#PBS newshour

[onlytiktoks]

[mythicalsymplegma]

Just a friendly reminder

If you want unbiased news sources and are struggling to keep up with it all, PBS NewsHour posts daily news on their YouTube channel everyday at 6PM (14:00).

Makes one feel SUPER adult listening to/watching it, and also helps that the far right currently hates PBS and are trying to take it down, so give them all the viewership!

[relaxedstyles]

[the-bookworm-cafe]

[unsolicited-opinions]

Some good examples of how Western media downplays attacks ON Israel:

In the opening minute of this NYT podcast, the NYT describes the ~180 bus-sized ballistic missiles launched at Israel by Iran as "...the largest missile attack on Israeli territory in the country's history."

Remove the bias, and it would instead acurrately be described as "the largest ballistic missile attack ever launched."

See the difference? Note how it changes the story?

PBS does the same thing:

Source

No, PBS. This was the largest missile attack ever launched, by any nation, against any nation.

I subscribe to the NYT. I'm a PBS member. This is profoundly disappointing, but no longer surprising.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Decoding Fox News:

Last week the folks at Fox twisted themselves into knots to defend the actions of a maniacal corrupt billionaire hellbent on destroying entire government agencies without congressional oversight. They would never admit that their glorious leader, Donald J. Trump, was just a puppet for Elon Musk, a South African immigrant with extremist political leanings. During one of the celebrations involved with Donald J. Trump’s inauguration Musk performed a hand gesture that looked suspiciously like a Nazi salute. When Musk was criticized for it instead of apologizing or clarifying what he meant he posted several inappropriate jokes about Nazis on his social media platform X. Musk also enthusiastically backed an extremist staunchly anti-immigrant political party in Germany - the Alternative for Germany Party also known as AfD. At a recent rally for AfD Musk said, in an apparent reference to the Nazi era, "frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that." Musk has also publicly supported an extremist party in the UK. He’s also retweeted dozens of extremists on X (Twitter) as well as promoted several racist conspiracy theories. Openly pro-Nazi profiles have flourished on the X platform since Musk acquired it. Of course, no one on Fox News brought up Musk’s extremist political leanings. His actions to slash and burn entire government agencies were framed as saving money for American tax payers. [...]

Trump rewarded his benefactor with a position to helm the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, a task force set up by the executive branch.

What is DOGE?

DOGE was created via an executive order on January 20, 2025

It is a task force not an official government agency

Elon Musk is a special government employee

This status means he is not required to file a public financial disclosure

He did not need to have a confirmation hearing by the House or Senate

This is no mechanism to prevent Musk from interfering with an agency that might benefit one of his six companies.

Musk is essentially policing himself.

Musk has billions of dollars of federal contracts with this companies SpaceX and Tesla.

DOGE seems to mirror many of the proposals in Project 2025

DOGE faces several lawsuits meant to limit its power

What Has DOGE Done So Far

Attempted to completely destroy USAID

Musk called the agency a criminal organization

Musk requested to cut off all payments to USAID four days into the Trump admin.

President Trump issued an executive order suspending all U.S. foreign assistance.

The Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stop-work order for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Dozens of USAID’s top leaders were placed on immediate leave

Hundreds of employees have been let go.

The USAID website was taken down

The sign on the building USAID operated in has been covered up.

Offered a buyout to federal employees

Ended all remote work for federal employees

Claimed to have found fraud in various agencies - provided no evidence of fraud

Musk has claimed payments from Health and Human Services to various groups around the country are illegal.

DOGE employees gained access to the Department of Treasury payment systems

A federal judge blocked DOGE from accessing them.

Decoding Fox News has an excellent article on Fox “News” shilling for Elon Musk and DOGE.

From the 02.12.2025 edition of Decoding Fox News:

[your-worst-boy]

PBS was lucky enough to catch this moment on their live broadcast...Trump let's everyone exit the room and buys time so he doesn't have to actually sign the MLK order :) normal and cool stuff!!!

[saywhat-politics]

WATCH LIVE: House and Senate Democrats hold news briefing on Trump and Elon Musk shutting down USAID

[thoughtportal]

Native American Children murdered at US boarding schools

[onlytiktoks]

[akitauma]

some ass is trying to get pbs shut down so help stop this stupidity by donating

[autumngracy]

WATCH: GOP Rep. Schweikert urges Congress to avoid 'financial armageddon'

GOP Rep. David Schweikert of Arizona criticized Republican plans for the national debt and spending cuts on the House floor Friday, urging Congress to avoid a "financial armageddon."

In a passionate speech, Schweikert emphasized the difficulty of cutting federal spending and that current plans to go after certain programs that are oft discussed by members of his party aren't going to change the financial landscape as much as promised.

"If you get rid of the Department of Education salaries ... you just covered nine hours of borrowing," he said.

He also added that eliminating foreign aid would only cover a week of borrowing. "Am I starting to make a point on the scale of what we have to actually tell the truth and deal with," he asked. 

This is against the landscape that President Donald Trump has centered federal spending in the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, led by Elon Musk.

[lakecountylibrary]

It's Banned Books Week! Indiana made it on to PBS News last month. Guess why!

The video at the link is captioned and has a full text transcript. No paywall. It discusses a censorship bill passed in Indiana last year (2023).

A few salient highlights:

Leah Johnson: (Indiana author, You Should See Me in a Crown) It's not about the removal of books from shelves. It's about the removal of queer people from public life. It's about making queer people ashamed and afraid and driving them back into the closet.

Max: (Indiana teen) The first book that I read wasn't the reason I realized I was trans. It was just nice to see once I realized that, and I see that represented a book. So now that it's not being represented, it might be harder for people to realize or even just feel safe in their own identity, and that's my concern.

Jim Tomes: (Republican Indiana State Senator, co-author of the bill in question) Well, maybe they should worry. [...] Maybe it should have the chilling effect [...] I will say this, if you're defending these libraries and these books, you're on the wrong side of things.

-- The bill being discussed in this video went into effect last year after a drawn-out fight in the Indiana legislature. We wrote about the fight here. (Scroll down for the reblog with the final update)

We expect next year's legislative session to go further, introducing harsher restrictions and targeting public libraries and librarians in addition to schools and teachers. Keep an ear to the ground if you're in Indiana - your library may need your help in 2025.

Incidentally, and totally unrelated, have you checked your voter registration lately? Local elections matter!

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Ellie Quinland Houghtaling at TNR:

He may not be in office, but Donald Trump has been speaking with the powers that be about Israel’s war on Gaza—but it’s not in an effort to end the genocide. Instead, Trump has allegedly been talking with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to avert a cease-fire deal, fearing that doing so could help Vice President Kamala Harris win in November, according to PBS. “The reporting is that former President Trump is on the phone with the Prime Minister of Israel, urging him not to cut a deal right now, because it’s believed that would help the Harris campaign,” said PBS’s Judy Woodruff Monday night. “So, I don’t know where—who knows whether that will come about or not, but I have to think that the Harris campaign would like for President Biden to do what presidents do, and that’s to work on that one.” It wasn’t immediately clear if Woodruff was referring to a new report, or an Axios story last week that cited two U.S. sources as claiming that Trump and Netanyahu had spoken on the phone about cease-fire and Gaza hostage talks. Netanyahu’s office and Trump both separately denied the report. “I did encourage him to get this over with. You want to get it over with fast. Have victory, get your victory, and get it over with. It has to stop, the killing has to stop,” Trump said at a New Jersey press conference on Thursday, referring to their meeting at Mar-a-Lago last month. But he also criticized cease-fire demands.

Donald Trump’s scheme to deny Kamala Harris and Joe Biden a chance to negotiate a ceasefire to end the war in Gaza for political reasons is a brazen violation of the Logan Act, as Trump has advised Israel Apartheid State PM Benjamin Netanyahu to NOT negotiate a ceasefire deal.