THREAD. Last year, we filed landmark lawsuits on behalf of children in Michigan alleging a conspiracy between sheriffs + private equity-owned companies to end family jail visits for millions of kids across the U.S. as part of a scheme to make more $$ on phone/video calls. Several days ago, a second Michigan sheriff has announced that this ban on visits is wrong and destructive, and that they will be ending it. Hundreds of sheriffs are still doing this--do you know what's going on in your community? facebook.com/SheriffAlyshia…

THREAD. Every day I get to work with amazing people from all walks of life who are dedicating their lives to fighting government repression and corporate predation. They do it strategically and relentlessly. The incompetence and grifting of political elites makes a mockery of it.

https://twitter.com/kenklippenstein/status/1888718209034969571

For years, Jeffries and leading Democrats pushed an agenda of mass economic plunder, health insurance profiteering, prisons, militarism, genocide, identity politics, jingoism, and ecological ruin. It's why he can't say anything meaningful with credibility in this fascist moment.

THREAD. The time has come for more people to be talking about how the news media manipulates coverage of public polling. The New York Times's latest coverage of polling about Trump is unethical and dangerous. The New York Times recently published an alarming article purporting to tell its elite liberal readers that "Trump's Policies" are widely popular.

THREAD. A very grave problem, across New York Times news stories of almost every subject, is the brazen stupidity and credulity of the reporting. Here is the paper's primary response to Trump's absurd push to designate drug cartels as "terrorist" groups: First, no reasonable observer of modern U.S. politics or history could conclude that the U.S. has ever been serious about "defeating" terrorist groups or drug distribution organizations. In fact, the U.S. has been the world's most significant state sponsor of each.

Not a single word in unanimous Supreme Court opinion mentioned the primary reason TikTok ban passed. The real reason was content-based, triggering a legal standard that would have struck it down. Very interesting dynamics on why TikTok decided not to press its strongest argument.

https://twitter.com/DropSiteNews/status/1880289561256882675

Leaders in both parties were extremely clear that it was motivated by the view that TikTok was making young people too pro-Palestine and genocide-aware. Now, of course, both parties are sounding very different after Gaza was destroyed and the news is talking about a ceasefire.

THREAD. It's important for all people of good will to understand the Laken Riley Act before the Senate votes on it tomorrow. It’s unconstitutional. It’s horrific in every word and clause. But there is a deeper, more imminent violence lurking beneath its hate-filled text. First the background. The Laken Riley Act is unprecedented in modern U.S. history. It requires federal DHS bureaucracy to build billions in new infrastructure to cage any undocumented person *even accused* of petty theft, shoplifting, or several other property crimes.

THREAD. On Monday the New York Times let a reporter do something dishonest and unethical. It's important to unpack what happened. First, background: NYT published an article about 2024 NYC crime rates, which went down significantly, including most important/reliable crime stat: murder. But NYT did something I call "the old switcheroo" in my Copaganda book.

Thread. The Atlantic reporter below reveals a particular kind of ignorance that is common among liberal people but important to see clearly. His post is ludicrous in other ways many have pointed out: (1) role of U.S. media, gov, and corporate institutions is such that **this** genocide could have been/could be ended asap. (2) It's weird during genocide to criticize someone for not calling out other genocides.

THREAD. There is a group of reporters at the New York Times who are intent on peddling copaganda whatever the consequences. The paper's Christmas Day crime article was one for the ages. It's a smorgasbord of propaganda tactics that I've covered, with some amusing new flourishes. The premise is that New Mexico has a maverick Democratic governor who is fighting against all odds to expand policing, prosecution, and prisons. She's doing this, we are told, out of a genuine, laudable commitment to being "tough on crime" because she cares about our safety.

Thread. The New York Times coverage of the police search for the killer of the health insurance CEO is getting weird. One aspect of it is pretty dark. A key feature of copaganda is that police and the news media attempt to use crises to increase the size, power, and profit of the punishment and surveillance bureaucracies. This has long been one of the creepiest things about it. They don’t let a good crisis go to waste.

Thread. A new video of Chicago police brazenly shooting someone who had done nothing wrong at all raises some interesting and under-discussed issues. First, here's a link to the video. Absolutely incredible that this happened--the police had no basis whatsoever to even stop this person outside his own home, let alone shoot him. abc7chicago.com/post/video-rel…

THREAD. One of the moments that changed my career was my first day as a public defender in D.C.'s juvenile court. When I walked into the courtroom, which is closed to the public, all the little children were fully shackled in metal chains on their wrists, waists, and feet. I saw 9-year-olds, 11-year-olds, children with intellectual disabilities, children who had suffered profound abuse--all shackled for hours. But what shocked me most: no one had objected in years. The government officials had become desensitized to everyday brutality.

THREAD. Something important is happening in U.S. media that I think is getting insufficient attention, and the controversy around the Los Angeles Times refusing to endorse Kamala Harris amidst her support of an ongoing genocide gets at it. As background, a lot of uproar ensued in mainstream media circles after @nikasoonshiong’s thread stated that she supported the decision of the paper owned by her father to refuse to endorse Harris and adding that, for her, genocide is a red line:

https://x.com/nikasoonshiong/status/1849671541446906235

Thread. Today’s front page in the New York Times is a good lesson in two of the most important tactics in propaganda. First, notice the euphemism “pragmatism.” The idea that people who support enormous injustice and terrible policies are “pragmatic” is one of the most subtly ideological and dangerous characteristics of corporate news. This trope is used for decades.

THREAD. Something very weird is going on at ProPublica. It's hard to tell whether a few well-meaning people are getting lost or whether there is a Copaganda sleeper cell inside the non-profit newsroom. First, ProPublica is a public charity supposedly dedicated to "Investigative Journalism in the Public Interest." But in recent years, its reporters have peddled some of the most nefarious copaganda: fearmongering about not enough spending on prosecution supposedly causing crime.

A problem in our society is that people fail to draw inferences from facts. For example, it requires depravity to do what the Democratic Michigan Attorney General just did—make up a lie for the purpose of deceiving ordinary people on one of the most important topics of our time. But the way the lie is reported and discussed by many people is not a serious effort to grapple with what it means for a person to intentionally try to distort other people’s experience of our world in support of violence and inequality.

THREAD. One persistent form of propaganda is the refusal of corporate media to report critical context about judges when it reports on legal cases. Today's reporting on the TikTok case is a good example. The entire New York Times article on the TikTok case is based on the supposed skepticism of two federal judges to TikTok's arguments, but the paper omits they are two of the most right-wing judges in the appellate judiciary, appointed by Trump and Reagan. nytimes.com/2024/09/16/tec…

THREAD. A brief story about California judges openly refusing to comply with the law tells you a lot of what you need to know about "the rule of law" in the United States. Over the last few years, there have been three (3) major court rulings--two federal courts and a state court--finding the cash bail practices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Sacramento unconstitutional. A fourth case, from California Supreme Court, upheld the same principles.

THREAD. "Centrist" parties in Western countries almost always prefer the far right to the moderate left. Given the choice between fascists and a party who wants to provide universal healthcare, housing, and and wealth tax they will pick the former. The importance of this truth cannot be overstated. It explains a great deal of the official behavior of the Democratic Party. And hiding allegiance to core tenets of the far right with a facade of liberal rhetoric is one of the chief goals of neoliberal propaganda.

The events described in this article are the kinds of things people experience under fascism. The Texas Attorney General's conduct reflects a complete breakdown in democratic institutions.





The failure of the Department of Justice and the judiciary to prevent authoritarian abuse like this should be an alarming moment for the legal profession. It's the kind of thing that should be front-page news in every paper and emergency conversations in every law class.

THREAD. The Democratic Party platform presents such a profound crisis if we have any hope of avoiding fascism. Kamala Harris and other Democrats would essentially only need to say that they will condition aid to Israel on compliance with international law (i.e. follow existing U.S. law on weapons). The refusal to say something so simple presents a point of no return, for a few reasons.