I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy. We need the media to hold people like me to account. Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it's important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power. — George W Bush
" We need a free press. We must have it. It's vital." The Arizona senator who has just been reelected to another six-year term added that in order to “preserve democracy” a “free and many times adversarial press” is essential. “That’s how dictators get started,” he continued. “They get started by suppressing a free press. In other words, a consolidation of power. When you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press.” — John McCain
Kanjorski's claims there were discredited. — Michael
A couple of recent quotes from Republicans on press freedom. — Wayfarer
So Trump's a fascist. Got it. — Thorongil
Fraudulent elections, corruption and cronyism, corporate power protected, controlled media, rampant sexism, etc. are not good by any stretch, but they aren't fascism, either. — Bitter Crank
The list is too inclusive to differentiate fascism from other kinds of political arrangements. — Bitter Crank
a sense of impending decline or doom... uneasy and fearful... need to separate... We're sick and we need to get back to our glorious historic presentation. — Mongrel
I think fascism (loosely put) is a reaction to a sense of impending decline or doom. — Mongrel
Philosophically speaking, the 'post truth' phenomenon is nothing new. It is just a label for something that has become more apparent to more people recently. The phenomenon is recorded in history ever since Alexander the Great ignored Aristotle's reasons not to invade persia. — ernestm
President Trump showed an affinity for “working the referees” in his race to the White House, criticizing a federal judge as biased, panning polls as rigged and even questioning the aptitude of the nation’s intelligence agencies.
Now, with Mr. Trump’s administration aggressively pitching the House Republican plan to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Capitol Hill’s official scorekeeper — the Congressional Budget Office — is coming under intense fire. As it prepares to render its judgment on the cost and impact of the bill, the nonpartisan agency of economists and statisticians has become a political piñata — and the latest example of Mr. Trump’s team casting doubt on benchmarks accepted as trustworthy for decades.
If the courts and media are fair game, so it would seem appropriate for some obscure agency to also be. — Hanover
If the Congressional Budget Office is "obscure," then it is so only because of the ignorance of the American public. The CBO is as close as an objective arbiter as one gets in Washington these days when it comes to assessing proposed bills' impact on the budget and the economy, and is thus hugely important.If the courts and media are fair game, so it would seem appropriate for some obscure agency to also be. — Hanover
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