In this News Brief we recap the recent mainstream pushback against pro-police pop culture, and discuss how this pushback is raising fundamental questions about the supposed firewall between creators and the political content they produce.
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It's Time to Ban Ride-Along Police TV Adam Johnson - The Appeal (June 24, 2019)
2020-06-10 15:22:52 +0000 UTC View PostHi all, hope you and yours are doing well, as always. Here's this fortnight's newsletter.
-- Julianne, Nima, Marco, Adam and Florence
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2020-06-09 15:22:10 +0000 UTC View PostHello Citations Needed supporters,
We wanted to let you know about some upcoming changes that may affect some of your Patreon pledges. Due to new laws passing in several countries and U.S. states, Patreon will be required to start charging sales tax on some pledges starting July 1st.
Thankfully, less than half of all patrons will be charged sales tax, and for most, the amount will be relatively small. For example, sales tax rates in the U.S. range from 4...
2020-06-08 15:46:14 +0000 UTC View Post
In this Patreon-only News Brief we recap Serious NatSec Pundits worried that black people standing up for their basic humanity may be Bad Optics for American Empire.
2020-06-05 16:24:49 +0000 UTC View Post
In this News Brief we examine the old––and new––ways police and government officials seek to undermine and divide the George Floyd protests.
Donate to the orgs we mention here:
In this News Brief we catch up on the patronizing, racist media coverage of protests in Minneapolis.
2020-05-30 22:36:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Trump is likely pinning his reelection hopes on "reopening" the NFL––a grand media spectacle that will signal victory over the virus and usher in a new low in Triggering The Libs politics.
A cynical corporate media and pro-Trump billionaire NFL owners are happy to go along with it. But will NFL players? Will Democratic Party leaders? What will a "safe reopening" look like and how, more broadly, should the Left and liberals counter the Right's nihilistic "reopen" narrativ...
2020-05-27 15:00:30 +0000 UTC View PostHi all!
Hope you are well. Here's this fortnight's newsletter. Thanks again for all your support and please keep safe!
-- Adam, Florence, Julianne, Marco, and Nima
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Workers Fight for Their Lives Michelle Chen, In These Times (May 21, 2020)
Workers who were already making...
2020-05-26 16:01:43 +0000 UTC View Post
“Free markets drive innovation!” It’s a narrative imparted to us ad nauseam. The ultimate catalyst of creation and progress — we’re told by policymakers, business executives, think tanks, and the media outlets that bolster them — in which great strides in healthcare, electronics, media, and other areas are the domain of private enterprise motivated by competition and profit, and unencumbered by state intervention.
As the prospect of socialism — or at least t...
2020-05-20 15:45:01 +0000 UTC View Post
In this Patron News Brief, we revisit the 'Stumbling Empire' trope and how mockery of a recent amateurish mercenary coup attempt glosses over the dozens of not "incompetent" crimes being leveled against Venezuela by the Trump administration.
2020-05-07 18:27:12 +0000 UTC View Post
How can one achieve happiness? It’s the eternal question. From Aristotle to Al-Ghazali, Thomas Aquinas to Arthur Schopenhauer. The answer, we’re told, is to look within. These days, we’re told repeatedly by our modern philosophers, Oprah Winfrey, Srikumar Rao, Tony Robbins, Eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra and other corporate happiness monitors that prosperity and fulfillment come through deep introspection and mindfulness—just pay for more inspiring books, videos, retreats, seminars, ...
2020-05-06 15:36:52 +0000 UTC View Post
"Economists' forecasts for GDP growth in 2020 vary widely," says The Economist. "Algeria's GDP growth falls to 0.8% in 2019," one Reuters headline reads. "GDP — the broadest measure of economic activity — grew at an annual rate of just 1.9% during the third quarter," NPR warns. Everywhere we turn for economic news, the Gross Domestic Product, or GDP, is held up as the key proxy for prosperity and sound fiscal policy.
Since its codification as the new gold standard for measurin...
2020-04-29 16:30:02 +0000 UTC View PostHi all.
We hope you and yours are doing well. Thank you as always for your support, it means the world to us. Here's this fortnight''s newsletter.
-- Marco, Adam, Nima, Julianne, and Florence
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Koch-Funded Think Tanks Are Lobbying to Send Workers to Their Deaths Sarah Lazare,
“Woman Sues TripAdvisor After Falling off Runaway Camel,” reports the Associated Press. “Red Bull Paying Out to Customers Who Thought Energy Drink Would Actually Give Them Wings,” eyerolls Newsweek. “Tennessee man sues Popeyes for running out of chicken sandwiches,” scoffs NBC News.
We see “frivolous lawsuit” stories all the time and have for decades. Seemingly absurd cases of get rich quick schemes often with catchy headlines, a caricature of ...
2020-04-22 17:04:40 +0000 UTC View Post
As COVID-19 continues to endanger the health of people throughout the world, it also magnifies a long-existent global humanitarian crisis: The use of sanctions by the United States and other powers as a weapon of war. In Iran, one of the countries most devastated by the contagion, sanctions have strangulated the supply of medical equipment crucial to testing the population and treating those who are infected, inspiring some members of the political establishment to call for sanctions to be ea...
2020-04-15 15:25:15 +0000 UTC View PostHi all,
We hope you and yours are doing well. Here's this fortnight's newsletter.
As always, thank you so much for your support. Look out for new episodes and Patreon news briefs in the coming weeks!
In the meantime, be well.
--Marco, Julianne, Florence, Adam, and Nima
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Black Women’s Livelihoods Will B...
2020-04-14 21:36:09 +0000 UTC View Post
In this extended News Brief we discuss how the rapid increase of Covid-19 in prisons and jails is being met with indifference by lawmakers and corporate US media.
We are joined by activist Brandi Starr and Worth Rises' Bianca Tylek.
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Brandi Starr is a prison reform activist from Braidwood, Illinois.
Bianca Tylek is Founder and Executive Director ...
2020-04-08 15:32:28 +0000 UTC View Post
After over 100 episodes, scores of News Briefs, and almost three years of content production, Citations Needed has finally done it: reduced itself to a listicle. On this News Brief, we examine the top ten worst COVID-19 takes to date (not including the celebrity 'Imagine' video). Proceed with caution.
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Republicans Are Worried Coronavi...
2020-03-29 19:49:35 +0000 UTC View Post
In this News Brief, we detail recent reports that the National Guard or U.S. military may be used in a law enforcement capacity as a "response" to the COVID-19 pandemic and what this says about the failures of the liberal state.
With unemployment potentially reaching 30 percent and an urgent, robust social democratic response from the federal government unlikely, a debate about safeguarding against martial order – especially from an administration with a well documented inclination to...
2020-03-23 01:32:47 +0000 UTC View Post
The COVID-19 pandemic is ravaging the globe, leaving immeasurable human suffering in its wake. Who is left behind, struggling to survive on the frontlines of precarity, is – as with all things – determined primarily by wealth, privilege, and access to resources and political capital.
This fact has been starkly on display in recent days, as Congressional Democrats began debating their response to the crisis: corporations, wealthy investors and industry were prioritized, formal wage w...
2020-03-18 15:16:41 +0000 UTC View Post
In this Patron News Brief we breakdown the dicey ideology of what Vox calls "the most relevant film of 2020" and discuss the complicated tension between the liberal state and police state.
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For Me, Rewatching ‘Contagion’ Was Fun, Until It Wasn’t
Wesley Morris | March 10, 2020 | The New York Times
“According to the Bipartisan Policy Center," "a recent study by the Concord Coalition disagrees," "One review of your budget by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says." We’ve seen these seemingly benign Official Sounding sources hundreds of times—from presidential debates to 60 Minutes to countless articles in The Washington Post and The New York Times.
But what the average person can’t reasonably know is that these organizations—Bipartisan Policy Center, th...
2020-03-11 13:36:18 +0000 UTC View Post
"Obama Warns Against ‘Purity Tests’ In Democratic Primary," Spectrum News reports. "Spare Me the Purity Racket," Maureen Dowd opines in The New York Times. "'Purity Tests' Divide Democrats," US News & World Report announces. "Political purity tests are for losers," bellows The Hill.
We hear it all the time: progressives, leftists, radicals — and even liberals — are told they must not engage in the siren song of "purity politics." Don...
2020-03-04 17:43:54 +0000 UTC View PostFor our American supporters, Happy Super Tuesday. For everyone else, it still affects you unfortunately, because we're a violent and capricious empire. Sorry.
Anyway, here's this fortnight's newsletter. Enjoy, and as always thank you for your support!
-- Nima, Marco, Florence, Adam and Julianne
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One of the most prized professional norms for journalists, particularly the United States, is the preservation of neutrality in reporting. While the concept of “objectivity” has fallen out of fashion among mainstream reportage in recent years, related concepts that convey a similar idea such as “impartiality” and “neutrality” have come to replace it. In their mission statements and codes of ethics, corporate and government owned outlets routinely proclaim the importance of imparti...
2020-02-26 17:55:47 +0000 UTC View Post
In this Patron News Brief we discuss last minute attempts to RussiaGate Sanders before the Nevada caucuses and other signs of desperation by US media to drive up Sanders' negatives.
2020-02-25 20:34:24 +0000 UTC View Post
“145 CEOs Call On Senate To Pass 'Common-sense, Bipartisan' Gun Laws,” NPR states. “Local Democrat pushes back on NY bail reform law: It's about 'common sense,' not politics,” a Fox News headline reads. “The Only Thing More Dangerous Than Trump’s Appeal to Common Sense Is His Dismissal of It,” The Nation warns. Everywhere we turn we are told by pundits and politicians that "common sense" demands we support their preferred policy prescription.
It's a common appeal: a ...
2020-02-19 15:32:50 +0000 UTC View PostHi all,
Thank you so much for your support as always. Here's this fortnight's newsletter, we hope you enjoy. Look out for a new episode tomorrow and, in the coming weeks, more News Brief reactions to 2020's bizarro world media coverage.
-- Nima, Florence, Marco, Julianne, Adam
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You Do Know Amy Klobuchar Is an Abu...
2020-02-18 17:03:47 +0000 UTC View Post
In this Patreon News Brief we recap the post-New Hampshire spin which insists beating eight opponents is less impressive than beating one, Buttigieg's weird fake folksy accent, the way post-debate meta-commentary shapes who 'wins" and "loses" debates, and the media-curated mass psychology of "inevitability".
2020-02-12 18:15:20 +0000 UTC View Post
Since the rise of Black Lives Matter and a broader cultural awakening in the United States of just how wildly out of whack, cruel and hyper-punitive our criminal legal system is, modest reforms began to emerge across the United States. The lowest hanging fruit for reforms was to get rid of or radically reduce pretrial cash bail: a system that simply exists to punish the poor for being poor.
20 percent of people in the United States currently incarcerated––76 percent of those in loca...
2020-02-05 16:37:45 +0000 UTC View Post