Nima Shirazi

This podcast is hands down the best look into policy and media spin out there and this episode is no exception.

Citations Needed: Episode 195: David Leonhardt and the Elite Consensus Manufacturing Machine "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 i...

As usual, @citationspod.bsky.social has been all over this dismal media dynamic for a while: @ahjohnson.bsky.social @nimashirazi.bsky.social discuss Axios' propaganda functions in this excellent episode from January 2024.

This was not a failure of diplomacy.

Renewed talks were used as cover by the United States to allow Israeli and US war crimes to proceed as planned.

Do not fall into the rhetorical trap of calling this a "failure." This is the success of 46 years of revenge propaganda.

This was not a failure of the Democratic Party.

This was aided and abetted by its elected officials, who not only put up zero opposition to these war crimes, but almost uniformly accepted the false framing of the safeguarded Iranian nuclear program as a "threat" to be defeated.

This was not a failure of the press.

This is exactly what major media have been instigating, defending and encouraging through decades of promoting lies about Iran's nuclear program.

This is the result of a compliant and complicit media that operates in service of US power.

The media should be reminding readers and viewers of this constantly, but it won't:

None of the nuclear sites illegally attacked by the US were hidden or secret. All of them operate under expanded IAEA monitoring, as they have for years. The US bombed safeguarded nuclear sites.

I was super happy to join @ahjohnson.bsky.social and @nimashirazi.bsky.social on Citations Needed to discuss how the Abundance agenda is trying to win over the Democratic Party with the “one easy trick” solution to all our problems (the trick is neoliberalism)

Augustus formed the Praetorian Guard to occupy Rome as a garrisoned city for the 1st time in its history. It was an unprecedented move & he at 1st hid praetorians in plain clothes in the city of Rome. So, no: fuck the Praetorian Guard & all people who imitate it to justify their horrendous violence.

CNN's diverse stable of commentators tonight.

Genuinely the interview here is insane, such a short interview too which makes the questions they choose to ask even worse since they’re all so asinine. Especially the question about Trump’s stated Gaza plans, I’m sure they’re thrilled to be kicked out of their home for Atlantic City 2.0

this is excellent. “waste, fraud, and abuse” has deeply racist, eugenicist roots, and it’s been deployed for centuries to oppose investments in social programs. everyone posting articles about how doge’s costs are exceeding “savings” should listen to this.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

Ep 221: Anti-Science Mugging on the Right and the Ascent of American Anti-Intellectualism “Jaw Clench Study Takes Tax Dollars,” United Press International cautioned in 1975. “‘Shrimp On A Treadmill’: Rand Paul Mocks National Science Foundation Studies,” Forbes reported in 2021. “Gov't wast

In Ep 221, "Anti-Science Mugging on the Right and the Ascent of American Anti-Intellectualism" we detail demagogues' favorite faux populist schtick of taking scientific studies out of context and mocking them, often with help from mainstream media.

w/ Brenda Ekwurzel, Union of Concerned Scientists

Highly recommend this fine-grained, critical dissection of an extraordinarily problematic NPR segment on Gaza. @nimashirazi.bsky.social & @ahjohnson.bsky.social offer a searing breakdown that applies far beyond the segment they analyze. This is surely worth 23 minutes of your time.

The language of “waste, fraud, and abuse” isn’t just budgetary noise—it’s how capitalism moralizes abandonment. I joined
@ahjohnson.bsky.social and @nimashirazi.bsky.social on @citationspod.bsky.social to talk about how this ideology disciplines, divides, and disposes of the surplus. Listen here:

News Brief: Trump's Anti-Migrant Terror PR Strategy, Dr Phil's ICE Reality Show & NYT's MAGA Assist In this News Brief, we detail the Trump's administration's strategy of trying to terrorize migrant communities, why it's not working as planned, how The New York Times is manufacturing a pro-mass depo

In this News Brief, "Trump's Anti-Migrant Terror PR Strategy, Dr Phil's ICE Reality Show & NYT's MAGA Assist," we detail Trump's strategy of terrorizing migrant communities, how NYT is manufacturing a pro-mass deportation consensus and how activists are fighting back.

with @nomoredeaths.bsky.social

No snitching to your pathetic fascist bosses, folks.

This might be my favorite podcast right now. Sharp, incisive commentary about the intersection of media and power. As the name states, claims are sourced, but w/o being pedantic. Most importantly, discussions happen beyond the boundaries of conventional framing, but not purposefully outrageous. 👍👍

Pardon the plug: I recently wrote about this for Duke Law Journal in an essay about how capital-friendly “bipartisan criminal justice reform” has been focused on producing a precarious labor force under community-based criminal supervision.

scholarship.law.duke.edu/dlj_online/1...

"Why is it that the act of making decisions or passing legislation is deemed more important to elected officials than the actual content of those decisions and legislation?"

Citations Needed continues to be a light in the dark.

News Brief: Media Won't Say a Nazi Salute is a Nazi Salute and How MAGA Became Too Big Too Fail In this Inauguration coverage recap we detail how elite liberal resistance to Trump is MIA, how grassroots liberals and leftists are working behind the scenes anyway to fight back and why Trump and th

In this News Brief, "Media Won't Say a Nazi Salute is a Nazi Salute and How MAGA Became Too Big To Fail," we detail how elite #resistance is MIA, how grassroots activists are fighting back, and how Musk & Co can, more than ever, apparently get way with anything.

soundcloud.com/citationsnee...

Column: This movie with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy anticipated anxieties about the internet and AI In the 1957 rom-com “Desk Set” starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, a fact-checker sees her job threatened by a new computer.

COLUMN: As internet search engines degrade and AI spits out wrong answers and replaces human workers, I’m struck by how the 1957 romantic comedy “Desk Set” starring Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy predicts it all

Trump Begins Selling New Meme Coin Days Ahead of Inauguration The president-elect and his family have a direct and potentially lucrative stake in the sale of a cryptocurrency product that surged in value in the hours after going on sale, days before his inaugura...

All crypto is fundamentally a scam, they invested a ton of money to elect a guy who would allow them to scam more, and he is running the biggest scam of all himself as a result. Congrats to all.
www.nytimes.com/2025/01/18/u...

5 Things Unions Can Do To Defend Transgender Workers Trans rights are workers’ rights.

5 Things Unions Can Do To Defend Transgender Workers

(Originally published in 2023 but still relevant.)

As long as you support Israel's genocide of Palestinians, the ADL will have your back no matter how big a Nazi you are.

I'm seeing terms like "straight-arm salute" and "fascist salute" being used by some media today... those are not real terms. Google's Ngram Viewer has zero results for either one. It's a "Nazi salute," folks, just fucking say it. This shit's too fucked up to use hedgy language.

"This Administration is dominated and directed by wealth and for the accumulation of wealth...Corporate wealth profits as never before in history. We turn over the national resources to private profit and have few funds left for education, health or housing." — W.E.B. Dubois, Oct. 20, 1956

Hey I called it