Please Make It Stop

by Walter Brasch

      Pennsylvania, which had been a no-contest state in presidential primaries because of its late balloting, is a now a swing state with less than a week until the election. Just about every voter by now has received dozens of robocalls, e-mails, letters, postcards, and exposure to almost-uncountable TV, digital, satellite, and social media ads. Most are attack ads, with similar messages.

      The ads focus upon homeland security, taxes, immigration, pro-life/pro-choice, and bringing jobs back to America. The conservatives have thrown in the phrase “liberal extremists” in many of their ads in an effort to shock all America to believe that liberals are somehow tied to Muslim extremists. The liberals are pushing an agenda that defines the conservatives as greedy plutocrats who have little thought for the middle class. This election, from local offices to the presidency may be the dirtiest since 1800 when Thomas Jefferson challenged John Adams.

      Donald Trump, who has outsourced much of his clothing line and construction materials, now says if president he will bring jobs back to America, stop illegal immigration, defeat Isis, repeal Obamacare, lower taxes for families while miraculously raising the budget for defense, and perform myriad miracle acts that are not part of a president’s constitutional responsibility.

      On his march to the presidency, Trump has focused upon Hillary Clinton’s e-mails, a scandal that isn’t one. Congressional hearings and the FBI have cleared her; innumerable times, Trump has continued to attack her. Clinton has already apologized for using a personal e-mail server during her four years as secretary of state. What turned up among more than 30,000 e-mails is about 55 e-mails that received a “confidential” tag, the lowest of three classifications, with another 55 receiving “secret” or “top secret” classification. As a cabinet officer, and fourth in line of succession, she had the right to classify any message. A few of the messages came from other agencies. About 2,100 messages were classified retroactively.

      Clinton, still ahead in numerous polls, has attacked Trump for his crude behavior. One of her TV ads, which penetrates

 almost every TV show, is a fast-paced collage of his many comments; among them, Trump mocks a disabled reporter, uses obscene language, and treats women as chattel.

      Both candidates call each other unfit to be president, with Clinton asking voters if they really want Trump to be the person in charge of unleashing the nuclear arsenal, and Trump asking voters if they want a corrupt liar in the White House. Trump has also played upon Clinton’s 30 years of public service, linking her as an insider and him as an outsider to Washington, D.C. politics. The “outsider” label has been resonating with voters at all levels of the election campaigns as voters believe they are outsiders, alienated to government, and are willing to be led by insiders who claim to be outsiders.

      The cost of airing ads by both candidates for the presidency and members of Congress is more than $4 billion, and that doesn’t include the cost of producing them. More than $600 million, spread among all major Democratic and Republican candidates for the presidency, has been spent on broadcast TV ads, according to Borrell Associates.  During the past 21 weeks, Clinton has spent about $211 million on broadcast TV ads; Trump has spent about $74 million, according to data compiled by BloombergPolitics. However, Trump has used both Twitter and free TV time, due to outrageous statements, to equal Clinton’s campaign. During the final week prior to the election, Trump will spend $25 million in broadcast TV ads. Clinton and Trump have each secured $5 million in ad time for Pennsylvania TV stations during the final week. The Trump totals don’t include a $3 million TV ad buy from the NRA, which stokes the fire of fear that Clinton, if elected president, will violate the Second Amendment and take guns away from civilians.

      By Tuesday’s election, it will be doubtful that either Clinton or Trump will know how many ads were placed by their campaigns or by SuperPACs on their behalf that aired on broadcast television.

      In the race for senate from Pennsylvania, Sen. Pat Toomey and Katie McGinty have each attacked the other for being millionaires.

      With McGinty it’s a case of benefitting from going from business to government, where she was the Department of Environment Protection administrator, back to the energy business, back to government where she was Gov. Tom Wolf’s chief of staff, and then to membership on the boards of energy firms she had previously regulated. Toomey also attacked her for tossing about $2.8 million of state funds to two non-profit organizations that her husband is an advisor.

      With Toomey, the attacks are because he was a stock broker who went into politics, favors Wall Street, and owned a bank that foreclosed on numerous customers. McGinty’s ads stress her blue-collar family of 12, emphasizing that her mother was a restaurant hostess and her father was a police officer.

      The two candidates’ campaign committees and their SuperPACs have spent more than $55 million to be elected to the Senate, according to the Center for Responsive Politics; it’s a job that pays $174,000 a year.

      There is one reality in all the advertising— negative ads generally don’t work, and exist only to reinforce a candidate’s base of support.

      [Dr. Brasch, who has covered politics and government for four decades, is author of Fracking America: Sacrificing Health and the Environment for Short-Term Economic Benefit.]

     

      

They Brand Cattle, Don’t They?

by Walter Brasch

      “Branding! We have to make you a brand!”

      “I’m not cattle,” I told my sometimes faux foil assistant Marshbaum, who had just burst into my office. “And if you think I’m getting a tattoo,” I replied, “my body isn’t a canvas.”

      “It’s sure wide enough,” Marshbaum flippantly replied. Before I could throw sheets of wadded up paper at him, he explained what he meant. “It’s not a fire-iron brand,” he explained. “It’s strategic marketing.”

      “I’m a journalist,” I reminded Marshbaum, “I don’t do that kind of thing.”

      “You will if you want to stay in business.”

      “I’ve been in this business four decades, and I’ve never been branded.”

      “That’s why we need you to do TV commercials,” he said.

      “I’m a print journalist,” I reminded him.

      “Yeah, well, not all of us are pretty enough for TV, but you still have to do a commercial! Just like Jennifer Anniston.”

      “As if she needs more money,” I sneered. “She’s got a net worth of something between $100 million and $150 million, depending upon which magazine you believe.”

      “You can never have enough,” said Marshbaum.

      “Yeah, that and her eight-figure salary for commercials that tell 45-year-old women they can dab junk on their faces and look like ingénues. She’s hawking hair products, beer, and some fragrance Besides, she’s taking money from low-income hard-working actors who do need the bucks.”

      “You said that before. And before. And before.”

      “It’s the truth,” I said. “A-list actors have branched into TV commercials. Selling everything from eyelash liners to prescription drugs to—”

      “Yeah, yeah, like that sorrowful Blythe Danner who’s got some kind of problem that keeps her on stage to break a leg.”

      “Exactly!” I replied. “It’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. The rich actors don’t need more money.”

      “But they do need exposure. TV and film aren’t enough. The red carpet isn’t enough. Being mentioned in the National Enquirer isn’t enough. They want it all, and to get it all, they need to be a brand. Corporate America loves it!”

      “There’s a lot that corporate America loves that just doesn’t matter to the rest of us.”

      “But it does matter. When you see Larry the Cable Guy, you think of bad heartburn. When Brooke Shields appears on the screen, you still think of her wearing Calvin Klein jeans with no underwear. And then you run out to your nearest box store and buy whatever they’re selling. Think you’ll do that if you see a commercial with some no-name talent?”

      “Some people,” I said, “already think I may be a no-name talent.”

      “And that’s why we need to brand you. Tie you to some product. It’d raise your profile, make you a brand, and make money for all of us.”

      “All of us?”

      “You don’t think I’d be doing all this for free, do you?! I have expenses. Besides, we’d have to pay for makeup, better clothes, a publicist, marketing manager, and a business manager. Then there’s your entourage. TV commercial talent has to have an entourage. That doesn’t come cheap.”

      “It comes a lot cheaper if I don’t do it at all.”

      “What?! And be responsible for even more unemployment? A whole industry needs you to brand yourself. You get exposure and money. And that will lead to more commercials. And more commercials lead to better recognition. And the advertisers will be ecstatic!”

      “Will it get me more readers?”

      “Don’t be ridiculous. If you get branded, you won’t need readers. You’ll live off your residuals from commercials.”

      “But I’m a journalist,” I again reminded him. “I write stories that give people information they need. Stories that affect people’s lives.”

      “TV commercials affect people’s lives. Where would America be if Ellen DeGeneres didn’t promote JCPenny’s or Michael Jordan wasn’t shilling Jockey underwear? Think you’d buy a Lincoln if millionaire Matthew McConaughey wasn’t telling you to do it?”

      “If I do this—and I probably won’t—what would I be selling? Cars? Watches?”

      “Toilet paper. It goes with your brand. A whole gaggle of conservative readers already say your column is full of—”

      “—great insight and sparkling language.”

      “Yeah. Sure. Something like that.”

      “Look, Marshbaum,” I said a bit testy, “I don’t need to be a brand. I do need to write my column for this week.”

      “I think you just did,” he said smugly.

      [Dr. Brasch’s latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania, an in-depth look at the economic, political, health, and environmental effects of high-volume horizontal fracturing. Rosemary R. Brasch, who never once did a TV commercial when she was an actress, assisted on this column.]

A Swift Boat Load of Lies

by Walter Brasch

      “Gov. Tom Corbett, who claims he opposes legalization of marijuana, was seen behind a barn smoking weed. Just a-puffin’ and a-grinnin’.”

      “Tom Wolfe was speeding and driving drunk through the streets of York. If he can’t obey traffic laws, why would we think he’d obey the Constitution if elected Pennsylvania governor?”

      “That commie socialist fascist Kenyan Muslim in the White House brought Ebola into the country to get rid of White opposition.”

      The first two campaign ads are completely false. No one—yet—has sent out those messages. The third one, also false, in various forms is now circulating on the Internet and in bars.

      It really makes no difference if it’s true or false. It’s on the Internet, where lies, half-truths, and hyperbole compete with bloviating pundits on radio and TV pretend-news shows.

      But now, paid ads—in every medium—may also be completely false, and protected by the Constitution.

      The Supreme Court, in a 9–0 decision, extremely unusual for this Court that often decides cases by a 5–4 margin, determined that political ads are protected by the First Amendment.

      The case began in Ohio in 2010, when the Susan B. Anthony List, a right-wing anti-abortion group, planned to rent a billboard and place a sign on it falsely proclaiming that Rep. Steve Driehaus, an anti-abortion Democrat, supported taxpayer-funded abortion because he had supported the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. The ACA doesn’t allow taxpayer-funded abortion, except for cases of rape, incest, or medical emergencies. The billboard company refused to place the ad, fearing it was violating Ohio law against false political speech.

       Driehaus filed a complaint with the Ohio Elections Commission to protest the SBA List intent, but withdrew his complaint after losing re-election. The SBA List, however, didn’t celebrate; it demanded court rulings.

      Both district and appeals courts ruled the issue moot because Driehaus had lost the election and, therefore, was not facing imminent injury. The List pushed forward, claiming the issue was a First Amendment matter.

      The Supreme Court remanded the case to the District Court, citing the List had the right to challenge the Ohio law’s constitutionality. In his ruling supporting the List, District Judge Timothy Black this past month, reiterated a philosophy advanced by John Milton in the 17th century that became a basis for the First Amendment. Judge Black determined, “The answer to false statements in politics is not to force silence [of lies] but to encourage truthful speech in response, and to let the voters, not the Government, decide what the political truth is.” The fear is that government would intercede and ban ads, stifling free speech; this would be prior restraint, a definite First Amendment violation.

      Pleased with the ruling, but still loosely playing with the facts, List president Marjorie Dannenfelser issued a statement that any member of Congress who voted for the ACA had voted for taxpayer-funded abortion. The List now plans to pay for a billboard condemning Rep. Marcy Kaptur, a liberal anti-abortion Democrat, who voted for the ACA and is running for a 17th term. 

      Citizens of many countries don’t have the protections of our First Amendment—free speech, free press, free religion and the separation of church and state, and the rights of peaceful assembly, and to petition government for a redress of grievances. Some countries allow certain freedoms, as long as no one attacks the state or its head of state, even if the accusations are true; this was how it was in Colonial America. And some countries have severe restrictions upon false statements in political ads.

      Most European countries severely restrict the use ads on radio and TV, correctly arguing that the wealthy and their even wealthier donors would dominate public discussion, thus not allowing a level playing field for all candidates. The United Kingdom, Ireland, and Switzerland ban candidates and their organizations from placing political ads on the broadcast media.

      In the United States, a few rules apply to political ads. Among those rules are that candidates not in office must use the word “for,” as in “Vote for John Jones for State Senator,” as opposed to “John Jones, State Senator.” Another regulation is that all ads, print or broadcast, must include a disclosure statement, something to identify who pays for the ad, even if it’s a front group for an anonymous “benefactor.”

      But, unlike a labyrinth of rules established by the Federal Trade Commission that regulate product advertising—“Our shining silver gadget, when applied correctly, can cure skin cancer”—political advertising is given a wide range, with minimal oversight.

      With state-wide and federal candidates spending most of their media budgets on television advertising, and less on grassroots campaigning, the primary beneficiary of the money appears to be television stations.

      With three weeks left before the biennial midterm elections, Americans can expect to continue to be carpet-bombed by print and electronic advertising, much of it deceptive or outright lies, all of it protected by the First Amendment.

      [Dr. Brasch, a First Amendment scholar and award-winning journalist, is the author of 20 books. His current book is Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting With Disaster, an overview of the economic, environmental, agricultural, and health effects of fracking; his book also looks at the influence of corporate lobbying upon the political process.]

A Fracking Good Letter

by Walter Brasch

    The oil and gas industry has retreated from its entrenched position to have the public delete the “k” in “fracking,” and write it as “frac’ing” or “fracing.” Those who have been the strongest advocates for fracking scorned and mocked those who place the “k” in the word. The problem is that without the “k,” the word sounds like “frasing.” However, the first use of the word “fracking” can be traced to an oil and gas journal article in 1953.

    As hydraulic horizontal fracturing became a standard to extract gas and oil about 2008, anti-fracking activists began using the word—with the “k”—in advertising, social media, and public protest campaigns that slyly bordered on the obscene—“Frack off!” and “No Fracking Way!”

    The oil and gas industry, faced with being the brunt of a series of near-obscene jokes, dug in and demanded that “unconventional drilling” or just “horizontal fracturing” were the “proper” terms. But, if “fracking” had to be used in print, the preference was for “frac’ing” or “fracing.” Most dictionaries—including the Oxford English Dictionary and Merriam-Webster—use the word “fracking”–with the “k”—as the preferred and acceptable term.

    In September, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), a front group for the oil and gas industry became proactive with a series of newspaper, radio, TV, and YouTube ads. The ads, scheduled to run through the beginning of 2015, were revealed at the annual Shale Insight conference, sponsored by the MSC in Pittsburgh.

    The fractivists “tried to hijack that word and paint it as something negative,” David J. Spigelmyer, MSC president, said, pointing out it was the industry’s intention “to take that word back.” Randy Cleveland, XTO Energy president, told the conference where people said “frac’ing,” the industry thrived, but where they said “ ‘fracking,’ we have difficulty.” The PR and advertising campaign, said Cleveland, is “to regain the high ground.”

    Stephen Moore, chief economist for the conservative Heritage Foundation, told the conference, “The disinformation and propaganda machine against what you do is frightening,” adding that the campaign against fracking “may have been instigated by outside agitators.” It was a claim echoed by thousands in the industry.

    With absolutely no proof, Moore was referring to the possibility that Russia and the oil-rich oil countries, and not millions of Americans, were behind the anti-fracking campaign. Russia’s Gazprom is the world’s largest natural gas distribution company, and many in the U.S. oil/gas industry believe Gazprom or Vladimir Putin wanted to increase Russia’s share and domination of the natural gas industry by closing down American natural gas production. The same gaseous windbags blamed the Arab countries for being anti-fracking because they were making money off oil and didn’t want competition. None acknowledged that the Arab countries have been far ahead of the United States in the development of renewable energy, knowing that fossil fuel contributes to global warming, is not infinite, and there are no more dinosaurs willing to die to allow greedy corporations to make outrageous profits.
    Nevertheless, the industry is digging in and defending not only its destruction of the environment and public health—which it doesn’t acknowledge, even though dozens of peer-reviewed scientific studies indicate otherwise—but to recapture “fracking”— with a “k”—as good and pure.

    In the newspaper ad, the word “fracking” is used five times; the largest word in the ad is “JOBS”—the ad emphasized job creation, using the inflated and discredited number of 240,000. (The Pennsylvania Fiscal Office reports only about 17,500 new jobs were created since 2007. Dr. Tim Kelsey, Penn State professor of agricultural economics, reports that at most there were fewer than 35,000 jobs, only about half in the core industry. No matter what the critical number is, Pennsylvania was 49th in the nation in jobs creation in 2012, two years after it was ranked seventh in the nation.)

    Anchoring the ad is a new aphorism: “FRACKING: ROCK SOLID FOR PA.” In radio and TV ads, a girl says, “Fracking rocks! My dad does it.” At the conclusion of a three-minute YouTube video, in which a series of rumors was replaced by a series of half-truth “facts,” one of the narrators tells the audience, “Fracking, a good word,” and concludes with the newly-created motto. One of those many half-truths is that fracking has been around for more than six decades and has been proven to be safe. That part is relatively accurate—but it is “vertical” fracking, an entire different process than the recently-developed “horizontal” fracking, that has been around since shortly after World War II. Horizontal fracking uses significantly more water, sand, and toxic chemicals, and has significantly more methane leaks than vertical fracking.

    No matter how well the industry tries to shine up its 120-foot phallic-like rigs and spew prattling absurdity, the reality is that fracking has not added much to the economy or many new jobs. As in every other energy development, when mining the gas becomes unprofitable, possibly within five years in the Marcellus Shale, the industry will move elsewhere and continue the “boom and bust” economy. What it has done is to cause additional problems leading to increases in air, water, and ground pollution. It has caused documented health problems. And, it has, despite all the PR about “clean energy,” contributed to global warming.

    [Dr. Brasch, an award-winning journalist and former reporter and editor, is the author of 20 books. The most recent book is Fracking Pennsylvania: Flirting With Disaster, an overall look at the health, environmental, agricultural, and economic effects of fracking, combined with an investigation into the connections between politics and the oil/gas industry.]

   

   

The Sounds of Silence—Political Style

by Walter Brasch

      A hush has fallen over our house.

      It began late Tuesday night and, if we are fortunate, will last at least a week.

      But it will return. We have no illusions that there will be continued quiet.

      That’s because we are in the middle of yet another election cycle.

      It’s not as bad as it was in 2008 or 2012 when we were getting five to ten robocalls every day from Democrats, Republicans, Friends of Democrats, Friends of Republicans, Chambers of Commerce, and unions.

      During those years, almost every TV ad was someone praising his own political legacy or attacking her opponent for something that may or may not have been better placed in one of the supermarket tabloids that informed us about Elvis sightings and politicians influenced by aliens. At least by putting most of their ad budgets into television, they were able to keep ad salesmen from losing their lofty prestige and falling into the abyss of wages earned by news directors.

      The candidates are using their money and public platform to express their opinions, no matter how absurd.

      In Arizona, a rancher who thought he should become a member of Congress claimed, “If you look at the fiascos that have occurred, 99 percent of them have been by Democrats pulling their guns out and shooting people.”

      In Florida, a state representative claimed those who support the concept of an educational common core have a not-so-hidden agenda—they want to “attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can.”

      And in Pennsylvania, we learned that incumbent Gov. Tom Corbett, running unopposed in his party, brought 150,000 jobs to the state; it was a remarkable feat considering that when he took office, the state was 13th in job growth and in less than four years, even with the “economic boom” in gas drilling, had plunged to 41st among all states. Corbett then added the spice—his administration made significant increases to the educational budget, a claim that even members of his own party had trouble not bursting out in uncontrollable waves of gagging laughter. Of course, Corbett had to do something since his popularity is about 17 points below that of a Nigerian scam artist.

      The cost to convince us to vote for a particular candidate is in the range of the gross national product of a small industrialized nation. Already, Congressional candidates have spent about $330 million, while Senate candidates have spent about $175 million, according to Open Secrets.

      In Pennsylvania’s District 13, in the southeastern part of the state, candidates for Congress have spent almost $4 million. And it’s only sixth among all 435 districts.

      Leading the spending is Ohio’s 8th district where Speaker of the House John Boehner, first elected in 1991, is running for re-election. He won the primary this month with about 70 percent of the vote. Apparently, he’s looking at a vigorous general election, since he’s already raised about $12.9 million, the largest amount in the country for a House campaign. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) is a distant second with $5.3 million; in third is House Majority Leader Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.), with a paltry $5 million.

      Leaders in the Senate campaigns, according to Open Secrets, are Ed Markey of Massachusetts ($16 million), Cory Booker of New Jersey ($14.5 million), and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the Senate minority leader ($12 million).

      Open Secrets also reveals that in this election cycle special interests and lobbying groups have helped make sure the candidates are bathed in green ink. Contributions to Republicans have already come from securities and investment companies ($33.5 million), real estate ($21.4 million), the oil and gas industry ($16 million), the insurance industry ($13.8 million), manufacturing industries ($10.2 million), pharmacy and health care ($8.3 million), and commercial banks ($9 million).

The Democrats have already received funding from law firms ($36 million), the entertainment industry ($10 million), building trade unions ($6.8 million), public sector unions ($ 6.7 million), and environmental groups ($1.3 million). Hundreds of millions of dollars are coming to both the Democrats and Republicans for the general election; the third parties, no matter how strong their candidates and public policy positions, will be campaigning with spare change.

      India, which provides much of America’s telemarketing and tech services, may be on track to out-America America. The cost of the Indian election may be about $5 billion this year, second only to the $7 billion cost of the 2012 election in the United States.

      Thanks to special interests and lobbies, and their generosity in promoting American’s version of democracy, if the past is the future, voters will experience non-stop robocalls and TV ads for the next six months, some of the calls outsourced to New Delhi, possibly by flag-waving All-American, Constitutionalist patriotic politicians whose loyalties are to the mother’s milk of politics rather than to the people who will elect them.

      [Dr. Brasch has been covering politics and social issues more than four decades. His latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania, which includes a chapter about the influence of the oil and gas lobby upon politicians.]