We must build our own media ecosystem

November 19, 2024

I was on a Zoom call with a couple of readers on Monday. Both said they had stopped following the news—including my newsletter. I get it. Although there are bright spots that deserve celebration, we are working our way through a period that brings jaw-dropping developments on a daily basis. The appointment process has been particularly difficult. In candor, it is worse than I expected—and I expected a Trump second term to be bad. Very.

Looking away from the news in the short term is understandable. Many of today’s shocking developments will still be in the news cycle weeks or months from now. A temporary “news fast” may not change anything. But the grassroots movement has already begun its resistance and is depending on volunteers like you to add heft and reach to the resistance. Trump received support from only 30% of Americans eligible to vote in 2024. He should not be permitted to reign as an imperial president—much less a dictator. It is “all hands on deck.” Come back as soon as you are able!

This newsletter will examine the status of Trump's nominations—which are focused on implementing two of the three main pillars of his campaign—racism and white supremacy. Those themes were expressed through hostility and dehumanizing language toward immigrants. (“Rapists, murderers, and animals” who are “poisoning the blood of our nation.”) A subtheme of Trump's campaign was exacting revenge on his political opponents. Those campaign themes explain virtually all Trump's nominations to this point.

I highlight the underlying themes not to instill fear or stir anger. Instead, I am describing the stakes—hoping that the information will spur you to action in resisting Trump's nominees. Any single nominee would qualify as one of the worst in US history. As a group, they are an assault on the Constitution and an insult to the American people.

Our representatives in the Senate must reject most of Trump's nominees. Senators must refuse to allow Trump to write the Senate out of the Constitution by using recess appointments to install his initial cabinet selections. Trump has a majority in the Senate. He should submit his nominees for approval to an institution his party controls.

With that background, let’s look at the nominations that are—for the moment—Trump's wish list. Whether he will be able to secure confirmation remains to be seen.

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Trump renews vow to use military to round up immigrants for mass deportation

On Monday, Trump endorsed a post by Judicial Watch that claimed Trump will “declare a national emergency and will use military assets” to effectuate mass deportations. See NYTimes, Trump Confirms Plans to Use the Military to Assist in Mass Deportations. (Behind a paywall.) Alternatively, see Mother Jones, Trump Confirms Plan to Use Military to Carry Out Mass Deportations.

Per the Times, Trump's top immigration policy adviser, Stephen Miller, previously declared that Trump would construct “holding facilities” (read: concentration camps) to detain immigrants while they await determination of their status:

Stephen Miller, said that military funds would be used to build “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers” for immigrants as their cases progressed and they waited to be flown to other countries.

Under Trump's plan, immigrants awaiting resolution of their cases would remain in hastily constructed “vast holding facilities for years.” (As of 2021, the average time to disposition of a deportation case was 4.5 years; I could not find a more recent statistic.)

Holding millions of immigrants in temporary facilities guarded by the US military is a dark vision of life under a Trump presidency. Trump will face strong headwinds if he continues his quest to deport 10 million immigrants. Even the attempt to do so will inflict grievous injury on the US economy and impose human suffering on an unimaginable scale. We must derail Trump’s proposed appointments to DOD (Pete Hegseth), his “Border Czar” (Tom Homan), and Attorney General (Matt Gaetz).

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New revelations against Matt Gaetz

Revelations involving Matt Gaetz continue to appear in the media as lawyers for witnesses in the House ethics investigation speak to the media. See CBS News, Two women told House ethics panel Gaetz sent Venmo payments "for sex" and asked about "party favors," their attorney says.

Per CBS, the attorney for the witnesses said

[O]ne of his clients testified before the House Ethics Committee that she witnessed Gaetz having sex with a 17-year-old girl against a game table at a July 2017 party. Gaetz was sworn into Congress in January 2017, so all of the events the women allege took place while he was a member of the House.

The attorney also said that Gaetz requested “party favors” and “vitamins” from the witnesses, which they understood to be requests for drugs. Finally, the women testified that Gaetz paid them for sex using the PayPal account of Nestor Galban, “a Cuban immigrant who is close to Gaetz and whom Gaetz has referred to as his ‘son.’”

Speaker Mike Johnson has demanded that the House ethics investigation remain secret because . . . well, because it would be damaging to Gaetz. But there are two good reasons to release the report.

First, although Gaetz has resigned from the 118th Congress (which ends its session at 11:59 a.m. on January 3, 2025), he has been elected to the 119th Congress, which begins its session at noon on January 3, 2025. So, the House ethics committee should remain keenly interested in the ethics of a representative-elect to the next session of Congress.

Second, the House is in possession of information that is highly relevant to Gaetz’s qualifications to serve as US Attorney General. The fact that Speaker Mike Johnson is seeking to protect someone alleged to have engaged in child sex trafficking is reprehensible.

Pressure to reject the Gaetz nomination is growing. See Politico, Matt Gaetz feels the heat. You can add to that pressure! See Opportunities for Reader Engagement.

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New revelations regarding Department of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth

Fox entertainer Pete Hegseth believes that women should be removed from combat positions in the military. His hostility toward women may be explained by the fact that he entered into a non-disclosure agreement with a woman to prevent her from disclosing her claim that Hegseth sexually assaulted her after a conference in Monterey, California. Se ABC News, Hegseth paid settlement to woman who accused him of sexual assault, lawyer says.

Per ABC, Hegseth’s lawyer claims that the woman who filed the police report was “the aggressor” who took advantage of a defenseless Pete Hegseth. The woman was a staffer at a conservative convention who was “responsible for ensuring that Hegseth made it back to his hotel room at the end of the night.”

At the time that Hegseth allegedly needed a young woman to help him find his hotel room, he was a Major in the National Guard with a Bronze Star for service in a combat zone. If Hegseth can’t find his hotel room without a young woman escorting him, he has no business acting as the Secretary of Defense. At the very least, the Senate must investigate the incident to determine whether Hegseth sexually assaulted the young female staffer.

True to form, Trump says he still backs Hegseth because, you know, allegations of sexual abuse are not disqualifying in the Trump administration. As they say, the tone starts at the top!

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Russian media cheers nomination of Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence

Former Representative Tulsi Gabbard has exhibited an unholy affinity for Vladimir Putin over the last several years. She defended Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, blaming the US for “forcing” Russia to defend itself by invading its neighbor. Gabbard has also claimed that Putin invaded Ukraine because the US was allegedly funding biolabs in Ukraine that were developing deadly viruses that could be used in bioweapons.

Not surprisingly, the Russian media has been cheering on Gabbard’s nomination to lead the US intelligence community—which should be grounds for disqualifying her nomination. See NYTimes, How Tulsi Gabbard Became a Favorite of Russia’s State Media. (Behind a paywall.)

Per the NYTimes, Russian media outlets have reported:

“The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. are trembling,” Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian newspaper, wrote on Friday in a glowing profile of Ms. Gabbard, noting, positively, that Ukrainians consider her “an agent of the Russian state.” Rossiya-1, a state television channel, called her a Russian “comrade” in Mr. Trump’s emerging cabinet.

Historian Ruth Ben-Ghiat said,

“Nominating Gabbard for director of national intelligence is the way to Putin’s heart, and it tells the world that America under Trump will be the Kremlin’s ally rather than an adversary.”

Sadly, nominating a Putin ally for the top US intelligence post is not the top news story about Trump's proposed cabinet picks. But it is a story that should concern all Americans. Trump was cavalier with US intelligence secrets—negligence that may have compromised US agents and assets across the world. It could be worse with an intelligence chief who wants to see Putin succeed and the US fail.

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Trump nominates Project 2025 author to head the FCC

Trump claimed he never heard of Project 2025. For the second time in a week, he has nominated a contributor to Project 2025 to a senior officer position in his administration. On Monday, he nominated existing FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr to take over the Chair position on the FCC. See CNN Business, Brendan Carr wrote the FCC chapter in ‘Project 2025.’ Now he’s Trump’s pick for the agency.

Carr is a favorite of Elon Musk even though Carr will seek to remove the protections of Section 230 for tech companies. Section 230 insulates online companies from liability for false and defamatory comments by their users. Musk famously believes in free speech except when it contradicts his worldview.

Under Musk’s ownership, Twitter has directed traffic away from progressive and liberal users while amplifying conservative voices. See WSJ, Exclusive | X Algorithm Feeds Users Political Content—Whether They Want It or Not. (“The majority of the political posts X served the bots were from conservative figures and pro-Trump accounts.”)

Carr has recently made public comments suggesting that NBC could lose its broadcast license for allowing Kamala Harris to appear on an episode of Saturday Night Live before the election. After Trump complained about the appearance on SNL, Carr said the following about NBC’s broadcast license during a Fox interview:

We need to keep every single remedy on the table. One of the remedies the FCC has [against NBC] ultimately, would be license revocation, if we find that it’s egregious

As noted in Politico, Carr has also criticized President Biden’s broadband subsidies for rural areas while “cozying up to satellite broadband executive Elon Musk.” In other words, Carr is criticizing the technology that competes with Musk’s Starlink broadband service. Talk about a conflict of interest!

Because Carr already serves on the FCC, he will not need to go through the confirmation process in the Senate.

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Opportunities for Reader Engagement

Ballot curing opportunities

See Ballot Curing for California + Postcards for Mississippi Supreme Court Runoff! Please Unite with Us Thru Action 11.17.24. Included are Derek Tran (CA-45) and Adam Gray (CA-13), which will continue through 11/24.

But the PostCardsToVoters effort in support of the Mississippi Supreme Court runoff ends on Tuesday, November 19. Check out the details in the link above!

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Contacting your Senators regarding nominations

Jessica Craven continues to be the “go to” source for contacting your Senators regarding nominations. See (100) Chop Wood, Carry Water 11/15 - by Jessica Craven. Jessica includes a word-script and a link to your Senator’s contact information. Making calls makes a difference!

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Concluding Thoughts.

The MSNBC morning show team of Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough (“Morning Joe”) met with Trump over the weekend at Mar-a-Lago to start “a new approach” and to “restart communications” with Trump. See The Guardian, Brzezinski and Scarborough of liberal MSNBC meet Trump for ‘new approach’.

The “new approach” adopted by Brzezinski and Scarborough is known in newsroom jargon as “normalizing Trump” or “access journalism.” The approach converts what was formerly known as “news” into “entertainment.”

If the transition from news to entertainment is what Brzezinski and Scarborough intended to achieve, they have succeeded admirably in promoting their ratings by throwing democracy under the bus.

The move by Brzezinski and Scarborough is distressing. It is further evidence of the collapse of legacy media. The fact that Brzezinski and Scarborough are unable to understand that there is a moral dimension to covering Trump is emblematic of the broader failure of the legacy media.

What Brzezinski and Scarborough fail to see is that reporting about Trump as though he is a political figure operating within the system creates the illusion of normalcy. However, Trump doesn’t operate “within” the system. He wants to burn it all down—including the Morning Joe program and MSNBC and broadcast channels and the free press. It is pointless, misleading, and dangerous to give a platform to someone who wants to tear it all down.

We must build our own news ecosystem that is not dependent on corporate backers who fear Trump or journalists who place their careers above reporting the truth. I am not happy about that fact, but I have surrendered to it.

Each of us has an obligation to be warriors for the truth. Whether it is forwarding Substack newsletters or posting on Facebook, Twitter, Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, or whatever social media platform you use, we must amplify the truth. The legacy media is obeying in advance. We must resist. The safety and security of our democracy and our liberties depend on it.

Talk to you tomorrow!

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Daily Dose of Perspective

The image below is totally unacceptable—but it is all I have for tonight. The image is supposed to be the Elephant Trunk Nebula. We are experiencing a “high-wind event” in Los Angeles, so that’s my excuse. My camera and telescope could not capture enough “stable” images to stack into a clean final image. Oh, well. I will try again in the future.

The light from the Elephant Trunk Nebula managed to cross 2,400 light-years of space to reach Earth on November 18, 2024—but can still be defeated by local surface winds. There is an important lesson in that set of facts. I just don’t know what it is at this late hour.