33 Comments

The New York Times has traveled past disappointing into the realm of infuriating. Given the state of media, the Dems have to become much more aggressive in getting their message out.

Expand full comment

Apparently The Atlantic doesn’t want to be left out. I had to reread this headline a few times before I could believe it:

“How Hur Misled the Country on Biden’s Memory:

The saga has been something of a self-inflicted wound for Democrats.”

By Adam Serwer

So a Republican Special Prosecutor deliberately misleads the country in his summary of his report on Biden’s classified docs but somehow it gets twisted by a mainstream media outlet into a self-inflicted wound for Democrats??

Expand full comment

Agreed. Anat Schwartz and everything else regarding the lack of coverage of the Genocide in Gaza is despicable.

Expand full comment
Mar 11Liked by Mark Jacob

Nobody has stated it better Mark! Shout it from the rooftops because apparently our “liberal” mainstream media isn’t going to. They’ve apparently drunk the Koolaid.

Expand full comment
Mar 11Liked by Mark Jacob

I think the American public gets bored by the constant drum beat by journalist, repeating the mantra that Americans are bored. This mantra further accelerates disengagement disappointment and disinterest in all politics. The media who promote this should be ashamed by how this contributes to the weakness in our democracy let alone contributes to the Trump campaign

Expand full comment

There's a LOT wrong in the world right now, but we have to work harder to prevent it from getting worse. Biden/Harris, right now is the only choice available to folks with common sense!

Expand full comment
Mar 11Liked by Mark Jacob

I am not bored at all and very excited to vote Biden/Harris again. Would do it right now if I could. Looking forward to a big rollout of indictments of Stone, Flynn, many Reps and Senators. Will be great.

Expand full comment

I would never vote for Trump, but settling for someone who is supporting a genocide is not a great choice either

Expand full comment

OK so Trump then? You would settle? Because Trump strikes me as someone not too interested in human rights, no? Abstaining is not anoption,at least for me. I'm ridin' with Biden.

Expand full comment

I am not sure if your comment is referring to me or not. I would certainly not settle. There i is no word for how awful it is for Biden to be supporting a genocide. It is probably one of the few things that Republicans won't criticize Biden for, because they support Israel as well. What a much of moral cowards

Expand full comment

I don't see how throwing democracy under the bus would help genocide anywhere in the world. Which one could make a study of. Check out what is happening in Africa and get involved because that's 100,000's of people, and also please recall WW2 and also the colonization of the Americas. It's a whole lot of genocide-ing going on in human history and the main thing is that it has never, never improved under a dictatorship. Never. So by coyly abstaining from supporting democracy by not voting blue no matter who, you actually are contributing towards the awfulness of genocide. It sucks, it all sucks, it's terrible. It's a nightmare and a disaster. But, the main tool for improvement, and again just check out history and current events beyond the Middle East, is a functioning and thriving democracy. Even an imperfect one. So I would suggest getting out the vote and voting blue especially down ballot. I hope you would at least do that.

Expand full comment

An imperfect democracy is not good enough. We barley have that now. I never said I was not going to vote for Biden. But the lesser of two evils is still evil. You should read David Pepper's substack. While it is mostly concerned with Ohio. He writes often about voting down ballot and getting more people to run in unopposed districts. This is a major problem. How do you get better people if there is no opposition. This is going on in what is considered safe districts. It is better to try even if you lose. Voters need to hear from the other side. Getting back to Israel you should read this. https://www.aaronmate.net/p/the-biden-doctrine-in-gaza-bomb-starve?utm_source=multiple-personal-recommendations-email&utm_medium=email&triedRedirect=true

Expand full comment

The press is also missing out that one of the candidates is supporting a genocide

Expand full comment

If you think the situation in Gaza would be better under Trump or any Republican, then you aren’t well-informed.

Expand full comment

This is the thing. Pouting about failed purity tests helps nothing.

Expand full comment

I am well informed. I know it would not be be better under Trump. Read this. https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/israels-culture-of-deceit If you hit the links he has plenty to back it up. You should read Norm Finklestein. He has substack and he is all over you tube. Look up Mico Peled, He is from Israel. Biden could easily stop all this if he stopped supply Israel with arms and money

Expand full comment

I only respect those who deserve it. You don’t.

Expand full comment

Why do you say that. Because I accuse Biden of supporting a genocide. I will vote for him because it is impossible for me to vote for a republican including Trump under any circumstances. I am not going to sit home or vote for a 3rd party. I guess you have respect for me because I don't fully support a genocide. We have such terrible choices as to vote for

Expand full comment

I don’t agree that Biden is a terrible choice. He is in a terrible position. I am glad you will vote to protect us from the fascism that Trump promises to unleash. I, too, care about the horrendous situation in Gaza. Bibi is a criminal & he is terrible for Israel. Biden tries to curb the horror, but he is also concerned about Israel continuing to exist.

Expand full comment

“We recognize the violence and hate that Muslims worldwide too often face because of their religious beliefs — and the ugly resurgence of Islamophobia in the wake of the devastating war in Gaza,” reads a statement from President Biden, referring to a US-backed genocide against a Muslim population that he is personally responsible for.

“Today, as millions continue to observe the holy month of Ramadan, Jill and I extend our best wishes to Muslims everywhere and continue to keep them in our prayers. And, we reaffirm our commitment to do all we can to put an end to the vicious hate of Islamophobia — here at home and around the world,” concludes the statement from the president now known internationally as Genocide Joe. https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/genocidal-psychopaths-celebrate-international. Yes he would lose some Jewish votes if he stopped giving arms and money. He wouldn't loose my vote if he did so. It is almost impossible to find any one in main stream media that is opposed to Biden's support of Israel. There are plenty of Jews that oppose what is going on. You won't hear from them at all. There are even Holocaust survivors that are opposed. You won't see them being interviewed.

Expand full comment

I did my duopoly exit, at the presidential level, more than 20 years ago. Please don't disrepect my intelligence and show your lack thereof by making certain types of untrue comments about who I am "really" voting for.

Expand full comment

I’m thinking the democracy vs. authoritarian arguments are not newsworthy. If the arguments change to following a principled and experienced leader who is righting the ship versus following an adjudicated serial liar, rapist and treasonist dictator wanna be perhaps the press coverage will be different. Same matters just said differently.

Expand full comment
author

Why isn't it newsworthy that Trump wants to be a dictator? Seems pretty darn newsworthy to me.

Expand full comment

Agreed, but MSM isn’t framing it as newsworthy. “Democracy” is simply too diffuse as a subject for them to sink their teeth in. Thus, the “Democracy debate and arguments” don’t get much if any air time and “dictator” becomes merely an “alternative viewpoint” that sort of sits on its own without any emotional attachments.

Dictator needs to be portrayed in terms of who and what TFG actually is, along the lines I suggested. A recent Steve Schmidt interview with a political insider reporter discusses this at length.

Expand full comment

It's a good point 🙂 Still wouldn't work though... Meda are in it for themselves only, and that's the author's criticism/condemnation.

Expand full comment

Just a simple question for now. Why is it that a program like CNN'S Democracy in Peril with Jim Acosta was shut down after a brief time on air? What motivates many or even most national TV networks and newspapers, etc. to stick to a superficial politics as usual approach when not only their livelihoods but their very lives will be at risk under a theocratic/fascist regime? My guesses are fear and/or greed. Thoughts?

P.S. Thanks, Mark, for your challenge to the journalists to raise their professional standards. 👏

Expand full comment

I recommend Lucian K Truscott's piece in Salon, "There is something wrong at the New York Times". Also Ed Luce in the Financisl Times today "Democract dies in Trumpian boredom", ie a bored and benumbed media who assumes it's all "baked in", when polling like Geoff Garin's shows it isn't. Also check out Rachel Bitecofer, who ceaselessly pounds this point.

Part of the reason people tune out is they're turned off by how nasty the news is, polling shows. This is quite deliberate, a component of "Flood the Zone".

I also suspect media oligarchs are well aware of how much change Biden promises to bring, and they're not happy about it. However moderately, Biden is about restoring the New Deal, a green and inclusive update. That directly threatens the power and wealth they've built up since the Reagan revolution. They know who Lina Kahn is, Biden's head of the FTC, a determined advocate of restoring antitrust, and they know Trump will fire her.

Expand full comment

Well written, and to a very actual, important point!

There aren't many responses, but you hit all the important points. Please continue! People refuse to do anything other than vote, if they remember, on Nov 5. So whipping the parasitic media is up to talented people lime you.

Thank you!

Expand full comment

Who was the last president to prove unafraid of new thinking and decisive action? Kennedy as he resolved the Bay of Pigs crisis? Or when he called for a new global order and world peace—“a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth is too rarely perceived yet it is the most important topic on earth”—in his famous speech at American University in the spring of 1963? Nixon when he opened to China?

Put this next to Biden’s response to the savagery in Gaza, to take a single example of many. Instead of declaring the new policy toward apartheid Israel these atrocities require, he sends more than 100 weapons shipments to Israel since Oct. 7—covertly to avoid asking for congressional approval, as The Washington Post reported last week, while airlifting virtue-signaling pallets of “prepared dinners” to a starving population of 2.3 million. Using its typical cotton-wool language, in its Sunday editions The Times termed this “the delicate position the United States has found itself in.” “Rank hypocrisy” would have been shorter and better. There is no change in Biden’s stone solid support for a regime whose conduct more than casually resembles that of the Reich—only another performance in the service of facile appearances.

Many presidents before Biden were guilty of selling American foreign policy to those who proposed to buy it. In the case of Israel, this derives from a lobby that has grown grotesquely powerful and thinks nothing of using its wealth to destroy America’s political process, silence critics of the Zionist state, and so dismantle altogether what remains of our democracy. As to Ukraine, it is merely the latest in a long line of conflicts waged, like money-laundering schemes, to benefit the military-industrial complex.■

https://scheerpost.com/2024/03/11/patrick-lawrence-old-man-shouting-the-american-empire-is-doing-great-but-it-isnt/?fbclid=IwAR34O2ZUxrcaH_QNQapceeaLvybzxOjNkyFn2woB0FdNYeFRctt_DxgxDSQ

Expand full comment

Get some help. Please.

Expand full comment