Tag: news media
















Peter Roskam is afraid of his constituents

The resistance has officially come to the Chicago suburbs:






51% of Democrats foolishly trust the pro-Trump corporate media








Donald Trump launches an attack against this blog, blogging in general, and freedom of the press

This is an actual quote from Donald John Trump, the likely Republican Party nominee for President of the United States:

I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws. So that when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace or when the Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money instead of having no chance of winning because they’re totally protected. You see, with me they’re not protected, because I’m not like other people, but I’m not taking money — I’m not taking their money. So we’re going to open up those libel laws, folks, and we’re going to have people sue you like you never got sued before.

What Donald Trump is saying goes against everything that this country stands for. Many of the people who helped build this country in its earliest years fought for, and won, freedom of the press, which is enshrined in our nation’s Constitution as part of the First Amendment. What Trump is proposing is an idea straight out of a fascist society…the idea that, if one merely criticizes someone, even if that criticism is factual in nature, the person or entity being criticized can file a defamation lawsuit and get money out of it. That is absurd, frightening, undemocratic, and likely unconstitutional.

I will assure you, that, in the coming days, weeks, and months, I will be writing a ton of blog posts criticizing Donald Trump, and I will assure you that every one of my criticisms of Trump will be absolutely 100% factual in nature.

Morning Joe hosts caught on hot mic fawning over Donald Trump

During a commercial break of an edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe in which Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump appeared on the program, hosts Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, and Mika Brzezinski were caught on a hot microphone fawning over Trump:

In one exchange, Brzezinski calls Trump’s decision to call two men onstage to a rally last week after they confronted a protester a “wow moment.”

“You had me almost as a legendary figure, I like that,” Trump responds.


At one point, Brzezinski seems to ask Scarborough if they should ask Trump questions about deportation. Scarborough only replies that “we really do have to go to some questions.”

Trump then jokes to Brezinski, “Nothing too hard, Mika.”

If you want proof that the far-right corporate media in this country has bent over backwards to appease Donald Trump, there’s the proof. I find it absolutely disgusting that the media would do whatever it takes to appease someone who compares immigrants to rapists and is running a presidential campaign on full-blown bigotry.

The REAL reason why The Washington Post is smearing Bernie: it’s about those Viagra ads

The Bernie Sanders presidential campaign has begun to push back aggressively against an editorial by The Washington Post that viciously attacked him for running for president and advocating for common-sense ideas to make America great again. For example, Sanders retweeted this tweet from David Sirota of the International Business Times pointing out WaPo’s hypocrisy:

However, that isn’t the real reason why WaPo is attacking Bernie. In this paragraph, one line really stood out as being something about Bernie’s proposed Medicare for All plan that would have a specific negative impact on the corporate media:


(emphasis mine)

The fact that WaPo is complaining about Bernie’s plan (possibly) eliminating direct-to-consumer advertising (keep in mind that I’ve never heard a major-party presidential candidate in this year’s election actually advocate for eliminating direct-to-consumer advertising) of prescription drugs is a dead giveaway as to why WaPo is smearing Bernie.

Direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs and medical devices is allowed in only two countries (the United States and New Zealand), and it’s a major contributor to why health care costs in America are ridiculously high. Late last year, the American Medical Association (AMA), a group representing American physicians, called for a ban on direct-to-consumer advertising. Obviously, such a ban would likely result in less advertising revenue for corporate media outlets, since big pharmaceutical companies pay big bucks to corporate media outlets for advertising.

While I’m not sure how much money WaPo makes off of pharmaceutical advertising, WaPo is going to bat for the corporate media in a desperate attempt to preserve the corporate media’s stream of money from the makers of erectile dysfunction pills like Viagra and Cialis.







It’s not just a Bernie Sanders media blackout. It’s a Democratic Party media blackout.

If you’re a Bernie Sanders supporter, you certainly know by now that Bernie, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, has received far less coverage from the traditional news media in this country than Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, despite Trump having fewer supporters than Bernie:

(Real Clear Politics’s) average showed Sanders with 32.2% support among voters, and Trump with just slightly more at 33%. But Gallup’s party affiliation numbers showed 44% of those surveyed identify with Democrats, compared to 42% of Republicans, giving a bit more weight to the Sanders supporters.


Media Matters for America reported that Trump in 2015 had received 234 minutes of coverage among NBC, CBS and ABC evening news broadcasts, while Sanders got only 10 minutes of coverage from the Big Three. ABC gave Sanders the least amount of time, with only 20 seconds of stories broadcast about the Sanders campaign on World News Tonight. Those figures don’t include reports about events such as debates in which all candidates participate.

However, it’s not just Bernie who is largely being ignored by the media. Hillary Clinton, a Democratic presidential candidate who, per recent opinion polling, has more supporters than any other major-party presidential candidate, has also received considerably less media attention than Trump. In fact, as legendary political columnist and author John Nichols noted, most of the media coverage that Hillary has received has been about her responses to Trump’s offensive rhetoric:

Even when Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton is covered, the coverage is increasingly focused on her responses to the billionaire’s obnoxious and irresponsible statements. When the Democratic front-runner calls out the Republican front-runner’s crude scheming to bar Muslims from the United States, that’s a story, to be sure. But it should also be a story when Clinton proposes a National Infrastructure Bank and a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s transportation system — as she did Friday in St. Louis.

Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Martin O’Malley have all proposed interesting ideas to make America a better place to live, yet the corporate media is promoting Donald Trump’s overt racism and offensive remarks. This is roughly 3% the fault of failed Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz and roughly 97% the fault of a corporate media that is more interested in ratings than objective political coverage. Many Americans, including me, are sick and fucking tired of the corporate media promoting Donald Trump’s overt hatred, racism, sexism, Islamophobia, bigotry, scaremongering, vindictiveness, and absurd ideas. If Donald Trump were to win, it would be because he’s the corporate media’s preferred presidential candidate.

This isn’t just a Bernie Sanders media blackout. This is a Democratic Party media blackout.





