“How this millennial saved $1 million by age 30,” The Washington Post writes. “A Millennial Saved $100,000 With This Simple Habit,” CNBC insists. “How to save for retirement when you're living paycheck to paycheck,” CNN confides in us. Everywhere in American media we are told if only we engaged in simple, no-nonsense discipline we can retire at 35.   But what is the political objective of this popular mode of journalism? More than just generating clicks to sell investment instruments to the credulous, this genre has a distinct ideological purpose: to obscure generational poverty, largely brought on by the legacy of racism and Jim Crow, and make being poor the result of a series of moral failings rather than a deliberate political regime decided on by powerful actors.   This week, we explore the “personal finance” media industry and the corollary, so-called FIRE movement—and how their poor shaming, libertarian ethos has increasingly seeped into our mainstream click-happy online press.   Our guest is writer and editor Miles Howard.

In the lead up to the 2020 presidential election, two of the Obama administration's most consistently hawkish advisors, former Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and former US Ambassador to the UN Samantha Power have rebranded themselves as anti-war voices in a world turned upside down by Trump’s radical foreign policy and what we’ve been told is an global environment of rising "authoritarianism." With a perfunctory “we could have done more” gesture towards accountability for their role in an administration that turned Libya into a broken state and assisted the destruction of Yemen before they move on to positioning themselves as truth-tellers on behalf of a kinder, gentler machine gun hand in the run up to a potential Warren, Sanders or Harris administration, Rhodes and Power have tested the limits of liberal amnesia. On this episode, we take a closer look at their rebranding and what it says about the so-called “foreign policy” debate in the 2020 democratic primary and what actual accountability looks like beyond empty tweets and self-serving “I was trying to change things from the inside” revisionism. Our guest is Dr. Shireen Al-Adeimi of Michigan State University.

In this unlocked News Brief we discuss New York media's racist, factually incorrect coverage of the #Bronx120 and how Preet Bharara went from careerist "gang raid" general locking up poor black teenagers to woke MSNBC platitude machine.

“Naked Florida man revealed on video sneaking into restaurant and munching on ramen.” “Florida man broke into jewelry store, cut himself on glass and bled all over everything, police say.” “Florida man arrested at Olive Garden after eating spaghetti with his hands.” We’ve seen this supposedly hilarious stories for years on our social media feeds and wacky listicle. Florida-themed crime stories, we are told, are uniquely bizarre and worthy of derision. But what are we really mocking when we mock “Florida Man”? On this total buzzkill episode, we dissect the anti-poor, mental health-shaming subtext that animates the Florida Man meme and how it too often serves as little more than a socially acceptable way to mock the marginalized and indigent. We are joined by Florida organizer Michelle Bruder.

"The United States believes any Palestinian government must renounce violence,” a U.S. official told Ha'aretz. When it comes to nonviolence, writes Barbara Reynolds in The Washington Post, “Black Lives Matter seems intent on rejecting the proven methods." "Violence Is Never the Answer," New York Times columnist Charles Blow insists. We are told endlessly that violence is inherently and unequivocally bad, something - when it comes to advocating for social justice or against military occupation and fascism - that’s always to be avoided, condemned and renounced. It must be rejected, our press and politicians declare, in favor of non-violence, so-called "peaceful protests" and the democratic process. But in popular discourse, discussions of violence aren’t really about violence; rather, they’re about sanctioned versus unsanctioned violence. The routine violence of poverty, racist policing, militarism is never called "violence"–––it's just the way things are, a law of nature, the price of "stability". But unsanctioned violence, namely that carried out by activists, non or sub-state actors, and those generally distant from the halls of power, causes outrage without any coherent criteria for this indignation. On this episode, we discuss how what is and isn't deemed "violence" by our media is largely a function of proximity to power and whether those actions challenge or serve the interests of the status quo. We are joined by journalist and author Natasha Lennard.

This podcast challenges the narrow definition of corruption in Western media, highlighting how it ignores colonization, unfair trade, and exploitation. It discusses the significant loss of money due to corruption and tax evasion in poor countries. The episode examines the biased language used by Western media to delegitimize non-Western countries. It explores the narrow definition of corruption in Western media and its failure to capture money stolen from the global South. The podcast also delves into the history of corruption in the City of London and its role as a tax haven. It discusses the lack of transparency and anti-democratic nature of global economic governance. Finally, it suggests redefining corruption and challenging biased metrics to provide a more objective perspective.

Though now a fixture of the fringe right-wing, libertarian pundit John Stossel was a longtime staple of mainstream, Serious Person media. With hour-long specials and a weekly segment on the ABC program 20/20, Stossel built his brand as muckraking Truth-Teller against Big Government and out of control "political correctness", along with an empire of high school “educational” videos, distributed by libertarian billionaire-funded front groups to tens of thousands of American classrooms. In his peak libertarian phase on 20/20, the ABC News program was frequently a Top 20 show, with an average of 13 million viewers an episode. Through his “Give Me A Break” segments and other high-profile special reports, Stossel – without challenge or balance – spread endless well-worn libertarian scare stories on topics ranging from teachers’ unions to the EPA to anti-tobacco regulators to minimum wage to Black civil rights activists, nut-picking the most fringe elements while building stories on anecdotal, fraudulent data and a black hole of libertarian sourcing. On this episode, we trace today’s neoliberal, far-right toxic media back to Stossel’s brand of mainstream-laundered, libertarian “contrarianism.” We are joined by Jeff Cohen, founder of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR).

Kinetic strikes. Limited military coercion. Robust sanctions. No fly zones. Military muscle. Modernization. All options are on the table. So much of how we discuss U.S. militarism and imperialism is laundered through seemingly anodyne phrases, rhetorical thingamajigs that vaguely gesture towards an idea without conjuring the unseemly images of what’s really being called for. In Part II of our two-part episode on “foreign policy-speak," we examine five more ubiquitous euphemisms and discuss what’s really being said (and what’s always left out) when the media uses banal phrases meant to mask military violence. Our guest is FAIR's Janine Jackson.

Barack Obama unleashes "kinetic strikes” on Libya, Hillary Clinton lobbies for "limited military coercion" in Syria, Congress passes “robust sanctions” on Iran, and Trump gives “US generals more room to run” as he “ramps up” “pressure” on ISIS. The Center for American Progress calls for a “no fly zone” to “protect civilians.” It’s important the US “engage” in the Middle East as it “reasserts itself” on “the world stage,” and backs up “diplomacy” with “military muscle.” While Russia "expands" its naval and nuclear capacity the US merely “modernizes” its fleet or stockpile. “All options are on the table” when discussing Venezuela and Iran.   So much of how we discuss US militarism and imperialism is laundered through seemingly anodyne phrases, rhetorical thingamajigs that vaguely gesture towards an idea without drawing up unseemly images of what’s really being called for. In this two-part episode, we examine what’s being said, what’s being left out when we use “foreign policy-speak,” and how writers can avoid these lazy euphemisms, and instead make a concerted effort to objectively describe the policy being advocated for rather than relying on well-worn thought-terminating cliches that are designed to do all of our thinking for us.   Our guest is FAIR's Janine Jackson.

It’s a trope that dates back more than a decade, but the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has seen a recent resurgence in the liberal’s “Inexplicable Republican Best Friend,” a specific genre of concern trolling where a long-time Republican operative, politician or pundit offers supposedly well-intentioned “advice” to Democrats about how they can win elections, which always relies on avoiding veering “too far left.” These takes––frequently featured as earnest appeals in liberal and centrist outlets––are ostensibly framed as straight-talk advice that should be accepted as objectively in the Democrats’ best interest, and never presented as an ideological argument that would otherwise make sense coming from a right-winger. “Republican hates socialism” isn’t that newsworthy, whereas “GOP operative identifies Democrats’ best interests" somehow is.  As with most ideological scams, it only travels in one direction: leftward. One seldom hears liberals or leftists give “advice” to Republicans about they ought to do to win. But somehow the inverse isn’t true. Anti-choice, climate change denying, racist, rape apologist, warmongering, overpaid mercenary GOP “strategists” are treated like objective, neutral voices simply looking out for the best interests of the people and institutions they’ve spent their entire careers trying to destroy. We are joined by Huffington Post senior reporter Ashley Feinberg.