Category: Blog

  • It is no secret that the Trump administration is fully owned by the oil and gas industry. So it should be no surprise to Canadians that recently, some of the wealthiest oil and gas companies operating in Canada urged political parties to jump on the same anti-environment bandwagon. 

    Canadians have fought for two decades to address climate change and make sure industry pays for the mess that it makes in our air, water and land. We’re seeing the results. For the first time ever, Canada’s emissions are going down, clean investments and renewable energy jobs are projected to soon exceed those in fossil fuels, and we have systems in place to make industry pay for the pollution they create.

    Yet, the oil and gas CEOs are pushing our governments to sacrifice all of that. Luckily, not all decision-makers are falling for it. Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources clapped back against the oil and gas companies in his own letter   :

    A clip from Minister Wilkinson’s letter in response to oil and gas CEOs.

    We know the oil and gas industry never lets a crisis go to waste, seizing every opportunity to push the same tired rhetoric we always hear from oil and gas companies and their political mouthpieces: expand fossil fuels and pipelines, scrap any rules limiting pollution, eliminate any form of environmental assessments and provide more taxpayer handouts. For example, these same companies used the devastating COVID pandemic to push the same set of demands in a secret memo to the federal Cabinet

    Now, they’re emboldened by the success they are having in gutting environmental protections in the United States and want to do the same here in Canada.

    Of course, none of these things would help with the current situation. That shouldn’t surprise us. Oil and gas companies don’t have the best interests of Canadians – or other parts of the Canadian economy – at heart. 

    Why would they? According to recent data, more than 70 per cent of oil sands production in Canada is owned by foreign – mostly American – shareholders. 

    Take the renewed push for pipelines. It ignores the fact that no company wants to pay for building a new oil or gas pipeline. With global demand for oil set to peak in the next four years and then significantly decline, no company is willing to bet its own money on what is guaranteed to quickly become a massive stranded asset. That means they want us to pay for it instead and taxpayers should be very concerned. The latest $20 billion loan to the Trans Mountain Expansion project, now totalling way over $30 billion, should serve as a warning: it’s taxpayers who end up paying the price for new fossil fuel infrastructure as foreign-owned companies and wealthy shareholders reap the rewards.

    The letter also shows that industry CEOs have pivoted away from their former support of  industrial carbon pricing rules. These rules ensure big polluters pay for their pollution. And the rules work – they have effectively driven down pollution levels more than any other measure. This is one of the best tools that Canada has for cutting climate pollution and creating a competitive, clean economy – and the industry now wants to scrap it. 

    This is Canada’s time to forge our own future based on our own values. We can grow our independence, bring Canadian innovation to the world, and expand our trading partners by investing in new infrastructure and industries, including low-carbon steel and aluminium (which we are uniquely positioned to produce), clean electricity, food, aerospace products, public transit, and more. We have the skills, people, and resources to lead the clean energy revolution.

    Canada could become a renewable energy powerhouse. By scaling up renewable energy projects and building our national electricity grid, we could put thousands of Canadians to work, lower energy costs and achieve energy security. 

    We can’t allow oil and gas companies to put Canada’s hard-fought, years-long climate progress at risk to benefit their wealthy CEOs and American shareholders while at the same time failing to acknowledge that the world’s energy future will be clean.

     

    The post Don’t risk Canada’s future by following Trump and his Big Oil enablers appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  •  

    Verge: Lawmakers are trying to repeal Section 230 again

    Sen. Dick Durbin (Verge, 3/21/25): “I hope that for the sake of our nation’s kids, Congress finally acts.”

    In a move that threatens to constrain online communication, congressional Democrats are partnering with their Republican counterparts to repeal a niche but crucial internet law.

    According to tech trade publication the Information (3/21/25), Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.) has allied with Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) to reintroduce a bill that would repeal Section 230, a provision of the 1996 Communications Decency Act. Section 230 dictates that when unlawful speech occurs online, the only party responsible is the speaker, not the hosting website or app or any party that shared the content in question.

    Section 230 grants platforms the ability to moderate without shouldering legal liability, a power that has historically had the effect of encouraging judicious content management (Techdirt, 6/23/20). Additionally, it indemnifies ordinary internet users against most civil suits for actions like forwarding email, sharing photos or videos, or hosting online reviews.

    Dissolving the provision would reassign legal responsibility to websites and third parties, empowering a Trump-helmed federal government to force online platforms to stifle, or promote, certain speech. While the ostensible purpose of the repeal, according to Durbin, is to “protect kids online,” it’s far more likely to give the Trump White House carte blanche to advance its ultra-reactionary political agenda.

    More power for MAGA

    Techdirt: Democratic Senators Team Up With MAGA To Hand Trump A Censorship Machine

    Mike Masnick (Techdirt, 3/21/25): “These senators don’t understand what Section 230 actually does—or how its repeal would make their stated goals harder to achieve.”

    The effort to repeal Section 230 isn’t the first of its kind. Lawmakers, namely Republicans Sen. Josh Hawley (Mo.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and former Florida senator and current Secretary of State Marco Rubio, have been making attempts to restrict or remove 230 for years, sometimes with explicitly censorial aims. But with a White House so hostile to dissent as to target and abduct anti-genocide activists (FAIR.org, 3/28/25; Zeteo, 3/29/25), abusing immigration law and violating constitutional rights in the process, the timing of the latest bill—complete with Democratic backing—is particularly alarming.

    To imagine what could become of a Section 230 repeal under the Trump administration, consider an example from July 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic remained severe enough to be classified as a public-health emergency. Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.)—now a co-sponsor of Durbin and Graham’s 2025 bill—introduced an amendment to 230 that would authorize the Health & Human Services Secretary to designate certain online content as “health misinformation.” The label would require websites to remove the content in question.

    News sources heralded the bill as a way to stem the “proliferation of falsehoods about vaccines, fake cures and other harmful health-related claims on their sites” (NPR, 7/22/21) and to “fight bogus medical claims online” (Politico, 7/22/21). While potentially true at the time, Klobuchar’s bill would now, by most indications, have the opposite effect. As Mike Masnick of Techdirt (3/21/25) explained:

    Today’s Health & Human Services secretary is Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man who believes the solution to measles is to have more children die of measles. Under Klobuchar’s proposal, he would literally have the power to declare pro-vaccine information as “misinformation” and force it off the internet.

    ‘Save the Children’

    ACLU: How Online Censorship Harms Sex Workers and LGBTQ Communities

    ACLU (6/27/22): The Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) “hasn’t meaningfully addressed sex trafficking. Instead, it has chilled speech, shut down online spaces, and made sex work more dangerous.”

    Since Klobuchar’s bill, Congress has drafted multiple pieces of bipartisan child “safety” legislation resembling Durbin and Graham’s bill, offering another glimpse into the perils of a Trump-era repeal.

    Consider 2023’s Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA), which the New York Times (2/17/22) welcomed as “sweeping legislation” that would “require online platforms to refrain from promoting harmful behavior.” KOSA enjoys robust bipartisan support, with three dozen Republican co-sponsors and nearly as many Democrats, as well as an endorsement from Joe Biden.

    Though KOSA doesn’t expressly call for the removal of 230, it would effectively create a carve-out that could easily be weaponized. MAGA-boosting Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R.-Tenn.), a lead sponsor, insinuated in 2023 that KOSA could be used to “protect” children “from the transgender [sic] in this culture and that influence” on platforms like Snapchat and Instagram (Techdirt, 9/6/23). In other words, lawmakers could invoke KOSA to throttle or eliminate content related to trans advocacy, should they deem it “harmful” to children.

    KOSA has drawn criticism from more than 90 organizations, including the ACLU and numerous LGBTQ groups, who fear that the bill masquerades as a child-safeguarding initiative while facilitating far-right censorship (CounterSpin, 6/9/23). This comes as little surprise, considering the decades-long history of “Save the Children” rhetoric as an anti-LGBTQ bludgeon, as well as the fact that these campaigns have been shown to harm children rather than protect them.

    Some outlets have rightfully included the bill’s opponents in their reportage (AP, 7/31/24), even if only to characterize it as “divisive” and “controversial” (NBC News, 7/31/24). Others, however, have expressed more confidence in the legislation. The New York Times (2/1/24), for instance, described KOSA as a means to “safeguard the internet’s youngest users.” Neither Blackburn’s publicly-broadcast intentions nor the protests against the bill seemed to capture the paper’s attention.

    Instead, the Times went on to cite the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act (SESTA), a 2018 law that amended Section 230, in part to allow victims of sex trafficking to sue websites and online platforms, as a regulatory success. What the Times didn’t note is that, according to the ACLU, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA), which is included in SESTA, “hasn’t meaningfully addressed sex trafficking,” and could be interpreted by courts as justification to “censor more online speech—especially materials about sex, youth health, LGBTQ identity and other important concerns.”

    False anti-corporate appeals

    WSJ: Sunset of Section 230 Would Force Big Tech’s Hand

    A bipartisan pair of lawmakers argue in the Wall Street Journal (5/12/24) that repealing Section 230 would mean tech companies couldn’t “manipulate and profit from Americans’ free-speech protections”—which is true only  in the sense that platforms would be forced to assume that their users do not have free-speech protections.

    Protecting kids isn’t the only promise made by 230 repeal proponents. In a statement made earlier this year, Durbin vowed to “make the tech industry legally accountable for the damage they cause.” It’s a popular refrain for government officials. The Senate Judiciary Democrats pledged to “remove Big Tech’s legal immunity,” and Trump himself has called 230 a “liability shielding gift from the US to ‘Big Tech’”—a point echoed by one of his many acolytes, Josh Hawley.

    And in a Wall Street Journal op-ed (5/12/24) headlined “Sunset of Section 230 Would Force Big Tech’s Hand,” former Washington Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, and New Jersey Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., a Democrat, argued:

    We must act because Big Tech is profiting from children, developing algorithms that push harmful content on to our kids’ feeds and refusing to strengthen their platforms’ protections against predators, drug dealers, sex traffickers, extortioners and cyberbullies.

    These soft anti-corporate appeals might resonate with an audience who believes Big Tech wields too much power and influence. But there’s no guarantee that dismantling Section 230 would rein in Big Tech.

    In fact, Section 230 actually confers an advantage upon the largest tech companies—which at least one of them has recognized. In 2021, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg proposed reforms to 230 that would increase and intensify legal requirements for content moderation (NBC News, 3/24/21). The apparent logic: monopolistic giants like Facebook and Google can more easily fund expensive content-moderation systems and legal battles than can smaller platforms, lending the major players far more long-term viability.

    But regardless of Meta’s machinations, the fundamental problem would remain: Democrats have embraced the MAGA vision for online governance, creating the conditions not for a safer internet, but a more dangerous one.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Photo of family of 3 holding a Canadian flag

    We have heard a lot about freedom in Canada over the past several years. Some have argued that freedom means escaping from many of the rules and norms that guide our society. They advocate for freedom from vaccines, freedom to pollute, freedom from respecting other people’s differences and freedom from helping people impacted by climate-caused natural disasters or a growing wealth gap. At Environmental Defence, we believe that freedom can exist without tearing down society’s infrastructure and supports. We are eager to highlight the more positive attributes of freedom that can help us build a better Canada.

    In his recent book entitled, On Freedom the noted contemporary historian, Timothy Snyder (Professor at the Munk School of Global Affairs) offers a concept of freedom that has five key elements: independence, unpredictability, mobility, factuality and solidarity. These attributes make an interesting framework to explore a more positive view of what freedom means for people and organizations looking to create a better world.

    Independence 

    Becoming independent is not something that we can do for ourselves. Rather, our ability to become thoughtful, productive and caring humans is provided by the nurturing we receive as children. It is given to us by our parents, our teachers and our community as they support and educate us when we are young. The environment they provide enables us to build the skills and knowledge to begin to understand who we are as distinct individuals.

    Unpredictability 

    Unpredictability is what happens when we grow up enough to be in a position to act on our independence. It is us, as young people, using our knowledge, experiences and values to evaluate and understand the world we are inheriting. It is the opposite of blindly following the crowd, and it is vanishing as we allow social media algorithms to predict and manipulate our thoughts and actions. Freedom is difficult to achieve if those who want to control you know exactly how to do it.

    Mobility 

    Mobility is our capacity to move through the physical and social world and without either we are less free. It is the ability to seek out new places and ideas, the opportunity to expand and apply our knowledge, and the chance to challenge the race and class boundaries many of us were born into or to escape from the physical and resource limitations of where we were raised.

    Factuality

    Factuality is objective truth. It is reality constructed from verifiable scientific, ecological, historical or lived facts. The presence and protection of factuality provides a shared starting point to find solutions to problems, create conversations and establish freedom. Without it we are rudderless in a sea of misinformation and disinformation.

    Solidarity 

    Solidarity is the act of independent, unpredictable people, with access to facts and personal mobility, working together to solve problems and create communities that commit to providing the elements of freedom for everyone. Solidarity is from ensuring that the people of your community, or your country, have access to the elements of freedom. This in turn guarantees your personal freedom.

    “Freedom is more than being able to do what you want—it requires collective responsibility for the ecosystems and social structures that make life possible. This is the positive freedom we fight for.” — Tim Gray, Executive Director of Environmental Defence

    At Environmental Defence, we have become increasingly concerned by the corruption of the concept of freedom, where its core meaning has been alienated from the principles described above. That trend, and recent political events transpiring around the world and in our backyard, has given us cause to rethink and re-describe our work in defence of Canada’s environment in ways that are consistent with a vision of freedom rooted in our values.

    To us, creating more freedom through our work means encouraging and enabling the independence of people and their ideas. It means taking the time to ensure our supporters and the public have access to factual information about complex environmental issues and policies so they can make up their own mind about what is right and just.

    Supporting freedom means working with informed community members who are using their knowledge in ways that are unpredictable to politically powerful people who want them to behave in ways that are expected, safe and are easy to ignore. It means helping citizen movements rise to demand progress on climate change or reject plans for destructive industrial expansion that will destroy our ecosystems and erode our collective freedom.

    Enabling freedom means advocating for people to have access to the tools necessary for them to be physically and socially mobile. It means advocating for accessible, affordable and ubiquitous public transit and for housing that is within the economic reach of everyone in this country. It means arguing for government policies that place more of the financial burden for adopting cleaner technologies on the people who can afford it and supporting those who are less able.

    Defending freedom means fighting for research, science and evidence to be the basis for government decision-making. It means that decisions to ban chemicals or disposable plastics must be made based on their evidence of health and environmental harm and not on the strength of the lobbying by their corporate manufacturers.

    Fighting for freedom means working in solidarity with others who share a positive vision for freedom. It means working with all the people and communities that comprise this country. It means bringing forward the voices of farmers protecting their ability to grow food, supporting the Indigenous nations seeking to assert their rights to make decisions on their lands, helping people in communities seeking new jobs in clean, sustainable industries and working to fix broken planning and pricing systems so that young people and newcomers can find a home they can afford.

    In summary, there cannot be individual freedom without the social systems and structures that have been built that give people the tools they need to be free. These social systems themselves cannot exist without the stability and life-giving support of natural ecosystems. This means protecting our forests, waters, wetlands, farmland, wildlife and climate system must be a core foundational requirement of all government decision-making. That environment-as-foundation approach is one that we are dedicated to bringing to all of our programs and we promise to work with all of you to ensure Canada is a country where a protected environment is the foundation for all of our freedom.

     

    The post Defining Freedom as a Force for Good appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  •  

    Surveillance footage of Rumeysa Ozturk being taken away by Homeland Security agents.

    Surveillance footage of Tufts grad student Rumeysa Ozturk being taken away by Homeland Security agents (Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/27/25).

    The journalism world has been reeling from news that a BBC correspondent was deported from Turkey, after he was “covering the antigovernment protests in the country” and was “detained and labeled ‘a threat to public order’” (New York Times, 3/27/25). Turkey has an abysmal reputation for press freedom (CPJ, 2/13/24; European Centre for Press and Media Freedom, 10/5/23), placing 158th out of 180 countries on the Reporters Without Borders index, so as distressing as this news is, it’s in character for a country many think of as illiberal and authoritarian (Guardian, 6/9/13; HRW, 1/29/15). Journalists have been arrested in the latest unrest in Turkey (AP, 3/24/25).

    Meanwhile, a Turkish citizen is going through a similar kind of hell for expressing political ideas a government dislikes. Except in her case, the government doing the repression isn’t Turkey, it’s the United States. In chilling video footage (New York Times, 3/26/25) obtained by several news outlets, Turkish national Rumeysa Ozturk, a doctoral student at Tufts University outside of Boston, can be seen being abducted by plainclothes agents.

    ‘Relishes the killing of Americans’

    AP: Turkish student at Tufts University detained, video shows masked people handcuffing her

    “It looked like a kidnapping,” software engineer Michael Mathis, whose camera recorded Ozturk’s abduction, told AP (3/26/25).  “They approach her and start grabbing her with their faces covered. They’re covering their faces. They’re in unmarked vehicles.”

    Her crime was reportedly being part of recent student protests against the genocide in Gaza. A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson (AP, 3/26/25) declared:

    DHS and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] investigations found Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans…. Glorifying and supporting terrorists who kill Americans is grounds for visa issuance to be terminated.

    The group StopAntisemitism bragged about the arrest on X (3/26/25), saying Ozturk led “pro-Hamas, violent antisemitic and anti-American events” during her time at Tufts, which has led her to deportation proceedings. The group snarkily added, “Shalom, Rumeysa.” (“Shalom” can mean peace, hello or goodbye in Hebrew.)

    Ozturk is now part of a growing list of foreign students who have been abducted by secret police and are facing deportation for participating in pro-Palestine speech, which the government is labeling support of Hamas, which is designated by the US as a terrorist group (FAIR.org, 3/19/25). As I recently said on the Santita Jackson Show (3/27/25), reporting these things as “arrests” by federal agents—rather than abductions by secret police—understates the authoritarian moment Americans are witnessing. (DHS Deputy Secretary Troy Edgar treated “supporting Hamas” as synonymous with “pro-Palestinian activity” in an interview with NPR3/13/25.)

    ‘Fundamentally at odds with our values’

    Tufts Daily: Try again, President Kumar: Renewing calls for Tufts to adopt March 4 TCU Senate resolutions

    The op-ed (Tufts Daily, 3/26/24) that may get Rumeysa Ozturk deported.

    Ozturk, however, might be the first of the bunch to be targeted specifically for engaging in journalism deemed offensive by the state. Many of the reports of her arrest (e.g., New York Times, 3/26/25; CNN, 3/27/25; Forbes, 3/27/25) cite that she co-authored an op-ed in the Tufts Daily (3/26/24) calling on the university administration to accept Tufts Community Union Senate resolutions “demanding that the University acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” and “disclose its investments and divest from companies with direct or indirect ties to Israel.” The op-ed also “affirm[s] the equal dignity and humanity of all people.”

    If this is truly a part of the government’s rationale for targeting Ozturk, then we as the American press have to assume that the US law enforcement regime will consider any article in a newspaper that advocates for Palestinian rights or harshly criticizes Israel as some kind of suspicious or unacceptable speech.

    Said Seth Stern, director of advocacy of Freedom of the Press Foundation (3/26/25):

    If reports that Ozturk’s arrest was over an op-ed are accurate, it is absolutely appalling. No one would have ever believed, even during President Donald Trump’s first term, that masked federal agents would abduct students from American universities for criticizing US allies in student newspapers. Anyone with any regard whatsoever for the Constitution should recognize how fundamentally at odds this is with our values and should be deeply repulsed as an American, regardless of political leanings. Canary Mission is aptly named—it may serve as the canary in the coal mine for the First Amendment.

    The Canary Mission named by Stern is a pro-Israel group that operates as a doxxing operation against pro-Palestine campus activists (The Nation, 12/22/23). The FPF said of Ozturk, “The sole ‘offense’ that Canary Mission flagged was an op-ed Ozturk cowrote criticizing Israel’s war in Gaza.”

    A crime against journalism

    CNN: Trump baselessly accuses news media of ‘illegal’ behavior and corruption in DOJ speech

    Donald Trump (CNN, 3/14/25): “I believe that CNN and MSDNC [sic], who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they are really corrupt and they are illegal. What they do is illegal.”

    Of course, the government has now used its authority to strip a lawful resident of her visa, putting her in the opaque gulag system of the US immigration system. That has a terrible chilling effect on any legal resident in the US who might make a living putting pen to paper. Their next article could get them shipped home at a moment’s notice without legal recourse.

    That is inhumane treatment of the rights of legal residents, but it is also a crime against journalism. How will this motivation be used against writers who are citizens, natural-born and otherwise? Will outlets that publish pieces like the one in Tufts Daily be harassed in other ways? (One should not assume that when Trump at the Justice Department accused major news outlets of “illegal” reporting that he meant it as a figure of speech—CNN, 3/14/25.)

    FAIR (11/14/24, 12/16/24, 2/26/25) has been among the many groups who have warned that a second Trump administration could see a severe attack against the free press and free speech generally. Ozturk’s arrest is a warning that the Trump administration takes all levels of speech and journalism seriously, and will do whatever they can to terrorize the public into keeping quiet.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Please enjoy this reflection from Rabbi Miriam Terlinchamp, who visited with grantee partners in the Dominican Republic last month as part of AJWS’s Global Justice Fellowship. In a community room nestled in a batey (a former sugar plantation) in Santo Domingo, three women from Movimiento de Mujeres Dominico Haitianas (MUDHA) tell stories of radical change. …

    Source

    This post was originally published on American Jewish World Service – AJWS.

  •  

    Jeff Danziger: Some Israeli Hostages Are Home After Over a Year of Merciless War

    Jeff Danziger (1/20/25)

    “Watch your step,” says the soldier as he and a medic lead a hostage over a mound of corpses labeled “Over 40,000 Palestinians killed…” The caption reads, “Some Israeli Hostages Are Home After Years of Merciless War.” This cartoon by Jeff Danzinger (Rutland Herald, 1/20/25) was selected by editorial page editor Tony Doris to run in the Palm Beach Post (1/26/25).

    After the cartoon ran last month, a local Jewish activist group took offense at the perceived antisemitic nature of the anti-war cartoon. The Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County was so upset it purchased a full-page ad condemning the cartoon to run in the Sunday edition (2/9/25).

    That Doris and Danzinger are both of Jewish descent did not deter the complainers. Neither did their politics. Doris (Stet News, 3/2/25) describes himself as pro-Israel, as well as the Post‘s “only Jewish editor.” Danzinger told comics scholar Kent Worcester (Comics Journal, 11/05) that he agreed “with a great many things that the Republicans have been traditionally for,” and that he voted for George H.W. Bush twice.

    For his temerity to run an anti-war cartoon acknowledging the Palestinian dead, Doris was fired by Gannett, the conglomerate that owns hundreds of newspapers across the country, including the Post. Gannett issued a statement that the cartoon “did not meet our standards” and “would not have been published if the proper protocols were followed.” “We sincerely regret the error,” said the spokesperson for the Post, “and have taken appropriate action to prevent this from happening again.” Doris (New York Times, 3/2/25) remarked that Gannet executives are “afraid of their shadow.”

    The Palestine exception

    Rob Rogers: Why do they hate us so much? (Gazans in a cage surrounded by missiles)

    Rob Rogers (8/7/14)

    Doris’ ordeal was similar to the one cartoonist Rob Rogers suffered ten years ago. Rogers drew Palestinians huddled in a tiny prison, beset on all sides by missiles and Israeli soldiers. “Why do they hate us so much?” one trooper muses (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 8/7/14).

    This cartoon, too, was characterized by pro-Israel readers as antisemitic. Richard Krugel of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Metropolitan Detroit proclaimed it something “out of the Nazi propaganda sheet Der Shturmer [sic]” (Oakland Press, 8/8/14). Rogers’ career survived the incident, but as the editorial page of Rogers’ home paper shifted right, he found himself out of a job (New York Times, 6/15/18; Extra!, 7/18).

    The experiences of Doris and Rogers are clear examples of what civil rights lawyer Michael Ratner termed the “Palestine exception to free speech” (Real News Network, 4/27/15). Support for Palestinian rights is deemed to be an antisemitic attack on Israel, and therefore outside the boundaries of acceptable speech. The Palestine exception is glaringly apparent if a survey is conducted of how Palestinians are treated in political cartoons, and what consequences cartoonists suffer for these artistic choices.

    ‘We side with evil’

    Kirk Walters: Occupying the Administration Building Today Is Not the Same as It Was in the '60s.... (Administrator offering refreshments to antisemitic protesters)

    Kirk Walters (10/18/23)

    Political cartoonists routinely compare Palestinians and the Palestinian cause to Nazis and Nazism. Henry Payne drew Rep. Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, as pro-Nazi, with bumper stickers reading “From Rhine River to the North Sea” and “Stop German Genocide” and “Beware Elders of Zion”  (GoComics, 6/4/24). Kirk Walters showed pro-Palestine protesters as tiki-torch wielding white supremacists. One protester looked identical to Adolf Hitler (King Features, 10/18/23).

    Gary Varvel drew a student returning home for Thanksgiving dinner clothed in an “I Heart Hamas” sweater and donning a Hitler mustache. “Son,” his father frets, “your mother and I are concerned about how much college has changed you!” (Creators Syndicate, 11/1/23).

    Symbols of Palestinian identity are equated with nefariousness. Two-time Pulitzer winner Michael Ramirez (Las Vegas Review-Journal, 5/2/24) explicitly placed the Palestinian flag at a rally side by side with a sign reading “We Side With Evil.” Other signs read “We Heart Terrorists” and “We Support Hamas.” Three days later, Ramirez (Las Vegas Review-Journal, 5/5/24) pinned a button reading “Hate” on a keffiyeh-wearing protester.

    Ramirez: I Remember When Going to College Was Supposed to Make You Smarter (College protesters with pro-"evil" banners)

    Michael Ramirez (5/2/24)

    Editorial cartoonists often make a false connection between pro-Palestine activism and antisemitism. After the first wave of protests on college campuses in Fall 2023, Dana Summers (Tribune Content Agency, 10/18/23) drew a Halloween cartoon featuring a Frankenstein’s Monster labeled “Antisemitism” and a Dr. Frankenstein labeled “College Campuses,” shouting “It’s alive!”

    Bob Gorrell (Creators Syndicate, 4/30/24) had Joe Biden informing readers about “all those antisemitic, pro-Hamas demonstrations on college campuses.” Echoing President Trump’s description of the 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Biden declared, “There are very fine people on both sides!”

    At Chip Bok’s “Back to School Sale for Your Pro-Hamas Student” (Creators Syndicate, 9/5/24) the title “Antisemitism for Dummies” was sold.

    Nor is this solely a quirk of the US: Canadian cartoonist Malcolm Mayes (Edmonton Journal, 11/23) depicted students chanting, “From the river to the sea/killing Jews is fine with me.”

    ‘Make Gaza great again!’

    Henry Payne: Odd. My Pager Just Exploded. (Rep. Tlaib with exploding pager.)

    Henry Payne (9/19/24)

    In one anti-Palestinian cartoon, the cartoonist made light of assassinating a member of Congress. After the Israeli pager attack on Hezbollah, Henry Payne (National Review, 9/19/24) drew an exploding pager on the desk of Rashida Tlaib, also naming her a member of Hamas.

    Tlaib described this as “racism” that would incite “hate and violence against Arab and Muslim communities,” and Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud argued it showed that “anti-Arab bigotry and Islamophobia have become normalized in our media.” Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, herself not an Arab or Muslim, was less direct, although she also condemned the cartoon. “It further stokes the divide in our politics and does absolutely nothing to move us forward on the issues that matter,” she said (Metro Times, 9/20/24).

    Bok: Two State Solutions (cartoon illustrating how much better Gaza would be if ethnically cleansed)

    Chip Bok (2/7/25)

    After Trump revealed his plan to ethnically cleanse the Gaza Strip, cartoonists lined up to endorse this proposed violation of international law. Dana Summers (Tribune Content Agency, 2/7/25) had a beaming Trump announcing, “Make Gaza Great Again!” Chip Bok (Creators Syndicate, 2/7/25) showed Trump’s future casino and riviera as an improvement over United Nations administered refugee camps. Cheekily, it was labeled “Two State Solutions.” Payne (GoComics, 2/6/25) advertised a “Mar-a-Gaza” that will be “Hamas-free”—as well as Palestinian-free—once construction is finished.

    No mainstream American cartoonist would draw Israeli soldiers as Nazis, as Varvel, Gorrell and Payne did with Palestinians. It would be considered beyond the pale for an anti-war or pro-Palestinian cartoonist to crack a joke about assassinating a leading pro-Israel politician, as Payne did with Tlaib. Cartoon endorsements of ethnic cleansing of virtually any nationality other than Palestinian would be met with quite accurate comparisons to the oeuvre of Philipp Rupprecht (“Fips”), cartoonist for the pro-Nazi Der Stürmer.

    ‘Missed something profound’

    Michael Ramirez: How Dare Israel Attack Civilians(Cartoon of "Hamas" with children strapped to his body)

    Michael Ramirez (11/6/23)

    The consequences for the two approaches to cartooning could not be more different. When Varvel lost his spot at the Toronto Sun (12/21/23), it was not for his drawings of Palestinians, but rather a take on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy (12/20/23) that Jewish groups found offensive. Payne’s cartoons still run in the National Review, and he kept his post as auto critic for the Detroit News.

    One of Ramirez’s cartoons (Las Vegas Review-Journal, 11/6/23), showing a snarling hook-nosed Arab labeled “Hamas,” was removed from the Washington Post after reader backlash. Editorial page editor David Shipley said that reader reactions calling the cartoon “racist” and “dehumanizing” showed that the Post “missed something profound, and divisive” (Washington Post, 11/8/23). Ramirez continues to be published at the Post.

    Because of syndication and the absorption of many newspapers into chains like Gannett, some media markets are only exposed to one side, cartoon-wise. In Detroit, for example, the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News publish under a joint operating agreement that ensures that the editorial cartoons in the News run in both newspapers. The most prominent syndicated cartoonist in the News is Ramirez, who declared Palestinians ontologically evil. This means that in the metro area with the largest Arab population in America, the political cartoons in both papers are overwhelmingly dominated by a virulently anti-Palestinian viewpoint.

    Benson: Yasir Ararat (Arafat depicted as a dead rat)

    Steve Benson (6/27/82)

    Tony Doris (New York Times, 3/2/25) expressed concerns that limiting the range of acceptable opinion in editorial pages is bad for democracy. “Democracy needs journalists who care about the mission and not just about page views,” he said.

    Not only is it bad for democracy, it trivializes antisemitism and allows promoters of racism and ethnic cleansing off the hook. Indeed, despite acting as defenders of Jewish people, these cartoonists indulge in many of the same tropes that antisemitic caricaturists use. Editorial cartoonists may have progressed past depicting Yasser Arafat as a rodent caught in a Star of David–shaped mousetrap (Arizona Republic, 6/27/82), but there are still images of anti-Arab, anti-Palestinian racism on the editorial pages.

     

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  •  

    Robert W. McChesney was a leading voice and a precious colleague in the battle for a more democratic media system, and a more democratic society. Bob passed away on Tuesday, March 24, at the age of 72. No one did more to analyze the negative and censorial impacts of our media and information systems being controlled by giant, amoral corporations.

    Bob was a scholar—the Gutgsell endowed professor of communications at University of Illinois—and a prolific author. Each and every book taught us more about corporate control of information. (I helped edit some of his works.)

    Particularly enlightening was his 2014 book, Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy—in which McChesney explained in step-by-step detail how the internet that held so much promise for journalism and democracy was being strangled by corporate greed, and by government policy that put greed in the driver’s seat.

    That was a key point for Bob in all his work: He detested the easy phrase “media deregulation,” when in fact government policy was actively and heavily regulating the media system (and so many other systems) toward corporate control.

    Robert McChesney

    Robert McChesney speaking at the Berkeley School of Journalism (CC photo: Steve Rhodes).

    For media activists like those of us at FAIR—whose board McChesney has served on for many years—it was a revelation to read his pioneering 1993 book Telecommunications, Mass Media and Democracy: The Battle for the Control of US Broadcasting, 1928–1935. It examined the broad-based movement in the 1920s and ’30s that sought to democratize radio, which was then in the hands of commercial hucksters and snake-oil salesmen.

    From radio to the internet, a reading of his body of work offers a grand and inglorious tour of media history, and how we got to the horrific era of disinfotainment we’re in today.

    Bob McChesney was not just a scholar. He was an activist. He co-founded the media reform group Free Press, with his close friend and frequent co-author John Nichols. Bob told me how glad he was to go door to door canvassing for Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns. (Bernie wrote the intro to one of McChesney and Nichols’ books.)

    Bob was a proud socialist, and a proud journalist—and he saw no conflict between the two. In 1979, he was founding publisher of The Rocket, a renowned publication covering the music scene in Seattle. For years, while he taught classes, he hosted an excellent Illinois public radio show, Media Matters.

    In 2011, he and Victor Pickard edited the book Will the Last Reporter Please Turn out the Lights: The Collapse of Journalism and What Can Be Done. One of Bob’s favorite proposals to begin to address the problem of US media (developed with economist Dean Baker) was to provide any willing taxpayer a voucher, so they could steer $200 or so of their tax money to the nonprofit news outlet of their choosing, possibly injecting billions of non-corporate dollars into journalism.

    Bob was a beloved figure in the media reform/media activist movement. We need more scholar/activists like him today. He will be sorely missed.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • By Julie Decrand-Lardière and Clarissa Chan In an era where digital information is proliferating rapidly, the ability to effectively and ethically investigate potential human rights violations has never been more critical. The Digital Verification Unit (DVU) at the University of Essex, plays a vital role in equipping the next generation of human rights researchers with the skills […]

    This post was originally published on Human Rights Centre Blog.

  •  

    Al Jazeera: Al Jazeera journalist Hossam Shabat killed in Israeli attack on Gaza

    Hossam Shabat (Al Jazeera, 3/24/25): ““If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed—most likely targeted—by the Israeli occupation forces.”

    The Israeli military killed Hossam Shabat, a 23-year-old Palestinian journalist and correspondent for Al Jazeera and Drop Site News, on Monday, March 24. The deadly targeting of Shabat’s vehicle in the northern Gaza Strip was in fact Israel’s second journalist assassination for the day; hours earlier, Palestine Today reporter Mohammad Mansour was killed in an Israeli strike on his home in southern Gaza.

    And yet it was all in a day’s work for Israel, which according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has now killed at least 170 Palestinian journalists and media workers since October 7, 2023, when Israel’s armed forces kicked off an all-out genocide in the besieged enclave. According to Gaza’s Government Media Office, the number of fatalities is actually 208.

    No doubt many journalists would be expected to perish in an onslaught as indiscriminate and massive as Israel’s in Gaza, where in February the death toll for the past 16 months was raised to nearly 62,000 to account for the thousands of Palestinians presumed to be dead beneath the rubble. Shockingly, that’s one out of every 35 Gaza residents—but for Gaza journalists, the International Federation of Journalists estimates that Israel has killed one out of every ten.

    In Shabat’s case, as in numerous others, Israel does not even pretend the assassination was an accident, but rather it attempts to frame Palestinian journalists as terrorists. Indeed, targeting journalists appears to be part of Israel’s efforts—which also include preventing foreign journalists from entering Gaza—to prevent documentation of its atrocities.

    Meanwhile, in the face of such egregious assaults on the press, US media remain shamefully silent.

    ‘He bore witness’

    CPJ: ‘Catastrophic’: Journalists say ethnic cleansing taking place in a news void in northern Gaza

    Hossam Shabat (CPJ, 11/8/24): “Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth.”

    In October 2024, one year into the extermination campaign, Israel accused Shabat and five other Gaza journalists with Al Jazeera—where I myself am an opinion columnist—of being militants in the service of Hamas and Islamic Jihad. CPJ, which has repeatedly excoriated Israel for “accusing journalists of being terrorists without producing credible evidence to substantiate their claims,” condemned the accusations as a “smear campaign” that endangered the lives of journalists.

    Yesterday, the Israeli army took to the platform X to celebrate the fact that it had “eliminated” Shabat, offering the charming obituary: “Don’t let the press vest confuse you, Hossam was a terrorist.” This from the people who just killed 200 Palestinian children in a matter of days.

    Responding to the initial terror allegation last year, Shabat remarked to CPJ: “Our only crime is that we convey the image and the truth.” And convey the truth he did. As Egyptian-American journalist Sharif Abdel Kouddous, who translated Shabat’s last article for US outlet Drop Site News just after he was killed, wrote in the preface to the translation:

    He bore witness to untold death and suffering on an almost daily basis for 17 months. He was displaced over 20 times. He was often hungry. He buried many of his journalist colleagues. In November, he was wounded in an Israeli airstrike. I still can’t believe I am referring to him in the past tense.

    Shabat’s article—penned as Israel resumed apocalyptic killing on March 18 and thereby annihilated the truce with Hamas that had ostensibly taken hold in January—is a testament to the young man’s enduring humanity in the face of utter barbarism. Conveying the post-ceasefire landscape in his hometown of Beit Hanoun, Shabat despaired:

    Screams filled the air while everyone stood helpless. My tears didn’t stop. The scenes were more than any human being could bear. The ambulances were filled with corpses, their bodies and limbs piled on top and intertwined with one another. We could no longer distinguish between children and men, between the injured and the dead.

    Shabat was well aware that he could join the dead at any moment, and, to that end, he had prepared a statement for posthumous publication, in which he noted that, “when this all began, I was only 21 years old—a college student with dreams like anyone else.” For the past year and a half, however, he had “dedicated every moment of my life to my people,” documenting the “horrors” in Gaza in order to “show the world the truth they tried to bury.”

    Deafening silence

    Mondoweiss: How Western media silence enables the killing of Palestinian journalists

    Ahmad Ibsais (Mondoweiss, 3/25/25) on Western journalists: “Their failure to accurately report on the targeting of their colleagues, their reluctance to challenge Israeli narratives, and their tendency to frame these killings as unfortunate byproducts of conflict rather than deliberate acts—these journalistic failures have real consequences.”

    Indeed, like so many of his Palestinian media colleagues, Shabat risked his life to speak truth to genocidal power until his final moment. But following his demise, the corporate media in the United States haven’t managed to say much at all—just google “Hossam Shabat” and you’ll see what I mean. His death was covered in leading international outlets like the Guardian (3/25/25), Le Monde (3/25/25) and the Sydney Morning Herald (3/25/25), and independent US outlets like Truthout (3/24/25), Democracy Now! (3/25/25) and Mondoweiss (3/25/25), among others—but virtually no establishment US news organizations.

    The otherwise deafening silence has been punctuated by just a couple of corporate media interventions, including a Washington Post report (3/25/25) that made sure to mention in the first paragraph that Israel had accused Shabat of Hamas membership.

    Meanwhile, Trey Yingst, a correspondent for Fox News—an outlet by no means known for pro-Palestinian sympathies—has rankled others in right-wing media by having the audacity to observe that Israel had just killed two Palestinian journalists in Gaza and that, of the 124 journalists killed globally in 2024, “around two-thirds of them were Palestinian.” In response to Yingst’s treachery, the Washington Free Beacon (3/24/25) made it clear that the real crime was Fox News’ failure to refer to the dead Palestinian journalists as terrorists.

    ‘With no one to hear us’

    FAIR: Israel Killed Reporter Abu Akleh—but US Media Disguised the Facts

    Robin Andersen (FAIR.org, 5/20/22): “Because journalists document the actions of Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinians, they jeopardize the military’s continued ability to act with impunity.”

    The scant US corporate media attention elicited by the assassination of Shabat regrettably comes as no surprise. After all, it would make little sense for the US establishment to pump Israel full of billions of dollars in weaponry and then complain about the casualties of those weapons. When asked on Monday about the killing of Shabat and Mansour, US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce declared that Hamas was to blame for “every single thing that’s happening” in the Gaza Strip.

    In a dispatch for FAIR (10/19/23) published less than two weeks after the launch of US-fueled genocide in October 2023, Ari Paul emphasized that “Israel has a long history of targeting Palestinian journalists”—including Palestinian-American ones like 51-year-old Shireen Abu Akleh, murdered in 2022 by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank—”as well as harassing foreign journalists and human rights activists entering the country.” Such attacks, he concluded, “act as filters through which the truth is diluted.”

    And dilution has only become turbo-charged since then. By December 2023, CPJ had determined that “more journalists have been killed in the first 10 weeks of the Israel/Gaza war than have ever been killed in a single country over an entire year.” Of the at least 68 journalists and media workers killed between October 7 and December 20, CPJ reported that 61 were Palestinian, four were Israeli and three were Lebanese.

    On November 20 of that year, for example, Palestinian journalist Ayat Khadura was killed in an Israeli airstrike on her home, just weeks after she had shared her “last message to the world,” which included the line: “We had big dreams but our dream now is to be killed in one piece so they know who we are.”

    On November 7, Mohamed Abu Hassira, a journalist for the Palestinian Wafa news agency, was killed along with no fewer than 42 family members in a strike on his own home. And on December 15, Al Jazeera camera operator Samer Abudaqa was killed in southern Gaza, where he eventually bled to death after Israeli forces prevented ambulances from reaching him for more than five hours. Needless to say, Israeli impunity for all of these crimes remains the name of the game.

    Considering all the lethal obstacles Palestinian journalists must contend with to do their jobs—not to mention the psychological toll of having to report genocide day in and day out while essentially serving as moving targets for the Israelis—it seems the least their international media colleagues might do is acknowledge them in death. Alas, mum’s the word.

    And on that note, it’s worth recalling some of Shabat’s own words: “All we need is for you not to leave us alone, screaming until our voices go hoarse, with no one to hear us.”

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • While the rest of Canada is in an uproar over tariffs being leveled against aluminum, steel, autoparts, and hundreds of other exports, the Alberta delegation is cozying up to Trump officials, offering our oil as a solution to their energy woes. 

    Never mind that American President Donald Trump has said the US doesn’t want our oil. 

    And, forget that the US is well on its way to being energy independent, with a stated goal of being so by 2030. 

    And try to ignore that while she cozies up to Donald Trump and co, Premier Smith is threatening a national unity crisis at home. Alberta is the only province with a “me first” approach to dealing with the United States, and it’s embarrassing for many Albertans. 

    Premier Smith seems to think that American energy independence would include Alberta heavy oil from being shipped to US midwest, gulf coast and pacific refineries. That only makes sense if Alberta sells its soul to the Americans for the price of a barrel of discounted crude.  

    All the clamour about new pipelines and revisiting old projects misses a critical element in the supply chain: there are no future customers for Alberta bitumen. The gelatinous black blob that some insist on calling oil is the most expensive crude on the global market, and contains the most carbon of any commonly refined petroleum product. These are two things the world is NOT looking for in an energy product. 

    While the world will most likely need some oil for some time, it has dozens of options to choose from that are less expensive, and less toxic than the tar sands gloop. New pipelines will take a decade to build, and the world will have very little use for the bituminous tar we are selling by then. 

    Within the next five to ten years the world will be using up to 1,000,000 barrels per day of oil less each year, according to the International Energy Association. When making consumer choices, which oil do you think will be the first to be dropped? (Hint: The expensive, dirty one). 

    The zeal with which Alberta continues to push its oil and gas agenda on the world is troubling. According to the Canadian Energy Regulator, “The United States (U.S.) remains the primary destination for Canadian crude oil, receiving approximately 97 per cent of Canada’s crude oil exports in 2023.” 

    All of our bituminous eggs are in one oil soaked basket. 

    Some readers might recall that Canada’s federal government bought and completed the Transmountain pipeline to BC’s west coast, at a cost of nearly $35 billion, so it could diversify its energy market. What happened? There are mixed signals coming from the fledgling expansion of the TMX, but most analysts agree that more than half the crude shipped to the west coast is still ending up in the United States. The fixation on expanding the market for Canadian heavy crude to China and South East Asia may be coming too late, as China’s demand is starting to decrease, if ever so slightly. Meanwhile, investment in and demand for renewable energy is rising dramatically. 

    If only Alberta had an energy product that the world actually wanted right now…But of course, we do. Demand for renewable energy is skyrocketing here in Canada, and around the world, and Alberta has plenty of both wind and solar. Demand for renewable energy hardware, such as solar panels, is exploding. Investment worldwide in renewable energy now more than doubles that which is invested in conventional energy. 

    Alberta was the fastest growing jurisdiction for investments in renewable energy technology until the Alberta government leveled nearly impossible restrictions on the industry. And still, Alberta’s political leaders continue to try and sell yesterday’s ideas as a solution to the problems that plague us today. 

    Ready to take action, then sign our letter to government today demanding a recall on our Alberta renewable energy plans:

    Red button that says "take action"

    The post Trade War Looms for Canada, Yet Alberta’s Premier Courts US with Pipeline Expansion appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  • Aerial shot of forest half burnt and half alive.

    This federal election is critical for Canada. The world is at a crossroads, and Canadians need to choose which path we are going to walk. 

    Will Canada elect a government that will turn its back on climate action, reverse course on all the environmental policies that we’ve helped put in place over the past nine years, and gut our scientific institutions, like President Trump has done in the U.S.? Or will we elect to move forward with environmental progress, trust in science, and a national conversation rooted in fact? 

    This election is about freedom—the freedom for Canada to follow its own course, rather than bend to the will of the leader of the United States. 

    It’s about freeing ourselves and our nation from the fossil fuel industry that has been misleading Canadians about the climate crisis for decades, and that aims to keep us locked into a dying energy system that is expensive, dangerous, and misguided. 

    It’s about freedom of information—making sure that Canadians are informed about climate change, biodiversity loss, and other environmental issues, so that we, as a nation, can make informed decisions. 

    And it’s about safety and security—knowing that we are working towards a future where our children are safe from toxic products, we are fighting the plastic pollution crisis, and we have a strong and secure financial system that is part of the solution to climate change, rather than working against our climate goals. 

    Canada is far from perfect. Our record as a nation is far from perfect when it comes to climate action and on environmental protection on the whole. But we’re making progress, and we must stay the course and keep moving forward. We need to contribute to the global effort to stave off the worst of the climate crisis, and keep this planet livable for generations to come. 

    We need to do this work with the rest of the international community, rather than isolate ourselves and become a resource play for the United States.

    The future of this country, its role in the world, and the state of our natural environment all depend on how we vote in this election.Register to vote

    Authorized by Environmental Defence Canada, environmentaldefence.ca, 1-877-399-2333

    The post Your Vote Can be the Difference appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  • In the second of two episodes on Elon Musk, Matt and Sam examine key moments in the billionaire’s political derangement, his purchase of Twitter, and his role in Trump’s second term.

    This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.

  •  

    NYT: Israel Tries to Pressure Hamas to Free More Hostages

    The New York Times (3/21/25) reports the resumption of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza as “pressure…to free more hostages.”

    The New York Times produced an article on Friday, March 21, bearing the headline “Israel Tries to Pressure Hamas to Free More Hostages.” In the first paragraph, readers were informed that Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz had undertaken to “turn up the pressure” by warning that Israel was “preparing to seize more territory in Gaza and intensify attacks by air, sea and land if the armed Palestinian group does not cooperate.”

    This was no doubt a rather bland way of describing mass slaughter and illegal territorial conquest—not to mention a convenient distraction from the fact that Hamas is not the party that is currently guilty of a failure to cooperate. In the wee hours of Tuesday morning, Israel annihilated the ceasefire agreement that came into effect in January following 15 months of genocide by the Israeli military in the Gaza Strip.

    Over those months, Israel officially killed at least 48,577 Palestinians in Gaza; in February, the death toll was bumped up to almost 62,000, to account for missing persons presumed to be dead beneath the rubble.

    The first phase of the ceasefire ended at the beginning of March, and was scheduled to give way to a second phase, in which a permanent cessation of hostilities would be negotiated, along with the exchange of remaining hostages. Rather than “cooperate,” however, Israel and its BFF, the United States, opted to move the goalposts and insist on an extension of phase one—since, at the end of the day, an actual end to the war is the last thing Israel or the US wants.

    After all, how will Donald Trump’s fantasy of converting Gaza into the “Riviera of the Middle East” ever come to fruition if the territory is not thoroughly pulverized and depopulated first?

    Israel’s US-endorsed resumption of all-out genocide on Tuesday killed at least 404 Palestinians right off the bat—but, hey, that’s just how Israel “turns up the pressure on Hamas.”

    Committed to the deployment of euphemism

    Amnesty International: Israel’s blockage of aid into Gaza is a crime against humanity and violation of international law

    What the New York Times (3/3/25) calls “pressure,” Amnesty International calls “a crime against humanity and a violation of international law.”

    Were the US newspaper of record not so firmly committed to the deployment of grotesque euphemism on behalf of the Israeli war effort, perhaps the discussion of “pressure” might have included a mention of such statistics as that, between Tuesday and Friday alone, at least 200 children were among those massacred. But this, alas, would have required a humanization of Palestinians, and a dangerous encouragement of empathy fundamentally at odds with US/Israeli policy in the Middle East.

    Instead, the Times simply noted that “Israel hopes to compel Hamas to free more of the remaining hostages” in its possession, estimated to consist of “as many as 24 living captives—and the remains of more than 30 others.” No reference was made to the thousands of Palestinian captives held in mind-bogglingly inhumane conditions in Israel, though the Times did manage the—judgment-free—observation that,

    even before the ceasefire collapsed this week, Israel had blocked humanitarian aid to Gaza, preventing shipments of food and medicine from reaching Palestinians still recovering from more than a year of hunger and wartime deprivation.

    As Amnesty International (3/3/25) pointed out, that particular Israeli maneuver amounted to a crime against humanity and a violation of international law. But the Western corporate media wouldn’t be the Western corporate media if they reported straight facts.

    ‘To pressure Hamas on hostages’

    WSJ: Israel Draws Up New War Plans to Pressure Hamas

    Death by bombing and starvation is euphemized by the Wall Street Journal (3/8/25) as “gradually increasing pressure on Hamas.”

    For its part, Reuters (3/21/25) explained on Friday that Israel had “intensified a military onslaught to press the Palestinian militant group [Hamas] to free remaining Israeli hostages.” The Wall Street Journal has, meanwhile, spent weeks preparing for the onslaught of “pressure” via such headlines as “Israel Draws Up New War Plans to Pressure Hamas” (3/8/25) and “Israel Chokes Electricity Supply to Gaza to Pressure Hamas on Hostages” (3/9/25).

    A BBC article (3/21/25) on Katz’s orders to the military to “seize additional areas in Gaza” in the absence of a comprehensive hostage release is illustrative of the corporate media approach to round two of genocide. Specifying that “Israel and the US have accused Hamas of rejecting proposals to extend the ceasefire,” the BBC quoted Katz as warning that “the more Hamas continues its refusal, the more territory it will lose to Israel.” The article did allow Hamas a line of space in which to respond that it is “engaging with the mediators with full responsibility and seriousness,” but the sandwiching of this quote in between US/Israeli accusations intentionally implied its disingenuousness.

    Of course, the unmutilated truth does intermittently seep into media output, as in CNN’s Friday dispatch (3/21/25) containing these two sentences that lay out, in straightforward fashion, who is cooperating and who is not:

    Hamas has insisted on sticking to a timeline previously agreed with Israel and the US that would move the warring parties into a second phase of the truce, in which Israel would commit to ending the war. But Israel has refused, saying it wants to extend the first phase instead.

    Overall, however, the function of the corporate media is to endow demonstrably false US/Israeli accusations with a veneer of solid credibility, and to portray Hamas as the perennial saboteurs. Ultimately, unquestioningly reporting that Israel and the US have accused Hamas of rejecting proposals to extend the ceasefire is about the equivalent, in terms of journalistic integrity, as unquestioningly reporting that Israel and the US have accused Hamas of manufacturing nuclear jelly beans.

    By implicitly blaming Hamas for renewed hostilities and legitimizing Israeli “pressure,” media outlets have offered themselves up as platforms for the de facto justification of mass slaughter.

    A Thursday Fox News intervention (3/20/25) on Israel’s decision to “expand… activities in Gaza” noted approvingly that “the Israeli air force has continued to target and dismantle terrorists and terrorist infrastructure throughout” the coastal enclave. The article naturally came equipped with the assertion that Israel had resumed operations “following a short-lived ceasefire after it said the terror group repeatedly rebuffed offers to release the remaining hostages.”

    To be sure, “activities” is as good a euphemism for genocide as any. And as the corporate media carry on with their own militant activities, one wishes some sort of pressure could stop the truth from being held hostage.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  •  

    WSJ: Columbia Yields to Trump in Battle Over Federal Funding

    Explaining Columbia’s capitulation, the Wall Street Journal (3/21/25) reported that “the school believed there was considerable overlap between needed campus changes and Trump’s demands.”

    President Donald Trump’s campaign against higher education started with Columbia University, both with the withholding of $400 million in funding to force major management charges (Wall Street Journal, 3/21/25) and the arrest and threatened  deportation of grad student Mahmoud Khalil, one of the student leaders of Columbia’s  movement against the genocide in Gaza (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). The Columbia administration is reportedly acquiescing to the Trump administration, which would result in a mask ban and oversight of an academic department, to keep the dollars flowing.

    Trump’s focus on Columbia is no accident. Despite the fact that its administration largely agrees with Trump on the need to suppress protest against Israel, the university is a symbol of New York City, a hometown that he hates for its liberalism (City and State NY, 11/16/20). And it was a starting point for the national campus movement that began last year against US support for Israel’s brutal war against Gaza (Columbia Spectator, 4/18/24; AP, 4/30/24).

    And for those crimes, the new administration had to punish it severely. The New York Times editorial board (3/15/25) rightly presented the attack on higher education as part of an attack on the American democratic project: “​​Mr. Trump’s multifaceted campaign against higher education is core to this effort to weaken institutions that do not parrot his version of reality.”

    But the response to Columbia’s protests from establishment media—including at the Times—laid the groundwork for this fascistic nightmare. Leading outlets went out of their way to say the protests were so extreme that they went beyond the bounds of free speech. They painted them as antisemitic, despite the many Jews who participated in them, following the long tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism (In These Times, 7/13/20; FAIR.org, 10/17/23, 11/6/23). Opinion shapers found these viewpoints too out of the mainstream for the public to hear, and wrung their hands over students’ attempts to reform US foreign policy in the Middle East.

    ‘Incessant valorization of victimhood’

    NYT: Should American Jews Abandon Elite Universities?

    The New York Times‘ Bret Stephens (6/25/24) included Columbia on his list of schools that “have descended to open bigotry, institutional paralysis and mayhem.”

    I previously noted (FAIR.org, 10/11/24) that New York Times columnist John McWhorter (4/23/24), a Columbia instructor, made a name for himself defending the notion of free speech rights for the political right (even the racist right), but now wanted to insulate his students from hearing speech that came from a different political direction.

    Trump’s rhetoric today largely echoes in cruder terms that of Times columnist Bret Stephens (6/25/24) last summer, who wrote of anti-genocide protesters:

    How did the protesters at elite universities get their ideas of what to think and how to behave?

    They got them, I suspect, from the incessant valorization of victimhood that has been a theme of their upbringing, and which many of the most privileged kids feel they lack—hence the zeal to prove themselves as allies of the perceived oppressed. They got them from the crude schematics of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training seminars, which divide the world into “white” and “of color,” powerful and “marginalized,” with no regard for real-world complexities — including the complexity of Jewish identity.

    In fact, in the month before Khalil’s arrest, Stephens (2/27/25) called for swift and harsh punishments against anti-genocide protesters at Barnard College, which is part of Columbia:

    Enough. The students involved in this sit-in need to be identified and expelled, immediately and without exception. Any nonstudents at the sit-in should be charged with trespassing. Face-hiding masks that prevent the identification of the wearer need to be banned from campus. And incoming students need to be told, if they haven’t been told already, that an elite education is a privilege that comes with enforceable expectations, not an entitlement they can abuse at will.

    Stephens has been a big part of the movement against so-called cancel culture. That movement consists of journalists and professors who believe that criticism or rejection of bigoted points of views has a chilling effect on free speech. As various writers, including myself, have noted (Washington Post, 10/28/19; FAIR.org, 10/23/20, 5/20/21), this has often been a cover for simply wanting to censor speech to their left, and Stephens’ alignment with Trump here is evidence of that. The New York Times editorial board, not just Stephens, is part of that anti-progressive cohort (New York Times, 3/18/22; FAIR.org, 3/25/22).

    ‘Fervor that borders on the oppressive’

    Atlantic: What 'Intifada Revolution' Looks Like

    The Atlantic (5/5/24) identified Iddo Gefen as “a Ph.D. candidate in cognitive psychology at Columbia University and the author of Jerusalem Beach,” but not as an IDF veteran who spent three years in the Israeli military’s propaganda department.

    The Atlantic’s coverage of the protests was also troubling. The magazine’s Michael Powell, formerly of the New York Times, took issue with the protesters’ rhetoric (5/1/24), charging them with “a fervor that borders on the oppressive” (4/22/24).

    The magazine gave space to an Israeli graduate student, Iddo Gefen (5/5/24), who complained that some “Columbia students are embracing extreme rhetoric,” and said a sign with the words “by any means necessary” was “so painful and disturbing” that Gefen “left New York for a few days.” It’s hard to imagine the Atlantic giving such editorial space to a Palestinian student triggered by Zionist anti-Palestinian chants.

    The Atlantic was also unforgiving on the general topic of pro-Palestine campus protests. “Campus Protest Encampments are Unethical” (9/16/24) was the headline of an article by Conor Friedersdorf, while Judith Shulevitz (5/8/24) said that campus anti-genocide protest chants are “why some see the pro-Palestinian cause as so threatening.”

    ‘Belligerent elite college students’

    WaPo: At Columbia, Excuse the Students, but Not the Faculty

    Paul Berman (Washington Post, 4/26/24) writes that Columbia student protesters “horrify me” because they fail to understand that Israel “killing immense numbers of civilians” and “imposing famine-like conditions” is not as important as “Hamas and its goal,” which is “the eradication of the Israeli state.”

    The Washington Post likewise trashed the anti-genocide movement. Guest op-ed columnist Paul Berman (4/26/24) wrote that if he were in charge of Columbia, “I would turn in wrath on Columbia’s professors” who supported the students. He was particularly displeased with the phrase “from the river to the sea,” a chant demanding one democratic state in historic Palestine. Offering no evidence of ill will by the protesters who use the slogan, he said:

    I grant that, when students chant “from the river to the sea,” some people will claim to hear nothing more than a call for human rights for Palestinians. The students, some of them, might even half-deceive themselves on this matter. But it is insulting to have to debate these points, just as it is insulting to have to debate the meaning of the Confederate flag.

    The slogan promises eradication. It is an exciting slogan because it is transgressive, which is why the students love to chant it. And it is doubly shocking to see how many people rush to excuse the students without even pausing to remark on the horror embedded in the chants.

    Regular Post columnist Megan McArdle (4/25/24) said that Columbia protesters would be unlikely to change US support for Israel because “20-year-olds don’t necessarily make the best ambassadors for a cause.” She added:

    It’s difficult to imagine anything less likely to appeal to that voter than an unsanctioned tent city full of belligerent elite college students whose chants have at least once bordered on the antisemitic.

    ‘Death knell for a Jewish state’

    WaPo: I’ve read student protesters’ manifestos. This is ugly stuff. Clueless, too.

    While “defenders of the protesters dismiss manifestations of antisemitism…as unfortunate aberrations,” Max Boot (Washington Post, 5/6/24) writes. “But if you read what the protesters have written about their own movement, it’s clear that animus against Israel runs deep”—as though antisemitism and “animus against Israel” were the same thing.

    Fellow Post columnist Max Boot (5/6/24) dismissed the statement of anti-genocide Columbia protesters:

    The manifesto goes on to endorse “the Right of Return” for Palestinian refugees who have fled Israel since its creation in 1948. Allowing 7 million Palestinians—most of them the descendants of refugees—to move to Israel (with its 7 million Jewish and 2 million Arab residents) would be a death knell for Israel as a Jewish state. The protesters’ slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a call not for a two-state solution but for a single Palestinian state—and a mass exodus of Jews.

    Boot here gives away the pretense that Israel is a democracy. The idea of “one Palestine” is a democratic ideal whereby all people in historic Palestine—Jew, Muslim, Christian etc.—live with equal rights like in any normal democracy. But the idea of losing an ethnostate to egalitarianism is tantamount to “a mass exodus of Jews.”

    Thirty years after the elimination of apartheid in South Africa, the white population is 87% as large as it was under white supremacy. Is there any reason to think that a smaller percentage of Jews would be willing to live in a post-apartheid Israel/Palestine without Jewish supremacy?

    The New York Times, Atlantic and Washington Post fanned the flames of the right-wing pearl-clutching at the anti-genocide protests. Their writers may genuinely be aghast at Trump’s aggression toward universities now (Atlantic, 3/19/25, 3/20/25; Washington Post, 3/19/25, 3/21/25), but they might want to reflect on what they did to bring us to this point.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  •  

    As the hack-and-slash crusade of the “Department of Government Efficiency” picked up steam in early February, the Washington Post editorial board (2/7/25) gave President Donald Trump a tip on how to most effectively harness Elon Musk’s experience in “relentlessly innovating and constantly cutting costs”: Don’t just cut “low-hanging fruit,” but “reform entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare before they become insolvent.”

    Repeating the “flat Earth–type lie” of looming Social Security insolvency (Beat the Press, 5/8/24) has been a longtime hobby horse of corporate media, as has been reported at FAIR (e.g., 1/88, 6/25/19, 6/15/23) and elsewhere (Column, 8/4/23). While many leading newspapers have rightly called out Musk’s interventions into Social Security and the rest of the administrative state, they still push the pernicious myth that the widely popular social program is struggling and nearing insolvency, with few viable options for its rescue.

    ‘If nothing changes’

    WaPo: The crisis Biden and Trump don’t want to deal with

    The Washington Post (5/6/24) last year depicted Social Security as literally throwing money down a hole.

    An AP report (2/27/25) on Musk’s staffing cuts at the Social Security Administration, published in and then later taken down from the Washington Post (2/27/25), mentioned that “the program faces a looming bankruptcy date if it is not addressed by Congress.” It claimed that Social Security “will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035.” The New York Times (3/5/25) concurred that the program is “in such dire financial trouble that benefit cuts could come within a decade if nothing changes.”

    Such sky-is-falling reporting didn’t start with DOGE’s entry on the scene (e.g., New York Times, 1/26/86, 12/2/06; Washington Post, 11/8/80, 5/12/09). Indeed, the Post was beating this drum loudly after the 2024 Report of the Social Security Trustees was released last May. “Financial reality, though, is that if the programs aren’t reformed, and run out of money to pay required benefits, cuts could become unavoidable,” the Post editorial board (5/6/24) lamented.

    These arguments misrepresent the structure of Social Security. In general, Social Security operates as a “pay-as-you-go” system, where taxes on today’s workers fund benefits for today’s retirees. While this system is more resilient to financial downturn, it “can run into problems when demographic fluctuations raise the ratio of beneficiaries to covered workers” (Economic Policy Institute, 8/6/10). During the 1980s, to head off the glut of Baby Boomer retirements, the Social Security program raised revenues and cut benefits to build up a trust fund for surplus revenues.

    It’s worth noting that by setting up this fund, President Ronald Reagan helped to finance massive reductions in tax rates for the wealthy. By building up huge surpluses that the SSA was then required by law to pour into Treasury bonds, Reagan could defer the need to raise revenues into the future, when the SSA would begin tapping into the trust fund.

    As US demographics have shifted, with Boomers comfortably into their retirement years, the program no longer runs a surplus. Instead, the SSA makes up the difference between tax receipts and Social Security payments by dipping into the trust fund, as was designed. What would hypothetically go bankrupt in 2035 is not the Social Security program itself, but the trust fund. If this were to happen, the SSA would still operate the program, paying out entitlements at a prorated level of 83%, all from tax receipts.

    In other words, a non-original part of the Social Security program may sunset in 2035. While this could present funding challenges, it is not the same as the entire program collapsing, or becoming insolvent.

    Furthermore, the idea that a crisis is looming rests on nothing changing in Social Security’s funding structure. Luckily, Congress has ten years to come up with a solution to the Social Security shortfall. We aren’t fretting today about how to fund the Forest Service’s army of seasonal trail workers for the summer of 2035. There’s no need to lose sleep over Social Security funding, either. As economist Dean Baker (Beat the Press, 5/8/24) put it:

    There is no economic reason that we can’t pay benefits into the indefinite future, as long as we don’t face some sort of economic collapse from something like nuclear war or a climate disaster.

    The easy and popular option is not an option

    Bloomberg: Based on what you know, do you support or oppose the following policies to extend the life of Social Security?

    A Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll (4/24/24) of swing state voters found 77% in favor of raising taxes on billionaires to aid Social Security.

    There are three main solutions that can be found in stories about Social Security’s woes. In the wake of last year’s Trustees’ Report, the Washington Post (5/6/24) listed “the politically treacherous choices of raising the payroll tax, cutting benefits…or taking on more public debt to prop up the system.” The first two options increase the burden on workers, either by raising their taxes, or cutting benefits that they are entitled to, and have already begun paying into. The third option, taking on more public debt, is no doubt a nonstarter for the deficit hawks at the Post.

    But this explainer-style news piece, titled “The US Has Updated Its Social Security Estimates. Here’s What You Need to Know,” neglected to mention the easiest and most popular option: raising the cap on income from which Social Security taxes are withheld.

    In 2025, income up to $176,100 is taxed for Social Security purposes. Anything beyond that is not. In other words, the architect making close to 200 grand a year pays the same amount into Social Security as the chief executive who takes home seven figures. One simple, and popular, way to increase funding for Social Security is to raise that regressive cap.

    To be fair to the Post, the cap increase has been mentioned elsewhere in its pages, including in an opinion piece (5/6/24) by the editorial board published that same day. However, despite acknowledging that “many Americans support the idea” of raising the limit, the editorial board lumps this idea in with “raising the retirement age for younger generations and slowing benefit growth for the top half of earners,” before concluding that “these [solutions] won’t be popular or painless.”

    Raising the cap on income is, in fact, popular (as the Post editorial board itself acknowledged), and the only pain it would cause is for the top 6% of income-earners who take home more than $176,100. The New York Times (3/5/25) also mentions a cap increase as an idea to “stabilize” the program, only to say that “no one on Capitol Hill is talking seriously about raising that cap any time soon.” Why that is the case is left unsaid.

    Even more popular than raising the cap on wages was President Joe Biden’s proposed billionaires tax, which “would place a 25% levy on households worth more than $100 million. The plan taxes accumulated wealth, so it ends up hitting money that often goes untaxed under current laws” (Bloomberg, 4/24/24). Perhaps unsurprisingly, this kind of solution was not explored in the Times, nor in the billionaire-owned Post.

    Useful misinformation

    Reports of Social Security’s impending demise are greatly exaggerated. As economist Paul Van De Water wrote for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (7/24/24):

    Those who claim that Social Security won’t be around at all when today’s young adults retire and that young workers will receive no benefits either misunderstand or misrepresent the trustees’ projections.

    Social Security’s imminent demise may not be true, but it’s very useful to those who want to rob all the workers who have dutifully paid their Social Security taxes, by misleading them into thinking it’s simply not possible to pay them back what they’re owed when they retire.

    Compared to the retirement programs of global peers, the United States forces its workers to retire later, gives retirees fewer benefits and taxes its citizens more regressively (Washington Post, 7/19/24). Despite this, Americans still love Social Security, and want the government to spend money on it. Far from cuts called for by anxious columnists, the only overhaul Social Security needs is better benefits and a fairer tax system.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  •  

    Donald Trump is back in office. Tech mogul Elon Musk, now a senior adviser to the president, is helming a government advisory body with an acronym derived from a memecoin: DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). That organization is sinking its teeth into the federal government, and drawing blood.

    Tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands, of federal employees are being laid off this year. Over a dozen agencies have been affected. Executive power is being wielded so wildly that a federal judge has lamented “what appears to be the unchecked authority of an unelected individual and an entity that was not created by Congress and over which it has no oversight.”

    The Fourth Estate is tasked with serving as a check on abuses of power. But US media were not designed for this.

    Though critical in much of their reporting, corporate outlets have at the same time substantially legitimized the project of DOGE. For one, longstanding fearmongering about government spending in the news sections of corporate outlets has elevated precisely the right-wing vision of government animating DOGE.

    Even more worryingly, however, criticism of DOGE by major editorial boards has been weak, and in some cases has been overshadowed by these boards’ support for the ideas behind DOGE, or even for DOGE itself.

    Government spending ‘skyrocketed’

    New York Times: Even Progressives Now Worry About the Federal Debt

    The New York Times (1/30/25) claims “even progressives now worry about the federal debt”—though an extensive recent analysis (PERI, 4/20) of the impact of debt by progressive economists found that “the relationship between government debt and economic growth is essentially zero.”

     

    Corporate media’s ever-present fearmongering about spending is well-illustrated by the New York Times, which, within a week and a half of Trump’s inauguration, had already run the headline: “Even Progressives Now Worry About the Federal Debt” (1/30/25). The next day, the paper ran a separate article (1/31/25) by Michael Shear, which stated:

    The amount of money the government spends has skyrocketed under Democratic and Republican presidents. Total federal spending in 2015 was $4.89 trillion, according to federal data. In 2024, it was $6.75 trillion. Even when accounting for the growth of the overall economy, spending as a percentage of gross domestic product was higher in 2024 than it was eight years earlier.

    The paragraph at least avoided the classic tactic of throwing out raw numbers without giving any sort of metric, like GDP, to measure them against. But it nonetheless gave far from the full picture, not even offering numbers for spending as a percentage of GDP, which showed a minor increase of 3 percentage points over this period, to 23%—the same percentage that was spent in 2011.

    Even more useful to include than this data, however, would have been international data showing how much the US spends in comparison to other rich countries. As it turns out, the answer is: quite little. And the US taxes even less.

    Readers might also be interested to learn that tax cuts, not spending increases, have been primarily responsible for increases in the US’s debt-to-GDP ratio in recent decades, according to an analysis by the Center for American Progress (3/27/23). The group emphasized: “Without the Bush and Trump tax cuts, debt as a percentage of the economy would be declining permanently.” Given that reality, CAP concluded:

    If Congress wants to decrease deficits, it should look first toward reversing tax cuts that largely benefited the wealthy, which were responsible for the United States’ current fiscal outlook.

    FRED: Federal Net Outlays as Percent of Gross Domestic Product

    Federal outlays as a percentage of GDP have been nearly constant for the past 75 years (FRED).

    ‘The big areas of the budget’

    NYT: Beneath Trump’s Chaotic Spending Freeze: An Idea That Crosses Party Lines

    The New York Times‘ Michael Shear (1/31/25) wrote that Trump was attempting “to somehow reverse the seemingly inexorable growth of the federal government, an issue that resonates with some Democrats as well as most Republicans.”

    If corporate media like the New York Times were serious about informing readers about the causes of and answers to high government debt, they would, like CAP, debunk right-wing deficit hawk propaganda, rather than reinforce it.

    Instead, the Times‘ Shear (1/31/25) decided to provide his readers with extensive quotation from Maya MacGuineas, an extreme deficit hawk who got an early boost in her career “from the patronage of billionaire investment banker and arch-austerian Pete Peterson,” as the New Republic (3/4/21) recounted in a 2021 piece. Shear merely described her as “the president of the bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.”

    MacGuineas is the only expert Shear cites in the piece, and the article closes with her warning that Musk’s cuts “would not be enough to confront the nation’s burgeoning debt from spending too much over many decades.” “To make a real impact on the debt,” MacGuineas said:

    We are going to have to look at the big areas of the budget for savings—Social Security, healthcare and revenues—the very same areas both political parties are tripping over themselves not to address.

    The decision to include only an austerity advocate, and to allow her proclamation about the need for cuts to Social Security to end the piece, inevitably grants legitimacy to her claims. These claims are at the very least meant to be taken seriously, even more so since they come from a supposedly independent expert rather than a politician or government official. The decision to include no left-wing expert has a similar effect in reverse.

    Meanwhile, in the paper’s piece (1/30/25) from the previous day about “progressive worry,” reporter Lydia DePillis managed to bury the key point in the 21st paragraph:

    But mostly, Democrats say, the government simply needs more revenue to support the increasing number of people who are becoming eligible for retirement benefits.

    Debt-scolding reporting

    WaPo: U.S. deficit hits $1.8 trillion as interest costs rise

    The Washington Post (10/8/24) sounds the alarm over the United States having a debt-to-GDP ratio similar to that of Britain, France and Canada—and much lower than Japan’s.

    The Times is hardly the only outlet to legitimize alarmism about government spending. In a debt-scolding piece of reporting from last fall, the Washington Post (10/8/24) hammered on the point that runaway spending should be a major concern.

    The choice of headline, “US Deficit Hits $1.8 Trillion as Interest Costs Rise,” immediately linked debt concerns to spending, not taxes. The first paragraph described the $1.8 trillion figure as “an enormous sum”—probably equally applicable to any sum over a billion dollars in the average American’s mind—while the fourth paragraph warned:

    The nation’s debt compared with the size of the overall economy, a key metric of fiscal stability, is projected to exceed its all-time high of 106% by 2027.

    Once again, international comparison would have been helpful here. It could be noted that the US, in fact, has a rather typical amount of debt compared to many other rich countries these days, with Britain, Canada, Spain, France and Italy all posting similar debt-to-GDP numbers. Greece, meanwhile, has a debt-to-GDP ratio close to 170%, while Japan boasts a ratio of around 250%. As Mark Copelovitch, a professor of political science and public affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has noted:

    If these countries can sustain debt levels 50–150% higher than our current levels, then the question of whether we can do so has already been answered. Indeed, it does not even need to be asked.

    The Post, evidently, had no interest in providing such context. No international figures were cited. Instead, the next lines were a quote from a conservative economist:

    A [nearly] $2 trillion deficit is bad news during a recession and war, but completely unprecedented during peace and prosperity…. The danger is the deficit will only get bigger over the next decade due to retiring baby boomers and interest on the debt.

    Notice once more the linking of the increase in debt to spending rather than tax cuts.

    The ‘soaring’ debt that wasn’t

    WSJ: Federal Debt Is Soaring. Here’s Why Trump and Harris Aren’t Talking About It.

    The federal debt the Wall Street Journal (9/16/24) claimed was “soaring” was a smaller percentage of GDP in 2024 than in 2020.

    The piece continued on to cite deficit hawk MacGuineas—described as the president of “a top Washington fiscal watchdog”—denouncing the “patchwork of targeted fiscal bribes” being offered to voters by the presidential candidates. And it ended with a quote from “president of the right-leaning American Action Forum and a former CBO director” Doug Holtz-Eakin, reminding us that debt servicing costs will have to be paid and will crowd out other spending priorities.

    Unmentioned by the Post is that Holtz-Eakin held high posts in the George W. Bush administration and the John McCain presidential campaign. He also oversaw the creation of an infamous bogus cost estimate for the Green New Deal. Yet the Post portrays him as just an expert who leans a bit to the right.

    Though the Post consulted three right-wing sources, they failed to include a single left-leaning independent expert. It’s not hard to understand how that fails readers, or how it legitimizes a certain set of priorities, while suggesting other views lack credibility.

    The Wall Street Journal, for its part, has been more than happy to join the general fretting in corporate media about government spending. Back in the fall, for instance, a piece in its news section (9/16/24) complained that the presidential race was not focusing sufficiently on the issue of rising government debt, and flagged Social Security and Medicare as “the biggest drivers of rising spending.” The headline read: “Federal Debt Is Soaring. Here’s Why Trump and Harris Aren’t Talking About It.”

    The problem with that headline? In the fall of 2024, federal debt was decidedly not soaring. This holds whether you look at federal debt in nominal dollar terms or as a percentage of GDP. Federal debt had “soared” briefly in 2020, when the Covid recession hit and the government rapidly expanded its spending to deal with the downturn. But for most of 2024, the quarterly percentage increase in the federal debt in dollar terms was actually below the historical average going back to 1970. And the debt-to-GDP ratio was at roughly the same spot as it had been three-and-a-half years earlier, at the start of Biden’s presidency.

    ‘Shutting off the lights’

    WSJ: The Federal Spending Boom Rolls On

    For the Wall Street Journal (2/10/25), refusing to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid “is like saying you want to go on a diet except for the beer, chips and ice cream sundaes.”

    Even more concerning than corporate media’s penchant for running articles in the news section fearmongering about government spending, though, is what has been going on in corporate outlets’ opinion sections, specifically with the output of their editorial boards. Here, the legitimization of DOGE has reached its highest heights.

    Unsurprisingly, the unabashedly right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board has been the prime offender. Most recently, it published an editorial (3/14/25) with the headline “Don’t Cry for the Education Department,” applauding the unconstitutional DOGE-led attack on the Education Department, which the Journal chastened for “harassing schools, states and districts with progressive diktats on everything from transgender bathroom use to Covid-19 mask rules.”

    The final paragraph began: “The closer Mr. Trump can get to shutting off the lights at the Education Department, the better.”

    This was just one of numerous Journal editorials in recent weeks cheering on the DOGE project. A sampling of other editorials:

    • “Hurricane Musk and the USAID Panic” (2/4/25) argued that Musk should be contained, but that he is “also hitting targets that have long deserved scrutiny and reform, which helps explain the wailing over the US Agency for International Development.”
    • “The Federal Spending Boom Rolls On” (2/10/25) declared that “DOGE is a good idea,” and claimed that it had not gone far enough: “But for all of Mr. Musk’s frenetic tweeting, and the Beltway cries of Apocalypse Now, so far DOGE is only nibbling at the edges of Washington’s spending problem.”
    • “Judge Wants DOGE Facts, Not Fears” (2/19/25) ended, “Democrats hunting for a constitutional crisis might want to show evidence before they cry ‘dictator.’”

    In short, then, the Journal editorial board not only approves of a rogue pseudo-agency operating with no transparency or oversight, but has become a crusader in defense of DOGE’s attacks on constitutional checks and balances—which grant Congress, not a right-wing ideologue from the PayPal Mafia, the power of the purse.

    Of course, you can expect little else from the Journal than salivation over cuts to federal spending—it has long been the lapdog of right-wing billionaire Rupert Murdoch. But it is jarring to witness exactly how rabid the Journal editorial board can be.

    Not ‘audacious’ enough

    WaPo: Trump needs to erect guardrails for DOGE

    The Washington Post says it’s “true that the $36 trillion national debt is unsustainable and there’s plenty of bloat in government.”

    For its part, the Washington Post editorial board, while describing DOGE as a “circus” (2/24/25), has substantially legitimized DOGE’s mission.

    An editorial (2/7/25) from early February is case in point. Headlined “Trump Needs to Erect Guardrails for DOGE,” the piece offered five ways for Trump to “be clear about who is boss,” effectively endorsing the mission of slashing government spending while expressing concern over some of Musk’s tactics.

    The first four proposed guardrails in the piece, which include “Vet Musk’s operatives” and “Limit Musk’s access to sensitive files,” are all reasonable, but the fifth proposal reveals the board’s substantive concerns about the spending cuts being executed by DOGE. These concerns are not about whether cuts should be made—it is taken for granted that government spending should be reduced. Rather, they have to do with which spending is cut, aligning with the concerns raised by the Wall Street Journal about DOGE not going far enough.

    This proposal, labeled “Focus on the biggest drivers of the national debt,” read:

    To have any chance of achieving Musk’s audacious goal of $2 trillion in cuts, Trump will need to work with elected representatives in Congress to reform entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare before they become insolvent. Other sensitive areas of the balance sheet, including the Pentagon budget and veterans’ benefits, cannot stay off the table forever.

    For the Post, then, the focus on programs such as USAID is simply too limited. We must put Social Security, Medicare and veterans’ benefits on the table!

    ‘Embrace the same thinking’

    WaPo: The DOGE ethos comes to state governments

    The “DOGE ethos,” according to the Washington Post (3/3/25), means making “governments leaner and more efficient.”

    The Washington Post’s preference for substantial cuts to federal government is further illustrated by an editorial (3/3/25) published in early March, following Jeff Bezos’s rebranding of the Post as Wall Street Journal–lite.

    The editorial, titled “The DOGE Ethos Comes to State Governments,” showered praise on state governments that are capitalizing on DOGE branding while pursuing a more “thoughtful” approach to reducing government spending.

    The piece favorably cited Washington state Democratic Gov. Bob Ferguson’s insistence that “I’m not here to defend government…. I’m here to reform it.” The board elaborated:

    Democrats in DC ought to embrace the same thinking. It’s foolish to defend a status quo that most voters think doesn’t work well. By fighting Trump and Musk tooth and nail, at the expense of presenting an alternative vision, the opposition risks appearing overly keen to protect hidebound institutions even as the world changes rapidly.

    The Post’s take on DOGE? Let’s not center its blatant illegality. Let’s instead focus on what we can learn from it. After all, with a few minor tweaks, it’s exactly what we as a country need.

    ‘A great American success story’

    NYT: Musk Doesn’t Understand Why Government Matters

    New York Times says of Elon Musk, “he’s right: The federal government is often wasteful and inefficient.” But he’s going about it the wrong way.

    The appallingly low bar set by the competition leaves the New York Times to assume the role of the major national newspaper that will seriously attack DOGE. It takes to this role…poorly.

    The Times editorial board’s pushback against DOGE has been embarrassingly feeble. Its most direct assessment of DOGE thus far (3/8/25), for instance, began with an uncomfortably obsequious description of Musk:

    Elon Musk’s life is a great American success story. Time and again, he has anticipated where the world was headed, helping to create not just new products but new industries.

    The board quickly conceded a major point to Musk:

    Mr. Musk claims that the government is a business in need of disruption and that his goal is to eliminate waste and improve efficiency. And he’s right: The federal government is often wasteful and inefficient.

    The editorial went on to make a number of criticisms of DOGE, but its critique was undermined by this odd willingness to bend over backwards to appease Musk and his supporters.

    Meanwhile, though sharply critical of DOGE’s disregard for the Constitution, the editorial made no attempt at presenting a counter-vision of government. It lamented cuts to a hodgepodge of specific government programs, but it had nothing to say in defense of current levels of government spending, let alone in favor of even higher levels of spending. One would hardly know that many wealthy countries have significantly higher levels of government spending and happier populations—in fact, at least 16 OECD countries register both higher spending and higher happiness than the US.

    A gaping hole

    This, then, is the state of American corporate media at the start of the Trump presidency. Across arguably the three most important national newspapers—the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal—there is broad agreement that government spending is out of control and that something, perhaps something drastic, needs to be done about it.

    Even at the leftmost of these organizations, the New York Times, the editorial board appears incapable of mounting a case for social democratic levels of government spending in the face of extreme attacks on spending by the Trump administration. The Times, instead, finds itself caught between bowing before the titans of American capitalism and confronting their disregard for the US Constitution.

    The Washington Post has been able to adopt a somewhat less tortured position, occupying the center/center-right in a way reminiscent of 1990s Democrats, supporting cuts to government, but in a “thoughtful” way.

    The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile, is having the time of its life. Finding itself once again in an era when greed and meanness animate the daily actions of government, it must feel freer than it has in years to bare its teeth at the true enemies of the American republic: teachers’ unions and recipients of government aid.

    News consumers have no major paper espousing a truly progressive perspective. On the topic of government spending, at least, the window of acceptable thought appears to span from the center to the far right. There is no direct marketing reason for this—there’s a sizeable audience in the US that would welcome a progressive outlet, the same way there’s a sizeable audience for right-wing outlets like the Wall Street Journal or Fox News.

    Who doesn’t want such an outlet to appear? Ultra-wealthy right-wing Americans of the sort that own and sponsor much of the media landscape. If wealthy people aren’t willing to finance a progressive media outlet that can compete with major papers, it seems that such an outlet simply won’t exist. Crowdfunding could help progressive media overcome this issue, but the playing field is not level.

    As it stands, a major progressive outlet that can compete with the existing dominant players does not exist, and does not seem to be coming anytime soon. The gaping hole left as a result is becoming only more apparent as we speed into Trump administration 2.0.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  •  

    In These Times: My Name is Mahmoud Khalil and I Am a Political Prisoner

    Mahmoud Khalil (In These Times, 3/18/25): “At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”

    The arrest and possible deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card holder with a student visa, for his organizing role at Gaza solidarity protests last year has sent shockwaves throughout American society.

    As I wrote at Haaretz (3/11/25), Khalil’s arrest is an intense blow to free speech, as punishment for speech and other First Amendment-protected activities will create a huge chilling effect. In a piece denouncing Khalil’s arrest, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (3/10/25) quoted American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Brian Hauss saying, “This seems like one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to First Amendment freedoms in 50 years.”

    In a letter (In These Times, 3/18/25) dictated over the phone from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, Khalil said, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”

    While a judge blocked his deportation, as of this writing, Khalil is still in ICE custody (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). AP (3/9/25) reported that his arrest is the first known “deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept college campuses” last year. The Trump administration argues, according to the news service, that people like Khalil, whose Green Card was revoked by the State Department, “forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.”

    Alarms raised

    Intercept: The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free

    The Intercept (3/13/25) points out that the law being used against Khalid Mahmoud says one can’t be deported based on “past, current or expected beliefs, statements or associations, if such beliefs, statements or associations would be lawful within the United States.”

    Many in the media have raised alarms about the extreme threat to free speech represented by Khalil’s arrest. Even the editorial board (3/12/25) of the increasingly Trump-pandering Washington Post warned, “If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?” Other corporate newspapers and outlets (Bloomberg, 3/11/25; USA Today, 3/13/25; Boston Globe, 3/14/25; Financial Times, 3/14/25) published similar defenses of Khalil’s First Amendment rights, arguing that his arrest fundamentally threatens American liberty.

    There is a good reason for the outcry. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, but the executive branch, without consulting a judge, revoked his legal status based on his political speech. As the Intercept (3/13/25) described, the federal government is invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act, in which the secretary of state has

    the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a US citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.

    The Department of Homeland Security justified the arrest on its claims that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” In other words, the Trump administration has revoked Khalil’s Green Card, arrested him and intends to deport him based on his constitutionally protected protest activities.

    Rupert Murdoch’s outlets, rather than speak out against this shredding of the First Amendment, have been promoting the Trump administration line. The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.

    ‘Inimical to the US’

    New York Post: ICE Knowing You!

    The New York Post (3/10/25) cheers on “President Trump’s crackdown on unrest at colleges.”

    The New York Post (3/10/25) ran the cover headline “ICE Knowing You!” Its editorial board (3/9/25) childishly wrote that “ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray!” It said that the anti-genocide protest “movement was never merely about protest.”

    Two scholars at the right-wing Manhattan Institute, Ilya Shapiro and Daniel DiMartino, took to the Post op-ed page (3/11/25) to counter the free-speech defense of Khalil. They deemed the Gaza protests “illegal,” saying that stripping permanent residents of the legal protections for those “who reject our values or are hostile to our way of life” doesn’t threaten constitutional freedom.

    While admitting “we don’t know the details of the due process he’s been given”—which is a crucial consideration when it comes to constitutional protections—the duo said, “But one thing is clear: the executive branch has the authority to vet noncitizens based on their views, thanks to the laws Congress has passed and the Supreme Court has upheld.”

    The Post piece repeats a point Shapiro made at the conservative City Journal (3/7/25): “While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States.” Who decides what are “causes” that are “inimical”? Secretary of State Marco Rubio, apparently.

    Fox News (3/12/25) also referred to Khalil as “pro-Hamas,” reporting that the Department of Homeland Security said “that Khalil ‘led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.’” The link between Khalil’s participation in protests and supporting Hamas is spurious on its face. If demanding a ceasefire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too. Younger Americans, in particular, stand out for their support of Palestinians in the current war (Pew Research, 4/2/24).

    Not ‘really about speech’

    WSJ: If You Hate America, Why Come Here?

    Matthew Hennessey (Wall Street Journal, 3/12/25) is an extreme example, but many right-wing journalists seem to revile free expression.

    The more erudite but no less fanatically right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/12/25) said, “A Green Card comes with legal obligations, including the disavowal of terrorism,” and that “Khalil seems to have violated that obligation.” The board matter-of-factly stated, “The case against Mr. Khalil will depend on the facts of his support for Hamas.”

    ​​Matthew Hennessey, the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor (3/12/25), also called him a “pro-Hamas Columbia agitator,” adding, “If he didn’t love [the US], why didn’t he leave it? The world is big. It has many elite universities.” Hennessey added, “When you’re a guest, it’s more than bad manners to cheer the slaughter of your host’s friends.” There’s no proof offered that Khalil did anything illegal, only that he said some things Hennessey didn’t like.

    Journal columnist William McGurn (3/10/25) also dismissed the free speech concerns, saying that these protests went beyond speech—again, offering no evidence other than that the president said so. And he warned that pesky judges who stick too close to the Bill of Rights and the rule of law will get in the way of Khalil’s deportation. He said:

    “So I bet what will happen,” says Berkeley law professor John Yoo, “is that even though the immigration law says the alien students can be deported, there will be a district judge somewhere who says that the president cannot use that power to punish people based on their First Amendment–protected beliefs and speech. But the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law.”

    These “protests” weren’t really about speech. If all the “protesters” had done was stand outside waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans, no one would be talking about deportation. Mr. Trump laid out his rationale on Truth Social: “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it.”

    ‘War on Terror’ playbook

    Extra!: Whistling Past the Wreckage of Civil Liberties

    Janine Jackson (Extra!, 9/11): “Elite media’s fealty to official rationales and their anemic defense of the public’s rights have amounted to dereliction of duty.”

    Feeling some déjà vu? The right-wing media’s defense of arresting and deporting a Green Card holder for engaging in protest rests on simply labeling him and the protests as “pro-Hamas,” the idea being that any criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza is an endorsement of the Palestinian militant group that the US State Department designates as a terrorist organization.

    As I told CNN International’s Connect the World (3/12/25), the situation feels similar to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when it was common for supporters of George W. Bush, including his allies in the right-wing press, to label antiwar protesters as endorsers of anti-American terrorist violence.

    Oppose the invasion of Afghanistan? You must be pro–Al Qaeda. Oppose the invasion of Iraq? You must be supportive of Saddam Hussein’s regime. This helped brand any questioning of the administration as treasonous, helping to build consensus not just for aggressive military imperialism at abroad, but in curtailing civil liberties for Americans at home (Extra!, 9/11).

    So it’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.” Calling Khalil and the anti-genocide protests, which include thousands of supporters of many backgrounds—prominently including Jews—“pro-Hamas” is just another tired trick in the “War on Terror” propaganda playbook.

    To understand how shallow this tactic is, keep in mind that Khalil has been on record about his politics and the issue of antisemitism. As a key negotiator for the protests, he had appeared on CNN and was asked about the protests and their impact on the Jewish community. The network (CNN, 4/29/24) summarized:

    “I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined. They go hand in hand. Antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement,” Khalil said, noting that some members of Columbia’s encampment are Jewish and held Passover seders earlier this week, led by Jewish Voices for Peace.

    “They are an integral part of this movement,” Khalil said of the organization.

    Helping to crush dissent

    Guardian: Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree

    The Guardian (7/20/20) more helpfully IDed John Yoo as a “Bush torture lawyer.”

    Note that the Journal‘s McGurn sought comments from Yoo, who is identified only as a law professor, and not a Bush administration attorney who notoriously supported the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” (NPR, 2/23/10), or as an advisor to the first Trump administration on its aggressive anti-immigration methods (Guardian, 7/20/20). Yoo is also a proponent of applying the unitary executive theory to the Trump administration, which for Yoo, according to the Los Angeles Review of Books (11/1/20),

    becomes a springboard to justify Trump’s authoritarian policies on war, immigration, deregulation, executive branch appointments, pardons and the supervision of Justice Department investigations.

    Israel’s own record on respecting freedom of speech is spotty, and has gotten worse since it launched the assault on Gaza (Democracy Now!, 11/9/23; CBC, 5/30/24; 972, 6/24/24; Freedom of the Press Foundation, 10/25/25; Times of Israel, 3/12/25). Israel, however, does not have a constitution, and activists and scholars have chronicled the nation’s erosion of democratic norms (Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21; Journal of Democracy, 7/23; Haaretz, 8/1/23; Deutsche Welle, 11/28/24). The United States is supposed to be governed by a constitution that, at least on paper, sets the gold standard among nations in protecting freedom of speech.

    Alas, in the name of patriotism, the Murdoch press wants to erode that part of America’s tradition in order to help the Trump administration amass power and crush dissent.

     

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  •  

    In These Times: My Name is Mahmoud Khalil and I Am a Political Prisoner

    Mahmoud Khalil (In These Times, 3/18/25): “At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”

    The arrest and possible deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card holder with a student visa, for his organizing role at Gaza solidarity protests last year has sent shockwaves throughout American society.

    As I wrote at Haaretz (3/11/25), Khalil’s arrest is an intense blow to free speech, as punishment for speech and other First Amendment-protected activities will create a huge chilling effect. In a piece denouncing Khalil’s arrest, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (3/10/25) quoted American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Brian Hauss saying, “This seems like one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to First Amendment freedoms in 50 years.”

    In a letter (In These Times, 3/18/25) dictated over the phone from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, Khalil said, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”

    While a judge blocked his deportation, as of this writing, Khalil is still in ICE custody (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). AP (3/9/25) reported that his arrest is the first known “deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept college campuses” last year. The Trump administration argues, according to the news service, that people like Khalil, whose Green Card was revoked by the State Department, “forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.”

    Alarms raised

    Intercept: The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free

    The Intercept (3/13/25) points out that the law being used against Khalid Mahmoud says one can’t be deported based on “past, current or expected beliefs, statements or associations, if such beliefs, statements or associations would be lawful within the United States.”

    Many in the media have raised alarms about the extreme threat to free speech represented by Khalil’s arrest. Even the editorial board (3/12/25) of the increasingly Trump-pandering Washington Post warned, “If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?” Other corporate newspapers and outlets (Bloomberg, 3/11/25; USA Today, 3/13/25; Boston Globe, 3/14/25; Financial Times, 3/14/25) published similar defenses of Khalil’s First Amendment rights, arguing that his arrest fundamentally threatens American liberty.

    There is a good reason for the outcry. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, but the executive branch, without consulting a judge, revoked his legal status based on his political speech. As the Intercept (3/13/25) described, the federal government is invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act, in which the secretary of state has

    the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a US citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.

    The Department of Homeland Security justified the arrest on its claims that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” In other words, the Trump administration has revoked Khalil’s Green Card, arrested him and intends to deport him based on his constitutionally protected protest activities.

    Rupert Murdoch’s outlets, rather than speak out against this shredding of the First Amendment, have been promoting the Trump administration line. The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.

    ‘Inimical to the US’

    New York Post: ICE Knowing You!

    The New York Post (3/10/25) cheers on “President Trump’s crackdown on unrest at colleges.”

    The New York Post (3/10/25) ran the cover headline “ICE Knowing You!” Its editorial board (3/9/25) childishly wrote that “ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray!” It said that the anti-genocide protest “movement was never merely about protest.”

    Two scholars at the right-wing Manhattan Institute, Ilya Shapiro and Daniel DiMartino, took to the Post op-ed page (3/11/25) to counter the free-speech defense of Khalil. They deemed the Gaza protests “illegal,” saying that stripping permanent residents of the legal protections for those “who reject our values or are hostile to our way of life” doesn’t threaten constitutional freedom.

    While admitting “we don’t know the details of the due process he’s been given”—which is a crucial consideration when it comes to constitutional protections—the duo said, “But one thing is clear: the executive branch has the authority to vet noncitizens based on their views, thanks to the laws Congress has passed and the Supreme Court has upheld.”

    The Post piece repeats a point Shapiro made at the conservative City Journal (3/7/25): “While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States.” Who decides what are “causes” that are “inimical”? Secretary of State Marco Rubio, apparently.

    Fox News (3/12/25) also referred to Khalil as “pro-Hamas,” reporting that the Department of Homeland Security said “that Khalil ‘led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.’” The link between Khalil’s participation in protests and supporting Hamas is spurious on its face. If demanding a ceasefire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too. Younger Americans, in particular, stand out for their support of Palestinians in the current war (Pew Research, 4/2/24).

    Not ‘really about speech’

    WSJ: If You Hate America, Why Come Here?

    Matthew Hennessey (Wall Street Journal, 3/12/25) is an extreme example, but many right-wing journalists seem to revile free expression.

    The more erudite but no less fanatically right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/12/25) said, “A Green Card comes with legal obligations, including the disavowal of terrorism,” and that “Khalil seems to have violated that obligation.” The board matter-of-factly stated, “The case against Mr. Khalil will depend on the facts of his support for Hamas.”

    ​​Matthew Hennessey, the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor (3/12/25), also called him a “pro-Hamas Columbia agitator,” adding, “If he didn’t love [the US], why didn’t he leave it? The world is big. It has many elite universities.” Hennessey added, “When you’re a guest, it’s more than bad manners to cheer the slaughter of your host’s friends.” There’s no proof offered that Khalil did anything illegal, only that he said some things Hennessey didn’t like.

    Journal columnist William McGurn (3/10/25) also dismissed the free speech concerns, saying that these protests went beyond speech—again, offering no evidence other than that the president said so. And he warned that pesky judges who stick too close to the Bill of Rights and the rule of law will get in the way of Khalil’s deportation. He said:

    “So I bet what will happen,” says Berkeley law professor John Yoo, “is that even though the immigration law says the alien students can be deported, there will be a district judge somewhere who says that the president cannot use that power to punish people based on their First Amendment–protected beliefs and speech. But the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law.”

    These “protests” weren’t really about speech. If all the “protesters” had done was stand outside waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans, no one would be talking about deportation. Mr. Trump laid out his rationale on Truth Social: “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it.”

    ‘War on Terror’ playbook

    Extra!: Whistling Past the Wreckage of Civil Liberties

    Janine Jackson (Extra!, 9/11): “Elite media’s fealty to official rationales and their anemic defense of the public’s rights have amounted to dereliction of duty.”

    Feeling some déjà vu? The right-wing media’s defense of arresting and deporting a Green Card holder for engaging in protest rests on simply labeling him and the protests as “pro-Hamas,” the idea being that any criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza is an endorsement of the Palestinian militant group that the US State Department designates as a terrorist organization.

    As I told CNN International’s Connect the World (3/12/25), the situation feels similar to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when it was common for supporters of George W. Bush, including his allies in the right-wing press, to label antiwar protesters as endorsers of anti-American terrorist violence.

    Oppose the invasion of Afghanistan? You must be pro–Al Qaeda. Oppose the invasion of Iraq? You must be supportive of Saddam Hussein’s regime. This helped brand any questioning of the administration as treasonous, helping to build consensus not just for aggressive military imperialism at abroad, but in curtailing civil liberties for Americans at home (Extra!, 9/11).

    So it’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.” Calling Khalil and the anti-genocide protests, which include thousands of supporters of many backgrounds—prominently including Jews—“pro-Hamas” is just another tired trick in the “War on Terror” propaganda playbook.

    To understand how shallow this tactic is, keep in mind that Khalil has been on record about his politics and the issue of antisemitism. As a key negotiator for the protests, he had appeared on CNN and was asked about the protests and their impact on the Jewish community. The network (CNN, 4/29/24) summarized:

    “I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined. They go hand in hand. Antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement,” Khalil said, noting that some members of Columbia’s encampment are Jewish and held Passover seders earlier this week, led by Jewish Voices for Peace.

    “They are an integral part of this movement,” Khalil said of the organization.

    Helping to crush dissent

    Guardian: Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree

    The Guardian (7/20/20) more helpfully IDed John Yoo as a “Bush torture lawyer.”

    Note that the Journal‘s McGurn sought comments from Yoo, who is identified only as a law professor, and not a Bush administration attorney who notoriously supported the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” (NPR, 2/23/10), or as an advisor to the first Trump administration on its aggressive anti-immigration methods (Guardian, 7/20/20). Yoo is also a proponent of applying the unitary executive theory to the Trump administration, which for Yoo, according to the Los Angeles Review of Books (11/1/20),

    becomes a springboard to justify Trump’s authoritarian policies on war, immigration, deregulation, executive branch appointments, pardons and the supervision of Justice Department investigations.

    Israel’s own record on respecting freedom of speech is spotty, and has gotten worse since it launched the assault on Gaza (Democracy Now!, 11/9/23; CBC, 5/30/24; 972, 6/24/24; Freedom of the Press Foundation, 10/25/25; Times of Israel, 3/12/25). Israel, however, does not have a constitution, and activists and scholars have chronicled the nation’s erosion of democratic norms (Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21; Journal of Democracy, 7/23; Haaretz, 8/1/23; Deutsche Welle, 11/28/24). The United States is supposed to be governed by a constitution that, at least on paper, sets the gold standard among nations in protecting freedom of speech.

    Alas, in the name of patriotism, the Murdoch press wants to erode that part of America’s tradition in order to help the Trump administration amass power and crush dissent.

     

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • While coal mining can leave a landscape devastated and denuded of life, it is in the water where some of coal’s most harmful impacts – such as selenium toxins –  can be found. 

    Crystal ball gazing is notoriously unreliable. But when it comes to looking at the impacts of the newly proposed coal mine in the Eastern slopes we don’t need one.  

    For a glimpse into what Alberta’s Oldman River watershed could look like if Australian coal giant Benga Minerals is allowed to mine there, we need only to look across the Continental Divide into British Columbia. There we find the Elk River, which rises along the western slopes of the divide north of the town of Elkford, flows south through Sparwood and Fernie, and then enters the United States beneath the waters of Lake Koocanusa

    The experience there can provide Albertans with useful insights into what the Oldman River watershed might look like should Premier Smith’s plans to allow new coal mines. This would undoubtedly create a toxic and deadly future for Alberta’s eastern slope rivers.

    coal mine

    Coal mining  has been taking place in the Elk River since 1897 and currently the material is shipped to China for use in steel making, leaving gapping rents that desecrate entire mountain ranges, and leaving dozens of kilometres of waste rock piled on the slopes of adjacent mountains. However, it is beneath the waters of the struggling Elk River that we have to look to see some of the most potent impacts of coal mining. 

    Red button that says "take action"

    The mining of coal directly contributes to the build of invisible pollutants, the most prominent and dangerous of which is a toxic metal like element called selenium. These toxins directly threaten species such as the Westslope Cutthroat Trout and their invertebrate foodsource – caddisflys, stoneflys and dragon fly nymphs.

    Selenium is an essential component of various enzymes and proteins, called selenoproteins that our bodies need in very small amounts. It helps make special proteins that protect our cells from damage, fight infections, and help with reproduction and thyroid function. Without these trace amounts, our cells wouldn’t work properly.

    Unfortunately, both elemental selenium and (especially) selenium salts are toxic in larger doses. Too much selenium causes a condition called selenosis, which makes people extremely tired, causes breathing problems, lowers blood pressure, and can lead to tremors and heart disease. Any more than 400 micrograms (one microgram is equal to one millionth of a gram; in strict scientific terminology, that is really, really small) can result in big trouble. 

    While selenium naturally exists in the limestone rocks of the Rocky Mountains, it usually doesn’t get into the water under normal conditions. Unfortunately, the large coal mines in the Elk River Valley have changed this. These mining operations have released harmful amounts of selenium into the water, polluting rivers that flow across boundaries.

    This has occurred because the broken-up waste rock from coal mining has a high surface area, and without proper mitigation, the combination of air and water penetrating the waste rock produces conditions which lead to the formation of soluble selenium (selenate). The soluble selenium can then be flushed out of the waste pile by rain and snowmelt, entering creeks, streams, rivers  and groundwater.

    There is no known mitigation for removing selenium once it’s in a watercourse. 

    Selenium accumulates in fish, resulting in deformations that  render the prized Westslope Cutthoat trout caught in the Elk inedible, and have forced the community of Sparwood to dig new water wells after  one of the town’s wells was poisoned by the metaloid. 

    Why should Albertans care about what happens in Sparwood, Fernie, and across the Canada-US border in Montana? Because it offers a cautionary tale about what will likely happen in Alberta should we fall prey to the demand for more coal mines. Nearly all of the waterways feeding communities such as Lethbridge and Medicine Hat arise along the narrow strip of mountains Albertans call the Eastern Slopes. 

    The strip mining of coal will poison the water, threatening human health and lead to potentially devastating impacts on local fisheries, impacting the livelihoods of hundreds.

    The world might want coal today, but as climate change decimates our water supply and worsens droughts, fresh water will be even more critical in the future. Meanwhile, steelmaking is evolving, with electric arc furnaces and hydrogen advancing. Instead of spending time, money, and energy digging new mines in Alberta, we could invest in green steel projects—ones that don’t scar mountains and leave a toxic legacy beneath the clear, but clearly poisoned, waters.

    (We’ll look more carefully at the positive and negative impacts of mining coal and alternative steel making in our next blog on coal mining.) 

    Read the first instalment in our coal series here

    Red button that says "take action"

    Stay tuned for a future instalment that looks at the impact of coal mining on local communities and their economy.

    The post A Look into Alberta’s Toxic Future with Coal Mines appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  • In the first of two episodes on Elon Musk, Matt and Sam explore the billionaire’s fraught adolescence and first years in Silicon Valley.

    This post was originally published on Dissent Magazine.

  • Owned

    Owned (Hachette, 2025), by Eoin Higgins, traces the relationship between tech industry barons and two former left-wing journalists.

    Matt Taibbi, once a populist writer who criticized big banks (Rolling Stone, 4/5/10; NPR, 11/6/10), has aligned himself with Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, the kind of slimy protector of the ruling economic order Taibbi once despised. Putting his Occupy Wall Street days behind him, Taibbi has fallen into the embrace of the reactionary Young America’s Foundation. He recently shared a bill with other right-wing pundits like Jordan Peterson, Eric Bolling and Lara Logan. Channeling the spirit of Richard Nixon, he frets about “bullying campus Marxism” (Substack, 6/12/20).

    Meanwhile, Glenn Greenwald, who helped expose National Security Agency surveillance (Guardian, 6/11/13; New York Times, 10/23/14), has buddied up with extreme right-wing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, notorious for falsely claiming that the parents of murdered children at Sandy Hook Elementary were crisis actors. That’s in addition to Greenwald’s closeness to Tucker Carlson, the ex–Fox News host who has platformed the white nationalist Great Replacement Theory and Holocaust revisionism

    This is just a taste of what has caused many former friends, colleagues and admirers to ask what happened to make these one-time heroes of left media sink into the online cultural crusade against the trans rights movement (Substack, 6/8/22), social media content moderation (C-SPAN, 3/9/23) and legal accountability for Donald Trump (Twitter, 4/5/23).

    Both writers gave up coveted posts at established media outlets for a new and evolving mediasphere that allows individual writers to promote their work independently. Both have had columns at the self-publishing platform Substack, which relies on investment from conservative tech magnate Marc Andreessen (Reuters, 3/30/21; CJR, 4/1/21). Greenwald hosts System Update on Rumble, a conservative-friendly version of YouTube underwritten by Peter Thiel (Wall Street Journal, 5/19/21; New York Times, 12/13/24), the anti-woke crusader known for taking down Gawker

    High-tech platforms

    Some wonder if their political conversion is related to their departure from traditional journalism to new, high-tech platforms for self-publishing and self-production. In Owned: How Tech Billionaires on the Right Bought the Loudest Voices of the Left (2025), Eoin Higgins focuses on the machinations of the reactionary tech industry barons, who live by a Randian philosophy where they are the hard-working doers of society, while the nattering nabobs of negativism speak only for the ungrateful and undeserving masses. Higgins’ book devotes about a chapter and a half to Elon Musk and his takeover of Twitter, but Musk is refreshingly not the centerpiece. (Higgins has been  a FAIR contributor, and FAIR editor Jim Naureckas is quoted in the book.)

    The tech billionaire class’s desire to crush critical reporting and create new boss-friendly media isn’t just ideological. Higgins’ story documents how these capitalists have always wanted to create a media environment that enables them to do one thing: make as much money as possible. And what stands in their way? Liberal Democrats and their desire to regulate industry (Guardian, 6/26/24). 

    In Higgins’ narrative, these billionaires originally saw Greenwald as a dangerous member of the fourth estate, largely because their tech companies depended greatly on a relationship with the US security state. But as both Greenwald and Taibbi drifted rightward in their politics, these new media capitalists were able to entice them over to their side on their new platforms.

    Capitalists buying and creating media outfits to influence policy is not new—think of Jeff Bezos’ acquisition of the Washington Post (8/5/13; Extra!, 3/14). But Higgins sees a marriage of convenience between these two former stars of the left and a set of reactionary bosses who cultivated their hatred for establishment media for the industry’s political ends. 

    Less ideological than material

    Matt Taibbi X post

    Matt Taibbi (X, 2/15/24) learned the hard way that cozying up to Musk and “repeatedly declining to criticize” him was not enough not avoid Musk’s censorship on X.

    Higgins is not suggesting that Thiel and Andreesen are handing Taibbi and Greenwald a check along with a set of right-wing talking points. Instead, Higgins has applied Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman’s propaganda model, which they used to explain US corporate media in Manufacturing Consent, to the new media ecosystem of the alt-right. 

    Higgins even shows us that the alliance between these journalists and the lords of tech is shaky, and the relationship can be damaged when these tech lords are competing with each other. For example, right-wing multibillionaire Musk bought Twitter, eventually rebranding it as X. Taibbi, who boosted Musk’s takeover and the ouster of the old Twitter regime, chose to overlook the fact that Musk’s new regime, despite a promise of ushering in an era of free speech, censored a significant amount of Twitter content. Taibbi finally spoke up when Musk instituted a “blanket search ban” of Substack links, thus hurting Taibbi’s bottom line. In other words, Taibbi’s allegiance to Musk was less ideological as it was material. 

    Greenwald and Taibbi have created a world where they are angry at “Big Tech,” except not the tech lords on whom their careers depend.

    Lured to the tech lords

    Owned addresses the record of these two enigmatic journalists, and their relationship to tech bosses, in splendid detail. In what is perhaps the most interesting part, Higgins explains how these Big Tech tycoons originally distrusted Greenwald, because of his work on the Snowden case. Over time, though, their political aims began to align, forging a new quasi-partnership.

    As the writer Alex Gendler (Point, 2/3/25) explained, these capitalists are “libertarians who soured on the idea of democracy after realizing that voters might use their rights to restrict the power of oligarchs like themselves.” Taibbi and Greenwald, meanwhile, became disaffected with liberalism’s social justice politics. And thus a common ground was found.

    In summarizing these men’s careers, Higgins finds that early on, both exhibited anger management problems and an inflated sense of self-importance. What we learn along the way is that there has always been conflict between their commitment to journalism and their own self-obsession. We see the latter win, and lure our protagonists closer to the tech lords.  

    Higgins charts Greenwald’s career, from a lawyer who ducked away from his duties to argue with conservatives on Town Hall forums, to his blogging years, to his break from the Intercept, the outlet he helped create. 

    We see a man who has always had idiosyncratic politics, with leftism less a description of his career and more an outside branding by fans during the Snowden story. Higgins shows how Greenwald, like so many, fell into a trap at an early age of finding the soul of his journalism in online fighting, rather than working the street, a flaw that has forever warped his worldview. 

    Right-wing spirals

    Greenwald

    As the lawyer for a white supremacist accused by the Center for Constitutional Rights of conspiring in a shooting spree that left two dead and nine wounded, Glenn Greenwald said, “I find that the people behind these lawsuits are truly so odious and repugnant, that creates its own motivation for me” (Orcinus, 5/20/19).

    The book is welcome, as it comes after many left-wing journalists offered each other explanations for Taibbi and Greenwald’s right-wing spirals. Some have wondered if Greenwald simply reverted to his early days of being an attorney and errand boy for white supremacist Matt Hale (New York Times, 3/9/05; Orcinus, 5/20/19), when he used to rant against undocumented immigration because “unmanageably endless hordes of people pour over the border in numbers far too large to assimilate” makes “impossible the preservation of any national identity” (Unclaimed Territory, 12/3/05). 

    Higgins gives us both sides of Greenwald. In one heartbreaking passage, he reports that Greenwald’s late husband had even tried to hide Greenwald’s phone to wean him off social media for his own well-being. 

    In a less sympathetic passage, we see that of all the corporate journalists in the world, it is tech writer Taylor Lorenz who has become the object of his obsessive, explosive Twitter ire. Her first offense was running afoul of Andreessen, one of Substack’s primary financers. Her second was investigating the woman behind the anti-trans Twitter account, Libs of TikTok (Washington Post, 4/19/22).

    In Taibbi, we find a hungry and aggressive writer with little ideological grounding—which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except that it leaves one vulnerable to manipulative forces. Higgins shows us a son of a journalist who had a lot of advantages in life, and yet still feels aggrieved, largely because details of his libidinous proclivities in post-Soviet Russia made him vulnerable to the MeToo campaign (Washington Post, 12/15/17). It’s not hard to see how the sting of organized feminist retribution would inspire the surly enfant terrible to abandon a mission to afflict the comfortable and become the Joker.

    Right-wing for other reasons

    Naturally, Owned doesn’t tell the whole story. While Musk’s Twitter has become a right-wing vehicle (Atlantic, 5/23/23; Al Jazeera, 8/13/24; PBS, 8/13/24), a great many left and liberal writers and new outlets still find audiences on Substack. At the same time, many of the platform’s users threatened to boycott Substack (Fast Company, 12/14/23) after it was revealed how much Nazi content it promoted (Atlantic, 11/28/23). And while Substack and Rumble certainly harnessed Taibbi and Greenwald’s realignment, many other left journalists have gone right for other reasons.

    Big Tech doesn’t explain why Max Blumenthal, the son of Clinton family consigliere Sidney Blumenthal, gave up his investigations of the extreme right (Democracy Now!, 9/4/09) for Covid denialism (World Socialist Web Site, 4/13/22) and a brief stint as an Assadist version of Jerry Seinfeld (Twitter, 4/16/23). Christian Parenti, a former Nation correspondent covering conflict and climate change (Grist, 7/29/11) and the son of Marxist scholar Michael Parenti, has made a similar transition (Grayzone, 3/31/22; Compact, 12/31/24), and he is notoriously offline.

    Higgins’ book, nevertheless, is a cautionary tale of how reactionary tech lords are exploiting a dying media sector, where readers are hungry for content, and laid off writers are even hungrier for paid work. They are working tirelessly to remake a new media world under their auspices.

    To remake the media environment

    Taibbi on Vance

    Taibbi, who once upon a time spoke at Occupy Wall Street, has lazily morphed into a puppet for oligarchic state power, using his Substack (2/16/25) to literally repost Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech in support of the European far right in, of all cities on earth, Munich.

    Thiel, Andreessen and Musk have the upper hand. While X is performing poorly (Washington Post, 9/1/24) and Tesla is battered by Musk’s plummeting public reputation, Musk’s political capital has skyrocketed, to the point that media outlets are calling him a shadow president in the new Trump administration  (MSNBC, 12/20/24; Al Jazeera, 12/22/24). Substack is boasting growth (Axios, 2/22/24), as is Rumble (Motley Fool, 8/13/24).

    Meanwhile, 2024 was a brutal year for journalism layoffs (Politico, 2/1/24). It saw an increase in newspaper closings that “has left more than half of the nation’s 3,143 counties—or 55 million people—with just one or no local news sources where they live” (Axios, 10/24/24). A year before that, Gallup (10/19/23) found that

    the 32% of Americans who say they trust the mass media “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to report the news in a full, fair and accurate way ties Gallup’s lowest historical reading, previously recorded in 2016

    The future of the Intercept, which Greenwald helped birth, remains in doubt (Daily Beast, 4/15/24), as several of its star journalists have left to start Drop Site News (Democracy Now!, 7/9/24), which is hosted on—you guessed it—Substack.

    Rather than provide an opening for more democratic media, this space is red meat for predatory capital. The lesson we should draw from Higgins’ book is that unless we build up an alternative, democratic media to fill this void, an ideologically driven cohort of rich industrialists want to monopolize the communication space, manufacturing consent for an economic order that, surprise, puts them at the top. And if Taibbi and Greenwald can find fame and fortune pumping alt-right vitriol on these platforms, many others will line up to be like them.

    What Higgins implies is that Andreessen and Thiel’s quest to remake the media environment as mainstream sources flounder isn’t necessarily turning self-publishing journalists into right-wingers, but that the system rewards commentary—the more incendiary the better—rather than local journalists doing on-the-ground, public-service reporting in Anytown USA, where it’s needed the most.

    Greenwald and Taibbi’s stature in the world of journalism, on the other hand, is waning as they further dig themselves into the right-wing holes, and the years pass on from their days as scoop-seeking investigative reporters. Both ended their reputations as members of the Fourth Estate in favor of endearing themselves to MAGA government. 

    Taibbi has lazily morphed into a puppet for state power, using his Substack (2/16/25) space to literally rerun Vice President J.D. Vance’s speech in support of the European far right in, of all cities on earth, Munich. Greenwald cheered Trump and Musk’s destructive first month in power, saying the president should be “celebrated” (System Update, 2/22/25). Neither so-called “free speech” warrior seems much concerned about the enthusiastic censorship of the current administration (GLAAD, 1/21/25; Gizmodo, 2/5/25; American Library Association, 2/14/25; ABC News, 2/14/25, Poynter, 2/18/25; FIRE, 3/4/25; EFF, 3/5/25).

    Past their sell-by date

    And there’s a quality to Greenwald and Taibbi that limits their shelf life, a quality that even critics like Higgins have overlooked. As opposed to other left-to-right flipping contrarians of yore, the contemporary prose of Taibbi, Greenwald and their band of wannabes is simply too pedestrian to last beyond the authors’ lifetimes.

    They value quantity over quality. There is no humor, narrative, love of language or worldly curiosity in their work. And they have few interests beyond this niche political genre. 

    Christopher Hitchens, who broke with the left to support the “War on Terror” (The Nation, 9/26/02), could write engagingly about literature, travel and religion. Village Voice civil libertarian Nat Hentoff, whose politics flew all over the spectrum, had a whole other career covering jazz. This made them not only digestible writers for readers who might disagree with them, but also extended their relevance in the literary profession. 

    By contrast, Taibbi’s attempts to write about the greatness of Thanksgiving (Substack, 11/25/21) and how much he liked the new Top Gun movie (Substack, 8/3/22) feel like perfunctory exercises in convincing readers that he’s a warm-blooded mammal. A Greenwaldian inquiry into art or music sounds as useful as sex advice from the pope. This tunnel vision increased their usefulness to the moguls of the right-wing media evolution–for a while.

    Taibbi and Greenwald are not the true enemy of Owned; they are fun for journalists to criticize, but have slid off into the margins, as neither has published a meaningful investigation in years. The good news is that for every Greenwald or Taibbi, there’s a Tana Ganeva, Maximillian Alvarez, Talia Jane, George Joseph, Michelle Chen or A.C. Thompson in the trenches, doing real, necessary reporting.

    What is truly more urgent is the fact that a dangerous media class is taking advantage of this media vacuum, at the expense of regular people.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Canadian Flag Rocky Mountains

    In recent years, some Canadian politicians have been using more and more aggressive  Trump-style populist rhetoric. We’ve seen an increase in divisive language and misinformation that puts marginalizing political opponents ahead of what really matters: national unity, climate action, and protecting the well-being of Canadians. 

    The attacks on public services, climate action rollbacks and a drastic economic downturn, all of which happened in only the first two months of Donald Trump’s second term as U.S. president, should be a wake-up call for Canadians. If we don’t stand up for our values, we could be heading down the same dangerous road. 

    Donald Trump’s actions since his inauguration shows how reckless and damaging this style of leadership can be. In the last two months, Donald Trump has rolled back key climate policies in the US, installed an oligarch (Elon Musk) to destroy public services and cause massive layoffs in the public sector, undermined international alliances and initiated a trade war with Canada (and other countries) that will lead to rising prices and economic uncertainty.

    Graphic of Canada Announces Robust Tariff PackageOn top of that, Donald Trump and his administration have made a point to dismiss Canada’s independence by referring to Canada as the “51st state”.

    Canadians must look at what is happening south of our border as a warning and protect Canada from Trump-style politics. The only way to do that is by doubling down on what makes Canada strong and free: 

    • Standing up for Unity: Some Canadian politicians are trying to divide us – through fear, anger or misinformation – and they need to be called out. Canadians deserve a future government that will bring Canadians together rather than tearing us apart. 
    • Go All-in on Climate Action: Trump and his administration have doubled down on producing more fossil fuels and rolled back climate protections. Canadians must be wary of any politicians that want to follow suit. The world is moving away from fossil fuels and Canada must invest in renewable energy, the electrification of our homes and transportation, and implement climate policies that protect the people, the planet and our economy. 
    • Defend Our Social Safety Nets: Universal healthcare, worker protections and public education aren’t just policies – they’re core to Canadian identity. Canadians must be wary of any politicians that scapegoat the most vulnerable in our society. A strong social safety net protects everyone and keeps our country fair and prosperous.
    • Stopping the Spread of Disinformation: Trump-style politics thrive on spreading disinformation through social media, which is currently completely unregulated. Canadians have a right to know the truth. Any future government must ensure that social media is regulated to follow the same standards of truthfulness as traditional media, while protecting public news broadcasters, like the CBC, as a shared resource for information.

    A key part of Canadian identity is that we look out for each other. We recognize that protecting our land and climate isn’t just an environmental issue – it’s also about protecting our economy and safeguarding our way of life. 

    If we let Trump-style politics take hold, we risk losing these values. Slashing social programs, gutting environmental policies, and pitting communities against each other isn’t just bad policy – it’s an attack on what it means to be Canadian. 

    Canadian Flag on Man's Back in wilderness
    Photo by Maxime Dore via Unsplash

    It is time for Canadians to stand up for Canada and push Trump-style politics out of our country. All we have to do is peek south of the border to see what is in store for us if we don’t. This type of leadership will lead to chaos, division and policies that puts the wealthy and powerful ahead of everyone else. 

    Canadians have a choice. We can let fear and division rule us or we can double down on what it means to be Canadian – unity, climate action and protecting the social safety nets that make us who we are. Consider that in the upcoming federal election and ensure that you, your family and your friends are voting for what it means to be Canadian.  

    The post Why Canada Must Reject Trump-Style Politics appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  • Donald Trump’s second presidential term has been underway for almost two months now, and every day brings headlines testifying to his determination to fulfil his promise of mass deportation of immigrants. Senate Republicans are moving forward with a bill allocating an additional $175 billion towards border militarization efforts—including deportations and border-wall construction.  

    Deportees have been shipped to remote camps and militarized hotels in Panama and Costa Rica, facing horrifically unsanitary, overcrowded conditions, and denied access to aid, lawyers and press. Venezuelan deportees detained at Guantánamo Bay—who have since been deported to Venezuela via Honduras—had been similarly mistreated by US immigration officials.

    All of this, of course, comes after four years of US media and political classes working in lock-step to manufacture consent for such a catastrophic displacement event (FAIR.org, 8/31/23, 5/24/21). Both conservative and centrist media outlets associated immigrants with drugs, crime and human waste. During her bid for president, Vice President Kamala Harris supported hardening our borders, calling Trump’s border wall—which she once called a “medieval vanity project“—a “good idea.”

    We’ve been here before many, many times. As they say, history doesn’t repeat itself— but it often rhymes. 

    Media of all kinds—from tabloids to legacy outlets—have repeatedly sensationalized the immigrant “other,” constructing an all-encompassing threat to native-born US labor and culture that can always be neutralized through a targeted act of mass displacement or incarceration. The resulting violence addresses none of the structural problems that cause the immiseration of angry workers in the first place.

    From Chinese exclusion to Japanese internment to Operation Wetback, this characterization of the foreigner has had catastrophic consequences for millions of human lives. 

    ‘The Chinese question in hand’

    The Seattle Daily Intelligencer (12/18/1877) argued that “Chinese should be restricted to one particular locality” so as not to “endanger” white property.

    Chinese labor began to cement itself by the 1850s as a crucial element of westward expansion. American companies employed a steady trickle of cheap immigrant labor to extract precious minerals, construct railroads and perform agricultural work. For their willingness to work long hours for low wages in dangerous conditions, Chinese workers were scorned by their fellow workers—including minority workers—helped along by an unforgiving and vitriolic media ecosystem. 

    Juan González and Joseph Torres’ News for All the People: The Epic Story of Race and the American Media (Verso, 2011) documents how sensationalistic media coverage of Chinese immigrant workers contributed to creating the social-political conditions necessary for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.

    In 1852, prominent broadsheet Daily Alta California argued that Chinese people should be classified as nonwhite, a decision eventually cemented a year later in a murder trial that rendered Chinese testimony against white defendants inadmissible, under racist rules of evidence that also targeted Black, Indigenous and mixed-race witnesses. Sinophobic violence against Chinese mine workers from whites, Native Americans and Mexicans subsequently became much more commonplace. 

    Meanwhile, instead of condemning the xenophobic violence faced by these workers, Bayard Taylor at the pro-labor, progressive-leaning New York Tribune (9/29/1854) called the Chinese “uncivilized, unclean and filthy beyond conception,” and described them as lacking the “virtues of honesty, integrity [and] good-faith.”

    Into the 1870s and ’80s, “The Chinese Must Go” became a rallying cry of California’s labor movement. A San Francisco Chronicle piece (7/21/1878) from 1878 described a “Mongolian octopus” growing to engulf the coast. Headline after headline described Chinese-Americans as “Mongolian hordes” and “thieves.”

    Simultaneously, violent incidents targeting Chinese mineworkers became massive union-led anti-Chinese pogroms. Jean Pfaelzer’s Driven Out: The Forgotten War Against Chinese Americans (University of California Press, 2008) specifically details a late October 1871 pogrom in Los Angeles during which more than a dozen Chinese men and women were killed, with numerous Chinese homes looted for tens of thousands of dollars. At trial, members of the crowd testified to the jury that “Los Angeles Star reporter H.M. Mitchell had urged them to hang all the Chinese.” 

    Lynchings and pogroms were often accompanied by expulsions. In her The Chinese Must Go (Harvard University Press, 2018), Beth Lew-Williams details how Chinese laborer Hing Kee’s December 1877 murder was immediately followed by a driving-out of the two dozen other Chinese workers in Port Madison, Washington. Hing’s murder was reported by the Seattle Daily Intelligencer (12/18/1877) as merely an act of personal violence. Yet, in a different story on the same page, readers were encouraged to take the “Chinese question in hand” in a call to action to “restrict” Chinese workers from “endanger[ing]” white property by opening businesses outside of small ghettoized communities.

    Finally, in 1882, the mania reached its boiling point. The populist groundswell, bolstered by media sensationalism, culminated in the passing of the Chinese Exclusion Act—the first major immigration restriction passed in US history and, for a very long time, the only one that specifically named a group for exclusion.  

    But the US economy still depended on cheap immigrant labor. Media had successfully diverted labor’s attention from the underlying systems that necessitated low-wage agricultural work—but without such a precarious class, who would take on such a thankless job? 

    Undisclosed numbers of ‘suspicious aliens’

    LA Times: Japanese "subversives"

    The Los Angeles Times (12/8/1941) announced the “hunting down” of Japanese “subversives.”

    As the Japanese took on the role of an exploitable immigrant labor class, similar nativist sentiment burgeoned, demanding an amendment to the Chinese Exclusion Act. After 1900, the Japanese had replaced the Chinese as the most sensationalized immigrant labor pool in California—while still making up a tiny proportion of the state’s total workforce. 

    Not White Enough, by Lawrence Goldstone (University Press of Kansas, 2023), catalogues the role that media outlets, among other political actors, played in setting the stage for Japanese internment during World War II. Into the late 1910s, politically ambitious media tycoon William Randolph Hearst ran headline after headline in the San Francisco Examiner warning of a Japanese invasion, and accusing Japanese workers of being disguised soldiers smuggling ammunition.

    In the 1930s, as the Japanese empire expanded throughout Asia and the Pacific, anti-Japanese sentiment in the US grew with it. The FBI created watch lists of potential Japanese-American subversives, including Shinto and Buddhist priests, and the heads of Japanese-American culture and language associations.

    In the early 1940s, Texas Rep. Martin Dies, chair of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, regularly leaked updates to journalists of baseless “findings” of Japanese-American subversion. In a July 1941 report, the committee declared it had found that “no Japanese can ever be loyal to any other nation other than Japan,” and that even generationally US-born Japanese-Americans “cannot become thoroughly Americanized.”

    What Dies failed to mention was that every agent on the West Coast discovered to hold loyalty to Imperial Japan was white. 

    The rare examples of sympathetic coverage of Japanese Americans in local papers in San Francisco and Los Angeles evaporated after Japan’s December 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. As the FBI and ONI began rounding up the thousands of Japanese immigrants placed on watchlists, the Los Angeles Times (12/8/1941) ran a front-page story announcing the apprehension of hundreds of “suspicious” Japanese “subversives.” On the same morning, the San Francisco Examiner (12/8/1941) described these unlawful detentions as “taking into custody undisclosed numbers of ‘suspicious aliens,’ considered as potential saboteurs.”

    Media clamored in a race to the bottom to produce the most provocative anti-Japanese headlines. While supportively covering raids on Japanese-American communities, they also published piece after piece detailing Japanese attacks on US soil and Japanese-American infiltrations that never occurred. In one particularly egregious instance, the Alabama Journal (12/8/1941) ran a piece headlined “How Jap Could Easily Poison City’s Water Supply.” 

    Though detentions began with the December 1941 round-ups, Roosevelt officially passed Executive Order 9066 in February 1942. 

    As shameless as the fabrications that led to and justified internment was media’s coverage of internment itself: FAIR has previously reported on the New York Times’ 1942 coverage (3/24/1942) of the concentration camps, describing the “trek” to a “new reception center rising as if by magic” as characterized by a “spirit of adventure.” 

    The role of media in demonizing Japanese Americans, ultimately resulting in internment, is undeniable. Newspapers worked dually as mouthpieces for unfounded FBI claims of subversion and as launching-pads for fantasies generated to maximize outrage at the perceived Japanese “other.” Then, once the “other” was contained, media went to work framing internment as a privilege.  

    Never mind that Japanese Americans produced 40% of agricultural output in California, that they had lived in and contributed to their communities for decades at this point— they were all double-agents, and they were neutralized. 

    A perfunctory disguise

    NYT: "Peons in the West Lowering Culture"

    The New York Times (3/26/1951) warned that “‘wetbacks’ filter into every occupation from culinary work to the building trades” and promised that “tomorrow’s article will discuss how the ‘wetback’ influx creates an atmosphere of amorality.”

    Though undocumented Mexican labor had always been an instrumental part of agricultural production, especially in the US Southwest, it hadn’t actually garnered large-scale attention until the 1950s; even, in fact, with a mass-deportation event during the Great Depression. But just a few short years after the internment camps closed, the US undertook the high-profile mass deportation of Mexican laborers in Operation Wetback.

    During World War II, with a shortage of agricultural workers, the United States came to an agreement with Mexico known as the Bracero Program. In exchange for tightening border security and returning undocumented immigrants to Mexico (on Mexico’s demands), the US would receive Mexican agricultural contract workers. On paper, the deal was a win/win for the US and Mexico: The US would receive workers, and Mexico would stop hemorrhaging its working population.

    In practice, however, the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS, the predecessor of ICE) acted on the interests of big agriculture. The INS selectively enforced border security: It was common for INS to hold off on carrying out deportation orders until after the growing season. Farmers also preferred using undocumented labor to braceros, as undocumented workers could be acquired with less red tape and, usually, lower wages. Thus the INS worked specifically to uphold the precarity of Mexican labor, rather than to restrict its numbers.

    Then undocumented Mexican labor became the center of a bizarre red-scare media sensation. Avi Aster (Unauthorized Immigration, Securitization and the Making of Operation Wetback; Latino Studies, 2009) pieces together the peculiar relationship between red-baiting and illegal immigration, and how it would ultimately lead to popular consent for Operation Wetback.

    It began with a New York Times five-part story (3/25–29/1951) published in March 1951, detailing “the economic and sociological problem of the ‘wetbacks’—illegal Mexican immigrants in the Southwestern United States.” Times journalist Gladwin Hill took a dual interest in the horrible conditions under which Mexican migrant workers toiled, and in the imagined threat that these workers posed to US society. He also insisted that it was possible for Communist spies to cross the Rio Grande with Mexican migrant workers—that although it had never happened before, “in cold fact Joseph Stalin might adopt a perfunctory disguise and walk into the country this way.”

    The media and political classes ran with these claims and never looked back. In 1954, the Times ran such headlines as “’Invasion’ of Aliens Is Declared a Peril” (2/8/1954) and “Reds Slip Into US, Congress Warned” (2/10/1954), while the Los Angeles Times (2/10/1954) announced a “Heavy Influx of Reds Into US Reported.” These marked a shift in rhetoric from warning about supposed Communist infiltrators amongst Mexicans to warning about Mexicans themselves.

    In June 1954, Operation Wetback was put into effect. Hundreds of thousands were deported in the first year of the program, in a partnership between the US and Mexico. What was once a fringe issue for nativist labor leaders in the Southwest became celebrated policy. A day short of the one-year anniversary of the operation, the Los Angeles Times (6/17/1955) declared, “Problem solved: For the first time in the controversial history of the wetback problem, there is hardly any problem left.”

    Again, nothing changed for workers—rather, the state’s security apparatus bolstered its budget, labor was sufficiently distracted, and the vague specter of Communism was kept at bay for another day.

    Manufacturing consent

    Teamsters headline: The Wetback Menace

    The International Teamsters (March 1954) joined in the media red-baiting, repeating the US government’s absurd propaganda that “more than 100 Communists a day are coming across the sparsely patrolled border.”

    In every case of xenophobic hysteria, media have a critical role in sensationalizing the perceived “other” and establishing the political and social circumstances necessary to justify violent acts of mass displacement and incarceration.

    Though these causes are often championed by right-wing populists, sensational, nativist narratives have not been confined to right-wing media. All kinds of sources, from penny papers to union publications to legacy outlets, lie about immigrants constantly and with reckless abandon. If media aren’t lying to sell more papers and accommodate the political ambitions or xenophobic tendencies of their financiers, they’re parroting the lies of the political class. 

    Whether framing them as an amorphous security hazard or merely as a danger to “native” labor, media are happy to play into the scapegoating of individual immigrant groups, leading to acts of mass violence, because, ultimately, nothing changes for labor. 

    “Native” labor champions the anti-immigrant cause, but ultimately, our capitalist system demands that when one low-wage immigrant group disappears, another must take its place. Our economy, especially in an increasingly globalized labor market, is built around the input of low-wage immigrant labor (particularly in the agricultural sector). 

    As long as organized labor scapegoats the perceived “other,” and as long as solidarity doesn’t develop between “native” and “foreign” labor, all workers are worse-off. This is the social and political ecosystem that corporate media work to maintain.

    Better media are possible

    Capital & Main article

    Independent outlet Capital & Main (3/11/25) reported on conditions in immigration detention facilities: “A few who had spent time in state prison before being transferred to ICE custody said they received much better treatment in prison than in ICE custody.”

    Responsible, ethical journalism would challenge rather than parrot false claims about immigrant and migrant workers promoted by the US political class—and not just when they’re at their most egregious, as when the right claimed Haitian immigrants were eating pets in Ohio. Journalists should seek to examine the differences in treatment of foreign-born and native-born labor, run human interest stories, and highlight the violence and human catastrophe involved in mass displacement and incarceration, instead of downplaying them or running stories about how these events are an “adventure.” 

    And instead of advancing scare-mongering narratives about how immigrant workers pose a threat to native-born labor, journalists ought to be investigating who stands to gain from pitting the TV-watching and newspaper-reading public against an easy outgroup. However, as long as corporate media exist to advance the interests of wealthy financiers and the political class, the solution lies beyond individual journalists working towards reform within their institutions.

    It’s important to note that as long as nativist mainstream media narratives have existed, they’ve faced alternative media resistance, especially from within targeted communities. Prior to Chinese exclusion, for example, Chinese-American advocate Wong Chin Foo established the Chinese American, a weekly Chinese-language paper that he used as a platform to organize the first Chinese-American voters association. During internment, Japanese-Americans published papers such as the Topaz Times to promote internal education about community-led schooling, recreation and other initiatives, as well as updates about relocation.

    Today, there are journalists working outside the corporate media who are producing good, humane, hard-hitting coverage of immigration. Small independent outlets like the Border Chronicle, Documented and Capital & Main offer on-the-ground news that centers people rather than national security and xenophobia. 

    And the democratization of alternative media channels has also allowed for mass direct resistance to immigration authorities—much to the chagrin of border czar Tom Homan, for instance, who on CNN (1/27/25) frustratedly described sanctuary city residents as “making it very difficult to arrest the criminals” because of mass education. One outlet doing this work is NYC ICE Watch—an activist group that follows in copwatch tradition by using their Spanish/English bilingual Instagram account as a platform to provide real-time updates on ICE activity and raids, organize community training and call for mutual aid requests around New York City. 

    Beyond the grassroots level, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is using a different approach, utilizing public Chicago Transit Authority adspace to promote public education in a partnership with the Resurrection Project, National Immigrant Justice Center, and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights on the Know Your Rights ad campaign.

    In the absence of a corporate media ecosystem willing to lend its platform to this kind of work, independent media are more important than ever in resisting the ostentatious barbarism of the Trump administration’s immigration policy. 

    As long as establishment outlets derive material benefits from collaborating with the political and capital classes, cruelty towards the “other” can never truly be a mistake to be learned from: It’s merely a means to an end, another performance seeking to prevent US-born workers from developing consciousness of all that they have to gain by standing with their immigrant counterparts.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  •  

    When No Other Land won this year’s Academy Award for best documentary feature, corporate media outlets didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet.

    The Guardian: No Other Land directors criticize US as they accept documentary Oscar: 'US foreign policy is helping block the path' to peace

    Several outlets have covered No Other Land accurately and candidly. The Guardian (3/2/25) said it focuses on “the steady forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Masafer Yatta, a region in the occupied West Bank targeted by Israeli forces.”

    The film captures Palestinians’ struggle to survive in the occupied West Bank, as settlers and Israeli soldiers steal their land, destroy their homes and attack them with impunity. It’s also a moving exploration of the friendship between two of the filmmakers, one free and one living under occupation, and the limits of documentary filmmaking itself. Palestinian activist Basel Adra made the film with Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham, co-directing along with Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal and Israeli filmmaker Rachel Szor. Adra and Ballal are the first Palestinians ever to win an Oscar.

    Avoiding detail

    Several outlets have covered No Other Land accurately and candidly. Al Jazeera (3/3/25) wrote that it “chronicles settler violence and the Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank.” The Guardian (3/2/25) said it focuses on “the steady forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes in Masafer Yatta, a region in the occupied West Bank targeted by Israeli forces.” A Nation story (11/4/24) published months before the film won an Oscar was headlined, “No Other Land and the Brutal Truth of Israel’s Occupation.”

    But in reporting on its historic Oscar win, many publications avoided describing the film in detail, or even by title. Politico (3/2/25) rewrote an AP story, substituting different quotes from the filmmakers’ acceptance speeches, and initially ran it under the headline “Controversial Middle East Documentary Wins Academy Award.” In addition to revealing nothing about its content, the headline erased the film’s name and deemed it “controversial” merely because US companies lack the artistic commitment and political courage to distribute it (Washington Post, 3/4/25).

    Politico later updated its headline to match the AP’s (3/2/25), which emphasizes that the film was not made by Palestinians alone: “‘No Other Land,’ an Israeli/Palestinian Collaboration, Wins Oscar for Best Documentary.”

    POLITICO: Controversial Middle East documentary wins Academy Award

    Politico (3/2/25) rewrote an AP story and initially ran it under the headline “Controversial Middle East Documentary Wins Academy Award,” revealing nothing about its content, erasing the film’s name and deeming it “controversial.”

    Other outlets relied on the passive voice to obscure the specifics of the film’s subject. NBC (3/2/25) wrote that Adra used his acceptance speech to describe the “issues faced by his village,” such as “home demolitions and displacement”—a neat way to avoid saying who was demolishing whose homes and why. In writing that Israeli co-director Yuval Abraham “called for an end to the violence that has consumed the Middle East for decades and worsened after Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, and the ensuing Israeli military offensive in Gaza,” NBC left readers with the impression that Abraham was primarily condemning the violence that has taken place after October 7. While the filmmakers are horrified by that as well, most of the violent acts they documented in No Other Land preceded the October 7 attack.

    Israelis may have felt safer before October 7, but as the movie—which was shot mostly between 2019 and 2023, and wrapped before October 7—makes clear, Palestinians did not. Even before the genocide, 2023 was already the deadliest year on record for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. At least 208 people, including 42 children, were killed there between January 1 and October 6, 2023 (Al Jazeera, 12/12/23). Israeli military and settler violence certainly intensified after October 7, but Palestinians were in serious danger beforehand.

    Erasing context

    ABC‘s (3/2/25) headline and subhead left out any mention of “Israel” or “Palestine,” offering simply that the filmdetails the struggle of a small community in the West Bank.” What community? What struggle? Readers would have to go far past the bland headline to find out. The article itself stated that “tens of thousands of people, including scores of noncombatant women and children in Gaza, were killed in the first year of fighting between Hamas and Israel following Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack”—blaming “fighting” between a guerilla group and a nuclear-armed, US-backed military power for deaths caused almost exclusively by the Israeli military.

    ABC: No Other Land wins Oscar for best documentary feature film

    ABC‘s (3/2/25) headline and subhead left out any mention of “Israel” or “Palestine,” offering simply that the film “details the struggle of a small community in the West Bank.” What community? What struggle?

    NPR (3/2/25) gave its story a surprisingly straightforward headline—“At Oscars, No Other Land Co-Directors Call for National Rights for Palestinians”—but added that the film’s directors “called on the world to end what they described as the ‘ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.’” It failed to note that the filmmakers are hardly alone in calling Israeli attacks on Palestinians “ethnic cleansing”—they are joined by UN human rights experts, former US intelligence officers, Human Rights Watch and Doctors Without Borders, to name a few.

    An MSNBC piece (3/3/25) highlighted the discomfort in the room and acknowledged the rarity of the perspectives the filmmakers voiced:

    Even if for just a few moments, Adra and Abahams accomplished a remarkable feat: They forced attendees and viewers at home to confront a reality that so many Palestinians continue to face. Some in attendance may have chosen not to clap, but those who watched couldn’t escape acknowledging a reality so many have attempted to belittle or deny.

    And yet in its descriptions of the film, it consistently failed to name a perpetrator—writing, for instance, that the film tells

    the story of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, a collection of villages in Hebron, being violently and systematically expelled through intimidation, from destroying water sources and other threats to assassinations.

    The piece never said precisely who was expelling, threatening and assassinating these Palestinians, or why.

    ‘A broader trend’

    The New York Times  (3/2/25) noted:

    Despite a string of honors and rave reviews, no distributor would pick up this film in the United States, making it nearly impossible for American filmgoers to see it in theaters or to stream it.

    The paper added that this “made No Other Land part of a broader trend in recent years in which topical documentaries have struggled to secure distribution.” Distributors were, the paper declared in its headline, “deterred” by the film’s “politics.”

    NYT: Documentaries ripped from the headlines are becoming harder to see

    The New York Times (12/18/24) noted that No Other Land’s lack of distribution “made [the film] part of a broader trend in recent years in which topical documentaries have struggled to secure distribution.”

    But as the Times’ linked-to article (12/18/24) on this “broader trend” pointed out, it’s not “topical” documentaries that struggle to find distributors, but specifically films with progressive viewpoints (e.g., pro-Palestinian or pro-labor), while “conservative documentaries are a partial exception.” It’s clear that No Other Land has no US distributors, not because it is a “topical documentary,” but because its topic is Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

    The Times (3/2/25) further noted that the No Other Land filmmakers used their acceptance speeches to call for “serious actions to stop the injustice.” Which injustice is unclear, though the article does mention “Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes” and the filmmakers’ desire to “chart a more equitable path forward for Palestinians.”

    The Times described the film as “often brutal, featuring disturbing images of razed houses, crying children, bereft mothers and even on-camera shootings.” But it implied that, as unpleasant as it is to watch, the actions that spur violence and bereave mothers are perfectly legal, because “Israel’s Supreme Court ruled the government has the right to clear the area depicted in the film.” An Israeli overseeing the demolition of Palestinian homes makes this point in the film: The Supreme Court ruling, he tells the people whose homes he is destroying, means that what they are doing is legal.

    Blaming Trump, not US

    Despite the fact that No Other Land was filmed almost entirely during Joe Biden’s presidency, several outlets sought to tie the filmmakers’ critique of US foreign policy to the administration of Donald Trump. AP (3/2/25) wrote that Abraham said, “United States foreign policy under President Donald Trump is ‘helping to block this path [to peace and justice].’” Variety (3/2/25), using almost the same words, wrote that Abraham said, “US foreign policy under the administration of President Donald Trump ‘is helping to block this path [to peace and justice].’”

    AP: No Other Land, an Israeli-Palestinian collaboration, wins Oscar for best documentary

    AP (3/2/25) wrote that Abraham said, “United States foreign policy under President Donald Trump is ‘helping to block this path [to peace and justice].’” Abraham did criticize US policy, but none of the filmmakers mentioned Trump.

    Abraham did criticize US policy, but none of the filmmakers mentioned Trump or the current administration. In its piece on the film, Reuters (3/3/25) noted that

    US President Donald Trump’s call last month for Palestinians to emigrate from Gaza…has been widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond as deeply destabilizing.

    The outlet did not mention that US policy on Israel and Gaza also drew international condemnation under Biden.

    No Other Land deserves a wider audience, and Americans ought to be able to see and assess it for themselves. Press summaries of documentaries that would-be censors don’t want us to see are flawed at best, and deliberately misleading at worst. We cannot begin to combat injustice unless or until we understand what it is, and have the courage to face it head on.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • The US-sparked trade war with Canada – and pretty much every other country – is a garbage issue. By that, I mean it’s going to seriously mess with how much stuff we buy…and throw away. And that presents an opportunity for us to do things better – for the environment and the health of our communities.

    People in Canada are big consumers. We buy a lot – and throw away more per person than the people of any other country. That’s right, we win the gold medal for garbage. Most of the goods we buy are imported – electronics, toys, furnishings, clothing, even food and packaging – much of which ends up in the garbage after a brief use. That’s why our landfills are filling up and there’s a panic to find alternatives to stow our trash, including burning it (which is a terrible idea).

    Learn more about dangers of waste incineration

    So back to the trade war. Tariffs on Canadian goods going into the US will hurt industries – and affect jobs – up here. Meanwhile, tariffs on US imports and a lower Canadian dollar makes the goods we buy here more expensive. 

    Canada’s oil, gas, mining and manufacturing industries are looking for other export markets to replace the US, but what about a different approach to support workers and business in Canada while protecting the climate and our communities from pollution? This brings us back to garbage – or, more precisely, producing less of it. 

    Our “take-make-waste” linear economy demands a constant supply of raw materials – largely extracted from Indigenous territories in Canada and beyond – and generates millions of tonnes of scrap and waste that end up dumped in landfills, burned in incinerators or exported to other countries – including the US. 

    This is damaging to the environment and disproportionately harmful to people – including Indigenous, low-income and racialized communities – living near extraction, production and waste facilities. The story of plastic in Canada is a sad example. 

    Instead of simply finding other trading partners and continuing these wasteful and harmful ways, Canada should move quickly to adopt economic approaches that prioritize keeping the resources already in the economy to give them a new life. It is essential to reject the idea that we need to choose between the environment and the economy: the very basis of any economy and a good life is a healthy environment.

    Here are three places governments, businesses and non-profits can prioritize to create a win for the economy and the environment: 

    • Support and improve refill systems for food and beverages. As trade in virgin packaging, recycling and waste becomes more complicated and expensive, so does single-use packaging. It will make more and more sense for companies to stop relying on garbage, single-use containers. What’s more, people want to buy food “made in Canada. Refillable containers would be a wonderful way to market food grown and/or made locally. This is the perfect time to implement refillable packaging at grocery stores and restaurants and for a national deposit-return program for beverage containers.

    Red button that says "take action"

    • Expand the repair, refurbish and resale sector. Price spikes for new electronics alone will boost the trend of buying refurbished phones and computers from local sellers. The federal government can support it by implementing the Right to Repair and all levels of government can fund expanded infrastructure for repair and refurbishment to create new jobs in this sector. There is so much stuff – furniture, appliances, tools, bikes, clothing – that deserve another life instead of a trip to the dump. “Repaired in Canada” has a nice ring to it. 
    • Support sharing. Book libraries are very important and must be well funded. How about growing the library movement to include more tools, sporting goods and stuff that we tend to only use from time to time? Most of us don’t need to have a power drill or camping tent at our disposal 24-7. Municipalities and Indigenous communities should be supported to scale up sharing libraries for all kinds of goods.

    We didn’t ask for this trade war, but that doesn’t mean we can’t use it to build resilient and sustainable local economies.

    The post Hear Me Out: The US-Sparked Trade War Is a Garbage Issue appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  •  

    Nation: MSNBC’s Death Rattle

    Dave Zirin (The Nation, 2/28/25): “MSNBC’s programming is now politically monochromatic—and moving as far to the right as the Democratic Party will allow.”

    At a time when the Democratic Party’s opposition to the ongoing right-wing authoritarian assault on US government is failing miserably (FAIR.org, 2/27/25), MSNBC’s recent purge means it is all the more unlikely that the cable news network will have any role in holding Democrats’ feet to the fire.

    The news channel has nixed or demoted their most progressive anchors, all of whom are people of color. These are the hosts who have drawn the most ire from Donald Trump’s online warriors, according to Dave Zirin of The Nation (2/28/25). They are also some of the few who were willing to air the network’s rare criticism of Israel. In their stead, MSNBC has elevated Democratic Party apparatchiks and a center-right never-Trumper. This rightward shift reflects the reality that the channel’s corporate ownership has never cared for its left-of-center brand.

    The network’s overhaul, led by its new president Rebecca Kutler, cancels Joy Reid’s ReidOut, Alex Wagner’s nighttime spot and Ayman Mohyeldin’s weekend evening show, with Reid fired, Wagner demoted and Mohyeldin’s voice diluted into a co-anchor position.

    The ReidOut is getting replaced by a panel show consisting of Symone Sanders-Townsend, the former Biden and Harris advisor; Alicia Menendez, the daughter of disgraced ex-Sen. Bob Menendez; and Michael Steele, the former Republican National Committee chairperson, now a Democrat whose politics symbolize the Democratic Party’s disastrous fetish for centrist triangulation. Wagner’s 9 pm slot will now be anchored by Jen Psaki, another Biden alum.

    As an indication of just how disruptive Kutler’s new vision for MSNBC is, even Rachel Maddow—the network’s biggest star with the most popular show—is getting a staff downsizing. The move seemed almost retaliatory, as it came after Maddow aired her grievances during one of her nightly shows (2/24/25). “Personally, I think it is a bad mistake to let [Reid] walk out the door,” Maddow said. “It is not my call and I understand that, but that’s what I think.” She added:

    It is also unnerving to see that, on a network where we’ve got two, count ’em, two non-white hosts in primetime, both of our non-white hosts in prime time are losing their shows, as is Katie Phang on the weekend. And that feels worse than bad, no matter who replaces them. That feels indefensible, and I do not defend it.

    Bucking the trend

    NPR: Joy Reid fired from MSNBC amid network shakeup

    Alana Wise (NPR, 2/25/25): “Reid’s firing takes one of the most high-profile Black women off the network at a time when the Trump administration has made attacks on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.”

    Joy Reid has had her disagreements with the left. Her ardent defense of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential bid veered frequently into baseless accusations, online scolding of Bernie Sanders and promotion of the Russiagate conspiracy theory (FAIR.org, 9/3/16, 6/30/17, 8/24/16). Altogether, that contributed to Democrats’ refusal to conduct a true postmortem of the Clinton loss, the ramifications of which still aid Donald Trump’s dominance.

    But during Joe Biden’s presidential tenure, Reid proved to be progressive, relative not just to MSNBC’s other anchors, but many in the corporate media writ large. As New York’s skies turned orange amid historic Canadian wildfires in the summer of 2023, for instance, Reid was one of the few who called out the role of fossil fuels (FAIR.org, 7/18/23).

    While other outlets were overemphasizing the inflationary impact of President Biden’s paradigm-shifting economic stimulus in the wake of the Covid pandemic, Reid bucked the trend, drawing the ire of right-wing media (FAIR.org, 7/13/23).

    Perhaps most notably, Reid was an outlier in her coverage of Israel’s war on Gaza and its backlash in the US. A FAIR study (8/15/24) found that Reid’s show was the only weekday news program studied to feature students expressing pro-Palestinian sentiment during coverage of the student Gaza solidarity encampments that cropped up at college campuses across the country last spring. The same study found that her show was the only one studied to have mentioned the words “divestment” and “police violence” more than “antisemitism” in relation to the encampments.

    Similarly, as outlets like the New York Times provided Israel cover for its bombing of the densely-populated Jabalia refugee camp that killed and wounded 400 Palestinians, Reid questioned how Israel could justify such a disproportionate attack (FAIR.org, 11/15/23).

    The panel of Sanders-Townsend, Menendez and Steele promises none of that nonconformity. Instead, they represent MSNBC’s decision to represent an even smaller sliver of the Democratic elite. By elevating the former Biden and Harris advisor Sanders-Townsend, MSNBC has empowered someone with an interest in defending the current Democratic guard’s rule.

    The Lincoln Project–affiliated Steele similarly owes his ascendancy to the sort of Democratic group-think that spurred Kamala Harris’s ruinous gun-touting, Cheney-approved centrist presidential bid. Expect Hakeem Jeffries praise.

    Pointing out hypocrisy

    MSNBC: Biden administration's declaration of genocide in Sudan exposes glaring double standard

    MSNBC‘s Ayman Mohyeldin (1/13/25) declared that “the US’s head-in-the-sand attitude toward Israel is not only inconsistent with its treatment of other countries, but it’s also a clear act of moral cowardice.”

    Though not fired, Mohyeldin and Wagner are two more MSNBC figures who have elevated criticism of Israel and are now facing a demotion. Following ex-Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s finding that Sudanese military forces had committed genocide against the Sudanese people, Mohyeldin (MSNBC, 1/13/25) took to the airwaves to point out Blinken’s hypocrisy:

    The horrific atrocities committed against the Sudanese should be labeled as genocide. But Blinken’s declaration begs the question: Why is the US unable to apply that same standard to Israel?

    If the Biden administration is calling out the famine in Sudan, why not also address the ongoing famine in Gaza, which has been condemned by independent experts from the United Nations?

    After New York Mayor Eric Adams sicced the NYPD on Columbia and CUNY students who had erected Gaza solidarity encampments, Wagner (5/1/24) brought on Jelani Cobb, the dean of the Columbia School of Journalism, and CUNY journalism professor (and MSNBC contributor) Peter Beinart, a well-known critic of Israel. During the show, Wagner said she agreed with Beinart that it’s “probably a good thing for our national discourse” if the encampment movement is remembered in history as a turning point for debate about US support for Israel. She also suggested that common misrepresentations of the student protestors as treasonous were a “cudgel” to distract from the issue of US foreign policy towards Israel.

    Mouthpiece for elite interests

    Jacobin: Jen Psaki Is the Latest White House Press Secretary to Cash In

    Julia Rock (Jacobin, 5/13/22): “Apparently, serving as press secretary to a Democratic president is great training to run interference for corporations.”

    Wagner’s replacement is Jen Psaki. No one is more qualified to execute MSNBC’s crusade to become nothing more than a mouthpiece for elite Democratic interests. As Julia Rock wrote in Jacobin (5/13/22) when Biden’s former press secretary left the administration for her first MSNBC gig:

    The skills required to act as a press secretary in corporate Democratic presidencies—saying little of substance, committing to nothing, dispensing snark and scoffs, and never even accidentally challenging power—appear to carry over well to playing pundit on MSNBC, the corporate network that serves as the Democratic Party’s de facto propaganda outfit.

    As press secretary, Psaki was known for insensitive and condescending quips in response to the public’s desire for good things. After the Democrats’ John R. Lewis Act, which would have enacted broad voting rights reforms, failed to pass the Senate in January 2022, Psaki suggested the public “go to a kickboxing class” or “have a margarita” to rejuvenate their spirits (Business Insider, 1/21/22).

    Then there was the time when Psaki got short with NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson in response to her question asking why the United States, unlike other wealthy nations, couldn’t distribute free Covid-19 test kits to every US household (Jacobin, 12/8/21). Psaki, suggesting the best way to provide tests was Biden’s convoluted plan for reimbursements through private insurance, asked Liasson, “Should we just send one to every American?” Feigning ignorance, she continued, “Then what happens if every American has  one test? How much does that cost, and then what happens after that?”

    Psaki’s knack for subduing the electorate’s impulse for government to meet their needs will serve MSNBC’s priorities well. Add to that her gig as a “crisis consultant” (Jacobin, 3/20/21) for the Israeli AI facial recognition startup formerly known as AnyVision, whose services were used to surveil Palestinians in the West Bank (NBC, 10/28/19), as well as her consultancy for the ride sharing giant Lyft (Business Insider, 4/1/22), and it’s no wonder she got the primetime 9pm slot.

    Ideological thrashing

    FAIR: After 25 Years, There’s a Reason MSNBC Can’t Look Back

    Other right-wing hosts featured on MSNBC before it accepted its leftish branding included Don Imus, Oliver North and Alan Keyes (FAIR.org, 8/28/21).

    MSNBC’s rightward tack may come as a surprise to those who think it was born fully formed as Fox News’ liberal opposite. But its ideological thrashing over the years—oscillating between right-wing pundits like Laura Ingraham, Tucker Carlson and Michael Savage, and liberals like Phil Donahue and Keith Olbermann—before donning its current liberal identity in 2008, with the hiring of Rachel Maddow, shows the network is more akin to a cable news version of John Carpenter’s The Thing (FAIR.org, 8/28/21).

    The owners of MSNBC—once Microsoft and General Electric, then GE alone, now the cable giant Comcast—have never held a commitment to its center-left brand beyond its capacity to capture as large a fraction of the market as possible. Now, as other mainstream corporate outlets like CNN are making similar adjustments (FAIR.org, 2/17/22), MSNBC seems to believe its best path to profit is shirking progressives.

    The Democratic Party is facing an unprecedented—and justified—crisis in confidence among the public. A recent Quinnipiac University poll showed Democrats with just a 31% approval rating, the lowest since the school began measuring party approval. Meanwhile, a poll by the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project found that “ending Israel’s violence in Gaza” was a top issue for voters who supported Biden in 2020, but cast their ballots for someone other than Harris in the 2024 election.

    MSNBC’s firing and demotion of its most progressive ranks, the ones who aired criticism of Israel, means that the Democratic Party—currently America’s sole opposition party in Congress—is all the less likely to be held accountable as the authoritarian right attempts to steamroll through our democracy.


    ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to MSNBC at MSNBCTVinfo@nbcuni.com.

    Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread here.


    This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Luca GoldMansour.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Four decades ago, Alberta Premier Peter Lougheed came to power, with the promise to make the province’s economy less dependent on the fluctuating price of oil and gas. Yet decades on, the province’s finances are still heavily reliant on royalties from bitumen sales to the United States, and natural gas sales across Canada and around the world. 

    Progress has been made. While it was a very different era to the one we find ourselves in today, Lougheed’s first few budgets were completely dependent on oil revenue, which at one point made up nearly 80 per cent of the income for Alberta’s provincial coffers. 

    In 2024 that number was closer to 27 per cent. 

    The 2025 budget introduced by Alberta finance minister Nate Horner on February 27th pegs the forecasted revenue from oil and gas at about 28 per cent, though they are cautiously budgeting it to be a few points lower. 

    In the last decade, the revenue share of Alberta’s budget which depends on oil and gas royalties has been as low as eight, and as high as 30 per cent. 

    What this means is that one out of every four dollars spent on health care, education, and critical social services depends on the oil and gas sector having a very good year. The financial well-being of the petroleum industry is so crucial to Alberta’s budget that a special Economic Outlook section focused almost entirely on the price of West Texas Intermediate Crude (pegged at $68/barrel). 

    I expect that by now you see the flaw in this logic. The American market is no longer a reliable purchaser of our crude oil. America is now the largest energy producer in the world and has high hopes for being energy-independent in the coming years. While many of the country’s refineries have been converted to process the heavy crude we sell them, only money is preventing them from re-tooling once again to manage the lighter oil produced throughout much of the US’s portion of the Western Sedimentary Basin. 

     

    A quick scan across the rest of the world doesn’t demonstrate much hope that our heavy, carbon-intensive, and very expensive crude oil is welcome anywhere else. The Trans Mountain Pipeline, heralded as a means of selling our goop to Southeast Asia and China, today sends most of its product to California. Just ten per cent went to China last year. 

    Europe doesn’t want our dirty oil. They are at the forefront of the energy transition. While natural gas might have been on their shopping list at the beginning of the war in the Ukraine, that ship has now sailed. 

    The reality is, within the next five years, it is projected that the world will be consuming 1,000,000 barrels of oil a day less every single year, as the energy transition kicks into high gear nearly everywhere else in the world except Alberta. 

    We’re stuck. We need the revenue that oil and gas bring to keep our schools and hospitals open, but we can no longer count on our number one market for our products, and we haven’t done nearly enough to diversify our energy economy. We have created major barriers to new renewable energy development to meet our domestic needs, but we continue to put nearly all of our eggs in the petroleum energy basket when it comes to our export market. 

    It is said that the first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is one. Alberta’s 2025-26 budget shows no signs of acknowledging that such a problem exists. A $4 billion contingency fund is in place to offset the impacts of American tariffs, but there is no complementary fund set up to invest in diversification so we’re less dependent on the US in the first place. 

    Why is it so hard for Alberta to have this conversation? 

    There are solutions, and Alberta has dabbled in them: the high-tech sector, health care research, international education, manufacturing, petrochemicals, agriculture, and tourism, to name a few. None of these on their own can supplant the massive impact that petroleum has on Alberta’s economy. It’s almost as if the province needs to have a group chat about what we want our economy to look like in a post-petroleum world. We should do that before it’s too late. 

    The post Alberta continues to depend on dirty money for economic well-being appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  • When I think of wetlands, my mind automatically travels to the warmer summer months. I picture the beautiful greenery, the warm sunlight sparkling on the water, and I can almost hear birds call, frogs croak and reeds rustle.

    When winter rolls around, the beauty that I associate with wetlands disappears underneath layers of ice and snow. Wetlands in the winter might look completely lifeless—the opposite of what we see in the spring and summer—but that could not be further from the truth. Underneath all that snow and ice, wetlands are working overtime to support the environment, nearby communities, and provide a safe winter hideaway for all sorts of critters.   

    What happens to wetlands in the winter? 

    Even in the winter, wetlands continue to work hard to prevent floods, clean water and store carbon. The winter is actually a crucial time for wetlands as they prepare for spring renewal.

    As wetlands freeze over, the newly formed ice acts like a blanket, protecting life hidden beneath like fish, frogs and turtles. These and other wetland creatures escape the cold and flee to the warmer temperatures of the waters below. The icy layer also helps to ensure that all of the essential processes that happen within our wetlands such as nutrient cycling (the movement of nutrients to living and non living things) can continue feeding the wetland despite the harsh environment above the ice.  

    Once spring rolls around, the snow and ice starts to gradually melt away. The winter melt steadily filters through the wetland and eventually replenishes our rivers, lakes, and groundwater systems, which are an essential source of drinking water for some regions. The release of the melt is slow, and for good reason—to prevent floods. This is one of the many superpowers of our wetlands. 

    Protecting wetlands year-round

    Wetlands are powerhouse ecosystems 24/7, all year round. Frozen wetlands play a vital role in the environment, helping to maintain balance in our communities and the natural world.

    Unfortunately, Southern Ontario has already lost more than 72 per cent of its original wetlands. Our remaining wetlands are at risk of being drained and paved to make way for poorly planned, sprawling development projects. These projects are enabled by a weakening of provincial environmental protections.

    We can’t sit back and allow the destruction of our last remaining wetlands. As one of the most productive ecosystems in the world, we have to protect them. 

    The post The Wonderful World of Wetlands in Winter appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.

  • After more than 15 years of delays, federal laws now prohibit activities that would destroy the habitat of the endangered Redside Dace. That’s great news for Redside Dace, and very bad news for well-connected developers who’ve been planning sprawl subdivisions, warehouses, and taxpayer-funded highways through Dace habitats in the upper reaches of the Humber River, Carruthers Creek, Duffins Creek and Rouge River.

    As required by the Endangered Species Act and the Redside Dace Recovery Strategy and Action Plan, the Critical Habitat of the Redside Dace (Clinostomus elongatus) Order: SOR/2025-4 prohibits anyone from doing anything that would destroy any of the habitat value of the mapped rivers, creeks and tributaries that Redside dace depends on. Since the Humber River’s upper reaches and tributaries are identified as critical habitat in the Recovery Strategy, it’s now clearly illegal to build the parts of Highway 413 that cross them.

    redside dace
    Redside Dace

    The Protection Order also prohibits highway and sprawl construction currently being planned within the larger watersheds that feed Redside Dace habitats in the Humber River, Carruthers Creek and other waterways. That is because the Recovery Strategy makes it clear that activities including any “large increase in impervious surfaces” would constitute destruction of critical habitats even if they take place outside of the critical habitat itself. The Recovery Strategy explains that paved surfaces would destroy critical habitat, even if built outside it, because the Redside Dace is highly sensitive to the changes those paved surfaces always bring, including warmer water, lower oxygen, murky water, and changes in stream flow.

    Of particular note the Habitat Protection Order seems to rule out:

    • Provincial plans to bulldoze and pave large areas of the Humber, East Humber and West Humber watersheds north of Brampton into commercial and residential sprawl.
    • Provincial plans to turn the land which surrounds the upper reaches of the Carruthers Creek into a new leapfrog sprawl development, and where the recent Toronto Region Conservation Authority’s Watershed Plan determined that development would “likely resul[t] in the loss of Redside Dace”.
    • Any non-agricultural or natural cover development of the former Pickering “airport lands” which surround the headwaters of the Duffins Creek.

    All of this is great news for the Redside Dace, and for the fight to curb the wasteful sprawl that has been squandering Ontario’s construction capacity and causing a housing shortage.

    However the danger is still real. While the Endangered Species Act and Protection Order now prohibit the destruction of these critical redside dace habitats, the federal government might intentionally decide to allow the extirpation of this beloved endangered species – either by issuing official permits to destroy the habitat or by intentionally failing to enforce the law, allowing harmful activities, like sprawl development to happen without a permit.

    It is up to all of us to maintain pressure on the federal government, and all federal MPs, to ensure that doesn’t happen.

    The post New Habitat Protection Order Spells Trouble for Sprawl Developers and Highway 413 appeared first on Environmental Defence.

    This post was originally published on Environmental Defence.