Tag Archives: Journalism

The investigation to somehow blame Russia for Donald Trump’s election has now merged with another establishment goal of isolating and intimidating whistleblowers and other dissidents, as Dennis J Bernstein describes. Narrative control is essential to elite control in a representative democracy. Consortium NewsRussia-gate’s Reach into Journalism Dennis J Bernstein, a host of “Flashpoints” on PacificaAlso A smear campaign targeting Seder accused him of joking about rape in a satirical...

An astute progressive critique of the Trump Administration from … CNBC?!? John Harwood of that well known lefty outlet, …. ummm, CNBC …. writes this morning that “Trump has Forgotten his ‘Forgotten People’:” He forgot them on health care. Jettisoning his campaign pledge to “take care of everybody” regardless of income, he proposed cutting federal health subsidies for the hard-pressed blue-collar voters who put him into office. He forgot them on financial...

A First Step for Organizing Counterpower from Below I’ve been posting a lot of critical stuff on gaps and faulty assumptions in the rhetoric and strategy (such as it is) of the US Left.  A reasonable person might say, OK, enough already.  We know what we’re doing isn’t working, but what would?  What’s the alternative? Good question—I’m glad you asked.  Actually, for about 40+ years I’ve had the same idea, which I’ll now try out on you. First, consider...

of His Constituents. Iowa Republican Senator Grassley came out publically stating he wants to eliminate the estate tax to help Iowan farmers stay on their family farms. In rebuttal, the Des Moines Register had this to say: Of the numbers of Iowans paying the estate tax, they can be quantified in the dozens each year. Out of the 1.45 million Iowans filing federal tax returns, the numbers of Iowans over the last five years paying estate taxes numbers...

Flynn Bails, but Don’t Get Your Hopes Up I haven’t seen anything yet to convince me that the Putin-Trump collaboration was a big deal.  Ugly and unprincipled, sure, but politically consequential, probably not. A contrary view, expressed by Harry Litman in today’s New York Times, is that this is the beginning of the end for the Trumpster.  The evidence is accumulating that, between his election in November of last year and his inauguration on January 20...

Fort Russ News has no problem printing a retraction, but we'd rather avoid that when we know beforehand that we'd later have to. There's a cynical saying inside the news world, that news only has to be true for a day. We aren't interested in that. Maintaining readership and building trust as a credible paper, emerging as a paper of record, is a long-term and principle-based project, and this means not covering a sensational story that gives a short term boost to ratings. Fort RussChina to...

Bruce Bartlett: “Prediction–EVERY Republican senator will whore himself or herself to pass this tax monstrosity. They should all go to Hell.” Bruce Bartlett: “Prediction–Democrats will stay home on Election Day 2018 because that’s what they always do best(last word is mine)” Predictions

Tolerance And Terrorism In Saudi Arabia On the one hand this past week, Thomas Friedman at the New York Times has written a praising column about Crown Prince Muhammed bin Salman (MbS). He is going to bring a new “wave of tolerance” into Saudi Arabia, along with more generally modernizing it. This claim is not totally without substance given his setting up for women to drive starting next June as well as letting them go to sports events with men and also...

I have been doing my typical reading on healthcare in the US and ran across several articles which seemingly come together at various points in the dialogue and are written by different authors. I decided to tie them together into a much wider and telling story. An interesting point being was made by MedPage Today’s Dr. Milton Packer on his blog, “people suffer and die because Payors (Healthcare Insurance) is cost effective.” He starts his discussion on...

A Race To Suppress Academic Freedom? The race is between the two nations competing for global dominance, the US and China.  This post is triggered by an unnamed editorial in today’s Washington Post (probably authored by Fred Hiatt) criticizing China for imposing ideological limits on Chinese universities.  Since the recent party congress, 40 universities have set up centers for studyiing Xi Jinping Thought.  14 universities have come under attack for...