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One keeps hearing that former President Donald Trump will be judged well by the history books because he was the only American head of state in recent memory who did not start any new wars. Well, the claim is itself questionable as Jimmy Carter, for all his faults, managed to avoid entering into any new armed conflict, and Trump can hardly be described as a president who eschewed throwing his weight around, both literally and figuratively. He attacked Syria on two occasions based on fabricated intelligence, assassinated an Iranian general, withdrew from several arms and proliferation agreements, and has been waging economic warfare against Iran, Syria, Venezuela and Iraq. He has sanctioned individuals and organizations in both China and Russia and has declared Iranian government components and Yemeni Houthi rebels to be terrorists. He has occupied Syria’s oil producing region to “protect it from terrorists” and has generally exerted “maximum pressure” against his “enemies” in the Middle East.
We’re familiar with Fox, the TV propaganda arm of the Trump administration remaining a far right-wing outlet under Rupert Murdoch and his mission of using media to push an arch-conservative agenda.
And we’re becoming aware of other radical right efforts to use media to indoctrinate people. There’s the right-wing Sinclair Broadcast Group seeking to buy up more local TV stations to deceive and lie from, and One America News and Newsmax TV.
As the headline of a recent article in The New York Times declared: “Pro-Trump Media Keeps the Disinformation Flowing.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/20/business/media/misinformation-trump-media.html
Much has to be done about this radical right drive to destroy the ideal of media being an independent monitor, a watchdog taking on power—not a partisan handmaiden.
Use of anti-trust regulations and implementation of Federal Communication Commission broadcast rules are on the top of the list.
Hours after President Biden declared that “democracy has prevailed” during his inaugural address, longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove urged Republicans to pressure GOP election officials and legislators to create “a model election code” to reconsider the laws surrounding 2020’s two voting options that lead to the presidential election’s record turnout.
“Republicans should also encourage GOP secretaries of state and state lawmakers to develop a model election code,” Rove wrote in a January 20 commentary for the Wall Street Journal entitled, “The Republican Future Starts Now.”
“The job of proposing electoral reforms shouldn’t be based on the unsupported claims of widespread fraud peddled by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell,” Rove continued. “Instead, the goal should be to suggest measures that restore public confidence in our democracy. How do states with extensive mail-in and early voting like Florida and Texas get it right?”
History is being written in the United States today. Even the most pessimistic about the prospects of American democracy have rarely ventured out this far while offering a bleak analysis of America’s future, whether in terms of political polarization at home or global standing abroad.
As shocking and, certainly, telling as the images of thousands of American protesters taking over the symbols of America’s federal, representative democracy in Washington DC on January 6, it was only a facet in a far more complex and devastating political trajectory that has been in the making for years.
It is finally over. Joe Biden has been inaugurated President of the United States while his predecessor Donald Trump has retired to Florida. Trump intends to remain the driving force in the Republican Party but there are many in the GOP who would like to see him gone completely and the national media is obliging by depriving him of a “voice,” cutting him off from his preferred social media. The Democratic Party’s top “megadonor” Israeli film producer Haim Saban goes one step farther, recommending that all the media stop reporting on Trump and his activities, thereby taking away his platform and making him disappear politically speaking.
Free Press staff directs you to this link in our efforts to eliminate the death penalty.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/supreme-court-complicit-trump-execution-…
Dear President Joe Biden,
Congratulations and best wishes!
The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission held a “public meeting” today on what it titled “Development of Guidance Documents To Support License Renewal For 100 Years Of Plant Operation.”
Comments from the “public” were strongly opposed to the NRC’s desire for it to let nuclear power plants run for a century.
“I request you pause and consider before you go ahead on this reckless path,” testified Michel Lee, chairman of the New York-based Council on Intelligent Energy & Conservation Policy.
“Our position and that of our constituents is a resounding no,” declared Paul Gunter, director of the Reactor Oversight Project at the national organization Beyond Nuclear.
“It’s time to stop this whole nuke con job,” said Erica Gray, nuclear issues chair of the Virginia Sierra Club. There is “no solution” to dealing with nuclear waste, she said. It is “unethical to continue to make the most toxic waste known to mankind.” And, “renewable energy” with solar and wind “can power the world.”
Jan Boudart, a board member of the Chicago-based Nuclear Energy Information Service, spoke, too, of the lack of consideration of nuclear waste.
This month, many are cheering the news that the NRA is now as financially bankrupt as it is morally. Last year, New York Attorney General Letitia James sued four current or former NRA executives for "illegal financial conduct," leading to the gun group's recent declaration of bankruptcy. Among James' charges were that Wayne LaPierre, CEO and executive vice president of the NRA, received "hundreds of thousands of dollars" of complimentary safaris in Africa.
The group said it would reincorporate in Texas after a century in New York.