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Absolutely! If this were FDR’s third term and let’s say a nazi were running against him, excusing the holocaust, would the media focus on FDR’s health? That he was in a wheelchair? Migod! Project 2025 vs democracy indeed!

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Democracy vs Project 2025 AND The Press

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The Press is WOEFULLY inadequate.

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The Press is complicit

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The press is doing to Biden exactly what they did to Hillary.

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The press has become the GOP cheerleading squad, while busily pointing out the chinks in Democrat's armor, they ignore the entire right wing fetid neo-fascist machine the GOP has become.

They are controlled by the very oligarchs they should be reporting on.

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Media is as harmful as Jim Comey?

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Distractions to hide the reality that the Republican party no longer exists.

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Agreed. That is why talking to people one-on-one is going to be so important to the swing voters. The rest of us know the deal already even if many do not know the details of Project 2025. My group of Democrats Abroad in Hamburg and Northern Germany have started a book club on Project 2025. We started with reading some articles about it just to get our feet wet and organize how we want to do this. Our goal is just what is being suggested here, to be able to talk to people. So, I read the Education part myself at Joyce Vance's suggestion, and I have had a lot to say about it because it is talking about destroying public education. Even if you are a home schooler you often need to turn to the public schools for struggling child to get specialized services. This is horrifying because clearly they don't believe in Public Education. Yesterday Heather Cox Richardson spoke to a few thousand Democrats Abroad and when asked about Christian Nationalists, she was telling us that for the first Election Trump made them his base but his policy was for the Business community. Now, they are his base and his policy is for them too, and the business community has to be satisfied with tax breaks in a country that will break down in all of the ways that it has existed. I also think we need to be asking people what they think government is there for. To invade your private life, or to take care of the people. Under Trump there will be no care taking, and lots of invading your private life. Today I am going on to read the part called The White House Office by Rick Dearborn. I am taking notes on what I read too. He as the former White House Deputy Chief of Staff, so how Trump does not know about this is either because Trump is too far gone to know about anything, or because Trump is as usual lying and the press as you point is complicit in that they just let him be. He has totally manipulated them into being part of his fascist propaganda machine.

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Trump knows about it. He is lying, as usual.

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Trump lies about it since he has not read it, cannot understand it, and does not want to explain it! Over his head, but he will have people who will carry it out in his midst. Too much for Trump! He depends on others to do the dirty work!

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And this is it. He is their 'useful idiot.'

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As he always has…

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Agreed.

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"The Press"? Right now I'm listening to Media Matters, a project of the Courier Newsroom. Do you want to declare war on them too? Do you want to declare war on, say, ProPublica, which broke the story of Clarence Thomas's "gifts" from billionaire Harlan Crow and others? Maybe you should be a bit more specific.

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Please provide me with a suitable description for how average Americans are being led to believe that Biden is on his death bed, is destroying America and Convict Trump is the Savior and I’ll use that

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Corporate MSM. Media Matters and ProPublica are not that.

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Exactly my point. "The press" needs a qualifier like "corporate" or "mainstream" to clarify what's meant.

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Susanna, Hmm, The Corporate Press? That’s the qualifier that distinguishes the legit from the crumb bums?

What qualifies (for instance) Pro Publica as “non” MSM?

Should I just specifically name every guilty press orgs in every post, or did you surmise what I meant ahead of time?

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ProPublica is funded entirely by donations. It is not owned by conservative billionaires.

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Mary. Yes I know. I contribute. I used them on ourpose

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Please be more careful with your blanket statements.

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Hmmm, I shall, however using your suggestion doesn’t seem too descriptive in the face of your critique

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Whoa now -- you unfairly conflate *some* media outlets with a wide and deep news industry that is doing nothing close to what you suggest.

No newspapers, news sites or broadcasters that I see are treating Trump as a savior. None. Not a single one.

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But they are NOT treating him as the dangerous criminal, a guy ON BAIL, who has promised to be a dictator on day one and was just handed the power to be just that by SCOTUS. They are NOT doing their job in their role in a democracy to inform citizens accurately so that we can then act and vote in accordance with that information.

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I respectfully disagree, Joy. We clearly read and watch different media, a category that includes Substack.

I do agree with Joyce that journalists and citizens should learn and talk more about Project 2025. We're in this together.

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Apples and oranges. Yes, Substack and the news media both qualify as "media," but the differences are major. Substack comprises many voices, some with a vast number of subscribers, others with very few. The reach of the corporate news outlets -- print, cable, web, TV -- dwarfs that of Substack and even Twitter in the pre-Musk days. I have yet to see any Substack column being piped in to a doctor's office or bar.

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Good point. On my last visit to an Emergency Department Fox was blaring from a large screen TV. A well known BBQ chain airs FOX and Newsmax and plays the Star Spangled Banner once an hour so that patrons have to stop, stand, and sing during their meal.

I don't see The Bullwark or Meidas Touch playing in any bars or restaraunts.

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Substack has become a commentary website that qualifies as social media, It is not true journalism.

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SCOTUS has become an arm of the right wing. The Presidential Immunity decision just topped the "wedding cake" of bad decisions they have made.

Yes, I read and hear lots of great info on Substack about that, but it's not getting the hard hitting front page reporting from main stream media that this whole oligarch created anti-democracy movement deserves.

Trumpism is being normalized in the media like some commentary on a reality TV show, instead of being boldly exposed.

The Republicans had Victor Orban as a keynote speaker for Christ's sakes!

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Joy. Brava

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Alan, are they treating him as a convicted, dangerous pariah as he is?

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Not universally or as often and forcefully as I'd also like. News reporters and editors still adhere to the traditional model of striving for balance and neutrality ("the voice from nowehere," as NYU journalism Professor Jay Rosen derides it) and forcus too much on the "horse trace" rather than the stakes . . .

. . . But I'm heartened by sharp-edged editoria;s such as The New York Times' today (July 11), headlined "Donald Trump Is Unfit to Lead" [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/11/opinion/editorials/donald-trump-2024-unfit.html]. Excerpts:

"Mr. Trump has shown a character unworthy of the responsibilities of the presidency. He has demonstrated an utter lack of respect for the Constitution, the rule of law and the American people. Instead of a cogent vision for the country’s future, Mr. Trump is animated by a thirst for political power: to use the levers of government to advance his interests, satisfy his impulses and exact retribution against those who he thinks have wronged him. . . .

"We urge voters to see the dangers of a second Trump term clearly and to reject it. The stakes and significance of the presidency demand a person who has essential qualities and values to earn our trust, and on each one, Donald Trump fails."

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Jul 12Edited

"Mr. Trump has shown a character unworthy of the responsibilities of the presidency."

thing of it is... he showed this in 2016. And got elected anyway.

The gop/tea party has been building this effort since the Reagan era. They've had 40+ years to infiltrate school boards, city offices, state offices, federal offices, all the way up to the supreme court. They have also infiltrated the media, not only with Faux News, but even the NYT and WaPo have 'journalists' in their newsrooms skewing the narrative.

Honestly people, this is a mountain we are hoping to dismantle. I agree that we must do it. But I don't think this one election will fix the whole mess. This has to be an ongoing effort. We need to dedicate the next 40 years to getting back what we've lost in the last 40.

Baby steps!?

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Fox? WSJ? Newsmax? New York Post?

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Fox News.

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An extreme outlier preaching pure propaganda solely to MAGA acolytes. Not part of mainstream media in the respected or legitimate sense, as widely defined.

That's why my comment is qualified with "that I see." ["No newspapers, news sites or broadcasters that I see are treating Trump as a savior."]

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with MSM, look at who owns the publication.

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Well said. There is a press out there,but it is harder to find. NYT (among others) seems to have suddenly fallen toward the right, ignoring the chasm that Trump, Leonard, SCOTUS, et al is pushing democracy into.

The Foxification of "news" is driving the narrative, and much of America has been lulled into a zombie like trance of blind acceptance.

We have a few short months to ring the warning bells. No time for rest or room for division in this mission.

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and it is also becoming social media. FB is using an "independent fact checker" that is removing posts about project 2025. Robert Reich posted and image about what project 2025 would do and many reported their re-posts (including me) removed for "disinformation". also a lot of right wing posts about how comments about the billionaires are paying their fair share and it is wrong to want to increase their tax rate. Robert Reich also had a tic tok video removed.

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So much for responsibility on the part of social media… This makes me glad that I got permanently off facebook, and am on no other media platforms.

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Dave, the sad part of the press is that they have sold their souls and continue to spread the lies by not reporting the truth.

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Who are "they" or "the press"? You accuse much to broadly for it to be meaningful.

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Democracy vs Project 2025/Main Stream Media/SCOTUS

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Oh come on now, please. There is no 'The Press' -- there are hundreds of newspapers, news sites and broadcasters with varied coverage of the presidential race.

Yes, some seem unduly focused on Biden's fitnesss and a few -- a few -- suggest in editorials that his candidacy should end. A vast majority of others cover the legit questions raised by the debate in a balanced, fair way.

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Where are the comments about Trump lying continuously and talking gibberish at his rallies? He's getting a free pass by mainstream news media. Biden's issues are now more flashy so let's destroy democracy by not comparing him to a felon.

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I see and hear examples regularly, Ruth, even though I try to avoid coverage solely about Trump. His nonsense in June and again recently about shark attack risks from electric boats sinking because of heavy batteries was reported and ridiculed widely.

In The New York Times today, columnist John McWhorter writes about what he calls Biden's "lack of elocution — which Donald Trump is also quite given to."

In The Washington Post on June 24, longtime columnist Eugene Robinson wrote: "Equally alarming is his disordered, elliptical syntax. Sentences take off in one direction and change course midflight. Pronouns lack antecedents. . . .

"Repeatedly telling a nonsensical story, and in a chopped salad of words, is different — and hair-raising when the speaker is a candidate for president."

[source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/06/24/trump-rally-sharks-media-electrocution/]

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Since 'the debate' they've been quiet about Trump for the most part. Yes, NYT wrote about Trump being wholy unqualified, but they've mostly been very quiet. They're enjoying the Biden fiasco, knowing that this could put Trump back in the Whitehouse. They could write and talk about Trump as much as they're doing about Biden, but that's old news. This is more fun for them.

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I get why it appears that way, but don't believe "enjoying" and "more fun" underlie the coverage focus.

Trump's defects and dangers are well-known, so less compelling to rehash/focus on anew than the relative suprirse of Biden's seemingly sudden and sharp decline. His personal crisis and the party's, as well as potentially the country's, are far more newsworthy than "Trump is still unaware and crazy" updates.

The first three letters of news drive the over-coverage, which I'm not defending.

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That's fine for those who actually pay attention but the election will be won by those who can't tell the difference between Biden or any other Democrat and Trump. I don't understand how that's possible, but it is.

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Alan, a few? Listening to Sirrius POTUS channel right now. Its all about “I can’t believe Biden hasn’t dropped out yet”. Nothing on crimal Trump

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In the current environment - of course that is exactly what would happen!

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