17 December 19
December, our most important month for fundraising has instead been a disaster so far. We are well behind where we should be and where we need to be.
We have to get moving now.
Marc Ash
Founder, Reader Supported News
Founder, Reader Supported News
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PO Box 2043
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16 December 19
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
Cole writes: "The danger to democracy posed by our new information system plus our new levels of wealth concentration cannot be overestimated."
EXCERPT:
The problem for democracy with having a few hundred people who collectively own more than half the country’s population is that they have the resources to pull the wool over people’s eyes. It isn’t necessary for the online ads to convince people of anything, only to make them cynical and cause them to throw up their hands at how bad both parties are, and stay home on voting day. (Determined voters are older, whiter and wealthier, so anything that depresses the vote of the young, POC, and the poor, hands a victory to the former).
The Republican Party in the House is throwing out falsehoods in the Trump impeachment inquiry like dozens of octopi blackening the water with their ink. The July 25 Zelensky memo doesn’t say what it says. Trump didn’t ask for a favor. Trump didn’t deny Ukraine military aid to pressure them to open an inquiry into the Bidens. Or he did, but Kyiv didn’t notice they weren’t receiving desperately needed military aid. Or he did, but Ukraine doesn’t need to be armed to fight off Russia. There wasn’t anything wrong with asking for a favor. Everyone asks for favors. Obama asked foreign countries to dig up dirt on Mitt Romney every day all day.
These outright lies, mouthed in terrifying lockstep by persons who allegedly swore to uphold the Constitution, are being paid for. They are paid for by the billionaire backers of the Republican Party, to whom Trump gave an enormous tax cut, and who are hoping for further cuts. But the antics in the House are dwarfed in significance by the Facebook political ads, which are just as dishonest but are millions of times more numerous.
Reuters reports, “Trump ran more than 2,500 ads mentioning “impeach” or “impeachment” in the week through Dec. 5, more than his campaign did in the prior two weeks combined, according to a Reuters analysis of data published by Facebook Inc.” This is Trump, so you can imagine the content– WITCH HUNT, NANCY PELOSI, etc.
Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, announced a policy that political ads would not be fact-checked and could be as dishonest as they liked. Twitter’s Jack Dempsey announced that he just would not take political ads at all.
And, no doubt there were many reasons for which the British Conservative Party won a landslide in yesterday’s election, after Labour had put up a good showing in the last election. One of the features of the UK election that cannot be doubted, however, is masses of dishonest attack ads paid for by by shadowy organizations backed by nameless billionaires.
One study found that whereas Labour political advertisements were generally correct, some 88 percent of Conservative paid Facebook advertisements contained falsehoods. That outcome is not far from 100 percent falsehoods, but the BBC ran a story blaming both parties, as Adam Ramsay argues.
Red Square in Moscow, Russia. (photo: AfricaPatagonia)
Russia's State TV Calls Trump Their 'Agent'
Julia Davis, The Daily Beast
Davis writes: "Russian commentators note, rightly, that 'sooner or later, the Democrats will come back into power,' and they're already joking about offering Trump asylum."
READ MORE
Julia Davis, The Daily Beast
Davis writes: "Russian commentators note, rightly, that 'sooner or later, the Democrats will come back into power,' and they're already joking about offering Trump asylum."
READ MORE
Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: Joshua Lott/Reuters)
The Center for American Progress Is Spreading Disinformation About Bernie's Health Care Plan
Matthew Bruenig, Jacobin
Bruenig writes: "This presidential campaign, the Center for American Progress has been put in the comical position of having to promote policies that they just a few months ago claimed were insane and politically suicidal. But one constant remains - they can't stand Bernie Sanders."
READ MORE
Matthew Bruenig, Jacobin
Bruenig writes: "This presidential campaign, the Center for American Progress has been put in the comical position of having to promote policies that they just a few months ago claimed were insane and politically suicidal. But one constant remains - they can't stand Bernie Sanders."
READ MORE
The New York Stock Exchange. (photo: Ben Hider/NYSE Euronext)
Corporations Paid 11.3 Percent Tax Rate Last Year, in Steep Drop Under President Trump's Law
Jeff Stein and Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "About 400 of America's largest corporations paid an average federal tax rate of about 11 percent on their profits last year, roughly half the official rate established under President Trump's 2017 tax law, according to a report released Monday."
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Jeff Stein and Christopher Ingraham, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "About 400 of America's largest corporations paid an average federal tax rate of about 11 percent on their profits last year, roughly half the official rate established under President Trump's 2017 tax law, according to a report released Monday."
READ MORE
Stacey Abrams. (photo: Kevin D. Liles/Getty Images)
Stacey Abrams's Group Files Motion to Halt Georgia's Mass Voter Purge
Associated Press
Excerpt: "A voting rights group founded by the Democrat Stacey Abrams filed an emergency motion on Monday, asking a court to halt Georgia's planned mass purge of voters."
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Associated Press
Excerpt: "A voting rights group founded by the Democrat Stacey Abrams filed an emergency motion on Monday, asking a court to halt Georgia's planned mass purge of voters."
READ MORE
Protesters in Delhi burned an effigy of PM Narendra Modi. (photo: BBC)
Under the law passed by parliament last week, religious minorities such as Hindus and Christians in neighboring Muslim-majority Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan who have settled in India prior to 2015 will have a path to citizenship on grounds they faced persecution in those countries.
Excerpt: "Protests over a new Indian citizenship law based on religion spread to student campuses on Monday as critics said the Hindu nationalist government was pushing a partisan agenda in conflict with the country's founding as a secular republic."
READ MORE
Chile's minister of environment and COP25 president Carolina Schmidt talks to Brazilian secretary for national sovereignty and citizenship Fabio Mendes Marzano during the closing session of the U.N. COP 25 climate conference in Madrid on Dec. 15. (photo: Oscar del Pozo/AFP/Getty Images)
COP25 Ends With a Whimper: A Few Takeaways
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "The longest UN climate meeting in history extended two extra days for a marathon bargaining session, but ended early Sunday morning with little accomplished. Policy makers mostly decided to punt strengthening their commitments to lower emissions and to a market for carbon emissions, until COP26 in Glasgow next December."
Jordan Davidson, EcoWatch
Davidson writes: "The longest UN climate meeting in history extended two extra days for a marathon bargaining session, but ended early Sunday morning with little accomplished. Policy makers mostly decided to punt strengthening their commitments to lower emissions and to a market for carbon emissions, until COP26 in Glasgow next December."
EXCERPTS:
The UN secretary general tweeted his frustration early yesterday morning. "I am disappointed with the results of #COP25," wrote António Guterres. "The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis. But we must not give up, and I will not give up."
I am disappointed with the results of #COP25.
The international community lost an important opportunity to show increased ambition on mitigation, adaptation & finance to tackle the climate crisis.
But we must not give up, and I will not give up.
Carbon Emitters and Fossil Fuels Prevailed
The U.S. and several other prominent polluters blocked a voluntary measure that would have set more ambitious targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions next year, as The New York Times reported. Rather than seek consensus and show generosity on the world stage, the Trump administration pushed back against an agreement that would compensate the world's poorest and most vulnerable countries for climate-crisis induced extreme weather, including storms, droughts, floods and rising seas, according to The New York Times.
The U.S. was not alone in obstructing progress. Brazil and Australia were also identified as main culprits in blocking action, along with Saudi Arabia and Russia. China and India also resisted improving their carbon emissions goals.
Brazil Is the Big Loser
The winner of the ignominious Colossal Fossil award was Brazil. The satirical award for the worst climate offender is given out by the activist group Climate Action Network, which cited Brazil for "destroying the climate concretely on the ground and in the negotiations, attacking and killing the very people who are protecting unique ecosystems: indigenous people," Climate Action Network wrote.
The U.S. took home several Fossil of the Day awards for its refusal to help vulnerable populations and its refusal to accept the science around the climate crisis. Russia, Australia and Japan also won a few for their addiction to fossil fuels, especially coal, which they all refused to speak against.
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