🙏 I posted a photo on Substack and bluesky that inspired those words last night. Sometimes we need a visual ( or I do) to sort things out. The image of A big predator fish vs lots of disorganized little fish. And another, the little fish organize themselves in the appearance of a much larger fish, larger than the predator fish. They can’t eat the predator, but they can frighten him to leave them alone.
The importance of gathering in public protest is becoming imminent to our democracy’s survival. We need ti be ready. We need to be organized. We will need new ways to support each other, our journalists, our scientists, our union leaders, our Democrat leaders, our school boards, our privacy, our data, our access to truths, and on an on…
Yes, thank you! I want to be better prepared for what’s coming. How can we learn about underground communications? Few legislators are doing anything to stop the rollover, and the courts have no real enforcement power, so we have only ourselves to rely on.
I’m e been sharing this Netflix documentary. The Great Hack. It’s a way to bring more folks into the awareness of what’s happening, we are in the midst of a coup. Carroll Cadwadalr is a British journalist covering Brexit, Cambridge Analytica and Social Media. Her stuff gets at what Mueller didn’t grasp or wasn’t in his scope to investigate. LeaveEU and Brexit was a pilot study. 2016 Presidential race was a case study. 2024 was full implementation of SCL/Cambridge Analytica style of personal propaganda. The “how” Meta, X, and Google conspire to mine and refine, and then serve a personalized propaganda diet that is so effective at persuasion it has exceeded the global value of the entire oil industry. Our data is the new gold. But it is has way more value, because they have the power now, to control wide swaths of the population, maybe permanently. AI is learning more everyday, it’s getting better and better at psychological profiling. The Treasury data is most likely syncing with social media profiles. Watch the documentary. Let us know what u think. It’s worthy of its own discussion and should present policy prerogatives.
Thanks for the link. This is the crux of our problem: "they have the power now, to control wide swaths of the population, maybe permanently." So we need underground expertise. Obviously, a public forum isn't the place to find it, but who on earth can be trusted?
I trust, but verify with help. ( discussion and interrogation. Of ideas is part of the process. Phd accept this and are comfortable in debate). Therefore I trust Folks more who have earned humanities PhD’s & investigative journalists. Career scientists like Dr Osterholm CIDRAP and Kaitlyn Jetilina YLE, Dr. Foegge. Retired Generals like Milley and Loyld Austin. Former intelligence officers: Mudd and Nance. Business and finance: Krugman, Warren Buffet, Gates, Bloomberg, Dalio. Truth is easier to find by triangulation across more than one source, and from separate disciplines of study. Read. Is the subject something they have studied for a lifetime? For me, I find it stimulating and I learn a ton from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American, Bruce and Getz lucid, Tim Snyder’s thinking about, legal/doj/ Joyce Vance and Lawrence Tribe, Harry Lippman, Jeffery Rosen.
Culture/moral authority Margaret Atwood.
Journalism right here with Margaret Sullivan. And there are so many more. Find qualified experts to follow and read. Support them. They are going to need it for the long road ahead.
“Tweets are not writing, and scrolling is not reading” -Chuck D
We didn’t regulate social media like we do news. It’s like we didn’t learn from deregulating cable “news” ( entertainment) and look what we got? The propagandist are running wild, delivering a personalized curated path to radicalization. This stuff on the right is weapons grade psychological warfare stuff. No one really tells us what it is and how it’s made and knows the amount (dosage) to deliver. It is as if no one wants to talk about it? To me that’s the upstream problem that needs addressing. Zuck knows.the PayPal mafia knows. Dr Zubloff knows. I believe if the public knew what and how the newsfeeds work, that could be like a vaccine. Our kids know something ain’t right. TikTok‘s popularity with young people today is because they are turned off by Facebook and the vitriol that is present there in the adults that they used to look up to. Our kids see through the bullshit and left Facebook and I think that’s one reason. Zuckerberg has gone full hard-core to save what he has.
This morning I read Popular Information by Judd Legum on Substack. He writes that the National Security Agency today is deleting any of its web pages that have words about DEI and related topics, including the word "equality." This "Big Delete" will cover words such as "privilege" even when used in contexts unrelated to DEI. This is the kind of journalism I used to find in the NY Times. By contrast, the top story on the Times's website is an analysis: "Trump 2.0 Heralds an Aggressive Flexing of Power." Masters of the Obvious.
My question, -- as always -- is how did this flattening out of the Times's journalism happen? It is doing well financially. A lack of resources is not the problem. Is it the need for access, as some assert? Is it poor leadership? It is ownership influence as in LA and DC? I've not seen any explanation for the mediocrity at the Times.
Gary, I so agree! Been reading the NYT all my life and have been asking the same thing, esp. about Peter Baker. Also, I was a working journalist for several decades and understand the reporter’s mindset, or what used to be the mindset! Find out the truth and present it factually and with full context. Seems the NYT is skating on the surface of the facts and is not providing the historical context: this IS a Constitutional crisis. Watchdog media needs to say that over and over.
Lex, thanks. Ben Smith did a great interview with Joe Kahn. What stayed with me was of the three Times stories Kahn said he was most proud of recently (the Semafor article is from May 2024), one was an article on a TV show, and another was about basketball star Brittney Griner's look back at her time in Russian prison. Both terrific articles but surprising choices by the editor of the NY Times.
I rely on the great writers on Substack. Yourself, Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Lucian Truscott, The Bulwark, The Contrarian, and many more. As well as The Guardian. I canceled my NYT and WaPo subscriptions precisely because of the reasons you listed. With a few exceptions on their staffs they are hiding under the covers hoping the big orange monster won't find them.
There are attempts to do here on Substack some of the work that used to be done in smaller communities by the local newspaper. Here in Glens Falls, NY, the local Lee Corp paper has little news anymore and no local commentary but the retired editor, Ken Tingley, started a Substack newsletter about three years ago and I (Willl Doolittle) joined it about two years ago and we have been raising the alarm about Trump as loudly as we can for most of that time and localising the commentary as much as possible. Local subscribers keep signing up — more than 3,000 now. Kentingley.substack.com
Yes, I know Ken, and I’m really sorry to see what’s happened to the paper in Glens Falls. But that’s Lee for you; same thing at my alma mater, The Buffalo News.
I'm still a holdout subscriber to The (print!) Buffalo News, mainly for the good bits of local news still in there, Adam Zyglis's cartoons, and the letters to the editor about some of the environmental issues in the area (the STAMP industrial park and the plan to log parts of Zoar Valley), but it is such a demise...I remember how cool it was when you did that overhaul of the Life and Arts section, and I haven't forgiven them for getting rid of the Pearls Before Swine and Peanuts cartoons last year.
I forgot to add in my other comment that I subscribe to Buffalo's Investigative Post; like to stay up-to-date on the work of Little Sis, a "free database of who-knows-who at the heights of business and government"; and subscribe to the Geneva Health Files (on Substack), which is a great way to follow what is going on in the global health policy-making world, and the debates that countries are having on international health treaties and funding.
I treasure my Guardian subscription, am relying on substack. As a Canadian, I have always followed US media, which is now a tragic farce. I am getting a clearer sense of what is happening than most Americans are because we are getting the uncensored information. I continue my subscription to the Atlantic- still a good publication. My WaPo subscription ended November 1st, NYTimes will end mid February. I would like to share also that MANY of the comments calling out their coverage are not appearing in the comments. Case in point was this week’s lame sub- headline that the streets are relatively quiet- ha - protests constantly. It is not quiet, and my very respectful comments correcting that misinformation never published. I tried re- commenting a few times- They are indeed hiding and hoping, rather than speaking truth to power. Thank you for your great reporting. People- do not be complacent! Boycotting, marching, whatever it takes.
My last straw with the NYT was after receiving no response to either an opinion letter and a feedback coverage note I submitted on an NYT article (that didn't allow for comments) about Israel bombing the Sana'a Airport while the WHO DG was there, criticizing them for not expressing skepticism over the Israeli spokesman's claim that they didn't know the DG was there (he has said his itinerary was public, and besides that, I highly doubt one of the world's best intelligence agencies didn't know the flight manifest of the civilian airport they were about to bomb).
The fragmentation of news sources concerns me. Legacy media has always been a clearinghouse for getting the facts. Now I'm getting multiple newsletters from multiple substacks every day, and while I respect the integrity of the authors (HRC, Paul Krugman, Marc Elias, and Joyce WV), I fear that we are all just retreating further into silos where we "hope" but do not "know" that the information we are getting has been fact-checked and editorially scrutinized. I don't want to become the liberal version of MAGA, where we invent our own reality...
I trust the kinds of sources you cite to be accurate but what bothers me is not having a reliable source that gives me a broad overview of world and national news like national news magazines used to do. I can then search out more info on stories that interest me.
My WaPo subscription is up at the end of this month. I can’t bring myself to renew it if Will Lewis is still running the show. He openly obstructed justice in the UK investigation of the Murdoch org’s horrific phone hacking scandal, then tried to kill US news outlet stories about his wrongdoing. But I was also frustrated not only because of the WaPo’s bothsidesing/sanewashing but because of all the clickbay fluff given prominence on it’s website’s main page. You get a handful of serious stories, then a bunch of things like sports, fashion, advice.
I feel like one has to find it in bits and pieces. The Guardian is definitely great for getting a lot of news; Common Dreams is a small outlet but stays on top of the threats to people's lives and freedoms; Al Jazeera English; and UN News and Relief Web for international news related to disasters and epidemics, as well as health, climate, international cooperation, development, and other news for the former...no ads on these last two, and no clickbait, either.
It's as simple as font size. NIXON RESIGNS. THE SHUTTLE EXPLODES. UNELECTED MAN PROTECTED BY PRIVATE SECURITY FORCE BREAKS INTO US TREASURY, STEALS DATA
I find inspiration to stay involved in the quote below, from Matthew @CrowsFault on Twitter:
"People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider's webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go."
Facebook, where I first discovered Heather Cox Richardson. Now I'm following Alt National Parks Service for news about federal agencies closing. Also following the Canadian boycott of the U.S. for Canadian snowbirds. And how I learned that the AMA is attempting to update info about polio outbreak in the Midwest and bird fly via YouTube in the absence of the CDC.
Robert Pohl does a good round-up of catastrophic news. He floated the notion, pre-election, that the NYT wanted Trump to win because he sells papers.
Margaret - thanks for the warning and encouragement. We all have to do what we can...I've been blogging about healthcare and workers' compensation for 20 years, have 2800 subscribers, and use my voice to alert readers to the damage Trump is doing to healthcare, worker safety, underprivileged folks and minority health.
I'm using the brand I've built - which all of us have - to influence the people I can by identifying the specific impacts of Trump's actions...we need to make this concrete, real, scary.
Fear is the most effective motivator, as Trump has known for decades. We must flip that and show how scary his actions are and how they will hurt the reader and their family.
Yes, the Democrats including Kamala Harris & Joe Biden were unable to communicate how terrifying Trump & Project 2025 are. And so they didn’t turn on people’s fear button. And no Dem leader has picked up that mantle. Even the few that consistently warn us don’t command microphones daily, which is what they need to do to get people’s attention.
I have read (and financially supported) Josh Marshall's work for decades. I always return to it. Jamelle Bouie is maybe the Times Opinion's only must read, consistently excellent. Both Greg Sargent and Brian Beutler are TPM alums whose work I still find insightful. I try to read Heather Cox Richardson regularly. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern at Slate are invaluable. And I have been appreciating the Bulwark's Tim Miller's podcast because its tone seems appropriately alarmed by what's going on. Lawfare provides excellent legal analysis. Phew. I'm exhausted.
oh and Garrett Graff has been excellent. His recent reports covering what has occurred in the last few weeks as if observing another country are revelatory.
Carol Cadwalladr nailed it today in her indispensable Substack newsletter titled The Power: “It is a coup. This is what should be on every front page in 150 point banner headlines.”
The tyrant feeds on fear and hush,
On silence bent by weary dust.
A single voice may seem too thin,
Yet echoes grow when whispers twin.
They tell us, “Bow, accept, comply,”
But truth still burns behind the eye.
A chain is strong when hands enlace,
A thousand sparks can light a place.
So gather, weave, resist, persist,
The tide will turn, the dawn insists.
No power holds when all arise—
Do not panic, organize.
That’s terrific. What’s your full name, if I may ask?
Margaret, what is going on at The Guardian? 100 journalist getting canned by the new owner The Observer?
https://open.substack.com/pub/broligarchy/p/it-is-a-coup?r=44kjm&utm_medium=ios
DM
Is this your work? I would like to use it but would like to be able to credit the author.
Yes, that’s my creation, written last night.
Wow - that’s wonderful.
Thank you, Ted. Superb and appreciated.
🙏 I posted a photo on Substack and bluesky that inspired those words last night. Sometimes we need a visual ( or I do) to sort things out. The image of A big predator fish vs lots of disorganized little fish. And another, the little fish organize themselves in the appearance of a much larger fish, larger than the predator fish. They can’t eat the predator, but they can frighten him to leave them alone.
The importance of gathering in public protest is becoming imminent to our democracy’s survival. We need ti be ready. We need to be organized. We will need new ways to support each other, our journalists, our scientists, our union leaders, our Democrat leaders, our school boards, our privacy, our data, our access to truths, and on an on…
You are my hero, Ted. Thanks.
Aho, Cynthia 🙏
Yes, thank you! I want to be better prepared for what’s coming. How can we learn about underground communications? Few legislators are doing anything to stop the rollover, and the courts have no real enforcement power, so we have only ourselves to rely on.
I’m e been sharing this Netflix documentary. The Great Hack. It’s a way to bring more folks into the awareness of what’s happening, we are in the midst of a coup. Carroll Cadwadalr is a British journalist covering Brexit, Cambridge Analytica and Social Media. Her stuff gets at what Mueller didn’t grasp or wasn’t in his scope to investigate. LeaveEU and Brexit was a pilot study. 2016 Presidential race was a case study. 2024 was full implementation of SCL/Cambridge Analytica style of personal propaganda. The “how” Meta, X, and Google conspire to mine and refine, and then serve a personalized propaganda diet that is so effective at persuasion it has exceeded the global value of the entire oil industry. Our data is the new gold. But it is has way more value, because they have the power now, to control wide swaths of the population, maybe permanently. AI is learning more everyday, it’s getting better and better at psychological profiling. The Treasury data is most likely syncing with social media profiles. Watch the documentary. Let us know what u think. It’s worthy of its own discussion and should present policy prerogatives.
https://open.substack.com/pub/broligarchy/p/it-is-a-coup?r=44kjm&utm_medium=ios
https://open.substack.com/pub/broligarchy/p/it-is-a-coup?r=44kjm&utm_medium=ios
Thanks for the link. This is the crux of our problem: "they have the power now, to control wide swaths of the population, maybe permanently." So we need underground expertise. Obviously, a public forum isn't the place to find it, but who on earth can be trusted?
I trust, but verify with help. ( discussion and interrogation. Of ideas is part of the process. Phd accept this and are comfortable in debate). Therefore I trust Folks more who have earned humanities PhD’s & investigative journalists. Career scientists like Dr Osterholm CIDRAP and Kaitlyn Jetilina YLE, Dr. Foegge. Retired Generals like Milley and Loyld Austin. Former intelligence officers: Mudd and Nance. Business and finance: Krugman, Warren Buffet, Gates, Bloomberg, Dalio. Truth is easier to find by triangulation across more than one source, and from separate disciplines of study. Read. Is the subject something they have studied for a lifetime? For me, I find it stimulating and I learn a ton from Heather Cox Richardson’s Letters from an American, Bruce and Getz lucid, Tim Snyder’s thinking about, legal/doj/ Joyce Vance and Lawrence Tribe, Harry Lippman, Jeffery Rosen.
Culture/moral authority Margaret Atwood.
Journalism right here with Margaret Sullivan. And there are so many more. Find qualified experts to follow and read. Support them. They are going to need it for the long road ahead.
“Tweets are not writing, and scrolling is not reading” -Chuck D
We didn’t regulate social media like we do news. It’s like we didn’t learn from deregulating cable “news” ( entertainment) and look what we got? The propagandist are running wild, delivering a personalized curated path to radicalization. This stuff on the right is weapons grade psychological warfare stuff. No one really tells us what it is and how it’s made and knows the amount (dosage) to deliver. It is as if no one wants to talk about it? To me that’s the upstream problem that needs addressing. Zuck knows.the PayPal mafia knows. Dr Zubloff knows. I believe if the public knew what and how the newsfeeds work, that could be like a vaccine. Our kids know something ain’t right. TikTok‘s popularity with young people today is because they are turned off by Facebook and the vitriol that is present there in the adults that they used to look up to. Our kids see through the bullshit and left Facebook and I think that’s one reason. Zuckerberg has gone full hard-core to save what he has.
Signal. I think. I’m not sure on mass communications… yet. Bluesky is a really cool replacement to Twitter.
Would you consider sharing your Bluesky handle?
@Teddley
Ur welcome Robbie. Stay in the fight.
Ted, this, in very simple words and style, says it all in such a strong way. May I copy to share (giving credit to you of course)?
Yes, go for it! What’s a poem worth if not shared?
Amazing- thanks for sharing Ted!
Wow! Love this! The wheelbarrow fills one rain drop at a time. Each tiny act of resistance counts
OG as OG does
I’m reading and watching The Contrarian, Joyce White Vance, and Heather Cox Richardson
This morning I read Popular Information by Judd Legum on Substack. He writes that the National Security Agency today is deleting any of its web pages that have words about DEI and related topics, including the word "equality." This "Big Delete" will cover words such as "privilege" even when used in contexts unrelated to DEI. This is the kind of journalism I used to find in the NY Times. By contrast, the top story on the Times's website is an analysis: "Trump 2.0 Heralds an Aggressive Flexing of Power." Masters of the Obvious.
My question, -- as always -- is how did this flattening out of the Times's journalism happen? It is doing well financially. A lack of resources is not the problem. Is it the need for access, as some assert? Is it poor leadership? It is ownership influence as in LA and DC? I've not seen any explanation for the mediocrity at the Times.
Great question. I will try to answer.
Gary, I so agree! Been reading the NYT all my life and have been asking the same thing, esp. about Peter Baker. Also, I was a working journalist for several decades and understand the reporter’s mindset, or what used to be the mindset! Find out the truth and present it factually and with full context. Seems the NYT is skating on the surface of the facts and is not providing the historical context: this IS a Constitutional crisis. Watchdog media needs to say that over and over.
Paul Krugman writes about this (the end of his long relationship with the paper) on his own Substack; highly recommended reading.
Gary, leadership is a huge part of the problem at the Times. This Semafor article about the Times's executive editor should shed some light: https://www.semafor.com/article/05/05/2024/joe-kahn-the-newsroom-is-not-a-safe-space
Lex, thanks. Ben Smith did a great interview with Joe Kahn. What stayed with me was of the three Times stories Kahn said he was most proud of recently (the Semafor article is from May 2024), one was an article on a TV show, and another was about basketball star Brittney Griner's look back at her time in Russian prison. Both terrific articles but surprising choices by the editor of the NY Times.
I rely on the great writers on Substack. Yourself, Heather Cox Richardson, Joyce Vance, Lucian Truscott, The Bulwark, The Contrarian, and many more. As well as The Guardian. I canceled my NYT and WaPo subscriptions precisely because of the reasons you listed. With a few exceptions on their staffs they are hiding under the covers hoping the big orange monster won't find them.
Likewise
There are attempts to do here on Substack some of the work that used to be done in smaller communities by the local newspaper. Here in Glens Falls, NY, the local Lee Corp paper has little news anymore and no local commentary but the retired editor, Ken Tingley, started a Substack newsletter about three years ago and I (Willl Doolittle) joined it about two years ago and we have been raising the alarm about Trump as loudly as we can for most of that time and localising the commentary as much as possible. Local subscribers keep signing up — more than 3,000 now. Kentingley.substack.com
Yes, I know Ken, and I’m really sorry to see what’s happened to the paper in Glens Falls. But that’s Lee for you; same thing at my alma mater, The Buffalo News.
I'm still a holdout subscriber to The (print!) Buffalo News, mainly for the good bits of local news still in there, Adam Zyglis's cartoons, and the letters to the editor about some of the environmental issues in the area (the STAMP industrial park and the plan to log parts of Zoar Valley), but it is such a demise...I remember how cool it was when you did that overhaul of the Life and Arts section, and I haven't forgiven them for getting rid of the Pearls Before Swine and Peanuts cartoons last year.
I forgot to add in my other comment that I subscribe to Buffalo's Investigative Post; like to stay up-to-date on the work of Little Sis, a "free database of who-knows-who at the heights of business and government"; and subscribe to the Geneva Health Files (on Substack), which is a great way to follow what is going on in the global health policy-making world, and the debates that countries are having on international health treaties and funding.
IT’S A COUP! by Carole Cadwalladr
https://open.substack.com/pub/broligarchy/p/it-is-a-coup
—Pro Publica and Wired
—I also read Aaron Rupar, Heather Cox Richardson, Robert Hubbell, Joyce White Vance, Jared Yates Sexton, Jeff Sharlet, Paul Krugman
I treasure my Guardian subscription, am relying on substack. As a Canadian, I have always followed US media, which is now a tragic farce. I am getting a clearer sense of what is happening than most Americans are because we are getting the uncensored information. I continue my subscription to the Atlantic- still a good publication. My WaPo subscription ended November 1st, NYTimes will end mid February. I would like to share also that MANY of the comments calling out their coverage are not appearing in the comments. Case in point was this week’s lame sub- headline that the streets are relatively quiet- ha - protests constantly. It is not quiet, and my very respectful comments correcting that misinformation never published. I tried re- commenting a few times- They are indeed hiding and hoping, rather than speaking truth to power. Thank you for your great reporting. People- do not be complacent! Boycotting, marching, whatever it takes.
My last straw with the NYT was after receiving no response to either an opinion letter and a feedback coverage note I submitted on an NYT article (that didn't allow for comments) about Israel bombing the Sana'a Airport while the WHO DG was there, criticizing them for not expressing skepticism over the Israeli spokesman's claim that they didn't know the DG was there (he has said his itinerary was public, and besides that, I highly doubt one of the world's best intelligence agencies didn't know the flight manifest of the civilian airport they were about to bomb).
The fragmentation of news sources concerns me. Legacy media has always been a clearinghouse for getting the facts. Now I'm getting multiple newsletters from multiple substacks every day, and while I respect the integrity of the authors (HRC, Paul Krugman, Marc Elias, and Joyce WV), I fear that we are all just retreating further into silos where we "hope" but do not "know" that the information we are getting has been fact-checked and editorially scrutinized. I don't want to become the liberal version of MAGA, where we invent our own reality...
I trust the kinds of sources you cite to be accurate but what bothers me is not having a reliable source that gives me a broad overview of world and national news like national news magazines used to do. I can then search out more info on stories that interest me.
My WaPo subscription is up at the end of this month. I can’t bring myself to renew it if Will Lewis is still running the show. He openly obstructed justice in the UK investigation of the Murdoch org’s horrific phone hacking scandal, then tried to kill US news outlet stories about his wrongdoing. But I was also frustrated not only because of the WaPo’s bothsidesing/sanewashing but because of all the clickbay fluff given prominence on it’s website’s main page. You get a handful of serious stories, then a bunch of things like sports, fashion, advice.
I feel like one has to find it in bits and pieces. The Guardian is definitely great for getting a lot of news; Common Dreams is a small outlet but stays on top of the threats to people's lives and freedoms; Al Jazeera English; and UN News and Relief Web for international news related to disasters and epidemics, as well as health, climate, international cooperation, development, and other news for the former...no ads on these last two, and no clickbait, either.
Thank you for the unvarnished truth. And thank you for the gift articles.
I’m happy to provide them.
It's as simple as font size. NIXON RESIGNS. THE SHUTTLE EXPLODES. UNELECTED MAN PROTECTED BY PRIVATE SECURITY FORCE BREAKS INTO US TREASURY, STEALS DATA
I find inspiration to stay involved in the quote below, from Matthew @CrowsFault on Twitter:
"People speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider's webs. It's not. Hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go."
Love it
I'd also recommend Teen Vogue, yes Teen Vogue, as another example media calling it what it is.
Facebook, where I first discovered Heather Cox Richardson. Now I'm following Alt National Parks Service for news about federal agencies closing. Also following the Canadian boycott of the U.S. for Canadian snowbirds. And how I learned that the AMA is attempting to update info about polio outbreak in the Midwest and bird fly via YouTube in the absence of the CDC.
Robert Pohl does a good round-up of catastrophic news. He floated the notion, pre-election, that the NYT wanted Trump to win because he sells papers.
Margaret - thanks for the warning and encouragement. We all have to do what we can...I've been blogging about healthcare and workers' compensation for 20 years, have 2800 subscribers, and use my voice to alert readers to the damage Trump is doing to healthcare, worker safety, underprivileged folks and minority health.
www.joepaduda.substack.com
I'm using the brand I've built - which all of us have - to influence the people I can by identifying the specific impacts of Trump's actions...we need to make this concrete, real, scary.
Fear is the most effective motivator, as Trump has known for decades. We must flip that and show how scary his actions are and how they will hurt the reader and their family.
We all can and must do that.
Yes, the Democrats including Kamala Harris & Joe Biden were unable to communicate how terrifying Trump & Project 2025 are. And so they didn’t turn on people’s fear button. And no Dem leader has picked up that mantle. Even the few that consistently warn us don’t command microphones daily, which is what they need to do to get people’s attention.
I have read (and financially supported) Josh Marshall's work for decades. I always return to it. Jamelle Bouie is maybe the Times Opinion's only must read, consistently excellent. Both Greg Sargent and Brian Beutler are TPM alums whose work I still find insightful. I try to read Heather Cox Richardson regularly. Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern at Slate are invaluable. And I have been appreciating the Bulwark's Tim Miller's podcast because its tone seems appropriately alarmed by what's going on. Lawfare provides excellent legal analysis. Phew. I'm exhausted.
Agree with all!
oh and Garrett Graff has been excellent. His recent reports covering what has occurred in the last few weeks as if observing another country are revelatory.
Carol Cadwalladr nailed it today in her indispensable Substack newsletter titled The Power: “It is a coup. This is what should be on every front page in 150 point banner headlines.”