In the Netherlands the conscious spreading of disinformation can be prosecuted. Kamala should act, I think, whether it is by activating courts or other means.
I don't understand American Law: why can Trump still say that Biden is corrupt? Freedom of speech is nonsense. He may call him the worst president in history but corruption is criminal behaviour. That needs argumentation and proof.
There was legislation to make this so in England as well. It has to do with requiring everything called news to be accurate and truthful. There could be opinion sections, but news itself is sacrosanct. So can sue against lies.
Boycotting is kind of an ancient way of controlling people who go against the norms of the culture which is called shunning. We have other ways of removing people from society when they are a danger to themselves or others, but it doesn't apply to those who harm society by using their vast wealth to manipulate economies or elections. Criminal law should be society's way of protecting its citizens from bad actors, but we have recently seen money buy the SCOTUS, and Trump has so far evaded consequences for criminal acts, including manipulating the Presidential election by paying off a porn star.
I believe those with what I and others consider to be a hoarding disorder, which is recognized when objects are hoarded to the point of taking over one's life but not the hoarding of money, result from emotional disturbances rooted in childhood. A couple of years ago, I read in the Guardian that Elon's father said he is proud of Elon's brother Kimbol but not of Elon. Could sibling rivalry be the cause of Elon's deviant behavior? Will enough money ever make his father proud of him?
Recently, I watched a video of Timothy Snyder, the author of the book On Tyranny and an Ivy League professor, explaining his theory of "The New Paganism." He said these wealthy people aren't happy and have a new version of burying their wealth to "take it with them."
In any event, in my opinion, Elon's behavior should be viewed as a threat to others, and society needs a way to curb the deviant activity of Elon and other sick, greedy money, hoarding society, and destroying weirdos.
Gloria, I do think that super rich people are addicted to accumulating money and power. They can't stop themselves and truly do need some tough love, the kind used with people who are drug-addicted. As I have mentioned before, money and power addiction is far worse than that of drugs and alcohol because it impacts so many more people. And, in Musk's case, he is trying to manipulate the economy of the world on his own behalf and thinks he can do whatever he wants no matter who is hurt, and people have been hurt because of Musk's actions. He does need to be stopped. I would like to see our DOJ get involved in bring charges against Musk for election sabotage. It would be great if the UK could press charges too. Gigantic fines would be a good start. Arrest would be a good outcome. Maybe through a trial, when people see just what kind of pathetic human being Musk is, his cache would wear off and people would see the truth of what he is doing to harm this nation and others too.
That wealth and the relentless accumulation/pursuit of it corrupts brain circuitry is entirely believable. Neuroscientists should take up the challenge of figuring out which specific segments of the brain light up in response to financial themed stimulation. If and when such a test is realized, and the results are recognized as a bona fide mental illness, then it should be legally included in psychological testing protocols And administered to all seeking positions of public and corporate service.
I do believe that money/asset hoarding is an illness like addiction or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Society doesn't seem to have a way to deal with the harm until the behavior crosses the line into criminality. Even then, what can be done when they can buy the system? Something about Reich's question this morning caused me to think of Caligula and other rulers who were psychopaths with total power down in the historical past.
Another commenter in this substack recommended Ingrid Robeyns's book Limitarianism, which I look forward to reading. Maybe Robeyns has some answers. I don't know. I checked, and our library has the book.
Musk's wealth is primarily tied up in his stock. Tesla is trading at $195 per share (somewhere around $640 billion net worth for the company now). The actual value of the company is less than $10 per share. Ford is trading at $10 per share.
Telsa doesn't release new models, they've lied about self-driving capabilities since 2017 and charged consumers $100's of millions for something that doesn't exist, they released the worst lemon since the Edsel (the Cyber Truck) and now they're saying that they're going to give up EVs and switch to Hydrogen. How, in the name of all that's holy, can this valuation be legitimate?
This is fraud on multiple levels and when (not if), a lot people lose their life's savings when the stock collapses, his net worth will drop by over 95% as well (unless he can get some of it out ahead of the implosion).
This is a great place to start. His assets are "ephemeral."
The very rich are the tip of the iceberg. It's not just the wealthy or the OCDs. Anyone know any middle class people who aren't scurrying to Amazon.com to buy that particular something they cannot live without? Do you know anyone who knows what they have and where it all is? So many people complain about clutter and needing to weed out their closets. Living in a consumer society is confusing, distracting and ultimately counterproductive.
We thought we had a way. Congress and the courts. Not enough people were aware of their gradual corruption, or weakening, or whatever one wants to call it.In fact, our jornalists were praising American democracy even as it lay dying.
DOJ, is absent! on this, like with the 10 million foreign monies from Egyptian dictator Abd el-Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi, donated to Trump for his 2020 election, the statute of limitations has expired, mostly in part, due to Merrick Garland sitting on this and not reopening the investigation, so I would ask him? whatever happened to you doing what you say you would do, and that's following the facts wherever they lead, I surmise, that in his pursuit not to appear political, he thereby, by his thus inaction, he became political
It will be very interesting to see who President Harris nominates to be AG. I hope that is a top priority for her because Merrick Garland's decisions as AG for DOJ have been baffling and very disappointing.
Totally right! Did you read the article in NYT's about the Hamptons couple? This is precisely the example you're talking about. How horrible an addiction to greed, and materialism our society suffers! Worse than any other addiction; the 'single earner' luxury lifestyle is DONE. There is no virtue in being rich. As the Buddhists say, The only virtue in having wealth is in the act of giving it away.
Regulations and Taxes, both Musk and other uber wealthy like him hate, and why many rich still support Trump, they place a wannabe dictator over our democracy, traitors, all of them!!!
I would be in favor of establishing a Ministry of Truth, but we all know where that leads. There must be a way for communications media such as Twitter-X to be regulated. What we need is a trifecta win in November. Then we can take steps to prevent the kind of professional, for-profit lying that Musk and Murdoch practice.
I totally agree. Unless the FCC and other agencies involved in regulating media and communications are wallowing in Elon Musk’s deep pockets, they should join forces to shut down X/Twitter and other platforms that host disinformation and proponents of political, racist violence under the aegis of ‘free speech’. By the way, I think it’s long past time for constitutional scholars and those with power to enforce it to amend the definition of ‘ free speech’, aligning it with the Hippocratic oath of‘ first to no harm’.
No amount of money will make daddy proud of little elon, no matter how much money he throws around. He's an evil, useless little brat and there's nothing to be proud of.
Daniel, that is a good start, but it doesn't even touch Musk. He will just take his cut off the top and leave the company and its workers stranded. There needs to be a better plan to accompany the boycott. I think Musk would be happy to become dictator of the world. I bet he has read all those comics with the villains that have the goal of taking over the world. As a child-man, I can see, or rather imagine, the power signs in his eyes. The point is, what is a legal way we can put him out of our hair and the hair of other nations that are suffering from his hatred, lying, cheating, and blackmail? He has been sabotaging our elections and inciting violence in the UK, it seems those are examples of law-breaking and arrests should follow if he, for example, does not take down the posts on X that are criminal acts, say, today. Then, there should be no bail since he could escape without a moment's notice.
The Financial Times podcast just reported that the British USS pension fund is pulling back from Israeli stocks and debt. A Denmark pension fund (they didn’t report the name!) pulled all their Israeli investments.
Many people have investments in their 401k’s and pensions. Do they even know what they are invested in? I know we have so many things taking our energies, but how much more responsibility does each of us have to use our investments for good? I wish it was easier.
Boycotting Teslas? It will enrage Musk, and he would encourage his many followers to buy Teslas. Then he would accuse Dems of politicizing customer choice. Musk, like Trump, has an ego run amok. But I have a suspicion that both men harbor a grudge deep in their subconscious. Why their negativity? Why their willingness to inflict pain on the US? When Trump, then president, went to France to commemorate those who fought against Germany, he pointedly refused to go to the cemetery where WW I soldiers were buried, and he even called the "losers." Could it be that deep down he feels that the US stole victory from Germany? The word "stolen" comes out of his mouth all the time, and so does "retribution." Is it mere happenstance that he has followed Hitler's playbook so closely? Is it mere happenstance that he expresses admiration for our enemies? Could it be that, deep down, Elon Musk holds the US responsible for the dismantling of the apartheid regime in his native S. Africa?
Graham, I honestly think that the mollusk expects everyone to do what he wants or says to do. If my company did not want to advertise on his stupid X, I wouldn't advertise on it! There are plenty of other places to advertise! He can't control what other companies do and don't do. When he does appeal all the way to the supreme court, I would hope that the justices would have enough sense to tell him, no, advertisers do not have to do what you say.
Peggy, one would hope the SC would rule against Musk, but alas, one cannot count on that with the corruption that exists among the 6 at present. Several of them are obsessed with money and I have no doubt Musk could provide them (if he hasn't already) with plenty of it.
A capitalist system that allows a person to get this wealthy, coupled with a political system that has such ineffecutal campaign finance and other laws- as provided by SCOTUS, will be hard pressed to function and augurs ill.
Perhaps America is just in a passing phase and there will be a reemergenc of progressevism as the US experienced in the 30's with a depression and the on-coming threat of war with Germany. Climate change might be our Hitler challenge. In the 30's SCOTUS was not always agreeable to what Rooselvelt wanted. Wiki "During the 1932 to 1937 Supreme Court terms, Stone and his colleagues Justices Brandeis and Cardozo were considered the Three Musketeers of the Supreme Court, its liberal or Democratic-aligned faction. The three were highly supportive of President Roosevelt's New Deal agenda, which many other Supreme Court Justices opposed. During the 1932 to 1937 Supreme Court terms, Stone and his colleagues Justices Brandeis and Cardozo were considered the Three Musketeers of the Supreme Court, its liberal or Democratic-aligned faction. The three were highly supportive of President Roosevelt's New Deal agenda, which many other Supreme Court Justices opposed. "
Graham, what a lot of gobbledygook! It is true the law can be manipulated because there are loopholes, but that does not mean someone who has sabotaged our elections is not a criminal and should not be held accountable. He should be arrested and charged with the crime. I am sure he can employ scads of lawyers who will manipulate the law as Trum's legal team has, but that will take time. I bet there are American and UK lawyers who would defend corporations against Musk pro bono if they realized the child-man has sights on all of us and would take over as much of the world's commerce as he could. We do not have to permit his toddleresque behavior. There are means if we had sufficient courage to step up. Maybe even bring down X so Musk won't have such an easy way to manipulate the law and the people. Maybe the world court needs to get involved too since Musk is using war language and causing problems that are turning into violence.
Graham, it seems our courts need to dismiss his SLAPP suits and realize that boycotts are legal while sabotaging our elections is not. That is another reason why we should have a huge billionaire tax. We do not need anyone who thinks he is above the law and throws bits of his fortune around to cause trouble for anyone who gets in his way. He is a disgusting child-man who never had to grow up. Now, we need to be the adults in the room and stop his bad behavior, all hands on deck!!
Yeah, he's going nowhere with that. Companies (and people) have a right to freedom of speech - which includes not supporting or spending money on something or someone they don't want to. He's just blowing out his butt.
And the "poorly educated" that Trump loves (NOT) can't see that those tax breaks and policies Trump secured for billionaires are permanent for those billionaires, but for them temporary if they even get them. They're too blind to see that comment was not a compliment but appreciation for how blindly loyal they are to their own economic demise.
Well, his political decendants were. Citizens United was/is a coalition of right-wing politicos and fundamentalist religious types, who created this corporation or whatever specifically for the purpose of getting the Clintons. The actual SCOTUS decision was about a horrible "documentary" they made about Hillary.
Yes! Thank you. Reagan was also the one that corrupted news media by allowing their management to impose restrictions on what journalists--who used to be heroes--could say based on what high-paying advertisers wanted. It used to be that journalists told Americans the truth, wherever the chips fell. Today, they toe the corporate line and we get lies and foul distortions pretty much exclusively. Today, the mainstream media has been done away with, based on what Reagan smashed (integrity of the fourth estate). Today, the NYT, the WaPo, even NPR, are the top of the MAGA media. They are no longer the mainstream media. We need to stop using that term, and probably to stop reading them altogethere. Even Fox News reports one or two things a week with integrity and truth. The NYT, the WaPo, etc, do very few. They are reaching Fox's "standard," more and more every day. Don't read them. Don't subsribe. Read Reich and Hubbell and Richardson instead. Read The Guardian.
I was in my mid-twenties back when he came into power and I voted for Mondale/Ferraro... I was so devastated when Reagan won. It's been a downward spiral ever since. Reagan and his cronies are responsible for where we are now. But the energy of Harris/Walz is similar to Mondale and Ferraro and that gives me hope.
Reagan deregulated the Stock Market and stopped enforcing the anti trust laws. The idea was to destroy the New Deal regulations on business. by allowing people to buy stocks on margin in just seven years the US had its first huge stock crash in 1987. I watched it in our newsroom a few weeks after writing a story on the history of the stock market and what first time investors should watch out for.
I was so devastated when Reagan was re-elected in 1984, that I lowered my flag to half staff as a sign of mourning. Economist Paul Krugman calls trickle down economics a "zombie idea" meaning the debunked idea just won't die, probably because it continually gets trotted out by some lying Republican politicians. Stuart Stevens said everything the Republicans have said is a lie. As a former Republican operative, he should know.
He also removed the solar panels Jimmy Carter put on the Whitehouse early in his term. We could have moved toward alternate fuels and weakened the oil and gas lobbies stranglehold a long time ago.
“In 1964, Reagan gave a speech for presidential contender Barry Goldwater[93] that was eventually referred to as "A Time for Choosing".[94] Reagan argued that the Founding Fathers "knew that governments don't control things. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose".” - wiki
René Girard’s mimetic theory posited that for “a government” to achieve control, a scapegoat must be identified and believed in by the people. When the scapegoat is killed, peace will ensue until control is lost again and another scapegoat must be found. To escape this cycle a desire for peace must *somehow* be found which does not require a scapegoat. Today’s extreme right believes that the only way to escape the mimetic cycle is through Religion. - wiki and Jim Stewartson ‘Catholic Coup: J. D. Vance…’ Substack
Russ, that's so telling. Scapegoating is what the MAGA people are doing now to Harris and Walz. They are "super-liberals" (untrue), responsible for evil immigrants, dead babies, and drugs (untrue). It's so untrue it's ridiculous, but people are swallowing these lies whole. I am scared to death that Democratic messaging is not up to par, to combat their horrific messaging genius. It's no longer about analysis, about issues, sadly. It's about the message. The social media intuition that people derive from their daily social media fixes. We have to attack them. We have to counter their messages. We can not rely on our positions on the issues. I hope Harris-Walz are up to it. It's an unpleasant reality of the 21st century.
Russ, thank you for your important comment. It suggests that Vance's conversion to Catholicism on the eve of the 2020 election was based on ideology rather than plain opportunism. It is an ideology that holds most people incapable of self government. Vance's Catholicism seems to be that of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. Since religion no loonger is a private matter, we, and the media especially, have a duty to question Vance's religious beliefs. First question: does he agree with Pope Francis that climate change is real, and that the wealthy have a moral duty to protect the poor?
Rotten Ronnie Reagan also gets the blame for the homeless situation in this country. By closing down many mental hospitals, there’s no place for people with mental illness to go for treatment and care. So they are on the streets of our cities with a few options, except homeless shelters, soup kitchens and the kindness of strangers. With the exception of the above named resources, How dare anybody call America a Christian country?
Yes, because in practice "misinformation" means "information that contradicts the official narrative". If actual lies were a crime, Reich would be in jail.
How dare Musk uses his wealth to destroy our democracy and civil society.
Musk is clearly abusing consumers and technology. He has taken technology to new lows while dumping massive pollution into the air.
We MUST boycott the companies that advertise on X, and let the companies know "I am boycotting your product because you advertise on X."
Musk doesn't make any real money from you and I. He makes money from corporate advertising on X.
"Consumers vote with their pocketbooks everyday."
Also, Musk's rockets need to be taxed on dumping carbon into the atmosphere. The US Government must stop outsourcing services to Musk. It's not worth it.
Lastly, Tesla must be boycotted too.
Musk's $45 million to Trump a month* is much more money than half a million people gave to Harris when she chose Walz. In other words, Musk is far more powerful than ALL of the new Harris/Walz supporters. Let that sink in. Society and the tax code have created a monster, a sociopathic Frankenstein. Society must pull the plug on the growing monster that threatens our civil society and democracy.
And his truck/car thing is monstrous: it doesn’t even look like it could have passed safety regs for encounters with pedestrians or other cars. It looks like some kind of intimidating tank.
Hope those advertisers counter-sue Musk for everything he’s got. He may have transformed several key industries in one short lifetime, but he’s fucked up X by making it a hot bed of racism and white supremacy and has made his wealth at the expense of our democracy. Accumulating massive wealth, while many starve, is not a badge of anything except greed and supreme narcissism.
The problem with suing the obscenely wealthy Is the length of the process necessary to do it. These monsters can buy their way out of any indictments or accusations by hiring greedy, scumbag, lawyers. Which leads to the notion that these monsters power is enhanced by the immoral people they choose to serve them.
They use delay tactics and appear to be “getting away with it”. But look at the My Pillow Guy, Alex Jones, Rudy Giuliani, and all of Trump‘s acolytes who have been jailed. Not to mention Trump’s convictions, which many of us thought would never happen. Now it remains to be seen if he’ll ever do jail time.
This stuff has been done to you exclusively by Republicans since before Reagan and it took a couple certifiable psychopaths and a few of the power elite (Thomas, Alito, that douchebag Governor in Fla, Cruz, et al) rubbing your noses in it 'cause they know they've now got you by the short hairs, to get your attention?
"How dare he?"
Is that all you can muster?
Who's out there on their horse, warning your populace, "The billionaires are coming!"?
The British were pussies compared to what this represents.
I truly hope Kamala can start the process to save your asses, (mine too, because this crap is mutating it's way across the whole damned planet), and the water's swirling pretty fast, and two terms ain't gonna fix it.
This content is the scariest I’ve read over the last year. It truly feels we most likely will loose our democracy for good to these wealthy sociopaths.
Yes, for sure oil runs the modern world, although some countries have managed to move themselves further away than others. If America had managed to stop subsidising fossils and fracking 30 years ago, and ploughed the same investment into solar, wind and hydro, then by now fossils would be where they belong - in history.
But that aside, the one thing I get from my brief forays into this blog is how hopeless everyone seems. Everyone is whingeing about everything, but I see very, very few solutions or proposals. It's like everyone is zombied-out on antidepressants!
As Henry Ford reportedly said, "If you think you can do something, or you think you can't, you are probably right".
If Henry Ford is correct, then as you say, you guys can't do anything.
Boycotts are a proven tactic to fight powerful corporations that have harmful practices. Boycotts have proven to be effective to achieve social justice. The boycott of Shell was very effective to stop apartheid in South Africa.
Besides, Musk would like nothing more than for a million progressives who mock him to get off his platform. He probably hates progressives posting memes that make fun of his ego and cars. Do you really think he cares if you and I stop using X?
One million people can stop using X and he can replace us with fake accounts made at a server farm in India. However, X will notice one company that stops buying a million dollars of ads due to a boycott. Boycotts work.
I’ve never been a Twitter/X user. I think those platforms are destructive and counterproductive to effective communications. Can you tell us where we can find a list of the corporations advertising on X?
Sorry Az but Musk made his money though being subsidized by exclusive contracts for billions of dollars from the government. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12. We need to reform that so that these contracts are not so exclusive to allow for this type of wealth and power to be achieved by a singular party, resulting in the loss of competition in the market place. I would never own a Tesla and am happy to see other manufacturers producing ecological alternatives to fossil fuel vehicles. Next we need to do something about his power with SpaceX and his control over global communication through satellite communication capabilities. I am not smart enough to know how to accomplish this, but smart enough to know this is for the common good of humanity.
His self-driving cars have killed people. He is breaking laws. Just wait and see. He's the first person to lose 200 billion. And Biden made US jobs. That money went to US workers. Blaming Biden is as goofy as blaming you for the deaths caused by Musk's self driving cars.
By the way Az, we in the pro-democratic USA are painfully aware of our inadequacies, and particularly of how our current governing system has grown into a bizarre, mutated version of the republic imagined by our Founders. It is not extremely helpful for others to tear it apart as we already do that endlessly. We are acutely aware that our cherished Constitution has embarrassingly crumbled in a single generation. Yet, this country has always returned to fighting for justice and equality despite huge, historical and self-acknowledged failures in this regard. We are in the midst of another such failure and it is equally embarrassing. If you wish to offer criticism or advice, kindly do so with the respect that we still deserve, or do not do so at all.
He’s destructive on a huge scale and you’re right doesn’t care about much but himself . He , however by his outrageous behaviors has made himself a target and he cherishes the chaos he creates ( another power addiction)
Sorry , he’s turned X into 24/7 hate mail arrangement.
Creating fake videos of Kamala Harris is a fraud on the voting public which must be exposed. Musk deserves to be vilified for it as well as for the other lies made in obvious conspiracy with a cult-driven coup. Success at capitalism does not give billionaires a pass to undermine our democratically-elected government. So, Elon, to you this means, FUCK OFF, we are bringing you and your kind down.
Az, thank you for your honesty. Yes, Musk's achievements are worthy of admiration, but his ego implosion is pathetic and malicious. Your hero-warship is definitly undemocratic.
Az, What you just wrote would get a D in high school English class. I'm impressed that you know what Musk thinks. Who needs English skills when you can think like a bro.
Old sayings: facts are sacred, opinion is free. Or: all the news that is fit to print. The papers in the U.S. lived by it: and when needed, there was I.F. Stone, to expose the lie.
Sooner than later, with class action, there will be a consortium of law firms who will coordinate “the largest and most far reaching class action suit ever filed” with millions of American plaintiffs against Musk and those who generate misleading and harmful information. I hope this fantasy becomes a reality. How many of us suffer Trump daily? This vote is another after shock.
And by the time the litigation is done, the coming "extinction event" will be immanent and Elon will have skipped bail for Mars. No passport needed. He'll be leaving from his private launch pad. No extradition treaty issues as he'll be the defacto "owner" of Mars. And they won't be able to shoot him down. He'll either have promised seats on the flight with the "right people" or he'll have disabled the necessary targeting systems,and so on and so on.
Chris, if he has to face a massive amount of lawsuits, if advertisers quit advertising and people got off of X, his money would not last. It would be like turning on a spigot and all that money would flow right out.
That’s quite a combination - is there any likelihood of any of that happening?
Advertisers would leave X *if* people deplatform from it. But he feeds red meat to a lot of rightwingers on X. How many ppl need to leave for it to stop attracting advertisers?
He will make someone just angry enough and he will no longer be a problem. But in the meantime stop giving him attention, get off X and get out the vote! That's our priority right now.
Limits? Where've you been? Not anymore. The GOP started "fixing your laws" the day FDR died. With a few bumps to be smoothed out along the way, the Kennedy's, Johnson, MLK, and a few other do-gooders that popped up, it looks like they may have it licked, once-and-for-all!
A government that actually represents and protects its citizens! You are so fortunate to live in a nation of intelligent and capable individuals. I pray that you can stay isolated from the disease of greed that has become pandemic in our world.
Musk is a King in the land of the Shopping Center Poltics’s of The USA.
Musks money allows Him to impose his will on lowly citizens thru the power of the political dollar . After all the Supreme Court’s Long ago bought opinion of a A old version of CROOKS-IN-CLOAKS . Gave Companies the same Rights as real Citizens…
Musk is Just Buying His Way Through Our porous Political System to assume his “rightful “ (purchased) place as a Person Of Money our specter of Power
Hardly: xenophobic Wilders got 25% of the vote. The migrants will notice that and the general atmosphere in the country deteriorates. But agreed with the greed problem...
America, on the bleeding age of capitalism. We be economically innovative, regardless the cost to people, especially the disadvantaged. We brought the world to a great recession because of unconstrained greed connected to mortgages. We're like this elephant rampaging through villages with the mahout hanging on for dear life. If there is a mahout.
Too late! The disease is spreading faster than any virus we've ever experienced.
If the US sucumbs, which is still looking inevitable, the majority of the world's population is doomed, to permanent serfdom, or, a total reset, as this unsustainable socio-economic model collapses. Either way, they'll be singing about, "What a long dystopian trip it's been." Apologies to Grateful Dead fans.
Freedom of speech is important. But defending freedom of speech should also include mechanisms of limiting the power to amplify speech. Our attention is limited. Amplifying some speech means censoring other speech. This seems not widely understood. It's complicated.
Yes, it is not easy; that is why I mentioned it. Garton Ash wrote a book about it, "Free Speech, hundreds of pages. But in the legislation of ours is an article that implies that you should behave like a good citizen, that is no libel, no false information knowingly.
Yes, a virtual marketplace is okay, but some rules and order are missing.
I am wondering: Could one make a marketplace of news work that uses market forces to regulate itself? For one thing, one would need to make sure that there is no one news outlet with outsized power. Taxing the big players so that being big becomes a competitive disadvantage could help here. Bigness is often defended by pointing towards network effects (economies of scale) that profit everybody. But if we created an efficient market in which news providers are interoperable and news consumers can choose their own amplification and aggregation algorithms this might incentivize a lot of innovation that could potentially help solving the problem.
Problem is: what is the problem? I think the influnce of big money. How to solve that? With taxes? The big ones find loopholes.
Censorship? No, I don't believe in a "Ministry of Truth", that was painted by George Orwell many years ago.
Could we make a journalistic product of total freedom? An X without a toxic owner like Musk?
I mentioned I.F. Stone; he was so frustrated with all the lying in his career as a journalist that he began for himself: I.F. Stone's weekly, later bi-weekly.
Leading principle: everyone lies, so I compare what they tell me and expose the lies. You could make a paper like this again for little money. Only some writers with integrity and competence should be found.
That is the biggest condition: get some competence, pay for the job. The circulation of this paper must improve quality.
Yes, agreed, but I suggest we try a paper with quality not determined by money. I think Izzy Stone did that. Closing loopholes for big money takes a decade or two. But making a paper with some criticical journalists could start right now. Robert Reich could help
Susskind "The Digital Republic" gives a systematic layout of the issues and some recommendations. Alot of the discussion revolves what constraints are appropriate according the characteristics of the media souce. Good book. Not a fluffy read.
When a boycott of X advertisers picks up stream, X will sink like the Titanic. He's already lost $200 Billion by advertisers leaving X. Imagine another $200 Billion or more from a boycott.
X is only profitable because corporations pay to advertise. Consumers have more than enough reason to boycott any and every company that supports X. In fact, a boycott is patriotic.
He doesn't care! He is brilliant. He's got the space program in his pocket. He knows he's got more money than God. He's got more profitable ideas than Harvard & Yale combined in his pocket. This is all one big sociopath's joke on the world. I also think you know that.
Trump is the corrupt one. We now have a convicted felon running for the highest office in the country! He has managed to have a lot of influence on our Supreme Court. The Supreme Court should be renamed "trump court"! Just the fact that they gave a president "immunity to actions committed while in office" should tell everyone that they are in trump's corner. We can only keep the blue vote going so trump never has the ability to use that immunity!
Problem is: the nausea seeing clips of these man does not help.
So I suggested a small trial to improve the exchange of public facts, without making revolution: Izzy Stones weekly. The enterprises of Robert Reich are a beginning.
Here in the US , individual speach is protected against almost any legal challenge . Not however news organizations or corporations who can and are sued / Fox News lost 700 million dollars for just that falsely spreading misinformation against Dominion voting systems.
If an individual says something that they can proven to cause. harm / they can sue the offending individual or corporation but that’s expensive and is rarely done.
A new moniker with a catchy tune for Team Trump's PR division: X, Fox & the Heritage Foundation - They're the "Truth-busters."
"If there's something weird and it don't look good; What are you gonna call 'em? Truth-Busters !!!
I wonder if they contributed to his off-the wall crazy press conference this afternoon? It seemed like one of his rally speeches and was almost as long (almost 90 minutes).
Karl was not a softy; he could use invectives and rip his opponents to pieces. I think some civility is helpfull, but if you think that is authoritarian thinking, be my guest
Hoi Nederlander hier living in the US. I know in the Netherlands there are more laws around it, but I know that plenty of people are still able to spread disinformation and lies. In fact one of my family members has gone bonkers, van het patje af. He has a complete following, speaks at conventions, writes books etc. And he’s not being stopped there either unfortunately…
Ha Iris, may be you have to positive memories of this country. Our parlement is full of people thar are bonkers. But the idiotic things that are normal in rhe Republican Party....
Someone said their were no military lossen during Biden. Then mr. Johnson mentioned 18 names, rhetorical misuse I think of childisch or crazy political tensions.
The republicans are horrid. A mix of malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths and their dumb manipulated followers.
I don’t have very good memories of the Netherlands. I left 16 years ago because in my opinion it was already going downhill, had been for at least 10 years already at the time. In fact, a bunch of Dutch people remind me of the republicans here, racist and bigoted, screaming bloody murder because they want to keep zwarte piet. It actually makes sense that they have similarities because in the 1800 when the puritans moved from England to the US to breed wypipo, a bunch of puritans also moved to the Netherlands. They wanted stricter religious rules and wanted to have the liberty to make life more miserable for everyone in order to wash everyone from sin (doe maar normaal, das al gek genoeg. Vooral het hoofd niet boven het maaiveld uit steken). The conservatives are getting louder in the Netherlands as well and the capitalists took opportunity to side with them in order to force less rules so they can extort more people. I don’t understand why the Netherlands agrees to become more capitalist, capitalism clearly doesn’t work, the US has proven this, and is still proving it over and over…
There are laws on the books that limit hate speech, particularly threatening speech (written or oral). Sadly, too many of the people charged with enforcing our laws are MAGAts and biased in when, or who, they prosecute.
I disagree to a point. I don’t pay him anything. I still find it a good source for news. It all depends on how you curate your feed. Mine is 95% news agencies.
If you use it you are giving him your most valuable commodity these days - your attention. He's profiting. Try Groundnews it's so insightful! It is like concordance for the same stories told by different affiliations.
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
No one who conducts Genocide should be allowed to rule a country. Adios Putin.
We are onto you phuckwit. Putin's tolls have a handbook and know the words that trigger liberals, like genocide,imperialism, colonialism, neo liberal, neo colonial, so they sprinkle them liberally in their cg\harges, knowing and expecting that they will attract some half wits dominated by their emotions.
Caitlian Johnstone is a Russian asset. She earns $6,000 a month from an unspecified source, and has had dozens of articles published in Russia Today, Putin's propaganda organ.
Even though I was never active, I quit Twitter when he bought it. As much as possible, I boycott anti-democratic and anti-human rights companies. Every thinking person should, to the extent that they can. Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-A, Koch Industries products, etc…
My kids make fun of me as I refuse to buy on Amazon. I never liked the business model despite it being convenient. Years ago, I ordered something that took a long time to be delivered. In the package, there was a handwritten message from someone in the factory in China begging me to like the product so they would get more orders.
The sense of exploitation was palpable, so I canceled my account and now find most everything I need locally.
It's not always easy. I was repairing a kitchen appliance and needed two small parts so I drove to Home Depot. The salesperson looked at me like I was crazy, shrugged, and said: we don't stock stuff like that. You get it on Amazon.
Happily, I found #Ace Hardware, and they even showed me how to repair what needed repairing.
This. I end up on Amazon because my local stores almost never have the thing or part I need in stock. They'll tell me they can order it but so can I, and I often can get it shipped to my door within days for free when I do. People often choose Amazon for the price, but my experience is usually that they're one of the few stores stocking what I need.
Another option is to find it on Amazon, then order it directly from the third party who's using Amazon as a storefront. It sends money directly into the pocket of the small business, often for less because they don't have to kick up a slice to Bezos.
that's the problem. Eventually Amazon will drive out those local and other businesses that carry those small parts. There will be less and less choice. You will have to go to Amazon more and more.
I was surprised the first time a salesperson at #Lowe’s suggested she order something that was out of stock for me. She did, it was less expensive than originally announced in store and I picked it up the next day. Home Depot has never done that so now I go to Lowe’s. Simple. I think it’s called customer service.
Yes! Shopping locally is the answer to all of these huge corporations and the richy rich who own them! Aldi's, Ollie's, Thrift stores, Vegetable and Produce stands, Farmers' Markets, and Mom and Pop stores.
I live in a remote part of the country, at least 100 miles from decent stores. Due to necessity we order on line, not much choice. Amazon has totally gone down hill!
Ditto! Lately, I have tried ordering from Walmart first before going to Amazon. Usually quicker, better service, at a lower price! Target does a better job too! I try to shop locally, but its hard to find a lot of stuff. People who don't live in rural areas don't understand.
I get it. Door-to-door service by Amazon can be amazing and even more so if you don't have easy access to shops. For me, it was when Bezos bought The Washington Post and Whole Foods. I know that there is no more privacy yet the idea that Bezos' company knew what I read, ate, watched, and then started directing my interests (you read/watched XYZ s we thought you'd like ABC) freaked me out. So I did what I could control; think global, act local.
I use a browser guard to block tracking software spying on my browsing activities. Walmart has 9 trackers monitoring you. Amazon has 7 trackers. Reich's Substack website has 0! Good for him!
It doesn't take telepathy to recognize a conman and crook, or the gullibility of someone who falls for such. But such gullibility remains a mystery to the many who recognize the obvious.
But the “gain” is often that of senior management who ate overly compensated with incentive stock options…which emphasize short term decisions to the detriment of long term goals.
So I would say “no” in most cases. Want better decisions? Put members if labor on the board in balance and eliminate stock option awards. Only then will rationality return to boards dominated by psychopathic urges for wealth and fame!
Well, you said you were wondering, so I told you. You can’t defend Musk’s actions by saying people who work for him are “just doing their jobs.” Blind obedience like that is how the Third Reich got people to do unthinkable things. You know this, we all know this.
With the ties it seems SpaceX has to NASA this may be tricky but can we encourage the forthcoming Harris administration to decouple that? Is there government investment in Tesla for a fleet? Are there government research grants for any of his endeavors we can pressure to end or not be renewed? Obviously we need to end the ridiculous tax breaks billionaires get since those are why he’s giving so much to Trump, but what about his business contracts outside the US with foreign governments? This could be a diplomatic priority if they exist.
Who do you think was behind funding those original 1960s Bond movies which succeeded in creating a global narrative that romanticized /normalised a rapist with a state license to murder ?
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
So since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
And you're a pathetic insignificant tool of a fucking Fascist Corporate State who worships a Moron like Himself!
Exposing The Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissist As A Moron
A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency with Donald Trump's
Recently the media focus has been on the 'age issue' and the question of the mental competency of an octogenarian during President Biden's second term. So let's compare his mental competency with Donald Trump's starting with his most recent gaffow followed by a list of what he said and his cabinet members said about him during his first term. (A short list of my faves:)
Did Biden call Nancy Pelosi Nicky Haley when recently talking about the 1-6-21 assault on the capital?
Did he claim the ability to properly identify a giraffe in a multiple choice of three animals, proved he was a "real stable genius"?
Did his former college professor call him the "dumbest f--king student I ever had"?
Did Biden suggest we could build a wall with transparent concrete?
Did he ever say to the camera he wished his wife were present with him while she was literally standing next to him looking confused?
Did his own sibling say in a recorded interview that he paid someone to take the SAT for him because he was too stupid to get into college on his own?
Did Biden think people needed photo IDs to buy groceries?
Did Biden say Paris was a city in Germany?
Did he misspell basic words in dozens of different tweets only to "correct" them by misspelling them a different way?
Did he suggest injecting disinfectants into our bloodstream to kill COVID?
Did he say he didn't know what a blind trust is, despite having a "degree" in Finance?
Did he bankrupt every business he tried starting on his own, including a Casino?
Was Biden the first President in history to utter the sentence, "Belgium is a beautiful city"?
Did Biden ever say our captured prisoners of war are only heroes because they were captured?
Did he have more than a dozen of his hand picked cabinet members resign because they couldn't work with his incompetence?
Did his own Chief of Staff call him an "idiot"?
Did a Senator from his own party say, "The White House has become an adult day care center”?
Did his own Secretary of State say he was a "fucking moron"?
Did his own economic advisor say he was "dumb as shit...an idiot surrounded by clowns"?
Did his National Security Advisor say he was "a dope...an idiot [with the intelligence of] a kindergartner”?
I saved the above collection of quotes that was originally posted on a Facebook page dedicated to insuring Joe Biden's second term last year. That was before that Republican special prosecutor in his VP document's case harped on the age issue and Joe's forgetfulness of details when the guy interviewed him. I was going to submit the above to the Daily Kos before reading the two following articles updating Trump's mental problems amidst the failure of a media focus on the orange moron at the president's expense while he's trying to run this country as the GOP is fixed on trying to tear it apart.
On 2-26-24 I read their lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia, cataloging his further mental decline. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a new site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Trump has obviously been both a low IQ moron and a fascist all his life, his first attorney was Roy Cohn Christ's sake. For here's precisely how he became the Perfect GOP Candidate: A supreme Narcissist who first builds Hotels with his last Name plastered all over the top of each with a Will To Power Fixation that drives him to become a TV Star where the whole game was to have the contestants kiss his ass to see who was His most 'competent' Apprentice, Firing all the Losers before finally picking the Winner, Like Me. Which sets him up to run for President, Wrapping Himself In MAGA Flag to Beat all those Loser Politicians in the Primary and Lock Her Up Hillary in the 2016 Electoral College. Rejoice, rejoice an absolute field day for all the fascists, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, plutocrat billionaires, corporatists, corporate media, atheists, evangelical preachers and six Supreme Court Justices all Backing a Moronic and now progressively Demented Fuhrer for the MAGA Masses Who Worship Him Like A God, Further Feeding Its Insatiable Sociopathic Narcissism!!!
Turns out I also hadn't read the whole issue with A.J. Pennyfarthing's 10 stunning moments from Trump's late-night speech to religious broadcasters. You ain't going to be changing any preacher's or MAGA's minds about how unhinged DT is with any raft of articles cause that is the Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron's Lowest Common Denominator Appeal To The Wrap Yourself In MAGA Flag And $60 Bible Masses!
So since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
Election interference is a federal crime. Musk should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. In a just world, he would be stripped of all his assets and the funds donated to the Harris/Walz campaign.
Isnt the problem that election interference is hard to distinguish from legitimate participation? Couldnt one use a marginal tax rate of 100% to make sure that no unelected (human or legal) person can have outsized influence on politics?
In some cases, I'm sure it might be difficult, but, in this case, Musk is deliberately spreading disinformation to interfere with an election. I'm sure the courts would also take into account the fact that Musk is making huge donations to the Trump campaign.
I don't know enough about marginal tax rates to comment on that.
The idea is simply to use tax to limit the amount of power (=wealth) that any one organization can have. Btw, there is an interesting book by Ingrid Robeyns, Limitarianism, also available as an audiobook ... https://www.uu.nl/staff/IAMRobeyns. In fact, I just saw that there is a volume with essays on the topic free to download https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0338
Within any extremism, the spectrum meets at each end. The difference between Fascism and Communism is the extent to which they want to rule the world (communism) or their own country (nationalism). For my part, anything ending in -ism is worth shying away from.
Elon Musk is a symptom of many issues, such as the excessive and out-of-control wealthy 1% in American politics, media and corruption of justice.
I posted this content elsewhere, but it makes several very relevant points. Biden can act right now to help stop Musk and his ilk - see Point 3 below.
"Here are three ideas for what Biden could announce now, to start immediately before he leaves office in 4 months time.
Firstly.....
A statement by Biden that the public was losing faith in the judicial system and that concerns about bias, influence and even corruption must be resolved. That the entire legal system relies on the impartiality and honesty of judges, and America deserved to know that the legal system was as trustworthy as it was possible to make it. And that no-one, not even the judges, not even high court or Supreme Court judges, were above the law of the land.
So to find a solution, Biden announces a Presidential enquiry into the possible corruption of Court judges, at every level, from the lowest local criminal courts to the Supreme Court. Biden can set the terms of the enquiry, such as to examine all allegations of corruption over the last 10 years, to set up a hotline number for such allegations from lawyers or other judges, to examine all bank accounts and financial records. Where unexplained payments of benefits-in-kind appear to have been received, to then examine the court cases at that time for any indications of a miscarriage of justice or influence on sentencing.
Obviously a lot of corrupt judges would be terrified. However, Biden could also announce an amnesty for, say, 60 days, so that any judge could make a full statement to the enquiry, including names, details of payments and payers, and then take immediate retirement. Unless it was later shown that the statement was false in any relevant detail, then the corrupt judge could enjoy a peaceful retirement.
I suspect that hundreds of judges would step aside for fear of future prosecution and disgrace, which in itself would make it obvious how corrupted the current system had become. It would also be more obvious in future when a judge was corrupt, and much easier to investigate and prosecute. It would be a valuable service to the country, and a good note for Biden to leave office.
Secondly, President Biden could announce a revue of the fractured and labyrinthine security services in the USA. He can say that the attempt on Trump's life showed yet again how having so many separate branches of security with different agendas and different management that didn't fully communicate with each other, left dangerous gaps that could be exploited by anyone from a lone 20-year-old gunman to a terrorist organisation or foreign power. Biden can say, as one ex-president to another, we both need to make sure future presidents are safe.
Obviously such a revue might include the security lapses for the apparent attack on Trump (i.e. find out the truth!), but also the real possibility that individuals in the Secret Service or local police were somehow involved, either in an attempted assassination, or in a fake attack.
But it might also go into how the political affiliations of security service personnel and management might affect future political campaigns and national security in American elections. In short, a full enquiry into both Trump's supposed assassination attempt, and into MAGA members of the security services and how that might affect national security.
The third enquiry would be into the role of media and social media in American society, and the boundaries of freedom of speech compared to promoting outright falsehoods and lies. Biden can say that the rapid advances of AI now make it essential that if controls or rules are needed, that American society must act before more damage can be done. Biden can point to new regulations of AI already introduced in Europe, and whether America needs similar public protections.
All three of these enquiries are important, legitimate and would scare the shit out of Trump and his cronies. Obviously these enquiries might run for years, but they would also send a clear message right now that the current Republican path of Trump towards corruption and dictatorship would be confronted and attacked by those that still believed in a democracy ruled by law and honesty."
Az, Considering my initial (unposted) reply to Reich’s question “What’s the next step?” was “Beats me,” I do hope Reich responds to your seemingly promising proposals.
All of your suggestions sound helpful but #1 sounds particularly promising. It will make an immediate effect on those judges, with immediate and stunning results that Americans can see and understand, while ensuring a long-term effect during the prosecution process.
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
How does a country allow one person with evil intentions to influence a large portion of our society? Elon Musk is working with Trump and other oligarchs to overthrow our democracy! Congress, who can stop this madness, continues to ignore it! The majority of Americans aren’t paying attention to it and I’m afraid that by the time they do it will be too late!
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
Musk, as I understand his actions, posted that a civil war in the UK is "inevitable" on X. To my mind, the UK government should sue both Musk and X for substantial damages. His actions are like yelling "fire" in a packed movie theatre. The law of libel--ruthlessly used--will tame him. He values only money. In this, he is like tRump. Take his money away and we will deflate him. A fine of $ 10 billion or so may improve his demeanor. Close X--an administrative action governments can take--and you will deprive Musk of his megaphone.
So England should do something about his BS. Wouldn't Parliament there have the authority to shut X down for creating instability within their country?
How about the UK deal with its own structural problems that make civil war inevitable, rather than trying to prosecute those who point out the problem?
Professor Reich: not only should elon musk be put out of business, but his assets should be stripped (most of them came from US taxpayers anyway) and he should be deported back to south africa, where he will, no doubt, find plenty of racist allies.
That's truly stupid. You argue one day about the law and rights, and the next day you demand to ignore the legal system, due process, freedom of speech, or the entire American system of business and commerce, so you can do what YOU want with the wealth that Musk has created.
One reason left-wing parties everywhere become despised is when they start to rant about confiscating the wealth of anyone they deem 'too rich' or 'too successful', as defined by people who have no talent!
If you want to stop Musk interfering in American politics, then democratically pass the laws that stop rich donors contributing to politicians and political parties, like most other sane democratic countries have done.
If you want Musk and the rest of the 1% to contribute more to society, then democratically pass laws that tax their income, their wealth and their legacies, like most other sane democratic countries have done.
If you think that Musk's companies should be taken from him, then pass the laws that allow the State to nationalise critical industries, as many other countries have tried over the decades, and discover for yourselves that those State-run companies become bloated and stale and either fail, or get sold off for peanuts in a privatisation.
Musk is a phenomenon, both good and bad. It is not his fault if your country had created a system without controls, checks and balances, and not just for someone with his extraordinary talents but for any shyster, huckster or Ponzi scheme 'entrepreneur' looking for a place to do business..
And if you think Musk should abide by some of YOUR imaginary rules, why should he when so very many ordinary Americans don't do so.
I will say this again - around 50% of American voters elected Trump to be President before, and around 50% wanted to elect Trump again last time, and still around 50% of voters polled want to elect Trump again. So around half of Americans want more Trump, more Musk, more of all the lawlessness and lack of sanction or control. They seem to want more AK47s, more racism, more police brutality, fewer rights, more misogyny, less healthcare....... That is the democratic America you live in, and THAT is the problem, and even if Harris/Walz succeed in November, the other 50% will still exist. And so will Musk.
Pessimistically, how can one NOT think that perhaps America has passed a point of no return. That there is no real hope of continual incremental change that will deliver an equitable more democratic society at the end of the road. Perhaps climate change will drive incremental as opposed to abrupt change. I am concerned about SCROTUM rejecting legislation to deal with the climate crisis.
These people know so little outside their field. It used to be, someone like Harlan Stone chief justice 1941-1946 taught physics and chemistry and had a varied professional background. He got a law degree from Columbia. Now SCROTUM justices all went to Harvard or Yale. This lack of educational diversity means the court represents people not so well. When people talk about diversity that does not seem to apply to educational diversity, which is much needed. There are plenty of excellent schools turning out plenty of excellent potential supreme court justices. What we have is a racket going on.
AZ you make valid points, even if difficult to read and face. I have been disturbed by how it has come to be that 50% of US citizens, do indeed support such extremes, like obscene wealth or intensely vulgar personalities for starters. But if I’m honest it comes down to values. This country has decided bit by bit, to hold money as a very high value. By doing so we have sacrificed our environment for it, our personal health for it, both physically and emotionally; we have sacrificed our political system to it now that the ultra rich can so terribly influence elections. It seems to me that until we have a fairly radical change in consciousness and dare to dethrone money, we won’t get out of this destructive rut we’re in. Our values determine, ideally, our choices. When those values change, our choices change. At this point it will take more effort to walk away from some of the convenience and gadgets provided by people like Musk or Bezo’s as those things have woven themselves into the fabric of our daily lives but we need to do it. My personal steps may be small and insignificant but again, bit by bit, as we unify in our decisions against this semi-worshipful attitude toward money and fame and power we stand a chance. We can do it but we need to be conscious and committed and unified. Years ago I read there was once a culture that determined the wealth and power of a man by what he could afford to give away. Now there’s a value worth exploring as an option or alternative.
So much agree with this. It's pure fantasy to think (a) that a boycott or lawsuits or regulations can put a man with that much money out of business (b) that putting him out of business would solve the problem.
It’s high time for federal regulations on mis/disinformation on all social media platforms. People will argue “free speech” but here’s the thing everything needs and should have limits.
When so called “free speech” harms society as a whole then it needs to be reigned in.
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
I would propose a law that punish the ones who are found "guilty" of manipulating people through their platform, spreading misinformation and straight out lies / A law that freezes their assets and put them in a set-aside fund created with the scope of building up the society (infrastructure, schools, hospitals, grants for underprivileged kids to go to college..and so on).
The Monopolies have to be fought against from a Government for the people by the people 's perspective !
... and I am not talking about nationalizations..
That's why is so important not to allow corruption into the Government (like we started to see with our Republican representatives)
If there is NO-ONE to held them accountable then this is what is happening
Once, we were (rightfully) worried about election meddling misinformation generated by a host of international bad actors. Now, “the call is coming from in the house”.
Surely there is some anti-terrorism law, or other similar national security law, under which Musk can be charged, detained and tried, hopefully to receive a lengthy jail term?
This has gone far beyond ordinary civic actions, which are palpably ineffective.
Agreed! Musk has to be stopped! He's ruthless and diabolical and apparently without conscience. I closed my Twitter account as soon as I found out he was taking over. And since then, it's become nothing more than a fascist cesspool and I'm glad I got out! And frankly, even if I could afford to, which I cannot, I would NEVER buy a Tesla just because it ultimately supports him!
And how many of “them” did not” let you “do it”? You just refused to hear their No, no NO, NO NO’s! And F —- Offs along with the fierce pushes and shoves? Can’t and And Won’t be Honest about that and the Numbers of them, eh ! Were wise to your lies buster.
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
In the Netherlands the conscious spreading of disinformation can be prosecuted. Kamala should act, I think, whether it is by activating courts or other means.
I don't understand American Law: why can Trump still say that Biden is corrupt? Freedom of speech is nonsense. He may call him the worst president in history but corruption is criminal behaviour. That needs argumentation and proof.
There was legislation to make this so in England as well. It has to do with requiring everything called news to be accurate and truthful. There could be opinion sections, but news itself is sacrosanct. So can sue against lies.
Boycott. German billionaire owner of the second largest chain of drugstores in Germany, Rossmanns, went public two days ago saying his company would no longer purchase Teslas because Elon Musk is supporting Trump. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/german-drugstore-chain-shuns-teslas-over-musks-support-trump-2024-08-06/#:~:text=FRANKFURT%2C%20Aug%206%20(Reuters),Republican%20presidential%20candidate%20Donald%20Trump.
Boycotting is kind of an ancient way of controlling people who go against the norms of the culture which is called shunning. We have other ways of removing people from society when they are a danger to themselves or others, but it doesn't apply to those who harm society by using their vast wealth to manipulate economies or elections. Criminal law should be society's way of protecting its citizens from bad actors, but we have recently seen money buy the SCOTUS, and Trump has so far evaded consequences for criminal acts, including manipulating the Presidential election by paying off a porn star.
I believe those with what I and others consider to be a hoarding disorder, which is recognized when objects are hoarded to the point of taking over one's life but not the hoarding of money, result from emotional disturbances rooted in childhood. A couple of years ago, I read in the Guardian that Elon's father said he is proud of Elon's brother Kimbol but not of Elon. Could sibling rivalry be the cause of Elon's deviant behavior? Will enough money ever make his father proud of him?
Recently, I watched a video of Timothy Snyder, the author of the book On Tyranny and an Ivy League professor, explaining his theory of "The New Paganism." He said these wealthy people aren't happy and have a new version of burying their wealth to "take it with them."
In any event, in my opinion, Elon's behavior should be viewed as a threat to others, and society needs a way to curb the deviant activity of Elon and other sick, greedy money, hoarding society, and destroying weirdos.
Gloria, I do think that super rich people are addicted to accumulating money and power. They can't stop themselves and truly do need some tough love, the kind used with people who are drug-addicted. As I have mentioned before, money and power addiction is far worse than that of drugs and alcohol because it impacts so many more people. And, in Musk's case, he is trying to manipulate the economy of the world on his own behalf and thinks he can do whatever he wants no matter who is hurt, and people have been hurt because of Musk's actions. He does need to be stopped. I would like to see our DOJ get involved in bring charges against Musk for election sabotage. It would be great if the UK could press charges too. Gigantic fines would be a good start. Arrest would be a good outcome. Maybe through a trial, when people see just what kind of pathetic human being Musk is, his cache would wear off and people would see the truth of what he is doing to harm this nation and others too.
An MIT scientist, referring to the 2008 Wall Street financial meltdown, said that financial gain has the same effect on brain circuitry as cocaine.
That wealth and the relentless accumulation/pursuit of it corrupts brain circuitry is entirely believable. Neuroscientists should take up the challenge of figuring out which specific segments of the brain light up in response to financial themed stimulation. If and when such a test is realized, and the results are recognized as a bona fide mental illness, then it should be legally included in psychological testing protocols And administered to all seeking positions of public and corporate service.
Professor Andrew W. Lo was speaking on an Infinite MIT video in December of 2011 when he made the comments.
I do believe that money/asset hoarding is an illness like addiction or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Society doesn't seem to have a way to deal with the harm until the behavior crosses the line into criminality. Even then, what can be done when they can buy the system? Something about Reich's question this morning caused me to think of Caligula and other rulers who were psychopaths with total power down in the historical past.
Another commenter in this substack recommended Ingrid Robeyns's book Limitarianism, which I look forward to reading. Maybe Robeyns has some answers. I don't know. I checked, and our library has the book.
Musk's wealth is primarily tied up in his stock. Tesla is trading at $195 per share (somewhere around $640 billion net worth for the company now). The actual value of the company is less than $10 per share. Ford is trading at $10 per share.
Telsa doesn't release new models, they've lied about self-driving capabilities since 2017 and charged consumers $100's of millions for something that doesn't exist, they released the worst lemon since the Edsel (the Cyber Truck) and now they're saying that they're going to give up EVs and switch to Hydrogen. How, in the name of all that's holy, can this valuation be legitimate?
This is fraud on multiple levels and when (not if), a lot people lose their life's savings when the stock collapses, his net worth will drop by over 95% as well (unless he can get some of it out ahead of the implosion).
This is a great place to start. His assets are "ephemeral."
The very rich are the tip of the iceberg. It's not just the wealthy or the OCDs. Anyone know any middle class people who aren't scurrying to Amazon.com to buy that particular something they cannot live without? Do you know anyone who knows what they have and where it all is? So many people complain about clutter and needing to weed out their closets. Living in a consumer society is confusing, distracting and ultimately counterproductive.
We thought we had a way. Congress and the courts. Not enough people were aware of their gradual corruption, or weakening, or whatever one wants to call it.In fact, our jornalists were praising American democracy even as it lay dying.
DOJ, is absent! on this, like with the 10 million foreign monies from Egyptian dictator Abd el-Fattah Saeed Hussein Khalil el-Sisi, donated to Trump for his 2020 election, the statute of limitations has expired, mostly in part, due to Merrick Garland sitting on this and not reopening the investigation, so I would ask him? whatever happened to you doing what you say you would do, and that's following the facts wherever they lead, I surmise, that in his pursuit not to appear political, he thereby, by his thus inaction, he became political
It will be very interesting to see who President Harris nominates to be AG. I hope that is a top priority for her because Merrick Garland's decisions as AG for DOJ have been baffling and very disappointing.
Totally right! Did you read the article in NYT's about the Hamptons couple? This is precisely the example you're talking about. How horrible an addiction to greed, and materialism our society suffers! Worse than any other addiction; the 'single earner' luxury lifestyle is DONE. There is no virtue in being rich. As the Buddhists say, The only virtue in having wealth is in the act of giving it away.
Melinda is showing the world her artful giving. How about Blumenthal? Gave away a BILLION. Johns Hopkins is stunned! OMG.
Greed and lust ring bells for TFG and Maga Musk. They can never have enough money or sex.
Regulations and Taxes, both Musk and other uber wealthy like him hate, and why many rich still support Trump, they place a wannabe dictator over our democracy, traitors, all of them!!!
I would be in favor of establishing a Ministry of Truth, but we all know where that leads. There must be a way for communications media such as Twitter-X to be regulated. What we need is a trifecta win in November. Then we can take steps to prevent the kind of professional, for-profit lying that Musk and Murdoch practice.
I totally agree. Unless the FCC and other agencies involved in regulating media and communications are wallowing in Elon Musk’s deep pockets, they should join forces to shut down X/Twitter and other platforms that host disinformation and proponents of political, racist violence under the aegis of ‘free speech’. By the way, I think it’s long past time for constitutional scholars and those with power to enforce it to amend the definition of ‘ free speech’, aligning it with the Hippocratic oath of‘ first to no harm’.
Lysistrata - 411 BCE.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysistrata
A man wrote that. Women are incredibly easy to subjugate. See Roe v Wade.
No amount of money will make daddy proud of little elon, no matter how much money he throws around. He's an evil, useless little brat and there's nothing to be proud of.
Disagree. There is NO solution at this time to the constant lying, hate, and calls to violence from tRump.
Yes, Gloria, and Biden knows what he can and has to do. SCOTUS gave him presumptive immunity. Some may claim innocence by reason of insanity.
I totally agree! I'm sure there are good and legal ways to remove the 'bad actor, shouting 'fire' in a crowded theater.'
I meant that shunning is ancient, but I didn't say it well.
I agree with you, Graham.
Graham, the act is ancient, the name isn't.
Daniel, that is a good start, but it doesn't even touch Musk. He will just take his cut off the top and leave the company and its workers stranded. There needs to be a better plan to accompany the boycott. I think Musk would be happy to become dictator of the world. I bet he has read all those comics with the villains that have the goal of taking over the world. As a child-man, I can see, or rather imagine, the power signs in his eyes. The point is, what is a legal way we can put him out of our hair and the hair of other nations that are suffering from his hatred, lying, cheating, and blackmail? He has been sabotaging our elections and inciting violence in the UK, it seems those are examples of law-breaking and arrests should follow if he, for example, does not take down the posts on X that are criminal acts, say, today. Then, there should be no bail since he could escape without a moment's notice.
The Financial Times podcast just reported that the British USS pension fund is pulling back from Israeli stocks and debt. A Denmark pension fund (they didn’t report the name!) pulled all their Israeli investments.
Many people have investments in their 401k’s and pensions. Do they even know what they are invested in? I know we have so many things taking our energies, but how much more responsibility does each of us have to use our investments for good? I wish it was easier.
Appoint Bernie Sander Senate Majority Leader and William Bill Black Treasury Secretary.
Bernie is in his 80’s!! Find someone younger!
Boycotting Teslas? It will enrage Musk, and he would encourage his many followers to buy Teslas. Then he would accuse Dems of politicizing customer choice. Musk, like Trump, has an ego run amok. But I have a suspicion that both men harbor a grudge deep in their subconscious. Why their negativity? Why their willingness to inflict pain on the US? When Trump, then president, went to France to commemorate those who fought against Germany, he pointedly refused to go to the cemetery where WW I soldiers were buried, and he even called the "losers." Could it be that deep down he feels that the US stole victory from Germany? The word "stolen" comes out of his mouth all the time, and so does "retribution." Is it mere happenstance that he has followed Hitler's playbook so closely? Is it mere happenstance that he expresses admiration for our enemies? Could it be that, deep down, Elon Musk holds the US responsible for the dismantling of the apartheid regime in his native S. Africa?
This is a promising turn! Germany always leads the Fiscal Conditions Globally in the West.
For those on Twitter/X:
“You may want to opt out of replies on X if you’re worried about brand safety. Here’s why.”
https://checkmyads.org/x-twitter-replies-opt-out/
ROSSMANNS understands!
Yes, we should all speak with our wallets, as sometimes that’s the most effective way to be heard.
Exactly. Fight like a girl. Don't buy polluter liar lies, abuse stops when mutual abusers turn and walk the other way
Take the kids
And live a better way.
Dropping abuse and abusers leaves a lot of liars holding their beer ( and whatever)yammering about how " rich" they are
Graham, I honestly think that the mollusk expects everyone to do what he wants or says to do. If my company did not want to advertise on his stupid X, I wouldn't advertise on it! There are plenty of other places to advertise! He can't control what other companies do and don't do. When he does appeal all the way to the supreme court, I would hope that the justices would have enough sense to tell him, no, advertisers do not have to do what you say.
Peggy, one would hope the SC would rule against Musk, but alas, one cannot count on that with the corruption that exists among the 6 at present. Several of them are obsessed with money and I have no doubt Musk could provide them (if he hasn't already) with plenty of it.
I have no faith in the SC doing the right thing with the traitors sitting in the judgment seats.
I agree, Ruth! Alas, I have absolutely no faith in the supreme court to do what is right.
We can no longer expect SCOTUS to do the right thing. Hoping that they will do the right thing would be whistling in the wind.
or digging our own grave more like it.
A capitalist system that allows a person to get this wealthy, coupled with a political system that has such ineffecutal campaign finance and other laws- as provided by SCOTUS, will be hard pressed to function and augurs ill.
Perhaps America is just in a passing phase and there will be a reemergenc of progressevism as the US experienced in the 30's with a depression and the on-coming threat of war with Germany. Climate change might be our Hitler challenge. In the 30's SCOTUS was not always agreeable to what Rooselvelt wanted. Wiki "During the 1932 to 1937 Supreme Court terms, Stone and his colleagues Justices Brandeis and Cardozo were considered the Three Musketeers of the Supreme Court, its liberal or Democratic-aligned faction. The three were highly supportive of President Roosevelt's New Deal agenda, which many other Supreme Court Justices opposed. During the 1932 to 1937 Supreme Court terms, Stone and his colleagues Justices Brandeis and Cardozo were considered the Three Musketeers of the Supreme Court, its liberal or Democratic-aligned faction. The three were highly supportive of President Roosevelt's New Deal agenda, which many other Supreme Court Justices opposed. "
Sadly today’s SC would back Musk and dishonest all the way.
I think the issue would be collusion not the advertising per se.
Graham, what a lot of gobbledygook! It is true the law can be manipulated because there are loopholes, but that does not mean someone who has sabotaged our elections is not a criminal and should not be held accountable. He should be arrested and charged with the crime. I am sure he can employ scads of lawyers who will manipulate the law as Trum's legal team has, but that will take time. I bet there are American and UK lawyers who would defend corporations against Musk pro bono if they realized the child-man has sights on all of us and would take over as much of the world's commerce as he could. We do not have to permit his toddleresque behavior. There are means if we had sufficient courage to step up. Maybe even bring down X so Musk won't have such an easy way to manipulate the law and the people. Maybe the world court needs to get involved too since Musk is using war language and causing problems that are turning into violence.
You're right, I do need to revisit that comment! Thank you for that explanation.
Graham, it seems our courts need to dismiss his SLAPP suits and realize that boycotts are legal while sabotaging our elections is not. That is another reason why we should have a huge billionaire tax. We do not need anyone who thinks he is above the law and throws bits of his fortune around to cause trouble for anyone who gets in his way. He is a disgusting child-man who never had to grow up. Now, we need to be the adults in the room and stop his bad behavior, all hands on deck!!
Advertisers should used expose Musk and his dishonesty within their ads. Then Musk wouldn’t be able to tie them up in costly lawsuits.
Yeah, he's going nowhere with that. Companies (and people) have a right to freedom of speech - which includes not supporting or spending money on something or someone they don't want to. He's just blowing out his butt.
Regan removed those laws in this country.
And Reagan was the clown who started the whole moral majority scourge in congress, leading directly to the Orange Golem.
And Regan’s “Trickle down economics” became a disastrous tax policy that haunts us to this very day.
And the "poorly educated" that Trump loves (NOT) can't see that those tax breaks and policies Trump secured for billionaires are permanent for those billionaires, but for them temporary if they even get them. They're too blind to see that comment was not a compliment but appreciation for how blindly loyal they are to their own economic demise.
And Reagan was the one behind Citizens United -- probably the largest thing behind the downfall of our country.
Well, his political decendants were. Citizens United was/is a coalition of right-wing politicos and fundamentalist religious types, who created this corporation or whatever specifically for the purpose of getting the Clintons. The actual SCOTUS decision was about a horrible "documentary" they made about Hillary.
Wow. The more I'm learning about American politics, the more I learn about how damaging the Regan era was and continues to be.
Yes! Thank you. Reagan was also the one that corrupted news media by allowing their management to impose restrictions on what journalists--who used to be heroes--could say based on what high-paying advertisers wanted. It used to be that journalists told Americans the truth, wherever the chips fell. Today, they toe the corporate line and we get lies and foul distortions pretty much exclusively. Today, the mainstream media has been done away with, based on what Reagan smashed (integrity of the fourth estate). Today, the NYT, the WaPo, even NPR, are the top of the MAGA media. They are no longer the mainstream media. We need to stop using that term, and probably to stop reading them altogethere. Even Fox News reports one or two things a week with integrity and truth. The NYT, the WaPo, etc, do very few. They are reaching Fox's "standard," more and more every day. Don't read them. Don't subsribe. Read Reich and Hubbell and Richardson instead. Read The Guardian.
Knowing your enemy is as important as knowing yourself. Read as widely as possible, and beware of confirmation bias.
I was in my mid-twenties back when he came into power and I voted for Mondale/Ferraro... I was so devastated when Reagan won. It's been a downward spiral ever since. Reagan and his cronies are responsible for where we are now. But the energy of Harris/Walz is similar to Mondale and Ferraro and that gives me hope.
Reagan deregulated the Stock Market and stopped enforcing the anti trust laws. The idea was to destroy the New Deal regulations on business. by allowing people to buy stocks on margin in just seven years the US had its first huge stock crash in 1987. I watched it in our newsroom a few weeks after writing a story on the history of the stock market and what first time investors should watch out for.
Don't forget Reagan also smashed the unions. Remember the air traffic controllers' strike?
I was so devastated when Reagan was re-elected in 1984, that I lowered my flag to half staff as a sign of mourning. Economist Paul Krugman calls trickle down economics a "zombie idea" meaning the debunked idea just won't die, probably because it continually gets trotted out by some lying Republican politicians. Stuart Stevens said everything the Republicans have said is a lie. As a former Republican operative, he should know.
He also removed the solar panels Jimmy Carter put on the Whitehouse early in his term. We could have moved toward alternate fuels and weakened the oil and gas lobbies stranglehold a long time ago.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2023/02/the-forgotten-story-of-jimmy-carters-white-house-solar-panels/
“In 1964, Reagan gave a speech for presidential contender Barry Goldwater[93] that was eventually referred to as "A Time for Choosing".[94] Reagan argued that the Founding Fathers "knew that governments don't control things. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose".” - wiki
René Girard’s mimetic theory posited that for “a government” to achieve control, a scapegoat must be identified and believed in by the people. When the scapegoat is killed, peace will ensue until control is lost again and another scapegoat must be found. To escape this cycle a desire for peace must *somehow* be found which does not require a scapegoat. Today’s extreme right believes that the only way to escape the mimetic cycle is through Religion. - wiki and Jim Stewartson ‘Catholic Coup: J. D. Vance…’ Substack
Russ, that's so telling. Scapegoating is what the MAGA people are doing now to Harris and Walz. They are "super-liberals" (untrue), responsible for evil immigrants, dead babies, and drugs (untrue). It's so untrue it's ridiculous, but people are swallowing these lies whole. I am scared to death that Democratic messaging is not up to par, to combat their horrific messaging genius. It's no longer about analysis, about issues, sadly. It's about the message. The social media intuition that people derive from their daily social media fixes. We have to attack them. We have to counter their messages. We can not rely on our positions on the issues. I hope Harris-Walz are up to it. It's an unpleasant reality of the 21st century.
Russ, thank you for your important comment. It suggests that Vance's conversion to Catholicism on the eve of the 2020 election was based on ideology rather than plain opportunism. It is an ideology that holds most people incapable of self government. Vance's Catholicism seems to be that of the Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov. Since religion no loonger is a private matter, we, and the media especially, have a duty to question Vance's religious beliefs. First question: does he agree with Pope Francis that climate change is real, and that the wealthy have a moral duty to protect the poor?
Rotten Ronnie Reagan also gets the blame for the homeless situation in this country. By closing down many mental hospitals, there’s no place for people with mental illness to go for treatment and care. So they are on the streets of our cities with a few options, except homeless shelters, soup kitchens and the kindness of strangers. With the exception of the above named resources, How dare anybody call America a Christian country?
What!!! Why haven't any of the following Presidents or Congresses corrected this obvious problem.
We have so much to correct in this country, starting next January!
Yes, because in practice "misinformation" means "information that contradicts the official narrative". If actual lies were a crime, Reich would be in jail.
How dare Musk uses his wealth to destroy our democracy and civil society.
Musk is clearly abusing consumers and technology. He has taken technology to new lows while dumping massive pollution into the air.
We MUST boycott the companies that advertise on X, and let the companies know "I am boycotting your product because you advertise on X."
Musk doesn't make any real money from you and I. He makes money from corporate advertising on X.
"Consumers vote with their pocketbooks everyday."
Also, Musk's rockets need to be taxed on dumping carbon into the atmosphere. The US Government must stop outsourcing services to Musk. It's not worth it.
Lastly, Tesla must be boycotted too.
Musk's $45 million to Trump a month* is much more money than half a million people gave to Harris when she chose Walz. In other words, Musk is far more powerful than ALL of the new Harris/Walz supporters. Let that sink in. Society and the tax code have created a monster, a sociopathic Frankenstein. Society must pull the plug on the growing monster that threatens our civil society and democracy.
#boycottXadvertisers
#BOYCOTTtesla
#TAXbillionaires
#STOPmusk
#Fmusk!
And his truck/car thing is monstrous: it doesn’t even look like it could have passed safety regs for encounters with pedestrians or other cars. It looks like some kind of intimidating tank.
Someone called it the first car every kid drew. Lol. It's a piece of junk that gets stuck. Lol.
Hope those advertisers counter-sue Musk for everything he’s got. He may have transformed several key industries in one short lifetime, but he’s fucked up X by making it a hot bed of racism and white supremacy and has made his wealth at the expense of our democracy. Accumulating massive wealth, while many starve, is not a badge of anything except greed and supreme narcissism.
The problem with suing the obscenely wealthy Is the length of the process necessary to do it. These monsters can buy their way out of any indictments or accusations by hiring greedy, scumbag, lawyers. Which leads to the notion that these monsters power is enhanced by the immoral people they choose to serve them.
They use delay tactics and appear to be “getting away with it”. But look at the My Pillow Guy, Alex Jones, Rudy Giuliani, and all of Trump‘s acolytes who have been jailed. Not to mention Trump’s convictions, which many of us thought would never happen. Now it remains to be seen if he’ll ever do jail time.
Little late to be clutching your pearls.
This stuff has been done to you exclusively by Republicans since before Reagan and it took a couple certifiable psychopaths and a few of the power elite (Thomas, Alito, that douchebag Governor in Fla, Cruz, et al) rubbing your noses in it 'cause they know they've now got you by the short hairs, to get your attention?
"How dare he?"
Is that all you can muster?
Who's out there on their horse, warning your populace, "The billionaires are coming!"?
The British were pussies compared to what this represents.
I truly hope Kamala can start the process to save your asses, (mine too, because this crap is mutating it's way across the whole damned planet), and the water's swirling pretty fast, and two terms ain't gonna fix it.
Have a nice day!
This content is the scariest I’ve read over the last year. It truly feels we most likely will loose our democracy for good to these wealthy sociopaths.
The will buy off good people.
Where've you been since Trump glided down the Golden Escalator?
(He's too fat and lazy to do stairs, and an elevator wouldn't allow him to be admired long enough.)
so who do we boycott besides Tesla?
X advertisers. That would sink X. Musk made it stink, so it's only right.
Az, no, we cannot because of the enormous power the fossil fuels industry has in the US. Oil runs the world, because the world runs on oil.
Yes, for sure oil runs the modern world, although some countries have managed to move themselves further away than others. If America had managed to stop subsidising fossils and fracking 30 years ago, and ploughed the same investment into solar, wind and hydro, then by now fossils would be where they belong - in history.
But that aside, the one thing I get from my brief forays into this blog is how hopeless everyone seems. Everyone is whingeing about everything, but I see very, very few solutions or proposals. It's like everyone is zombied-out on antidepressants!
As Henry Ford reportedly said, "If you think you can do something, or you think you can't, you are probably right".
If Henry Ford is correct, then as you say, you guys can't do anything.
100% agree
JUST STOP USING TWITTER or what Musk so ludicrously renamed as “X.” That is all that is necessary.
Amy,
Boycotts are a proven tactic to fight powerful corporations that have harmful practices. Boycotts have proven to be effective to achieve social justice. The boycott of Shell was very effective to stop apartheid in South Africa.
Besides, Musk would like nothing more than for a million progressives who mock him to get off his platform. He probably hates progressives posting memes that make fun of his ego and cars. Do you really think he cares if you and I stop using X?
One million people can stop using X and he can replace us with fake accounts made at a server farm in India. However, X will notice one company that stops buying a million dollars of ads due to a boycott. Boycotts work.
Ok, if you say so.
I’ve never been a Twitter/X user. I think those platforms are destructive and counterproductive to effective communications. Can you tell us where we can find a list of the corporations advertising on X?
No, I do not use Twitter. Lol. But that's a good question. Thanks!
Sorry Az but Musk made his money though being subsidized by exclusive contracts for billions of dollars from the government. https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-list-government-subsidies-tesla-billions-spacex-solarcity-2021-12. We need to reform that so that these contracts are not so exclusive to allow for this type of wealth and power to be achieved by a singular party, resulting in the loss of competition in the market place. I would never own a Tesla and am happy to see other manufacturers producing ecological alternatives to fossil fuel vehicles. Next we need to do something about his power with SpaceX and his control over global communication through satellite communication capabilities. I am not smart enough to know how to accomplish this, but smart enough to know this is for the common good of humanity.
His self-driving cars have killed people. He is breaking laws. Just wait and see. He's the first person to lose 200 billion. And Biden made US jobs. That money went to US workers. Blaming Biden is as goofy as blaming you for the deaths caused by Musk's self driving cars.
By the way Az, we in the pro-democratic USA are painfully aware of our inadequacies, and particularly of how our current governing system has grown into a bizarre, mutated version of the republic imagined by our Founders. It is not extremely helpful for others to tear it apart as we already do that endlessly. We are acutely aware that our cherished Constitution has embarrassingly crumbled in a single generation. Yet, this country has always returned to fighting for justice and equality despite huge, historical and self-acknowledged failures in this regard. We are in the midst of another such failure and it is equally embarrassing. If you wish to offer criticism or advice, kindly do so with the respect that we still deserve, or do not do so at all.
He’s destructive on a huge scale and you’re right doesn’t care about much but himself . He , however by his outrageous behaviors has made himself a target and he cherishes the chaos he creates ( another power addiction)
Sorry , he’s turned X into 24/7 hate mail arrangement.
Creating fake videos of Kamala Harris is a fraud on the voting public which must be exposed. Musk deserves to be vilified for it as well as for the other lies made in obvious conspiracy with a cult-driven coup. Success at capitalism does not give billionaires a pass to undermine our democratically-elected government. So, Elon, to you this means, FUCK OFF, we are bringing you and your kind down.
Az, thank you for your honesty. Yes, Musk's achievements are worthy of admiration, but his ego implosion is pathetic and malicious. Your hero-warship is definitly undemocratic.
Wouldn't his creating a bot to tell people the ballot deadline has passed be illegal? Wouldn't that be considered election interference?
Az, What you just wrote would get a D in high school English class. I'm impressed that you know what Musk thinks. Who needs English skills when you can think like a bro.
Old sayings: facts are sacred, opinion is free. Or: all the news that is fit to print. The papers in the U.S. lived by it: and when needed, there was I.F. Stone, to expose the lie.
Izzy Stone, we need you now. And Molly Ivins, come back!
I miss her so much...
Who is Molly Ivins?
Deceased Texan firebrand speaking in support of progressivism. There is a film on her.
Molly Ivins was a wonderful, very funny writer.
Replace old with truth. Doesn't matter how old it is. If truth becomes inconvenient to wealth or power is will be sacraficed.
That, is the most ancient truth.
The UK had prolific Brexit lies going around when it was happening. You must have an enforcement problem too.
There are limits on free speech. Slander and libel. We, the people, need to hold Musk accountable.
Boycott Tesla. Collapse X, and file massive lawsuits against him personally.
Who would file? Musk can throw money at lawsuits, and purchase judges by proxy, until lawsuits go away.
Sooner than later, with class action, there will be a consortium of law firms who will coordinate “the largest and most far reaching class action suit ever filed” with millions of American plaintiffs against Musk and those who generate misleading and harmful information. I hope this fantasy becomes a reality. How many of us suffer Trump daily? This vote is another after shock.
Maybe he could be the first immigrant deported under trump. Ha
And by the time the litigation is done, the coming "extinction event" will be immanent and Elon will have skipped bail for Mars. No passport needed. He'll be leaving from his private launch pad. No extradition treaty issues as he'll be the defacto "owner" of Mars. And they won't be able to shoot him down. He'll either have promised seats on the flight with the "right people" or he'll have disabled the necessary targeting systems,and so on and so on.
Chris, if he has to face a massive amount of lawsuits, if advertisers quit advertising and people got off of X, his money would not last. It would be like turning on a spigot and all that money would flow right out.
That’s quite a combination - is there any likelihood of any of that happening?
Advertisers would leave X *if* people deplatform from it. But he feeds red meat to a lot of rightwingers on X. How many ppl need to leave for it to stop attracting advertisers?
"Why should I get off X. One less person on X won't make a difference."
"Why should I vote? My one vote won't make a difference."
You can't perhaps impact the outcome to X, but you can make you own choice of what is right. If enough people do, then it will have an impact.
Besides, there is Threads and other social media to use. https://www.threads.net/
It probably has as much chance of happening as a snowball in hell! I can dream though.
He will make someone just angry enough and he will no longer be a problem. But in the meantime stop giving him attention, get off X and get out the vote! That's our priority right now.
I think Kamala would have a good case for libel, even with being a public official.
Michael, you took the words right out of my mouth. That’s exactly what needs to be done. Bravo!!
Limits are for the "common folk, unwashed masses, rubes, etc."
Limits? Where've you been? Not anymore. The GOP started "fixing your laws" the day FDR died. With a few bumps to be smoothed out along the way, the Kennedy's, Johnson, MLK, and a few other do-gooders that popped up, it looks like they may have it licked, once-and-for-all!
Lawsuits-who will pay for the lawsuits. Must can out-lawyer any person or group with his massive wealth.
A government that actually represents and protects its citizens! You are so fortunate to live in a nation of intelligent and capable individuals. I pray that you can stay isolated from the disease of greed that has become pandemic in our world.
Musk is a King in the land of the Shopping Center Poltics’s of The USA.
Musks money allows Him to impose his will on lowly citizens thru the power of the political dollar . After all the Supreme Court’s Long ago bought opinion of a A old version of CROOKS-IN-CLOAKS . Gave Companies the same Rights as real Citizens…
Musk is Just Buying His Way Through Our porous Political System to assume his “rightful “ (purchased) place as a Person Of Money our specter of Power
In our cash driven political Parties…
WTEF
WIN THE ELECTION FIRST = WTEF
Hardly: xenophobic Wilders got 25% of the vote. The migrants will notice that and the general atmosphere in the country deteriorates. But agreed with the greed problem...
America, on the bleeding age of capitalism. We be economically innovative, regardless the cost to people, especially the disadvantaged. We brought the world to a great recession because of unconstrained greed connected to mortgages. We're like this elephant rampaging through villages with the mahout hanging on for dear life. If there is a mahout.
Too late! The disease is spreading faster than any virus we've ever experienced.
If the US sucumbs, which is still looking inevitable, the majority of the world's population is doomed, to permanent serfdom, or, a total reset, as this unsustainable socio-economic model collapses. Either way, they'll be singing about, "What a long dystopian trip it's been." Apologies to Grateful Dead fans.
Freedom of speech is important. But defending freedom of speech should also include mechanisms of limiting the power to amplify speech. Our attention is limited. Amplifying some speech means censoring other speech. This seems not widely understood. It's complicated.
Yes, it is not easy; that is why I mentioned it. Garton Ash wrote a book about it, "Free Speech, hundreds of pages. But in the legislation of ours is an article that implies that you should behave like a good citizen, that is no libel, no false information knowingly.
Yes, a virtual marketplace is okay, but some rules and order are missing.
Does Garton Ash discuss the problem that amplification is censorship?
I am wondering: Could one make a marketplace of news work that uses market forces to regulate itself? For one thing, one would need to make sure that there is no one news outlet with outsized power. Taxing the big players so that being big becomes a competitive disadvantage could help here. Bigness is often defended by pointing towards network effects (economies of scale) that profit everybody. But if we created an efficient market in which news providers are interoperable and news consumers can choose their own amplification and aggregation algorithms this might incentivize a lot of innovation that could potentially help solving the problem.
Problem is: what is the problem? I think the influnce of big money. How to solve that? With taxes? The big ones find loopholes.
Censorship? No, I don't believe in a "Ministry of Truth", that was painted by George Orwell many years ago.
Could we make a journalistic product of total freedom? An X without a toxic owner like Musk?
I mentioned I.F. Stone; he was so frustrated with all the lying in his career as a journalist that he began for himself: I.F. Stone's weekly, later bi-weekly.
Leading principle: everyone lies, so I compare what they tell me and expose the lies. You could make a paper like this again for little money. Only some writers with integrity and competence should be found.
That is the biggest condition: get some competence, pay for the job. The circulation of this paper must improve quality.
"With taxes? The big ones find loopholes" ... We never seriously tried to close the loopholes. Let us try and then see if it doesnt work.
Yes, agreed, but I suggest we try a paper with quality not determined by money. I think Izzy Stone did that. Closing loopholes for big money takes a decade or two. But making a paper with some criticical journalists could start right now. Robert Reich could help
We need a public social media, like PBS or NPR. A fair, regulated, non-profit source for news and connections.
My retort is often, free to or free from…that’s up to us to decide. I choose, The Harris Walz.
https://fivebooks.com/best-books/free-speech-timothy-garton-ash/
Susskind "The Digital Republic" gives a systematic layout of the issues and some recommendations. Alot of the discussion revolves what constraints are appropriate according the characteristics of the media souce. Good book. Not a fluffy read.
When a boycott of X advertisers picks up stream, X will sink like the Titanic. He's already lost $200 Billion by advertisers leaving X. Imagine another $200 Billion or more from a boycott.
X is only profitable because corporations pay to advertise. Consumers have more than enough reason to boycott any and every company that supports X. In fact, a boycott is patriotic.
He doesn't care! He is brilliant. He's got the space program in his pocket. He knows he's got more money than God. He's got more profitable ideas than Harvard & Yale combined in his pocket. This is all one big sociopath's joke on the world. I also think you know that.
Some would argue that freedom of speech is a luxury only wealthy countries can afford.
Interesting ... how does that argument go?
Very good point.
Trump is the corrupt one. We now have a convicted felon running for the highest office in the country! He has managed to have a lot of influence on our Supreme Court. The Supreme Court should be renamed "trump court"! Just the fact that they gave a president "immunity to actions committed while in office" should tell everyone that they are in trump's corner. We can only keep the blue vote going so trump never has the ability to use that immunity!
Jan, yes to all points.
Problem is: the nausea seeing clips of these man does not help.
So I suggested a small trial to improve the exchange of public facts, without making revolution: Izzy Stones weekly. The enterprises of Robert Reich are a beginning.
Why are we permitting a declared dictator the privilege of running? Is our definition of democracy hiding a death wish?
> In the Netherlands the conscious spreading of disinformation can be prosecuted.
So could we prosecute Reich? Or by "misinformation" do you mean "information that contradicts the official narrative"?
The spreading of harmful disinformation SHOULD BE AGAINST THE LAW! I totally agree with you--we can learn from the Netherlands!
Here in the US , individual speach is protected against almost any legal challenge . Not however news organizations or corporations who can and are sued / Fox News lost 700 million dollars for just that falsely spreading misinformation against Dominion voting systems.
If an individual says something that they can proven to cause. harm / they can sue the offending individual or corporation but that’s expensive and is rarely done.
It is, in fact, freedom of speech.
A new moniker with a catchy tune for Team Trump's PR division: X, Fox & the Heritage Foundation - They're the "Truth-busters."
"If there's something weird and it don't look good; What are you gonna call 'em? Truth-Busters !!!
I wonder if they contributed to his off-the wall crazy press conference this afternoon? It seemed like one of his rally speeches and was almost as long (almost 90 minutes).
I love the fact that Robert Reich and so many lefties here like an anti first amendment comment. Behind every leftist is an authoritarian
Anyone who does not agree with freedom of speech needs to rethink their views.
Karl was not a softy; he could use invectives and rip his opponents to pieces. I think some civility is helpfull, but if you think that is authoritarian thinking, be my guest
Hoi Nederlander hier living in the US. I know in the Netherlands there are more laws around it, but I know that plenty of people are still able to spread disinformation and lies. In fact one of my family members has gone bonkers, van het patje af. He has a complete following, speaks at conventions, writes books etc. And he’s not being stopped there either unfortunately…
Ha Iris, may be you have to positive memories of this country. Our parlement is full of people thar are bonkers. But the idiotic things that are normal in rhe Republican Party....
Someone said their were no military lossen during Biden. Then mr. Johnson mentioned 18 names, rhetorical misuse I think of childisch or crazy political tensions.
The republicans are horrid. A mix of malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths and their dumb manipulated followers.
I don’t have very good memories of the Netherlands. I left 16 years ago because in my opinion it was already going downhill, had been for at least 10 years already at the time. In fact, a bunch of Dutch people remind me of the republicans here, racist and bigoted, screaming bloody murder because they want to keep zwarte piet. It actually makes sense that they have similarities because in the 1800 when the puritans moved from England to the US to breed wypipo, a bunch of puritans also moved to the Netherlands. They wanted stricter religious rules and wanted to have the liberty to make life more miserable for everyone in order to wash everyone from sin (doe maar normaal, das al gek genoeg. Vooral het hoofd niet boven het maaiveld uit steken). The conservatives are getting louder in the Netherlands as well and the capitalists took opportunity to side with them in order to force less rules so they can extort more people. I don’t understand why the Netherlands agrees to become more capitalist, capitalism clearly doesn’t work, the US has proven this, and is still proving it over and over…
There are laws on the books that limit hate speech, particularly threatening speech (written or oral). Sadly, too many of the people charged with enforcing our laws are MAGAts and biased in when, or who, they prosecute.
Hallelujah and amen brother
No one who supports democracy should subscribe to Twiiter/X. People power!
I left twitter because it was acquired by Musk. His idea of free speech is both autocratic and juvenile.
Could it be, he might be a sociopath also?
That is most likely the case.
Uh, yeah?
You know. I know. Why won't "the powers that be" say it out loud and act on it? You or I would be in an asylum in a blink of an eye.
And the IQ of the average twitter user went up.
No one should subscribe to X. It's become the cesspool of discourse. TikTok is marching toward that distinction, too.
As they all will. Humans are generally, defective. As the algorithms prove, we respond overwhelmingly, to crap that angers us.
I disagree to a point. I don’t pay him anything. I still find it a good source for news. It all depends on how you curate your feed. Mine is 95% news agencies.
Anyone going on that site is supporting him one way or another and his evil plans
And most of what you read from those “news agencies” is cherry picked by Elon’s algorithms to direct your attention.
If you use it you are giving him your most valuable commodity these days - your attention. He's profiting. Try Groundnews it's so insightful! It is like concordance for the same stories told by different affiliations.
Subscribe to the news agencies outside of X, then you aren't enabling and financially supporting a tyrant.
That’s like saying, “ But I like grapes!” in the late 1960’s. “Boycott Grapes!” was a success, but it only works if it’s all or nothing.
This was a reply to B.E. Anderson
Curate you feed all you like. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
And they are really reliable not
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
It's "Twitter." No rich idiot man-child with narcistic personality disorder can change it.
No one who conducts Genocide should be allowed to rule a country. Adios Putin.
We are onto you phuckwit. Putin's tolls have a handbook and know the words that trigger liberals, like genocide,imperialism, colonialism, neo liberal, neo colonial, so they sprinkle them liberally in their cg\harges, knowing and expecting that they will attract some half wits dominated by their emotions.
Caitlian Johnstone is a Russian asset. She earns $6,000 a month from an unspecified source, and has had dozens of articles published in Russia Today, Putin's propaganda organ.
Nice try, trying to belittle my comment asshole.
Fact is that you constantly whine about Genocide by Biden and the Democrats, but ignore, excuse, gloss over the genocide committed by Putin.
And the fact that you used the word American Propaganda is proof of my charge that you are a Putin asset.
We are on to you, Pick up your marbles and go home Vlad
There are plenty of Russian trolls, who are Americans. Take a look at Lt Gen Michael Flynn, Steve Bannon, Donald J. Trump.
Fuckwit, neither Arab nor Muslim is a race, so can that racist bullshit, idiot.
You're a Loser Putin troll Vlad, aka Tom High.
Even though I was never active, I quit Twitter when he bought it. As much as possible, I boycott anti-democratic and anti-human rights companies. Every thinking person should, to the extent that they can. Hobby Lobby, Chick-fil-A, Koch Industries products, etc…
My kids make fun of me as I refuse to buy on Amazon. I never liked the business model despite it being convenient. Years ago, I ordered something that took a long time to be delivered. In the package, there was a handwritten message from someone in the factory in China begging me to like the product so they would get more orders.
The sense of exploitation was palpable, so I canceled my account and now find most everything I need locally.
Great modeling. I will happily pay more to shop locally and in brick and mortar. I wish everyone would.
It's not always easy. I was repairing a kitchen appliance and needed two small parts so I drove to Home Depot. The salesperson looked at me like I was crazy, shrugged, and said: we don't stock stuff like that. You get it on Amazon.
Happily, I found #Ace Hardware, and they even showed me how to repair what needed repairing.
This. I end up on Amazon because my local stores almost never have the thing or part I need in stock. They'll tell me they can order it but so can I, and I often can get it shipped to my door within days for free when I do. People often choose Amazon for the price, but my experience is usually that they're one of the few stores stocking what I need.
Another option is to find it on Amazon, then order it directly from the third party who's using Amazon as a storefront. It sends money directly into the pocket of the small business, often for less because they don't have to kick up a slice to Bezos.
Ace is the place with the helpful hardware man!!
that's the problem. Eventually Amazon will drive out those local and other businesses that carry those small parts. There will be less and less choice. You will have to go to Amazon more and more.
I was surprised the first time a salesperson at #Lowe’s suggested she order something that was out of stock for me. She did, it was less expensive than originally announced in store and I picked it up the next day. Home Depot has never done that so now I go to Lowe’s. Simple. I think it’s called customer service.
Yes! Shopping locally is the answer to all of these huge corporations and the richy rich who own them! Aldi's, Ollie's, Thrift stores, Vegetable and Produce stands, Farmers' Markets, and Mom and Pop stores.
I live in a remote part of the country, at least 100 miles from decent stores. Due to necessity we order on line, not much choice. Amazon has totally gone down hill!
Ditto! Lately, I have tried ordering from Walmart first before going to Amazon. Usually quicker, better service, at a lower price! Target does a better job too! I try to shop locally, but its hard to find a lot of stuff. People who don't live in rural areas don't understand.
I get it. Door-to-door service by Amazon can be amazing and even more so if you don't have easy access to shops. For me, it was when Bezos bought The Washington Post and Whole Foods. I know that there is no more privacy yet the idea that Bezos' company knew what I read, ate, watched, and then started directing my interests (you read/watched XYZ s we thought you'd like ABC) freaked me out. So I did what I could control; think global, act local.
I use a browser guard to block tracking software spying on my browsing activities. Walmart has 9 trackers monitoring you. Amazon has 7 trackers. Reich's Substack website has 0! Good for him!
Peggy is right. Pay attention, and get creative.
Make fun of them. Explain Amazon destroys small businesses.
Musk was a known danger and yet he cake walked right into a position of power.
Twitter hid all info about hunters laptop prior to the last election. What do u call that? And u are quitting g from,,X? Hypocrite
Another loony troll. Yawn.
I.e., someone with an actual connection to reality.
I agree, Kerry! That don't get my business or money!
A longer list would be appreciated! As would a secure internet
Deport him and Murdoch too.
LOCK THEM BOTH UP! Their lies are like screaming Fire in a Theater. and should be prosecuted in the same way.
Amazing how much leftists hate free speech.
Free speech is fine when it is not driven by unrestrained greed and hatred, but by the quest for a better future.
So I take it you have the telepathic ability to determine people's motives.
It doesn't take telepathy to recognize a conman and crook, or the gullibility of someone who falls for such. But such gullibility remains a mystery to the many who recognize the obvious.
> It doesn't take telepathy to recognize a conman and crook
Well your being a follower of Reich suggested you're not good at recognizing conman either.
At least Ailes is gone!
And Vance feels “The Walz” closing in.
Murdoch is 93. But we can't just rely on time to cull the baddies with new baddies showing up.
People are sayin' that Lachlan is WORSE!
if the benefits outweight the gains "it" should be done.
But the “gain” is often that of senior management who ate overly compensated with incentive stock options…which emphasize short term decisions to the detriment of long term goals.
So I would say “no” in most cases. Want better decisions? Put members if labor on the board in balance and eliminate stock option awards. Only then will rationality return to boards dominated by psychopathic urges for wealth and fame!
That’s “Third Reich” thinking.
Well, you said you were wondering, so I told you. You can’t defend Musk’s actions by saying people who work for him are “just doing their jobs.” Blind obedience like that is how the Third Reich got people to do unthinkable things. You know this, we all know this.
Boycott Musk.
See above.
With the ties it seems SpaceX has to NASA this may be tricky but can we encourage the forthcoming Harris administration to decouple that? Is there government investment in Tesla for a fleet? Are there government research grants for any of his endeavors we can pressure to end or not be renewed? Obviously we need to end the ridiculous tax breaks billionaires get since those are why he’s giving so much to Trump, but what about his business contracts outside the US with foreign governments? This could be a diplomatic priority if they exist.
National security + Musk is not good.
It's like our country has been invaded by (James) Bond Villains.
Who do you think was behind funding those original 1960s Bond movies which succeeded in creating a global narrative that romanticized /normalised a rapist with a state license to murder ?
Musk? Who?
And yet, because of Boeing’s Starliner problems — helium leaks and failing thrusters — our astronauts will likely come home on Musk’s SpaceX.
Yes Musk to the rescue, while the woke employees of Boeing continue to produce crap. DEI at work
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
Harris and Walz are Marxist, so there is that. Might want to ask some of the folks in Venezuela how that is working out for them.
So since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
And you're a pathetic insignificant tool of a fucking Fascist Corporate State who worships a Moron like Himself!
Exposing The Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissist As A Moron
A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency with Donald Trump's
Recently the media focus has been on the 'age issue' and the question of the mental competency of an octogenarian during President Biden's second term. So let's compare his mental competency with Donald Trump's starting with his most recent gaffow followed by a list of what he said and his cabinet members said about him during his first term. (A short list of my faves:)
Did Biden call Nancy Pelosi Nicky Haley when recently talking about the 1-6-21 assault on the capital?
Did he claim the ability to properly identify a giraffe in a multiple choice of three animals, proved he was a "real stable genius"?
Did his former college professor call him the "dumbest f--king student I ever had"?
Did Biden suggest we could build a wall with transparent concrete?
Did he ever say to the camera he wished his wife were present with him while she was literally standing next to him looking confused?
Did his own sibling say in a recorded interview that he paid someone to take the SAT for him because he was too stupid to get into college on his own?
Did Biden think people needed photo IDs to buy groceries?
Did Biden say Paris was a city in Germany?
Did he misspell basic words in dozens of different tweets only to "correct" them by misspelling them a different way?
Did he suggest injecting disinfectants into our bloodstream to kill COVID?
Did he say he didn't know what a blind trust is, despite having a "degree" in Finance?
Did he bankrupt every business he tried starting on his own, including a Casino?
Was Biden the first President in history to utter the sentence, "Belgium is a beautiful city"?
Did Biden ever say our captured prisoners of war are only heroes because they were captured?
Did he have more than a dozen of his hand picked cabinet members resign because they couldn't work with his incompetence?
Did his own Chief of Staff call him an "idiot"?
Did a Senator from his own party say, "The White House has become an adult day care center”?
Did his own Secretary of State say he was a "fucking moron"?
Did his own economic advisor say he was "dumb as shit...an idiot surrounded by clowns"?
Did his National Security Advisor say he was "a dope...an idiot [with the intelligence of] a kindergartner”?
I saved the above collection of quotes that was originally posted on a Facebook page dedicated to insuring Joe Biden's second term last year. That was before that Republican special prosecutor in his VP document's case harped on the age issue and Joe's forgetfulness of details when the guy interviewed him. I was going to submit the above to the Daily Kos before reading the two following articles updating Trump's mental problems amidst the failure of a media focus on the orange moron at the president's expense while he's trying to run this country as the GOP is fixed on trying to tear it apart.
On 2-26-24 I read their lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia, cataloging his further mental decline. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a new site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Trump has obviously been both a low IQ moron and a fascist all his life, his first attorney was Roy Cohn Christ's sake. For here's precisely how he became the Perfect GOP Candidate: A supreme Narcissist who first builds Hotels with his last Name plastered all over the top of each with a Will To Power Fixation that drives him to become a TV Star where the whole game was to have the contestants kiss his ass to see who was His most 'competent' Apprentice, Firing all the Losers before finally picking the Winner, Like Me. Which sets him up to run for President, Wrapping Himself In MAGA Flag to Beat all those Loser Politicians in the Primary and Lock Her Up Hillary in the 2016 Electoral College. Rejoice, rejoice an absolute field day for all the fascists, white supremacists, Christian nationalists, plutocrat billionaires, corporatists, corporate media, atheists, evangelical preachers and six Supreme Court Justices all Backing a Moronic and now progressively Demented Fuhrer for the MAGA Masses Who Worship Him Like A God, Further Feeding Its Insatiable Sociopathic Narcissism!!!
Turns out I also hadn't read the whole issue with A.J. Pennyfarthing's 10 stunning moments from Trump's late-night speech to religious broadcasters. You ain't going to be changing any preacher's or MAGA's minds about how unhinged DT is with any raft of articles cause that is the Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron's Lowest Common Denominator Appeal To The Wrap Yourself In MAGA Flag And $60 Bible Masses!
So since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
Election interference is a federal crime. Musk should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. In a just world, he would be stripped of all his assets and the funds donated to the Harris/Walz campaign.
Isnt the problem that election interference is hard to distinguish from legitimate participation? Couldnt one use a marginal tax rate of 100% to make sure that no unelected (human or legal) person can have outsized influence on politics?
In some cases, I'm sure it might be difficult, but, in this case, Musk is deliberately spreading disinformation to interfere with an election. I'm sure the courts would also take into account the fact that Musk is making huge donations to the Trump campaign.
I don't know enough about marginal tax rates to comment on that.
The idea is simply to use tax to limit the amount of power (=wealth) that any one organization can have. Btw, there is an interesting book by Ingrid Robeyns, Limitarianism, also available as an audiobook ... https://www.uu.nl/staff/IAMRobeyns. In fact, I just saw that there is a volume with essays on the topic free to download https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0338
Thank you for the links, Alexander.
Example Citizens United
How dare the Supreme Court allow little guys to pull their money together to fight big guys. That can't be allowed.
As the saying goes, inside every leftist is a totalitarian screaming to get out.
Within any extremism, the spectrum meets at each end. The difference between Fascism and Communism is the extent to which they want to rule the world (communism) or their own country (nationalism). For my part, anything ending in -ism is worth shying away from.
Elon Musk is a symptom of many issues, such as the excessive and out-of-control wealthy 1% in American politics, media and corruption of justice.
I posted this content elsewhere, but it makes several very relevant points. Biden can act right now to help stop Musk and his ilk - see Point 3 below.
"Here are three ideas for what Biden could announce now, to start immediately before he leaves office in 4 months time.
Firstly.....
A statement by Biden that the public was losing faith in the judicial system and that concerns about bias, influence and even corruption must be resolved. That the entire legal system relies on the impartiality and honesty of judges, and America deserved to know that the legal system was as trustworthy as it was possible to make it. And that no-one, not even the judges, not even high court or Supreme Court judges, were above the law of the land.
So to find a solution, Biden announces a Presidential enquiry into the possible corruption of Court judges, at every level, from the lowest local criminal courts to the Supreme Court. Biden can set the terms of the enquiry, such as to examine all allegations of corruption over the last 10 years, to set up a hotline number for such allegations from lawyers or other judges, to examine all bank accounts and financial records. Where unexplained payments of benefits-in-kind appear to have been received, to then examine the court cases at that time for any indications of a miscarriage of justice or influence on sentencing.
Obviously a lot of corrupt judges would be terrified. However, Biden could also announce an amnesty for, say, 60 days, so that any judge could make a full statement to the enquiry, including names, details of payments and payers, and then take immediate retirement. Unless it was later shown that the statement was false in any relevant detail, then the corrupt judge could enjoy a peaceful retirement.
I suspect that hundreds of judges would step aside for fear of future prosecution and disgrace, which in itself would make it obvious how corrupted the current system had become. It would also be more obvious in future when a judge was corrupt, and much easier to investigate and prosecute. It would be a valuable service to the country, and a good note for Biden to leave office.
Secondly, President Biden could announce a revue of the fractured and labyrinthine security services in the USA. He can say that the attempt on Trump's life showed yet again how having so many separate branches of security with different agendas and different management that didn't fully communicate with each other, left dangerous gaps that could be exploited by anyone from a lone 20-year-old gunman to a terrorist organisation or foreign power. Biden can say, as one ex-president to another, we both need to make sure future presidents are safe.
Obviously such a revue might include the security lapses for the apparent attack on Trump (i.e. find out the truth!), but also the real possibility that individuals in the Secret Service or local police were somehow involved, either in an attempted assassination, or in a fake attack.
But it might also go into how the political affiliations of security service personnel and management might affect future political campaigns and national security in American elections. In short, a full enquiry into both Trump's supposed assassination attempt, and into MAGA members of the security services and how that might affect national security.
The third enquiry would be into the role of media and social media in American society, and the boundaries of freedom of speech compared to promoting outright falsehoods and lies. Biden can say that the rapid advances of AI now make it essential that if controls or rules are needed, that American society must act before more damage can be done. Biden can point to new regulations of AI already introduced in Europe, and whether America needs similar public protections.
All three of these enquiries are important, legitimate and would scare the shit out of Trump and his cronies. Obviously these enquiries might run for years, but they would also send a clear message right now that the current Republican path of Trump towards corruption and dictatorship would be confronted and attacked by those that still believed in a democracy ruled by law and honesty."
Worth a discussion?
Btw, I mentioned above thar the European Union are introducing laws to control Artificial Intelligence. You can read it all here:
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20230601STO93804/eu-ai-act-first-regulation-on-artificial-intelligence
Az, Considering my initial (unposted) reply to Reich’s question “What’s the next step?” was “Beats me,” I do hope Reich responds to your seemingly promising proposals.
Thank you Barbara. Just trying to move on from the endless 'problems' discussions to start a 'solutions' discussion.
Communist
All of your suggestions sound helpful but #1 sounds particularly promising. It will make an immediate effect on those judges, with immediate and stunning results that Americans can see and understand, while ensuring a long-term effect during the prosecution process.
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
Sorry for being obnoxious about this spelling mistake, but it showed up twice and really distracted me from the stellar content:
“revue” → “review“
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/revue
It's also an English word with a very different meaning.
How does a country allow one person with evil intentions to influence a large portion of our society? Elon Musk is working with Trump and other oligarchs to overthrow our democracy! Congress, who can stop this madness, continues to ignore it! The majority of Americans aren’t paying attention to it and I’m afraid that by the time they do it will be too late!
The same forces that have created the extreme income disparities and billionaires. Electing Harris and Walz is a start.
Elect two people who aren't even trying to hide their indention to destroy the country. Yes, that's a good idea.
Truth social is just as bad
I call it what it Really is: Untruth Antisocial, all BS .
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
It isn’t just about how much money one amasses, but how it is made and what is done with it. In this case it doesn’t look good from any angle.
Musk, as I understand his actions, posted that a civil war in the UK is "inevitable" on X. To my mind, the UK government should sue both Musk and X for substantial damages. His actions are like yelling "fire" in a packed movie theatre. The law of libel--ruthlessly used--will tame him. He values only money. In this, he is like tRump. Take his money away and we will deflate him. A fine of $ 10 billion or so may improve his demeanor. Close X--an administrative action governments can take--and you will deprive Musk of his megaphone.
So England should do something about his BS. Wouldn't Parliament there have the authority to shut X down for creating instability within their country?
Good question.
How about the UK deal with its own structural problems that make civil war inevitable, rather than trying to prosecute those who point out the problem?
Professor Reich: not only should elon musk be put out of business, but his assets should be stripped (most of them came from US taxpayers anyway) and he should be deported back to south africa, where he will, no doubt, find plenty of racist allies.
That's truly stupid. You argue one day about the law and rights, and the next day you demand to ignore the legal system, due process, freedom of speech, or the entire American system of business and commerce, so you can do what YOU want with the wealth that Musk has created.
One reason left-wing parties everywhere become despised is when they start to rant about confiscating the wealth of anyone they deem 'too rich' or 'too successful', as defined by people who have no talent!
If you want to stop Musk interfering in American politics, then democratically pass the laws that stop rich donors contributing to politicians and political parties, like most other sane democratic countries have done.
If you want Musk and the rest of the 1% to contribute more to society, then democratically pass laws that tax their income, their wealth and their legacies, like most other sane democratic countries have done.
If you think that Musk's companies should be taken from him, then pass the laws that allow the State to nationalise critical industries, as many other countries have tried over the decades, and discover for yourselves that those State-run companies become bloated and stale and either fail, or get sold off for peanuts in a privatisation.
Musk is a phenomenon, both good and bad. It is not his fault if your country had created a system without controls, checks and balances, and not just for someone with his extraordinary talents but for any shyster, huckster or Ponzi scheme 'entrepreneur' looking for a place to do business..
And if you think Musk should abide by some of YOUR imaginary rules, why should he when so very many ordinary Americans don't do so.
I will say this again - around 50% of American voters elected Trump to be President before, and around 50% wanted to elect Trump again last time, and still around 50% of voters polled want to elect Trump again. So around half of Americans want more Trump, more Musk, more of all the lawlessness and lack of sanction or control. They seem to want more AK47s, more racism, more police brutality, fewer rights, more misogyny, less healthcare....... That is the democratic America you live in, and THAT is the problem, and even if Harris/Walz succeed in November, the other 50% will still exist. And so will Musk.
Az, a problem has become that it's impossible to pass the laws that reign in their use of money to undermine the system due to their excessive wealth.
Pessimistically, how can one NOT think that perhaps America has passed a point of no return. That there is no real hope of continual incremental change that will deliver an equitable more democratic society at the end of the road. Perhaps climate change will drive incremental as opposed to abrupt change. I am concerned about SCROTUM rejecting legislation to deal with the climate crisis.
These people know so little outside their field. It used to be, someone like Harlan Stone chief justice 1941-1946 taught physics and chemistry and had a varied professional background. He got a law degree from Columbia. Now SCROTUM justices all went to Harvard or Yale. This lack of educational diversity means the court represents people not so well. When people talk about diversity that does not seem to apply to educational diversity, which is much needed. There are plenty of excellent schools turning out plenty of excellent potential supreme court justices. What we have is a racket going on.
AZ you make valid points, even if difficult to read and face. I have been disturbed by how it has come to be that 50% of US citizens, do indeed support such extremes, like obscene wealth or intensely vulgar personalities for starters. But if I’m honest it comes down to values. This country has decided bit by bit, to hold money as a very high value. By doing so we have sacrificed our environment for it, our personal health for it, both physically and emotionally; we have sacrificed our political system to it now that the ultra rich can so terribly influence elections. It seems to me that until we have a fairly radical change in consciousness and dare to dethrone money, we won’t get out of this destructive rut we’re in. Our values determine, ideally, our choices. When those values change, our choices change. At this point it will take more effort to walk away from some of the convenience and gadgets provided by people like Musk or Bezo’s as those things have woven themselves into the fabric of our daily lives but we need to do it. My personal steps may be small and insignificant but again, bit by bit, as we unify in our decisions against this semi-worshipful attitude toward money and fame and power we stand a chance. We can do it but we need to be conscious and committed and unified. Years ago I read there was once a culture that determined the wealth and power of a man by what he could afford to give away. Now there’s a value worth exploring as an option or alternative.
So much agree with this. It's pure fantasy to think (a) that a boycott or lawsuits or regulations can put a man with that much money out of business (b) that putting him out of business would solve the problem.
It’s high time for federal regulations on mis/disinformation on all social media platforms. People will argue “free speech” but here’s the thing everything needs and should have limits.
When so called “free speech” harms society as a whole then it needs to be reigned in.
In high school in the late ‘60’s we used to say “your freedom ends where the next person’s begins”.
My motto is DUO (2)
Do Unto Others
a basic rule for a civil society,
a necessity for the continuation of human civilization.
We will end up causing our own extinction if we don’t use some common sense.
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?
Tough anti-monopoly laws!
I would propose a law that punish the ones who are found "guilty" of manipulating people through their platform, spreading misinformation and straight out lies / A law that freezes their assets and put them in a set-aside fund created with the scope of building up the society (infrastructure, schools, hospitals, grants for underprivileged kids to go to college..and so on).
The Monopolies have to be fought against from a Government for the people by the people 's perspective !
... and I am not talking about nationalizations..
That's why is so important not to allow corruption into the Government (like we started to see with our Republican representatives)
If there is NO-ONE to held them accountable then this is what is happening
Once, we were (rightfully) worried about election meddling misinformation generated by a host of international bad actors. Now, “the call is coming from in the house”.
Exactly!!
Surely there is some anti-terrorism law, or other similar national security law, under which Musk can be charged, detained and tried, hopefully to receive a lengthy jail term?
This has gone far beyond ordinary civic actions, which are palpably ineffective.
I think he should be jailed. He’s like Lex Luther. Totally insane psychopath
Except he is not just a character in fiction.
I have just deleted the X app.
X already deleted me.
Made me laugh! Thank you
Agreed! Musk has to be stopped! He's ruthless and diabolical and apparently without conscience. I closed my Twitter account as soon as I found out he was taking over. And since then, it's become nothing more than a fascist cesspool and I'm glad I got out! And frankly, even if I could afford to, which I cannot, I would NEVER buy a Tesla just because it ultimately supports him!
And ..." they let you do it when you are famous! "
And how many of “them” did not” let you “do it”? You just refused to hear their No, no NO, NO NO’s! And F —- Offs along with the fierce pushes and shoves? Can’t and And Won’t be Honest about that and the Numbers of them, eh ! Were wise to your lies buster.
On Media Suppression Of Trump's Increasing Dementia
It was on 2-26-24 when I first read the Daily Kos's lead article titled The media will not report that Trump appears to have middle-stage dementia. A couple of days later Facebook suggested I look at a site dedicated to the politics and humor of Jon Stewart, which just 'happened' to have posted the original interview in Salon titled "Like someone pulled the metaphorical plug": Dr. John Gartner on Trump's "accelerating dementia". This whole interview was fixated on the dementia issue without mentioning that Both his Parents had Alzheimer's/dementia, which I Learned when I posted A Comparison of President Biden's Mental Competency to Donald Trump's to every response. Then on 7-8, after the idiot went into a long rant about choosing between being electrocuted by a battery on a sinking boat or eaten by a shark Robert Reich posted Why isn’t the media reporting on Trump’s growing dementia?
Well when it comes Corporate TV Media the answer to this question is pretty apparent. Sinclair Broadcast Group, an extreme right-wing controlled conglomerate, owns and operates 40% of all TV broadcasting stations in the US. Popular Information (7/23/24) reported that Sinclair anchor Eugene Ramirez quit in part over a requirement that he air at least three stories from the network's "Rapid Response Team" nightly. "The RRT has produced 147 stories this year that portray Democrats in a negative light," Popular Information found, "and just seven stories that portray Democrats positively." Nexstar Media Group is even larger, John Muse is controlling shareholder and contributes almost exclusively to Republicans. Nexstar owns ABC, CBS, NBC, and FOX among many other broadcast, cable, and streaming networks. So there is your answer as to why it is so difficult to get "fair and balanced" coverage of Biden and Trump. Over 90% of all TV and cable news sources in the US have owners who want Trump to win so they can keep their billions, low taxes, and government handouts.
Likewise that of course is also evident with Corporate Print Media as well. Which is headed by the Murdoch Media Empire: The News was founded in Australia by Rupert's father, incorporated in the US in 1980 as News Corp and acquired various newspapers since 1973 including 50% of 20th Century Fox in 1985, various British newspapers in the next two years and finally the Wall Street Journal in 2007. In 2013, the much richer head of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. From a 12-6-21 New York Times article: That media “neutrality” has a tacit pro-Trump tilt, is associated with prominent press critics like Jay Rosen of New York University and the Washington Post’s Margaret Sullivan (formerly this newspaper’s public editor) and it recently found data-driven expression in a column by The Post’s Dana Milbank. So then I googled Bias against president Biden in the New York Times editorials. The first article was a 3-5-24 post by CNN titled The New York Times is facing backlash over its coverage of Donald Trump and the 2024 election. First paragraph: The Gray Lady has for several weeks been in the crosshairs of a vocal set of critics and readers who believe that Donald Trump poses a grave threat to American democracy and that the influential news organization isn’t adequately conveying those stakes to the public. And finally a more balanced transcript of a 7-12 interview from NPR: Former President Trump is “unfit to lead.” President Biden is “embarrassing himself.” These aren’t the words tossed across party lines, but laid out by The New York Times editorial board.
As that pretty well covers corporate TV and print media bias so now we get to the meat of the matter: Corporate Social Media starting with the Richest guy on the planet – Elon Musk. From a 10-2-23 article titled What was Elon Musk's strategy for buying Twitter? by NBC New's Ben Collins. On the day that public records revealed that Elon Musk had become Twitter’s biggest shareholder, an unknown sender texted the billionaire and recommended an article imploring him to acquire the social network outright. Turns out those anonymous text messages were sent by the far-right blogger Darren Beattie, a former Trump White House speechwriter who was fired in 2018 for having spoken on a panel alongside white nationalists. The article on Beattie’s site (revolver.news) begins with a baseless claim that censorship on Twitter cost President Donald Trump the 2020 election. “Free speech online is what enabled the Trump revolution in 2016,” the anonymous author wrote. “If the Internet had been as free in 2020 as it was four years before, Trump would have cruised to reelection.” The author said that “Step 1” after a Musk takeover would be: “Blame the platform for its users.” He or she predicted that “Twitter would be blamed for every so-called act of ‘racism’ ‘sexism’ and ‘transphobia’ occurring on its platform.” After Musk’s purchase of Twitter was finalized in October 2022, he allowed previously suspended accounts to return. “In the nearly 18 months since (he bought Twitter), many of the decisions Musk made after he bought Twitter appear to have closely followed that road map, up to and including his ongoing attacks against the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit organization founded by Jewish Americans to counter discrimination,” which the fascist went on to blame for the 25 billion buck loss of 60% of the X Twitter ad revenue.
Of course Musk also has his Facebook fan page, whose “free speech” algorithm has been updated to at last barring me from responding to or posting any comment. On July 16 the Jim Hightower team's daily post was titled We've been censored by Facebook! And you probably have been, too. They said in the last week or so they'd seen a lot of social media posts about Project 2025 and when they tried to post their article about it on Facebook it was immediately removed as going against their Community Standards on spam. (Ironically one of the author's of the piece barred me “for 100 years” from posting anything on Hightower's site after posting my months old paper that ends with “the new speaker of the House who openly wants to establish a 'moral' Christian Nationalism run by the next Republican president, who will implement a fascist plan called Project 2025” on multiple comments to their post, violating Their policy on 'spam'!) “I started asking colleagues who work in progressive communications and technology if they’d heard about things like this happening. We’ve now found out that this has been a pattern happening to other organizations publicizing the harm that Project 2025 (“P25”) could do to the country.”
So now that we have fully summarized Anti-Trump News Suppression In Corporate Media, the first question is how in the hell can Progressive Media Counter Mega Billionaire Support Of Trump? Easy and Only Answer – make sure everybody is presented with this Comparison Between The Candidates: Since the huge event of Joe Biden bowing out and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States on Sunday the 21st of July, there is only one question before us: Would you rather have a Fascist Dementia Addled Supreme Narcissistic Moron whose Parents Both Also Had Dementia running this country or the Daughter of Two University Professors?