News bit: What are the limits of professional, responsible journalism?

A day or two ago, Ron DeSantis sent out a press release. A professional reporter at Axios, Ben Montgomery, called it propaganda. Axios fired Montgomery for being tainted by stating his assessment that the press release was propaganda, not news. My initial reaction was the same as how Esquire describes it:

A point of personal privilege: Ben Montgomery is a friend, a vastly talented reporter and writer, and a member of an informal group of writers to which I am proud to belong. By contrast, Axios stands revealed as a creepy little band of Beltway-drunk dilettantes who, taken together, don't have the courage God gave the average assistant night city editor at a 30,000-circulation daily. If there's one thing I despise most in this business, it's suits who don't stand behind their reporters in the face of unjust, performative outrage and flinch before they're hit.

On Wednesday, Axios fired Ben. From the Washington Post: 

The news release sent Monday afternoon said DeSantis, a potential 2024 GOP presidential candidate, had hosted a roundtable “exposing the diversity equity and inclusion scam in higher education.” It also called for prohibiting state funds from being used to support DEI efforts. “We will expose the scams they are trying to push onto students across the country,” DeSantis said in the statement. Montgomery, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, replied to the email three minutes after getting it. “This is propaganda, not a press release,” he wrote to the Department of Education press office. About an hour after that, the Education Department’s communication officer, Alex Lanfranconi, shared Montgomery’s reply on Twitter, where it has since been viewed more than 1 million times. Montgomery said the news release had “no substance,” adding that he “read the whole thing and it was just a series of quotes about how bad DEI was.”

Here's the news release. If anything, Montgomery understated his case.  

(I have a long-standing hatred for the rules of “objectivity” when they are used as an excuse for timidity and professional ass-covering by said echelons.) But this was a private communication between a reporter and a government official that the official shared in a public forum. Even the most hidebound traditional journalism ethics don't touch this. It's the apparatchik who should be fired for sharing a private communication for, yes, propaganda purposes.

But the official did so in the hope that Axios would prove to behave like the thoroughgoing chickenshits they've proven themselves to be. Presto! A Pulitzer finalist is out of work. The manipulative desk jockey probably will get a raise.

The press release is shown below:

Questions

So, did DeSantis put out propaganda or actual news? What if it is ~50% news and ~50% not news or not truths or sound reasoning? Is it responsible journalism to call out propaganda or not when it exists? Is there such a thing as propaganda? Did Axios goof or not?

Context

In my opinion, this raises a critically important point about dark free speech, modern American politics and the mainstream media. It took the MSM months and months and thousands of of lies before a few in the MSM slowly, tentatively started calling Trump's lies lies. Before then they were usually called false or misleading statements. Lies differs from false because it asserts intent to deceive. It took me about a month in the weeks before before the 2016 election to realize that Trump was not ignorant or sloppy. It was obvious that he was a blatant liar. I had that figured out by May or June of 2016 after it became clear that Trump might win the GOP nomination. It took the MSM another ~18-24 months to figure it out, and some arguably still have not fully figured this out.

In those early days, every time I pointed out a Trump lie at a radical right politics site, I got vicious blowback and plenty of rancid insults. I was accused and vilified for allegedly lying about Trump being a liar. The radical right base rejected it completely, even when I cited and linked to the sources of my information.

Now here we are in 2023. Inconvenient facts, true truths and sound reasoning are now routinely rejected out of hand by an authoritarian radical right political movement. The morally rotted radical right wealth and power movement routinely deploys copious amounts of divisive, polarizing, profoundly mendacious dark free speech, i.e., propaganda. 

As far as I can tell, there really is such a thing as effective propaganda in politics. It does exist. And, it is undeniably enormously damaging to democracy, civil society and respect for inconvenient facts, true truths and sound reasoning.

Questions again

Does that context put this in a different light? Did DeSantis put out propaganda or actual news? Is it responsible journalism to call out propaganda or not when it exists? Is there such a thing as propaganda? Did Axios goof or not? How should things like this be analyzed?

News bits: How Christian nationalism works and what it wants to do to us

Anchorage Daily News writes:

Alaska drops policy banning discrimination against LGBTQ individuals

On the advice of the state’s attorney general, Alaska’s civil rights agency quietly deleted language promising equal protections for LGBTQ Alaskans against most categories of discrimination, and it began refusing to investigate complaints.

That’s just standard radical right Christian Nationalist (CN) bigotry at work poisoning minds with lies, hate and intolerance and ruining innocent lives.

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The courier journal in Kentucky writes:

At 11th hour, Kentucky Republicans resurrect, expand and pass anti-trans bill

Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, now has 10 days to either veto or sign Senate Bill 150 into law. Beshear is widely expected to veto the bill. Kentucky’s Republican-led legislature, though, will be able to override his veto when it returns for the final two days of the legislative session on March 29 and 30.

That’s just standard radical right CN bigotry at work poisoning minds with lies, hate and intolerance and ruining innocent lives.

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A bill sponsored by a Texas legislator advances a cherished CN goal of diverting tax funds to religious purposes:

Texas SJR76

Proposing a constitutional amendment to repeal the constitutional provision that prohibits the appropriation of state money or property for the benefit of any sect, religious society, or theological or religious seminary.

That’s just part of the standard radical right CN effort to sink its morally rotted claws into as many tax dollars as possible. The radical CN theocrat goal is to kill secularism and eliminate tolerance of diversity in American government, society, education and commerce. Part of that goal is the cherished objective of 100% obliterating the doctrine of church-state separation (CSS) and the constitution’s Establishment Clause. No, arguing the goal is 100% obliterating CSS is not hyperbole. It is core CN dogma.

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NLRB case No. 31-RC-312064 exemplifies the legal tactics that the radical right CN power and wealth movement successfully uses by force of law to inject Christian fundamentalism into all aspects of American life and society, in this instance medical care. These are from the complaint a fanatic religious hospital filed against the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board):

1. This is a suit by Loma Linda – Inland Empire Consortium for Healthcare Education d/b/a Loma Linda University Health Education Consortium (“LLUHEC”) seeking a judgment declaring that the National Labor Relations Board (“Board” or “NLRB”) lacks jurisdiction over LLUHEC, ordering the Board to immediately dismiss case numbers 31-RC- 312064 and 31-CA-312278, issuing a preliminary and permanent injunction requiring the Board to desist from further processing case numbers 31-RC-312064 and 31-CA-312728 except as necessary to effectuate their immediate dismissal, ....

20. The Church has a long-standing and well-established doctrine against joining, recognizing or bargaining with labor organizations that is founded on firmly-rooted religious principles.

22. The Supreme Court in NLRB v. Catholic Bishop, 404 U.S. 490 (1979) (“Catholic Bishop”) held that the Board lacks jurisdiction over church-affiliated educational institutions.

36. The Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibits the federal government from substantially burdening a person’s exercise of religion even if the burden results from a rule of general applicability, unless the government demonstrates that the burden is in furtherance of a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling interest. 42 U.S.C. §2000bb-1(a) and (b).

37. The Church has a long-standing and well-established teaching against joining, recognizing or bargaining with labor organizations that is founded on firmly-rooted religious principles, including the interference with free religious exercise and commitment to God resulting from such relationships.

38. If the Church were to be ordered by the Board to recognize and bargain with the Union, it would be forced under the threat of civil sanction to act contrary to its long-standing and well-established religious teachings regarding labor organizations.

39. Being forced to choose between adhering to the tenets of its faith or suffering civil sanctions is coercive and substantially burdens LLUHEC’s exercise of its religion.

Translated into American, the church argues that it can completely ignore labor unions and labor laws because they unduly burden the church's freedom of speech, free exercise of religion and whatever else that radical right theocrat lawyers can dream up and the radical right, CN Supreme Court will accept.

This line of legal reasoning is not limited to labor disputes! Aggressive CN lawyers are applying the same rationale to every issue where the church opposes laws designed to protect out-groups that God hates and demands to be oppressed, discriminated against and brainwashed by shameless CN lies, deceit, slanders, crackpottery and false history narratives.  

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The NCRM writes:

Christian Nationalist Former Lawmaker Wants Right-Wing Evangelicals to 

‘Take Authority’ Over All Levels of Government

Jason Rapert, a former Arkansas state senator and founder of the National Association of Christian Lawmakers, appeared on the “Give Me Liberty” program late last year and laid out his vision for a nation in which every congressional seat is occupied by Christian conservatives.

A longtime religious-right activist and ardent Christian nationalist, Rapert declared on the December 17, 2022 episode of the “Give Me Liberty” show that right-wing Christians must rise up and “take authority” over everything from their local school boards to the federal government.

“When people quote the Bible and say, ‘Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord’—Psalm 33:12—how in the world do you expect to ever have that if you are not electing somebody that would adhere to that worldview?” Rapert asked. “You can’t have a nation whose God is the Lord when you’re electing people that are holding up Sodom and Gomorrah as a goal to be achieved rather than a sin to be shunned.”

That’s just standard radical right CN dogma out there poisoning minds with lies, hate and intolerance, ruining innocent lives and attacking democracy, secularism and inconvenient truth. As far as the CN movement is concerned, bad people like me are just human filth to be shut up by force and oppressed into non-existence. That’s the Old Testament Christian Sharia law goal.

More than 70k Afghan refugees may face deportation if Congress fails to act.

More than 70,000 Afghan refugees  who were evacuated to the US  after the Taliban takeover are at risk of losing their work permits and, far worse, could face deportation by this summer if congress fails to extend their stay with something called the Afghan Adjustment Act in time. These refugees worked with the US forces during our longest war, and they and their families would almost certainly face torture and death at the hands of the Taliban if they were sent back to Afghanistan. The fate of these people is almost never discussed in the highly repetitive news cycle in the US. Yet we not only recruited them in Afghanistan, but brought them here after the withdrawal of US forces. Then we failed to provide a path to citizenship for them, in stark contrast to the resettlement of former war refugees that stuck their necks out for the US such as those in Vietnam. A few members of congress  claim they were "not sufficiently vetted." This is not only untrue, but in order to settle them more vetting would be required anyway. Clearly they pose no risk, as we have heard nothing about terrorism plots that a few paranoid voices in politics and the media have occasionally warned about. They are victims and not perpetrators of terror. The real threat of terrorism here comes from our own radical Right, as emphasized on this blog regularly. 

A few days ago, PBS aired this interview with Krish Vignarajah, herself a refugee who runs the highly effective Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. It is a heartbreaking and enraging interview. These people really need our help. The US spreads death and destruction with impunity through its wars and interventions;  then consigns those who sincerely tried to help themselves and the US to oblivion-- or worse prolonged ordeals of torture. We  don't hear much about the aftermath of Afghanistan a year and a half after the US withdrawal.  If any of you are able, please consider making a donation to LIRS here or any other credible and effective charity that is helping this tragically neglected population. Here is the PBS interview with Krish Vignarajah:

News bits: Repubs blame regulators for bank failure; Trump launders money for Russkis

From the We All Knew This Was Going To Happen Files: The HuffPost writes:

Republicans Accept No Blame For Bank Failures After They Voted To Deregulate Banks

“Where were the regulators?” Sen John Kennedy (R-La.) said on the Senate floor. “This whole debacle could have been avoided if the regulators had just done their job and stepped in and said, ‘Silicon Valley Bank, what you’re doing is dumb, and you can’t do it anymore.’”

Kennedy omitted a key detail from his remarks. He and the other members of the Senate Banking Committee — including several of the panel’s Democrats — wrote a bill in 2018 that told regulators they could relax their scrutiny of institutions like Silicon Valley Bank. (BuzzFeed, HuffPost’s parent company, banked with SVB.)

“The legislation that we passed did not eliminate liquidity stress testing,” Kennedy told HuffPost. “It did not eliminate the regulation at all of banks in that range.”

Kennedy is right — the law made enhanced prudential regulation optional instead of mandatory for mid-sized banks. But it wasn’t a mystery what regulators would do. Jerome Powell and Randy Quarles, the chairman and former top bank regulator at the Federal Reserve, told lawmakers during hearings on the legislation in 2018 that it would be a good idea to cut regional banks some slack.

“They had the tools available,” Sen Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) told HuffPost. “The question is, why didn’t they use the tools?”

“It was an option,” Sen Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “And if they chose not to do it, that’s gonna be a really good question based on the activities of Silicon Valley.”

Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said it’s not clear whether Silicon Valley Bank would have failed to meet the higher standards under Dodd-Frank. Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), the top Democrat behind the 2018 rollback, said Wednesday that regular bank oversight could have caught the problems.  

Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), who chaired the Senate Banking Committee in 2018 and was the lead author of the Dodd-Frank rollback, said Wednesday the bill had nothing to do with banks going belly-up.

“The fact is, this is not a capital issue. This is a liquidity issue,” Crapo said. “It’s an entirely different set of issues.”

Crackpottery pulse check: 

An example of why truth doesn't stand a chance

in the face of demagogic dark free speech 

Let's get this straight.

1. Radical right and regular conservative Republicans hate government and regulations. They claim that free markets always do better than regulations. So Republicans and neoliberal Democrats, who also hate business regulations, voted in 2018 to deregulate "medium sized" banks with assets up to $250 billion.

2. Democrats who support reasonable regulations opposed the 2018 deregulation and warned that some deregulated banks would collapse, just like they did in 2008. New regulations were put in place in 2008 after bank failures. Before that, the neoliberal Bill Clinton signed onto deregulating banks, which led to the 2008-2009 financial and housing disasters, ruining thousands of lives. 

3. In Nov. 2017, Trump, radical right and regular Republicans in congress put brass knuckles capitalist Jerome Powell in charge of the Federal Reserve. Once the 2018 deregulation law came online, Powell pushed bank deregulation as far as possible. Some experts argue he pushed deregulation farther than was legal. Powell and the entire GOP in congress hated and still hate bank regulations.

4. Elizabeth Warren says now in 2023: “If we hadn’t allowed the regulators the discretion to weaken bank regulations, then the regulations would not have been weakened. And if the regulations had not been weakened, there would have been tough stress tests on these banks. And we would have caught the problems at SVB.”

5. See how weak inconvenient truth and inconvenient reasoning are? The Repubs and Dems who deregulated, claims the regulations were not needed. Now, they blame the regulators, not themselves, for not regulating, even though their top regulators opposed regulating. This is completely nuts.

6. Despite being completely nuts, I bet that most, probably ~85%, of the radical right rank and file will fall for the deceit inherent in shifting blame onto regulators that the radical right elites put in charge of regulating banks. For a significant minority of Americans, e.g., nearly all radical right rank and file, neither truth nor sound reasoning stand a chance against ruthless dark free speech. 

7. Or, are the anti-regulation Repubs and Dems correct to argue that this is all the fault of those tyrant deep state, Godless socialist bureaucrats who refused to regulate? Notice the blatant illogic inherent in that reasoning? Radical right elites vehemently tell us that tyrant, deep state, Godless socialist bureaucrats are the ones who push for freedom-killing tyranny socialist deep state regulations. Is this "reasoning" is completely nuts, or not? (It's completely nuts)

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Trump is laundering money for the Russkis - MAGA!! for president 2024: Forbes writes:

A federal criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s media company Trump Media has expanded to include potential money laundering violations linked to an $8 million loan with Russian ties, the Guardian reported Wednesday, potentially further threatening the ex-president’s media company and its planned merger with special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC).

Fortunately for us MAGA!!land residents, the ex-pres will probably not face any legal jeopardy. The law is not intended to apply to rich and/or powerful people like him. 

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Why the radical right targets corporate DEI and ESG: The NYT writes in a fact check and analysis article:

A growing chorus of [radical right] conservative pundits and politicians have said the failure of Silicon Valley Bank was the result of the bank’s “woke” policies, blaming the California lender’s commitments to workplace diversity and environmentally and socially conscious investments.

These claims are without merit. The bank’s collapse was due to financial missteps and a bank run.

Moreover, the firm’s policy on diversity, equity and inclusion — also known as D.E.I. — is similar to ones that have been broadly adopted in the banking sector. So is its approach to taking environmental and social considerations into account when investing — referred to as E.S.G. — although that has become a target of [radical right] conservatives.

In fact, Silicon Valley Bank is considered about average in the industry when it comes to these issues.

WHAT WAS SAID

“They were one of the most woke banks in their quest for the E.S.G.-type policy in investing.”
— Representative James R. Comer, Republican of Kentucky, in an appearance on Fox News on Sunday

FACT CHECK

This lacks evidence. First, experts have broadly agreed that the bank’s demise had little to do with “wokeness.” As The New York Times and others have explained, the collapse was due to a bank run precipitated by a decline in start-up funding, rising interest rates and the firm’s sale of government bonds at a huge loss to raise capital.

The bank’s loans to environmental and community projects “were not an important factor behind the collapse of SVB,” said Itay Goldstein, a finance professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. “There is no immediate indication that these loans precipitated the run by investors.” 

Silicon Valley Bank also was not an outlier in its diversity goals or its E.S.G. investments.

What the animosity to DEI and ESG amounts to is a major front in the bigoted and racist Christian nationalist (CN) culture war. Core CN dogma is open bigotry or racism toward out-groups that God hates. What groups does God hate and demand to be subjugated and oppressed by wealthy, White heterosexual men? Mainly:

• Women

• The LGBQT community

• Non-White people

• Atheists and agnostics  

• Non-Christians and wrong-flavored Christians, e.g., pro-abortion and pro-church-state separation Christians and secularists generally

• Non-White immigrants, legal or not

• People who reject history rewritten into false narratives, e.g., lies about America being founded as a Christian nation or lies about Trump the Fornicator being chosen by God to lead America's moral re-enlightenment

Good 'ole CN. It's one heck of a dogma. Nasty to its morally rotted core.

Early days Christian nationalists

Christian nationalists at the 1/6 coup attempt

God chose the Fornicator to lead us to the

golden land of God's infallible self-righteousness

and deep hypocrisy