Notices by Dan Gillmor (dangillmor@mastodon.social), page 4

Europe's Green parties know Jill Stein is a spoiler for Trump. The idea that she cares what they think is laughable, however.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/european-greens-ask-jill-stein-to-stand-down-and-endorse-kamala-harris

How on earth does Musk still have a security clearance?

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/elon-musk-is-putins-best-weapon

Once again a journalist has withheld potentially vital information -- for years in this case -- in order to make money later on. It's all just business, no conscience required.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/01/trump-jeffrey-epstein-tapes

Your daily reminder that if the Biden administration had done anything resembling this -- Trump regime blocked aid to Puerto Rico after its disastrous hurricane -- it would have dominated the news for days or weeks.

As it is, one outlet cared.

Remember as well: This is how a new Trump regime will handle disasters: States that voted for Harris won't get help, period.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/new-probe-confirms-trump-officials-blocked-puerto-rico-receiving-hurri-rcna749

An obvious question that journalism has failed to ask:

The fascists plan to build and fill vast prisons and "camps" with the people they plan to deport.

If they succeed in their evil plan -- and actually deport millions of people -- do you imagine for a second that they'll tear down the prisons and concentration camps?

They're going to fill them back up again.

Everyone should read -- and think hard about -- Rick Perlstein's latest commentary.

He poses a series of ugly hypotheticals that could easily come true in a new Trump administration.

And he asks, "What will you do?"

If the worst happens in this election, we ALL should be preparing to answer this question.

Because our answers will be decisions -- to be collaborators in fascism, or members of the resistance. There can be no middle ground.

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-10-30-what-will-you-do-trump-wins/

Musk's sleazy PAC spouts lies in its ads that pretend to be from Harris campaign.

https://www.404media.co/elon-musk-funded-pac-supercharges-progress-2028-democrat-impersonation-ad-campaign/

The silver lining in the tech (and every other kind of) billionaires' kowtowing to Trump is this:

President Harris will have a huge mandate to curb the oligarchs' power and wealth.

They are becoming some of the most loathed people on the planet, and they've richly earned our contempt.

Retribution? No, laws that reduce the ability of a few staggeringly wealthy people to buy our government and ruin tens of millions of regular people's lives.

As America's democracy teeters, and as fascists gather in Madison Square Garden in a sick replay of a 1939 Nazi rally, the founder and CEO of the tiny but superb Mississippi Free Press offers a history lesson, a stark warning, and a vow to resist.

She and her staff have more courage than the Washington Post and LA Times put together.

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/democracy-as-fascism-looms-the-free-press-must-stand-and-report-in-the-breach/

Please read her piece and share it widely.

(Note: I'm a financial supporter, and hope you'll join me.)

A vote for a third party this year is a vote for fascism.

A vote to punish Harris even though you know Trump if vastly worse is a vote for fascism.

Not voting is a vote for fascism.

This is the starkest choice in decades: democracy or fascism.

It truly is that simple.

My mind is blown: The New York Times news coverage peeled off its blinders and identified forthrightly -- in a headline! -- the racist nature of the Trump's fascist rally.

The fact that fascism is knocking on America's door should energize us, not demoralize us.

Now: Vote, help get others to vote, and fight like hell when the fascists try to overturn their loss.

Future: Get organized, starting at the local level, just as the fascists have been doing for decades while the center and too much of left snoozed and Democrats ceded so much.

But focus on the now: Vote. Help others to vote. Work in every way you can to stop fascism in its tracks.

Imagine if the imminent danger of a fascist movement taking over America led to as much discussion in the journalism craft as the craven decisions by two newspaper owners to preemptively capitulate to the fascist-in-chief...

"IF EVER THERE WERE an incident that stands for the proposition that democracy, and journalism, cannot rest on the shoulders of oligarchs, this is it."

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/the-washington-post-bends-the-knee?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

As Big Journalism moves steadily into a role of quislings to dictatorship, please use your subscription dollars to support alternative media that are meeting the challenge. @anildash has some history on why we need a new new media:

https://www.anildash.com//2024/06/14/the-new-alt-media/

If billionaire media owners are capitulating now to Trump, imagine how it's going to go if he's back in the White House.

American democracy is hanging by a thread. We have one chance left to save it.

Vote if you haven't already voted. And call everyone you know -- I recommend reading this from @msifry on how "relational" works -- who is even remotely persuadable.

https://theconnector.substack.com/p/one-last-thing-to-win-lets-go-relational

Please, everything is at stake.

LA Times owner has apparently barred his journalists from covering the scandal and uproar he caused by suppressing a Harris editorial page endorsement.

Big Journalism's bosses are killing what's left of the craft's integrity. https://www.status.news/p/los-angeles-times-2024-endorsement

Google is plainly suppressing the Musk-Putin story -- you can't find it in "top stories", which is absurd.

We're learning more about the serious threat that Musk poses to U.S. national security.

He's completely wired into America's security apparatus, and has been one of Putin's secret phone pals.

Democrats need to recognize that much of this got going under Obama, whose administration was simply reckless in trusting this guy.

Great reporting by the WSJ:

https://www.wsj.com/world/russia/musk-putin-secret-conversations-37e1c187?st=GPGB3J&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

If you haven't voted, please do so -- and check with your friends and family to make sure they have, too.