Steve Wamhoff on Trump and Taxes
Steve Wamhoff, director of federal tax policy at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, discusses the takeaways from Trump’s taxes.
Extra! October 2020 Soundbites
‘Dizzyingly Different Versions of Reality’ “Dueling Versions of Reality Define First Week of Fall Campaign” was the Associated Press’s headline over a piece by its chief political reporter Steve Peoples (9/4/20). “Embracing Both Sides journalism and injecting it with steroids,” as critic Eric Boehlert (PressRun, 9/8/20) put it, the story reported that Donald Trump says […]
Journalists Need to Be Clear About a Clear Threat to Democracy
Newsrooms have an obligation to report that the most powerful person in the country is trying to subvert the election and retain power illegitimately, and a failure to blow the whistle on a clear threat to democracy is journalistic malpractice.
‘When You Talk About White Supremacy, You’ve Got to Take a Hard Look at Our Culture’
“I don’t think anybody nowadays thinks that you can simply bash a population like Mexicans, as Trump did, or Muslims, and not get a result that ends up in violence in some cases.”
Press Normalizes Trump’s Lawlessness as Use of ‘Tools of Presidency’ to ‘Broaden Appeal’
Besides framing it as “Many Democrats were outraged,” elite media normalized Trump’s behavior with passivity.
‘Not to Have an Accurate Count Is Shooting Ourselves in the Foot’
“To blatantly ignore the Supreme Court’s ruling, ignore the Census Bureau’s own employees’ determination that it could not be done in an accurate and efficient way, is amazing,”
American Deceptionalism
“Both sides” journalism set the conditions for the inevitable arrival of someone like Trump to the highest elected office in the land.
Defining Steve Bannon Downward
The effort to legitimize power, in this case by pretending a leading white supremacist was less central to the regime than he was, is pretty much the New York Times’ North Star.
Liz OuYang on Census Sabotage
The United States has been conducting the census for some two centuries, but Donald Trump and his cronies have a new idea of how to do it that involves screwing it up entirely in service to a racist, nativist project.
Trump’s Tantrum Against TikTok Is No Laughing Matter
Trump’s use of the power of the federal government to punish media outlets he perceives as having crossed him is part of a disturbing pattern of contempt for the First Amendment’s protection of the press.
Media’s ‘Cancel Culture’ Debate Obscures Direct Threats to First Amendment
Much of the public discussion of the Harper’s letter misses the fact that it is the powerful, not the masses, who inordinately have the ability to “cancel” individuals for their actions, and that it is the left and those challenging power who consistently suffer the brunt of the consequences.
‘Trump’s Troops Are Breaking the Law and Creating Chaos’
“There are lawsuits being filed in support of the real power, and that is the power of the people.”
How NOT to Resist Trump: Kayleigh McEnany’s Anti-Science Comments
Resisting the reopening of schools on the basis that the White House press secretary misspoke represents a lost opportunity to actually oppose the administration’s scandalously poor handling of the coronavirus.
In the Name of Anti-Trumpism, Media Elevate a Lying Warmonger
In their zeal to once again expose Trump as an all-around bad man, corporate media have elevated someone who should be condemned by a civilized society.
Covering a Pandemic, Election-Style
Election Focus 2020: Trump’s rally remarks were a remarkably brazen admission that he would rather cover up the growing pandemic than actually work to address it, at the cost of an untold number of lives.
Media Project Trump Crimes Onto Empire’s Enemies
The reaction from corporate media to Trump’s threat to crush an anti-racist rebellion was to chastise his move as “un-American,” obscuring the domestic sources of inspiration for his vicious crackdown.
‘Trump Judges Are Showing Just How Extreme They Are’
“What we see from President Trump’s nominees to these powerful courts of appeals and the Supreme Court is a consistent right-wing ideology, frankly going further even than some Reagan and Bush appointees.”
Alicia Bell on Police Attacks on Journalists, Elliot Mincberg on Trump’s Judges
Will police attacks on journalists lead reporters to back off, covering racial injustice from a safe distance? Or will they encourage them to work more deeply and consistently to amplify precisely those voices that the “forces of order,” as CNN called them, so vehemently want to silence?
Failing to Connect Dots on Trump’s Threats to Post Office
The right-wing vendetta against the Postal Service long predates the pandemic, but gutting it now has the potential to undermine the integrity of the November election. Yet establishment media seem remarkably uninterested in connecting the dots.
Media’s Watchdogs Barked—at Those Who Stood in the Way of Corporate Bailouts
For a perfect illustration of how corporate media function as ruling class propagandists, watch how they spun a titanic upward redistribution of wealth as a “rescue plan” for the US economy. In discussions of the (officially) estimated $2.2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act—the largest government spending program in US history—before it […]
