Citations Needed

Since the beginning of the so-called War on Drugs, authorities in the United States have viewed drugs not as a public health issue but one of crime, vice and violence, requiring the funding and mobilization not of medical officials but police, DEA agents and a sprawling network of paramilitary actors. In response, corporate media and its culture of parasitic, "ride-along" coverage has evolved in p...

"How this millennial saved $1 million by age 30," The Washington Post writes. "A Millennial Saved $100,000 With This Simple Habit," CNBC insists. "How to save for retirement when you're living paycheck to paycheck," CNN confides in us. Everywhere in American media we are told if only we engaged in simple, no-nonsense discipline we can retire at 35.   But what is the political objective of this pop...

In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, two of the Obama administration's most consistently hawkish advisors, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power have rebranded themselves as anti-war voices in a world turned upside down by Trump's radical foreign policy and what we've been told is an global environment of rising "authorita...

In this unlocked News Brief we discuss New York media's racist, factually incorrect coverage of the  #Bronx120  and how Preet Bharara went from careerist "gang raid" general locking up poor black teenagers to woke MSNBC platitude machine.

"Naked Florida man revealed on video sneaking into restaurant and munching on ramen." "Florida man broke into jewelry store, cut himself on glass and bled all over everything, police say." "Florida man arrested at Olive Garden after eating spaghetti with his hands." We've seen this supposedly hilarious stories for years on our social media feeds and wacky listicle. Florida-themed crime stories, we...

"The United States believes any Palestinian government must renounce violence," a U.S. official told Ha'aretz. When it comes to nonviolence, writes Barbara Reynolds in The Washington Post, "Black Lives Matter seems intent on rejecting the proven methods." "Violence Is Never the Answer," New York Times columnist Charles Blow insists. We are told endlessly that violence is inherently and unequivocal...

"The scale of corruption in Africa is daunting," warns The Economist. "Corruption a Cause of Poverty in the Developing World," DW tells us. "Why corruption is holding Africa back," CNN laments. Everywhere we turn in elite media and halls of power, we are told the global South is poor, in part or in whole, due to rampant "corruption."   But a closer look at the data – and any effort to put notions...

Though now a fixture of the fringe right-wing, libertarian pundit John Stossel was a longtime staple of mainstream, Serious Person media. With hour-long specials and a weekly segment on the ABC program 20/20, Stossel built his brand as muckraking Truth-Teller against Big Government and out of control "political correctness", along with an empire of high school "educational" videos, distributed by...

Kinetic strikes. Limited military coercion. Robust sanctions. No fly zones. Military muscle. Modernization. All options are on the table. So much of how we discuss U.S. militarism and imperialism is laundered through seemingly anodyne phrases, rhetorical thingamajigs that vaguely gesture towards an idea without conjuring the unseemly images of what's really being called for. In Part II of our two-...

Barack Obama unleashes "kinetic strikes" on Libya, Hillary Clinton lobbies for "limited military coercion" in Syria, Congress passes "robust sanctions" on Iran, and Trump gives "US generals more room to run" as he "ramps up" "pressure" on ISIS. The Center for American Progress calls for a "no fly zone" to "protect civilians." It's important the US "engage" in the Middle East as it "reasserts itsel...

It's a trope that dates back more than a decade, but the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has seen a recent resurgence in the liberal's "Inexplicable Republican Best Friend," a specific genre of concern trolling where a long-time Republican operative, politician or pundit offers supposedly well-intentioned "advice" to Democrats about how they can win elections, which a...

An uptick in mass shootings over the past decade - one that is well documented and indisputable - has provided the cultural and media context for a corollary effort by big city mayors and certain states to push for harsher, more severe gun laws. This response to these national tragedies is understandable: curb gun possession at all costs. But what if, in this rush to respond to the carnage, states...

In this public News Brief we review the media coverage of Sanders and Clinton in 2016 and how this past is being written and rewritten to set the narrative for 2020. (1000 apologies for the edited swear word, iTunes doesn't allow you to say bad words in show titles).

"How to Choose the Most Electable Democrat in 2020," advises Politico. "Amy Klobuchar's best argument for 2020: Electability," CNN reports. "Is Electability The Only Thing That Democratic Voters Want?" WGBH, the Boston NPR affiliate, wonders. These articles, all from a one-week stretch this February, speak to a prevailing compulsion in our politics, boosted by our media. Time and again we hear abo...

Since the beginning of what's generally called 'RussiaGate' three years ago, pundits, media outlets, even comedians have all become insta-experts on supposed Russian propaganda techniques. The most cunning of these tricks, we are told, is that of "whataboutism" – a devious Soviet tactic of deflecting criticism by pointing out the accusers' hypocrisy and inconsistencies. The tu quoque - or, "you, a...

Since the dawn of the American Empire, thin moral pretexts in our politics and press have been used to justify our wars and conquest. The invasion of Cuba and Philippines in 1898 was declared to be a fight for freedom from Spanish oppression. Vietnam was about stopping Communist tyranny. T he pioneer myth of Manifest Destiny and "westward expansion" was built about "taming" and "civilizing' the la...

In recent years, television personality Mike Rowe has amassed a wildly popular following due to alleged working-class straight talk about topics ranging from the affordability of college to reasserting a culture of pride in craftsmanship and labor. From his 5.2 million Facebook followers to his cable programs, his everyman schtick, on its surface, can be very appealing: after all, who doesn't love...

As more and more states turn to casinos and lotteries to 'fill the gap" in 'falling' state budgets, the predatory and regressive nature of gambling as an alternative to increasing taxes on the rich avoids nearly any media scrutiny among centrists and liberals. Even the Left has mostly ignored the issue––ceding criticism of our most regressive tax to the Christian Right, who largely oppose gambling...

"The United States is a nation of immigrants." It's a phrase we hear constantly – often said with the best of intentions and, in today's increasingly cruel environment, meant as a strong rebuke of Donald Trump and his white nationalist administration. The metaphor of the "melting pot" serves a similar purpose: the United States is strong and noble because we are a place that takes people in from a...

In Ep. 34: 'What The Hell Is Wrong With MSNBC', we discussed with our anonymous MSNBC informant, well, what the hell was wrong with MSNBC? Why do they routinely focused on inane horserace and RussiaGate fear-mongering over objectively important topics like climate change, the destruction of Yemen, and worker strikes? One listener, former MSNBC host and current MSNBC contributor, Touré thought our...

The media – local and national, print and TV – love puff pieces designed to make the police look good and generally improve their overall brand with the public. More often than not, these human interest stories are typically fed to local news by the police themselves. This type of pseudo-journalism is most transparent in its most overly saccharin iteration, something we like to call clickbait copa...

F-22 flyovers, 160-foot flags draped across the playing field, full color guards, camouflage uniforms, The Star-Spangled Banner, God Bless America, Support The Troops Nights, special perks for vets. What is the origin of the runaway military worship so ingrained in our sports? How did our professional baseball and football leagues become so infused to our military state and what can fans of these...

We're told the world is getting better all the time. In January, The New York Times' Nick Kristof explained "Why 2017 Was the Best Year in Human History." The same month, Harvard professor and Bill Gates' favorite optimist Steven Pinker lamented (in a special edition of Time magazine guest edited by - who else? - Bill Gates) the "bad habits of media... bring out the worst in human cognition". By f...

Focus groups have long-been derided by the left, right, and center for watering down culture and reducing creative and political endeavors to dull, show-of-hand reductionism. But what if focus groups – which first arose from socialist experiments in 1920s Vienna – are not inherently bad? What if they've simply been exploited by the capitalist class and could, potentially, have much to offer a left...

In the wake of the 2016 election, many conservatives, liberals, and - unfortunately - even some on the left pointed to Democrats' reliance on so-called "identity politics" to explain Donald Trump's upset victory over Hillary Clinton. One of the most popular manifestations of this sentiment was the controversy surrounding bathrooms and transgender rights. The general theory was that some unspecifie...