When the Press Says “Fiery” It Means “Insane”
https://newrepublic.com/article/188512/medias-euphemism-trumps-appointees-fiery
With the president-elect choosing his rogues’ gallery of future appointees, the political press is really wearing out its go-to synonym for crazy.
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The meaning of mainstream media euphemisms has always been pretty plain to me, even before I entered the business. But just as I need my daughter, Alice, to translate when she says, “John is rizzing up trade”—it means “John is flirting with someone attractive”—it stands to reason that a new generation might need help with the word fiery. It means “sociopathic or clinically insane.”
Suddenly the news is full of fiery people. Stephen Miller is “fiery” (Associated Press, CNN). Elise Stefanik is “fiery” (Politico, Albany Times Union). Matt Gaetz is “fiery” (New York Times, Sky News) and also a “firebrand” (Financial Times, Reuters). Gaetz is so proud of the latter that in 2020 he published a book titled Firebrand. The puppy-killing South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, whom Trump nominated for secretary of homeland security, is another “firebrand” (Fox News). So is (Financial Times, Daily Mail), the ax-throwing Fox News personality Trump nominated for secretary of defense. So is the Trump superloyalist Kash Patel (Daily Mail), rumored to be Trump’s pick for FBI director. This is all just in the past week. Little fires everywhere.
The one person who hasn’t been called “fiery” or “firebrand” lately is Robert Kennedy Jr. I find this omission puzzling, given that Trump’s nominee for health and human services secretary practically stepped out of a textbook on abnormal psychology: whale-beheader, dead-bear fancier, sex diarist, etc. And that’s before we plumb RFK Jr.’s novel opinions against vaccines and fluoridation. Maybe the press feels squeamish about the worm that ate part of Kennedy’s brain. But they don’t come much fierier.
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America’s firebrand in chief is Donald Trump. We’ve all been witnessing Trump’s mental derangement for so long that when the press describes Trump as “fiery” it has come to mean more than just “toxic and unhinged.” It means “more toxic and unhinged than usual.”
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https://newrepublic.com/article/188512/medias-euphemism-trumps-appointees-fiery
Tax Dodging by Super-Rich, Big Corporations Costs Nations Half a Trillion Per Year: Study
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system,” said the chief executive of the Tax Justice Network.
A study published Tuesday estimates that tax dodging enabled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other wealthy nations is costing countries around the world nearly half a trillion dollars in revenue each year, underscoring the urgent need for global reforms to prevent rich individuals and large corporations from shirking their obligations.
The new study, conducted by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), finds that “the combined costs of cross-border tax abuse by multinational companies and by individuals with undeclared assets offshore stands at an estimated $492 billion.” Of that total in lost revenue, corporate tax dodging is responsible for more than $347 billion, according to TJN’s calculations.
“For people everywhere, the losses translate into foregone public services, and weakened states at greater risk of falling prey to political extremism,” the study reads. “And in the same way, there is scope for all to benefit from moving tax rule-setting out of the OECD and into a globally inclusive and fully transparent process at the United Nations.”
The analysis estimates that just eight countries—the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, Israel, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—are enabling large-scale tax avoidance by opposing popular global reform efforts. Late last year, those same eight countries were the lonely opponents of the United Nations General Assembly’s vote to set in motion the process of establishing a U.N. tax convention.
According to the new TJN study, those eight countries are responsible for roughly half of the $492 billion lost per year globally to tax avoidance by the rich and large multinational corporations, despite being home to just 8% of the world’s population.
“The hurtful eight voted for a world where we all keep losing half a trillion a year to tax-cheating multinational corporations and the super-rich,” Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said in a statement Tuesday. “The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system, and their people consistently demand an end to tax abuse, so it’s absurd that the U.S. and U.K. are seeking to preserve it.”
“It’s perhaps harder to understand why the other handful of blockers, like Australia, Canada, and Japan, who don’t play anything like such a damaging role, would be willing to go along with this,” Cobham added.
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TJN released its study as G20 nations—a group that includes most of the “hurtful eight”—issued a communiqué pledging to “engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed.” Brazil, which hosted the G20 summit, led the push for language calling for taxation of the global super-rich.
The document drew praise from advocacy groups including the Fight Inequality Alliance, which stressed the need to “transform the rhetoric on taxing the rich into global reality.”
The communiqué was released amid concerns that the election of far-right billionaire Donald Trump in the U.S. could derail progress toward a global solution to pervasive and costly tax avoidance.
The new TJN study cites Trump’s pledge to cut the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% and warns such a move would accelerate the global “race to the bottom” on corporate taxation.
“People in countries around the world are calling in large majorities on their governments to tax multinational corporations properly,” Liz Nelson, TJN’s director of advocacy and research, said Tuesday. “But governments continue to exercise a policy of appeasement on corporate tax.”
“We now have data from these governments showing that when they asked multinational corporations to pay less tax, the corporations cheated even more,” Nelson added. “It’s time governments found the spines their people deserve from their leaders.”
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
House GOP Revives Bill to Let Authoritarian Trump Crush Nonprofits
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
“We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent,” said the president of Oxfam America.
House Republicans have revived and are looking to push through legislation this week that would hand President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming administration sweeping power to investigate and shut down nonprofit organizations, including news outlets and humanitarian groups.
The bill, H.R. 9495, failed to pass the House last week despite bipartisan support because the Republican leadership attempted to pass the measure using a fast-track procedure that requires a two-thirds majority vote. More than 50 Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and other prominent members, backed the legislation in last week’s vote, along with 204 Republicans.
This time, the GOP is attempting to advance the bill through regular order, meaning it can pass with a simple majority. The Republican-controlled House Rules Committee is scheduled to hold a markup hearing for H.R. 9495 on Monday.
After learning of the hearing, advocacy organizations that mobilized against the bill redoubled their warnings about its dire implications for free expression and the right to dissent—particularly in the hands of a would-be authoritarian who has vowed to prosecute his political enemies.
“The bill we defeated days ago is back,” the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights wrote on social media over the weekend. “Representatives are trying to ram through H.R. 9495, a repressive bill that could shut down nonprofits & student groups supporting Palestinian rights.”
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The legislation, if passed, would give the Treasury Department the authority to unilaterally strip nonprofits of their tax-exempt status by designating them supporters of terrorism. As of this writing, Trump has not announced his pick to lead the Treasury Department.
While the bill provides a brief period for an accused nonprofit to defend itself, the ACLU said the provision “is a mere illusion of due process,” noting that the federal government would be able to “deny organizations its reasons and evidence against them, leaving the nonprofit unable to rebut allegations.”
Abby Maxman, president and CEO of Oxfam America, warned in a statement after Republicans revived the bill that H.R. 9495 “would grant the Trump administration, and any future administration, the ability to silence and censor its critics, curb free speech, target political opponents, and punish crucial organizations that speak truth to power and help people in the United States and around the world.”
“This bill would increase the powers of the president at the expense of all of our freedoms, and could impact not only organizations like Oxfam, but other nonprofits, news outlets, or even universities who dare to dissent,” said Maxman. “It could put our ability to respond to some of the worst humanitarian crises at risk and prevent us from delivering lifesaving aid to some of the world’s most marginalized people.”
“This bill follows the same playbook Oxfam has seen other governments around the world use to crush dissent. Now we are seeing it here at home,” Maxman added. “We urge the House of Representatives to reject this dangerous bill and to protect our freedom of speech and our right to dissent.”
It’s not clear whether the U.S. Senate, narrowly controlled by Democrats, would bring H.R. 9495 to the floor for a vote if it passes the House this week, or whether President Joe Biden would sign it into law. But Republicans will gain full control of Congress and the White House starting in January, giving them the ability to push the legislation through at a later date.
“Their rush to reconsider this bill is solely to offer Trump more and more power, while Trump’s nominees for key national security posts this week indicate how he will be using it,” Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), a leading opponent of the measure, toldThe Intercept on Friday.
Original article by Jake Johnson republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
Governments Must Tackle Climate Disinformation, Experts Urge
Original article by Joey Grostern republished from DeSmog.
An open letter from climate scientists and campaigners warns of the dangers associated with false climate claims.
Governments around the world must take “immediate and decisive action” to tackle climate disinformation, scientists and campaign groups have urged as talks at the COP29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan enter their fourth day.
A coalition of 55 climate information integrity groups and 42 leading climate scientists and experts have signed an open letter urging countries to counter the risk of false and misleading claims that are wrecking efforts to slow climate change.
It comes two days after UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer spoke at COP29 arguing that “there is no national security without climate security” – and a week after the election in the United States of Donald Trump, who has previously called climate change a “hoax”.
The letter published today – signatories to which include Friends of the Earth, the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, and regional branches of Greenpeace and WWF – lists steps governments could take.
These include adopting a universal definition of climate disinformation, such as the working definition proposed by the Climate Action Against Disinformation (CAAD) coalition, another signatory.
According to the letter, the definition should cover anything that misrepresents scientific data or “falsely publicises” supposed solutions to climate change which in fact contribute to global warming, often referred to as “greenwashing”.
Such a definition should cover “deceptive or misleading online behaviour” that undermines public understanding of climate change, the fact it is caused by human activity, and the need for urgent mitigation and adaptation action, the letter said.
Signatories also urged governments to take action against organisations which give a platform to climate disinformation – including social media outlets, advertising technology providers, broadcasters, and publishing companies.
“The spread of disinformation continues to undermine and delay our collective ability to act, jeopardising progress at crucial negotiations and the upcoming G20 Summit in Brazil”, the letter said.
“Climate disinformation, waged by vested interests, undermines climate action and puts our collective future at risk. Our information ecosystem is being damaged, and those responsible must be held accountable.”
The letter ends by arguing that “by adopting these principles, governments can foster a healthier and safer online environment that supports informed decision-making and enables effective climate action.”
The world’s leading climate science group, the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), has warned that efforts to tackle climate change were being delayed by “rhetoric and misinformation that undermines climate science and disregards risk and urgency”.
“As disinformation continues to be an obstacle to vital climate action, the message from this open letter to decision makers globally is clear: protecting truth in the climate conversation is critical if we are to secure meaningful change”, said Max MacBride, Head of Counter-Disinformation at Roots Greenpeace, the NGO’s grassroots campaign initiative.
“At Roots, we see every day how climate disinformation stifles youth advocacy, and we join this call to hold governments and platforms accountable for enabling informed, equitable climate action”, he said.
Climate Disinformation Threats
A CAAD report published earlier this week found that climate disinformation is widespread online, and is hobbling efforts to address climate change.
The report said that social media platforms bear responsibility for allowing “super spreaders” to “pollute their platforms with debunked claims attacking renewable energy and electric vehicles”.
CAAD also found that fossil fuel companies were allowed to use digital advertising across Meta platforms to greenwash their reputations, by promoting false solutions or presenting fossil fuels as essential to the energy transition.
A study published in February found that 14 percent of Americans don’t believe climate change is real – even as growing numbers of Americans say they are concerned about the climate.
“In the US, we’ve painfully experienced the role disinformation has played in thwarting disaster response and threats to the lives of responders”, Kate Cell, Senior Climate Campaign Manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists, told DeSmog.
“As climate-fueled disasters become more common around the world, governments can protect their residents by addressing the problem of climate disinformation systemically.”
Another report released this week by the scrutiny NGO InfluenceMap found 2.500 cases of fossil fuel companies pushing arguments which contradict IPCC recommendations since COP28 last year.
Thais Lazzeri, founder of educational group FALA, a signatory to the letter, told DeSmog: “The letter comes at a unique time for Brazil, which is hosting the G20 and the incoming COP30 Presidency. The alliance of so many Brazilian institutes and professionals shows the urgency for answers and the intersectoral power of this Brazilian network, willing to work together.”
She added: “At the opening of the Brazil space at CO29, Environment Minister, Marina Silva, said that denialism doesn’t fit. The Brazilian government can lead by example and guarantee information integrity policies and strategic, connected actions to change the game.”
DeSmog has previously reported on news media spreading false climate claims, with The Telegraph newspaper in the UK attacking climate solutions – a trend that has increasing since July’s general election. As revealed by DeSmog in 2023, one in three presenters on the right-wing broadcaster GB News had spread climate disinformation during the previous year.
“It is much easier to pollute the waters of public discussion on climate change causes and consequences than it is to keep them clean and productive,” said Max Boykoff, signatory to the letter and professor of Environmental Studies at Boulder University in Colorado and founder of the Media Climate Change Observatory, a project which analyses mentions of climate change in news media.
“Therefore, more proactive, clear, accurate and effective communication efforts are consistently and repeatedly needed. That motivates this call for government action to curb disinformation about climate change.”
Original article by Joey Grostern republished from DeSmog.
Related: UK & Government Petitions: Run a public information campaign on the climate crisis