of democracy that people depended on for recourse and redress of grievances, a deflated and defeated Democratic party must go about the process of damage control, trying to repair their spiraling and foreboding reputation before the mid term elections in 2018. Bernie Sanders has wisely been gradually distancing himself from the Democratic party as well, recently all but walking back his parroting of blaming Russia for supposed influence in US elections. He put the blame of their loss nearly squarely on the shoulders of the DNC and their failure to have a message for the people or differentiate themselves in any substantial way. He even went so far as to point out that across the country Democrats lost almost 1000 elected seats, something that could hardly be blamed on either Donald Trump, the Electoral College or “Russia, Russia, Russia!” . Bernie was recently quoted in a CNN interview saying “ The Democratic brand is pretty bad.” This coming from the most powerful fundraising entity ever to run for office.
The importance of highlighting the differences between the values of the corporate democrats (and the donor class they serve), and the growing progressive populace movement can not be more emphasized. Issues such as universal healthcare, net neutrality, raising the minimum wage to a living wage, breaking up the big banks, ending foreign wars abroad, reinvesting in infrastructure, and affordable and improved education are all examples of things most people want, but can’t get either of our corporate friendly political parties to pursue. This has caused us to fall drastically behind much of the rest of the world in many major areas. The corporate-friendly neo liberal Democrats like to pitch themselves as pragmatists, but they want to continue pragmatically down the same failed path that we have been on for more than 40yrs. On many of these issues, I believe Senator Bernie Sanders is still a valuable and reliable ally; on others not so much. The most critical thing I think Bernie can do is continue to represent the people of Vermont and try to be prepared to vote for or sponsor important progressive legislation in the future as he has done before. Beyond that, I believe any movement behind Bernie is doomed to repeat its mistakes and cannot be rationally sustained without addressing a massive load of hypocrisy, which would probably conclude in the same disappointing anticlimactic way, causing further dismay and apathy among the populace.
The nonsensical “Resistance” movement, much like its coopted “ Draft Bernie” movement, is simply more sheep dogging being done by the Democratic establishment to shore up support- and deflect attention from things like the class action lawsuit against them. (The lawsuit has demonstrated the fact that they rigged the primary and that they don’t have a reasonable defense to even sell the public.) This also serves as a deflection from the fact that neo liberals trying to manipulate and scare voters into submission only worked so much and inevitably gave us Donald Trump. The AHCA or OBAMACARE is another example of neo liberal policies pulling the policies to the right while derailing the legitimate concerns and needs of the populace for a healthcare system. This became more of a boondoggle for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries than a legitimate health care plan designed to help actual people. With the United States ranking 37th on the World Health Organization index chart, but number one in cost, it’s something almost any politician could run and win on considering the level of bankruptcy our current healthcare system has caused average Americans across the country. This alone highlights who is calling the shots- and its not the voters or the public.
In the end, all I ask any of you to do is vote your values not your fears. Abandon partisan corporate political parties and the false dichotomy that is our two party political system. Get involved and care. Find and refine your political and social values if not your activism and identity. To me, the real revolutionaries and activists seem to be represented well by the Green Parties Jill Stein and Ajamu Baraka, (whose platform is arguably the most progressive and pragmatic in the country). Considering our immediate need for response to all issues, especially climate change and pollution mitigation, I can’t think of more active vocal proponents of real change out there. Otherwise, Tulsi Gabbard has become a very active and vocal opponent of our aggressive foreign policy and deserves consideration if not credit for being willing to challenge the powerful establishment from within on things like war and arming terrorists.
Those fires that burned so hot and intensely for revolution and change can refine us and our values. We must let them, so as to find our true place and purpose before its too late. In the end I can thank Bernie, if not support him, for breathing new life into my ideals and hope for the future. The resulting disappointment in him and his candidacy does not overshadow or dissuade my resolve and mobilization, nor should it for anyone else. After all, our values were purified by the fire that we had to endure to support his candidacy to begin with. All is not lost, Feel the Bern..
Food for thought.
Truth, Activism, Bananas.