I usually try to avoid talk about elections on election days themselves, but the AP, NBC, CNN and all the rest in the corporate media gave me little choice on today’s BradCast, even as millions of voters go to the polls today in California, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, South Dakota and Montana. [Audio link to show is posted below.]
Last night, just after we got off air, Associated Press decided to declare that Hillary Clinton had “clinched” the Democratic nomination. Their reporting was based on conversations with unpledged Super Delegates who do not actually cast their vote in the nominating process until the end of July (July 25th, to be specific), at the Democratic National Convention. So, with their misleading, inaccurate pronouncements of the Democrats having ‘selected a female nominee for the first time in history’ (they haven’t — yet), I offer a word or two today — okay, a rant or two — on the amazing disservice those news organizations have done to voters (not to mention the Clinton and Bernie Sanders campaigns, their supporters, the DNC and American democracy itself) with their inaccurate and misleading misreporting.
Then, I’m joined by Jonathan H. Adler, Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Business Law & Regulation at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, to discuss the strange bedfellows who’ve joined forces in support of onerous new FDA regulations on life-saving vaping (e-cigarette) technology. We’ve discussed the topic on the show on a number of occasions in the past (most recently here), not only because half a million Americans still die each year, unnecessarily, from cigarette smoking, but because, bizarrely, it has largely been Democrats and other supposedly anti-tobacco crusaders who have been leading the deadly campaign against vaping, making it much harder for smokers to quit smoking in the bargain.
Why would Dems be fighting — alongside Big Tobacco(!) — to kill the vaping industry, despite scientific studies finding e-cigarettes to be at least 95% safer than smoking and the UK’s Royal College of Physicians (the equivalent of the office of the Surgeon General in the U.S.) recent pronouncement: “in the interests of public health it is important to promote the use of e-cigarettes…as widely as possible as a substitute for smoking”?
In her recent article, “Democrats Work With Big Tobacco and Big Pharma to Choke the Vaping Industry,” at the American Media Institute (and at the NY Observer), journalist Monica Showalter offers an answer. She details the “strange bedfellows against vaping,” citing both Big Tobacco’s support of the crippling new FDA regulations, along with massive donations given by Big Pharma to big name Democrats in the U.S. Senate, just as those politicians came out in favor of restrictions on vaping. The Big Pharma companies include those which control the multi-billion dollar smoking-cessation nicotine industry that produces products such as nicotine gums, patches and, yes, inhalers!
Adler, the co-author of a study titled “Baptists, Bootleggers and E-Cigarettes”, joins us to explain the strange coalition, and the powerful history of the “Baptist and Bootleggers” political/economic theory, where seemingly opposing groups, such as bootleggers and religious opponents of alcohol, worked together to keep Prohibition going as long as possible in the U.S. in the early part of the 20th century.
A similarly fascinating and powerful (and bizarre) political and financial coalition seems to be at work here, as Adler explains, to blunt the nascent and life-saving e-cigarette industry, despite recent studies showing, for example, “that when restrictions are imposed upon electronic cigarettes that either make them harder to get or make them more expensive, teen smoking rates go up. The idea that we could adopt policies in the name of public health that increase teen smoking rates should really be frightening.”
Also, what should be similarly frightening to Democrats and others who claim to be against smoking, according to Adler, is that the Big Tobacco companies have been very supportive of the onerous FDA regulations no being applied to vaping products. Those are costly new rules that Big Tobacco can afford to comply with, but Mom and Pop vaping shops, currently leading the industry in the U.S., simply cannot. “The major tobacco companies asked [for] and supported the FDA’s proposals to regulate e-cigarettes,” Adler tells me. “Indeed, Phillip Morris is largely credited with helping to write the statute under which these regulations were adopted.”
Finally, we end another very busy BradCast today with our latest very busy Green News Report!…
CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/BradCast_BradFriedman_MSMNomsHillary_JonathanAdlerBootleggersBaptistsVaping_060716.mp3]
(Snail mail support to “Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028” always welcome too!)
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Via email bulletin
http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=33e4ec877eed6a43863a4a92e&id=1759a8b488
How California is being stolen
from Sanders right now
Special bulletin from Greg Palast
[Los Angeles] It’s not some grand conspiracy, but it’s grand theft nonetheless. Sen. Bernie Sanders’ voters will lose their ballots, their rights, by the tens of thousands.
The steal is baked into the way California handles No Party Preference –”NPP” voters –what we know as “independents.”
There are a mind-blowing 4.2 million voters in California registered NPP – and they share a love for sunshine and Bernie Sanders. According to the reliable Golden State poll, among NPP voters, Sen. Sanders whoops Sec. Hillary Clinton by a stunning 40 percentage points.
On the other team, registered Democrats prefer Clinton by a YUGE 30 points. NPP’s can vote in the Democratic primary, so, the California primary comes down to a fight between D’s and NPP’s.
And there’s the rub. In some counties like Los Angeles, it’s not easy for an NPP to claim their right vote in the Democratic primary – and in other counties, nearly impossible.
[…]
I’ve imagined what Bernie Sanders’ concession speech should be like: “I concede that achieving the Democratic Party nomination is now out of our reach. Therefore, I would like to endorse someone who can make history in tackling long neglected but urgent issues. The health of our planet is at stake, but she has the moral fibre and qualifications to start the process of solving an epic challenge. Someone of unwavering and uncompromised principles. She is positioned to become the first woman to achieve the position of achieve position of presidency. She can certainly offer new perspectives on myriad important areas that need to be tended to. With full confidence, I endorse Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party.”
Get money out of politics. Make the election cycle four months long starting in April for the primaries. Have each state vote on a paper ballot and count it in public. Every state will have a primary on the same day which is a public holiday so there is no unfair weight given to one state. The vote should be in June, then have a convention in August so politicians can get boozed up and get laid. Then have a two month primary with the voting on a day which is a public holiday. End of money in politics. TV networks and plitical pundits can start looking for real jobs.
Provisional ballots are often NOT counted. I hate to disagree with Brad but here are some scenarios: if counting provisional ballots is believed to be unlikely to change the outcome of the election, they’re not counted. IF the voter’s registration is checked and they do not appear on the voter roll, their ballot is not counted. The first scenario is understandable although, I still feel that all votes should be counted, regardless. The second scenario is a big problem because votes are stolen by removing people from the voter rolls fraudulently. In such a case, the provisional ballot of a legitimate voter is not counted.
R.CharanPagan @4:
Your assertion that “Provisional ballots are often NOT counted”, is largely untrue. As I noted on the show (and again, in more detail, on today’s show), they are ALL checked to assure the voter is a properly registered voter. And, if they are, they are counted and included in the tally.
Your assertion that “if counting provisional ballots is believed to be unlikely to change the outcome of the election, they’re not counted” is completely untrue. The closeness of any given election has nothing to do with whether Provisionals (or Vote-by-Mail/Absentee ballots, etc.,) are counted. They are tallied no matter how close any election is.
Now, Provisionals do give bad guys (eg. 2004 OH Sec. of State J. Kenneth Blackwell) an opportunity to discard a Provisional for BS reasons. So a normal ballot is better if it can be cast. But this idea that has been circulating that Provisional Ballots are not ever counted is just patently untrue. I’d hate for someone to NOT cast a legitimate vote because the only option they were given was to cast a Provisional, but they walk away without casting it because they believe they are never counted.
If a voter has been illegally moved from the rolls, and it is impossible to prove the illegal removal, then, you’re right, that Provisional won’t be counted, because it can’t be proved that the voter is registered.
In L.A. County, for example, some 85% to 90% of Provisionals are ultimately included in the tally — at least according to the LA County Registrar. Your mileage may vary, but the majority of such ballots are tallied, or they are supposed to be. With the huge number of provisionals in CA yesterday, we’ll see if that tally rate is similar this year. But, nonetheless, all 240k Provisionals here in LA County will be reviewed to assure a properly registered voter and, if so, included in the count.
As to the accuracy of the way of they are tallied, well, that’s another question entirely. But that same question applies to “normal” ballots as well.
I would agree wholeheartedly that AP & NBC did a disservice by calling the nomination for Hillary just before the CA primary.
But there’s a structural issue that is of greater import. California is the most populous state. Indeed, it sports a larger population than Canada. Yet, its citizens are repeatedly deprived of casting a meaningful vote in presidential primaries because they are held so late in the process.
The California primary should be moved up to at least one week before the March Super Tuesday.
Brad:
Thanks for including the point that not having vaping increases the likelihood of children picking up smoking. I learned something and it’s a great argument for making vaping more available
I guess I assumed that people born after the surgeon general found smoking causes cancer, or after it was found that the tobacco companies had been lying to us for decades would be smarter than to pick up cigarettes in the first place. I guess i overestimate the intelligence of the general public.