All posts tagged "npr"

Here's why Republicans hate public broadcasting so much

Our public radio and TV stations are in grave peril, and with them the unique services they perform for our communities.

By the end of day Friday July 18, we’ll know if Congress has clawed back the money it already gave to public broadcasting, through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB. (The House will decide; this is your moment to call your representatives to ask them to support their public radio and TV stations, and to join — for free — Protectmypublicmedia.org.) Even if that money stays protected, though, public radio and TV will continue to be attacked.

I’ve studied public broadcasting here and around the world for 40 years. And I serve on the board of directors of the taxpayer-funded Independent Television Service, which coproduces a lot of the documentaries you might see on public TV. So, of course, I think it’s an important part of our media in America. But I think you probably do, too.

You might know public broadcasting through your local TV or radio station, both private nonprofits. Or you might know it through the services many such stations depend on for daily, high-quality, award-winning programs: National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Both of them are private nonprofits that make, select, and bundle programs for public stations.

Either way, you’re in good company. PBS and NPR are the most trusted media brands in the United States. Half of PBS viewers depend on PBS for news and information, including more than half of people who identify as “extreme conservatives” or “extreme liberals.” NPR’s news is trusted by more than half of those who have heard of it. Americans trust public media news and public affairs much more (by half) than they do commercial mainstream media.

Public stations, like those in Oklahoma, are the ones to issue emergency warnings in time of crisis. Kids learn about job opportunities from CPB’s American Graduate: Jobs Explained series — supported among others by Iowa, Tennessee, and Arizona public broadcasters. In rural Eureka, California, the public station carries program for the local indigenous communities. In south Texas, KDET provides distance learning for kids whose first language is Spanish. ITVS documentaries have brought you inside stories from small towns like Medora, Indiana; Taft, Oklahoma; Norco, Louisiana; and Huslia, Alaska.

American taxpayers contribute, overall, about 15% of the budgets of public radio and TV stations — a percentage that’s usually lower for the bigger, more urban stations, and higher for smaller, rural stations. Alleghany Mountain Radio and KTNA in Talkeetna, Alaska for instance depend on federal funds for about two-third of their budgets. Last year CPB’s budget was $535 million. (For comparison, military marching bands cost the American taxpayers more than $300 million a year.) The rest comes from us as individual donors, from private and corporate foundations, and from local and state taxes.

So it’s not big funding and cutting it would make no dent in the deficit. But it’s critical funding; it’s the money that leverages all the rest of it, and that provides the stability to be able to do the work year after year.

The people who designed public broadcasting — and that included a lot of people, from the late Bill Moyers as an aide to President Lyndon Johnson, to military experts and educators — were worried about how government funding could become censorship. So they created CPB as a private nonprofit, not as a government agency. That is why the Trump administration cannot fire its staff or its board.

CPB and local stations all have First Amendment protection against government interference. And that is why the Trump administration cannot tell them what to program or which services, like NPR and PBS, to use. The designers required Congress to give CPB its budget two years in advance, to protect against political shenanigans. That is why Congress has to vote to claw that money back.

What public broadcasting’s designers created is unique in the world — most countries’ public broadcasting is just a mouthpiece for government. In the U.S., public broadcasting plays a unique role in our media diets as free, reliable, and trusted information, a connection to local communities, and a daily example of the essential role of shared public knowledge in democratic life.

If it goes, we won’t get it back.

So far, public broadcasting has weathered political attacks, which didn’t begin with this administration but have reached a new high with it. But it has only done so by depending on its users—you and me—to come out and show their support. Right now is the time to call your representatives, and to join Protectmypublicmedia.org. (Protect My Public Media makes it super-easy to connect with your reps.) We all have something to lose.

Patricia Aufderheide is professor in the School of Communication at American University. She is a board member of the Independent Television Service.

'Get voted out!' MAGA shames House Republicans for opposing narrowly passed cuts

MAGA shamed several Republican lawmakers Thursday afternoon who broke with the party as the House of Representatives passed the first round of DOGE cuts by a vote of 214 to 212.

The measure, which slashes $9.4 billion from the United States Agency for International Development, NPR, and PBS, now heads to the Senate.

But Many MAGA fans were sure to point out the four "RINOs" who voted against the bill.

@MasterArborists wrote, "DOGE cuts have passed! Here are the offical [sic] 'Republican' nay votes to end funding for USAID, NPR, and PBS! Time for these RINOs to get voted out of office!

The accompanying photo showed "no" votes from reps. Mark Amodei (R-NV), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), and Mike Turner (R-OH).

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) also posted the names of the Republican dissenters, writing, "DOGE CUTS PASSED!! Two R’s switched Here are the Republican NO votes to cutting USAID, NPR, and PBS!! Unreal."

The account of MAGA Voice posted to social media, "The U.S. House finally PASSES the FIRST round of DOGE cuts 214-212 with 4 RINO’s joining Democrats by voting ‘NO’ Time to Bankrupt PBS, USAID and NPR Say bye bye to $9.4 Billion dollars"

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) wrote, "Just voted for the 2025 rescissions act. These are the first DOGE cuts. $9 billion won’t solve all our budget problems but it’s an incredible start. Let’s cut more. Thank you DOGE!"

@matt_vanswol with the Department of Energy wrote, "The long-awaited $9.4 BILLION in DOGE cuts have finally passed the US House of Representatives!!! The cuts will strip $8 BILLION from USAID’s foreign aid and over $1 BILLION from NPR and PBS. LET’S GO!!!!!!!!!!"

"Proud to join my colleagues in the @freedomcaucus on voting to codify President Trump’s DOGE cuts that will clawback $9.4 billion in taxpayer dollars. It’s a drop in the bucket, but we will do what it takes to put Washington’s fiscal house in order," posted @RepEricBurlison.

"NPR and PBS = DEFUNDED The House just passed President Trump's rescissions package, enacting @DOGE cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting," posted the @GOPoversight account. "Tax dollars will NOT go towards indoctrinating children with radical leftist ideology. @SenateGOP, it's your turn to act."

House Republican creates 'potential problem for GOP' after new break with Trump

Influential Republican Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV) has joined with Democrats to oppose the Trump administration's threat to cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, according to Politico.

The proposed cuts are part of a recissions package introduced last week by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) "to cut $9.4 billion previously greenlit by Congress, mainly for foreign aid," the report stated.

Reporter Calen Razor called Amodei's opposition "a potential problem for GOP leaders who need near-unity within their party to pass the White House’s request that Congress revoke billions of dollars it has already approved" for the funding arm of PBS and NPR.

Amodei and Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) co-chair the Bipartisan Public Broadcasting Caucus. In a statement Monday, they said, "Public media has demonstrated a willingness to listen to the American public and adapt. While we reaffirm that public media must be objective and legitimate concerns about content should be addressed, funding decisions should be objective as well.”

The Trump administration has accused PBS and NPR of airing "programming biased against conservatives," and argued they should therefore not receive federal support.

A floor vote on the recissions package is expected later this week.

"It is unclear whether Amodei would vote against the package on the floor as it is, but leaders can only afford to lose three Republican votes and still pass the measure," Razor wrote.

He quoted a spokesperson for Amodei saying in a statement, “We don’t share how he is planning to vote before a vote but he is looking at all of the information."

Read the Politico report here.

Loudmouth Trump just met his match — and it's about damn time

The tide is turning in this fight against Republican fascism, and if you listen you can hear it. And when you hear it, you can feel it. And by God, if you can feel it, well then let it move you to take action.

After catching punch after punch from the most anti-American administration in our 248-year history, some of our most cherished institutions and artists in this country are finally hitting back, and hitting back hard.

Politicians were never going to be the answer, my friends, because history tells us that when the people lead, the so-called leaders will follow ...

Me? As a Navy veteran, who has had a steady, 42-year professional relationship with the written word, I spit on Trump and his repeated attacks on America. As readers, I know you do too.

This morning, NPR and PBS signaled they, too, have had enough of this loudmouth traitor, and sued him over his order to cut their funding.

So let’s get this part out of the way quickly: Trump has no damn authority here. It is not his money.

In fact, let me repeat that one for emphasis: IT IS NOT HIS MONEY.

It is OURS.

But I’ll let a paragraph from the stations’ lawsuit speak to that:

“The president has no authority under the Constitution to take such actions. On the contrary, the power of the purse is reserved to Congress.”

This one’s cut and dry, but as usual, you can expect the America-attacker and his odious lawyers to kick it up to Chief Justice John Roberts’ bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court. As usual, they could nip all this silliness in the bud, if they actually cared about the rule of law in this country.

It’s worth saying here, too, that neither NPR nor PBS are going away whether they get this subsidy or not. Just 2 percent of NPR’s budget comes from from federal monies. PBS’s situation is a bit more tenuous, with 15 percent of their budget coming from those grants.

The bulk of their funding comes from private grants, subscribers, donations, and an increasing amount of advertising. If you want to help, I’ll leave this here.

The government subsidy they receive is used primarily to aid in funding local operations and to create original programming. And, no surprise, rural areas would be hurt worst if these cuts were to pass because the convicted felon, Trump, has never cared who he assaults.

While I was at Stars and Stripes, the editorially independent newspaper that serves the troops and their families overseas, we too took a small stipend from the government to help fund our operations. Like PBS and NPR, most of our operating budget came from other sources. In Stripes’ case that was subscriptions, single-copy sales, and advertising dollars.

That didn’t stop Trump from trying to cut that funding during his first disastrous term, until it was pointed out to him that Stripes had the longest, most dangerous circulation route in the world. If he somehow cut that federal funding and doused the troops’ only news source, he, not our enemies, would be responsible for it.

Well, he backed off, and stomped off into his corner to contemplate another attack on America that would commence on January 6, 2021 …

It should also be pointed out that none of these pathetic efforts by Republicans to keep America ignorant and stupid are new. They have pulled this stunt time and again and failed.

I’ll pull from a recent piece in The New York Times to highlight their most epic setback:

The most dramatic showdown between legislators and public media defenders came more than a half-century ago. In 1969, Fred Rogers, the creator of the children’s TV show “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” testified before Congress to protest cuts to public media proposed by the Nixon administration. After his testimony, which underscored the value of helping children manage their emotions, a proposal to cut public media funding by half was waved away by Senator John O. Pastore, a Democrat.

“Looks like you just earned the $20 million,” Mr. Pastore said to Mr. Rogers.

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood … and if guys like Rogers can stand up to this kind of nonsense, it would be about time all these damn universities and corporations along with their “news” networks did the same.

Enter CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley.

Pelley, whose station is also being sued by the serial-lying Trump, started getting some big-time attention today for a commencement address he delivered last week.

Speaking to graduates at North Carolina’s Wake Forest University, the veteran journalist said this:

“In this moment, this morning, our sacred rule of law is under attack. Journalism is under attack. Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.”

Here’s some damn fine reporting from the Independent, on Pelley’s important speech:

Delivering his address in theatrical fashion, frequently raising his arms to the heavens like an evangelical pastor, Pelley continued: “Insidious fear is reaching through our schools, our businesses, our homes and into our private thoughts.

“The fear to speak ... in America,” he added, stressing the word to emphasize his horror and dismay in the speech on May 19. “Power can rewrite history, with grotesque, false narratives. They can make criminals heroes, and heroes criminals. Power can change the definition of the words we use to describe reality. Diversity is now described as illegal. Equity is to be shunned. Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook, my friends. There is nothing new in this.”

I won’t lie, I almost wept when I read this, because there has been so damn little of it coming from people who should know better.

I am so sick and tired of reading the words: “Trump is doing this now … Trump is doing this now … Trump is doing this now …” over and over and over again that I could spit.

What I want to read about is just what in the hell WE are doing about it.

Well, as I noted above the tide seems to finally be changing here, too, and lifting us all up, as patriots like Bruce Springsteen use their influence to enlighten and pushback on this authoritarian punk.

“I've always tried to be a good ambassador for America,” said Springsteen while introducing a performance of “My City of Ruins” in Manchester, England, two weeks ago. “I've spent my life singing about where we have succeeded and where we've come up short in living up to our civic ideals and our dreams. I always just thought that was my job. Things are happening right now in my home that are altering the very nature of our country's democracy and they're simply too important to ignore.”

Perfectly put, Boss …

On Sunday evening Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello jumped to Springsteen’s defense and pressed the attack on the America-hating Trump.

From reporting in Rolling Stone today:

When Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello took the stage at Boston Calling Music Festival on Sunday evening, his solo set featured a pointed message. On the screen behind him, a graphic compiled nearly two dozen buttons that read and spelled out “Fuck Trump,” labeled the president a “tyrant,” and referred to him as the “Hater in Chief.” Addressing the crowd, Morello said: “Welcome, brothers and sisters, to the last big event before they throw us all in jail.”

Morello used the performance to join the legion of musicians backing Bruce Springsteen in the musician’s recent standoff with Donald Trump. “Bruce is going after Trump because Bruce, his whole life, he’s been about truth, justice, democracy, equality,” Morello said. “And Trump is mad at him because Bruce draws a bigger audience. F––k that guy.”

Damn straight.

With our corporate media too often failing us, and even submitting to authoritarianism … While phonies like Jake Tapper attack what has passed and ignore the very real and present danger … While the Democratic Party fumbles at the switches to come up with a consistent, unified message … We must look to the arts — our musicians, writers, sculptors, painters, filmmakers — to be truth-tellers during this fascist assault on our nation, and Trump’s grotesque attempt to end us.

YOU, my friends, must be truth-tellers, and get out there and spread words that you know to be true and righteous to everybody — whether they want to hear them or not.

WE must be the change, because while we didn’t ask for this fight, we damn sure better win it.

(D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here, and follow him on Bluesky here.)

'Go back to your country': Marjorie Taylor Greene erupts at UK reporter

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) exploded at a reporter with the UK's Sky News who tried to ask a question about the Signal messaging chat leak that has caused much consternation within the Trump administration and its MAGA acolytes.

At a press conference Wednesday, reporter Martha Kelner approached Greene, who immediately asked, "Wait, what country are you from?"

When Kelner answered she was from the UK, Greene became enraged.

"Okay, we don't give a crap about your opinion and your reporting. Why don’t you go back to your country where you have a major migrant problem?” Greene ranted while waving her finger in the reporter's face.

When Kelner tried again, Greene cut her off.

"No, no, no, no! You should care about your own borders."

ALSO READ: 'The Hard Reset': Here's how the U.S. is exporting terrorism around the world

"Do you care about American lives put at risk?" Kelner managed.

"No, no, no, no, no! Let me tell you something: Do you care about people from your country? What about all the women that are raped by migrants? No, do you care — OK, you're done! You know what, I don't care —" Greene said as Kelner interjected about "service members fighting for your country."

"I don't care about your fake news!" Greene spat before taking a question "from an American journalist."

That journalist then said, "Yeah, I'm an American and I'd like to hear your answer to what she asked."

"I'm not answering her question because I don't care about her network. If you would like to ask, I can answer," Greene said.

Also Wednesday, Greene banged her gavel repeatedly to cut off Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) at a House DOGE subcommittee meeting about the Trump administration's desire to pull funding from public media.

"To be clear, free speech is not about whatever it is y'all want somebody to say. And the idea that you want to shut down everybody that is not Fox News is bull----," Crockett proclaimed, before being gavelled out while reading from the First Amendment of the Constitution.

Watch the clip below or at this link.

'Struggling': Veterans and mental health therapists on edge over White House moves

Both mental health therapists and the veterans they serve are "suffering" on several fronts due to President Donald Trump's job cuts and anti DEI policies, according to a new report by National Public Radio.

First, the therapists themselves say they're terrified of DOGE's plan to eliminate some 80,000 jobs within the Department of Veterans Affairs.

One mental health care provider who went by the name 'Lynn' for this report, told NPR's Katia Riddle, "I've been really struggling with my concentration and my ability to focus when I'm at work, because I feel like I have this ax over my head all the time."

Then there's the veterans themselves who seek out therapy for issues from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder to gender dysphoria. Lynn said she's especially concerned over her LGBTQ patients due to Trump's anti-Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion order declaring there are just two genders: male and female.

ALSO READ: 'Absolutely unconscionable': Ex-Republican demands Trump removed from office after fight

"Consequently employees at the VA have been directed to remove symbols such as flags that indicate support for transgender or queer rights," Riddle wrote. "Therapists in other locations reported similar concern that these patients — already in a marginalized population — are being singled out and targeted for discrimination."

To "silently communicate a message of solidarity" with their LGBTQ clients, some therapists post "subversive" pieces of art in their offices displaying rainbows or displaying phrases such as, "Love is love," Riddle wrote.

Employees at the VA also report having "received emails encouraging them to report colleagues who are violating the new ban" on DEI.

"There's this culture of, 'you need to rat on people,'" Lynn said.

Patients are also skittish over the anti-DEI rule, asking for references to their gender identity or sexual orientation to be wiped from their records, the report said.

Riddle wrote that an emailed statement from a VA spokesperson said, "The VA will always provide veterans, families, caregivers and survivors the health care and benefits they have earned," while the secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, "has promised to preserve 'mission critical' positions such as clinicians."

Read the full NPR article here.

Rape, manslaughter, drug trafficking: NPR pulls lid off pardoned MAGA rioters' rap sheets

Dozens of J6 rioters who were issued blanket pardons by President Donald Trump had violent criminal histories that judges considered when determining the severity of their sentences, according to new reporting from National Public Radio.

President Trump made good on his campaign promise on his first day back in office by granting clemency to everyone charged or convicted in the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, including those found to have violently attacked police officers.

"While many people had no criminal record prior to committing crimes on Jan. 6, NPR has identified dozens of defendants with prior convictions or pending charges for crimes including rape, sexual abuse of a minor, domestic violence, manslaughter, production of child sexual abuse material and drug trafficking," the news outlet reported.

President Trump justified his decision to pardon the nearly 1,500 people — whom he has called "patriots" and "hostages" — saying it would have been "very, very cumbersome" to consider each case individually.

ALSO READ: Top GOPer's ‘most immediate’ priority for new committee includes probing a MAGA conspiracy

Trump "overlooked the role that the Jan. 6 defendants' prior criminal records played in sentencing," wrote NPR correspondent Tom Dreisbach. "Federal judges take that criminal history into account when deciding a criminal defendant's sentence."

Dreisbach continued, "If Trump had looked at individual cases, the long criminal records of some Jan. 6 defendants may have raised some red flags."

One person in particular, Peter Schwartz, had a "'jaw-dropping criminal history of 38 prior convictions going back to 1991' when he assaulted police officers with pepper spray on Jan. 6, according to federal prosecutors."

"Federal judge Amit Mehta gave Schwartz one of the toughest prison sentences stemming from the Capitol riot — more than 14 years. Less than four years after Schwartz's arrest, Trump's pardon freed him from prison."

At least two rioters have run afoul of the law in the few days since their pardons: Emily Hernandez of Missouri received a 17-year prison sentence for a deadly DUI crash, and Matthew Huttle of Indiana was shot and killed by police for allegedly resisting arrest.

The White House "did not respond to messages seeking comment for this story," according to the report.

Read the NPR story right here.

Yes: VP pick Tim Walz matters for winning the election. History shows it.

Growing up in Texas, we were treated to stories of colorful political characters. Few could top John Nance “Cactus Jack” Garner, who once pronounced that the vice-president position “is not worth a bucket of warm spit.” (Some say Garner said worse.)

That seems to be the opinion of more than a few pundits and political scientists. National Public Radio, The Economist and Politico have all run articles asserting how little impact a vice presidential pick makes on the ultimate outcome of a presidential election.

I take a different approach, comparing vice presidential picks’ performance in their states to how the party did in that state four years earlier.

Vice presidential picks: a recent history

To test their hypothesis, I analyzed how a party’s presidential ticket performed in the vice president nominees’ state in a given election year. Then I compared it to how the party’s ticket did in that state four years earlier.

It turns out that more often than not, a vice presidential candidate running as vice president for the first time helps you perform better in his or her state than four years earlier when that VP candidate wasn’t on the ticket.

ALSO READ: Tim Walz's personal finances are extraordinarily boring — and that may help Harris

For example, did Mike Pence help Donald Trump’s performance in Indiana during 2016 compared to how Republicans did in 2012? This case matters, given that Democrats won Indiana in 2008.

By the same token, did Democrats do better in Virginia with Sen. Tim Kaine as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016 than Democrats did in the same state during 2012?

In these most recent 17 cases, where the vice presidential nominee isn’t already a vice president running for reelection — such as Joe Biden in 2012 — the vice presidential candidate boosted the party ticket 10 times in his or her home state. On seven occasions, the VP candidate did not do as well for his or her party as the party did four years ago in the state.

There were three cases where the vice presidential candidate boost or drag on the ticket was less than a percentage point. Taking those three out means that on nine occasions, the vice presidential candidate improved the ticket in his or her state. In five cases, the VP candidate did not help the ticket in the state he or she is from.

The average boost a vice presidential candidate gets a ticket in his or her own state is 4.4 percentage points, when considering all 17 cases.

That difference definitely matters in 2024.

As recently as last month, some polls put Trump ahead of Biden in Minnesota, which Biden had won by about 7 percentage points in 2020.

With Biden off the ticket, the advantage has swung back toward Democrats, but Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz’s addition to the ticket Tuesday will all but ensure that Minnesota — a must-win for Kamala Harris’ presidential chances — stays blue.

In three cases (1976 Democrats, 1980 Republicans and 1992 Democrats), a vice presidential candidate helped flip a state. In 2016, Kaine boosted the Democrats in his swing state of Virginia in a tight election — Clinton won Virginia, even if she lost the election.

One should also consider the cases where a presidential candidate would have done much better, possibly winning the overall election, with a better vice presidential selection.

ALSO READ: Why ‘vanilla’ Tim Walz is the ingredient to beat Trump: Dem lawmakers

Imagine President Gerald Ford keeping Vice President Nelson Rockefeller — and winning New York in 1976. It could have meant the difference in Ford defeating Democrat Jimmy Carter and winning his own four-year term after assuming the presidency from disgraced Richard Nixon. Instead, Carter narrowly won New York — and the election.

It’s also hard to imagine Democrat Al Gore losing Florida with the highly popular Sunshine State politician Bob Graham — a senator and governor — in 2000. Instead, he picked Connecticut's Joe Lieberman.

Republicans would have almost certainly fared a bit better against Democrat Barack Obama with a ticket of John McCain and Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania in 2008, instead of McCain and then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) might have helped Mitt Romney in 2012, at least in Ohio.

Still need convincing?

Many others in the media and academia have challenged the idea that vice presidential picks matter.

The Economist takes issue with the notion that vice presidential nominee Lyndon B. Johnson delivered the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy, who edged out Nixon in one of the nation’s closest elections in history.

And they might be right, given that the only states that voted for Democrat Adlai Stevenson II in 1952 and 1956 were from the South. Yet Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Republican, did win Johnson’s home state of Texas in both elections, and Kennedy captured Texas in 1960.

In a recent interview with A Martínez from National Public Radio, professor Kyle Kopko at Elizabethtown College takes issue with the idea that a VP candidate can deliver an election:

MARTÍNEZ: All right. So if the Harris campaign is thinking about picking a VP candidate to help them carry one of November's swing states, what is your message to them? Kyle, let's start with you there.

KOPKO: Well, first of all, it's probably not going to happen. Whenever we estimate a number of statistical models dating back decades, it's pretty rare that we find a vice presidential candidate that can deliver a battleground state. And even if they could, then it really has to be the decisive state in the Electoral College really to make a difference. So you can think about this as lightning needing to strike ever just right for it to count in the presidential election.

In a Politico article two elections ago, Kopko and Christopher Devine go into more detail about their model.

They look at state-level election returns from 1884-2012. They also delve in public opinion polls from 1952-2008 to see how much a vice-presidential candidate means for their home state.

Here are their findings: “While presidential candidates typically enjoy a home-state advantage (approximately 3 points to 7 points), vice presidential candidates generally do not. In each of the three analyses described above, a presidential ticket performs no better in the vice-presidential candidate’s home state than we would expect otherwise. Statistically speaking, the effect is zero.”

It's not that Kopko and Devine are wrong, but they are looking at eras with many blowout elections.

Think of Republican victories from 1896-1908 (William McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt), 1920-1928 (Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge), and 1952-1956 (Eisenhower), or Democratic dominance from 1932-1944 (Franklin D. Roosevelt).

It wouldn’t have mattered if you put Superman on the ticket for the losing side, even with the X-ray vision.

But in more recent years, with 24-hour media and social media coverage, we learn a lot more about Palin, Pence, Kamala Harris and Joe Biden than America ever heard about Thomas Marshall, Thomas Hendricks, Levi P. Morton or Allen G. Thurman in those days.

Legacy of Charles not-quite-in-charge

But in more recent years, from 1976-2020, one could say that it’s a whole new ballgame for vice presidential picks.

And the selections of J. D. Vance of Ohio and Walz of Minnesota are likely to have a much bigger impact than Charles Fairbanks, Charles G. Dawes, Charles Curtis, Charles W. Bryan and Charles L. McNary (all vice presidential picks between 1904-1940) ever did.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in LaGrange, Georgia. His views are his own. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His “X” account is JohnTures2.

Republican lawmaker from Texas violates financial disclosure law with 5-year delay

A Republican congressman was as much as five years late reporting his spouse’s stock trades, violating a federal financial disclosure law, according to a Raw Story review of congressional financial records.

Rep. Roger Williams (R-TX) failed to properly report 16 stock trades and one bond transaction from two of his wife’s brokerage accounts, some going back as far as February 2019.

Each stock trade was in the $1,001 to $15,000 range involving a variety of companies such as tech conglomerate Alphabet, artificial intelligence company NVIDIA, pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Company and media and entertainment conglomerate Walt Disney and Company.

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Members of Congress are required to publicly report — within 45 days — most purchases, sales and exchanges of stocks, bonds, commodity futures, securities and cryptocurrencies as outlined by the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act, a law passed by Congress in 2012 to defend against conflicts of interest, curb insider trading and enhance public transparency.

Lawmakers only need to disclose the values of their transactions in broad ranges per the financial disclosure law.

Williams’ congressional office did not respond to Raw Story’s request for comment.

This isn’t the first time that Williams has apparently violated that STOCK Act.

Nonpartisan ethics group, the Campaign Legal Center, filed a complaint against Williams and six other members of Congress for failing to properly disclose their stock transactions in 2021, NPR reported. Williams’ 2021 violations involved three undisclosed 2019 stock trades for wife, Patty Williams, totaling up to $45,000.

“In the situation when we filed the complaint, it seems as though the member knew the rule, and therefore, could not say that he didn't understand the rule, and that's why we thought that there needs to be an investigation to see if this was intentional,” Kedric Payne, vice president, general counsel and senior director of ethics for the Campaign Legal Center, told Raw Story in a phone interview.

“If you fast forward now, to a few years after we filed the complaint, it seems to raise questions again, why would you not comply if you know the rule? It’s either you’re trying to hide something, or you just don't care.”

The House Committee on Ethics previously scolded, but decided not to reprimand Williams over concerns about how his auto dealership would financially benefit from an amendment he introduced in 2015, the Center for Public Integrity reported.

'Common error'

Another Republican member of Congress, Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL), was more than a year late disclosing the purchase of a U.S. Treasury I bond valued up to $15,000.

“We understand this is a common error given that U.S. Treasury Bonds are government securities and wholly distinct from private stock purchase,” Adam Pakledinaz, a spokesperson for Webster, told Raw Story via email. “As soon as the requirement was brought to Rep. Webster’s attention, we worked with the Ethics Committee to immediately file the necessary paperwork. He is in full compliance and has been told no further action is required.”

The standard fine for violating the STOCK Act is $200. Often, the fee is waived by the House Committee on Ethics and Senate Select Committee on Ethics. As for consequences for both Williams and Webster, “there’s no reason to think that there'll be anything other than a $200 late penalty at most,” Payne said.

“The rules are clear that Treasury bonds need to be reported, and it’s because voters need to know whether there are any potential conflicts of interest with the information that members of Congress are getting and the trades they’re making,” Payne said. “Treasury bonds are directly tied to … how the health of the U.S. market is seen. So if members of Congress know something about what to anticipate about the health of the US economy that’s impacting those trades, the public needs to know.”

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Williams and Webster join a growing list of legislators — Republicans and Democrats alike — who have violated the STOCK Act.

Raw Story has now identified at least 48 members of the 118th Congress, including Williams and Webster, who have violated the law.

Numerous bills have been introduced over the past two congressional sessions that would at least in part ban stock trading by members of Congress and their spouses or require stricter punishments for violators.

Such bills include the Ban Conflicted Trading Act, the Ban Stock Trading for Government Officials Act, the Bipartisan Restoring Faith in Government Act, the TRUST in Congress Act and the Preventing Elected Leaders from Owning Securities and Investments Act.

None of these bills have yet been voted upon by either the U.S. House or Senate.

TikTok disinformation is no more dangerous than this Fox News disinformation

The U.S. House of Representatives has voted overwhelmingly to require TikTok to divest its Chinese ownership or be banned in the U.S. because of national security concerns.

The security risks identified by the bill’s sponsors include a Chinese law that gives Xi Jinping legal access to user data, along with China’s ability to meddle in U.S. elections.

The standard First Amendment debate asks: When does one person’s right to spew misinformation yield to another person’s right not to be harmed by it? In the context of elections, if Congress interferes with a foreign-owned media platform such as TikTok in the name of election security, why should a domestic corporation such as Fox News, also guilty of rampant election misinformation, be spared the same scrutiny?

Online disinformation campaigns

Over the past few years, the most aggressive online disinformation campaigns in the U.S. have targeted COVID vaccines, climate science and elections. Millions of Americans are influenced by manufactured information campaigns every day. Pew Research shows that the share of U.S. adults who want the federal government to restrict such false information has risen, from 39 percent in 2018 to 55 percent in 2023.

COVID and climate manipulation can be countered fairly easily since death rates, increasing wildfires and disappearing aquifers can’t lie.

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Election misinformation is another story. Of all the disinformation campaigns online at any given hour, election lies are the most difficult to regulate because political speech is afforded the highest legal protection under the 1st Amendment.

Paradoxically, political disinformation presents the greatest threat to the 1st Amendment, as politicians in a position to curb it sometimes become top disinformation purveyors.

Consider that Donald Trump started claiming the 2020 election was rigged months before the first votes were cast. Since then, an initially resistant GOP has begun to see the political expediency in parroting his claims: Republicans have not won the popular vote in a presidential election in decades, and it’s easier to falsely decry “stolen election” than to adjust policies enough to widen their political appeal.

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The GOP’s strained relationship with the truth is further complicated by deep-pocket political donors who demand outcomes different from what ordinary voters want — and are willing to finance massive public disinformation campaigns to achieve those outcomes.

As a direct result of widespread election disinformation, 40 percent of Americans still think Trump won the 2020 election, and 64 percent of election officials say their jobs are now more dangerous. Not only does election misinformation weaken domestic political processes, it has been weaponized by lawmakers on the right to justify new voter suppression laws in a self-serving, closed-loop information feed.

Why should Fox ‘News’ be spared?

TikTok may downplay its interest in U.S. domestic politics. But when it encouraged users to flood U.S. representatives’ offices with angry calls, TikTok parent company ByteDance demonstrated both its interest and its ability to influence American political outcomes when it wants to.

Its lobbying force in Washington, D.C., is formidable and growing, and even includes a former professional football player.

It’s also evident that TikTok’s algorithms suppress themes that aggravate Chinese leaders. As reported by the New York Times, researchers compiled information about popular TikTok videos on topics commonly suppressed inside China, such as the fate of China’s Uyghur population and public protests in Hong Kong. They found that these topics were underrepresented on TikTok compared to other social networks, including Instagram. The research emerged from TikTok’s own “Creative Center,” and after the under-representation was reported, TikTok quietly reigned in its own research tool rather than address the subterfuge.

As Congress grapples with such foreign data manipulation, why should domestic manipulation by Fox News be treated differently? Fox News admitted to peddling massive voter disinformation during the last presidential election, and it appears they are at it again.

Fox News admitted lying about Trump’s 2020 loss

Dominion Voting Systems sued Fox for defamation following Fox News’ rampant election misinformation during the 2020 election. Dominion alleged, with strong evidence, that Fox News orchestrated and published stolen 2020 election claims after it knew them to be false, repeatedly scapegoating Dominion voting machines in the process.

Dominion introduced explosive documentary evidence that key Fox anchors and executives told each other that Trump’s buffoonish stolen election claims were a joke, but told their viewers something quite different.

Fox luminaries texted, emailed or commented to each other that Trump’s stolen election lies and the fraudsters supporting them were “Ludicrous” and “totally off the rails”(Tucker Carlson); “F—g lunatics” (Sean Hannity); “Nuts” (Dana Perino); “Complete BS” (Fox Producer John Fawcett); “Kooky” (anchor Maria Bartiromo); “Mind Blowingly Nuts” (Raj Shah, Fox Corporation VP); and, “There is NO evidence of fraud. None” (Bret Baier).

And yet, these same luminaries continued to promote Trump’s stolen election lies on-air, just to attract low-information viewers.

Carlson didn’t tell Fox viewers that Trump was “off the rails.” Instead, he donned his trademark injured puppy face, poured his hurt eyes into the camera, and cried, “The stolen election was the single greatest crime in American history with millions of votes stolen in a day. Democracy destroyed. The end of our centuries old system of government.”

Fox viewers, believing their votes and democracy itself were stolen, were understandably triggered.

Election threats within

Trump and Fox News continued to goad MAGA voters into believing their votes were “stolen” until they violently attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

The insurrection, during which multiple people lost their lives, was the direct result of election misinformation, leaving Fox News with at least some culpability for the attack.

And yet, even as Congress expresses deep concern over TikTok’s potential for election interference, there has been no discussion about Fox News. The TikTok bill’s lead sponsor, Mike Gallagher (R-WI) told NPR that that the TikTok app had been used to interfere in elections.

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Post-2020, there is no serious question about whether Fox also interferes in elections or plans to interfere with them again, as Trump and President Joe Biden speed toward a rematch in November.

TikTok has more reach than Fox, as nearly half of America’s population uses TikTok. Fox News, for its part, is the top-rated cable network, averaging 1.85 million viewers daily during primetime hours. Fox & Friends has been the most viewed cable-news morning show for 22 years.

As instruments of social and political manipulation, TikTok and Fox News target similar audiences. TikTok attracts hormonal teens with addictive, homegrown videos, while Fox targets their low-education parents and grandparents. Both outlets manipulate their audience by selling infotainment as news.

If the TikTok bill makes it through the U.S. Senate, it will face a stiff legal challenge. Under long-established 1st Amendment precedent, the government will need to show a compelling government interest, and that forced divestment — or a ban — represents the least restrictive means of advancing that interest.

Under any legal analysis, there are few concerns more compelling to the U.S. federal government than preserving free elections and the democratic system. What’s glaringly missing from the debate about online disinformation, at least so far, is why election interference from TikTok is any more dangerous than election interference from Fox News.

Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25 year litigator specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Follow her on Substack.