Jake is running for president. Plus the historical governorship of Elmer Benson, and, Lauren Boebert beetles on that juice.

ANDERS LEE JACOBIN ARTICLE
https://jacobin.com/2023/09/elmer-benson-governor-minnesota-farmer-labor-party-executive-action-strikes-national-guard

MERCH
poddamnamerica.bigcartel.com

PATREON + DISCORD
patreon.com/poddamnamerica

FLORES 2024

More updates on the progress to breed a perfectly red calf and usher in the End Times, but mostly another discussion of Israel/Palestine and current debates on/in/about the left's response to it

You can find our previous episode about this over at Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 312: We Demand The End Of The World

“U.S. shipment of 'lethal aid' reaches Ukraine amid Russia tensions,” NBC News reported in January 2022. “U.S. adopting 'deterrence posture' as aircraft carrier heads towards Israel,” France 24 announced in October 2023. The same month, The Hill warned about “Nutrition: The national security threat no one is talking about.”

This is part two of our two-part episode on the language of war. Last week, we discussed terms like “boots on the ground” and “military footprint;” “precision” or “targeted airstrikes;” “terrorism” and the very Orwellian phrase “enemy noncombatant.”

If you haven’t listened to that episode, we definitely encourage you to do so. On this episode, we examine more of the most insidious terms that U.S. media and government officials use to sanitize military aggression worldwide, how this is affecting coverage of Israel’s nonstop murderous bombing of Gaza, and discuss how we all can and should use clearer, more accurate terms to describe the real human stakes of state violence.

Our guests are Maha Hilal and David Vine.

Episode 193: How Military Jargon and Cliches Make Mass Death Seem Sterile (Part II)

In this News Brief, we detail how American media focusing entirely on discrete "counter attacks" and adopting cool military-speak play-by-play ignores the much bigger and important reality of forcible population transfers and overt plans to remove Palestinians from Palestine.

Media Adopts Israel's Simplistic 'Hunt for Hamas' Narrative, Providing Cover For Ethnic Cleansing

“Aging population to hit U.S. economy like a 'ton of bricks',” Reuters reported in 2021. “Aging Is The Real Population Bomb,” the International Monetary Fund cautioned earlier this year. “How an aging population poses challenges for U.S. economy, workforce and social programs,” PBS declared in June. “Why we’re borrowing to fund the elderly while neglecting everyone else,” The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell wrote just this past November.

Year after year, it seems, American media issues the same warning: The population of the US, due to - among other factors - rising life expectancy and falling birthrates, is getting older, which spells doom for our economy. A graying public, we’re told, will inevitably upend the labor force, destroy productivity, bleed programs like Medicare and Social Security dry, and thus place an undue burden on the younger population.

But the premises for this panic are based on misleading stats, goofy non-sequiturs, and misdirected faux class warfare. So, why do media keep insisting the olds are out for your hard-earned money? Who gets to shape our understanding of what an aging population actually means economically or socially? How does this narrative shift the burden from the state to the individual in terms of managing retirement benefits and systems of care? And what are the real harms of treating people over the age of 65 like they’re a cancer on society?

On this episode, we examine the narrative that an aging population is necessarily dire, looking at how it’s instrumentalized to gut public benefits for seniors and thus for everyone, advance the financialization of retirement, and reframe the conflict between rich and poor as one between young and old.

Our guest is social security expert Nancy Altman.

Episode 194: The "Graying Population" Panic and the 90-Year War on Social Security

In this News Brief, we detail how horrific population transfers, mass bombings, and collective punishment are spun as humanitarian gestures to protect civilians.

News Brief: 5 Ways US Media Helps Put a 'Humanitarian' Spin on Gaza Ethnic Cleansing

2024 is off to a great start.  New Epstein documents drop, Mike Flynn tweets that #PizzagateIsReal, and kraft retailer Etsy is being accused of selling ‘bespoke children’ on their marketplace.  It’s a throwback QAA-style ep where Julian, Jake, and Travis begin to unravel at the realization that they’re about to relive 2016 for the seventh year in a row.  Is Etsy really engaged in human trafficking?  Is Pizzagate actually real?  Are there still unanswered questions about the Epstein scandal?  No, no, and yes.  

Subscribe for $5 a month to get an extra episode of QAA every week + access to our archive of premium episodes and ongoing series like PERVERTS, Manclan, Trickle Down and The Spectral Voyager: https://www.patreon.com/QAA

Music by Pontus Berghe. Editing by Corey Klotz.

https://qanonanonymous.com

Episode 262:  Etsy, Pizzagate, Epstein

In this News Brief, "Quantifying the Media's Selective Humanity in Gaza," we are joined by Adam's anonymous co-author of their two recent studies—one of print media and one of cable news—detailing US's media's double standards when covering the 'Gaza conflict.'

News Brief: Quantifying the Media's Selective Humanity in Gaza

If you don't want to hear us rant and rave about the Hofenstaufen dynasty, Frederick II, and how Prince Andrew of Hungary was the Hunter Biden of the middle ages, then fast forward to about minute 17. 

This week our old pal Kate Wagner (@mcmansionhell) joins us to discuss the pope, AI-generated content, conspiracy theory-fueled wildfires, the ecstasy we apparently felt at electing Joe Biden, and the latest designs at Neom. 

You can support Kate at the Duchy of Patreon: www.patreon.com/mcmansionhell

And us too: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

Episode 326: The Failson Crusade (w/ special guest Kate Wagner)

"Make sense of the day’s news and ideas," urges The Morning, a daily New York Times newsletter. "Get smarter, faster on news and information that matters to you," Axios assures its readership. "This is how the news should sound," The New York Times again declares, via its podcast The Daily.

Over the last ten years, roughly speaking, we’ve seen the proliferation of the daily digest-style newsletter and podcast at legacy and new media organizations. Inspired, at least loosely, by the so-called explanatory journalism of Vox and similar outlets that arose in the mid-2010s, publications now commonly offer bite-sized breakdowns of the news that allegedly matters most, delivered to the inboxes of upwardly mobile, dinner-party-hosting, perennially on-the-go professionals - or at least those who want to think of themselves as such.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with accessibility in news media—quite the opposite, in fact. But, for corporate “explanatory” news models, it’s worth asking who makes the decisions about which news is the “most important,” and about how that news is framed. How do seemingly benign, even folksy promises to “make sense of the news” mask the ideology of corporate media institutions? And what are the dangers of herding audiences into a center-right political consensus that issues complaints like “campus speech is vexing” and “the left is less welcoming than the right”?

On this episode, we examine the rise and hegemony of centrist micro-news platforms–from Axios’s trademarked "Smart Brevity" to The New York Times’ David Leonhardt’s newsletter The Morning and The Daily podcast–looking at how they package left-punching, pathologically incurious, glib news nuggets served up to busy, upwardly mobile, well-meaning liberals.

Our guest is writer Jacob Bacharach.

Episode 195: David Leonhardt and the Elite Consensus Manufacturing Machine

In this News Brief we are joined by friend of the show, Maximillian Alvarez of The Real News, to discuss Democrats' pathetic, myopic, and nihilistic attempt to play the racist reverse Uno card on Congressional Republicans.

News Brief: How US Media Obscures the Violence of the Generic, Sterile-Sounding "Border Deal"

Citations Needed is a podcast about the media, power, PR, and the history of bullshit. It is hosted by Nima Shirazi and Adam Johnson, and produced by Florence Barrau-Adams.

Episode 194: The "Graying Population" Panic and the 90-Year War on Social Security

Citations Needed Podcast

Related tracks