Recently, the New York Times ran an article about Donald Trump having paid no federal income taxes for 10 of the last 15 years; many claimed it was a blockbuster story and that it would have far-reaching effects on the forthcoming presidential election.
If this was the first time Trump’s tax evasion was being mentioned, then, sure, it would have been a big deal.
But right from the time he first refused to make his tax returns public — before he was elected — this question has been hanging over Trump’s head.
And the only logical conclusion has been that if he was making excuses, then there must be something fishy about it. Five years later, we find that he was highly adept at claiming exemptions from paying income tax for various reasons.
Surprised? Some people assume that one would have to be. But this was only to be expected, given all the excuses that Trump has trotted out over all these years to avoid releasing his tax returns.
When I posted a tweet pointing out that Trump had been doing exactly what the big tech companies — Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Facebook, among others — do, others were prone to try and portray Trump’s actions as somehow different. But nobody specified the difference.
The question that struck me was: why is the New York Times publishing this story at this time? The answer is obvious: it would like to influence the election in favour of the Democrat candidate, Joe Biden.
The newspaper is not the only institution or individual trying to carry water for Biden: in recent days, we have seen the release of a two-part TV series The Comey Rule, based on a book written by James Comey, the former FBI director, about the run-up to the 2016 election. It is extremely one-sided.
Also out is a two-part documentary made by Alex Gibney, titled Agents of Chaos. which depends mostly on government sources to spread the myth that the Russians were responsible for Trump’s election.
Another documentary, Totally Under Control, about the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic, will be coming out on October 13. Again, Gibney is the director and producer.
On the Republican side, there has been nothing of this kind. Whether that says something about the level of confidence in the Trump camp is open to question.
With less than a month to go for the election, it should only be expected that the propaganda war will intensify as both sides try to push their man into the White House.
Your worst blog post ever.
Google etc not running for US president (and they should be taxed more).
I was under the impression that the NYT only just got the data needed for the article, if you believe that they sat on the story can you cite a reference?
We have Fox, Breitbart, and OAN openly supporting Trump and no organisation that’s nearly as prominent doing the same for centrist candidates. Overall the media seems biased towards conservatives.
The Russians weren’t solely responsible, but they helped.
Are you aware of the work of Dinesh D’Souza? That’s just one counter point to disprove your claim that “On the Republican side, there has been nothing of this kind”.
I don’t need a reference to know that if you are working on a story for four years, then you will definitely be able to publish something much earlier. You’re forgetting that I am in the same trade; there is nothing sacrosanct about the New York Times staff; in fact, they are mostly a bunch of incompetents who hide behind an undeserved facade of their organisation.
But I was unaware that Dinesh D’Souza is releasing a propaganda film this month. Anyway, that is one effort against the numerous propaganda efforts by Democrat supporters.
As to support for centrists, what about MSNBC, CNN, CBS and ABC? You think they are plugging Trump?
Dinesh has been releasing propaganda films for years.
Fox has been non-stop propaganda for decades, although even they are pulling back from Trump a bit as he is going really crazy now.
They say you shouldn’t attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence, your claim of incompetence at NYT weakens your claim that they are hostile.
Do you have evidence of MSNBC, CNN, CBS, or ABC supporting the Democratic party the way Fox supports the Republican party? “Centrist” means Democratic, the US has no viable left-wing parties.
According to IMDB, D’Souza has made a total of five propaganda films, beginning in 2012. That’s not a big number.
How does incompetence nullify a claim that someone is hostile?
The fact that MSNBC, CNN, ABC and CBS are all pro-Democrat is well known. One does not need evidence to make this claim; you just have to watch it for a while. ABC, for example, is owned by Disney, a Democrat backer for decades.
D’Souza is not the only Republican propagandist.
Why should media give equal coverage to both sides? When someone lies that should be documented, when a politician has policies that hurt a group that should be documented and when a party is badly run (as the 8+ year attempt by the Republicans to devise a replacement for ACA) these sorts of things need to be documented. This may seem like hostility to the side that lies, hurts people, and is badly run, but it’s fair.
Losers and cheats often blame the umpire. We shouldn’t buy in to this.
Why bother using media if they are going to give equal time to scientists and flat-earthers? A media organisation that doesn’t correctly describe bad people as being bad deserves to go bankrupt.
I’m not claiming that NYT is perfect. But they do seem to try to be a reasonable umpire.