#thelosangelestimes — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #thelosangelestimes, aggregated by home.social.
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DrWeb’s Domain Brief: A Brief Look at National Newspapers – United States
In the United States, the designation of a “national newspaper” is
less a formal legal status and more a reflection of a publication’s
distribution footprint, cultural influence, and self-identity. And it varies over time and in history.Most experts and industry lists (including the Alliance for Audited Media) categorize the following as the primary “National Newspapers” of the U.S.:
The “Big Three” (Pure National Reach)
These are widely accepted as the only papers that truly prioritize a national audience over a local one, with distribution available in nearly every major U.S. market.
Editor’s Note: Please note that The Washington Post is *not* recognized as a national newspaper, at this time. Given their editorial changes recently (2026 firings), they are even less “national” than ever. –DrWeb
- The New York Times: Frequently called the “Newspaper of Record.” While it covers New York, its primary focus and subscriber base are national and international.
- The Wall Street Journal: The definitive national paper for business and finance. Like the Times, it is a “newspaper of record” for economic matters and maintains a massive national subscription base.
- USA Today: Established specifically as a national daily in 1982. It lacks a “home city” in its reporting style and is famously found in hotels and airports nationwide.
The “National Scope” – Major Dailies
These are technically metropolitan newspapers, but they are often grouped with the “nationals” because their reporting on federal policy and culture is so influential that they are read by elites across the country.
- The Washington Post: Its proximity to the seat of power makes it a national authority on politics. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, it had pivoted aggressively toward a “national first” digital strategy. That is, sadly, no longer true. It has withdrawn from that strategy now. See the latest news on the Post withdrawal: https://news.google.com/search?q=washinton%20post%20firings%202026&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
- Los Angeles Times: The largest newspaper not on the East Coast. It is often cited as a national paper for its west-coast perspective and deep coverage of the entertainment industry and environmental policy, and California and the Western states coverage.
Specialty & “Niche” National Papers
There are several papers that are “national” because they serve a specific interest group or industry rather than a specific geography.
- The Christian Science Monitor: While it has transitioned primarily to a weekly magazine and daily digital format, it has long been respected as a national paper for high-minded, non-sensationalist international news.
- Investor’s Business Daily: A national financial paper often seen as the primary competitor to the Wall Street Journal’s market data.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education: The national “trade” paper for academia and those interested in education.
Authoritative Reference Lists
If you are looking for specific rankings or “official” lists, these are the primary sources used by the industry:
- Alliance for Audited Media (AAM): The primary source for circulation data. They often separate “National” from “Metropolitan” dailies in their reports.
- The White House Correspondents’ Association: Their seating chart is often used as a “who’s who” of influential national news organizations.
- Editor & Publisher (E&P): The authoritative trade publication for the newspaper industry.
- The New York Times: Frequently called the “Newspaper of Record.” While it covers New York, its primary focus and subscriber base are national and international.
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DrWeb’s Domain Brief: A Brief Look at National Newspapers – United States
In the United States, the designation of a “national newspaper” is
less a formal legal status and more a reflection of a publication’s
distribution footprint, cultural influence, and self-identity. And it varies over time and in history.Most experts and industry lists (including the Alliance for Audited Media) categorize the following as the primary “National Newspapers” of the U.S.:
The “Big Three” (Pure National Reach)
These are widely accepted as the only papers that truly prioritize a national audience over a local one, with distribution available in nearly every major U.S. market.
Editor’s Note: Please note that The Washington Post is *not* recognized as a national newspaper, at this time. Given their editorial changes recently (2026 firings), they are even less “national” than ever. –DrWeb
- The New York Times: Frequently called the “Newspaper of Record.” While it covers New York, its primary focus and subscriber base are national and international.
- The Wall Street Journal: The definitive national paper for business and finance. Like the Times, it is a “newspaper of record” for economic matters and maintains a massive national subscription base.
- USA Today: Established specifically as a national daily in 1982. It lacks a “home city” in its reporting style and is famously found in hotels and airports nationwide.
The “National Scope” – Major Dailies
These are technically metropolitan newspapers, but they are often grouped with the “nationals” because their reporting on federal policy and culture is so influential that they are read by elites across the country.
- The Washington Post: Its proximity to the seat of power makes it a national authority on politics. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, it had pivoted aggressively toward a “national first” digital strategy. That is, sadly, no longer true. It has withdrawn from that strategy now. See the latest news on the Post withdrawal: https://news.google.com/search?q=washinton%20post%20firings%202026&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
- Los Angeles Times: The largest newspaper not on the East Coast. It is often cited as a national paper for its west-coast perspective and deep coverage of the entertainment industry and environmental policy, and California and the Western states coverage.
Specialty & “Niche” National Papers
There are several papers that are “national” because they serve a specific interest group or industry rather than a specific geography.
- The Christian Science Monitor: While it has transitioned primarily to a weekly magazine and daily digital format, it has long been respected as a national paper for high-minded, non-sensationalist international news.
- Investor’s Business Daily: A national financial paper often seen as the primary competitor to the Wall Street Journal’s market data.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education: The national “trade” paper for academia and those interested in education.
Authoritative Reference Lists
If you are looking for specific rankings or “official” lists, these are the primary sources used by the industry:
- Alliance for Audited Media (AAM): The primary source for circulation data. They often separate “National” from “Metropolitan” dailies in their reports.
- The White House Correspondents’ Association: Their seating chart is often used as a “who’s who” of influential national news organizations.
- Editor & Publisher (E&P): The authoritative trade publication for the newspaper industry.
- The New York Times: Frequently called the “Newspaper of Record.” While it covers New York, its primary focus and subscriber base are national and international.
-
DrWeb’s Domain Brief: A Brief Look at National Newspapers – United States
In the United States, the designation of a “national newspaper” is
less a formal legal status and more a reflection of a publication’s
distribution footprint, cultural influence, and self-identity. And it varies over time and in history.Most experts and industry lists (including the Alliance for Audited Media) categorize the following as the primary “National Newspapers” of the U.S.:
The “Big Three” (Pure National Reach)
These are widely accepted as the only papers that truly prioritize a national audience over a local one, with distribution available in nearly every major U.S. market.
Editor’s Note: Please note that The Washington Post is *not* recognized as a national newspaper, at this time. Given their editorial changes recently (2026 firings), they are even less “national” than ever. –DrWeb
- The New York Times: Frequently called the “Newspaper of Record.” While it covers New York, its primary focus and subscriber base are national and international.
- The Wall Street Journal: The definitive national paper for business and finance. Like the Times, it is a “newspaper of record” for economic matters and maintains a massive national subscription base.
- USA Today: Established specifically as a national daily in 1982. It lacks a “home city” in its reporting style and is famously found in hotels and airports nationwide.
The “National Scope” – Major Dailies
These are technically metropolitan newspapers, but they are often grouped with the “nationals” because their reporting on federal policy and culture is so influential that they are read by elites across the country.
- The Washington Post: Its proximity to the seat of power makes it a national authority on politics. Under Jeff Bezos’s ownership, it had pivoted aggressively toward a “national first” digital strategy. That is, sadly, no longer true. It has withdrawn from that strategy now. See the latest news on the Post withdrawal: https://news.google.com/search?q=washinton%20post%20firings%202026&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
- Los Angeles Times: The largest newspaper not on the East Coast. It is often cited as a national paper for its west-coast perspective and deep coverage of the entertainment industry and environmental policy, and California and the Western states coverage.
Specialty & “Niche” National Papers
There are several papers that are “national” because they serve a specific interest group or industry rather than a specific geography.
- The Christian Science Monitor: While it has transitioned primarily to a weekly magazine and daily digital format, it has long been respected as a national paper for high-minded, non-sensationalist international news.
- Investor’s Business Daily: A national financial paper often seen as the primary competitor to the Wall Street Journal’s market data.
- The Chronicle of Higher Education: The national “trade” paper for academia and those interested in education.
Authoritative Reference Lists
If you are looking for specific rankings or “official” lists, these are the primary sources used by the industry:
- Alliance for Audited Media (AAM): The primary source for circulation data. They often separate “National” from “Metropolitan” dailies in their reports.
- The White House Correspondents’ Association: Their seating chart is often used as a “who’s who” of influential national news organizations.
- Editor & Publisher (E&P): The authoritative trade publication for the newspaper industry.
- The New York Times: Frequently called the “Newspaper of Record.” While it covers New York, its primary focus and subscriber base are national and international.
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https://www.europesays.com/ie/327404/ Gray wolf spotted in L.A. County for first time in a century, officials say #California #Éire #GrayWolf #IE #Ireland #KernCounty #LosAngelesCounty #Science #TheLosAngelesTimes #Wildlife
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The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)The Supreme Court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with key exceptions
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)By David G. Savage, Staff Writer Follow. Jan. 1, 2026 3 AM PT
- For much of the year, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the five other conservatives were in the majority ruling for Trump.
- The court has been criticized for handing down temporary unsigned orders with little or no explanation.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., ended the first year of President Trump’s second term with a record of rulings that gave him much broader power to control the federal government.
In a series of fast-track decisions, the justices granted emergency appeals and set aside rulings from district judges who blocked Trump’s orders from taking effect.
With the court’s approval, the administration dismissed thousands of federal employees, cut funding for education and health research grants, dismantled the agency that funds foreign aid and cleared the way for the U.S. military to reject transgender troops.
But the court also put two important checks on the president’s power.
In April, the court twice ruled — including in a post-midnight order — that the Trump administration could not secretly whisk immigrants out of the country without giving them a hearing before a judge.
Upon taking office, Trump claimed migrants who were alleged to belong to “foreign terrorist” gangs could be arrested as “enemy aliens” and flown secretly to a prison in El Salvador.
See caption and more at below link.https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-12-23/supreme-court-trump-national-guard-chicago – See more at the above link.
Supreme Court rules against Trump, bars National Guard deployment in Chicago, Dec. 23, 2025
Roberts and the court blocked such secret deportations and said the 5th Amendment entitles immigrants, like citizens, a right to “due process of law.” Many of the arrested men had no criminal records and said they never belonged to a criminal gang.
Those who face deportation “are entitled to notice and opportunity to challenge their removal,” the justices said in Trump vs. J.G.G.They also required the government to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly deported to El Salvador. He is now back in Maryland with his wife, but may face further criminal charges or efforts to deport him.
And last week, Roberts and the court barred Trump from deploying the National Guard in Chicago to enforce the immigration laws.
Trump had claimed he had the power to defy state governors and deploy the Guard troops in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Chicago and other Democratic-led states and cities.
The Supreme Court disagreed over dissents from conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
Tags: 2025, America, Chief Justice Roberts, Donald Trump, Health, History, Libraries, Library, Library of Congress, Los Angeles Times, National Guard, Only Two Checks, Opinion, Politics, Presidential Power, Republicans, Resistance, Right-Wing Votes, Roberts Court, Science, SCOTUS, Supreme Court of the United States, The Los Angeles Times, Trump, Trump Administration, Trump's Power, United States
#2025 #America #ChiefJusticeRoberts #DonaldTrump #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #LosAngelesTimes #NationalGuard #OnlyTwoChecks #Opinion #Politics #PresidentialPower #Republicans #Resistance #RightWingVotes #RobertsCourt #Science #SCOTUS #SupremeCourtOfTheUnitedStates #TheLosAngelesTimes #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpSPower #UnitedStates -
The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)The Supreme Court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with key exceptions
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)By David G. Savage, Staff Writer Follow. Jan. 1, 2026 3 AM PT
- For much of the year, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the five other conservatives were in the majority ruling for Trump.
- The court has been criticized for handing down temporary unsigned orders with little or no explanation.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., ended the first year of President Trump’s second term with a record of rulings that gave him much broader power to control the federal government.
In a series of fast-track decisions, the justices granted emergency appeals and set aside rulings from district judges who blocked Trump’s orders from taking effect.
With the court’s approval, the administration dismissed thousands of federal employees, cut funding for education and health research grants, dismantled the agency that funds foreign aid and cleared the way for the U.S. military to reject transgender troops.
But the court also put two important checks on the president’s power.
In April, the court twice ruled — including in a post-midnight order — that the Trump administration could not secretly whisk immigrants out of the country without giving them a hearing before a judge.
Upon taking office, Trump claimed migrants who were alleged to belong to “foreign terrorist” gangs could be arrested as “enemy aliens” and flown secretly to a prison in El Salvador.
See caption and more at below link.https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-12-23/supreme-court-trump-national-guard-chicago – See more at the above link.
Supreme Court rules against Trump, bars National Guard deployment in Chicago, Dec. 23, 2025
Roberts and the court blocked such secret deportations and said the 5th Amendment entitles immigrants, like citizens, a right to “due process of law.” Many of the arrested men had no criminal records and said they never belonged to a criminal gang.
Those who face deportation “are entitled to notice and opportunity to challenge their removal,” the justices said in Trump vs. J.G.G.They also required the government to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly deported to El Salvador. He is now back in Maryland with his wife, but may face further criminal charges or efforts to deport him.
And last week, Roberts and the court barred Trump from deploying the National Guard in Chicago to enforce the immigration laws.
Trump had claimed he had the power to defy state governors and deploy the Guard troops in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Chicago and other Democratic-led states and cities.
The Supreme Court disagreed over dissents from conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
Tags: 2025, America, Chief Justice Roberts, Donald Trump, Health, History, Libraries, Library, Library of Congress, Los Angeles Times, National Guard, Only Two Checks, Opinion, Politics, Presidential Power, Republicans, Resistance, Right-Wing Votes, Roberts Court, Science, SCOTUS, Supreme Court of the United States, The Los Angeles Times, Trump, Trump Administration, Trump's Power, United States
#2025 #America #ChiefJusticeRoberts #DonaldTrump #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #LosAngelesTimes #NationalGuard #OnlyTwoChecks #Opinion #Politics #PresidentialPower #Republicans #Resistance #RightWingVotes #RobertsCourt #Science #SCOTUS #SupremeCourtOfTheUnitedStates #TheLosAngelesTimes #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpSPower #UnitedStates -
The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)The Supreme Court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with key exceptions
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)By David G. Savage, Staff Writer Follow. Jan. 1, 2026 3 AM PT
- For much of the year, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the five other conservatives were in the majority ruling for Trump.
- The court has been criticized for handing down temporary unsigned orders with little or no explanation.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., ended the first year of President Trump’s second term with a record of rulings that gave him much broader power to control the federal government.
In a series of fast-track decisions, the justices granted emergency appeals and set aside rulings from district judges who blocked Trump’s orders from taking effect.
With the court’s approval, the administration dismissed thousands of federal employees, cut funding for education and health research grants, dismantled the agency that funds foreign aid and cleared the way for the U.S. military to reject transgender troops.
But the court also put two important checks on the president’s power.
In April, the court twice ruled — including in a post-midnight order — that the Trump administration could not secretly whisk immigrants out of the country without giving them a hearing before a judge.
Upon taking office, Trump claimed migrants who were alleged to belong to “foreign terrorist” gangs could be arrested as “enemy aliens” and flown secretly to a prison in El Salvador.
See caption and more at below link.https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-12-23/supreme-court-trump-national-guard-chicago – See more at the above link.
Supreme Court rules against Trump, bars National Guard deployment in Chicago, Dec. 23, 2025
Roberts and the court blocked such secret deportations and said the 5th Amendment entitles immigrants, like citizens, a right to “due process of law.” Many of the arrested men had no criminal records and said they never belonged to a criminal gang.
Those who face deportation “are entitled to notice and opportunity to challenge their removal,” the justices said in Trump vs. J.G.G.They also required the government to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly deported to El Salvador. He is now back in Maryland with his wife, but may face further criminal charges or efforts to deport him.
And last week, Roberts and the court barred Trump from deploying the National Guard in Chicago to enforce the immigration laws.
Trump had claimed he had the power to defy state governors and deploy the Guard troops in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Chicago and other Democratic-led states and cities.
The Supreme Court disagreed over dissents from conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
Tags: 2025, America, Chief Justice Roberts, Donald Trump, Health, History, Libraries, Library, Library of Congress, Los Angeles Times, National Guard, Only Two Checks, Opinion, Politics, Presidential Power, Republicans, Resistance, Right-Wing Votes, Roberts Court, Science, SCOTUS, Supreme Court of the United States, The Los Angeles Times, Trump, Trump Administration, Trump's Power, United States
#2025 #America #ChiefJusticeRoberts #DonaldTrump #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #LosAngelesTimes #NationalGuard #OnlyTwoChecks #Opinion #Politics #PresidentialPower #Republicans #Resistance #RightWingVotes #RobertsCourt #Science #SCOTUS #SupremeCourtOfTheUnitedStates #TheLosAngelesTimes #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpSPower #UnitedStates -
The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)The Supreme Court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with key exceptions
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)By David G. Savage, Staff Writer Follow. Jan. 1, 2026 3 AM PT
- For much of the year, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the five other conservatives were in the majority ruling for Trump.
- The court has been criticized for handing down temporary unsigned orders with little or no explanation.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., ended the first year of President Trump’s second term with a record of rulings that gave him much broader power to control the federal government.
In a series of fast-track decisions, the justices granted emergency appeals and set aside rulings from district judges who blocked Trump’s orders from taking effect.
With the court’s approval, the administration dismissed thousands of federal employees, cut funding for education and health research grants, dismantled the agency that funds foreign aid and cleared the way for the U.S. military to reject transgender troops.
But the court also put two important checks on the president’s power.
In April, the court twice ruled — including in a post-midnight order — that the Trump administration could not secretly whisk immigrants out of the country without giving them a hearing before a judge.
Upon taking office, Trump claimed migrants who were alleged to belong to “foreign terrorist” gangs could be arrested as “enemy aliens” and flown secretly to a prison in El Salvador.
See caption and more at below link.https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-12-23/supreme-court-trump-national-guard-chicago – See more at the above link.
Supreme Court rules against Trump, bars National Guard deployment in Chicago, Dec. 23, 2025
Roberts and the court blocked such secret deportations and said the 5th Amendment entitles immigrants, like citizens, a right to “due process of law.” Many of the arrested men had no criminal records and said they never belonged to a criminal gang.
Those who face deportation “are entitled to notice and opportunity to challenge their removal,” the justices said in Trump vs. J.G.G.They also required the government to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly deported to El Salvador. He is now back in Maryland with his wife, but may face further criminal charges or efforts to deport him.
And last week, Roberts and the court barred Trump from deploying the National Guard in Chicago to enforce the immigration laws.
Trump had claimed he had the power to defy state governors and deploy the Guard troops in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Chicago and other Democratic-led states and cities.
The Supreme Court disagreed over dissents from conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
#2025 #America #ChiefJusticeRoberts #DonaldTrump #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #LosAngelesTimes #NationalGuard #OnlyTwoChecks #Opinion #Politics #PresidentialPower #Republicans #Resistance #RightWingVotes #RobertsCourt #Science #SCOTUS #SupremeCourtOfTheUnitedStates #TheLosAngelesTimes #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpSPower #UnitedStates -
The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March. (Win McNamee / Getty Images)The Supreme Court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with key exceptions
U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, foreground, and Justices Elena Kagan, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett attend President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress in March.
(Win McNamee / Getty Images)By David G. Savage, Staff Writer Follow. Jan. 1, 2026 3 AM PT
- For much of the year, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and the five other conservatives were in the majority ruling for Trump.
- The court has been criticized for handing down temporary unsigned orders with little or no explanation.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., ended the first year of President Trump’s second term with a record of rulings that gave him much broader power to control the federal government.
In a series of fast-track decisions, the justices granted emergency appeals and set aside rulings from district judges who blocked Trump’s orders from taking effect.
With the court’s approval, the administration dismissed thousands of federal employees, cut funding for education and health research grants, dismantled the agency that funds foreign aid and cleared the way for the U.S. military to reject transgender troops.
But the court also put two important checks on the president’s power.
In April, the court twice ruled — including in a post-midnight order — that the Trump administration could not secretly whisk immigrants out of the country without giving them a hearing before a judge.
Upon taking office, Trump claimed migrants who were alleged to belong to “foreign terrorist” gangs could be arrested as “enemy aliens” and flown secretly to a prison in El Salvador.
See caption and more at below link.https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2025-12-23/supreme-court-trump-national-guard-chicago – See more at the above link.
Supreme Court rules against Trump, bars National Guard deployment in Chicago, Dec. 23, 2025
Roberts and the court blocked such secret deportations and said the 5th Amendment entitles immigrants, like citizens, a right to “due process of law.” Many of the arrested men had no criminal records and said they never belonged to a criminal gang.
Those who face deportation “are entitled to notice and opportunity to challenge their removal,” the justices said in Trump vs. J.G.G.They also required the government to “facilitate” the release of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who had been wrongly deported to El Salvador. He is now back in Maryland with his wife, but may face further criminal charges or efforts to deport him.
And last week, Roberts and the court barred Trump from deploying the National Guard in Chicago to enforce the immigration laws.
Trump had claimed he had the power to defy state governors and deploy the Guard troops in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., Chicago and other Democratic-led states and cities.
The Supreme Court disagreed over dissents from conservative Justices Samuel A. Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: The Roberts court broadly expanded Trump’s power in 2025, with these key exceptions – Los Angeles Times
#2025 #America #ChiefJusticeRoberts #DonaldTrump #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #LosAngelesTimes #NationalGuard #OnlyTwoChecks #Opinion #Politics #PresidentialPower #Republicans #Resistance #RightWingVotes #RobertsCourt #Science #SCOTUS #SupremeCourtOfTheUnitedStates #TheLosAngelesTimes #Trump #TrumpAdministration #TrumpSPower #UnitedStates -
Los Angeles Times Owner’s Pitch Deck to Investors Reveals Vision for Public Offering Bet
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Los Angeles Times Owner’s Pitch Deck to Investors Reveals Vision for Public Offering Bet
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Los Angeles Times Owner’s Pitch Deck to Investors Reveals Vision for Public Offering Bet
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Los Angeles Times Owner’s Pitch Deck to Investors Reveals Vision for Public Offering Bet
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Los Angeles Times Owner’s Pitch Deck to Investors Reveals Vision for Public Offering Bet
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
Editor’s Note: May be behind a paywall. All photos from LA Times.
How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes
A Craftsman style home in Bungalow Heaven. Common features of a Craftsman home include low-pitched roofs with deep overhanging eaves and large front porches supported by sturdy columns. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)By Sam Lubell, Oct. 8, 2025 3 AM PT
- For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, but they are most prevalent in Pasadena.
- Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week runs Oct. 12-19 with events and tours.
- The style’s authentic craftsmanship is key to its popularity.
When Annette Yasin and her husband, Tom, moved to Pasadena from Michigan more than a decade ago, they purchased a condo near Bungalow Heaven, a 16-block area northeast of Old Town known for its substantial collection of Craftsman bungalows. After regular walks in the neighborhood, the couple came across a home on Mar Vista Avenue and quickly fell in love.
The residence, known as the Dr. Robert H. Sutton Bungalow, is a great example of what makes Craftsman architecture so seductive to so many. Outside, its low-sloped roof, wide eaves, textured wood and brick surfaces, and its shaded porch set behind broad overhangs are welcoming and human scaled. Inside, chocolate brown wood is everywhere: walls, beams, window sills, paneling, wainscoting, furniture, not to mention built-in cabinets, benches and window seats. A large bank of windows lets in lots of light, but is protected by all those overhangs, so you don’t feel exposed — or overheated. Everything fits and flows together — spaces, furnishings, lighting fixtures, artworks.
“It’s cozy. It’s warm,” says Yasin, standing in her dining room, which is filled with Craftsman-style furniture either purchased or built by her now-late husband — a G.E. engineer who retired early and leaned into his passion for woodworking.
For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, from Orange and Long Beach to West Adams and Santa Barbara. But nowhere are they as prevalent as Pasadena. And in recent years, popularity has soared, as people crave its well-made, no-nonsense, and nature-embracing ethos. So much so, Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week, taking place Oct. 12-19, has expanded from a weekend to a weeklong event this year.
“It’s the rusticity of it,” adds Juan Dela Cruz, a Bungalow Heaven resident and Craftsman homeowner who is guiding me on a tour of the neighborhood along with John G. Ripley, another local Craftsman owner and co-author of the book “Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven,” ahead of Craftsman Week. “You notice the timbers overhanging. Sometimes you’ll see the roughness in the wood, or you’ll see a three-dimensional relief in the grain. It gives you that connection with nature; that connection with the source from which it came — the tree,” says Dela Cruz.
Annette Yasin, left, stands in the doorway of her kitchen in her Craftsman home, which includes a tiled fireplace. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)Craftsman had its heyday from around 1900 to the early 1920s. It grew out of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, a design philosophy reacting to the Industrial Revolution, with its mass produced goods and fast-paced lifestyle, and the Victorian era, with its frivolous excesses and formal, boxy spaces. It promoted, among other things, handcraft, honesty, unified design, natural materials and design simplicity.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
#2025 #America #Bungalows #California #History #Homes #Libraries #Library #LosAngeles #Neighborhoods #Opinion #Pasadena #TheLosAngelesTimes #Travel #UnitedStates
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How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
Editor’s Note: May be behind a paywall. All photos from LA Times.
How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes
A Craftsman style home in Bungalow Heaven. Common features of a Craftsman home include low-pitched roofs with deep overhanging eaves and large front porches supported by sturdy columns. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)By Sam Lubell, Oct. 8, 2025 3 AM PT
- For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, but they are most prevalent in Pasadena.
- Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week runs Oct. 12-19 with events and tours.
- The style’s authentic craftsmanship is key to its popularity.
When Annette Yasin and her husband, Tom, moved to Pasadena from Michigan more than a decade ago, they purchased a condo near Bungalow Heaven, a 16-block area northeast of Old Town known for its substantial collection of Craftsman bungalows. After regular walks in the neighborhood, the couple came across a home on Mar Vista Avenue and quickly fell in love.
The residence, known as the Dr. Robert H. Sutton Bungalow, is a great example of what makes Craftsman architecture so seductive to so many. Outside, its low-sloped roof, wide eaves, textured wood and brick surfaces, and its shaded porch set behind broad overhangs are welcoming and human scaled. Inside, chocolate brown wood is everywhere: walls, beams, window sills, paneling, wainscoting, furniture, not to mention built-in cabinets, benches and window seats. A large bank of windows lets in lots of light, but is protected by all those overhangs, so you don’t feel exposed — or overheated. Everything fits and flows together — spaces, furnishings, lighting fixtures, artworks.
“It’s cozy. It’s warm,” says Yasin, standing in her dining room, which is filled with Craftsman-style furniture either purchased or built by her now-late husband — a G.E. engineer who retired early and leaned into his passion for woodworking.
For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, from Orange and Long Beach to West Adams and Santa Barbara. But nowhere are they as prevalent as Pasadena. And in recent years, popularity has soared, as people crave its well-made, no-nonsense, and nature-embracing ethos. So much so, Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week, taking place Oct. 12-19, has expanded from a weekend to a weeklong event this year.
“It’s the rusticity of it,” adds Juan Dela Cruz, a Bungalow Heaven resident and Craftsman homeowner who is guiding me on a tour of the neighborhood along with John G. Ripley, another local Craftsman owner and co-author of the book “Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven,” ahead of Craftsman Week. “You notice the timbers overhanging. Sometimes you’ll see the roughness in the wood, or you’ll see a three-dimensional relief in the grain. It gives you that connection with nature; that connection with the source from which it came — the tree,” says Dela Cruz.
Annette Yasin, left, stands in the doorway of her kitchen in her Craftsman home, which includes a tiled fireplace. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)Craftsman had its heyday from around 1900 to the early 1920s. It grew out of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, a design philosophy reacting to the Industrial Revolution, with its mass produced goods and fast-paced lifestyle, and the Victorian era, with its frivolous excesses and formal, boxy spaces. It promoted, among other things, handcraft, honesty, unified design, natural materials and design simplicity.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
#2025 #America #Bungalows #California #History #Homes #Libraries #Library #LosAngeles #Neighborhoods #Opinion #Pasadena #TheLosAngelesTimes #Travel #UnitedStates
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How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
Editor’s Note: May be behind a paywall. All photos from LA Times.
How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes
A Craftsman style home in Bungalow Heaven. Common features of a Craftsman home include low-pitched roofs with deep overhanging eaves and large front porches supported by sturdy columns. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)By Sam Lubell, Oct. 8, 2025 3 AM PT
- For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, but they are most prevalent in Pasadena.
- Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week runs Oct. 12-19 with events and tours.
- The style’s authentic craftsmanship is key to its popularity.
When Annette Yasin and her husband, Tom, moved to Pasadena from Michigan more than a decade ago, they purchased a condo near Bungalow Heaven, a 16-block area northeast of Old Town known for its substantial collection of Craftsman bungalows. After regular walks in the neighborhood, the couple came across a home on Mar Vista Avenue and quickly fell in love.
The residence, known as the Dr. Robert H. Sutton Bungalow, is a great example of what makes Craftsman architecture so seductive to so many. Outside, its low-sloped roof, wide eaves, textured wood and brick surfaces, and its shaded porch set behind broad overhangs are welcoming and human scaled. Inside, chocolate brown wood is everywhere: walls, beams, window sills, paneling, wainscoting, furniture, not to mention built-in cabinets, benches and window seats. A large bank of windows lets in lots of light, but is protected by all those overhangs, so you don’t feel exposed — or overheated. Everything fits and flows together — spaces, furnishings, lighting fixtures, artworks.
“It’s cozy. It’s warm,” says Yasin, standing in her dining room, which is filled with Craftsman-style furniture either purchased or built by her now-late husband — a G.E. engineer who retired early and leaned into his passion for woodworking.
For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, from Orange and Long Beach to West Adams and Santa Barbara. But nowhere are they as prevalent as Pasadena. And in recent years, popularity has soared, as people crave its well-made, no-nonsense, and nature-embracing ethos. So much so, Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week, taking place Oct. 12-19, has expanded from a weekend to a weeklong event this year.
“It’s the rusticity of it,” adds Juan Dela Cruz, a Bungalow Heaven resident and Craftsman homeowner who is guiding me on a tour of the neighborhood along with John G. Ripley, another local Craftsman owner and co-author of the book “Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven,” ahead of Craftsman Week. “You notice the timbers overhanging. Sometimes you’ll see the roughness in the wood, or you’ll see a three-dimensional relief in the grain. It gives you that connection with nature; that connection with the source from which it came — the tree,” says Dela Cruz.
Annette Yasin, left, stands in the doorway of her kitchen in her Craftsman home, which includes a tiled fireplace. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)Craftsman had its heyday from around 1900 to the early 1920s. It grew out of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, a design philosophy reacting to the Industrial Revolution, with its mass produced goods and fast-paced lifestyle, and the Victorian era, with its frivolous excesses and formal, boxy spaces. It promoted, among other things, handcraft, honesty, unified design, natural materials and design simplicity.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
#2025 #America #Bungalows #California #History #Homes #Libraries #Library #LosAngeles #Neighborhoods #Opinion #Pasadena #TheLosAngelesTimes #Travel #UnitedStates
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How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
Editor’s Note: May be behind a paywall. All photos from LA Times.
How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes
A Craftsman style home in Bungalow Heaven. Common features of a Craftsman home include low-pitched roofs with deep overhanging eaves and large front porches supported by sturdy columns. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)By Sam Lubell, Oct. 8, 2025 3 AM PT
- For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, but they are most prevalent in Pasadena.
- Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week runs Oct. 12-19 with events and tours.
- The style’s authentic craftsmanship is key to its popularity.
When Annette Yasin and her husband, Tom, moved to Pasadena from Michigan more than a decade ago, they purchased a condo near Bungalow Heaven, a 16-block area northeast of Old Town known for its substantial collection of Craftsman bungalows. After regular walks in the neighborhood, the couple came across a home on Mar Vista Avenue and quickly fell in love.
The residence, known as the Dr. Robert H. Sutton Bungalow, is a great example of what makes Craftsman architecture so seductive to so many. Outside, its low-sloped roof, wide eaves, textured wood and brick surfaces, and its shaded porch set behind broad overhangs are welcoming and human scaled. Inside, chocolate brown wood is everywhere: walls, beams, window sills, paneling, wainscoting, furniture, not to mention built-in cabinets, benches and window seats. A large bank of windows lets in lots of light, but is protected by all those overhangs, so you don’t feel exposed — or overheated. Everything fits and flows together — spaces, furnishings, lighting fixtures, artworks.
“It’s cozy. It’s warm,” says Yasin, standing in her dining room, which is filled with Craftsman-style furniture either purchased or built by her now-late husband — a G.E. engineer who retired early and leaned into his passion for woodworking.
For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, from Orange and Long Beach to West Adams and Santa Barbara. But nowhere are they as prevalent as Pasadena. And in recent years, popularity has soared, as people crave its well-made, no-nonsense, and nature-embracing ethos. So much so, Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week, taking place Oct. 12-19, has expanded from a weekend to a weeklong event this year.
“It’s the rusticity of it,” adds Juan Dela Cruz, a Bungalow Heaven resident and Craftsman homeowner who is guiding me on a tour of the neighborhood along with John G. Ripley, another local Craftsman owner and co-author of the book “Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven,” ahead of Craftsman Week. “You notice the timbers overhanging. Sometimes you’ll see the roughness in the wood, or you’ll see a three-dimensional relief in the grain. It gives you that connection with nature; that connection with the source from which it came — the tree,” says Dela Cruz.
Annette Yasin, left, stands in the doorway of her kitchen in her Craftsman home, which includes a tiled fireplace. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)Craftsman had its heyday from around 1900 to the early 1920s. It grew out of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, a design philosophy reacting to the Industrial Revolution, with its mass produced goods and fast-paced lifestyle, and the Victorian era, with its frivolous excesses and formal, boxy spaces. It promoted, among other things, handcraft, honesty, unified design, natural materials and design simplicity.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
#2025 #America #Bungalows #California #History #Homes #Libraries #Library #LosAngeles #Neighborhoods #Opinion #Pasadena #TheLosAngelesTimes #Travel #UnitedStates
-
How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
Editor’s Note: May be behind a paywall. All photos from LA Times.
How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes
A Craftsman style home in Bungalow Heaven. Common features of a Craftsman home include low-pitched roofs with deep overhanging eaves and large front porches supported by sturdy columns. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)By Sam Lubell, Oct. 8, 2025 3 AM PT
- For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, but they are most prevalent in Pasadena.
- Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week runs Oct. 12-19 with events and tours.
- The style’s authentic craftsmanship is key to its popularity.
When Annette Yasin and her husband, Tom, moved to Pasadena from Michigan more than a decade ago, they purchased a condo near Bungalow Heaven, a 16-block area northeast of Old Town known for its substantial collection of Craftsman bungalows. After regular walks in the neighborhood, the couple came across a home on Mar Vista Avenue and quickly fell in love.
The residence, known as the Dr. Robert H. Sutton Bungalow, is a great example of what makes Craftsman architecture so seductive to so many. Outside, its low-sloped roof, wide eaves, textured wood and brick surfaces, and its shaded porch set behind broad overhangs are welcoming and human scaled. Inside, chocolate brown wood is everywhere: walls, beams, window sills, paneling, wainscoting, furniture, not to mention built-in cabinets, benches and window seats. A large bank of windows lets in lots of light, but is protected by all those overhangs, so you don’t feel exposed — or overheated. Everything fits and flows together — spaces, furnishings, lighting fixtures, artworks.
“It’s cozy. It’s warm,” says Yasin, standing in her dining room, which is filled with Craftsman-style furniture either purchased or built by her now-late husband — a G.E. engineer who retired early and leaned into his passion for woodworking.
For over a century, Craftsman homes have been beloved across Southern California, from Orange and Long Beach to West Adams and Santa Barbara. But nowhere are they as prevalent as Pasadena. And in recent years, popularity has soared, as people crave its well-made, no-nonsense, and nature-embracing ethos. So much so, Pasadena Heritage’s Craftsman Week, taking place Oct. 12-19, has expanded from a weekend to a weeklong event this year.
“It’s the rusticity of it,” adds Juan Dela Cruz, a Bungalow Heaven resident and Craftsman homeowner who is guiding me on a tour of the neighborhood along with John G. Ripley, another local Craftsman owner and co-author of the book “Pasadena’s Bungalow Heaven,” ahead of Craftsman Week. “You notice the timbers overhanging. Sometimes you’ll see the roughness in the wood, or you’ll see a three-dimensional relief in the grain. It gives you that connection with nature; that connection with the source from which it came — the tree,” says Dela Cruz.
Annette Yasin, left, stands in the doorway of her kitchen in her Craftsman home, which includes a tiled fireplace. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)Craftsman had its heyday from around 1900 to the early 1920s. It grew out of the British Arts and Crafts Movement, a design philosophy reacting to the Industrial Revolution, with its mass produced goods and fast-paced lifestyle, and the Victorian era, with its frivolous excesses and formal, boxy spaces. It promoted, among other things, handcraft, honesty, unified design, natural materials and design simplicity.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: How this L.A. suburb fell in love with Craftsman homes – Los Angeles Times
#2025 #America #Bungalows #California #History #Homes #Libraries #Library #LosAngeles #Neighborhoods #Opinion #Pasadena #TheLosAngelesTimes #Travel #UnitedStates
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Three Decades of Independence
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/05/three-decades-of-independence/
Consortium News was launched in 1995 when the internet was in its infancy, blazing a trail for the explosion of independent media to follow. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News In terms of the internet, November 1995 is ancient…
#Politics #ConsortiumNews #ConsortiumNewsAt30 #History #Media #RobertParry #Salon.com #TheLosAngelesTimes #TheNewYorkTimes #TheWallStreetJournal #TheWashingtonPost -
Three Decades of Independence
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/05/three-decades-of-independence/
Consortium News was launched in 1995 when the internet was in its infancy, blazing a trail for the explosion of independent media to follow. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News In terms of the internet, November 1995 is ancient…
#Politics #ConsortiumNews #ConsortiumNewsAt30 #History #Media #RobertParry #Salon.com #TheLosAngelesTimes #TheNewYorkTimes #TheWallStreetJournal #TheWashingtonPost -
Three Decades of Independence
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/05/three-decades-of-independence/
Consortium News was launched in 1995 when the internet was in its infancy, blazing a trail for the explosion of independent media to follow. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News In terms of the internet, November 1995 is ancient…
#Politics #ConsortiumNews #ConsortiumNewsAt30 #History #Media #RobertParry #Salon.com #TheLosAngelesTimes #TheNewYorkTimes #TheWallStreetJournal #TheWashingtonPost -
Three Decades of Independence
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/05/three-decades-of-independence/
Consortium News was launched in 1995 when the internet was in its infancy, blazing a trail for the explosion of independent media to follow. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News In terms of the internet, November 1995 is ancient…
#Politics #ConsortiumNews #ConsortiumNewsAt30 #History #Media #RobertParry #Salon.com #TheLosAngelesTimes #TheNewYorkTimes #TheWallStreetJournal #TheWashingtonPost -
Three Decades of Independence
https://consortiumnews.com/2025/06/05/three-decades-of-independence/
Consortium News was launched in 1995 when the internet was in its infancy, blazing a trail for the explosion of independent media to follow. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News In terms of the internet, November 1995 is ancient…
#Politics #ConsortiumNews #ConsortiumNewsAt30 #History #Media #RobertParry #Salon.com #TheLosAngelesTimes #TheNewYorkTimes #TheWallStreetJournal #TheWashingtonPost -
Los Angeles Times Owner Plans to Launch Tech-Driven “Bias Meter” On Articles Next Year
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Los Angeles Times Owner Plans to Launch Tech-Driven “Bias Meter” On Articles Next Year
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Los Angeles Times Owner Plans to Launch Tech-Driven “Bias Meter” On Articles Next Year
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Los Angeles Times Owner Plans to Launch Tech-Driven “Bias Meter” On Articles Next Year
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Los Angeles Times Owner Plans to Launch Tech-Driven “Bias Meter” On Articles Next Year
#Business #BusinessNews #Patricksoonshiong #Thelosangelestimes -
Good Afternoon!!
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the shameful abdication of responsibility by the owners of the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. The Times’s Patrick Soon-Shiong and the Post’s Jeff Bezos interfered with the plans of their editorial boards in fear of what another Trump presidency could mean to their bottom lines. Both owners decreed that their newspapers would not endorse a candidate for president in 2024.
At The Wrap, Ross A. Lincoln has a piece on the extensive project that the LA Times owner chose to shut down: LA Times Planned ‘Case Against Trump’ Series Alongside Kamala Harris Endorsement Before Owner Quashed It | Exclusive.
Alongside its endorsement of Kamala Harris, the Los Angeles Times editorial board had also planned a multi-part series against Donald Trump before the whole thing was quashed by owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, TheWrap has learned.
According to internal memos viewed by TheWrap, the series, tentatively called “The Case Against Trump,” would have ran throughout this week. The endorsement of Kamala Harris would then have been published on Sunday.
However, Soon-Shiong ordered the cancellation 0f the series and the endorsement without explanation, current and now former staffers have confirmed, setting off a massive crisis for the 142-year-old paper.
The South African-American billionaire’s interference in his paper’s editorial independence has sparked a rise in canceled subscriptions and several high profile resignations, and there are also signs of growing unrest among staffers.
On Thursday, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene, both quit. They followed Editorial Editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest on Wednesday. Both Klein and Garza have specifically cited Soon-Shiong’s actions as the reason for their exits.
The owner “vetoed the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president,” Garza said in her resignation letter. And alluding to the fact that the LA Times has endorsed multiple local/state level candidates, she said canceling the Harris endorsement “undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races.”
“People will justifiably wonder if each endorsement was a decision made by a group of journalists after extensive research and discussion, or through decree by the owner,” she added.
In a dissembling statement of his own posted Wednesday on the social media site formerly called Twitter, Soon-Shiong blamed the editorial team itself for the lack of an endorsement, yet also essentially confirmed he had in fact shut it down. He said the board “was provided the opportunity” to effectively draw false equivalence between Trump and Harris in op-eds laying out the pros and cons of each candidate.
“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the editorial board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision,” Soon-Shiong concluded.
“We pitched an endorsement and were not allowed to write one,” Garza shot back in a statement exclusively provided to TheWrap. And Klein, who also called Soon-Shiong a “chickens—,” stated plainly in a note explaining her resignation that “the board was not the one choosing to remain silent. He blocked our voice.”
This is what happens when billionaires control our media.
The Washington Post’s betrayal of their staff and their readers is getting the most attention, because of the newspaper’s long history of speaking truth to power. For example, without the Post’s reporting, Richard Nixon might not have been forced to resign.
When Marty Baron was editor in chief, he inserted the phrase “democracy dies in darkness” at the top of The Washington Post’s front page. Well, the Post has now died and officially no longer supports democracy. The Boston Globe: Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron slams newspaper for not making presidential endorsement.
Marty Baron, the former editor of the Washington Post, blasted the newspaper on Friday for declining to issue an endorsement in this year’s presidential election, framing the decision as a win for Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” Baron, also the former editor of the Boston Globe, wrote on X. “@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.” [….]
Baron’s message followed an announcement from Post publisher William Lewis that the newspaper is “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
The Post, which is owned by Amazon.com co-founder Jeff Bezos, had drafted an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris, Oliver Darcy reported on his newsletter Status. Top editorial page editors at the Los Angeles Times resigned this week after the newspaper’s owner, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked a planned endorsement for Harris.
Baron led the Globe newsroom from 2001 to 2012 before taking the helm at the Post. He retired in 2021.
From members of the Post’s opinion page: Opinion: Post columnists respond.
The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love. This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs. That has never been more true than in the current campaign. An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution.
Karen Attiah
Perry Bacon Jr.Matt Bai
Max Boot
Kate Cohen
E.J. Dionne Jr.
Lee Hockstader
David Ignatius
Heather Long
Ruth Marcus
Dana Milbank
Alexandra Petri
Catherine Rampell
Eugene Robinson
Jennifer Rubin
Karen Tumulty
Erik Wemple
At least The New York Times allowed their editorial board to endorse Harris: The Only Patriotic Choice for President.
It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.
Windy Day, Jamie Shelman
Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.
This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.
For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.
Most presidential elections are, at their core, about two different visions of America that emerge from competing policies and principles. This one is about something more foundational. It is about whether we invite into the highest office in the land a man who has revealed, unmistakably, that he will degrade the values, defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong.
As a dedicated public servant who has demonstrated care, competence and an unwavering commitment to the Constitution, Ms. Harris stands alone in this race. She may not be the perfect candidate for every voter, especially those who are frustrated and angry about our government’s failures to fix what’s broken — from our immigration system to public schools to housing costs to gun violence. Yet we urge Americans to contrast Ms. Harris’s record with her opponent’s.
The case for Harris:
Ms. Harris is more than a necessary alternative. There is also an optimistic case for elevating her, one that is rooted in her policies and borne out by her experience as vice president, a senator and a state attorney general.
Over the past 10 weeks, Ms. Harris has offered a shared future for all citizens, beyond hate and division. She has begun to describe a set of thoughtful plans to help American families.
While character is enormously important — in this election, pre-eminently so — policies matter. Many Americans remain deeply concerned about their prospects and their children’s in an unstable and unforgiving world. For them, Ms. Harris is clearly the better choice. She has committed to using the power of her office to help Americans better afford the things they need, to make it easier to own a home, to support small businesses and to help workers. Mr. Trump’s economic priorities are more tax cuts, which would benefit mostly the wealthy, and more tariffs, which will make prices even more unmanageable for the poor and middle class.
Beyond the economy, Ms. Harris promises to continue working to expand access to health care and reduce its cost. She has a long record of fighting to protect women’s health and reproductive freedom. Mr. Trump spent years trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and boasts of picking the Supreme Court justices who ended the constitutional right to an abortion.
Globally, Ms. Harris would work to maintain and strengthen the alliances with like-minded nations that have long advanced American interests abroad and maintained the nation’s security. Mr. Trump — who has long praised autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Kim Jong-un — has threatened to blow those democratic alliances apart. Ms. Harris recognizes the need for global solutions to the global problem of climate change and would continue President Biden’s major investments in the industries and technologies necessary to achieve that goal. Mr. Trump rejects the accepted science, and his contempt for low-carbon energy solutions is matched only by his trollish fealty to fossil fuels.
As for immigration, a huge and largely unsolved issue, the former president continues to demonize and dehumanize immigrants, while Ms. Harris at least offers hope for a compromise, long denied by Congress, to secure the borders and return the nation to a sane immigration system.
There’s more at the link.
Commentary on these stunning events:
Dan Froomkin at Salon: Billionaires have broken media: Washington Post’s non-endorsement is a sickening moral collapse.
The shocking decision by The Washington Post not to make an endorsement in the presidential election — breaking with a decadeslong tradition — is an extremely powerful statement. A non-endorsement says Donald Trump is a reasonable choice.
It says: We are so terrified of a Trump presidency that we are bending the knee in advance. Most importantly, it makes clear that owner Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to lose government business in a second Trump administration.
I can’t imagine statements any more inappropriate from the newspaper of Watergate, the newspaper I spent 12 years working my ass off for. It’s heartbreaking. It makes me sick to my stomach.
To be clear: Every self-respecting journalist on both the news and opinion sides should be sounding the alarm about a possible second term for Trump. He poses a threat to democracy and a free press. On the news side, that requires brutally honest coverage of the threats Trump presents, with no false equating of the two parties — one of which has rejected reality and democratic values. The Post newsroom is hit or miss on that count. But on the editorial page, this shouldn’t have been a close call (and reportedly wasn’t, until Bezos got involved)….
The very opposite of sounding the alarm is throwing up your hands and saying “well, you decide.”
The Post’s decision Friday comes just days after the Los Angeles Times also decided to forgo an official endorsement. This is no coincidence. Both papers are owned by billionaires whose business and personal interests are paramount.
“I think my fear is, if we chose either one, that it would just add to the division,” the billionaire owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, told Spectrum News this week.
This makes it more clear than ever: You cannot be a truly independent news organization if you are owned by an oligarch.
No kidding. This disaster has been developing for decades as the media has become more and more centralized and controlled by corporations.
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling.
ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the Washington Post announced that it would not be making an endorsement in the presidential race. After that, a number of things happened very quickly.
First, the paper’s former executive editor Marty Baron called the decision “cowardice.”
Second, at least one senior Post opinion writer resigned.
Third, it was leaked that the editor of the editorial page had already drafted the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris when publisher Will Lewis—who is a new hire, hailing from the Rupert Murdoch journalism tree—quashed it and then released a CYA statement about how the paper was “returning to its roots” of not endorsing candidates. The Post itself reported that the decision was made by the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Everything about this story feels like a tempest in a teapot, a boiling story about legacy media fretting over itself in the mirror.
It’s not.
It’s a situation analogous to what we saw in Russia in the early 2000s: We are witnessing the surrender of the American business community to Donald Trump.
By Evelyn Sarah
No one cares about the Washington Post’s presidential endorsement. It will not move a single vote. The only people who care about newspaper editorial page endorsements are newspaper editorial writers.
No one really cares all that much about the future of the Washington Post, either. I mean, I care about it, because I care about journalism and I respect the institution.
But this isn’t a journalism story. It’s a business story.
Following Trump’s 2016 victory, the Post leaned hard into its role as a guardian of democracy. This meant criticizing, and reporting aggressively on, Trump, who responded by threatening Bezos’s various business interests.
And that’s what this story is about: It’s about the most consequential American entrepreneur of his generation signaling his submission to Trump—and the message that sends to every other corporation and business leader in the country. In the world.
Killing this editorial says, If Jeff Bezos has to be nice to Trump, then so do you. Keep your nose clean, bub.
Read on for Last’s comparison of what is happening here to Vladimir Putin’s consolidation of power in Russia.
Benjamin Wittes at The Bulwark: The Washington Post Bends the Knee to Trump.
I NEVER EXPECTED TO SEE THE DAY when the Washington Post would kneel before Donald Trump.
These are not Senate Republicans or conservative donors. This is not a group of people who cower in the face of authoritarianism. The Post editorial board, the writers who write anonymous opinion essays in the name of the paper itself, is a group of bold, pro-democracy intellectuals who have traditionally taken—individually and collectively—courageous stands about democracy and human rights around the world.
The Post’s editorial page is also the institution in which I grew up professionally. I worked there for nearly a decade under both of the last two long-time editorial page editors, Fred Hiatt and Meg Greenfield. It is an institution I revere.
And it is one that has not previously wavered with respect to Trumpist authoritarianism.
Yet today we learn that the editorial board has been stripped of its authority to endorse presidential candidates, having previously decided to endorse Kamala Harris. Instead, the paper announced in a statement from the publisher, William Lewis, that “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” [….]
…[T]he Post kneels without offering a word of praise for Trump. It’s just that, for high-minded reasons that it doesn’t really bother to specify, it’s getting out of this whole presidential endorsement business altogether. That was its traditional position, it archly informs us, back in the good old days before Watergate sent the Post on an aberrant jag. And, you see, while it’s perfectly understandable why the Post betrayed its high-minded above-it-allness in the wake of Nixon—when emotions were running high and all—having thought about it, it’s time to once again remove ourselves to the heights of Olympus where we can peer down on the foibles of mortals:
We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions—whom to vote for as the next president.
Yet it is a submission nonetheless: One week before the mortals finish voting and might elect an authoritarian, one whose former chief of staff calls him a fascist, the Washington Post has decided that silence is the best way to guide its readers.
Silence, after all, will not offend the authoritarian should he win. Silence, after all, is more than Trump can reasonably expect from the Post. Democracy may die in darkness, as the Post’s motto goes, but silence is apparently a good hedge.
Read the rest at the Bulwark.
Tomorrow, Trump will hold a rally in Madison Square Garden, site of the famous 1939 American Nazi rally.
ABC News: Trump to rally in iconic Madison Square Garden.
In the final week of his campaign, former President Donald Trump will cross off a campaign bucket-list item on Sunday: a rally in the iconic Madison Square Garden. The avid Broadway enthusiast will deliver a matinee performance, complete with musical guests and a host of Republican allies.
It’s a moment Trump has long said he wanted to have in the state where he has faced criminal and civil trials, becoming a convicted felon and mounted a business empire.
“I think it’ll be a great time, and it’s going to be really a celebration of the whole thing, you know, because it’s coming to an end a few days after that. The campaigning; I won’t campaign anymore. Then I’ll be campaigning to make America great,” Trump said about the upcoming Madison Square Garden rally during a local radio interview with Cats & Cosby on Thursday….
In an arena format symbolizing confidence and celebrity status, Trump’s appearance will serve as his closing argument. In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris makes hers on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The former president, reminiscent of the last nine years campaigning for the highest office in the land, has coined the event as a “celebration of the whole thing.”
“Well, it’s New York, but it’s also sort of, it’s the end of my campaigning. When you think, I mean, I’ve done it now for nine years, we’ve had two great elections. One was better than the other,” Trump said.
On Sunday, Trump will be joined by several surrogates who have appeared with him on the campaign trail — including North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy. House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik will also be in attendance as well as several family members and donors.
Supposedly Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk will also be there.
Eric Bradner at CNN: Madison Square Garden versus the White House Ellipse: where Trump and Harris are making their final pitches.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have honed their closing arguments – and now they’re both turning to famous venues to try to help those messages break through just 10 days from Election Day.
The former president is returning to his hometown on Sunday for a rally in one of New York City’s most iconic landmarks, Madison Square Garden. Two days later, the vice president is holding an event at the Ellipse, the park just outside the South Lawn of the White House, where Trump’s fiery speech nearly four years ago set in motion the attack on the US Capitol.
The two events could deliver key moments in a race that is on a razor’s edge, with CNN’s final nationwide poll showing each candidate with the support of 47% of likely voters.
Both campaigns are urging supporters to cast their ballots early and attempting to reach the vanishingly small pools of undecided voters – or those who know which candidate they prefer but are not sure whether they will vote.
Harris and Trump have made clear the issues they’re highlighting in the campaign’s last days. Harris is leaning into her support for abortion rights, a political winner for Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She’s also contrasting her character with Trump’s – a strategy aimed at reaching independents and moderate Republicans.
“Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump, who will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list,” she told reporters Thursday, “or what I will be doing, which is responding to folks, like the folks last night, with a to-do list.”
Trump is hammering the vice president on border security, using dehumanizing language aimed at undocumented immigrants as he focuses on an issue that’s been at the core of his political identity for all three of his presidential runs. It’s part of his broader case that Democrats in four years have undercut the stability and economic successes of his tenure in the Oval Office.
The goals of the two candidates for the rest of the campaign:
In staging a rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump is betting on his own showmanship and celebrity – expecting he can fill the arena in the deep-blue city and hoping that the spectacle will reach television and phone screens in all seven battleground states.
Previewing the final sprint to Election Day, a senior Harris campaign official said to “expect to see more” of the vice president invoking the former president’s description of political opponents as “enemies within” while also describing the race as a decision between Trump’s “enemies list” and her own “to-do list.”
Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also deployed that framing for the first time Thursday, as he campaigned in North Carolina.
“She’s got a to-do list. He’s got an enemies list,” Walz said.
Harris’ star-studded rally Thursday night in Georgia – her first campaign appearance with former President Barack Obama, and one that featured several other celebrities – kicked off what the senior campaign official described as the homing in of the campaign’s closing argument. That argument illustrates what a Harris administration would look like compared with the threat Harris says Trump poses, the official said.
The vice president continued that celebrity-fueled push Friday night in Texas – a rare visit to a state that is not a presidential battleground.
I’m going to end there. I will add some other interesting stories in the comment thread. Take care everyone!
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/10/26/lazy-caturday-reads-180/
#DonaldTrump #JeffBezos #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris #news #PatrickSoonShiong #politics #TheLosAngelesTimes #TheWashingtonPost
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Good Afternoon!!
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the shameful abdication of responsibility by the owners of the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. The Times’s Patrick Soon-Shiong and the Post’s Jeff Bezos interfered with the plans of their editorial boards in fear of what another Trump presidency could mean to their bottom lines. Both owners decreed that their newspapers would not endorse a candidate for president in 2024.
At The Wrap, Ross A. Lincoln has a piece on the extensive project that the LA Times owner chose to shut down: LA Times Planned ‘Case Against Trump’ Series Alongside Kamala Harris Endorsement Before Owner Quashed It | Exclusive.
Alongside its endorsement of Kamala Harris, the Los Angeles Times editorial board had also planned a multi-part series against Donald Trump before the whole thing was quashed by owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, TheWrap has learned.
According to internal memos viewed by TheWrap, the series, tentatively called “The Case Against Trump,” would have ran throughout this week. The endorsement of Kamala Harris would then have been published on Sunday.
However, Soon-Shiong ordered the cancellation 0f the series and the endorsement without explanation, current and now former staffers have confirmed, setting off a massive crisis for the 142-year-old paper.
The South African-American billionaire’s interference in his paper’s editorial independence has sparked a rise in canceled subscriptions and several high profile resignations, and there are also signs of growing unrest among staffers.
On Thursday, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene, both quit. They followed Editorial Editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest on Wednesday. Both Klein and Garza have specifically cited Soon-Shiong’s actions as the reason for their exits.
The owner “vetoed the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president,” Garza said in her resignation letter. And alluding to the fact that the LA Times has endorsed multiple local/state level candidates, she said canceling the Harris endorsement “undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races.”
“People will justifiably wonder if each endorsement was a decision made by a group of journalists after extensive research and discussion, or through decree by the owner,” she added.
In a dissembling statement of his own posted Wednesday on the social media site formerly called Twitter, Soon-Shiong blamed the editorial team itself for the lack of an endorsement, yet also essentially confirmed he had in fact shut it down. He said the board “was provided the opportunity” to effectively draw false equivalence between Trump and Harris in op-eds laying out the pros and cons of each candidate.
“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the editorial board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision,” Soon-Shiong concluded.
“We pitched an endorsement and were not allowed to write one,” Garza shot back in a statement exclusively provided to TheWrap. And Klein, who also called Soon-Shiong a “chickens—,” stated plainly in a note explaining her resignation that “the board was not the one choosing to remain silent. He blocked our voice.”
This is what happens when billionaires control our media.
The Washington Post’s betrayal of their staff and their readers is getting the most attention, because of the newspaper’s long history of speaking truth to power. For example, without the Post’s reporting, Richard Nixon might not have been forced to resign.
When Marty Baron was editor in chief, he inserted the phrase “democracy dies in darkness” at the top of The Washington Post’s front page. Well, the Post has now died and officially no longer supports democracy. The Boston Globe: Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron slams newspaper for not making presidential endorsement.
Marty Baron, the former editor of the Washington Post, blasted the newspaper on Friday for declining to issue an endorsement in this year’s presidential election, framing the decision as a win for Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” Baron, also the former editor of the Boston Globe, wrote on X. “@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.” [….]
Baron’s message followed an announcement from Post publisher William Lewis that the newspaper is “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
The Post, which is owned by Amazon.com co-founder Jeff Bezos, had drafted an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris, Oliver Darcy reported on his newsletter Status. Top editorial page editors at the Los Angeles Times resigned this week after the newspaper’s owner, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked a planned endorsement for Harris.
Baron led the Globe newsroom from 2001 to 2012 before taking the helm at the Post. He retired in 2021.
From members of the Post’s opinion page: Opinion: Post columnists respond.
The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love. This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs. That has never been more true than in the current campaign. An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution.
Karen Attiah
Perry Bacon Jr.Matt Bai
Max Boot
Kate Cohen
E.J. Dionne Jr.
Lee Hockstader
David Ignatius
Heather Long
Ruth Marcus
Dana Milbank
Alexandra Petri
Catherine Rampell
Eugene Robinson
Jennifer Rubin
Karen Tumulty
Erik Wemple
At least The New York Times allowed their editorial board to endorse Harris: The Only Patriotic Choice for President.
It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.
Windy Day, Jamie Shelman
Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.
This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.
For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.
Most presidential elections are, at their core, about two different visions of America that emerge from competing policies and principles. This one is about something more foundational. It is about whether we invite into the highest office in the land a man who has revealed, unmistakably, that he will degrade the values, defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong.
As a dedicated public servant who has demonstrated care, competence and an unwavering commitment to the Constitution, Ms. Harris stands alone in this race. She may not be the perfect candidate for every voter, especially those who are frustrated and angry about our government’s failures to fix what’s broken — from our immigration system to public schools to housing costs to gun violence. Yet we urge Americans to contrast Ms. Harris’s record with her opponent’s.
The case for Harris:
Ms. Harris is more than a necessary alternative. There is also an optimistic case for elevating her, one that is rooted in her policies and borne out by her experience as vice president, a senator and a state attorney general.
Over the past 10 weeks, Ms. Harris has offered a shared future for all citizens, beyond hate and division. She has begun to describe a set of thoughtful plans to help American families.
While character is enormously important — in this election, pre-eminently so — policies matter. Many Americans remain deeply concerned about their prospects and their children’s in an unstable and unforgiving world. For them, Ms. Harris is clearly the better choice. She has committed to using the power of her office to help Americans better afford the things they need, to make it easier to own a home, to support small businesses and to help workers. Mr. Trump’s economic priorities are more tax cuts, which would benefit mostly the wealthy, and more tariffs, which will make prices even more unmanageable for the poor and middle class.
Beyond the economy, Ms. Harris promises to continue working to expand access to health care and reduce its cost. She has a long record of fighting to protect women’s health and reproductive freedom. Mr. Trump spent years trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and boasts of picking the Supreme Court justices who ended the constitutional right to an abortion.
Globally, Ms. Harris would work to maintain and strengthen the alliances with like-minded nations that have long advanced American interests abroad and maintained the nation’s security. Mr. Trump — who has long praised autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Kim Jong-un — has threatened to blow those democratic alliances apart. Ms. Harris recognizes the need for global solutions to the global problem of climate change and would continue President Biden’s major investments in the industries and technologies necessary to achieve that goal. Mr. Trump rejects the accepted science, and his contempt for low-carbon energy solutions is matched only by his trollish fealty to fossil fuels.
As for immigration, a huge and largely unsolved issue, the former president continues to demonize and dehumanize immigrants, while Ms. Harris at least offers hope for a compromise, long denied by Congress, to secure the borders and return the nation to a sane immigration system.
There’s more at the link.
Commentary on these stunning events:
Dan Froomkin at Salon: Billionaires have broken media: Washington Post’s non-endorsement is a sickening moral collapse.
The shocking decision by The Washington Post not to make an endorsement in the presidential election — breaking with a decadeslong tradition — is an extremely powerful statement. A non-endorsement says Donald Trump is a reasonable choice.
It says: We are so terrified of a Trump presidency that we are bending the knee in advance. Most importantly, it makes clear that owner Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to lose government business in a second Trump administration.
I can’t imagine statements any more inappropriate from the newspaper of Watergate, the newspaper I spent 12 years working my ass off for. It’s heartbreaking. It makes me sick to my stomach.
To be clear: Every self-respecting journalist on both the news and opinion sides should be sounding the alarm about a possible second term for Trump. He poses a threat to democracy and a free press. On the news side, that requires brutally honest coverage of the threats Trump presents, with no false equating of the two parties — one of which has rejected reality and democratic values. The Post newsroom is hit or miss on that count. But on the editorial page, this shouldn’t have been a close call (and reportedly wasn’t, until Bezos got involved)….
The very opposite of sounding the alarm is throwing up your hands and saying “well, you decide.”
The Post’s decision Friday comes just days after the Los Angeles Times also decided to forgo an official endorsement. This is no coincidence. Both papers are owned by billionaires whose business and personal interests are paramount.
“I think my fear is, if we chose either one, that it would just add to the division,” the billionaire owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, told Spectrum News this week.
This makes it more clear than ever: You cannot be a truly independent news organization if you are owned by an oligarch.
No kidding. This disaster has been developing for decades as the media has become more and more centralized and controlled by corporations.
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling.
ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the Washington Post announced that it would not be making an endorsement in the presidential race. After that, a number of things happened very quickly.
First, the paper’s former executive editor Marty Baron called the decision “cowardice.”
Second, at least one senior Post opinion writer resigned.
Third, it was leaked that the editor of the editorial page had already drafted the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris when publisher Will Lewis—who is a new hire, hailing from the Rupert Murdoch journalism tree—quashed it and then released a CYA statement about how the paper was “returning to its roots” of not endorsing candidates. The Post itself reported that the decision was made by the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Everything about this story feels like a tempest in a teapot, a boiling story about legacy media fretting over itself in the mirror.
It’s not.
It’s a situation analogous to what we saw in Russia in the early 2000s: We are witnessing the surrender of the American business community to Donald Trump.
By Evelyn Sarah
No one cares about the Washington Post’s presidential endorsement. It will not move a single vote. The only people who care about newspaper editorial page endorsements are newspaper editorial writers.
No one really cares all that much about the future of the Washington Post, either. I mean, I care about it, because I care about journalism and I respect the institution.
But this isn’t a journalism story. It’s a business story.
Following Trump’s 2016 victory, the Post leaned hard into its role as a guardian of democracy. This meant criticizing, and reporting aggressively on, Trump, who responded by threatening Bezos’s various business interests.
And that’s what this story is about: It’s about the most consequential American entrepreneur of his generation signaling his submission to Trump—and the message that sends to every other corporation and business leader in the country. In the world.
Killing this editorial says, If Jeff Bezos has to be nice to Trump, then so do you. Keep your nose clean, bub.
Read on for Last’s comparison of what is happening here to Vladimir Putin’s consolidation of power in Russia.
Benjamin Wittes at The Bulwark: The Washington Post Bends the Knee to Trump.
I NEVER EXPECTED TO SEE THE DAY when the Washington Post would kneel before Donald Trump.
These are not Senate Republicans or conservative donors. This is not a group of people who cower in the face of authoritarianism. The Post editorial board, the writers who write anonymous opinion essays in the name of the paper itself, is a group of bold, pro-democracy intellectuals who have traditionally taken—individually and collectively—courageous stands about democracy and human rights around the world.
The Post’s editorial page is also the institution in which I grew up professionally. I worked there for nearly a decade under both of the last two long-time editorial page editors, Fred Hiatt and Meg Greenfield. It is an institution I revere.
And it is one that has not previously wavered with respect to Trumpist authoritarianism.
Yet today we learn that the editorial board has been stripped of its authority to endorse presidential candidates, having previously decided to endorse Kamala Harris. Instead, the paper announced in a statement from the publisher, William Lewis, that “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” [….]
…[T]he Post kneels without offering a word of praise for Trump. It’s just that, for high-minded reasons that it doesn’t really bother to specify, it’s getting out of this whole presidential endorsement business altogether. That was its traditional position, it archly informs us, back in the good old days before Watergate sent the Post on an aberrant jag. And, you see, while it’s perfectly understandable why the Post betrayed its high-minded above-it-allness in the wake of Nixon—when emotions were running high and all—having thought about it, it’s time to once again remove ourselves to the heights of Olympus where we can peer down on the foibles of mortals:
We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions—whom to vote for as the next president.
Yet it is a submission nonetheless: One week before the mortals finish voting and might elect an authoritarian, one whose former chief of staff calls him a fascist, the Washington Post has decided that silence is the best way to guide its readers.
Silence, after all, will not offend the authoritarian should he win. Silence, after all, is more than Trump can reasonably expect from the Post. Democracy may die in darkness, as the Post’s motto goes, but silence is apparently a good hedge.
Read the rest at the Bulwark.
Tomorrow, Trump will hold a rally in Madison Square Garden, site of the famous 1939 American Nazi rally.
ABC News: Trump to rally in iconic Madison Square Garden.
In the final week of his campaign, former President Donald Trump will cross off a campaign bucket-list item on Sunday: a rally in the iconic Madison Square Garden. The avid Broadway enthusiast will deliver a matinee performance, complete with musical guests and a host of Republican allies.
It’s a moment Trump has long said he wanted to have in the state where he has faced criminal and civil trials, becoming a convicted felon and mounted a business empire.
“I think it’ll be a great time, and it’s going to be really a celebration of the whole thing, you know, because it’s coming to an end a few days after that. The campaigning; I won’t campaign anymore. Then I’ll be campaigning to make America great,” Trump said about the upcoming Madison Square Garden rally during a local radio interview with Cats & Cosby on Thursday….
In an arena format symbolizing confidence and celebrity status, Trump’s appearance will serve as his closing argument. In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris makes hers on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The former president, reminiscent of the last nine years campaigning for the highest office in the land, has coined the event as a “celebration of the whole thing.”
“Well, it’s New York, but it’s also sort of, it’s the end of my campaigning. When you think, I mean, I’ve done it now for nine years, we’ve had two great elections. One was better than the other,” Trump said.
On Sunday, Trump will be joined by several surrogates who have appeared with him on the campaign trail — including North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy. House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik will also be in attendance as well as several family members and donors.
Supposedly Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk will also be there.
Eric Bradner at CNN: Madison Square Garden versus the White House Ellipse: where Trump and Harris are making their final pitches.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have honed their closing arguments – and now they’re both turning to famous venues to try to help those messages break through just 10 days from Election Day.
The former president is returning to his hometown on Sunday for a rally in one of New York City’s most iconic landmarks, Madison Square Garden. Two days later, the vice president is holding an event at the Ellipse, the park just outside the South Lawn of the White House, where Trump’s fiery speech nearly four years ago set in motion the attack on the US Capitol.
The two events could deliver key moments in a race that is on a razor’s edge, with CNN’s final nationwide poll showing each candidate with the support of 47% of likely voters.
Both campaigns are urging supporters to cast their ballots early and attempting to reach the vanishingly small pools of undecided voters – or those who know which candidate they prefer but are not sure whether they will vote.
Harris and Trump have made clear the issues they’re highlighting in the campaign’s last days. Harris is leaning into her support for abortion rights, a political winner for Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She’s also contrasting her character with Trump’s – a strategy aimed at reaching independents and moderate Republicans.
“Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump, who will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list,” she told reporters Thursday, “or what I will be doing, which is responding to folks, like the folks last night, with a to-do list.”
Trump is hammering the vice president on border security, using dehumanizing language aimed at undocumented immigrants as he focuses on an issue that’s been at the core of his political identity for all three of his presidential runs. It’s part of his broader case that Democrats in four years have undercut the stability and economic successes of his tenure in the Oval Office.
The goals of the two candidates for the rest of the campaign:
In staging a rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump is betting on his own showmanship and celebrity – expecting he can fill the arena in the deep-blue city and hoping that the spectacle will reach television and phone screens in all seven battleground states.
Previewing the final sprint to Election Day, a senior Harris campaign official said to “expect to see more” of the vice president invoking the former president’s description of political opponents as “enemies within” while also describing the race as a decision between Trump’s “enemies list” and her own “to-do list.”
Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also deployed that framing for the first time Thursday, as he campaigned in North Carolina.
“She’s got a to-do list. He’s got an enemies list,” Walz said.
Harris’ star-studded rally Thursday night in Georgia – her first campaign appearance with former President Barack Obama, and one that featured several other celebrities – kicked off what the senior campaign official described as the homing in of the campaign’s closing argument. That argument illustrates what a Harris administration would look like compared with the threat Harris says Trump poses, the official said.
The vice president continued that celebrity-fueled push Friday night in Texas – a rare visit to a state that is not a presidential battleground.
I’m going to end there. I will add some other interesting stories in the comment thread. Take care everyone!
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/10/26/lazy-caturday-reads-180/
#DonaldTrump #JeffBezos #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris #news #PatrickSoonShiong #politics #TheLosAngelesTimes #TheWashingtonPost
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Good Afternoon!!
Yesterday, Dakinikat wrote about the shameful abdication of responsibility by the owners of the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post. The Times’s Patrick Soon-Shiong and the Post’s Jeff Bezos interfered with the plans of their editorial boards in fear of what another Trump presidency could mean to their bottom lines. Both owners decreed that their newspapers would not endorse a candidate for president in 2024.
At The Wrap, Ross A. Lincoln has a piece on the extensive project that the LA Times owner chose to shut down: LA Times Planned ‘Case Against Trump’ Series Alongside Kamala Harris Endorsement Before Owner Quashed It | Exclusive.
Alongside its endorsement of Kamala Harris, the Los Angeles Times editorial board had also planned a multi-part series against Donald Trump before the whole thing was quashed by owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, TheWrap has learned.
According to internal memos viewed by TheWrap, the series, tentatively called “The Case Against Trump,” would have ran throughout this week. The endorsement of Kamala Harris would then have been published on Sunday.
However, Soon-Shiong ordered the cancellation 0f the series and the endorsement without explanation, current and now former staffers have confirmed, setting off a massive crisis for the 142-year-old paper.
The South African-American billionaire’s interference in his paper’s editorial independence has sparked a rise in canceled subscriptions and several high profile resignations, and there are also signs of growing unrest among staffers.
On Thursday, editorial writer Karin Klein, and Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert Greene, both quit. They followed Editorial Editor Mariel Garza, who resigned in protest on Wednesday. Both Klein and Garza have specifically cited Soon-Shiong’s actions as the reason for their exits.
The owner “vetoed the editorial board’s plan to endorse Kamala Harris for president,” Garza said in her resignation letter. And alluding to the fact that the LA Times has endorsed multiple local/state level candidates, she said canceling the Harris endorsement “undermines the integrity of the editorial board and every single endorsement we make, down to school board races.”
“People will justifiably wonder if each endorsement was a decision made by a group of journalists after extensive research and discussion, or through decree by the owner,” she added.
In a dissembling statement of his own posted Wednesday on the social media site formerly called Twitter, Soon-Shiong blamed the editorial team itself for the lack of an endorsement, yet also essentially confirmed he had in fact shut it down. He said the board “was provided the opportunity” to effectively draw false equivalence between Trump and Harris in op-eds laying out the pros and cons of each candidate.
“Instead of adopting this path as suggested, the editorial board chose to remain silent and I accepted their decision,” Soon-Shiong concluded.
“We pitched an endorsement and were not allowed to write one,” Garza shot back in a statement exclusively provided to TheWrap. And Klein, who also called Soon-Shiong a “chickens—,” stated plainly in a note explaining her resignation that “the board was not the one choosing to remain silent. He blocked our voice.”
This is what happens when billionaires control our media.
The Washington Post’s betrayal of their staff and their readers is getting the most attention, because of the newspaper’s long history of speaking truth to power. For example, without the Post’s reporting, Richard Nixon might not have been forced to resign.
When Marty Baron was editor in chief, he inserted the phrase “democracy dies in darkness” at the top of The Washington Post’s front page. Well, the Post has now died and officially no longer supports democracy. The Boston Globe: Former Washington Post editor Marty Baron slams newspaper for not making presidential endorsement.
Marty Baron, the former editor of the Washington Post, blasted the newspaper on Friday for declining to issue an endorsement in this year’s presidential election, framing the decision as a win for Republican nominee Donald J. Trump.
“This is cowardice, with democracy as its casualty,” Baron, also the former editor of the Boston Globe, wrote on X. “@realdonaldtrump will see this as an invitation to further intimidate owner @jeffbezos (and others). Disturbing spinelessness at an institution famed for courage.” [….]
Baron’s message followed an announcement from Post publisher William Lewis that the newspaper is “returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.”
The Post, which is owned by Amazon.com co-founder Jeff Bezos, had drafted an endorsement for Vice President Kamala Harris, Oliver Darcy reported on his newsletter Status. Top editorial page editors at the Los Angeles Times resigned this week after the newspaper’s owner, billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, blocked a planned endorsement for Harris.
Baron led the Globe newsroom from 2001 to 2012 before taking the helm at the Post. He retired in 2021.
From members of the Post’s opinion page: Opinion: Post columnists respond.
The Washington Post’s decision not to make an endorsement in the presidential campaign is a terrible mistake. It represents an abandonment of the fundamental editorial convictions of the newspaper that we love. This is a moment for the institution to be making clear its commitment to democratic values, the rule of law and international alliances, and the threat that Donald Trump poses to them — the precise points The Post made in endorsing Trump’s opponents in 2016 and 2020. There is no contradiction between The Post’s important role as an independent newspaper and its practice of making political endorsements, both as a matter of guidance to readers and as a statement of core beliefs. That has never been more true than in the current campaign. An independent newspaper might someday choose to back away from making presidential endorsements. But this isn’t the right moment, when one candidate is advocating positions that directly threaten freedom of the press and the values of the Constitution.
Karen Attiah
Perry Bacon Jr.Matt Bai
Max Boot
Kate Cohen
E.J. Dionne Jr.
Lee Hockstader
David Ignatius
Heather Long
Ruth Marcus
Dana Milbank
Alexandra Petri
Catherine Rampell
Eugene Robinson
Jennifer Rubin
Karen Tumulty
Erik Wemple
At least The New York Times allowed their editorial board to endorse Harris: The Only Patriotic Choice for President.
It is hard to imagine a candidate more unworthy to serve as president of the United States than Donald Trump. He has proved himself morally unfit for an office that asks its occupant to put the good of the nation above self-interest. He has proved himself temperamentally unfit for a role that requires the very qualities — wisdom, honesty, empathy, courage, restraint, humility, discipline — that he most lacks.
Windy Day, Jamie Shelman
Those disqualifying characteristics are compounded by everything else that limits his ability to fulfill the duties of the president: his many criminal charges, his advancing age, his fundamental lack of interest in policy and his increasingly bizarre cast of associates.
This unequivocal, dispiriting truth — Donald Trump is not fit to be president — should be enough for any voter who cares about the health of our country and the stability of our democracy to deny him re-election.
For this reason, regardless of any political disagreements voters might have with her, Kamala Harris is the only patriotic choice for president.
Most presidential elections are, at their core, about two different visions of America that emerge from competing policies and principles. This one is about something more foundational. It is about whether we invite into the highest office in the land a man who has revealed, unmistakably, that he will degrade the values, defy the norms and dismantle the institutions that have made our country strong.
As a dedicated public servant who has demonstrated care, competence and an unwavering commitment to the Constitution, Ms. Harris stands alone in this race. She may not be the perfect candidate for every voter, especially those who are frustrated and angry about our government’s failures to fix what’s broken — from our immigration system to public schools to housing costs to gun violence. Yet we urge Americans to contrast Ms. Harris’s record with her opponent’s.
The case for Harris:
Ms. Harris is more than a necessary alternative. There is also an optimistic case for elevating her, one that is rooted in her policies and borne out by her experience as vice president, a senator and a state attorney general.
Over the past 10 weeks, Ms. Harris has offered a shared future for all citizens, beyond hate and division. She has begun to describe a set of thoughtful plans to help American families.
While character is enormously important — in this election, pre-eminently so — policies matter. Many Americans remain deeply concerned about their prospects and their children’s in an unstable and unforgiving world. For them, Ms. Harris is clearly the better choice. She has committed to using the power of her office to help Americans better afford the things they need, to make it easier to own a home, to support small businesses and to help workers. Mr. Trump’s economic priorities are more tax cuts, which would benefit mostly the wealthy, and more tariffs, which will make prices even more unmanageable for the poor and middle class.
Beyond the economy, Ms. Harris promises to continue working to expand access to health care and reduce its cost. She has a long record of fighting to protect women’s health and reproductive freedom. Mr. Trump spent years trying to dismantle the Affordable Care Act and boasts of picking the Supreme Court justices who ended the constitutional right to an abortion.
Globally, Ms. Harris would work to maintain and strengthen the alliances with like-minded nations that have long advanced American interests abroad and maintained the nation’s security. Mr. Trump — who has long praised autocrats like Vladimir Putin, Viktor Orban and Kim Jong-un — has threatened to blow those democratic alliances apart. Ms. Harris recognizes the need for global solutions to the global problem of climate change and would continue President Biden’s major investments in the industries and technologies necessary to achieve that goal. Mr. Trump rejects the accepted science, and his contempt for low-carbon energy solutions is matched only by his trollish fealty to fossil fuels.
As for immigration, a huge and largely unsolved issue, the former president continues to demonize and dehumanize immigrants, while Ms. Harris at least offers hope for a compromise, long denied by Congress, to secure the borders and return the nation to a sane immigration system.
There’s more at the link.
Commentary on these stunning events:
Dan Froomkin at Salon: Billionaires have broken media: Washington Post’s non-endorsement is a sickening moral collapse.
The shocking decision by The Washington Post not to make an endorsement in the presidential election — breaking with a decadeslong tradition — is an extremely powerful statement. A non-endorsement says Donald Trump is a reasonable choice.
It says: We are so terrified of a Trump presidency that we are bending the knee in advance. Most importantly, it makes clear that owner Jeff Bezos doesn’t want to lose government business in a second Trump administration.
I can’t imagine statements any more inappropriate from the newspaper of Watergate, the newspaper I spent 12 years working my ass off for. It’s heartbreaking. It makes me sick to my stomach.
To be clear: Every self-respecting journalist on both the news and opinion sides should be sounding the alarm about a possible second term for Trump. He poses a threat to democracy and a free press. On the news side, that requires brutally honest coverage of the threats Trump presents, with no false equating of the two parties — one of which has rejected reality and democratic values. The Post newsroom is hit or miss on that count. But on the editorial page, this shouldn’t have been a close call (and reportedly wasn’t, until Bezos got involved)….
The very opposite of sounding the alarm is throwing up your hands and saying “well, you decide.”
The Post’s decision Friday comes just days after the Los Angeles Times also decided to forgo an official endorsement. This is no coincidence. Both papers are owned by billionaires whose business and personal interests are paramount.
“I think my fear is, if we chose either one, that it would just add to the division,” the billionaire owner of the LA Times, Patrick Soon-Shiong, told Spectrum News this week.
This makes it more clear than ever: You cannot be a truly independent news organization if you are owned by an oligarch.
No kidding. This disaster has been developing for decades as the media has become more and more centralized and controlled by corporations.
Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: The Guardrails Are Already Crumpling.
ON FRIDAY AFTERNOON, the Washington Post announced that it would not be making an endorsement in the presidential race. After that, a number of things happened very quickly.
First, the paper’s former executive editor Marty Baron called the decision “cowardice.”
Second, at least one senior Post opinion writer resigned.
Third, it was leaked that the editor of the editorial page had already drafted the paper’s endorsement of Kamala Harris when publisher Will Lewis—who is a new hire, hailing from the Rupert Murdoch journalism tree—quashed it and then released a CYA statement about how the paper was “returning to its roots” of not endorsing candidates. The Post itself reported that the decision was made by the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Everything about this story feels like a tempest in a teapot, a boiling story about legacy media fretting over itself in the mirror.
It’s not.
It’s a situation analogous to what we saw in Russia in the early 2000s: We are witnessing the surrender of the American business community to Donald Trump.
By Evelyn Sarah
No one cares about the Washington Post’s presidential endorsement. It will not move a single vote. The only people who care about newspaper editorial page endorsements are newspaper editorial writers.
No one really cares all that much about the future of the Washington Post, either. I mean, I care about it, because I care about journalism and I respect the institution.
But this isn’t a journalism story. It’s a business story.
Following Trump’s 2016 victory, the Post leaned hard into its role as a guardian of democracy. This meant criticizing, and reporting aggressively on, Trump, who responded by threatening Bezos’s various business interests.
And that’s what this story is about: It’s about the most consequential American entrepreneur of his generation signaling his submission to Trump—and the message that sends to every other corporation and business leader in the country. In the world.
Killing this editorial says, If Jeff Bezos has to be nice to Trump, then so do you. Keep your nose clean, bub.
Read on for Last’s comparison of what is happening here to Vladimir Putin’s consolidation of power in Russia.
Benjamin Wittes at The Bulwark: The Washington Post Bends the Knee to Trump.
I NEVER EXPECTED TO SEE THE DAY when the Washington Post would kneel before Donald Trump.
These are not Senate Republicans or conservative donors. This is not a group of people who cower in the face of authoritarianism. The Post editorial board, the writers who write anonymous opinion essays in the name of the paper itself, is a group of bold, pro-democracy intellectuals who have traditionally taken—individually and collectively—courageous stands about democracy and human rights around the world.
The Post’s editorial page is also the institution in which I grew up professionally. I worked there for nearly a decade under both of the last two long-time editorial page editors, Fred Hiatt and Meg Greenfield. It is an institution I revere.
And it is one that has not previously wavered with respect to Trumpist authoritarianism.
Yet today we learn that the editorial board has been stripped of its authority to endorse presidential candidates, having previously decided to endorse Kamala Harris. Instead, the paper announced in a statement from the publisher, William Lewis, that “The Washington Post will not be making an endorsement of a presidential candidate in this election. Nor in any future presidential election. We are returning to our roots of not endorsing presidential candidates.” [….]
…[T]he Post kneels without offering a word of praise for Trump. It’s just that, for high-minded reasons that it doesn’t really bother to specify, it’s getting out of this whole presidential endorsement business altogether. That was its traditional position, it archly informs us, back in the good old days before Watergate sent the Post on an aberrant jag. And, you see, while it’s perfectly understandable why the Post betrayed its high-minded above-it-allness in the wake of Nixon—when emotions were running high and all—having thought about it, it’s time to once again remove ourselves to the heights of Olympus where we can peer down on the foibles of mortals:
We recognize that this will be read in a range of ways, including as a tacit endorsement of one candidate, or as a condemnation of another, or as an abdication of responsibility. That is inevitable. We don’t see it that way. We see it as consistent with the values The Post has always stood for and what we hope for in a leader: character and courage in service to the American ethic, veneration for the rule of law, and respect for human freedom in all its aspects. We also see it as a statement in support of our readers’ ability to make up their own minds on this, the most consequential of American decisions—whom to vote for as the next president.
Yet it is a submission nonetheless: One week before the mortals finish voting and might elect an authoritarian, one whose former chief of staff calls him a fascist, the Washington Post has decided that silence is the best way to guide its readers.
Silence, after all, will not offend the authoritarian should he win. Silence, after all, is more than Trump can reasonably expect from the Post. Democracy may die in darkness, as the Post’s motto goes, but silence is apparently a good hedge.
Read the rest at the Bulwark.
Tomorrow, Trump will hold a rally in Madison Square Garden, site of the famous 1939 American Nazi rally.
ABC News: Trump to rally in iconic Madison Square Garden.
In the final week of his campaign, former President Donald Trump will cross off a campaign bucket-list item on Sunday: a rally in the iconic Madison Square Garden. The avid Broadway enthusiast will deliver a matinee performance, complete with musical guests and a host of Republican allies.
It’s a moment Trump has long said he wanted to have in the state where he has faced criminal and civil trials, becoming a convicted felon and mounted a business empire.
“I think it’ll be a great time, and it’s going to be really a celebration of the whole thing, you know, because it’s coming to an end a few days after that. The campaigning; I won’t campaign anymore. Then I’ll be campaigning to make America great,” Trump said about the upcoming Madison Square Garden rally during a local radio interview with Cats & Cosby on Thursday….
In an arena format symbolizing confidence and celebrity status, Trump’s appearance will serve as his closing argument. In contrast, Vice President Kamala Harris makes hers on the Ellipse in Washington, D.C., where Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, ahead of the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The former president, reminiscent of the last nine years campaigning for the highest office in the land, has coined the event as a “celebration of the whole thing.”
“Well, it’s New York, but it’s also sort of, it’s the end of my campaigning. When you think, I mean, I’ve done it now for nine years, we’ve had two great elections. One was better than the other,” Trump said.
On Sunday, Trump will be joined by several surrogates who have appeared with him on the campaign trail — including North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy. House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Conference Chair Elise Stefanik will also be in attendance as well as several family members and donors.
Supposedly Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk will also be there.
Eric Bradner at CNN: Madison Square Garden versus the White House Ellipse: where Trump and Harris are making their final pitches.
Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have honed their closing arguments – and now they’re both turning to famous venues to try to help those messages break through just 10 days from Election Day.
The former president is returning to his hometown on Sunday for a rally in one of New York City’s most iconic landmarks, Madison Square Garden. Two days later, the vice president is holding an event at the Ellipse, the park just outside the South Lawn of the White House, where Trump’s fiery speech nearly four years ago set in motion the attack on the US Capitol.
The two events could deliver key moments in a race that is on a razor’s edge, with CNN’s final nationwide poll showing each candidate with the support of 47% of likely voters.
Both campaigns are urging supporters to cast their ballots early and attempting to reach the vanishingly small pools of undecided voters – or those who know which candidate they prefer but are not sure whether they will vote.
Harris and Trump have made clear the issues they’re highlighting in the campaign’s last days. Harris is leaning into her support for abortion rights, a political winner for Democrats since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. She’s also contrasting her character with Trump’s – a strategy aimed at reaching independents and moderate Republicans.
“Either you have the choice of a Donald Trump, who will sit in the Oval Office stewing, plotting revenge, retribution, writing out his enemies list,” she told reporters Thursday, “or what I will be doing, which is responding to folks, like the folks last night, with a to-do list.”
Trump is hammering the vice president on border security, using dehumanizing language aimed at undocumented immigrants as he focuses on an issue that’s been at the core of his political identity for all three of his presidential runs. It’s part of his broader case that Democrats in four years have undercut the stability and economic successes of his tenure in the Oval Office.
The goals of the two candidates for the rest of the campaign:
In staging a rally at Madison Square Garden, Trump is betting on his own showmanship and celebrity – expecting he can fill the arena in the deep-blue city and hoping that the spectacle will reach television and phone screens in all seven battleground states.
Previewing the final sprint to Election Day, a senior Harris campaign official said to “expect to see more” of the vice president invoking the former president’s description of political opponents as “enemies within” while also describing the race as a decision between Trump’s “enemies list” and her own “to-do list.”
Her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, also deployed that framing for the first time Thursday, as he campaigned in North Carolina.
“She’s got a to-do list. He’s got an enemies list,” Walz said.
Harris’ star-studded rally Thursday night in Georgia – her first campaign appearance with former President Barack Obama, and one that featured several other celebrities – kicked off what the senior campaign official described as the homing in of the campaign’s closing argument. That argument illustrates what a Harris administration would look like compared with the threat Harris says Trump poses, the official said.
The vice president continued that celebrity-fueled push Friday night in Texas – a rare visit to a state that is not a presidential battleground.
I’m going to end there. I will add some other interesting stories in the comment thread. Take care everyone!
https://skydancingblog.com/2024/10/26/lazy-caturday-reads-180/
#DonaldTrump #JeffBezos #JoeBiden #KamalaHarris #news #PatrickSoonShiong #politics #TheLosAngelesTimes #TheWashingtonPost
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Daughter of Los Angeles Times’ Owner Says Paper Is Refusing to “Endorse a Candidate Overseeing a War on Children”
#Business #BusinessNews #Thelosangelestimes -
Daughter of Los Angeles Times’ Owner Says Paper Is Refusing to “Endorse a Candidate Overseeing a War on Children”
#Business #BusinessNews #Thelosangelestimes -
Daughter of Los Angeles Times’ Owner Says Paper Is Refusing to “Endorse a Candidate Overseeing a War on Children”
#Business #BusinessNews #Thelosangelestimes -
Daughter of Los Angeles Times’ Owner Says Paper Is Refusing to “Endorse a Candidate Overseeing a War on Children”
#Business #BusinessNews #Thelosangelestimes -
Daughter of Los Angeles Times’ Owner Says Paper Is Refusing to “Endorse a Candidate Overseeing a War on Children”
#Business #BusinessNews #Thelosangelestimes -
Following from my last toot, if you want to know the _worst_ gifts to get anyone you care about: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-12-07/column-the-worst-tech-of-2023-an-anti-gift-guide
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Following from my last toot, if you want to know the _worst_ gifts to get anyone you care about: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-12-07/column-the-worst-tech-of-2023-an-anti-gift-guide
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Following from my last toot, if you want to know the _worst_ gifts to get anyone you care about: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-12-07/column-the-worst-tech-of-2023-an-anti-gift-guide
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Following from my last toot, if you want to know the _worst_ gifts to get anyone you care about: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2023-12-07/column-the-worst-tech-of-2023-an-anti-gift-guide
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