When WIRED Magazine is more on top of a political story than any of the supposed major media outlets, you know that the corporate media has rendered itself truly irrelevant. What Musk is doing is beyond illegal. The NYT, the WaPo, the networks, all should be screaming about this because the implications for the country are terrifying. What will it take?
I’ve seen this sentiment many times this weekend. Maybe people think of only newspapers as legacy media, but WIRED has been around for over thirty years and is owned by Condé Nast. It’s 100% corporate media, not a couple of independent journalists on Substack. I’m a happy subscriber and think they’ve risen admirably to this moment, but legacy media isn’t down for the count yet.
I think they are rising to the moment in part because this is a Silicon Valley story and they, and groups like the Verge, know the people and the culture better than the DC reporters. Fundamentally they've heard enough of Musk's BS to know where to look.
In a functioning government, Congress would be holding hearings. But the GOP 1) controls both houses of Congress, and 2) is absolutely corrupt to the last man and woman.
William, I looked up which Dem Senators voted to confirm him. My sister and her partner live in VA, so they do have D Senators, unfortunately all my "representatives" are Republicans.
The Democrats who voted for Bessent should now be urging his impeachment, possibly his arrest. He broke his oath days after swearing it, and he has facilitated the theft of the personal data, SSN, banking records, date of birth, address, health insurance and more from ALL Americans.
And Kaine voted for Noem!! I messaged him that if he repeated backing Trumphuk’s MAGAmaniac cabinet nominees and especially Kash-in Patel I world start a movement to primary him. I think he and Warner voted for Bessemer …. But I’d have to go look that up.
Thune is under Attack. USAID funds the Lutheran Charity in his state, this is a large employer in Thune’s South Dakota. Dies this inform us that the nominees Gabbard and Patel do not have the votes?
Pretty sure Thune would rather have his constituents hurt than lose his day job by having Cheeto go after him. And if there's an uproar in SD about jobs lost, etc., , he'll just blame the Dems and his MAGAt voting base will believe him.
Ha! That's the independent I subscribe to, based on their excellent work developing a monitoring tool on one piece at least of the administration's activity... "WIRED built software to systematically check the status of 1,374 government domains. The tool runs periodic scans, tracking whether sites remain accessible, how their servers respond, and if the domain names still resolve. This allows us to monitor patterns in uptime and catch moments when sites suddenly vanish– sometimes reappearing minutes or hours later." https://www.wired.com/story/us-government-websites-are-disappearing-in-real-time/
It reminds me of the way that Playboy magazine could often do actual journalism (like interviewing Martin Luther King, Jr.) - being a porn magazine they are already controversial, so they could fly under the radar on topics and people too radioactive for "respectable" news organs.
There has been a lot of great, breaking reporting by the NYT on this topic, plus follow up podcasts. From what I can tell, they ARE screaming. Are you and everyone making comments here doing your part? How about joining in on calls with Indivisible. Actually physically marching? I hope you don't think that better reporting or complaining will help. It's going to take ALL OF US CITIZENS to actually stand up and fight back!
I watched the beginnings of the coup unfold Friday night on the Alt National Park's Facebook page. Reuters was the only outlet reporting on it at the time, Rachel Maddow picked it up on her show after being alerted. The fact that it took 24 to 48 hours to surface in big news outlets was absolutely terrifying. It was a sleepless weekend. It is deeply upsetting that it wasn't front and center everywhere, boldly describing what it is.
Mainstream reporting kept focusing on the consequences rather than the why. The headlines were about firings or resignations and totally missing the point. The story was quickly buried in other stories at the bottoms of their website pages when it should have been pinned and highlighted at the top of every communication channel, website, etc.
Do you have any insight into why legacy media is failing to recognize and prioritize what is perhaps the most important story since the Civil War? This is a government takeover and they should be calling on Americans to shut down and take to the streets because that is what it is going to take to overcome this.
[[The fact that it took 24 to 48 hours to surface in big news outlets was absolutely terrifying.]] Agreed, but on a big story like this, it can take time to report out accurately and contextually. Reuters and Wired had running head starts on other outlets.
The bigger problem is that even with time to catch up, most outlets are not now providing the correct context, which is that this is a fast-moving coup.
"I do not understand why MSM won't call it a coup." They think that's "divisive." Also, makes them look like - gasp! - the "liberal media," an appellation they simply can't bear.
Because they are investments, not on a ‘mission’ just like the private equity owned Steward Healthcare that collapsed and closed many health care sites while its owner was on his massive ship at sea far away sea and his board did nothing.
Publishing good reporting is essential, for sure. It also provides "cover" for them. They can claim, like Jill Abramson does, that they are reporting hard stories about real things. (and don't get me started on Peter Baker). There was an interview years ago of A. G. Sulzberger by David Remnick. Remnick asked if the NYT was doing enough to warn the public about Trump. (the interview was during the first Trump administration) Sulzberger felt it wasn't his job to do that. It was his job to "publish" the news. Most of the people in "big media" really do seem ignorant of their editorial choices.
IMHO, the fact that the media landscape is fractured beyond recognition is the bigger issue. Talk to random people that aren't tuned into the news and you will be very disappointed in what they actually know about what is going on.
NYT, WaPo, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. have all played along for far too long. Decades have passed since they were first disparaged by the Murdoch Empire as the "liberal" media or the "lamestream" media. The Pentagon has awarded press passes to OANN, Breitbart, and some other crazy right wing outlet that slips my mind right now. The Sec of Transportation is now communicating all official announcements via Twitter (refuse to call it X). Tik Tok, Twiter, and various socials are where it is happening for most people.
We are well and forked. The vast majority (my framing) of the public are truly ignorant of how much the federal gov't touches their lives. When the scaffolding that is supporting them starts to collapse they will notice.
OANN, Breitbart, and the third outlet that I also can’t remember already had press passes for the Pentagon. The Pentagon gave them physical desk space within the Pentagon, booting out other longstanding news organizations.
This happened due to the implementation of a new policy to rotate among organizations with press passes. “New” policy? I have my doubts.
I want Congress to ask themselves: why does Trump need them? Autocrats throughout history disbands the representative/legislative branches. No more salary, no paid trips&travel, no private looting, no more insider trade info. If for no other reason then self interest, shouldn’t they put on the brakes?
I can't see any comments, so sorry if my point has already been made.
In my eyes, the difference is not whether to cover views of MAGAs or not but rather how to do it.
What NYT's doing is in fact mostly sane-washing though more independant readers certainly can make other use of it. And NYT definitely has known for years that it was the most important help Trump got in what most be seen as his success.
I came to make a tangential point: Jarvis called it stenography because the reader could be left with the impression that any statement of the interviewees comported with the facts, when they did not. Why publish such obvious stupidity without at least making the interviewee defend their views? Elsewise, an incurious reader might be left with the impression the Trump supporters has good reasons for their statements.
The Times has published over the years dozens and dozens of stories about Trump voters of different ages and ethnicities, jobs and economic status. There have been at least three just since the election. The paper lets them talk on and on and never questions any of the lies they state. I could count on the fingers of one hand, stories about people who didn’t vote for him. I remember they had one story about Biden voters, before he dropped out, and most were described as reluctant to admit it. I’m sure even now they’ll talk to yet more Trump voters to see how happy they are with Trump so far. That millions of their readers are appalled or terrified by what he’s doing won’t matter. They’ll never feature any stories about us.
The media treated the millions of American women who were heartbroken and deeply discouraged by Hillary’s loss as if we were invisible. No interviews with them about their excitement at the possibility of the first woman president, none about our anger and frustration after she lost. The mainstream media treatment of the first serious chance of a woman president was also despicable. They played along with the bogus accusations against the Clinton Foundation and the ridiculous, dishonest email “scandal”.
Having caught the story of the Musk coup, and including it in the day's coverage Friday for the show I'm responsible for, and then pushing that story as it developed this weekend, I'm both amazed and terrified - amazed that more people aren't terrified, and terrified because so many don't even know about it.
As to the question of who is correct, Jarvis or Abramson? It's Jarvis on this one.
With all due respect to Jill Abramson, and not to make it all about him, but Peter Baker is pretty much the avatar for a very talented reporter who is guilty of just about the worst sanewashing possible. I mean, the guy proudly states that he doesn’t allow himself opinions on his subjects even in his own head! That’s the guy we should have covering an unprecedented attack from within on our government and way of life? I don’t think so.
With regards to the overall press coverage, sadly, I’ve pretty much given up. I follow the few journalists mentioned at this site who do good work, and that’s about it. I think responsibility has been shirked, and at this point, it is up to well intentioned Americans to push the issue through actions like a general strike and hope maybe the press wakes up and notices.
No "opinions," supposedly. But when Joe Biden was trying to get the Inflation Reduction Act passed, the MSM regularly referred to it as a "massive spending" bill. If that ain't "opinion," I'll eat my socks.
It's a 10 alarm fire. The Post should be using its red banner treatment of this story.
Second, I agree about the stenography approach. The problem is, where are the same reporters quoting all the city residents who aren't Trump supporters, to foster "understanding"? Do we all need to take trips to hang out in rural diners to get our views quoted? We all understand MAGA supporters: they are disconnected from reality. How does continuing to quote their uninformed, incorrect views help, other than to reinforce them as factual in the minds of casual readers? I recall a guy who actually got a new, better paying job thanks to Biden's CHIPS Act, who complained that Biden was doing nothing for him. How is quoting that helpful to "understanding" him? Or helpful to HIM understanding the real world?
I am exhausted these days from barely suppressed rage, a feeling of impotence, and fear that our last hope for resistance to the coup, the press, is treating it like, as you say, a backyard bonfire.
Chris —Don’t suppress your rage … express it and act on it!! Help organize and activate the resistance. Let Trumphuk do the whining—let’s get to work!! As the Doobies sang back in the day, “Taking it to the streets…”
What I am finding is, to break through the cacophony, I am better served scrolling quickly through The NY Times headlines and saving an article or two for later, then heading straight over to Substack to read trusted interlocutors, like you and Krugman, and to keep an eye out for more. Your analysis here is a good example—I got a better understanding from you here, the way you pulled in multiple sources, than I did from the Times piece, of what is going on here and why it is at the very least a 5 alarm file.
I do want to sound a cautionary note, though, on one aspect of your listing of the parade of new administration horribles, and that relates to this: “targeted transgender people with a series of executive orders.” I think it’s very important that, on our side, we don’t become reactive as our default position, and I hope folks here will hear me out.
There are a lot of liberal women who have greeted these orders with a sigh of relief. I have read the first of the orders, and I can see why. New York Times polling is showing a majority of Democrats agree that males should not be in female sports and troubled children should not be medicalized. Here are the stats to which I am referring:
Trans women should NOT be allowed in women’s sports (Q32):
Total: 79%
GOP: 94%
Dem: 67%
Minors should NOT be able to get puberty blockers (Q33):
Total: 71%
GOP: 90%
Dem: 54%
Based on this, before painting with too broad a brush, we need to stop and think what we, as Democrats may have got wrong.
In my own thinking about this, I have tried, in the first instance, to separate the message from the messenger and evaluate the EO I read on its own merits. (I grant that it’s not easy!) In doing that, I see much with which I agree. I am also familiar with the person who wrote it, she is well informed on these issues, and it shows in the document. For me, the big question is implementation where, from what I have seen so far, I have many concerns, and I suspect I will have more. A person on Substack who writes very thoughtfully on this is Lisa Selin Davis. https://open.substack.com/pub/lisaselindavis/p/alas-were-going-to-have-to-keep-talking?r=16541&utm_medium=ios
To anyone who got this far, thanks for listening! (The last time I tried to weigh in on this, I got called a Christian nationalist and a MAGA. I am, in actual fact, a lifelong progressive Democrat. I am poking my head above the parapet once again as I think the Democrats urgently need to reevaluate their stances in this area for us to have any chance of winning in 2026.)
Do you realize how blown up his issue has become? From what I've read, you are talking about less than 1% of female athletics You just became part of the hysteria.
Accoridng to NYT a full 15% of prisoners in women’s prisons are biological males. To imprison a female with a male convict against her will is a gross violation of human rights. These issues aren’t niche and it’s time we put an end to Dem doublespeak that both prioritizes the trans issues internally and in its propaganda but immediately retreats to “it’s a distraction” the second you push back with inconvenient facts!
I’d love to know what crimes landed them in jail. I want to know how “biological male” is defined. A transgender woman who has undergone multiple surgeries including genitalia reconstruction is no longer a male - but by genetics, with XY chromosomes, is male.
If the prison population has 15% transgender women, seems pretty easy to place transgender women together in cells.
Did that article even mention transgender men? Or, as is usually the case, were they ignored because “giggle; what male is afraid of a woman??” Stories about transgender men aren’t good clickbait.
It was a shocking piece of data buried deep in an NYT article without further explanation. And as for transgender men, if you seriously do not understand the difference between the threat a male criminal can pose to women compared to the inverse I doubt there is anything I could say here to enlighten you.
No. Enough with the linguistic sophistry and shifting the goal posts. All transgender women are biological males *by definition*. People in prison are criminals, again by definition. Thus transgender women in prison are, necessarily and by definition, a subset of the group of male prisoners. The NYT article claims that 15% of the people in women's prison are transgender women ergo male prisoners. This is to whom I refer. I can't believe I just spelled all of this out for what was most likely a bad faith quip, but there you have it, on the off chance you're genuinely confused.
I think you, like many people, are thinking of the math incorrectly. It’s not about the number of males competing on female teams. It is about how many female athletes are denied fairness, safety, opportunities and awards by the participation of that male. One single male on a female team effects all the team members as well as all the team members of the opposing team. And if that male sets a record, that effects future female athletes. Having said that, I don’t think it is a matter of math, I think it is a matter of principle.
What I am saying is that it has been blown way out of proportion as an issue. It affects very few women but it's been blown up so far that it helped elect trump. You are convinced that these people can't become women but others disagree. I'm neutral. In individual sports the solution is simple. Keep separate records and time will tell us if they have an advantage. Just don't make it sound like it's the most important issue in the nation. This issue personally affects very few people.
The sports issue may affect very few people but the toxic gender identity ideology behind it affects every citizen in this country, especially women and children, as it has infiltrated every major institution in our lives, from government to medicine to education to media.
I have taken the last two years, when I first found out about the sports issue, to become as informed as I can and assess accordingly. There is a wealth credible, useful information out there. Two excellent sources are here https://womenssportspolicy.org/the-resolution/ (Martina Navratilova is part of this group) and here https://sex-matters.org/where-sex-matters/sport/ As you can see from the NYT polling, 67% of Democrats oppose males in female sports. There are very sound reasons for this, and we ignore this at our peril.
Transwomen in female sport are not "males in female sports". They are females in female sports, as well as being less than 1% of females in sports. I question the excellence of your sources, quite honestly.
And I am sure that if NYT wrote a poll saying "Should women in sports be harassed if some bully thinks they are not "really" female or not female "enough"" we would get a different response.
How are trans women female? By definition they are males who identify as women. This is the problem with the Democratic stance (I too am a lifelong Dem). They ask us to parrot an untrue statement. Denying reality will not serve us well in the long run.
Someone with the financial resources can undergo significant transitioning. Hormone therapy, reducing Adan’s apple, cheek enhancement, breast implantation, genital revision and more. A transgender man can undergo the reverse of these. Stark naked, how would you label each individual?
I don’t identify as a woman. I am a woman. Same with the majority of people. For a subset of people, they don’t identify as whatever they were labeled at birth. There’s evidence of their existence throughout history. Why the adamant need to refuse to believe them??
They're female in the same way anyone is male or female or any other gender. They identify as that gender and present themselves as that gender (or at least they do if it is safe). That's all we can really rely on, claims about "biological sex" aside. We don't know anyone's chromosomes or what's under their clothes unless they choose to share that with us (or inflict it on us in the case of a flasher or other sex criminal). In the case of chromosomes, the person themselves may not even know.
Thank you for answering. Your answer makes it clear that you don't believe in biological sex or that humans are very adept at recognizing which sex people are (absent radical medical intervention) and that you think it is ok for people to "identify" as the opposite sex as what they are and therefore should have access to all spaces (sports/prisons) etc as people who actually are that sex.
Thank you. I agree with you. I was a female athlete from high school on. I also don't toe the party line on immigration, and get flamed for not doing so. In some ways, the far left Democrats are as doctrinaire as MAGAs.
The material reality of sex is not identity, but biology. I think it imperative for the Democrats to win in 2026. If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t make the effort to weigh in here. The problem in brief, is that ignoring biological reality in favor of identitarian precepts most voters do not want will not get us there. You can agree or disagree, but resorting to namecalling, rather than engagement in good faith discussion about this across our differences, will not get us there.
I do not think that ‘the democrats will win’ if they give up the idea that civil, and legal, and human rights are not universal. I also don’t think they will win if they base social policy on somebody’s invented ideas about biology that run against scientific research. These ideas are based on people’s feelings. In addition, they are irrelevant, and very similar to race science. That is, this is an attempt to make scientific claims to deny people’s fundamental rights, rights they already have. So it is stripping people of rights.
Who are the Democrats if the 1) Abandon the universality of rights 2) Abandon the idea of personal freedom 3) Abandon the idea of human equality 4) Let pseudoscience that is ultimately identical to the views of certain Christian sects determine their policy?
Even if they were true, which they are not, the policies target specific people and strip them of rights, rights they already had. The value of the individual, and the value of their basic freedoms and equality are fundamental to our system in the end.
People are not ‘identarian precepts.’ They are people. Transgender people are people. That they are different from the majority is irrelevant. One does not depend on beating a pseudoscientific argument to win the right to exist in public, to participate in society, to receive medical care, to be treated equally in housing or a job Nor do they have to scientifically prove their value to others. It is taken as a given that individuals have a basic worth in liberalism.
We can certain make any trait a justification for denying people equal access, as this is what was done to cisgender women for most of US history. I do not want to prove that I am ‘as good as a man’ by some standard made up in someone’s head to have equal access to things. There are no characteristics a person must have to prove they are entitled to something basic that all others of the society can acquire. That is what it is to live in a liberal society—the individual is permitted freedom, and is given equal access to what is necessary for their dignified existence. The burden is on society to provide it, not on the individual.
Anything that moves away from these liberal principles is aligning with fascism. What would even be the point of voting for Democrats if they decide to align with fascism?
This idea also implies we should placate the right on small matters, based on the size of a minority or something. That is absolutely incorrect. The right is coming for everything. We have to stand our ground. They are every bit as passionate as relegating all non-white and non-male individuals to second class citizenship as they are about harming transgender people. It would be absurd but also strategically unwise to try to placate them. They are not reasonable, and cannot be placated.
This is the point at which back and forth online exchanges don’t work well. What I am seeing in your responses are some basic misunderstandings developing about our relative stances on these issues. I agree with you 💯 that Democrats should under no circumstances abandon your points 1, 2 or 3, and that transgender people are people. Of course they are, and we all deserve to live in dignity and be treated with respect. I disagree with you about the science, but that can’t be properly discussed or resolved here. What we all need to do is stop the name calling and dial down the heat, so we can get to the light, all pointed toward making sure we have done everything possible for the Democrats to win in 2026. Many liberals and progressives, including me, have very reasonable, longstanding, concerns about the downstream negative effects on law and policy related to sex-based rights and single-sex spaces that have occurred due to insufficient attention when inscribing gender identity precepts into law and policy. (This is not about people, but about precepts, a very important distinction.) I voted for Harris, but the Democrats lost a lot of votes because this was not attended to thoughtfully. These issues CAN be resolved, but only if we are able to listen, at the very least, to Democrats and Dem-leaners who have these concerns. What I ask of you and all here who are troubled by what I have written is to know we are all on the same team, to open your hearts and minds to take in these concerns, and let’s see together how we can resolve these problems. We have no time to waste, and the only way out of this is through. I won’t engage on this any further here, first out of respect for Margaret, but also because I think I have exhausted what I can achieve. Please just remember, we are all after the same goal, to win in 2026.
I’m sorry Susan but these rights and freedoms are basic, and fundamental. We simply cannot strip people of rights that are fundamental to their existence. There is no compromise on the idea of equal citizenship. And there is no point whatsoever to doing so. It is primarily a hot topic as the result of heavy propaganda, paid for by billionaires. We cannot sacrifice people subject to bigotry to the fascists or interfere in people’s lives because of their (recently created and disseminated) religious preferences or fondness for persecution. Being a ‘big tent’ did not work with abortion. It won’t work for transgender people either. That method does not work and it is also wrong.
“Identitarian precepts”? Identitarian isn’t a word. What are you trying to say?
You have spent two years grappling with the narrow issue of transgender women participating in competitive sports. You’ve completely ignored transgender male athletes.
Maybe you should spend an equal amount of time delving into peer-reviewed scientific research regarding transgender people.
Start with the difference between the definitions of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. Look into intersex conditions. Find out about XXXY and other sex chromosome combinations beyond XX and XY. Study conditions such as androgen insensitivity syndrome. Read some life stories.
Meet a transgender individual who is willing to talk to you about their life.
OK, I will weigh in once more just to clarify. “Identitarian,” as I am using it here, roughly means any politics or social movement that reduces political issues entirely or almost entirely to issues of identity. One can argue about whether it is applicable here, and that is fine. I am using it as shorthand, and as with all short hand, something invariably gets lost in translation. As to the rest, my comment about sports is because that was the particular item at issue. I have spent an enormous amount of time learning as much as I can about all facets of the myriad of issues relating to gender identity and particularly conflicts in law and policy between gender identity and sex-based rights and single-sex spaces, all in an effort to see how these conflicts might be best resolved in a humane and fair way. This has included spending a good bit of time reviewing the research on all manner of issues (including, eg DSDs) and listening to and learning from trans-identified people themselves. We can disagree in our perspectives on this and that’s OK—it comes with the territory. What we need most of all is an open, multi-faceted conversation about this is if we are going to have any chance of finding common ground and resolving these conflicts. Now, out of respect for Margaret, whose post here was very important and to which this discussion is not central, I am not going to engage any further here. I would just ask, for all our sakes, that we recognize we have some knotty issues here that we as Democrats need to face and resolve in good faith if we are to have any chance of coming back together to fight against what we now face from the current administration.
I absolutely agree with Norman Ornstein, that this is a fast-moving putsch. Elon Musk's role and actions are completely illegal, but the problem is: who is going to remove him, arrest him or stop him from dismantling our government? I would appreciate some legal views on this.
You don’t want to hear my views on solving the Musk problem. There’s a simple one …. The nicest is to jail him for illegal access to information as a non-government individual… Option B is a government-wide strike!
Shutting down the government workforce is exactly what TFG, Musk and the rest WANT to do. A government-wide strike would play into their hands. They’d summarily fire everyone like Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in 1981.
I’m what’s known as recovering journalist (couldn’t take it any more and left before the corporate owners completely gutted where I worked), and I have what may be a useful perspective. Yes, this reporting is expert and crucial, AND there’s a disconnect at that point dictated by the norms of what I always thought of as “Capital J” Journalism. It sets out to be the best, most objective, non-partisan, just-the-facts reporting and trusts the readers to read it all, think through it all and decide what it means and how to respond. Editorial pages are, to Journalists, where what it means and what to do about it are allowed topics. This model is failing us and I think has been failing us for quite a while. People in general don’t read long articles now. People in general don’t parse formal language and long sentences now.
Actually, those of us who read the long stories and parse the language are pretty upset at what we are seeing. A lot of bothsides coverage as if putting Musk employees into our disbursement system were not handing over the keys to the bank to avowed safecrackers. If you bracket the most important fact - that he and his minions have no legal right to be there - then the reporting of their presence has the calm tone that is observable.
That's just it. What Musk and his minions are doing is flat-out illegal, civilly and criminally, and most news outlets simply aren't saying that in so many words.
1.) Access to classified information without proper clearance and need to know!
Well, in the before times, we’d agree. But it’s the after times. POTUS can grant clearance and need to know to anyone. See: Krushner, TFG’s first term.
2.) I can name more. But SCOTUS ruled POTUS has immunity for anything done as an official act of his office. It’s vague; they get the final say.
On second thought, they may have purposely avoided that aspect of the story because it was a wider context their reporting had not covered. Cap J Journalists prefer to cite their own sources for everything. And they would not be comfortable simply quoting a section of law because they’re not lawyers and what if they quoted the wrong part or if another section changes the situation? It might be a context gap that we readers really find to be a problem.
Another recovering journalist here -- you are correct. News organizations have got to get better about putting the MEANING of news right there with the FACTS of the news -- in headlines and ledes. There are practical concerns about that -- e.g., if you're not careful, it makes for long sentences -- but they can be overcome. Yeah, it'll make headlines longer, but online that's not the problem that it is for print.
Found a decent example today of Big J Journalism that provides facts plus context and meaning, all appropriately within journalistic norms. It’s today’s New York Times The Interpreter newsletter (See? It tells you it’s going beyond just the facts, ma’am!). Headline: A Gaza takeover would violate international law, experts say. Unfortunately, the only people that will see it are NYT subscribers who have also signed up for the newsletter, I think. Perhaps other publications will cite it in their coverage. It’s a step in the right direction at least.
"News organizations have got to get better about putting the MEANING of news right there with the FACTS of the news" Yes. Everyone should be told what to think.
On the chance that you are sincere and not trolling, I am not suggesting that news outlets tell people what to think, but rather why the facts they are reporting are relevant to the average reader or otherwise significant. Two very different things.
"why the facts they are reporting are relevant" You're just repeating the same thing. The reader needs to be told? Look up the word propaganda and get back to me
Ok, here is an example. Large city A raises its taxes 10 percent. That is a fact to be reported. But that fact means one thing if the state's other large cities do the same, another if they only raise theirs 5 percent, and still another if they raise theirs 20 percent. Do you follow?
Yeah report facts. But not your "MEANING". I would also add even your benign addition amounts to interpretation. Front page news should never be interpretation.
Yes! NPR and PBS are doing as bad a job as any of the corporate media. Are they trying to protect their jobs? The should know that (a) it won’t work, and see AID as evidence and (b) if it did, what would they be allowed to say? Everyone has to decide right now what they will and will not do to save their jobs.
Welll… under the current assault of NPR they may be slightly gun shy…. They are being “Orban-ed”. Ain’t forgiving them, just saying how it is. As WashPest once said —“Democracy dies in Darkness”…. That’s where we are. All we can say is NPR don’t go weak kneed …. Go out hard and don’t cave.
Norman Ornstein is 100% correct. What can the media do better — not be distracted by the firehouse of manufactured crises. As awful as tariffs and assaults on civil rights are, the single most important topic to be laser focused on is the QUICKLY UNFOLDING COUP happening in real time, right now, and why so many Republicans are ignoring Professor Timothy Snyder’s caution to “NOT obey in advance.”
Let’s hope law enforcement and the military are prepared to not obey illegal orders, the courts are prepared to issue just decisions based on true facts, and the media focus on the single most important issue — the coup and its subsequent constitutional crisis.
Where is the NYT coverage of altnationalparkservice? They are resisting! Where are the interviews with the career civil servants being fired? Why has there been the implication in the NYT and WaPo stories that the IGs and Treasury folks just walked off their jobs when told to? Why is the resistance to the takeover given as much coverage as the takeover? Only answer I can see is that the reporters consider it an unimportant, doomed-to-fail part of the story.
When WIRED Magazine is more on top of a political story than any of the supposed major media outlets, you know that the corporate media has rendered itself truly irrelevant. What Musk is doing is beyond illegal. The NYT, the WaPo, the networks, all should be screaming about this because the implications for the country are terrifying. What will it take?
I’ve seen this sentiment many times this weekend. Maybe people think of only newspapers as legacy media, but WIRED has been around for over thirty years and is owned by Condé Nast. It’s 100% corporate media, not a couple of independent journalists on Substack. I’m a happy subscriber and think they’ve risen admirably to this moment, but legacy media isn’t down for the count yet.
I think they are rising to the moment in part because this is a Silicon Valley story and they, and groups like the Verge, know the people and the culture better than the DC reporters. Fundamentally they've heard enough of Musk's BS to know where to look.
Why is no one roasting Scott Bessent? His toes should be held to the fire.
In a functioning government, Congress would be holding hearings. But the GOP 1) controls both houses of Congress, and 2) is absolutely corrupt to the last man and woman.
Aren't you being a bit harsh, Lex? After all, Susan Collins is "concerned."
😂
I think his cojones should be toasted … the hell with his toes!! He is integral to the MAGAmaniacs massacre of our democracy.
William, I looked up which Dem Senators voted to confirm him. My sister and her partner live in VA, so they do have D Senators, unfortunately all my "representatives" are Republicans.
The Democrats who voted for Bessent should now be urging his impeachment, possibly his arrest. He broke his oath days after swearing it, and he has facilitated the theft of the personal data, SSN, banking records, date of birth, address, health insurance and more from ALL Americans.
And Kaine voted for Noem!! I messaged him that if he repeated backing Trumphuk’s MAGAmaniac cabinet nominees and especially Kash-in Patel I world start a movement to primary him. I think he and Warner voted for Bessemer …. But I’d have to go look that up.
WTAF
MSM has been bludgeoned by settlements already. Similar to Putin’s consolidation of power.
Thune is under Attack. USAID funds the Lutheran Charity in his state, this is a large employer in Thune’s South Dakota. Dies this inform us that the nominees Gabbard and Patel do not have the votes?
You think Thune will stand up to trump. No way!
Pretty sure Thune would rather have his constituents hurt than lose his day job by having Cheeto go after him. And if there's an uproar in SD about jobs lost, etc., , he'll just blame the Dems and his MAGAt voting base will believe him.
Ha! That's the independent I subscribe to, based on their excellent work developing a monitoring tool on one piece at least of the administration's activity... "WIRED built software to systematically check the status of 1,374 government domains. The tool runs periodic scans, tracking whether sites remain accessible, how their servers respond, and if the domain names still resolve. This allows us to monitor patterns in uptime and catch moments when sites suddenly vanish– sometimes reappearing minutes or hours later." https://www.wired.com/story/us-government-websites-are-disappearing-in-real-time/
It reminds me of the way that Playboy magazine could often do actual journalism (like interviewing Martin Luther King, Jr.) - being a porn magazine they are already controversial, so they could fly under the radar on topics and people too radioactive for "respectable" news organs.
There has been a lot of great, breaking reporting by the NYT on this topic, plus follow up podcasts. From what I can tell, they ARE screaming. Are you and everyone making comments here doing your part? How about joining in on calls with Indivisible. Actually physically marching? I hope you don't think that better reporting or complaining will help. It's going to take ALL OF US CITIZENS to actually stand up and fight back!
Is it illegal? I will check Just Security and Lawfare, so far I have not heard legal analysis. It should be illegal if it is not already.
I watched the beginnings of the coup unfold Friday night on the Alt National Park's Facebook page. Reuters was the only outlet reporting on it at the time, Rachel Maddow picked it up on her show after being alerted. The fact that it took 24 to 48 hours to surface in big news outlets was absolutely terrifying. It was a sleepless weekend. It is deeply upsetting that it wasn't front and center everywhere, boldly describing what it is.
Mainstream reporting kept focusing on the consequences rather than the why. The headlines were about firings or resignations and totally missing the point. The story was quickly buried in other stories at the bottoms of their website pages when it should have been pinned and highlighted at the top of every communication channel, website, etc.
Do you have any insight into why legacy media is failing to recognize and prioritize what is perhaps the most important story since the Civil War? This is a government takeover and they should be calling on Americans to shut down and take to the streets because that is what it is going to take to overcome this.
[[The fact that it took 24 to 48 hours to surface in big news outlets was absolutely terrifying.]] Agreed, but on a big story like this, it can take time to report out accurately and contextually. Reuters and Wired had running head starts on other outlets.
The bigger problem is that even with time to catch up, most outlets are not now providing the correct context, which is that this is a fast-moving coup.
Agreed on all your points. I do not understand why MSM won't call it a coup.
"I do not understand why MSM won't call it a coup." They think that's "divisive." Also, makes them look like - gasp! - the "liberal media," an appellation they simply can't bear.
Because they are investments, not on a ‘mission’ just like the private equity owned Steward Healthcare that collapsed and closed many health care sites while its owner was on his massive ship at sea far away sea and his board did nothing.
Publishing good reporting is essential, for sure. It also provides "cover" for them. They can claim, like Jill Abramson does, that they are reporting hard stories about real things. (and don't get me started on Peter Baker). There was an interview years ago of A. G. Sulzberger by David Remnick. Remnick asked if the NYT was doing enough to warn the public about Trump. (the interview was during the first Trump administration) Sulzberger felt it wasn't his job to do that. It was his job to "publish" the news. Most of the people in "big media" really do seem ignorant of their editorial choices.
IMHO, the fact that the media landscape is fractured beyond recognition is the bigger issue. Talk to random people that aren't tuned into the news and you will be very disappointed in what they actually know about what is going on.
NYT, WaPo, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. have all played along for far too long. Decades have passed since they were first disparaged by the Murdoch Empire as the "liberal" media or the "lamestream" media. The Pentagon has awarded press passes to OANN, Breitbart, and some other crazy right wing outlet that slips my mind right now. The Sec of Transportation is now communicating all official announcements via Twitter (refuse to call it X). Tik Tok, Twiter, and various socials are where it is happening for most people.
We are well and forked. The vast majority (my framing) of the public are truly ignorant of how much the federal gov't touches their lives. When the scaffolding that is supporting them starts to collapse they will notice.
OANN, Breitbart, and the third outlet that I also can’t remember already had press passes for the Pentagon. The Pentagon gave them physical desk space within the Pentagon, booting out other longstanding news organizations.
This happened due to the implementation of a new policy to rotate among organizations with press passes. “New” policy? I have my doubts.
I want Congress to ask themselves: why does Trump need them? Autocrats throughout history disbands the representative/legislative branches. No more salary, no paid trips&travel, no private looting, no more insider trade info. If for no other reason then self interest, shouldn’t they put on the brakes?
Elon Musk should be in FBI custody.
I agree with every word!
He should indeed. But the FBI works for Trump now.
The Alt National Park Service is in the trenches. They can be found on Facebook and Bluesky.
I can't see any comments, so sorry if my point has already been made.
In my eyes, the difference is not whether to cover views of MAGAs or not but rather how to do it.
What NYT's doing is in fact mostly sane-washing though more independant readers certainly can make other use of it. And NYT definitely has known for years that it was the most important help Trump got in what most be seen as his success.
I came to make a tangential point: Jarvis called it stenography because the reader could be left with the impression that any statement of the interviewees comported with the facts, when they did not. Why publish such obvious stupidity without at least making the interviewee defend their views? Elsewise, an incurious reader might be left with the impression the Trump supporters has good reasons for their statements.
Jeff Jarvis is spot on. When has the Times ever run the voices of Trump opponents? They are a propaganda outfit.
The Times has published over the years dozens and dozens of stories about Trump voters of different ages and ethnicities, jobs and economic status. There have been at least three just since the election. The paper lets them talk on and on and never questions any of the lies they state. I could count on the fingers of one hand, stories about people who didn’t vote for him. I remember they had one story about Biden voters, before he dropped out, and most were described as reluctant to admit it. I’m sure even now they’ll talk to yet more Trump voters to see how happy they are with Trump so far. That millions of their readers are appalled or terrified by what he’s doing won’t matter. They’ll never feature any stories about us.
The media treated the millions of American women who were heartbroken and deeply discouraged by Hillary’s loss as if we were invisible. No interviews with them about their excitement at the possibility of the first woman president, none about our anger and frustration after she lost. The mainstream media treatment of the first serious chance of a woman president was also despicable. They played along with the bogus accusations against the Clinton Foundation and the ridiculous, dishonest email “scandal”.
Having caught the story of the Musk coup, and including it in the day's coverage Friday for the show I'm responsible for, and then pushing that story as it developed this weekend, I'm both amazed and terrified - amazed that more people aren't terrified, and terrified because so many don't even know about it.
As to the question of who is correct, Jarvis or Abramson? It's Jarvis on this one.
Another question screaming to be addressed is "Where are the congressional Democrats??"
Going quietly into the night…. ???
With all due respect to Jill Abramson, and not to make it all about him, but Peter Baker is pretty much the avatar for a very talented reporter who is guilty of just about the worst sanewashing possible. I mean, the guy proudly states that he doesn’t allow himself opinions on his subjects even in his own head! That’s the guy we should have covering an unprecedented attack from within on our government and way of life? I don’t think so.
With regards to the overall press coverage, sadly, I’ve pretty much given up. I follow the few journalists mentioned at this site who do good work, and that’s about it. I think responsibility has been shirked, and at this point, it is up to well intentioned Americans to push the issue through actions like a general strike and hope maybe the press wakes up and notices.
No "opinions," supposedly. But when Joe Biden was trying to get the Inflation Reduction Act passed, the MSM regularly referred to it as a "massive spending" bill. If that ain't "opinion," I'll eat my socks.
Two things, Margaret.
It's a 10 alarm fire. The Post should be using its red banner treatment of this story.
Second, I agree about the stenography approach. The problem is, where are the same reporters quoting all the city residents who aren't Trump supporters, to foster "understanding"? Do we all need to take trips to hang out in rural diners to get our views quoted? We all understand MAGA supporters: they are disconnected from reality. How does continuing to quote their uninformed, incorrect views help, other than to reinforce them as factual in the minds of casual readers? I recall a guy who actually got a new, better paying job thanks to Biden's CHIPS Act, who complained that Biden was doing nothing for him. How is quoting that helpful to "understanding" him? Or helpful to HIM understanding the real world?
I am exhausted these days from barely suppressed rage, a feeling of impotence, and fear that our last hope for resistance to the coup, the press, is treating it like, as you say, a backyard bonfire.
You describe my current mental state perfectly.
Chris —Don’t suppress your rage … express it and act on it!! Help organize and activate the resistance. Let Trumphuk do the whining—let’s get to work!! As the Doobies sang back in the day, “Taking it to the streets…”
What I am finding is, to break through the cacophony, I am better served scrolling quickly through The NY Times headlines and saving an article or two for later, then heading straight over to Substack to read trusted interlocutors, like you and Krugman, and to keep an eye out for more. Your analysis here is a good example—I got a better understanding from you here, the way you pulled in multiple sources, than I did from the Times piece, of what is going on here and why it is at the very least a 5 alarm file.
I do want to sound a cautionary note, though, on one aspect of your listing of the parade of new administration horribles, and that relates to this: “targeted transgender people with a series of executive orders.” I think it’s very important that, on our side, we don’t become reactive as our default position, and I hope folks here will hear me out.
There are a lot of liberal women who have greeted these orders with a sigh of relief. I have read the first of the orders, and I can see why. New York Times polling is showing a majority of Democrats agree that males should not be in female sports and troubled children should not be medicalized. Here are the stats to which I am referring:
Trans women should NOT be allowed in women’s sports (Q32):
Total: 79%
GOP: 94%
Dem: 67%
Minors should NOT be able to get puberty blockers (Q33):
Total: 71%
GOP: 90%
Dem: 54%
Based on this, before painting with too broad a brush, we need to stop and think what we, as Democrats may have got wrong.
In my own thinking about this, I have tried, in the first instance, to separate the message from the messenger and evaluate the EO I read on its own merits. (I grant that it’s not easy!) In doing that, I see much with which I agree. I am also familiar with the person who wrote it, she is well informed on these issues, and it shows in the document. For me, the big question is implementation where, from what I have seen so far, I have many concerns, and I suspect I will have more. A person on Substack who writes very thoughtfully on this is Lisa Selin Davis. https://open.substack.com/pub/lisaselindavis/p/alas-were-going-to-have-to-keep-talking?r=16541&utm_medium=ios
To anyone who got this far, thanks for listening! (The last time I tried to weigh in on this, I got called a Christian nationalist and a MAGA. I am, in actual fact, a lifelong progressive Democrat. I am poking my head above the parapet once again as I think the Democrats urgently need to reevaluate their stances in this area for us to have any chance of winning in 2026.)
Do you realize how blown up his issue has become? From what I've read, you are talking about less than 1% of female athletics You just became part of the hysteria.
Accoridng to NYT a full 15% of prisoners in women’s prisons are biological males. To imprison a female with a male convict against her will is a gross violation of human rights. These issues aren’t niche and it’s time we put an end to Dem doublespeak that both prioritizes the trans issues internally and in its propaganda but immediately retreats to “it’s a distraction” the second you push back with inconvenient facts!
Another very good point.
I’d love to know what crimes landed them in jail. I want to know how “biological male” is defined. A transgender woman who has undergone multiple surgeries including genitalia reconstruction is no longer a male - but by genetics, with XY chromosomes, is male.
If the prison population has 15% transgender women, seems pretty easy to place transgender women together in cells.
Did that article even mention transgender men? Or, as is usually the case, were they ignored because “giggle; what male is afraid of a woman??” Stories about transgender men aren’t good clickbait.
It was a shocking piece of data buried deep in an NYT article without further explanation. And as for transgender men, if you seriously do not understand the difference between the threat a male criminal can pose to women compared to the inverse I doubt there is anything I could say here to enlighten you.
Male criminal? So this isn’t really about transgender women. It’s about men posing as transgender women. Or women who look “too masculine”.
No. Enough with the linguistic sophistry and shifting the goal posts. All transgender women are biological males *by definition*. People in prison are criminals, again by definition. Thus transgender women in prison are, necessarily and by definition, a subset of the group of male prisoners. The NYT article claims that 15% of the people in women's prison are transgender women ergo male prisoners. This is to whom I refer. I can't believe I just spelled all of this out for what was most likely a bad faith quip, but there you have it, on the off chance you're genuinely confused.
I think you, like many people, are thinking of the math incorrectly. It’s not about the number of males competing on female teams. It is about how many female athletes are denied fairness, safety, opportunities and awards by the participation of that male. One single male on a female team effects all the team members as well as all the team members of the opposing team. And if that male sets a record, that effects future female athletes. Having said that, I don’t think it is a matter of math, I think it is a matter of principle.
What I am saying is that it has been blown way out of proportion as an issue. It affects very few women but it's been blown up so far that it helped elect trump. You are convinced that these people can't become women but others disagree. I'm neutral. In individual sports the solution is simple. Keep separate records and time will tell us if they have an advantage. Just don't make it sound like it's the most important issue in the nation. This issue personally affects very few people.
The sports issue may affect very few people but the toxic gender identity ideology behind it affects every citizen in this country, especially women and children, as it has infiltrated every major institution in our lives, from government to medicine to education to media.
An excellent point, with which I agree. Thank you for weighing in in.
I have taken the last two years, when I first found out about the sports issue, to become as informed as I can and assess accordingly. There is a wealth credible, useful information out there. Two excellent sources are here https://womenssportspolicy.org/the-resolution/ (Martina Navratilova is part of this group) and here https://sex-matters.org/where-sex-matters/sport/ As you can see from the NYT polling, 67% of Democrats oppose males in female sports. There are very sound reasons for this, and we ignore this at our peril.
Transwomen in female sport are not "males in female sports". They are females in female sports, as well as being less than 1% of females in sports. I question the excellence of your sources, quite honestly.
And I am sure that if NYT wrote a poll saying "Should women in sports be harassed if some bully thinks they are not "really" female or not female "enough"" we would get a different response.
How are trans women female? By definition they are males who identify as women. This is the problem with the Democratic stance (I too am a lifelong Dem). They ask us to parrot an untrue statement. Denying reality will not serve us well in the long run.
What does “males who identify as women” mean?
Someone with the financial resources can undergo significant transitioning. Hormone therapy, reducing Adan’s apple, cheek enhancement, breast implantation, genital revision and more. A transgender man can undergo the reverse of these. Stark naked, how would you label each individual?
I don’t identify as a woman. I am a woman. Same with the majority of people. For a subset of people, they don’t identify as whatever they were labeled at birth. There’s evidence of their existence throughout history. Why the adamant need to refuse to believe them??
They're female in the same way anyone is male or female or any other gender. They identify as that gender and present themselves as that gender (or at least they do if it is safe). That's all we can really rely on, claims about "biological sex" aside. We don't know anyone's chromosomes or what's under their clothes unless they choose to share that with us (or inflict it on us in the case of a flasher or other sex criminal). In the case of chromosomes, the person themselves may not even know.
(sorry about the double-post - browser issues)
Thank you for answering. Your answer makes it clear that you don't believe in biological sex or that humans are very adept at recognizing which sex people are (absent radical medical intervention) and that you think it is ok for people to "identify" as the opposite sex as what they are and therefore should have access to all spaces (sports/prisons) etc as people who actually are that sex.
Thank you. I agree with you. I was a female athlete from high school on. I also don't toe the party line on immigration, and get flamed for not doing so. In some ways, the far left Democrats are as doctrinaire as MAGAs.
No, it’s contrary to everything the country stands for. You want the government to determine people’s healthcare based on the status of identity?
You want to decide people’s care and their lives based on a poll?
You want there to be second class citizens in America?
Then join the MAGA. The MAGA are the party for authoritarians, who base policy on personal bigotry.
The material reality of sex is not identity, but biology. I think it imperative for the Democrats to win in 2026. If I didn’t think that, I wouldn’t make the effort to weigh in here. The problem in brief, is that ignoring biological reality in favor of identitarian precepts most voters do not want will not get us there. You can agree or disagree, but resorting to namecalling, rather than engagement in good faith discussion about this across our differences, will not get us there.
I do not think that ‘the democrats will win’ if they give up the idea that civil, and legal, and human rights are not universal. I also don’t think they will win if they base social policy on somebody’s invented ideas about biology that run against scientific research. These ideas are based on people’s feelings. In addition, they are irrelevant, and very similar to race science. That is, this is an attempt to make scientific claims to deny people’s fundamental rights, rights they already have. So it is stripping people of rights.
Who are the Democrats if the 1) Abandon the universality of rights 2) Abandon the idea of personal freedom 3) Abandon the idea of human equality 4) Let pseudoscience that is ultimately identical to the views of certain Christian sects determine their policy?
Even if they were true, which they are not, the policies target specific people and strip them of rights, rights they already had. The value of the individual, and the value of their basic freedoms and equality are fundamental to our system in the end.
People are not ‘identarian precepts.’ They are people. Transgender people are people. That they are different from the majority is irrelevant. One does not depend on beating a pseudoscientific argument to win the right to exist in public, to participate in society, to receive medical care, to be treated equally in housing or a job Nor do they have to scientifically prove their value to others. It is taken as a given that individuals have a basic worth in liberalism.
We can certain make any trait a justification for denying people equal access, as this is what was done to cisgender women for most of US history. I do not want to prove that I am ‘as good as a man’ by some standard made up in someone’s head to have equal access to things. There are no characteristics a person must have to prove they are entitled to something basic that all others of the society can acquire. That is what it is to live in a liberal society—the individual is permitted freedom, and is given equal access to what is necessary for their dignified existence. The burden is on society to provide it, not on the individual.
Anything that moves away from these liberal principles is aligning with fascism. What would even be the point of voting for Democrats if they decide to align with fascism?
This idea also implies we should placate the right on small matters, based on the size of a minority or something. That is absolutely incorrect. The right is coming for everything. We have to stand our ground. They are every bit as passionate as relegating all non-white and non-male individuals to second class citizenship as they are about harming transgender people. It would be absurd but also strategically unwise to try to placate them. They are not reasonable, and cannot be placated.
This is the point at which back and forth online exchanges don’t work well. What I am seeing in your responses are some basic misunderstandings developing about our relative stances on these issues. I agree with you 💯 that Democrats should under no circumstances abandon your points 1, 2 or 3, and that transgender people are people. Of course they are, and we all deserve to live in dignity and be treated with respect. I disagree with you about the science, but that can’t be properly discussed or resolved here. What we all need to do is stop the name calling and dial down the heat, so we can get to the light, all pointed toward making sure we have done everything possible for the Democrats to win in 2026. Many liberals and progressives, including me, have very reasonable, longstanding, concerns about the downstream negative effects on law and policy related to sex-based rights and single-sex spaces that have occurred due to insufficient attention when inscribing gender identity precepts into law and policy. (This is not about people, but about precepts, a very important distinction.) I voted for Harris, but the Democrats lost a lot of votes because this was not attended to thoughtfully. These issues CAN be resolved, but only if we are able to listen, at the very least, to Democrats and Dem-leaners who have these concerns. What I ask of you and all here who are troubled by what I have written is to know we are all on the same team, to open your hearts and minds to take in these concerns, and let’s see together how we can resolve these problems. We have no time to waste, and the only way out of this is through. I won’t engage on this any further here, first out of respect for Margaret, but also because I think I have exhausted what I can achieve. Please just remember, we are all after the same goal, to win in 2026.
I’m sorry Susan but these rights and freedoms are basic, and fundamental. We simply cannot strip people of rights that are fundamental to their existence. There is no compromise on the idea of equal citizenship. And there is no point whatsoever to doing so. It is primarily a hot topic as the result of heavy propaganda, paid for by billionaires. We cannot sacrifice people subject to bigotry to the fascists or interfere in people’s lives because of their (recently created and disseminated) religious preferences or fondness for persecution. Being a ‘big tent’ did not work with abortion. It won’t work for transgender people either. That method does not work and it is also wrong.
“Identitarian precepts”? Identitarian isn’t a word. What are you trying to say?
You have spent two years grappling with the narrow issue of transgender women participating in competitive sports. You’ve completely ignored transgender male athletes.
Maybe you should spend an equal amount of time delving into peer-reviewed scientific research regarding transgender people.
Start with the difference between the definitions of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’. Look into intersex conditions. Find out about XXXY and other sex chromosome combinations beyond XX and XY. Study conditions such as androgen insensitivity syndrome. Read some life stories.
Meet a transgender individual who is willing to talk to you about their life.
OK, I will weigh in once more just to clarify. “Identitarian,” as I am using it here, roughly means any politics or social movement that reduces political issues entirely or almost entirely to issues of identity. One can argue about whether it is applicable here, and that is fine. I am using it as shorthand, and as with all short hand, something invariably gets lost in translation. As to the rest, my comment about sports is because that was the particular item at issue. I have spent an enormous amount of time learning as much as I can about all facets of the myriad of issues relating to gender identity and particularly conflicts in law and policy between gender identity and sex-based rights and single-sex spaces, all in an effort to see how these conflicts might be best resolved in a humane and fair way. This has included spending a good bit of time reviewing the research on all manner of issues (including, eg DSDs) and listening to and learning from trans-identified people themselves. We can disagree in our perspectives on this and that’s OK—it comes with the territory. What we need most of all is an open, multi-faceted conversation about this is if we are going to have any chance of finding common ground and resolving these conflicts. Now, out of respect for Margaret, whose post here was very important and to which this discussion is not central, I am not going to engage any further here. I would just ask, for all our sakes, that we recognize we have some knotty issues here that we as Democrats need to face and resolve in good faith if we are to have any chance of coming back together to fight against what we now face from the current administration.
There’s a coup going on, but sure, let’s give Trump credit where credit’s due. 🙄
I absolutely agree with Norman Ornstein, that this is a fast-moving putsch. Elon Musk's role and actions are completely illegal, but the problem is: who is going to remove him, arrest him or stop him from dismantling our government? I would appreciate some legal views on this.
There are rumblings about impeachment but I don't see how that would work out any better than last time
Impeach whom? Trump? Impossible with this group of spineless republicans. Musk, he doesn't even hold an office. How can you impeach him?
That's my take on it but the idea is being floated.
You don’t want to hear my views on solving the Musk problem. There’s a simple one …. The nicest is to jail him for illegal access to information as a non-government individual… Option B is a government-wide strike!
Musk is a “special government employee”.
Shutting down the government workforce is exactly what TFG, Musk and the rest WANT to do. A government-wide strike would play into their hands. They’d summarily fire everyone like Reagan fired the air traffic controllers in 1981.
I’m what’s known as recovering journalist (couldn’t take it any more and left before the corporate owners completely gutted where I worked), and I have what may be a useful perspective. Yes, this reporting is expert and crucial, AND there’s a disconnect at that point dictated by the norms of what I always thought of as “Capital J” Journalism. It sets out to be the best, most objective, non-partisan, just-the-facts reporting and trusts the readers to read it all, think through it all and decide what it means and how to respond. Editorial pages are, to Journalists, where what it means and what to do about it are allowed topics. This model is failing us and I think has been failing us for quite a while. People in general don’t read long articles now. People in general don’t parse formal language and long sentences now.
Actually, those of us who read the long stories and parse the language are pretty upset at what we are seeing. A lot of bothsides coverage as if putting Musk employees into our disbursement system were not handing over the keys to the bank to avowed safecrackers. If you bracket the most important fact - that he and his minions have no legal right to be there - then the reporting of their presence has the calm tone that is observable.
That's just it. What Musk and his minions are doing is flat-out illegal, civilly and criminally, and most news outlets simply aren't saying that in so many words.
Absolutely needs to be said … it’s illegal and needs to be said loud and clear!!
Ah but is it illegal??
What law have they broken?
1.) Access to classified information without proper clearance and need to know!
Well, in the before times, we’d agree. But it’s the after times. POTUS can grant clearance and need to know to anyone. See: Krushner, TFG’s first term.
2.) I can name more. But SCOTUS ruled POTUS has immunity for anything done as an official act of his office. It’s vague; they get the final say.
TFG or his underlings did it? ✅
Not-TFG or his underlings did it? ❌
On second thought, they may have purposely avoided that aspect of the story because it was a wider context their reporting had not covered. Cap J Journalists prefer to cite their own sources for everything. And they would not be comfortable simply quoting a section of law because they’re not lawyers and what if they quoted the wrong part or if another section changes the situation? It might be a context gap that we readers really find to be a problem.
Fair point, but I would hope that any Times or Post reporter covering this would have plenty of lawyers and law profs on speed dial.
Excellent point. Thank you. I overlooked that.
Another recovering journalist here -- you are correct. News organizations have got to get better about putting the MEANING of news right there with the FACTS of the news -- in headlines and ledes. There are practical concerns about that -- e.g., if you're not careful, it makes for long sentences -- but they can be overcome. Yeah, it'll make headlines longer, but online that's not the problem that it is for print.
Found a decent example today of Big J Journalism that provides facts plus context and meaning, all appropriately within journalistic norms. It’s today’s New York Times The Interpreter newsletter (See? It tells you it’s going beyond just the facts, ma’am!). Headline: A Gaza takeover would violate international law, experts say. Unfortunately, the only people that will see it are NYT subscribers who have also signed up for the newsletter, I think. Perhaps other publications will cite it in their coverage. It’s a step in the right direction at least.
"News organizations have got to get better about putting the MEANING of news right there with the FACTS of the news" Yes. Everyone should be told what to think.
On the chance that you are sincere and not trolling, I am not suggesting that news outlets tell people what to think, but rather why the facts they are reporting are relevant to the average reader or otherwise significant. Two very different things.
"why the facts they are reporting are relevant" You're just repeating the same thing. The reader needs to be told? Look up the word propaganda and get back to me
Ok, here is an example. Large city A raises its taxes 10 percent. That is a fact to be reported. But that fact means one thing if the state's other large cities do the same, another if they only raise theirs 5 percent, and still another if they raise theirs 20 percent. Do you follow?
Yeah report facts. But not your "MEANING". I would also add even your benign addition amounts to interpretation. Front page news should never be interpretation.
And NPR Weekend All Things Considered did not mention the takeover at the treasury, but had several pieces on Groundhog Day.!
Yes! NPR and PBS are doing as bad a job as any of the corporate media. Are they trying to protect their jobs? The should know that (a) it won’t work, and see AID as evidence and (b) if it did, what would they be allowed to say? Everyone has to decide right now what they will and will not do to save their jobs.
Welll… under the current assault of NPR they may be slightly gun shy…. They are being “Orban-ed”. Ain’t forgiving them, just saying how it is. As WashPest once said —“Democracy dies in Darkness”…. That’s where we are. All we can say is NPR don’t go weak kneed …. Go out hard and don’t cave.
Norman Ornstein is 100% correct. What can the media do better — not be distracted by the firehouse of manufactured crises. As awful as tariffs and assaults on civil rights are, the single most important topic to be laser focused on is the QUICKLY UNFOLDING COUP happening in real time, right now, and why so many Republicans are ignoring Professor Timothy Snyder’s caution to “NOT obey in advance.”
Let’s hope law enforcement and the military are prepared to not obey illegal orders, the courts are prepared to issue just decisions based on true facts, and the media focus on the single most important issue — the coup and its subsequent constitutional crisis.
Where is the NYT coverage of altnationalparkservice? They are resisting! Where are the interviews with the career civil servants being fired? Why has there been the implication in the NYT and WaPo stories that the IGs and Treasury folks just walked off their jobs when told to? Why is the resistance to the takeover given as much coverage as the takeover? Only answer I can see is that the reporters consider it an unimportant, doomed-to-fail part of the story.