Month: August 2020

When It Comes to the Truth of Opinion Columns, It’s Reader Beware

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

When It Comes to the Truth of Opinion Columns, It’s Reader Beware

Thiessen went on to say that Democrats are falsely claiming that the new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has given $2 million to Trump and the GOP since 2016, was appointed by Trump. In truth, Thiessen says, “He was appointed not by Trump but by the unanimous vote of the bipartisan Postal Service board of governors.”

That might sound fair enough to a casual reader. But a quick check of the USPS website, which a Washington Post factchecker could have easily made in minutes, shows that the six sitting members of that board of governors were all picked by Trump. They did indeed all vote unanimously, as Thiessen reported in his column, to confirm Trump’s nominee for the postmaster general position, but they could hardly be called a bipartisan body.

Actually, Trump curiously allowed the USPS to have no members on its board of governors for much of his first year as president, and by this point, with only five more months left in a four-year term, he has only filled six of the nine available seats. That’s significant, since under the USPS’s rules of operation, it takes the vote of seven governors to remove a postmaster general.

After 92 Years, Exxon Is Booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average: A Nod to Sustainable Energy?

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

After 92 Years, Exxon Is Booted from the Dow Jones Industrial Average: A Nod to Sustainable Energy?

Yesterday, S&P Dow Jones Indices made the stunning announcement that Exxon Mobil, which has been in the Dow Jones Industrial Average for 92 years, will be replaced in the index before trading begins next Monday, August 31, by Salesforce, a company that went public in 2004. (Exxon Mobil became a component of the Dow in 1928 under the name Standard Oil of New Jersey.)

Two other companies are also being replaced in the Dow before trading begins on Monday. The biotech company, Amgen, will replace the more traditional pharmaceutical company, Pfizer. Industrial technology products company, Honeywell International, will replace Raytheon Technologies.

Related:

Pfizer Got Kicked Off the Dow Just as Things Were Looking Up

Journalism’s Gates Keepers

Tina Marie (Ms. Cat)

Journalism’s Gates Keepers

I recently examined nearly 20,000 charitable grants the Gates Foundation has made through the end of June and found more than $250 million dollars going toward journalism. Recipients include news operations like the BBC, NBC, Al Jazeera, ProPublica, National Journal, The Guardian, Univision, Medium, The Financial Times, The Atlantic, The Texas Tribune, Gannett, Washington Monthly, Le Monde, and The Center for Investigative Reporting; charitable organizations affiliated with news outlets, like BBC Media Action and The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund; media companies including Participant Media, whose documentary Waiting for “Superman” supports Gates’ agenda on charter schools; journalistic organizations such as the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, the National Press Foundation, and the International Center for Journalists; and a variety of other groups creating news content or working on journalism, such as the Leo Burnett Company, an ad agency that Gates commissioned to create a “news site” to promote the success of aid groups. In some cases, recipients say they distributed part of the funding as sub-grants to other journalistic organizations—which makes it difficult to see the full picture of Gates’ funding into the fourth estate.