#News media]

[alyfoxxxen]

Why Does No One Understand the Real Reason Trump Won? | The New Republic

this very much explains what i've been seeing as someone who lives between big cities and rural conservative communities

[uboat53]

Donald Trump: Has been running for president for years and still refuses to provide any detail about his policy agenda and, when asked about Project 2025, says he supports some parts and opposes others but won't say which.

Kamala Harris: Just entered the race less than a month ago and is still hiring staff and building her campaign.

The Media: Why won't Kamala Harris discuss her policies?

[reasonsforhope]

Hope is something you learn

Here's the thing: I'm not a naturally hopeful person.

I'm not running a good news blog because I've always naturally gravitated toward good news. I'm not running a blog titled "reasons for hope" because hope is something that comes easily to me

It's actually the complete opposite. Teenage me was a giant cynic and a sarcastic pessimist and probably regarded as a killjoy, tbh. Picture a young, bespectacled, well-informed raincloud, maybe, idk. I could find a negative point to undermine just about anything

Nowadays, I'm one of the most hopeful people I know when it comes to the future - especially among people who actually follow the news

So, if you're feeling hopeless or depressed or anxious or despairing - or all and more - about the state of the world, and you're tired of feeling that way, I want you to know that you absolutely do not have to be a naturally hopeful or optimistic person in order to find hope

I got here because I struggled and clawed my way to hope, deliberately, because I needed it desperately. And the start of that path was bookmarking good news websites and checking them every day - which is why I built this blog

Here's the thing: the news, social media, and the human brain itself are all very biased toward negativity. The human brain is wired this way to help us survive things like tiger attacks - and since people are biased toward negative information, they click on it more, so negativity generates way more clicks and makes way more money.

It's a sucky, vicious cycle. But it doesn't accurately reflect reality - that's the whole point of bias.

It's actually kinda irritating that it's true, imho, but your focus really does determine (a lot of) your reality

If you want to have hope, sometimes you need to build it yourself. Even when it's so hard you don't know if you ever can. And then you need to keep building it, because the world isn't static and neither does your brain. Hope needs maintenance, just like everything else

So it's lucky, then, that human beings and the world are both generally better than we think - and certainly better than news or social media is willing to tell us

Sources Human brain negativity bias: x, x, x, x, x, x News negativity bias: x, x, x, x, x Social media negativity bias: x, x, x, x, x, x, x, x

[newsfromstolenland]

Atlantic Canada's largest newspaper chain is now officially owned by Toronto-based Postmedia Network Inc.

On Monday, Postmedia confirmed the closing of its $1-million purchase of SaltWire Network Inc. and the Halifax Herald Ltd. in a short statement on its website. The sale was approved by a Nova Scotia Supreme Court judge on Aug. 8.

Andrew MacLeod, Postmedia's president and CEO, said his company is "delighted" to welcome the new media properties, saying the sale "preserves their vital role within the community."

Full article

Let's explore why this is a very bad thing.

Postmedia, the company that just bought a chain of over two dozen Atlantic canada newspapers, is known for many things- none of them good.

This is an incomplete list of harmful things that Postmedia and its executives have done/are known for:

Right-wing politics. "The National Post was founded in 1998 by Conrad Black, who has connections to conservative politics and sat as a Conservative Party member of the United Kingdom's House of Lords. The Post has always been aligned with the right side of the political spectrum. ..."Just in the past couple of years, Postmedia has issued an edict stating that they should move even farther to the right, so they're very reliably conservative," said [Media journalist Marc] Edge. "In fact, [they] endorse Conservative candidates often over the objections of their local editors.""

Union busting. "They employed a mix of cajoling (such as with buyouts and raises), entreaties to preserve the paper’s uniquely collegial newsroom culture, office-wide memos decrying the havoc a union would wreak, and, according to CWA Canada President Martin O’Hanlon, one-on-one meetings between staff and management."

Monopolization of canadian news media. "Postmedia Network’s purchase of Saltwire Network will extend its grip from coast to coast, as it already dominates Western Canada with eight of the nine largest dailies in the three westernmost provinces. This purchase will give Postmedia the largest dailies in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland to go along with the largest in New Brunswick, which it acquired from the Irving Oil family two years ago."

Cuts to pensions and benefits while giving large bonuses to executives. "...several top Postmedia executives had received enormous retention bonuses at a time of aggressive belt-tightening (after which many left regardless), and second, the March 2017 announcement that benefits and pensions would be curtailed significantly."

Already beginning to lay off staff from the Atlantic canada newspapers they now own. "...the long-term future of workers in departments like circulation, advertising, customer service, finance and production remains uncertain. "Staff believe maintaining local jobs in the community is critical to retaining both subscribers and clients," the union said. Last week, the union representing workers at The Telegram confirmed that four of the paper's 13 newsroom positions will be eliminated."

More reading: source 1, source 2

Tagging: @allthecanadianpolitics

[tomorrowusa]

The media double standard which overlooks Trump's deteriorating mental state. (from PBS Washington Week - 8/30/24)

JEFFREY GOLDBERG (host and editor of The Atlantic): Here's the thing. I'll make this observation. I'll own it. If Kamala Harris went from bacon to wind in her interview with Dana Bash, she would, this morning, not be -- the next morning, she would not be the nominee of the Democratic Party. That would have been a very, very strange -- people would have been like, what is going on? Do we just have an absurdly low standard now for the things that Donald Trump says and does? DOMENICO MONTANARO (panelist and senior political correspondent at NPR): I think that there is definitely a double standard, and I think part of it is how each side's voters interpret their candidate. And someone like Donald Trump, Republicans have had the opportunity for years to say this is not the guy we want. Instead, they've continued to get behind him. In every primary that Donald Trump weighs in on, he wins, and then the general election a lot of those candidates tend to lose. I think that from reporter's standpoint, we do have to be careful about how we -- what level we hold both of them to. When I fact-checked Donald Trump's hour press conference, he told 162 lies and distortions within that time period, 2.5 a minute, compared to Kamala Harris' DNC acceptance speech, where she had 12 statements that I found were contextually misleading or needed more.

Here's the entire episode.

The media has mostly shrugged off Weird Donald's unhinged rantings as Trump being Trump while holding Democrats to a higher standard.

We need to be more vocal about the double standard. When Trump has another crazed rant about sharks, windmills, electric batteries, and bacon which gets brushed off by a media provider, ask that provider: What would you be saying if a prominent Democrat conducted a similar unhinged rant?

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Those perennial news reports of "The dangers of a sedentary lifestyle" really hit different...

...When you're a full-time wheelchair user.

Like: thanks. But what am I supposed to do with the advice to take a five-minute walk every half hour?

In my head I know there are probably other exercises I could substitute for that -- like arm stretches and reverse sit ups.

But after a while, the consistent assumption that walking is the "simplest" and "lowest impact" exercise available to "everyone" just becomes a reminder of how invisible I am, culturally speaking.

[butch-reidentified]

extremely important piece on the complexity and difficulty of trying to get the public to give a shit about protecting Native spaces, practices, cultures, etc. without compromising the privacy and boundaries of said communities

[bonesashesglass]

https://x.com/thecradlemedia/status/1837548818612494837?s=46&t=9u7dtsvl8XZD8A7j2V6ckA

Right now, Israel is dropping massive bombs on civilian areas in Lebanon 💔

Please, spread and share this news. US media will try to bury it, don’t let them. Make them feel our rage

[wojakgallery]

Title/Name: Soy Boy being brainwashed by the news media Wojak Series: Soyjak (Variant) Image by: Unknown Main Tag: Soy Boy Wojak

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Bonus tell us why in the tags!

[luulapants]

One thing that really struck me this past week, watching our beautiful, brave young folks rising up at campuses around the world, is the promise of student journalists.

The coverage, lack of coverage, and disinformation campaigns about Gaza since October has brought home to so many of us how useless our modern media has become. 24 hour news cycles, and they're not allowed to say anything important. 24 hour propaganda machines. The reporters inside the machine, even if they want to speak out, are silenced. They've been rendered completely incapable of meaningfully covering some of the most important events going on in the US today.

But student newspapers are running livestreams. They're giving timely updates on what's happening in their encampments. They're reporting unbiased facts of what is occurring in front of them. I watched a student journalist live stream an encampment near me - miserable rain, middle of the night, terrified tear gas would be deployed soon. The chat had to keep reminding him to identify himself, but he stood out there in it and told us what he saw and explained everything in a calm, factual manner. Some conservative adult pestering in the chat asked him what the paper's position on the encampment was. He said, "We don't have a position, sir, we're reporting the news."

That's the future of journalism right there. I finally cancelled my subscription to my town's shitty newspaper that night and I'll be donating to the student newspaper instead. There are a lot of changes that need to happen in the wake of this moment. I hope to God a revolution in our media is one of them.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

This @cnn article is absolutely despicable - and indicative of how most media is willing to whitewash jen aside so long as it’s profitable for the billionaire class. There’s no behavior so grotesque that they won’t excuse, even bulldozing people alive and more or less bragging about it.

Repost from @everydaypalestine

•

Mainstream Media is complicit in this gen•cide.

[uboat53]

Is it just me or is The Daily Show the only news source that's accurately covering that the only economic plan Trump has released is just blandly promising over and over again that every job will return to America, whatever that means?

I mean, seriously, we've just seen a media frenzy demanding that Kamala Harris, who had just entered the race, provide innumerable details about her policy plans, but what about the other guy? Has anyone noticed that he just says things like, and I'm quoting him here, "All of your furniture makers are going to come back bigger, and stronger, and better than ever before. They're mostly gone, they're all coming back."

That's it, then he rambles off onto another topic. The man hasn't released a single policy detail other than a very general plan for tariffs and he hasn't had an interview with someone who didn't openly support him since… Seriously, when was the last time he did an interview with someone who wasn't a die hard MAGA fan?

Look, I'd love it if Kamala Harris did more interviews. I'd be very interested to see how she responds when pressed on some of her plans and I'd like to see more policy details. But I'm not going to pretend that the same press that demands the world of her and accepts nothing from her opponent is going to do a fair job of it.

[jessiarts]

Seeing the difference in coverage (news media vs social media) on the Feb 3rd train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, USA on and all the issues caused by the incident, I want to see something;

The incident summed up (and there may be even more I missed):

train carrying 150 cars, twenty of which contained hazardous materials, derailed due a failure of a wheel bearing, due to poor inspection because inspections were cut from 3 minutes per train to 90 secs per train. (Remember the railroad strike? Yeah. Part of what they wanted, in addition to better conditions, was more time to inspect trains and to get faulty parts fixed. They were refused, and now we're here.)

the derailment (of 50 cars) caused a fire which threatened to make a car(s) with the vinyl chloride explode, so a controlled release (burn) of the vinyl chloride (toxic, flammable gas) was done to prevent this

residents within a 1 mile radius were evacuated beforehand

the event resulted in contamination of the air/water and mass deaths of animals like fish and chickens

residents were told it's safe to return home a week after the evacuation, and found their pets dead; water smells wrong; air smells and/or burns their eyes

People miles away are having the same issues with animals dying (schools of dead fish in water, livestock sick/dying) and water contamination

The chemicals are contaminating the Ohio River Basin (which is more than just the Ohio River, and effects/includes KY, WV, TN, IN, OH, and parts of IL, PA, VA, and NC) and could potentially also lead to the whole Mississippi River Watershed being contaminated. (that's like, 40% of the continental United States and starts to touch into Canada.)

That all said,

Please reblog if you vote so we can get a larger sample size!

Many think the Railroad company (and the government, because they sided with the railroad company in ending the strike) are trying to cover this up in the news as much as possible, and that most coverage is coming from social media (specifically TikTok) and I want to see just how true that is.

I'm not not kidding when I say I have people IRL, who do keep up with the news, who never heard about the derailment at all until I told them just a couple days ago. It doesn't look good.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[Amy Siskind]

* * * *

Harris/Walz campaign in overdrive!

October 23, 2024

Robert B. Hubbell

The Harris-Walz campaign is in overdrive. On Tuesday, Vice President Harris sat for interviews with NBC and Telemundo. Tim Walz condemned Trump's “open promise of corruption” by appointing Elon Musk to oversee federal regulations that apply to Musk’s companies. Former President Barack Obama and rap star Eminem rallied for Harris in Detroit, and Kamala Harris is headed to Texas to campaign for Colin Allred.

As shown in the clips below, the Walz, Obama, and Harris rallies are stepping up already high levels of enthusiasm as Trump drones on for hours in his stream of unconsciousness manner.

The NBC interview followed the typical “gotcha” style of questioning from Hallie Jackson, who asked about Joe Biden’s debate performance, polls showing voters’ concerns about the economy, and Harris’s decision not to highlight the historic nature of her campaign to be the first woman president. See The Independent, Four takeaways from Kamala Harris' NBC interview.

In the Telemundo interview, Kamala Harris focused on economic opportunity for Latino men:

I am a capitalist. I am a pragmatic capitalist. I believe that we need a new generation of leadership in America that actively works with the private sector to build up the new industries of America, to build up small business owners, to allow us to increase home ownership. I am very aware how it would affect Latino men. I know that Latino men often have a more difficult time having access to the big loans from the big banks because of relationships, because of things that are not necessarily grounded in their qualifications. So I’m focused on what we can do to bring more capital to community banks that will understand the community and being able to give those kinds of loans.

See NBC News, Harris says she's 'a pragmatic capitalist' in pitch to Latino voters.

At campaign rallies on Tuesday, Tim Walz has stepped up the aggressiveness of his attacks on Trump and his running mate—“Elon Musk.” Per Walz, Musk’s “bouncing around the stage” makes him look like a “dipsh*t”—a description that echoes the widespread mocking of Musk’s stage performance on social media. Walz also noted the “open corruption” of Musk’s funding of Trump's campaign while Trump promised to put Musk in charge of a government commission reviewing federal regulations that apply to Musk’s companies.

Tim Walz’s entire speech is here, Walz delivers campaign remarks with Barack Obama in Madison, Wis. And in this clip, Walz addresses the corruption of Musk’s dual role as a campaign funder and potential government oversight maven: Tim Walz calls Elon Musk Trump's running mate and condemns "open corruption".

Apart from the substance of Walz’s speech, it is clear that he has been assigned the role of aggressively attacking Trump, Vance, and Musk. That is good because it relieves some of the pressure from Kamala Harris, and creates content for television and social media ads. And Tim Walz is very good on offense!

The joint appearance by Barack Obama and Eminem also deserves your attention. The Eminem walk-on is here: Eminem campaigns for Kamala Harris. But no one is as good as Barack Obama. His entire Detroit speech is here, Barack Obama in Detroit. Watch the first minute to see Obama rap the opening lines from Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.”

Obama also directly attacked Trump while promoting Harris, saying:

The good news is Kamala Harris is ready for the job. This is a leader who has been fighting on behalf of people who need a voice. This is somebody who believes in the values of this country. [Trump claims he is tough.] That is not what real strength is — real strength is about working hard, showing up on the factory floor. . . . That is real strength and real strength is taking responsibility for your actions and telling the truth even when it's inconvenient, and helping people when they need it.

As Walz, Obama, and Eminem were turning up the intensity and enthusiasm, Trump was trying to drum up support among Latino voters by putting them to sleep in a two-hour speech. Rather than junk up this newsletter with an example of Trump's incomprehensible speech, see this example, linked in separate document.

As noted in the Washington Post, Trump's verbal mistakes and confusion are “more frequent . . . as he increases the pace of campaigning.” “More frequent” is code for “incessant.”

Trump's outreach to Latino voters comes as Jeff Goldberg writes in The Atlantic that Trump complained about the cost of a funeral for a female soldier murdered on a military base. See The Atlantic, Trump: ‘I Need the Kind of Generals That Hitler Had’

Per Goldberg in The Atlantic, Trump reacted to the cost of the funeral as follows:

Trump became angry. “It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a f*cking Mexican!” He turned to his chief of staff, Mark Meadows, and issued an order: “Don’t pay it!” Later that day, he was still agitated. “Can you believe it?” he said, according to a witness. “F*cking people, trying to rip me off.”

Trump's spokesperson denied the report, as did Kash Patel. But Goldberg cites two people in the room as his source for the statement by Trump.

Also on Monday, Trump's Chief of Staff, former General John Kelly, described Trump as a fascist and said that Trump wants to be a dictator. See CNN Politics, Trump’s former chief of staff says he fits ‘fascist’ definition and prefers ‘dictator approach’.

Of course, to state the obvious (again), any of the above revelations would spell the end of the candidacy of any other presidential contender. The fact that the Republican Party continues to ignore the blaring warning signals is a sign that it no longer exists as a political party with an ideology or purpose. It is an empty husk that has been occupied by a parasite using the host for grifting and corruption.

The mystery that will provide full employment for generations of historians is why so many Americans willingly embraced the con and spread the hate that fuels Trump's campaign. For now, we should take confidence from the fact that Kamala Harris is running to promote freedom and prevent tyranny—while news anchors ask “gotcha” questions that no one cares about. Ah, well! It is up to us! It always is!

Watch Jess Piper’s interview with Tom Vilsack.

Jess Piper interviews Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture, about the Harris/Walz plan for rural America. See Jess Piper in The View from Rural Missouri, The Official Harris/Walz Plan for Rural America.

If you are working to motivate voters in rural America, this is a must-watch video that makes a compelling case for the Harris/Walz plan for rural America. I was shocked about the amount of information I did not know about how Harris/Walz would improve the lives of Americans in rural areas. Help spread the word to others while there is still time to move the needle.

The interview covers issues that affect rural America differently than urban areas, such as home ownership, land costs driving young adults away, school closures and mergers due to population declines, healthcare access, pheasant hunting and gun ownership, availability of childcare, volunteer fire departments, and access to groceries.

If you don’t subscribe to Jess Piper, I recommend that you check out her Substack, The View from Rural Missouri. Hers is in important voice both for rural America and for women. (See this moving essay, Red State Fear, about the special fear of being a woman in a red state.)

More good news in the election litigation front

The Georgia Supreme Court refused to grant expedited review of a lower court ruling blocking a rule that would have required a hand-count of all ballots. See Reuters, Georgia's top court will not fast-track appeal of US ballot hand-count rule.

Although the ruling does not dispose of the legal challenge to the hand-count rule, it effectively blocks implementation of the rule for the November election. While an appeal to the US Supreme Court is possible, it would be astonishing for the Court to intervene in a question of state law, especially two weeks before an election.

As Marc Elias of Democracy Docket has noted, we must distinguish between the ability of Republicans to file frivolous lawsuits and the likelihood of success of those lawsuits. The mere fact that MAGA extremists harbor “suspicions” about voter fraud is not sufficient to invalidate the outcome of elections in a county or state. The remedy for fraud relating to specific votes is invalidating those votes—and no others.

Sadly, news media report new lawsuits with ominous overtones suggesting chaos but rarely note the dismissal of those same lawsuits. The fact is that voter fraud is vanishingly rare in America—despite the proliferating number of lawsuits filed by Republicans. The fact that fraud is vanishingly rare means that virtually all of those lawsuits will be disposed of quickly.

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Talking (U.S.) Politics

I'm frustrated by the Mainstream Press following Trump's lead and complaining that Kamala Harris hasn't held a press conference, yet, to talk about specifics of her policy positions, or campaign party platform.

For all the presidential campaigns I remember, from my lifetime (starting in 1976), presidential candidates never finalized their campaign platforms or policy positions until after their national conventions (figuring out what the campaign platforms should be is the main reason for holding a convention, in the first place -- that's where the party delegates, who were voted for in the primaries, meet to reach consensus on the platform in the first place).

And the Democratic National Convention doesn't even start until August 19, 2024 (it's August 17 as I type this).