Those are the only places where journalists will ultimately admit — and accurately cover — what's going on. Neutral network news and your city newspaper are obsolete media.
Founder, Rakkasan Tea Company • Dallas Police Oversight Board • Former Obama guy • Once a soldier Dallas, Texas rakkasantea.com @rakkasantea.bsky.social
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Those are the only places where journalists will ultimately admit — and accurately cover — what's going on. Neutral network news and your city newspaper are obsolete media.
Just as Democrats are switching focus from failed leaders in the House and Senate to vibrant, aggressive governors and mayors, we also need to shift our media consumption to non-profit outlets like ProPublica and non-profit partisan outlets like The Texas Observer.
We need to get back to that. Because despite all the corporate claims of neutrality, for-profit media *has* an ideology and a position. That position is to make as much money for its owners as possible. Truth is secondary.
The fact is, neutral, both-sides journalism is a relatively new invention. It used to be that nearly all newspapers were like the competing New York Post (conservative) and New York Daily News (liberal). It was journalism, but it was coming from somewhere.
However, despite the lies coming from Fox News, partisan media is truer in a sense. It is truer because it eschews the view from nowhere in favor of taking a position. It is truer because this is how all human beings are. They have opinions and viewpoints.
Liberals, on the other hand, think they're too smart for that and above it. They want "real" news. This is a major reason why large-scale progressive media creations generally fail. Partisanship — or even just taking a firm position on an issue — has been made, unfortunately, to feel icky.
Right now, partisan, conservative media is successful because conservatives like being fed bullshit propaganda. They like being told what they want to hear. Fox News just leans right into it.
My take: 1. Journalism is a for-profit business first. It caters to capital. 2. On account of #1, most journalism strives to reach the maximum number of users, meaning it must strive for neutral, both-sides coverage. Fox News is a major exception and also the model for future journalism. 🧵
Everyone expects it's him going into hospice but I bet it's a new war and maybe also that there will live executions on the White House lawn
Like no one actually believes Schumer would actually allow a shutdown. Literally zero people. Everyone knows the Senate will do something symbolic at *best* — maybe Cory Booker will make a scene! — and then fold and go home. For substance, Democrats already have their preferred leaders elsewhere.
I get the sense nobody really even cares anymore. Rank and file Democrats have already given up on Schumer and Jeffries and don't consider them leaders of the party. They expect abject surrender. For fighting spirit and leadership, Dems now follow Zohran Mamdani, JB Pritzker, AOC, Walz, Wu, etc.
love it
"Blueskyism" helped the Mississippi Free Press overcome algorithmic suppression on other platforms (Facebook, Threads) and ride out plummeting engagement on Twitter following Musk's X takeover. Thank God we took our eggs out of the X basket when we did.
Dallas’ Museum of Overbuilt & Half Empty Skyscrapers™️ (aka Downtown) is already in deep do-do and now it looks like AT&T is pulling out many (most? all?) employees? Shocking that this is not being widely reported. The timing is bad. www.bizjournals.com/dallas/news/...
I was already pretty done with the news media but seeing clips yesterday from the Sunday shows where an anchor is like “but what if living in a Police State does reduce car jackings? Why would you be against that?” probably was the end
i'll note that the size of this fire has increased since this incident, while the containment has decreased
Pretty sure hakeem jeffries sent the same memo
The same Republicans who insisted gay marriage was a "slippery slope" to people marrying their dogs won't say a word about their idolatrous loser peers trying to date a robot
The National Guardners
This is part of the residency on the east side of the main building, though not a bedroom
Quant popularists like David Shor who want us to call fascism a "distraction" are using poor pseudoscience methods. Their messaging won't work in the midterms--and even if it did, ignoring fascism risks not having free midterms at all. My latest at WaMo: washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/01/f...
NEW: The world’s largest professional organization of scholars studying genocide just voted overwhelmingly in support of a resolution declaring that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. apnews.com/article/geno...
So there’s a thing I’ve noticed repeatedly from people who are still on X, The Everything App - they’re constantly making weird accusations about Bluesky that don’t make any sense if you’re on here, and I think it’s a sign they’re deeply insecure about posting to X, The Everything App.
Joe Biden will have the opportunity to do the funniest thing ever with his press statement when it happens
This morning (9/1) at 8 AM feds pulled over a couple at 18th & Park NW. They smashed the window, dragged the husband out & arrested him. When a community member stopped to record they were grabbed & threatened w/ pepper spray by this piece of shit. @mayorbowser.bsky.social do you welcome this too?
Hilarious. Curtis Yarvin, JD Vance's favorite big-brain philosopher on X, got caught not knowing that "Roma" and "Romanians" are completely different and then tried to play the old "I was trolling! It was a joke! It was bait! You fell for it!" trick.
![@curtis_yarvin on X: Yet in every other country, in almost every sociological category, the Roma stand out as underperforming outliers. A statistical puzzle. What is the secret sauce? Can it be served to other underprivileged populations? Maybe we just need to give the youths more standardized tests [Article about Romania] 31 Aug 25](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:eppsmw5nfmdzhfeymtzd3xbe/bafkreifrigfudrmpct3cfaxfldtrmkoi5kagqx7fqladcwdpwcevf7aagy@jpeg "Click to view full size")
$50 says that’s Stephen Miller wearing his skin
People who have lived through abusers recognize this pattern. "It's my fault. If only I had placated him somehow." It's not that X is just rotting Dem elected/staffer brains on propaganda, it's also doing abuse conditioning to get Dem leaders to blame themselves for MAGA's depredations.
The right wing is going to convince themselves in a week that hormonal contraception is what's making women liberal and that banning it will lead to a permanent Republican majority
52 of 53 Republican senators voted to confirm him.
Zuckerberg is as bad as Musk, just quieter
MAGA got everything they wanted out of Cracker Barrel and they still want to punish the company anyway. Just about the most predictable outcome you could imagine.
Fifty-one of the 85 Federalist papers were written by a guy born in Nevis.
"officers were still investigating and had not arrested anybody" We have 15 law enforcement officers show up for every traffic stop in DC right now, but when a lunatic shoots and murders a 5th grader having harmless fun in Texas, we're "still investigating"
Just a normal night in DC, sitting on the couch watching Netflix and then having to go outside because 11 cops (FBI, HSI, “police” and MPD) stopped a car on my corner.
It’s happening, and I’ve heard that from others too. If you find yourself without your regular mental health provider, you can identify another one. If you need emergency, stopgap support there are resources available I can help you find. Please don’t suffer through the break in service alone.
Please pardon my presumption of menace, as Republicans are on TV openly expressing excitement over the military invasion of U.S. cities
Ok, this may have a non-menacing explanation
Very excited to see American streets sandbagged and blocked by triple-strand concertina and hedgehogs
Wait, what the fuck are the sandbags for. Sandbags are for floods and fighting positions.
"I look forward to watching the videos of soldiers entering Chicago" Republicans are copying antebellum Southern rhetoric and should be treated as the Confederates they are
got bad news for you about what preceded modern law enforcement
the story for how giuliani got hurt is super sketch but it does include “911” so i respect his commitment to the bit
We rightfully mock these guys for being dumb, but a genuine threat on the horizon is when they learn they can build private armies and shift from rocket ships and AI companies to armed drone swarms and light infantry.
I was doing something super heroic and cool before I got in a car accident, please do not look into this any further
I would read a whole series of reports like this on each individual federal goon. They all deserve a profile.
The lies' laughable implausibility is a feature, not a bug. They're not trying to convince discerning, skeptical, fact-based people. They're trying to give supporters a fantasy that validates their feelings and creates a sort of loyalty test, while flaunting the absurdity in everyone else's faces.
not just that he has no constitutional authority, there isn't even any particular legal or institutional mechanism by which the president can make anyone treat this as anything other than a weird advisory opinion.
IRS Criminal Investigators go after people who commit serious criminal financial fraud. Money laundering, bank fraud, political corruption, identity theft, ripping off Medicaid/Medicare, employment fraud. You know, real crimes that hurt real people. Instead, here they are, doing... This.
If you say 'heteronormative' or 'unhoused person' or 'food insecurity' you're basically talking gibberish and nobody can understand you but if you say you can see inflammation in children at the airport and that vaccines lower IQ or that germs are a myth you get to fire all the scientists.
The entire strategy of the Trump administration is Nazis lying about vibrant cities to gullible Americans who live in rural areas
People gotta stop with these defenses. They may sound reasonable to non-veterans, but they're comical to anyone who knows what they're talking about. I realize this is inconvenient for everyone, but the guy made himself a liability. We have other candidates who didn't.
Trump’s plan to rename the Department of Defense as the Department of War shows (once again) that his self-characterization as the “pro-peace” candidate was complete bullshit. www.wsj.com/politics/nat...
Democrats will get mad at this line of questioning and, yes, there's a double standard, but this is unambiguous, textbook stolen valor. No need to defend or explain it away. Find another leader.
I have friends everywhere
"Insane" does not begin to describe the amalgam of fascism, techbroism and despotism that united to create this idea
To put it another way: The Trump administration is doing to VA what they did to the CDC
This is a great time to remind everyone that EOs aren’t laws, the federal government doesn’t manage voting in this way, and it’s all a scare tactic and any reporting that doesn’t provide that context is enabling potentially lawless activity.
Btw, I worked at VA for three years during Obama's first term and know how to navigate the healthcare system as well as anyone. The tricks that used to work no longer do. Just not enough clinicians and staff to deal with everyone effectively.* *At least in Dallas (can't speak for other hospitals)
The Trump administration is destroying what had been the best healthcare system in America. In this instance, I chose Community Care because the VA wait times for each step, from injury to surgery, were absurdly long. Of course, this is what Republicans want. They want to kill VA to privatize care.
VA is a disaster right now. I generally don't trust the private sector with my healthcare, yet had wrist surgery three weeks ago at Baylor Scott & White in Dallas because VA couldn't handle it. First time I've had a major procedure or serious condition treated outside the military or VA since 1996.
Saying it because it's the thing I can do: the President of the United States is threatening to use his power as Commander in Chief of the military to invade the city of a democratically-elected governor in his own country, for no reason other than their political opposition to the president.
Of course, this requires leaders willing to fight for their residents. Maybe Orlando doesn't have those. Dunno.
All this requires is a little courage and creativity on the part of city officials. Ron DeSantis isn't the king of Florida.
Here is an easy solution to the Pulse memorial crosswalk conflict: The state of Florida has jurisdiction because the crosswalk is on State Road 527. If the Democratic mayor and city council of Orlando authorize and paint a city crosswalk 50 feet away, the state should have no enforcement authority.
You just wonder if any of these Heroes were on the SWAT unit that waited three fucking hours to breach the Pulse restroom as wounded victims bled out.
Alabama man haz sad
All the think pieces about “how did we get here” are superfluous when this video exists. A third of the country is this f’in guy. That’s how we got here.
average Dem strategist: we must focus on bipartisan policies that undercut Republican attacks average Dem voter: having studied the denazification of Germany, we must raze the RNC and leave JD Vance clutching a single wool blanket in a cell after we strip him of everything
Get in losers, we're doing soft secession
Stuart Stevens, currently to the left of most democratic leaders on the Hill
“Do you guys feel bad about what you’re doing? Don’t you f*cking hate yourselves?”
When it happens, all of DC needs to head to Lafayette Square to celebrate outside the White House like the night they got Bin Laden
It's going to be the weirdest thing watching every news network trying to sell "a nation in mourning" while Kool & the Gang's "Celebration" becomes the new national anthem.
"hes probably not dead" yeah no shit! shut the fuck up! im gonna spray you with a fucking water bottle!
When Trump finally dies there will be calls for civility and “respect for the office” from even his harshest critics and I’m telling you right now I plan on saying things so harsh they might knock the earth off its axis
My first concert was Milli Vanilli
He really is Patrick Bateman. He spends a lot of time with his hair slicked back, coolly fighting the other side in a fashionable way, and then at night he runs out to furiously throw some homeless person’s last picture of their family into a garbage can.
Theres really no point to scrolling your phone waiting to hear about the day it happens, if you are a Real American and live in a decent sized city you'll know from horns honking, fireworks, people spontaneously hollering, passing out drinks, etc
So many choices
I miss the old brand #CDC
Compared to the story itself, the post and headline here are quite . . . understated
I got my flu shot from a Walgreen's in Dallas this afternoon. They said they were anticipating the new Covid boosters soon (appointments are not available yet online). Love to feel like I'm navigating the black market to get vaccines.
Nice little prize program you got there. Be a real shame if something happened to it.
Another idea that sounds good to fascists until they realize the military is foot-dragging and quiet-quitting because the military follows lawful orders, but also hates fascists. Like the military parade. Like the National Guard occupation of DC.
CAP ECON: “We obviously have no particular insight into whether the Supreme Court will uphold .. If it did, “Treasury would .. need to return most of the now-close to $100bn in additional customs duties .. and there is a danger .. other countries would back-track on any preliminary agreements.”
Saying they’re unconstitutional but leaving them in place anyway pretty much sums up everything from the last 8 months
I’m sure these people are thrilled that they’ve been called away from their families and jobs to deal with DC’s crushingly important mulch emergency. So much government efficiency.
May want to google this
Somehow the Senior Director of Polling at Yougov doesn't remember the MAGA impeachment of Mayorkas
Why hasn't a single House Democrat called for the impeachment of RFK Jr? What exactly are they waiting for at this point - dead bodies?
Agents snatched this person out of his Uber ride this morning in Mount Pleasant, Washington DC. Per source, officers followed his Uber for a few minutes, and then swarmed the vehicle and dragged him out.
Once again, we are in the midst of the worst, most unprecedented Article I constitutional crisis in 🇺🇸 history
"Pritzker’s health department in Illinois is currently exploring the possibility of purchasing Covid-19 vaccines in bulk straight from manufacturers in response to the mess in Washington" Attn: @governor.ca.gov - this Californian is asking you - please follow Pritzker's lead.
Shocking. North Dallas elected a MAGA guy to the city council and one of his first proposals is to zero out and close the city's police oversight office. This will not happen. The three MAGAs on the council will try, but the office and the police oversight board will stay. We're not going anywhere.
The thing about Ashli Babbitt that I kept saying is that, for most of history, most countries would have strung up a bunch of the J6 folks in the capitol steps as a sign. And for good reason. This is what happens when you don’t.
This is good: With Trump/RFK destroying CDC, JB Pritzker's officials are exploring the possibility of buying Covid vaccines from manufacturers and distributing them in-state themselves, source tells me. Dem govs must step up and fill the void. New piece from me: newrepublic.com/article/1998...
