Happy Birthday!

…To me.

I am now 49 years old.

No rush for next year! (Well, except to get rid of COVID–19.)

I do have a music connection.

Madonna was born on this day in 1958. (She turns 62.)

Elvis Presley died on this day in 1977. (He was born January 8, 1935 and was 42.)

Aretha Franklin died on this day in 2018. (She was born March 25, 1942 and was 76.)

(This blog topic is good only on this published date. Progressives Chat blog topics will resume this week with regular schedules of Monday and Friday. That is, August 17 and 21, 2020, at 06:00 a.m. ET.)

Repudiating Cenk Uygur and ‘The Young Turks’

MCSC Network had a video last week saying The Young Turks has sold its e-mail list to Joe Biden’s campaign. (It appears I am on the list. I checked the archives of my e-mails. And, sure enough—I received an e-mail from the Biden campaign. I also have received e-mails from The Young Turks, including soliciting for fundraising, which is interesting because I stopped being a member there circa 2016, as Cenk and TYT got behind Hillary Clinton.) The below video captures some of what is going on. I advise going to Rokfin, to check out HLM (formerly Hard Lens Media), for its July 29, 2020 program. (I did not see it published to YouTube.) HLM is referenced in the below MCSC Network video.

Not only is it time, it is also past time, to repudiate The Young Turks.

Cenk Uygur.

The organization.

The Young Turks.

Cenk Uygur sold out—and he sold out—The Young Turks by taking $20 million from Jeffrey Katzenberg and, eventually, he sold out in order to serve the corrupt, corporate, Democratic Party Establishment

Cenk Uygur and The Young Turks are not to be trusted.

Cenk Uygur and The Young Turks are to be repudiated.

Joe Rogan Turns 53

Joe Rogan turns 53 on Tuesday. 

Rogan was born August 11, 1967, in Newark, New Jersey. He spent much of his childhood and early adulthood living in Boston, Massachusetts. 

Joe Rogan, now famous for his The Joe Rogan Experience—which Spotify recently offered up $100 million for multi-year licensing rights for his podcast—is also an actor (the 1995–99 NBC comedy series NewsRadio, which also starred Dave Foley, Maura Tierney, Andy Dick, Khandi Alexander, Stephen Root, Vicki Lewis and, at the time of his death, Phil Hartman); a television-reality host (NBC’s 2001–06 and 2011–12 Fear Factor); a UFC commentator; and, of course, a standup comedian (with numerous albums and television specials).

Rogan is also a hell of an interviewer. I sense, with his The Joe Rogan Experience, he is this generation’s Johnny Carson. Like Carson, Rogan is a very engaging host, and interviewer, who is focused on and interested in his program’s guests. Not a lot of people can pull this off—and I count ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, CBS’s Stephen Colbert, and NBC’s Jimmy Fallon among late-nighters who do not—with the consistent excellence as Rogan interviews numerous and various people of different stripes.

In his personal life, Joe Rogan is married since 2009 to Jessica Ditzel. They have three daughters. Rogan recently announced he, and The Joe Rogan Experience, will move from California to Texas.

Sprint—No More

I am 48 years old.

I have had a cell phone since the late-1990s.

I made a switch, in 2001, to Sprint with my connection to an employer giving me discounts.

This was in a period of my using a basic phone.

I was a late bloomer; but, finally, in 2015 I decided to move to a smartphone. 

I did my research, read Consumer Reports, and found that it would be necessary for me to switch providers. I was out of contract and, so, it was no problem. The best reviews for regard for overall service were with most favorable with Verizon—and that it is where I moved.

Five years later, and still with Verizon, and now T–Mobile has acquired Sprint. 

On August 2, the Sprint website ended. Try to go to the site, and it will take you to T–Mobile. (If you go to Wikipedia, it writes of Sprint for what it was; not is.)

Whenever an acquisition happens, it tends to be good for one faction—the corporation. Well, maybe the stockholders as well. Not always. An example with that is AT&T having acquired DirecTV in 2014, with the FCC giving approval in 2015, and with it becoming official shortly afterward. Nowadays, the financial experts think AT&T—which also owns HBO and others—fucked up and should get rid of DirecTV.

For some time, the four traditional mobile U.S. carriers were: Verizon, AT&T, T–Mobile, and Sprint. That was the order of their numbers in subscriptions. Sprint fell behind by, frankly, not getting with the times and by not making the right choices in continuing to build. In investing in itself. It became so bad for Sprint that it relinquished its former No. 3 spot to T–Mobile.

My choice with Verizon has to do with overall monthly plan cost. Four people, including myself, are on my account. How we use it. And that the service is good. But, if that changes, I have no problem moving on. And, perhaps, such a move may lead me to try T–Mobile.

It is interesting, especially in recent years, to see well-recognized brands go under. Whether it is in telecommunications or in other industry—like financial or retail—it serves as a reminder that no matter how strong that institution or that corporation had appeared to be, for quite some time, it can still end up with people leading it to its grave.

Election 2020: Three Months Out

Tuesday, August 4, 2020 marks 12 weeks from the scheduled date of the 2020 United States presidential election of Tuesday, November 3, 2020.

Recently, 45th United States president Donald Trump talked up possibly postponing the election. That would take Congress to approve that. Not likely would this happen especially with the fact that the United States House of Representatives is in the column for the Democrats. And it is one more thing thrown out there, by Trump, which a Trump-derangement-sufferer may take seriously while I do not.

It is Primary Day in my home state Michigan. (I haven’t kept track with others.) Not a presidential primary. (That was in March.) It is for down-ballot races including United States Senate and other offices. 

In the midterm elections of 2018, Michigan voters approved a proposal for more convenient voting which includes absentee voting. With the coronavirus pandemic, people are going for it. So am I. And I recently applied to be moved to voting in primaries and general elections via absentee voting on a permanent basis.

Last week, I received my ballot. I voted. I mailed it in. It is done. (Perhaps it will be no surprise—I voted against incumbent and establishment-preferred Democrats who are seeking re-nomination.)

Onto the general election which, at this point, is “Three Months Out”: I perceive there is no change in how this election is liable to play out. That COVID–19 is sinking the re-election prospects of Republican incumbent Donald Trump and is poised to take down Republicans’ attempts to hold the U.S. Senate. (A U.S. Popular Vote margin of Democratic +4 and +5 would deliver pickups for U.S. President and U.S. Senate to the Democratic Party.)

When it comes to percentage-points margins—to win by however many points nationally—it is in increments of +1 that helps to deliver an extra carried state. The Democrats are on a pattern, since 1960, of usually carrying +21 or +22 in excess of their U.S. Popular Vote margin. I sense this is a 9- or 10-point race for the Democrats to win the a pickup of the presidency with that indicated U.S. Popular Vote margin level. That would take the 2016-to-2020 Democrats from the 20 states, plus District of Columbia, carried by 2016 losing nominee Hillary Clinton, and yield carriage of 30 to 32 states for pickup winner Joe Biden. (The above map’s color key: Blue, as 2016-to-2020 Democratic Holds; Yellow, for those susceptible to flip from 2016 Republican to 2020 Democratic to reach carriage of up to 30 states. If 32 states were reached, I would estimate potential with two of the following: Alaska, Kansas, Montana, South Carolina, and Utah.)

Anyone who watches a program like The Hill’s The Rising can catch clips of hosts Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti going over latest poll numbers. (They have done a lot of that over the last two months.) Kyle Kulinski’s Secular Talk also has this covered. So does and has Jamarl Thomas. After a while, it feels like this repeats itself. But, this is for a general understanding of what is the trajectory of Election 2020. It is useful to people who may not follow electoral politics. Election 2020 is about COVID–19. And these polls, for one wanting a basic understanding, is indicating a voting electorate that is saying President Trump, seeking a second term in the midst of COVID–19, is highly likely not going to get re-elected.

‘The Black Caucus and the Dictatorship of (White) Capital’

Here is another excellent piece, from Black Agenda Report, by Glen Ford:

https://blackagendareport.com/black-caucus-and-dictatorship-white-capital

“Black Americans are historically the most peace-minded major U.S. political constituency, yet this is seldom reflected in the voting behavior of Black Democratic legislators, who apparently answer to a Higher Power (White Capital). Of the 48 full voting House members of the Congressional Black Caucus, 20 last week voted Nayon a bill that would have cut Pentagon spending by ten percent across the board – a modest and symbolic reduction. —Glen Ford

‘Hard Lens Media’ Is Now ‘HLM’

An excellent, progressive source—and listed in “Recommendations”—had been Hard Lens Media.

On June 30, 2020, Hard Lens Media announced it would launch a new channel, HLM. (This has already happened. But, I had other blog topics that delayed my having posted this as a topic.)

Turns out—and this will likely not surprise Progressives Chat readers—YouTube was discrediting Hard Lens Media, as it has other progressive channels, with use of its algorithm.

Since Google owns YouTube, and it owns Blogger, which is what I use for this blog site (and I do question whether I should move Progressives Chat), there is a big problem with censorship coming from this corporation.

I will include recent videos from Hard Lens Media-turned-HLM.

I have also updated the “Recommendations” list to include both Hard Lens Media and HLM.

Hard Lens Media was co-founded by Daniel Luepker and Kit Cabello, both from Chicago, Illinois. Luepker was a member of Wolf–PAC Illinois. He is CEO and COO. Cabello, who served two tours as a marine in Iraq, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, later graduated cum laude at Northeastern Illinois University. He is Communications Director.