This is a BFD! MURDOCH LOSES COURT BID to leave son Lachlan media empire.
"Rupert Murdoch has faced a setback in his bid to cement his son Lachlan’s future control of his media empire… Lachlan is ideologically aligned with his father and would be expected to continue the editorial positioning…
"There was concern that his three siblings could choose to reorient the company in a more moderate direction after their father’s passing. James, in particular, has become a vocal supporter of liberal causes since he formally exited his father’s media company in 2020, citing “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions”.”
You're absolutely correct that this is a BFD! IDK which son-- perhaps James?-- was in charge of National Geographic when Murdoch bought it in the 20??, but I do remember thinking, "Oh s#i+. There goes discussion about poverty throughout the world, the climate crisis, war, endangered animals, etc." And lo and behold, National Geo has continued to vigorously persue the very stories that I and many others feared would be muted. So it must have been run by one of his more moderate-liberal children.
I know he and Lachlan are appealing the decision, but I so hope that the final final court decision-- whenever that happens-- breaks "our" (meaning those who support truth telling in journalism) way. The state of journalism in democracies around the world depends on righting the error that was created when Fox News was allowed to be broadcast as "news". And this can only happen if his more reasonable heirs gain control of the family business.
Do not hold your breath about the result of the appeal. I am realizing more every day that we all lived in an echo chamber during the campaign. A friend's husband is a truck driver. The friend who is a Professor lived in the same echo chamber I did. However, her husband kept on telling her his observations all over the country and he knew Trump would win. He is not devastated like we are because he lived outside our echo chamber. Until and unless some wealthy folks on the Left buy abunch of radio stations, start podcasts for youths, we are in troubled water.
"America’s right wing has been able to shape reality in large part because of the 1996 advent of the Fox News Channel (FNC), the brainchild of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Shows on the FNC used clear, simple messaging with colorful graphics that told a story of an America overwhelmingly made up of white, rural folks who hated taxes and an intrusive government, and would do fine if they could just get the socialist Democrats to leave them alone. To spread the new channel, Murdoch initially offered ten dollars per subscriber to each cable company that carried it.
That right-wing echo chamber has expanded until it is now so strong that nearly 70% of Republicans falsely believe Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, despite the fact that the FNC had to pay more than $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems for defamation after it lied to viewers about that election."
Unless we use all the tools at our disposal to fight this propaganda war, we will not succeed in ripping away the lies that Fox and others spread. The Media and Democracy Project has a petition to deny licenses to some Fox affiliates that might start the process of undermining the Fox empire. https://foxpetition.com/
Tools at our disposal. How about emergency war powers? We were attacked by a foreign power, emasculated, and pushed to the verge of a totaliarian dictatorship. Russia used psy ops. Putin expects a quid pro quo from Trump.
War. Is war an emergency?
Why is Biden not acting? Why is the MSM not reporting on this?
it certainly does feel like Biden and Schumer, who still sit in the power positions, are silently allowing Trump agenda without opposition. The lamest of lame ducks.
If the leadership is not going to "roll up its sleeves" and show some leadership and direction it makes it more difficult for us grunts on the gound to show resolve and inspiration. If their game plan is to let GOP dig its own hole to turn the tide, then why should we be busting out butts out here on the playing field?
One of the things that the Dems could bring into their communications is to talk more about consequences, as I see Simon did in this latest newsletter. I think we assume that attacking someone's moral character or their unfitness is enough for people to connect the dots. Instead, we should talk about what that unfitness means--as in, more children dying from preventable diseases or greater risk of war or remind people of the Red Scare. I don't think losing our status as a world leader resonates particularly. But the return of polio... that hits home.
Never heard of Ms. Kamarck until now. Maybe you can bring some of this up.
I survived Al Gore's "reinventing government" and a lot of similar inititives when I was a federal employee.
I've been asking the same questions since about that time. I advocated projects like creating endowments for some of our trust funds and suing OPEC, the tobacco industry etc to recoup funds the treasury has lost to fixing prices, pollution, etc.
I keep asking why we can't use arbitrage to borrow from some of our allies like Japan, Scandanavia and Switzerland. They loan funds at 1%. We can borrow and arbitrage, retire our debt.
I think addressing the media and communications issues is important. However, it should be remembered that the Democratic candidate polled more than 81 million votes. So, whilst the media landscape may be hostile, in 2020 US voters rejected Trump by a very large margin. In 2024 he barely increased his vote and narrowly won, securing 4 million votes fewer than Biden did in 2020. So, whilst better channels of communication are important, Democrats have consistently won the popular vote this century, except for Bush (v Kerry) and Trump this time around - despite the right wing media ecosystem. Thought needs to be given not only to the mechanisms of policy communication but to the policies being communicated. Also to the record in government. Were inflation and immigration so badly handled by the Biden administration that millions decided to stay home? Good luck with the analysis and creating the basis of the next stage of the political and civic journey. The opportunity now is to make big gains in Congress and in gubernatorial elections in 2026. Good luck all, love Russ.
I am sorry to be a negative voice, but the Senate map is bad for us in 26. GOP has 20 senators up for reelection. 18 are in safe red states. The other 2 are Maine and NC which, while possible for Dems are not a sure thing. Dems have 13 senators up. 12 are in pretty safe blue states and the 13th is Ossoff in Georgia who we will have to work to defend.
GA resident here. Yes we must and can keep Ossoff's seat. He is a common sense senator who works on real issues we care about and stays out of the political drama. IDK if he is someone Simon will choose as an official Hopium candidate for the group to support for 2026, but his campaign is already up and running if anyone cares to contribute: https://electjon.com/
Nothing can ever look good for Democrats if super rich folks are allowed to buy politicians like Tester and Brown and Casey lost due to an enormous amount of out of state money and foreign psy op messages.
Some thoughts on building a progressive/Democratic media infrastructure that can compete and dominate the right wing media infrastucture:
We need to own substantial platforms to blast our message out 24/7 year round. Blue Sky is a possible start. This includes recruiting the best and brightest young people who have a deep understanding of how the current media landscape works to design, manage the platforms, and be influencers, podcast hosts, on-line personalities etc. Get Hollywood involved. This will need mighty resources...but we have our own billionaires who can be recruited to support this effort.
Consider this on the scale of winning WW2, getting a man on the moon, etc. We have the resources and talent. Let's use them to win this war!
When things go bad, as they do under fascists and as they will under Trump, the fascists are very good at blaming someone -- the Jews, the immigrants, the enemy from within, uppity women, the gays, etc. -- for the problems and too many people are happy to believe them. It's certainly easier than admitting you were wrong. And there's always "God is punishing us for" -- you name it -- abortion, birth control, taking God out of schools, gay people getting married to be used to explain problems caused by fascist policies. It's going to take a very loud effort from out side to try and get some people to realize the truth.
Well, God opened up a sinkhole near Mar-a-Lago, and hammered Trump’s state of residence with one hurricane after another – but, sadly, America’s Evangelical Christianists *still* didn’t get the message!
Thanks for your always timely content and optimism. Rant:
I read a piece yesterday, from Marc Elias, who has changed his tone dramatically, into a fighter, I'm pissed, where has everyone gone, I have no time for quitters tone. It was not unexpected but rather welcomed. I have no interest in anyone's opinion of Marc, personally, it was just very noticeable.
We have a literacy problem and an internet problem that needs grassroots education because no matter how anyone thinks about "the others" "the libs" or all that jazz, or re-defining ourselves, and are now going to fight, the question is where were we before 11/5/24?
Allowing transgender, migrants, and lies to be settled into malleable minds with no fight back. They are important issues but low rung fruit for voters, even if you are a migrant, and voted against your own interest. C'mon when those on social nets vote for billionaires the disconnect is easy to connect and it has been happening for decades. How does the Brookings Institute suggest we fix that?
Basking in Harris' ratings, asking the man who has gotten NO credit for our economy, that if Trump had won in 2020, had 2T in cuts planned already, was that Musk, DOGE, to stand down and not explain why in real terms, complaining about the media, thankful for paid endorsements, or NOT GOING ON JOE ROGAN? THEY ROLLED OVER US.
MUSK should never have legally been allowed to do what he did. JOE BIDEN IS IMMUNE. PULL HIM OFF THE CAMPAIGN. LET HIM SUE. JOE IS IMMUNE IF IT IS A NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION. AN OFFICIAL ACT.
Allowing Trump to do Trump is not the media. It isn't even Trump. It is populism and it wasn't countered. One lie, then another to cover, and the first is forgotten. History repeats. Belief in a felon destined to end in prison, was why the viral video exposing a black voter, young bro, who voted for Trump, was told you will never belong, went viral. He sat stunned and said I guess I was always just a vote. YUP AND WE DID SAY AS MUCH BUT NOT WHERE IT MATTERED OR IN TERMS THAT CONNECTED.
Keep calling it HUSH MONEY and I'LL LOSE MY EVER LOVING MIND. He has interfered in all three elections. However, he was convicted, not for paying HUSH MONEY, and now a felon, but in furtherance of a federal cover-up to influence a federal election and that was NOT ANYWHERE I EVER READ INCLUDING INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM. NOWHERE. EVER. MAGA doesn't read and if they did they don't care. They needed a jolt of get off the fkn computer or you'll lose your job, 401k, no house ever, and any money you paid into that "Ponzi scheme" that they aren't thinking about today but could borrow off of, to buy said home, but no job means no money.
That is the reality we failed on. Talking dirt, not playing nice, not caving, not accepting, not obeying which we did long ago because, even though Biden did all the work, he needed a sound person......loud and clear.
I was called liberal Alex Jones for stating, until Trump got into a court of law, on his two, actually three indictments, the election, should be "tolled" by Biden as a federal emergency. Novel, huh? An unprecedented, no precedent situation, a national security threat, and not constitutional but we, instead, let the SCOTUS pitch the 14th, for the entire country, when elections are run by the states and allowed the non-self arbiters to conduct business as usual for their own conflicts of interest. WE DID NOTHING. NOTHING. BIDEN IS IMMUNE. USE IT.
We lost the guardrails early and the fight over the smaller things got lost that are technically and practically the big things. We allowed the hypocrisy. We needed to change TACTIC.
Why the DOJ let Smith drop those cases is BEYOND me. There is no constitutional provision, precedent or LAW which made him do this. A DOJ internal memo from the Clinton and Nixon eras is it. WE DID NOTHING.
I'm only as good as reading and writing but if I had any power to go have a talking to with those who googled "can I change my vote" instead of googling "tariffs" and "current economy" pre-election, and a lot of other issues. I would.
I'd also fire them from their union jobs, take away their computers and hand them a book. Illiteracy and loneliness, esp among young men, wanting a house but have a good union job and were listening to Joe Rogen, didn't understand the nostalgia and incorrect assumptions about how horribly the economy was going, directionally, under Trump 1.0, and didn't believe US, and then hit the pandemic wall. He had a falling GDP and emergency rate cuts that followed Obama's 0-0.25% and that isn't sustainable if one wants growth. Growth is paying more and making more. You can't have your lower priced eggs and Trump's new term "groceries", he himself invented, and a higher wage while cutting taxes for the wealthy. Sometimes inverse is just inverse and like 401ks, are meant to be ridden out, wave after wave, so too is the economy and "the house".
Where TF is our Joe Rogen? WHO IS HE OR SHE? That is the only question someone needs to find out. Because without it we all lose for generations to come.
I'll get a damn bullhorn but if we don't have the webwaves, the one or two messages constantly being told, over and over and over....like the BIG LIE, only not a BIG LIE, we are doomed.
When a woman goes on MSM and says OH WE CAN'T BAN TIKTOK, BUT CAN'T ANSWER A POLITICAL QUESTION, BINGO, WE CALL OUT THE CONNECTION WITH TRUMP'S BAIL MONEY IN THE ONE CASE LEFT IN NY FOR TAX FRAUD AND THE CEO OF TIKTOK OR SHELL COMPANY CEO WHO PAID HIS BAIL MONEY. MY MEMORY FADES ALSO.
ONE MESSAGE. DECIDE WHAT IT IS. THEN TELL IT....OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER because it will take more than "an elitist", in policy or normalcy, or graphically, to beat the F out of a billionaire and his pathology, to get to Mars, and an old moron, who isn't a moron, who is a criminal and has a death wish pathology, that we don't need to talk about more, but we certainly don't need anymore analysis of what will be, or what to expect, or what if....we need this is. This is. This is.
THIS IS YOUR NEW FUTURE. Get used to it or join us against it because it ain't about party, or policy. It is about all the everything that TRUMP will destroy because who sends the SSI checks, who will you sue if you have a problem when their are no courts, and how to get that message home before they, and us, lose it all. PUT IT IN MONETARY TERMS. MONEY TALKS. We have a lot of it in smaller quantities but the push back has to be on every single incompetent Senator to NOT confirm these dangers and call them out CALL THEM OUT AND TELL THEM TO STAND UP OR THEY WILL GET PRIMARIED, IF ELECTIONS ARE EVEN ALLOWED, BY US, THE VOTERS, NOT TRUMP AND HIS CRONIES. Tell the message of MUSK'S wanting to end their jobs/money and he's prepared and paid for that privilege, non-elected, to do exactly that.
How? That is the Joe Rogan part of the Brookings Institute to figure out .Not mine. PEACE!
Rolling Stone has an article on the pending federal death row “bloodbath” that trump and his cronies are planning. I urge everyone to contact the White House and encourage President Biden to follow through on his 2020 campaign pledge and commute the death sentences of the 40 people on death row to life in prison.
Great discussion and a sensible analysis of what is or isn't likely to happen with DOGE. One thing you realize is how fundamentally disconnected people are from the day-to-day functions of government. Otherwise, the unworkability of what DOGE is proposing would be immediately apparent and people would reject it. That's why it's easy for Republicans to use talking points like "cut government waste" and low-income Republican voters to totally agree to it (until they find out the hard way that they're the ones impacted).
I am looking forward ways for everyday people-like those who subscribe to Hopium, to gather in clubs to make use of varied skills to promote the Democratic Party and its policies while also taking time to have fun. We need both
Please more interviews with people like Elaine Karamack and bring her back if she is willing. Learned so much from listening to her experience with the Clinton Administration (yes old enough to remember that time) but also her insights into what DOGE will have a hard time doing. Right now they sound like their carrying a big stick but it won't be long before that big stick grows shorter when they try to implement what they are intending to do.
Also, the comment about how the federal money filters down into our communities was spot on especially when so many have no idea where it comes from. We need to better educate people in communities so politicians can't use false accusations. Simon's conversation with the UBER driver is something we all need to do in our communities.
Yes, I found this breakdown, especially helpful and information. I can use to better express my point of view in the future. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Elaine.
Great to hear from Jaime Harrison, DNC Chair. Simon, thanks for sharing!
Tonight’s post-election conversation with him and Hakeem Jeffries is timely and ought to be interesting.
This is a BFD! MURDOCH LOSES COURT BID to leave son Lachlan media empire.
"Rupert Murdoch has faced a setback in his bid to cement his son Lachlan’s future control of his media empire… Lachlan is ideologically aligned with his father and would be expected to continue the editorial positioning…
"There was concern that his three siblings could choose to reorient the company in a more moderate direction after their father’s passing. James, in particular, has become a vocal supporter of liberal causes since he formally exited his father’s media company in 2020, citing “disagreements over certain editorial content published by the Company’s news outlets and certain other strategic decisions”.”
https://wapo.st/4fXagUx
You're absolutely correct that this is a BFD! IDK which son-- perhaps James?-- was in charge of National Geographic when Murdoch bought it in the 20??, but I do remember thinking, "Oh s#i+. There goes discussion about poverty throughout the world, the climate crisis, war, endangered animals, etc." And lo and behold, National Geo has continued to vigorously persue the very stories that I and many others feared would be muted. So it must have been run by one of his more moderate-liberal children.
I know he and Lachlan are appealing the decision, but I so hope that the final final court decision-- whenever that happens-- breaks "our" (meaning those who support truth telling in journalism) way. The state of journalism in democracies around the world depends on righting the error that was created when Fox News was allowed to be broadcast as "news". And this can only happen if his more reasonable heirs gain control of the family business.
Do not hold your breath about the result of the appeal. I am realizing more every day that we all lived in an echo chamber during the campaign. A friend's husband is a truck driver. The friend who is a Professor lived in the same echo chamber I did. However, her husband kept on telling her his observations all over the country and he knew Trump would win. He is not devastated like we are because he lived outside our echo chamber. Until and unless some wealthy folks on the Left buy abunch of radio stations, start podcasts for youths, we are in troubled water.
As Heather Cox Richardson says in her post today:
"America’s right wing has been able to shape reality in large part because of the 1996 advent of the Fox News Channel (FNC), the brainchild of Australian-born media mogul Rupert Murdoch. Shows on the FNC used clear, simple messaging with colorful graphics that told a story of an America overwhelmingly made up of white, rural folks who hated taxes and an intrusive government, and would do fine if they could just get the socialist Democrats to leave them alone. To spread the new channel, Murdoch initially offered ten dollars per subscriber to each cable company that carried it.
That right-wing echo chamber has expanded until it is now so strong that nearly 70% of Republicans falsely believe Trump was the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election, despite the fact that the FNC had to pay more than $787 million to Dominion Voting Systems for defamation after it lied to viewers about that election."
Unless we use all the tools at our disposal to fight this propaganda war, we will not succeed in ripping away the lies that Fox and others spread. The Media and Democracy Project has a petition to deny licenses to some Fox affiliates that might start the process of undermining the Fox empire. https://foxpetition.com/
Tools at our disposal. How about emergency war powers? We were attacked by a foreign power, emasculated, and pushed to the verge of a totaliarian dictatorship. Russia used psy ops. Putin expects a quid pro quo from Trump.
War. Is war an emergency?
Why is Biden not acting? Why is the MSM not reporting on this?
IMHO first priority is national security.
it certainly does feel like Biden and Schumer, who still sit in the power positions, are silently allowing Trump agenda without opposition. The lamest of lame ducks.
If the leadership is not going to "roll up its sleeves" and show some leadership and direction it makes it more difficult for us grunts on the gound to show resolve and inspiration. If their game plan is to let GOP dig its own hole to turn the tide, then why should we be busting out butts out here on the playing field?
One of the things that the Dems could bring into their communications is to talk more about consequences, as I see Simon did in this latest newsletter. I think we assume that attacking someone's moral character or their unfitness is enough for people to connect the dots. Instead, we should talk about what that unfitness means--as in, more children dying from preventable diseases or greater risk of war or remind people of the Red Scare. I don't think losing our status as a world leader resonates particularly. But the return of polio... that hits home.
Never heard of Ms. Kamarck until now. Maybe you can bring some of this up.
I survived Al Gore's "reinventing government" and a lot of similar inititives when I was a federal employee.
I've been asking the same questions since about that time. I advocated projects like creating endowments for some of our trust funds and suing OPEC, the tobacco industry etc to recoup funds the treasury has lost to fixing prices, pollution, etc.
I keep asking why we can't use arbitrage to borrow from some of our allies like Japan, Scandanavia and Switzerland. They loan funds at 1%. We can borrow and arbitrage, retire our debt.
And we have a massive collection problem.
One more thing: The US Government’s debt to the National Security Fund ought to be declared as having higher priority than other debt.
Also, I wonder what interest is being charged by the Fund?
I think addressing the media and communications issues is important. However, it should be remembered that the Democratic candidate polled more than 81 million votes. So, whilst the media landscape may be hostile, in 2020 US voters rejected Trump by a very large margin. In 2024 he barely increased his vote and narrowly won, securing 4 million votes fewer than Biden did in 2020. So, whilst better channels of communication are important, Democrats have consistently won the popular vote this century, except for Bush (v Kerry) and Trump this time around - despite the right wing media ecosystem. Thought needs to be given not only to the mechanisms of policy communication but to the policies being communicated. Also to the record in government. Were inflation and immigration so badly handled by the Biden administration that millions decided to stay home? Good luck with the analysis and creating the basis of the next stage of the political and civic journey. The opportunity now is to make big gains in Congress and in gubernatorial elections in 2026. Good luck all, love Russ.
To me, the 2026 Senate map looks better for Democrats than the unfortunate 2024 Senate map we had. Though I am hardly an expert on such things.
I am sorry to be a negative voice, but the Senate map is bad for us in 26. GOP has 20 senators up for reelection. 18 are in safe red states. The other 2 are Maine and NC which, while possible for Dems are not a sure thing. Dems have 13 senators up. 12 are in pretty safe blue states and the 13th is Ossoff in Georgia who we will have to work to defend.
GA resident here. Yes we must and can keep Ossoff's seat. He is a common sense senator who works on real issues we care about and stays out of the political drama. IDK if he is someone Simon will choose as an official Hopium candidate for the group to support for 2026, but his campaign is already up and running if anyone cares to contribute: https://electjon.com/
Nothing can ever look good for Democrats if super rich folks are allowed to buy politicians like Tester and Brown and Casey lost due to an enormous amount of out of state money and foreign psy op messages.
Simon - introducing us to all these great folks we'd otherwise never hear from is very very helpful. Thank you! (You have great friends!)
Some thoughts on building a progressive/Democratic media infrastructure that can compete and dominate the right wing media infrastucture:
We need to own substantial platforms to blast our message out 24/7 year round. Blue Sky is a possible start. This includes recruiting the best and brightest young people who have a deep understanding of how the current media landscape works to design, manage the platforms, and be influencers, podcast hosts, on-line personalities etc. Get Hollywood involved. This will need mighty resources...but we have our own billionaires who can be recruited to support this effort.
Consider this on the scale of winning WW2, getting a man on the moon, etc. We have the resources and talent. Let's use them to win this war!
Sincerely, Julie Marsh
When things go bad, as they do under fascists and as they will under Trump, the fascists are very good at blaming someone -- the Jews, the immigrants, the enemy from within, uppity women, the gays, etc. -- for the problems and too many people are happy to believe them. It's certainly easier than admitting you were wrong. And there's always "God is punishing us for" -- you name it -- abortion, birth control, taking God out of schools, gay people getting married to be used to explain problems caused by fascist policies. It's going to take a very loud effort from out side to try and get some people to realize the truth.
other side
"God is punishing us"
Well, God opened up a sinkhole near Mar-a-Lago, and hammered Trump’s state of residence with one hurricane after another – but, sadly, America’s Evangelical Christianists *still* didn’t get the message!
They are nothing but a bunch of DOGEBAGS.
Simon, these are really wonderful interviews. Content alleviates worry. It strengthens our understanding and (relatedly) our resolve. Thank you.
Thanks for your always timely content and optimism. Rant:
I read a piece yesterday, from Marc Elias, who has changed his tone dramatically, into a fighter, I'm pissed, where has everyone gone, I have no time for quitters tone. It was not unexpected but rather welcomed. I have no interest in anyone's opinion of Marc, personally, it was just very noticeable.
We have a literacy problem and an internet problem that needs grassroots education because no matter how anyone thinks about "the others" "the libs" or all that jazz, or re-defining ourselves, and are now going to fight, the question is where were we before 11/5/24?
Allowing transgender, migrants, and lies to be settled into malleable minds with no fight back. They are important issues but low rung fruit for voters, even if you are a migrant, and voted against your own interest. C'mon when those on social nets vote for billionaires the disconnect is easy to connect and it has been happening for decades. How does the Brookings Institute suggest we fix that?
Basking in Harris' ratings, asking the man who has gotten NO credit for our economy, that if Trump had won in 2020, had 2T in cuts planned already, was that Musk, DOGE, to stand down and not explain why in real terms, complaining about the media, thankful for paid endorsements, or NOT GOING ON JOE ROGAN? THEY ROLLED OVER US.
MUSK should never have legally been allowed to do what he did. JOE BIDEN IS IMMUNE. PULL HIM OFF THE CAMPAIGN. LET HIM SUE. JOE IS IMMUNE IF IT IS A NATIONAL SECURITY DECISION. AN OFFICIAL ACT.
Allowing Trump to do Trump is not the media. It isn't even Trump. It is populism and it wasn't countered. One lie, then another to cover, and the first is forgotten. History repeats. Belief in a felon destined to end in prison, was why the viral video exposing a black voter, young bro, who voted for Trump, was told you will never belong, went viral. He sat stunned and said I guess I was always just a vote. YUP AND WE DID SAY AS MUCH BUT NOT WHERE IT MATTERED OR IN TERMS THAT CONNECTED.
Keep calling it HUSH MONEY and I'LL LOSE MY EVER LOVING MIND. He has interfered in all three elections. However, he was convicted, not for paying HUSH MONEY, and now a felon, but in furtherance of a federal cover-up to influence a federal election and that was NOT ANYWHERE I EVER READ INCLUDING INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM. NOWHERE. EVER. MAGA doesn't read and if they did they don't care. They needed a jolt of get off the fkn computer or you'll lose your job, 401k, no house ever, and any money you paid into that "Ponzi scheme" that they aren't thinking about today but could borrow off of, to buy said home, but no job means no money.
That is the reality we failed on. Talking dirt, not playing nice, not caving, not accepting, not obeying which we did long ago because, even though Biden did all the work, he needed a sound person......loud and clear.
I was called liberal Alex Jones for stating, until Trump got into a court of law, on his two, actually three indictments, the election, should be "tolled" by Biden as a federal emergency. Novel, huh? An unprecedented, no precedent situation, a national security threat, and not constitutional but we, instead, let the SCOTUS pitch the 14th, for the entire country, when elections are run by the states and allowed the non-self arbiters to conduct business as usual for their own conflicts of interest. WE DID NOTHING. NOTHING. BIDEN IS IMMUNE. USE IT.
We lost the guardrails early and the fight over the smaller things got lost that are technically and practically the big things. We allowed the hypocrisy. We needed to change TACTIC.
Why the DOJ let Smith drop those cases is BEYOND me. There is no constitutional provision, precedent or LAW which made him do this. A DOJ internal memo from the Clinton and Nixon eras is it. WE DID NOTHING.
I'm only as good as reading and writing but if I had any power to go have a talking to with those who googled "can I change my vote" instead of googling "tariffs" and "current economy" pre-election, and a lot of other issues. I would.
I'd also fire them from their union jobs, take away their computers and hand them a book. Illiteracy and loneliness, esp among young men, wanting a house but have a good union job and were listening to Joe Rogen, didn't understand the nostalgia and incorrect assumptions about how horribly the economy was going, directionally, under Trump 1.0, and didn't believe US, and then hit the pandemic wall. He had a falling GDP and emergency rate cuts that followed Obama's 0-0.25% and that isn't sustainable if one wants growth. Growth is paying more and making more. You can't have your lower priced eggs and Trump's new term "groceries", he himself invented, and a higher wage while cutting taxes for the wealthy. Sometimes inverse is just inverse and like 401ks, are meant to be ridden out, wave after wave, so too is the economy and "the house".
Where TF is our Joe Rogen? WHO IS HE OR SHE? That is the only question someone needs to find out. Because without it we all lose for generations to come.
I'll get a damn bullhorn but if we don't have the webwaves, the one or two messages constantly being told, over and over and over....like the BIG LIE, only not a BIG LIE, we are doomed.
When a woman goes on MSM and says OH WE CAN'T BAN TIKTOK, BUT CAN'T ANSWER A POLITICAL QUESTION, BINGO, WE CALL OUT THE CONNECTION WITH TRUMP'S BAIL MONEY IN THE ONE CASE LEFT IN NY FOR TAX FRAUD AND THE CEO OF TIKTOK OR SHELL COMPANY CEO WHO PAID HIS BAIL MONEY. MY MEMORY FADES ALSO.
ONE MESSAGE. DECIDE WHAT IT IS. THEN TELL IT....OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER because it will take more than "an elitist", in policy or normalcy, or graphically, to beat the F out of a billionaire and his pathology, to get to Mars, and an old moron, who isn't a moron, who is a criminal and has a death wish pathology, that we don't need to talk about more, but we certainly don't need anymore analysis of what will be, or what to expect, or what if....we need this is. This is. This is.
THIS IS YOUR NEW FUTURE. Get used to it or join us against it because it ain't about party, or policy. It is about all the everything that TRUMP will destroy because who sends the SSI checks, who will you sue if you have a problem when their are no courts, and how to get that message home before they, and us, lose it all. PUT IT IN MONETARY TERMS. MONEY TALKS. We have a lot of it in smaller quantities but the push back has to be on every single incompetent Senator to NOT confirm these dangers and call them out CALL THEM OUT AND TELL THEM TO STAND UP OR THEY WILL GET PRIMARIED, IF ELECTIONS ARE EVEN ALLOWED, BY US, THE VOTERS, NOT TRUMP AND HIS CRONIES. Tell the message of MUSK'S wanting to end their jobs/money and he's prepared and paid for that privilege, non-elected, to do exactly that.
How? That is the Joe Rogan part of the Brookings Institute to figure out .Not mine. PEACE!
Rolling Stone has an article on the pending federal death row “bloodbath” that trump and his cronies are planning. I urge everyone to contact the White House and encourage President Biden to follow through on his 2020 campaign pledge and commute the death sentences of the 40 people on death row to life in prison.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-biden-federal-death-row-bloodbath-1235197009/
Great discussion and a sensible analysis of what is or isn't likely to happen with DOGE. One thing you realize is how fundamentally disconnected people are from the day-to-day functions of government. Otherwise, the unworkability of what DOGE is proposing would be immediately apparent and people would reject it. That's why it's easy for Republicans to use talking points like "cut government waste" and low-income Republican voters to totally agree to it (until they find out the hard way that they're the ones impacted).
Here is a piece Hopium readers should like! Jennifer Rubin on how Democrats flipped some House seats: https://substack.com/@leslie150455/note/c-80915183?r=ac69z&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
I am looking forward ways for everyday people-like those who subscribe to Hopium, to gather in clubs to make use of varied skills to promote the Democratic Party and its policies while also taking time to have fun. We need both
Please more interviews with people like Elaine Karamack and bring her back if she is willing. Learned so much from listening to her experience with the Clinton Administration (yes old enough to remember that time) but also her insights into what DOGE will have a hard time doing. Right now they sound like their carrying a big stick but it won't be long before that big stick grows shorter when they try to implement what they are intending to do.
Also, the comment about how the federal money filters down into our communities was spot on especially when so many have no idea where it comes from. We need to better educate people in communities so politicians can't use false accusations. Simon's conversation with the UBER driver is something we all need to do in our communities.
Yes, I found this breakdown, especially helpful and information. I can use to better express my point of view in the future. Thank you, Simon. Thank you, Elaine.