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Democratic National CommitteeChair Tom Perez met privately on Tuesday with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus to hear concerns over the nominating process from the partys left flank. The conversation came in the wake of progressive frustration over the Iowa Democratic Partys handling of the caucuses last week in which Sen. Bernie Sanders topped former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg, but a series of snafus prolonged and frustrated the process, obfuscated the results, and left Buttigieg claiming a two-delegate victory.

Perez, according to people in the room, brought up the debacle himself, criticizing the IDP foritshandling of the caucus, promising the limited recanvass Sanders has called for would be carried out effectively and professionally. Last week, Perez had attempted to take belated control of the situation at one point, he even called for a recanvass of the results but was rebuffed by Iowa Democratic Party Chair Troy Price, who said Perez didnt have the authority to do so.

What happened last week was completely unacceptable, Perez told The Intercept in a statement. We are all in this together. We succeed together, and we all endure challenges together. Weve been successful in electing Democrats up and down the ballot in 2017, 2018, and 2019, and I think were going to win this presidential election in 2020. Thats our sweet spot, and we are building the organizational structure needed to get there. And I think we have to have a conversation, and Ive said this more than once, about the issue of primaries versus caucuses.

The role of American oligarch Mike Bloomberg in the race also came up in the meeting. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., asked Perez what procedures he had in place to monitor conflicts of interest for the officials he names to key Democratic National Convention committees. Tlaib noted that the former New York City mayor had two paid surrogates on the DNCs rules committee. The DNC had previously said the committee members had no say over a recent decision to change the rules for qualifying for Democratic debates a rules change that would allow Bloomberg to participate. Perez did not spell out any particular conflict of interest provision the DNC uses, but instead said that he also named Larry Cohen, a supporter of Bernie Sanders, to a committee.

Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., and Brenda Lawrence, D-Mich., told Perez they were frustrated by reports that some DNC members were considering changing the rules around superdelegates to allow them to vote in the first round at the convention, a clear effort to undermine a progressive candidate.Perez was emphatic that no such rules change would be made, arguing that the process had been allowed to play out through internal committees and that process would be respected. We made these reforms, we did it in a very inclusive way, we voted, and we are implementing them. Period. End of story, Perez told The Intercept, reflecting what he told the CPC.(Lee and Lawrence both endorsed Sen. Kamala Harris for president.)

Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chair Mark Pocan, and Reps. Katherine Clark, Yvette Clarke, and Sheila Jackson Lee attended the meeting as well, sources said, though Co-Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., and Vice Chair Ro Khanna, D-Calif., were not there.

Excerpt from:
DNC Chair Tom Perez Gets Earful From Progressive Caucus - The Intercept

A failed computer app has some people predicting the beginning of the end for the Iowa caucuses as the three-ring political circus to kick off the nations quadrennial presidential sweepstakes.

Not solely because the caucuses are a 19th century system that doesnt adapt well to 21st century sensibilities. Heck, caucuses didnt adapt well to late 20th century sensibilities.

It was inevitable that what the caucuses were meant to do start a long and involved process for picking a few delegates to another meeting, the Democratic National Convention, almost six months later wouldnt measure up to the needs of the 24-hour news networks and their drive to pick instant winners and losers in the presidential race.

But last weeks caucuses didnt really fail in their main function, which is to start the process of picking delegates for the Democratic National Convention.

Despite the problems with producing a count of delegate strength for the cluster of Democratic candidates last Monday night, the Iowa Democratic Party will eventually figure out how many delegates for each candidate will move on to the next round of meetings, where they will be winnowed again before the next round of meetings, and so on until the state will have a representative sample to send to Milwaukee, where this years party convention will be held.

Even after they were elevated to vaunted first in the nation status, the final results of the Iowa caucuses often werent known that first night, because it took so long to get and tabulate results from thousands of meetings across the state. That doesnt much matter to the people who were at those meetings, because if they were chosen to be a delegate to the next round of meetings, they knew it.

The only people really inconvenienced by Mondays computer issues were the talking heads on the 24-hour news networks. And for that, they should not blame the Iowa Democratic Party, but themselves.

The national media, primarily round-the-clock cable news, built the Iowa caucuses into a seminal event on which they could rely for a mixture of folksy features and navel-gazing analysis for months. Sure, Iowans were somewhat complicit in this by being so darn nice. They agree to answer any foolish question that a well-coiffed, overdressed reporter might ask as they eat breakfast at a diner, visit a county fair, milk a cow or push a stroller down Main Street. Full, quotable answer, equal parts insightful comment about a candidates policy and folksy observation about his or her demeanor.

Most times, a reporter doesnt even have to ask for their full name, occupation, age, party affiliation, marital status, number of children and number of times theyve attended a caucus. When I was in Iowa covering the 1988 caucuses, I got the feeling that if I asked for a voters blood type, they would have gladly provided it.

Its likely the Iowa chambers of commerce had a hand in this too, because once every four years they have the opportunity to fill up the hotels, restaurants and bars, not just in Des Moines and Iowa City, but in Davenport, Keokuk, Council Bluffs, Sioux City and Ottumwa.

The problems with using Iowa as a bellwether for the United States are well-known: Its not as demographically or racially diverse as the nation as a whole, its more rural and the average age is older.

The national media usually spend about 45 seconds telling us those shortcomings before spending a half-hour discussing what the latest poll says about which candidates Iowa voters are supporting or which issues are most important to them for securing that support. Its sort of like the long list of side effects read by the announcer at the end of a pharmaceutical commercial after the audio and video has proclaimed a new drug is a miracle cure for some condition.

When Jimmy Carter surprised everyone in 1976 by winning the Iowa caucuses, the national media found themselves struggling to answer two questions Who is Jimmy Carter and where is Iowa? (Fun fact for your next political trivia contest: Carter actually finished second in the caucuses that year, behind uncommitted.)

After Carter won the nomination and the presidency, the national media decided never to be caught so flat-footed again. Every four years they ramped up coverage, so that now political reporters write about events that are happening not just in the election year, but up to two years before.

I plead guilty to such an offense, having written about the appearance of a certain governor at an Iowa political dinner in June 2018. But in my defense, it was our governor.

By summer 2019, cable news was going live from the butter sculpture at the Iowa State Fair with breathless recaps of stump speeches being made to small crowds eating corn dogs. By the fall, they were dispatching teams of fresh, young reporters to travel the back roads of the Hawkeye State. As soon as Christmas and New Years were over, they were counting down the days, hours and minutes to caucus night. The weekend before, they decamped anchors from Washington, D.C., and New York studios and set up panels of pundits and data crunchers to analyze the numbers.

The Democrats even played into their hands by agreeing to release extra numbers on how many people showed up for each candidate as well as the standard count of delegates each candidate wins. This had the double bonus of giving the general public something closer to an election that most people understand, as opposed to a caucus that many people dont, as well as more numbers to crunch. It could even lead to two different winners, one who had the most people show up and another who received the most delegates, with a chance for talking heads to debate which was more important.

So its not surprising that the gathered media were extremely perturbed by a lack of losers to deride and numbers to dissect when the untested app didnt work. But the need for that app was a response to the candidates and the news medias need for quick results on caucus night.

One can expect a bit of reflective hand-wringing about whether they put too much emphasis on the Iowa caucuses and possibly a task force to discuss whether they should change tactics for 2024.

But Id be happy to take the money of anyone whos betting reporters wont be traipsing all over the state in 2023, hanging out in diners, camping out at the state fair and interviewing county chairmen from Burlington to Spirit Lake about how many candidates theyve had in their front parlor.

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Spin Control: Anger over Iowa caucus problems partly the media's fault - The Spokesman-Review

Syracuse, N.Y. -- Some freshmen heroics sealed it for Syracuse basketball Saturday night in a must-win game against Wake Forest in the Carrier Dome.

With the game tied at 73, freshman center Jesse Edwards tapped a rebound to freshman guard Brycen Goodine who put it back up for the game-winning layup with 1.7 seconds to play.

A desperation shot from Wake Forest didnt fall, and the Orange escaped with a 75-73 win over the Demon Deacons.

Heres what fans and media are saying about Syracuses win over Wake Forest:

MORE ORANGE BASKETBALL:

Ben Burrows is a sports reporter for syracuse.com/The Post-Standard. He can be reached @BenMBurrows and via email.

Thanks for visiting Syracuse.com. Quality local journalism has never been more important, and your subscription matters. Not a subscriber yet? Please consider supporting our work.

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'A season-saving moment: Fans, media react to Syracuse basketballs win over Wake Forest - syracuse.com

FORMER Rangers owner Craig Whyte has sensationally claimed that he used to correct the stories of Jim Traynor then a journalist at the Daily Record before they went to print.

Into The Bear Pit, Whytes autobiography due to be released next Friday, sees Whyte who bought Rangers from David Murray in 2011 also claim that he was able to get stories pulled from the Scottish press whenever he wanted.

He also tells of his shock when the Record and Traynor now the PR chief at Rangers wrongly called him a billionaire in an infamous front-page headline.

Whyte claims: Jim Traynor used to send me his articles through before hed print them, and Id correct them for him.

In the pre-internet days, Murray must have had complete control.

Some journalists were happy to have a good relationship with Rangers if that meant getting stories, even if as a result it became difficult to criticise the club. Traynor had got in touch ... about a month after I went into Ibrox. We went for lunch at the Rogano restaurant and from that day he hounded me for a job.

I was never that impressed with him. I would soon discover he could fly with the wind.

Traynor hit back last night at Whytes claims, telling the Glasgow Times: The truth about him is well-known. He was merely a pawn in a strategy played perfectly by the Record team at the time.

So I can understand that he was ultimately and rightly exposed. Youd have thought the pound would have dropped by now.

In the book, Whyte also said he could phone up newspapers to get rid of bad stories. I had dinners with all the editors and learned very quickly that if there was a negative story I could call some of them up and have a pretty good chance of getting it stopped.

With the Daily Record I had a 100% chance, and it was the same with The Sun.

I used to call the editor of The Herald. I had a 50-50 chance of getting things stopped there. If it didnt get stopped, you threatened them with withdrawal of access, that they wouldnt get stories.

He then describes picking up the Daily Record on the day the newspaper printed the news he was going to buy Rangers: The front page screamed: BILLIONAIRE SCOT TO BUY RANGERS FOR 30m. What the hell?! Billionaire?! How had they come to that?

I soon found out. In response to the enquiries from journalists, Ian McKerron had put together a small biography of me, and had said I had a billion under management.

Clearly the Record hadnt understood there is a world of difference between assets under management and assets that you own. Maybe it was a reasonable mistake to make, but it wasnt true.

The piece, written by Traynor, claimed talks were at an advanced stage, though Whyte claims this was not the case after only meeting Murray once until that point.

Claims by Traynor that then Rangers manager Walter Smith would have a massive sum to spend in the following January were also wide of the mark, according to Whyte.

The Scottish Sun went further and said: RANGERS SOLD BY XMAS, added Whyte.

The Daily Record and The Scottish Sun declined to comment.

Read this article:
Craig Whyte: 'I edited Jim Traynor's stories before they were printed' - The National

McCains use of the infanticide falsehood and the allegation that Democrats are radical about abortion was instantaneously recycled by right-wing media. So-called straight news program Fox News @ Night later ran with the right-wing talking point when guest Tony Perkins, president of the anti-abortion and anti-LGBT group Family Research Council, commented on McCain's question. Perkins asserted that Democrats support abortion up to the day of birth and referred to the Democratic Party as radical. Host Shannon Bream, herself a purveyor of anti-abortion misinformation, didnt push back, calling it a conversation about third-trimester abortions or infanticide. Others in theright-wing media ecosystemfollowed suit, manufacturing outrage over Buttigieg's response.

This reiteration found its way out of the right-wing media nebula and was inexplicably repeated on CNN's Cuomo Prime Time. CNN contributor Scott Jennings repeated false claims of Democratic extremism about abortion, alleging that Buttigieg spoke about abortion on demand during The View segment. Host Chris Cuomo himself refuted that claim, bizarrely stating he saw the clip to prepare for this segment.

Buttigieg wasnt the first Democratic presidential candidate to face anti-abortion misinformation from McCain. During a May 2019 broadcast, after 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) commented on a restrictive abortion ban passed in Alabama, McCain asked Klobuchar if she supported late-term abortion up until birth. McCain continued to double down on her rhetoric even as her co-hosts challenged her about about how this myth was based on a lie and had been debunked.

McCains questions to Buttigieg and Klobuchar were not an outlier; she manufactured the same allegations of extremism during a June 2019 segment. McCain declared that most of the Democratic candidates are "too far to the left, particularly on abortion, to garner her support. During the segment, McCain also repeated a right-wing media talking point about later abortions, describing them as late-term abortions. Co-host Whoopi Goldberg accurately refuted McCain's claim, saying, There is no such thing. In reality, late-term abortion is a medically inaccurate phraseemployed by right-wing media to deliberately sensationalize and stigmatize abortions later in pregnancy, many of which are medically necessary.

During a February 2019 airing, McCain once again used The View as a platform to amplify the right-wing media myth that Democrats support infanticide. McCain spoke about Democrats refusing to vote for the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act -- legislation designed to solve a fictitious problem formulated by abortion opponents. In addition, during a September 6 episode, McCain inaccurately conflated Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) remarks on climate change as an endorsement of eugenic population control. Despite McCains continued assertions, her claims have no foundation in the reality of abortion care, let alone as part of the Democratic Party platform.

Given The Views cultural relevancy and influence as an important political program, especially during the2020 election, it is imperative for the show to discuss abortion accurately and not give a platform to the repetition of sensationalized right-wing rhetoric and claims of Democratic extremism about abortion.

See more here:
The View echoes right-wing media by promoting the myth that Democrats are extreme about abortion - Media Matters for America