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President Barack Obama:
We can’t lose focus on what matters – right now, Republicans in Texas are trying to gerrymander district lines to unfairly win five seats in next year’s midterm elections. This is a power grab that undermines our democracy.
« Today's Republican Party has embraced American weakness. »
— Former Rep. David Jolly of Florida, who has quit the GOP, commenting on Republican office holders obsequiously groveling to Donald Trump and not calling out his pro-Putin and anti-NATO diatribes. At MSNBC (see video below).
Make it stick to them like gum on a sidewalk...
"Republicans are the party of American weakness."
The hidden slogan of MAGA is AMERICA WORST.
Defending democracy is part of a journalist’s job
The failure to take Trump’s anti-democratic rantings seriously only strengthened him.
[M]any journalists couldn’t bring themselves to take Trump’s threat seriously. Normalcy bias is why Trump’s clearly authoritarian proclamation was met with a shrug and reported on as though it was just bluster. In hindsight, it’s obvious journalists should have been taking the threat he posed to democracy more seriously.
To avoid making that same mistake again, journalists now need to apply those lessons to how they cover the Republicans who took part in Trump’s antidemocratic assault.
There’s little point in journalists giving politicians media exposure if obvious misinformation and outright lies those politicians spew during that time are not challenged.
Trump’s control over the party has created a powerful incentive for fellow Republicans to line up behind him, even if what they’re lining up for is an attack on democracy. Until there is an equally powerful incentive for Republicans not to join Trump in his attempted coup, whether from voters or the media, there’s no reason for them not to embrace authoritarianism.
If the Republicans who supported Trump’s coup must appear on TV, journalists should add a disclaimer noting that the person they are about to interview was an active participant in Trump’s assault on democracy and failed power-grab. If the press doesn’t take a hardline stance against this sort of treachery, then the press is incentivizing additional and perhaps more successful attacks on democracy.
Things have improved a little. Lately there has been an increasing number of instances when we hear a soundclip of Trump bullshitting and a journalist will quickly add that there is no evidence to back up Trump’s fantasies. But what’s needed are routine realtime disclaimers similar to what Twitter uses on Trump’s tweets.
Watergate ushered in an era of investigative journalism. What’s needed now in the digital age is instant fact-check journalism to keep unscrupulous politicians from using the news media as an accomplice to further anti-democratic falsehoods.
Let's talk about Trump, Scott, and the GOP plan for 2024....
Hundreds of foreign media groups including AFP on Tuesday accused Britain's Conservatives of undermining press freedom by imposing charges o
Hundreds of foreign media groups including AFP on Tuesday accused Britain's Conservatives of undermining press freedom by imposing charges on journalists to cover their annual conference. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's ruling party first imposed a fee for media accreditation at last year's conference, defying complaints from both UK and foreign organisations. It has again imposed charges for the October Conservative party conference in Manchester, northwest England, imposing a £137 (€160) charge, rising to £880 (€1,030) from August 1. The Tories insist that the money raised helps to cover the administrative costs of "thousands" of journalists failing to show up. But the Foreign Press Association of UK-based overseas media said the party had failed to show any evidence for no-shows on such a scale -- and argued that wider principles were at stake. "In fact, this decision sets a dangerous precedent for countries all over the world who will use this decision to justify financial and other barriers to media scrutiny of the political process," it said. "We therefore call upon the Tory party conference organisers to scrap or refund the charges and allow fair and free reporting for all."
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The Republican-white nationalist war against minorities, women, and educated cosmopolitan Americans is as real as January 6, 2021, was
OPINION THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD The white-Republican-dominated Texas legislature is silencing the will of voters Gov. Greg Abbott, Republican of Texas, is expected to sign a bill in the next few days that would make it immeasurably more difficult for cities in the state to govern themselves. The bill would strip cities of the ability to set standards for local workplaces, to ensure…
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The ultimate aim of Musk's $2.9 billion share purchase is not clear. Yet in recent weeks Musk has questioned free speech on Twitter and whether the platform is undermining democracy.
This is one way we become Russia – when filthy rich oligarchs control the media. More and more we need the out of control digital media to be regulated like any other monopolies.
Not an accident that the linked article comes from NPR. NPR is listener supported and not in thrall to some giant corporation or oligarchs. Support reality-based news in the United States.
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The Trump nightmare if far from over: A NY Times editorial warns us of what is to come
The Trump nightmare if far from over: A NY Times editorial warns us of what is to come
(reprinted from the 10/2/21 edition of the NYT) However horrifying the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol appeared in the moment, we know now that it was far worse. The country was hours away from a full-blown constitutional crisis — not primarily because of the violence and mayhem inflicted by hundreds of President Donald Trump’s supporters but because of the actions of Mr. Trump himself. In the…
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