Citations Needed

Since there's been America, there have been American war crimes, and since there have been American war crimes, there's been a parallel cottage industry of hacks, shills and propagandists willing to not only apologize for, deny and downplay these crimes, but actually spin them as benevolent charity. While Karl Rove mastered the art of taking a politician's weakness and projecting it onto one's opp...

Russia, as we all know, has sinister "oligarchs" whereas in the United States, we are told, we have "philanthropists," "job creators," and "titans of industry" who earn their wealth through hard work, moxie, and guile. Aside from a few cartoonishly evil billionaires – like the Walton family, Peter Thiel, and the Koch brothers – the average American has a warm and fuzzy feeling about the super weal...

Russia, as we all know, has sinister "oligarchs" whereas in the United States, we are told, we have "philanthropists," "job creators," and "titans of industry" who earn their wealth through hard work, moxie, and guile. Aside from a few cartoonishly evil billionaires – like the Walton family, Peter Thiel, and the Koch brothers – the average American has a warm and fuzzy feeling about the super weal...

For over two years, the U.S. government has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election - interference broadly considered to be in favor of candidate Donald Trump. As a result, a bizarre flip has occurred with the Right and Left: Polls show liberals now trust the FBI and CIA, while many right-wingers – though by no means all – suddenly act concerned about the so-called "deep state...

For over two years, the U.S. government has been investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election - interference broadly considered to be in favor of candidate Donald Trump. As a result, a bizarre flip has occurred with the Right and Left: Polls show liberals now trust the FBI and CIA, while many right-wingers – though by no means all – suddenly act concerned about the so-called "deep state...

With the rise of Trump, Sanders, Corbyn and Brexit, hundreds of pundits, reporters, and talking heads have been warning about the problems of "populism" and its alleged attack on democracy over the past three years.   " Populism and immigration pose major threat to global democracy ," the Gates Foundation insists. " The Dangerous Rise of Populism - Global Attacks on Human Rights Values ," wrote Hu...

Healthcare marketplaces," "private insurers competing for your business" "insurance subsidies," For years, Democrats bet big on framing the healthcare debate using technocratic, capitalist terms––they weren't going to radically change the system of healthcare, simply accent the existing private insurance-based model making things "smarter," "easier," more "tech-driven." As the Affordable Care Act...

They're not lies, they're "falsehoods"; it's not racism, it's "racially charged comments"; it's not torture, it's "enhanced interrogation." For years, U.S. media has prioritized, above all else, norms and civility. Mean words or questioning motives are signs of declining civility and the subject of much lament from our media class. However, op-eds explicitly advocating war, invasion, sanctions, sa...

The United States, far and away, has the largest prison population in the world. It also has one of the greatest disparities in their prison population of ethnic minorities in the world. How does a country that prides itself on being a "beacon of freedom" and whose leaders travel the world scolding other countries on "human rights" find itself to be the largest carceral state of the 21st century? ...

"Baby Boomers are bloating the social safety net!" "GenXers are changing the nature of work!" "Millennials are killing the housing market!". The media endlessly feeds us stories about how one generation or another is engaging in some collective act of moral failing that, either explicitly or by implication, harms another generation. It's a widely-mocked cliché at this point, namely the near-consta...

"A pillar of the community"." A straight-A student who dreamed of becoming a doctor". "A loving father"."Here through no fault of their own". "She was hysterical and out of control." "He was no angel." The press, both local and national, humanizes some victims of state or corporate violence, while demonizing others. Despite good intentions and seemingly without noticing, the media all too often cr...

For decades, Canada has been a go-to point of reference for American progressives as a country the United States can and should strive to be. And while there are many parts about Canadian society that are measurably preferable, leftists in Canada find their country's glossy, socialist paradise image to be overblown and often a barrier to meaningful change.  This episode examines this tension, the...

When Americans read about the Korean "conflict" in the Western press, the articles are populated almost entirely with Serious Western Talking Heads, weapons contractor-funded think tank "fellows," and former and current U.S. military brass. Who's never consulted, much less heeded, are peace and left activists from the Korean peninsula.  The notion that perma-hostility from the U.S. and arming the...

MSNBC is by far the most influential mainstream media outlet on the American Left. It sets the tone and defines the boundary for what is acceptable discourse among American liberals. But major issues the Left is generally thought to care about - imperial war, worker strikes, Palestine, climate change - are almost entirely absent from coverage, as the network increasingly looks like a 24-hour Trump...

The unlikely rise of Trump in the past three years has created a chasm in the Republican party: those who embrace the President's wild, unorthodox, nativist style and those who––with much posturing and self congratulation––reject his brand of conservatism. The latter group, generally called "NeverTrump" Republicans, occupies a special, protected status in Serious Centrist media––despite representi...

We've heard this scare story a million times: A theater group at Wesleyan won't perform The Vagina Monologues because it's offensive to trans women! Oberlin is banning classes featuring white authorsI Rich, sheltered college students, increasingly indoctrinated by radical Marxist professors, are asking for safe spaces! But how much merit is there to the popular trope that college kids are hypersen...

We've seen the headlines hundreds of times: "ISIS plot foiled", "ISIS in Brooklyn", "Woman Stopped At Airport on way to join ISIS". These stories strike fear into the hearts of Americans everywhere, especially in the build up to the war effort against ISIS in Summer 2014.   The terror group was everywhere, recruiting our teenagers and attempting to strike in every major city––seemingly all at once...

Fighting against the far right forces of the Republican Party and their auxiliary white supremacist media makes attempts to appropriate notions of nationalism into a liberal mold a compelling short cut for Democrats looking for easy clapbacks and viral RT's. The temptation to promote a kinder, gentler, "woke" patriotism is understandable.   But what is the collateral damage of this approach? From...

The idea that there exists an ongoing effort to achieve a "two-state solution" in Israel and Palestine - often referred to as The Middle East Peace Process™ - is uniformly taken for granted by American media. This "two-state solution" is always at different stages of viability, yet never quite works out. Presidents fail to achieve it; Palestinian violence makes it "more difficult"; Israeli settlem...

The idea that there exists an ongoing effort to achieve a "two-state solution" in Israel and Palestine - often referred to as The Middle East Peace Process™ - is uniformly taken for granted by American media. This "two-state solution" is always at different stages of viability, yet never quite works out. Presidents fail to achieve it; Palestinian violence makes it "more difficult"; Israeli settlem...

Citations Needed is off this week, but we do have a fascinating interview with Hoda Katebi on her now-infamous WGN television segment. In this News Brief, we explore what it means to "sound American," the politics of women's clothing, and why everyone with even a single drop of Iranian blood is expected to be an expert on nuclear energy and international affairs. 

If one were to approach New York Times- reading liberals circa 1990 and tell them about a crime-fighting policy that arbitrarily harassed black and Latino youths who had committed no crime and threw the book at low-level nonviolent offenses, they would be rightfully outraged at the idea. But, if one were to couch this exact policy in pseudoscience promoted by mercenary sociologists and glowingly w...

The term "welfare" is thrown around so casually in political speeches and media coverage we hardly notice it anymore. CNN reports that "GOP will tackle Medicare, Medicaid, welfare in 2018," while The Washington Post insists that "Trump recently called on Congress to move to cut welfare spending after the tax bill." CBS News tells viewers that "Washington eyes welfare reform." But what do these out...

Few words elicit such warm feelings as the term "Democracy." Wars are supposedly fought for it, foreign policies are built around it, protecting and advancing it is considered the United States' highest moral order. Democracy's alleged opposite - broadly called "authoritarianism," "autocracy" or "tyranny" - is cast as the ultimate evil. The stifling, oppressive boot of the state that curtails libe...

Here at Citations Needed we enjoy nothing more than ragging on corporate media - indeed, it's our primary job. But can constant snark and negativity breed cynicism? Recent feedback from some of our listeners has us wondering if the act of media criticism need also make room for some media complimenting, lest we succumb to the forces of defeatism. In this episode, rather than critiquing the myriad...