Here’s your entertainment in the theater of irony. CNBC, the network responsible for the birth of the Tea Party Movement, is called on the carpet for asking what amounted to “silly” and frustration-producing questions of the “serious” Republican field of 15 candidates at the third Republican debate in Colorado.

After last Wednesday night’s CNBC debate, Reince Priebus, the Republican National Committee chair put his foot down. He cancelled NBC’s Republican debate for February — right at the beginning of the primaries — due to the “bad faith approach” of the CNBC debate format. In his letter to Andrew Lack, Chairman of NBC News, Priebus charged:

CNBC billed the debate as one that would focus on “the key issues that matter to all voters — job growth, taxes, technology, retirement and the health of our national economy.” That was not the case. Before the debate, the candidates were promised an opening question on economic or financial matters. That was not the case. Candidates were promised that speaking time would be carefully monitored to ensure fairness. That was not the case. Questions were inaccurate or downright offensive. The first question directed to one of our candidates asked if he was running a comic book version of a presidential campaign, hardly in the spirit of how the debate was billed.

When CNBC’s panel asked the candidates to expound on the Trump candidacy as a “comic book version of a presidential campaign” — which, by the way, was absolutely on the freaking money — the RNC’s criticism of this and similar questions asked at last week’s debate had to be taken seriously.

The Republican National Committee was so upset by CNBC’s handling of the Colorado debate that it cancelled its deal with CNBC’s parent company, NBC, to broadcast the RNC’s debate of February 2016 — at a time when the Presidential primaries begin in earnest. That rung NBC’s bell. Loudly. They have a bottom line to protect. They need to make money by broadcasting political debates and running political ads.

By Sunday night — after meetings, tweets, threats, demands and push-back between representatives of the networks and the Republican campaigns — Ben Ginsberg, attorney for the Republicans, drafted this letter template to go to the TV networks. It incorporates the expectations, understanding of limitations, appeals for “fairness” and serious coverage of the debates:

Dear _____:

This letter is on behalf of the 15 Republican Presidential campaigns. We are aware that you are sponsoring a debate on _____ at ______. Below and attached are questions about your debate to which the campaigns would appreciate answers at your earliest convenience, and in any event no later than a month from today.

The answers you provide to these questions are part of a process that each campaign will use to determine whether its candidate will participate in your debate. All the candidates recognize that robust debates are an important part of the primary elections. It is also important that all debates be appropriate platforms for discussing substantive issues and the candidates’ visions for the future.

To achieve this going forward, the campaigns ask that you:

— Answer the questions below within 30 days of receipt by communicating directly with the campaigns. We’ll provide an email list for that distribution.

— No later than a month before your debate (earlier if possible), schedule a conference with all the campaigns participating jointly so that the campaigns may ask questions about the format for your debate, the moderators and your answers to the questions below. The campaigns may request an additional call(s) to discuss specific issues.

— The campaigns will use the manner in which your debate(s) are run (and changes you say you will make from your past debates), the quality and fairness of your moderators’ questions, their enforcement of the rules and their ability to achieve parity in distribution and quality of questions and time among the candidates to evaluate whether the candidates wish to participate in your future debates.

— In addition, based on their evaluation of previous debates, the campaigns wish to have in all future debates a minimum 30-second opening statement and a minimum 30-second closing statement for each participant; candidate pre-approval of any graphics and bios you plan to include in your broadcast about each candidate, and that there be no “lightning rounds” because of their frivolousness or “gotcha” nature, or in some cases both.

The campaigns appreciate your participation to achieve what they feel is a great need for more accountability and transparency in their primary debate process. In addition to addressing the above points, please answer the following:

Where and when will the debate be held? What are criteria for inclusion? If you choose to base this on polls, please detail which polls and why each poll’s methodology and sample size is acceptable to you. Who is the moderator? Will there be any additional questioners? Are they seated?

What is the estimated audience for the debate? Will it be disseminated on-line? By radio? Will it be disseminated by other means and do you have any additional partners? What format do you envision – podiums, table, other? Will there be questions from the audience or social media? How many? How will they be presented to the candidates? Will you acknowledge that you, as the sponsor, take responsibility for all questions asked, even if not asked by your personnel?

What is your proposed length of the debate? Will there be opening and closing statements? How long will they be? Will you commit to provide equal time/an equal number of questions of equal quality (substance as opposed to “gotcha” or frivolous) to each candidate? How long are the answers and rebuttals? If a candidate is mentioned, will he/she automatically be called on so they can rebut? Will there be a gong/buzzer/bell when time is up? How will the moderator enforce the time limits?

Will you commit that you will not: Ask the candidates to raise their hands to answer a question; ask yes/no questions without time to provide a substantive answer; Have a “lightning round”; Allow candidate-to-candidate questioning; Allow props or pledges by the candidates; Have reaction shots of members of the audience or moderators during debates; Show an empty podium after a break (describe how far away the bathrooms are); Use behind shots of the candidates showing their notes; Leave microphones on during breaks; Allow members of the audience to wear political messages (shirts, buttons, signs, etc.). Who enforces?

What is the size of the audience? Who is receiving tickets in addition to the candidates? Who’s in charge of distributing those tickets and filling the seats? What instructions will you provide to the audience about cheering during the debate? What are the plans for the lead-in to the debate (Pre-shot video? Announcer to moderator? Director to Moderator?) and how long is it? Are you running promo ads before the debate about your moderator(s)? What type of microphones (lavs or podium)? Can you pledge that the temperature in the hall be kept below 67 degrees?

If there is any additional information you would like to provide the candidates and the campaigns, please do so. Thank you for your cooperation. Should you have any questions, the campaigns will be pleased to answer them.

Sincerely,
__________

On the surface, the concerns of the RNC appear reasonable; but the kind of politics the candidates discuss and the virulence their platforms and talking points generate — either at debate or on the stump — go beyond reasonableness. Some of the Republican candidates are completely nuts.

Are you the political black sheep in your family? Welcome to the most sane forum for discussing politics on the Internet. You can now get access to articles posted on this website through Planet Waves’ new reader-level membership. Tell your friends, no matter what their party.

The level of information prep and production control requested in the letter indicates to me they don’t want the candidates to be shown as they are. They don’t want the hard questions thrown at them. Poor things.

It’s funny. We’re dealing with the party of Lee Atwater and Karl Rove, fathers of the killer “gotcha” moments complicit with the media for use in character assassination. And they are masters in Goebbels’ practice of repeating lies until they become truth. And yet now they’re whining for fairness from a news media grown used to info-sop and surrogate attack interviews, where people shout over each other instead of thoughtfully answering questions.

They’re chastising CNBC — the very network responsible for the birth of the Tea Party. I am sure the Republicans are hoping no one notices that it’s their own rules of engagement they want changed — for them. But they made their bed a while back. Time to lie in it.

This is what election politics has become: entertaining disinformation. And looking at this colorful Republican cast of 15 characters saying anything they can to make headway in such a crowded field provides some very interesting entertainment indeed. Karma can sometimes be a cruel mistress, particularly if you’ve been on the dishing end of it, and even more when you’re feigning victim-hood from media unfairness and trying to get away with it. 

They’re asking the media to play softball for them. When you trade down from the hardball of the big leagues to softball, you need to remember that a softball is bigger and far more visibly obvious to those even casually watching. People get when they’re being played down to.

In their defense, CNBC vice president of communications Brian Steel said, “People who want to be president of the United States should be able to answer tough questions.”

Let’s see if the Republicans don’t trip over the bar they’re asking networks to lower.

Good morning. Yesterday we ran a shorter version of the horoscope due to time constraints. It did not include weekend astrology, and it’s close to your birthday as well. Here is an extended forecast for Scorpio.

The Sun in your sign is speaking to a diversity of planets in Pisces — especially Neptune and Chiron. Creative, experimental and imaginative, this is astrology for a fun weekend (hinting at an adventurous year for those whose solar returns occur around this time). Yet there is more here; there is the question of how you go about expanding your life from your known patterns and ways of being into the unfamiliar and what is ultimately more satisfying. I know that many people are still waiting for their ship to come in, for things to get better or for change to come to them. I know that many Scorpios are still picking up the pieces after two years of Saturn in your sign. But this aspect pattern is about trines — Sun trine four different Pisces planets, plus the the Cancer Moon trine the Sun and those Pisces planets — and this is calling on you to take charge and make the changes that you want. First, you have to know what you want; and I would ask: what direction are you going in naturally? Which way do you flow? That is the direction in which to ROW. Once you start doing that, you will be faced with more relevant decisions, each of which is an opportunity. But for that to work you must notice — really notice — when you get to make a choice, and see the potential, and not pass on the moment.

Learn more at http://planetwaves.net/

I followed last Thursday’s Congressional hearing on Benghazi, courtesy of live blogging coverage on Daily Kos. I avoided televised coverage of it as I do with most news. My blood pressure tends to erupt whenever I watch the insanely stupid in action; and as expected, the House Select Committee on Benghazi delivered.

In a grueling 11-hour marathon of questions, most of which concerned a variation on the theme of Mrs. Clinton’s use of her private email account for State Department business, the Committee concluded that it learned nothing new — because, in fact, there was nothing new to learn from the previous testimony given by Mrs. Clinton while she was Secretary of State. Her account of Ambassador Chris Stevens’ death was already there for the record.

Rep. Kevin McCarthy recently said out loud what had been suspected all along: that last week’s hearings were designed to bring Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign numbers down; the story of what really happened at the U.S. embassy compound in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012 — and why — was never the point. The point was to try to find a suspicious motive in Mrs. Clinton’s use of a personal email account in order to stir up public distrust of her as she campaigns for the Presidency.

Hillary is now in good company. A new congressional hearing has been scheduled by outgoing Speaker John Boehner for Planned Parenthood’s Chief Executive Cecile Richards. Richards was grilled late in September by the House Oversight Committee on allegations Planned Parenthood profited from illegal sale of fetal tissue, based on a heavily doctored videotape.

The hearing was Boehner’s parting gift to the Republican “Freedom Caucus.” It was a means to placate them in exchange for a sane (non-Tea Party) Speaker: Paul Ryan. By providing them the theatrics of yet another House Committee hearing, they could cook up public outcry to deny further federal funding for Planned Parenthood — or else they will shut down the government.

For those who weren’t following, Mrs. Clinton endured her marathon ‘trial’ well. Ms. Richards also performed well in her first testimony before the House Committee at the end of September. But it appears that is not enough for Republicans, particularly those representatives answerable to the Tea Party factions around the country interested in dismantling government and stopping you from getting an abortion. Since we are approaching Halloween in a few days, are we getting the feeling of a new (shhhhhhh!) witch hunt?

Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible comes to mind. Written in 1953, The Crucible used the Salem witch trials as an analogy for the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) hearings led by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy. HUAC began in 1947, convening hearings that lasted until McCarthy’s death in 1957. The purpose of the hearings was to ferret out Communist infiltrators in the U.S., particularly in Hollywood.

For ten harrowing years in American life, people were persecuted, lost their jobs, or imprisoned for refusing to testify against others or name them as Communists or Communist sympathizers. The purpose of this hearing was clear: send out a chilling message instilling distrust, doubt and uncertainty. By doing so, those behind the hearings could take advantage of the chaos and hysteria that ensued. The Cold War was born and the military industrial complex prospered.

Sixty years later and the end of the Cold War, the U.S. is in a different state, though politically, sometimes its hard to tell the difference between then and now. Instead of looking for the evil Communist under the bed, we’re looking for the witch in every mouse click and Frankenstein’s abortion mill using human baby parts for scientific experiments.

But maybe we have learned something as we see the familiar parade of torches and pitchforks coming our way, as Jezebel reports:

There are lots of good reasons why neither the #Benghazi squad yelling at Hillary Clinton nor the House Oversight Committee yelling at Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards worked out particularly well for Congress. Some of it stems from the fact that both hearings were show trials, a purely partisan effort to show the folks back home how erectly principled their conservative principles are. But there’s also a visual, theatrical reason: watching a body composed predominantly of white men shout at, interrupt, and harangue a dignified, composed woman has always been a bad look, and in 2015, it’s one the public will no longer accept.

For her next hearing, I am certain Cecile Richards will be as ready as Hillary was last week. In fact, many are certain Mrs. Clinton took her cue from Ms. Richards’ September performance. They both commanded respect, stayed calm and confident, and provided facts in the face of blind rage, false accusations and even Rep. Jason Chaffetz’s tears. Understanding the past, leading in the present and facing the future, these women are sending us a message: they are not for burning, and neither are we.

Happy Halloween! See you in the comments.

By Eric Francis

When Chiron was discovered in November 1977, its position was the exact degree of the Taurus Full Moon happening this week. Events that involve the Chiron discovery degree evoke the theme of “before and after Chiron.”

The Education of Achilles by the Centaur Chiron, by Jean-Baptiste Regnault (French, 1754-1829).

This is the degree with the symbol, “The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” which image is the namesake of Chiron: Rainbow Bridge Between the Inner and Outer Planets by Barbara Hand Clow. The symbol is a reference to linking the celestial and mundane orders of reality — which is Chiron’s speciality.

I have observed that the discovery of Chiron describes the tipping point where matters of a holistic nature, including alternative forms of healing (almost all of which strive to be based in some holistic concept) are beginning to get some recognition.

You can think of Chiron as the first healing practitioner of Greek mythology. He was taught medicine by Apollo, and then teaches the art to Asclepius, the god of medicine. In the distant past there was something called Asclepian manipulation, similar to what today is practiced as osteopathy or chiropractic.

Chiron was more than a healer (mostly, you can think of him in his role of mentor and teacher), however he was also renowned as a surgeon, herbalist and innovator of battlefield medicine.

The era of the Chiron discovery came with the first crumbling of the facade of traditional medicine being the only option. To give a few random examples, Bastyr University (which teaches naturopathic medicine) was founded the next year, in 1978.

Dr. Chester Wilk, a chiropractor, brings his first antitrust lawsuit against the American Medical Association (AMA) in 1976. It takes him 14 years, but the AMA is finally banned from claiming that chiropractors are “unscientific practitioners” who are part of “an unscientific cult.” Up to that time, medical doctors could be banned from the AMA for so much as playing golf with a chiropractor. Its “Committee on Quackery” is revealed as a fraud, and the AMA is ordered to pay damages and apologize (in the form of letters to MDs) to chiropractors annually for five years.

Organic foods, health food stores, massage therapy and many other forms of group and individual therapy were becoming prevalent.

And astrology itself began to evolve from a form of fortune telling and spiritualism to something taken more seriously as an authentic intellectual discipline. This was prompted by the efforts put into research into Chiron. To the extent astrology is practiced today as a healing art, we can thank the discovery of Chiron and the early astrologers who took note of its existence and did original research.

All of this is the spirit of the Chiron discovery degree. When you have alternative healers available to you, when you can get anything you need in a health food store, when you have access to organic food or even the idea that it exists, remember that before the late 1970s none of this was widely known or availab