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reality is the state of things as they actually exist
oct 11, 2024
Real News Today
Inside the “very, very guarded” agreements that dictate what’s sold in grocery stores — and the cost(Capitalism)
US health system ranks last compared with peer nations, report finds
(Reality)
(for previous day's articles see "what's inside" below)
the american democracy ticket
vs
the neo-confederate party's nominee for president |
the neo-confederate party's nominee for vice president |
ONE THING TO REMEMBER DURING 2024!!!
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the other thing to remember during 2024!!!
|
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation in the United States dropped last month to its lowest point since it first began surging more than three years ago, adding to a spate of encouraging economic news in the closing weeks of the presidential race.
Consumer prices rose just 2.4% in September from a year earlier, down from 2.5% in August and the smallest annual rise since February 2021. Measured from month to month, prices increased 0.2% from August to September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the same as in the previous month.
But excluding volatile food and energy costs, “core” prices, a gauge of underlying inflation, remained elevated in September, driven higher by rising costs for medical care and car insurance. Core prices in September were up 3.3% from a year earlier and 0.3% from August. Economists closely watch core prices, which typically provide a better hint of future inflation.
The improving inflation picture follows a mostly healthy jobs report released last week, which showed that hiring accelerated in September and that the unemployment rate dropped from 4.2% to 4.1%. The government has also reported that the economy expanded at a solid 3% annual rate in the April-June quarter. Growth likely continued at roughly that pace in the just-completed July-September quarter.
Cooling inflation, solid hiring and healthy growth could erode former President Donald Trump’s advantage on the economy in the presidential campaign as measured by public opinion polls. In some surveys, Vice President Kamala Harris has pulled even with Trump on the issue of who would best handle the economy, after Trump had decisively led President Joe Biden on the issue.
At the same time, most voters still give the economy relatively poor marks, mostly because of the cumulative rise in prices over the past three years.
For the Fed, last week’s much-stronger-than-expected jobs report fueled some concern that the economy might not be cooling enough to slow inflation sufficiently. The central bank reduced its key rate by an outsized half-point last month, its first rate cut of any size in four years. The Fed’s policymakers also signaled that they envisioned two additional quarter-point rate cuts in November and December.
In remarks this week, a slew of Fed officials have said they’re still willing to keep cutting their key rate but at a deliberate pace, a signal that any further half-point cuts are unlikely.
The Fed “should not rush to reduce” its benchmark rate “but rather should proceed gradually,” Lorie Logan president of the Federal Reserve’s Dallas branch, said in a speech Wednesday.
Inflation in the United States and many countries in Europe and Latin America surged in the economic recovery from the pandemic, as COVID closed factories and clogged supply chains. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened energy and food shortages, pushing inflation higher. It peaked at 9.1% in the U.S. in June 2022.
Economists at Goldman Sachs project that core inflation will drop to 3% by December 2024. And few analysts expect inflation to surge again unless conflicts in the Middle East worsen dramatically.
Though higher prices have soured many Americans on the economy, wages and incomes are now rising faster than costs and should make it easier for households to adapt. Last month, the Census Bureau reported that inflation-adjusted median household incomes — the level at which half of households are above and half below — rose 4% in 2023, enough to return incomes back to their pre-pandemic peak.
In response to higher food prices, many consumers have shifted their spending from name brands to private labels or have started shopping more at discount stores. Those changes have put more pressure on packaged foods companies, for example, to slow their price hikes.
This week, PepsiCo reported that its sales volumes fell after it imposed steep price increases on its drinks and snacks.
Consumer prices rose just 2.4% in September from a year earlier, down from 2.5% in August and the smallest annual rise since February 2021. Measured from month to month, prices increased 0.2% from August to September, the Labor Department reported Thursday, the same as in the previous month.
But excluding volatile food and energy costs, “core” prices, a gauge of underlying inflation, remained elevated in September, driven higher by rising costs for medical care and car insurance. Core prices in September were up 3.3% from a year earlier and 0.3% from August. Economists closely watch core prices, which typically provide a better hint of future inflation.
The improving inflation picture follows a mostly healthy jobs report released last week, which showed that hiring accelerated in September and that the unemployment rate dropped from 4.2% to 4.1%. The government has also reported that the economy expanded at a solid 3% annual rate in the April-June quarter. Growth likely continued at roughly that pace in the just-completed July-September quarter.
Cooling inflation, solid hiring and healthy growth could erode former President Donald Trump’s advantage on the economy in the presidential campaign as measured by public opinion polls. In some surveys, Vice President Kamala Harris has pulled even with Trump on the issue of who would best handle the economy, after Trump had decisively led President Joe Biden on the issue.
At the same time, most voters still give the economy relatively poor marks, mostly because of the cumulative rise in prices over the past three years.
For the Fed, last week’s much-stronger-than-expected jobs report fueled some concern that the economy might not be cooling enough to slow inflation sufficiently. The central bank reduced its key rate by an outsized half-point last month, its first rate cut of any size in four years. The Fed’s policymakers also signaled that they envisioned two additional quarter-point rate cuts in November and December.
In remarks this week, a slew of Fed officials have said they’re still willing to keep cutting their key rate but at a deliberate pace, a signal that any further half-point cuts are unlikely.
The Fed “should not rush to reduce” its benchmark rate “but rather should proceed gradually,” Lorie Logan president of the Federal Reserve’s Dallas branch, said in a speech Wednesday.
Inflation in the United States and many countries in Europe and Latin America surged in the economic recovery from the pandemic, as COVID closed factories and clogged supply chains. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine worsened energy and food shortages, pushing inflation higher. It peaked at 9.1% in the U.S. in June 2022.
Economists at Goldman Sachs project that core inflation will drop to 3% by December 2024. And few analysts expect inflation to surge again unless conflicts in the Middle East worsen dramatically.
Though higher prices have soured many Americans on the economy, wages and incomes are now rising faster than costs and should make it easier for households to adapt. Last month, the Census Bureau reported that inflation-adjusted median household incomes — the level at which half of households are above and half below — rose 4% in 2023, enough to return incomes back to their pre-pandemic peak.
In response to higher food prices, many consumers have shifted their spending from name brands to private labels or have started shopping more at discount stores. Those changes have put more pressure on packaged foods companies, for example, to slow their price hikes.
This week, PepsiCo reported that its sales volumes fell after it imposed steep price increases on its drinks and snacks.
comment/tweet of the day
lrx: the "undecided voter" is a waste of time. if a person is undecided after 9 years of trump theatrics compared to democratic problem solving and reestablizing america's image, then the "undecided voter" is just a fool/coward and doesn't deserve to vote anyway.
'It's hard to believe': MSNBC panel dumbfounded by comments from undecided voters
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thom hartmann
Jill Stein: The Grifter Who May Hand Trump the White House Again How one woman’s ego Is endangering Democracy and destroying the Green Party...
The Supreme Court’s Dark Money Crisis: Wyden’s Revolutionary Fix How expanding and regulating the court could save America from GOP billionaires
Trump is a Whisker Away from the Presidency
- How is this Possible? This election may be America’s last stand against this country becoming, like Hungary and Russia, a full-on oligarchy run of, by, and for the morbidly rich…
Trump’s Death Cult: How the Trauma of COVID Fueled MAGA Madness The pandemic’s psychological toll and the rise of Trump’s dangerous movement…
Why are Red State Citizens Poorer, Less Educated, & Sicker than Blue State Citizens? Republicans worship cheap labor — and having a steady and reliable supply of cheap labor requires widespread poverty…
excerpt: Blinded by Trump's violent fantasies
Trump's violent fantasies: Experts warn of "a terror that blinds us to what’s coming next"
"Trump’s apocalyptic language," social theorist Henry Giroux argues, "must be seen as a warning"
By Chauncey DeVega - saalon
Senior Writer
Published October 8, 2024 5:30AM (EDT)
Donald Trump has repeatedly shown himself to be a violent and dangerous man. This is not a minor character flaw or a bad habit that only emerges once or twice in his life. Violence is a central part of Trump’s character. Moreover, he's displayed a deep attraction to violence in its various forms. Here are but a few of the most disturbing examples:
Trump has repeatedly wished death and imprisonment on his political “enemies” and others who have dared to oppose or criticize him. Channeling Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Trump has threatened to remove the “vermin” from the “blood” of the nation.
Trump appears to take great pleasure in his plan to deport tens of millions of undocumented immigrants from the country, in what he brags will be “the largest deportation in American history” and a very “bloody story.”
Trump admires Russian President Vladimir Putin and vowed to be a dictator on “day one” to install his Agenda 47 plan. He has also threatened to engage in a campaign of revenge and retribution on his political opponents and detractors.
Trump mocked and laughed after Nancy Pelosi’s home was invaded and an intruder attacked her husband, resulting in injuries that could have been fatal. At his rallies, Trump encourages his MAGA followers to assault protesters. Trump has also told his followers that he will pay for them to get out of prison if police arrest them for following such commands.
On Jan. 6, at Trump’s incitement, his MAGA followers launched an attack on the Capitol in service of his coup plot. Trump is now deifying the Jan. 6 terrorists as "political prisoners" and heroes. He's promised to pardon them if he takes power next year.
He was judged by a court of law to have sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll and has been credibly accused of sexual assault by several other women.
At a recent rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump escalated his violence, telling his MAGA people that he wants the police (or by implication other designated Trump regime enforcers) to be able to run amok, abusing “criminals” for at least one hour without restraint or restriction in order to instill “law and order." Trump’s threat is his own version of the “Purge” films, where all crime, up to and including murder, is legal for a 24-hour period once a year. High-ranking government officials are granted immunity and protection from the violence.
“One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out and it will end immediately, you know? It will end immediately,” he told his MAGA followers.
Trump’s spokespeople responded that Trump was just kidding. Trump, like other demagogues and authoritarians, was more likely testing boundaries and priming his followers for action. Predictably, the mainstream news media, pundits and responsible political watchers stood aghast at Trump’s celebration of wanton violence. Still the real implications of Trump’s threats remain essentially unexplored beyond castigations of his rhetoric and behavior as “crazy” and “unhinged."
At the Independent, Emma Clarke reflects, “I often debate whether it’s a good thing to discuss Trump’s tirades, to give him more airtime than he should be given. But I also think, especially so close to the election, that it’s important to call out his threatening behaviour. We have all grown weary or accustomed to his sensationalist spiel – to the point we often turn the other cheek or tune out. But by doing so, we run the risk of history repeating itself, of his fanatics thinking these awful threats will go unchallenged.”
In a healthy society, Trump’s “one really violent day” fantasy would be treated as a national emergency. But America is far from being a healthy society. Sick societies produce sick leaders and sick political movements.
Dr. Lance Dodes, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry (retired), Harvard Medical School, explained that Trump’s violent behavior and personality function like a type of social contagion in service to his plans to become the country’s first dictator:
In his latest outrage, Trump favored a day of murder to prevent thefts, as when people steal air conditioners from a store. The most dramatic aspect of this is that it goes barely noticed by the media while a couple of decades ago Trump’s comments would have been greeted with universal horror, and his unworthiness to hold public office would have been obvious. This lack of public response speaks to the effectiveness of Trump’s years of repeating Hitler’s Big Lie approach, insisting upon imaginary, self-serving lies, thereby gaining millions of followers and Fox News who slavishly endorse whatever he says without evidence and indeed against all evidence.
The Big Lie works because it preys on a normal aspect of human beings, namely a tendency to believe others and to trust the world. This is necessary for civilization to exist, but it makes humans easy marks when faced with an apparent psychopath. Once this kind of person is able to con enough people into believing he is a godlike figure, the fraud is easily perpetuated because it is not only the leader who is lying, but all his followers.
A related problem is that, once someone has fallen for the lies of an apparently extremely mentally disturbed leader, it often feels embarrassing to acknowledge he or she was conned.
If enough prominent people acknowledged that they, too, were conned but are now able to move on, it would give permission for others to likewise escape the cult-like nature of Trump’s attraction. A few Republicans have done this to date. But to save the country many more would have to stand up for the country over their party.
---
Social theorist Henry Giroux explains that "Trump’s invocation of 'The Purge' marks a chilling embrace of militarized, fascist rhetoric that treats politics as all-out war, with no regard for legality, morality, or humanity":
His words are drenched in the blood of history, echoing genocidal campaigns against Native Americans, Black people, Jews, and countless others deemed disposable by authoritarian regimes. It is a dead language — a lexicon of violence — spoken by politicians who thrive on fear, hatred, and bigotry, cloaked in the false promises of patriotism and security. Trump’s language is designed to fracture the civic contract, pit citizens against each other, create the conditions for civil war, and pave the way for a society ruled by fear and a police state. This rhetoric doesn’t just protect fascists; it suppresses dissent, normalizes torture, and evokes the atrocities of death camps and crematoriums. It is a language of the unimaginable, a terror that blinds us to what’s coming next. In a just society, language should be a force for justice, equality, compassion, and democracy. Instead, Trump’s apocalyptic language — driven by white nationalism, white supremacy, revenge, and fear — must be seen as a warning, signaling the death of democracy and the rise of a new fascist order.
---
As I write this essay, the mainstream news media has already, for the most part, moved on from Trump’s fantasy and threats of a bacchanal of violence. “Sane-washing” and otherwise normalizing Trump’s fascist and authoritarian behavior will not save the American news media, the American people, or anyone else — including his MAGA devotees — from his endless appetite for violence and destruction. Ultimately, Trump’s dreams of a real-life “Purge” (an event that is not without precedent in a country where white racial pogroms as seen in Tulsa, East St. Louis, Chicago and Rosewood against Black people were common in the 19th and early 20th centuries) are proof of how one person or group’s dystopia and nightmare is another person or group’s fantasy.
Donald Trump means exactly what he says. Believe him. Trump is a master of horror-politics. This is not a movie like "The Purge,” it is all too real.
Trump has repeatedly wished death and imprisonment on his political “enemies” and others who have dared to oppose or criticize him. Channeling Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, Trump has threatened to remove the “vermin” from the “blood” of the nation.
Trump appears to take great pleasure in his plan to deport tens of millions of undocumented immigrants from the country, in what he brags will be “the largest deportation in American history” and a very “bloody story.”
Trump admires Russian President Vladimir Putin and vowed to be a dictator on “day one” to install his Agenda 47 plan. He has also threatened to engage in a campaign of revenge and retribution on his political opponents and detractors.
Trump mocked and laughed after Nancy Pelosi’s home was invaded and an intruder attacked her husband, resulting in injuries that could have been fatal. At his rallies, Trump encourages his MAGA followers to assault protesters. Trump has also told his followers that he will pay for them to get out of prison if police arrest them for following such commands.
On Jan. 6, at Trump’s incitement, his MAGA followers launched an attack on the Capitol in service of his coup plot. Trump is now deifying the Jan. 6 terrorists as "political prisoners" and heroes. He's promised to pardon them if he takes power next year.
He was judged by a court of law to have sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll and has been credibly accused of sexual assault by several other women.
At a recent rally in Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump escalated his violence, telling his MAGA people that he wants the police (or by implication other designated Trump regime enforcers) to be able to run amok, abusing “criminals” for at least one hour without restraint or restriction in order to instill “law and order." Trump’s threat is his own version of the “Purge” films, where all crime, up to and including murder, is legal for a 24-hour period once a year. High-ranking government officials are granted immunity and protection from the violence.
“One rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out and it will end immediately, you know? It will end immediately,” he told his MAGA followers.
Trump’s spokespeople responded that Trump was just kidding. Trump, like other demagogues and authoritarians, was more likely testing boundaries and priming his followers for action. Predictably, the mainstream news media, pundits and responsible political watchers stood aghast at Trump’s celebration of wanton violence. Still the real implications of Trump’s threats remain essentially unexplored beyond castigations of his rhetoric and behavior as “crazy” and “unhinged."
At the Independent, Emma Clarke reflects, “I often debate whether it’s a good thing to discuss Trump’s tirades, to give him more airtime than he should be given. But I also think, especially so close to the election, that it’s important to call out his threatening behaviour. We have all grown weary or accustomed to his sensationalist spiel – to the point we often turn the other cheek or tune out. But by doing so, we run the risk of history repeating itself, of his fanatics thinking these awful threats will go unchallenged.”
In a healthy society, Trump’s “one really violent day” fantasy would be treated as a national emergency. But America is far from being a healthy society. Sick societies produce sick leaders and sick political movements.
Dr. Lance Dodes, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry (retired), Harvard Medical School, explained that Trump’s violent behavior and personality function like a type of social contagion in service to his plans to become the country’s first dictator:
In his latest outrage, Trump favored a day of murder to prevent thefts, as when people steal air conditioners from a store. The most dramatic aspect of this is that it goes barely noticed by the media while a couple of decades ago Trump’s comments would have been greeted with universal horror, and his unworthiness to hold public office would have been obvious. This lack of public response speaks to the effectiveness of Trump’s years of repeating Hitler’s Big Lie approach, insisting upon imaginary, self-serving lies, thereby gaining millions of followers and Fox News who slavishly endorse whatever he says without evidence and indeed against all evidence.
The Big Lie works because it preys on a normal aspect of human beings, namely a tendency to believe others and to trust the world. This is necessary for civilization to exist, but it makes humans easy marks when faced with an apparent psychopath. Once this kind of person is able to con enough people into believing he is a godlike figure, the fraud is easily perpetuated because it is not only the leader who is lying, but all his followers.
A related problem is that, once someone has fallen for the lies of an apparently extremely mentally disturbed leader, it often feels embarrassing to acknowledge he or she was conned.
If enough prominent people acknowledged that they, too, were conned but are now able to move on, it would give permission for others to likewise escape the cult-like nature of Trump’s attraction. A few Republicans have done this to date. But to save the country many more would have to stand up for the country over their party.
---
Social theorist Henry Giroux explains that "Trump’s invocation of 'The Purge' marks a chilling embrace of militarized, fascist rhetoric that treats politics as all-out war, with no regard for legality, morality, or humanity":
His words are drenched in the blood of history, echoing genocidal campaigns against Native Americans, Black people, Jews, and countless others deemed disposable by authoritarian regimes. It is a dead language — a lexicon of violence — spoken by politicians who thrive on fear, hatred, and bigotry, cloaked in the false promises of patriotism and security. Trump’s language is designed to fracture the civic contract, pit citizens against each other, create the conditions for civil war, and pave the way for a society ruled by fear and a police state. This rhetoric doesn’t just protect fascists; it suppresses dissent, normalizes torture, and evokes the atrocities of death camps and crematoriums. It is a language of the unimaginable, a terror that blinds us to what’s coming next. In a just society, language should be a force for justice, equality, compassion, and democracy. Instead, Trump’s apocalyptic language — driven by white nationalism, white supremacy, revenge, and fear — must be seen as a warning, signaling the death of democracy and the rise of a new fascist order.
---
As I write this essay, the mainstream news media has already, for the most part, moved on from Trump’s fantasy and threats of a bacchanal of violence. “Sane-washing” and otherwise normalizing Trump’s fascist and authoritarian behavior will not save the American news media, the American people, or anyone else — including his MAGA devotees — from his endless appetite for violence and destruction. Ultimately, Trump’s dreams of a real-life “Purge” (an event that is not without precedent in a country where white racial pogroms as seen in Tulsa, East St. Louis, Chicago and Rosewood against Black people were common in the 19th and early 20th centuries) are proof of how one person or group’s dystopia and nightmare is another person or group’s fantasy.
Donald Trump means exactly what he says. Believe him. Trump is a master of horror-politics. This is not a movie like "The Purge,” it is all too real.
american exceptionalism - defined
1. illegitimate & corrupt scotus
2. significant voting population of stupid people who lack a basic understanding of how government operates or even know the 3 branches of government
3. a traitor and criminal running for president. Judge clarifies: Yes, Trump was found to have raped E. Jean
4. 2 neo-confederate candidates who smell funny.
5. allow corporations to price-gouge american consumers while providing mediocre products.
are 70+ millions americans really stupid enough to vote for this garbage again???
FBI's Brett Kavanaugh probe was a "sham"
"Directed by the Trump White House": Senate Dem report suggests FBI's Kavanaugh probe was a "sham"
Sheldon Whitehouse said the bureau never bothered to investigate the 4,500 tips related to sexual assault inquiry
By Charles R. Davis - salon
Deputy News Editor
Published October 8, 2024 10:38AM (EDT)
Fake news, the former president called it.
“NBC News incorrectly reported (as usual) that I was limiting the FBI investigation of Judge Kavanaugh, and witnesses, only to certain people,” Donald Trump posted on Twitter, now called X, in Sept. 2018. “Actually, I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion. Please correct your reporting!”
NBC News would in fact go on to report a few days later that Trump’s online directive had no impact in real life. In a report immediately following Trump’s corrective, the outlet noted that the FBI had received “no new instructions from the White House” and that the former president's claims aside, there were indeed limits imposed on the bureau’s investigation by the Trump White House, which, for example, prohibited an interview with a woman accusing the future Supreme Court justice of sexual misconduct, as well as Kavanaugh’s high school classmates.
Trump’s comments came after Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her at a high school party decades earlier. Following that charge, the bureau told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., that it had received more than 4,500 tips regarding the conservative justice as part of the bureau’s “limited inquiry,” which ended on Oct. 4, 2018. Tips that were “relevant,” it said, were forwarded to the White House.
What the FBI did not say is that it failed to investigate a single one of those tips, according to a report from the Rhode Island Democrat that was first shared Tuesday with The Washington Post. According to the Post’s summary of the report, Trump’s claim that there would be a broader investigation with no limits imposed by the White House “came as a surprise to the FBI,” which continued to limit the scope of its inquiry in accordance with dictates from the White House counsel’s office.
Of the 4,500 tips that the FBI received, “None were investigated or even screened for indicia of credibility,” according to the report. In fact, a day before Trump denied “limiting the investigation,” his counsel instructed the FBI to forward those tips to the White House “without further investigation, no matter how reliable or corroborative the tips seemed,” the report states. The Trump administration also “declined to authorize the FBI to interview witnesses and pursue tips that might have uncovered the corroborating information some senators later claimed was lacking.”
In a statement, Whitehouse accused the FBI of conducting an inquiry so lacking that it was “unworthy” of the Senate. Contra claims that the inquiry was “by the book,” he said that there was no book upon which to rely: every step of the investigation was dictated by the Trump White House.
“This report shows that the supplemental background investigation was a sham, controlled by the Trump White House, to give political cover to Senate Republicans and put Justice Kavanaugh back on the political track to confirmation,” Whitehouse said. “The lack of FBI investigative standards helped the Trump White House thwart meaningful investigation of the allegations against Kavanaugh, denying senators information needed to fulfill their constitutional duties.”
The FBI declined to comment on the report itself, but a spokesperson told Salon that the bureau followed the same process for its Kavanaugh inquiry as it does for other so-called supplemental background investigations.
"In these investigations, the FBI follows a long-standing, established process through which the scope of the investigation is limited to what is requested," the spokesperson said.
But Deirde Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer at the ACLU, told Salon that the report raises serious questions about the independence of the FBI under the Trump administration.
"A hallmark of authoritarian governments is the abuse of government power to protect friends and punish opponents," she said.
Lawyers for Blasey Ford, meanwhile, said in a statement that they were disappointed but not surprised by the report’s findings.
“The congressional report published today confirms what we long suspected: the FBI supplemental investigation of then-nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh was, in fact, a sham effort directed by the Trump White House to silence brave victims and other witnesses who came forward and to hide the truth,” attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks said.
“NBC News incorrectly reported (as usual) that I was limiting the FBI investigation of Judge Kavanaugh, and witnesses, only to certain people,” Donald Trump posted on Twitter, now called X, in Sept. 2018. “Actually, I want them to interview whoever they deem appropriate, at their discretion. Please correct your reporting!”
NBC News would in fact go on to report a few days later that Trump’s online directive had no impact in real life. In a report immediately following Trump’s corrective, the outlet noted that the FBI had received “no new instructions from the White House” and that the former president's claims aside, there were indeed limits imposed on the bureau’s investigation by the Trump White House, which, for example, prohibited an interview with a woman accusing the future Supreme Court justice of sexual misconduct, as well as Kavanaugh’s high school classmates.
Trump’s comments came after Christine Blasey Ford publicly accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her at a high school party decades earlier. Following that charge, the bureau told Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., that it had received more than 4,500 tips regarding the conservative justice as part of the bureau’s “limited inquiry,” which ended on Oct. 4, 2018. Tips that were “relevant,” it said, were forwarded to the White House.
What the FBI did not say is that it failed to investigate a single one of those tips, according to a report from the Rhode Island Democrat that was first shared Tuesday with The Washington Post. According to the Post’s summary of the report, Trump’s claim that there would be a broader investigation with no limits imposed by the White House “came as a surprise to the FBI,” which continued to limit the scope of its inquiry in accordance with dictates from the White House counsel’s office.
Of the 4,500 tips that the FBI received, “None were investigated or even screened for indicia of credibility,” according to the report. In fact, a day before Trump denied “limiting the investigation,” his counsel instructed the FBI to forward those tips to the White House “without further investigation, no matter how reliable or corroborative the tips seemed,” the report states. The Trump administration also “declined to authorize the FBI to interview witnesses and pursue tips that might have uncovered the corroborating information some senators later claimed was lacking.”
In a statement, Whitehouse accused the FBI of conducting an inquiry so lacking that it was “unworthy” of the Senate. Contra claims that the inquiry was “by the book,” he said that there was no book upon which to rely: every step of the investigation was dictated by the Trump White House.
“This report shows that the supplemental background investigation was a sham, controlled by the Trump White House, to give political cover to Senate Republicans and put Justice Kavanaugh back on the political track to confirmation,” Whitehouse said. “The lack of FBI investigative standards helped the Trump White House thwart meaningful investigation of the allegations against Kavanaugh, denying senators information needed to fulfill their constitutional duties.”
The FBI declined to comment on the report itself, but a spokesperson told Salon that the bureau followed the same process for its Kavanaugh inquiry as it does for other so-called supplemental background investigations.
"In these investigations, the FBI follows a long-standing, established process through which the scope of the investigation is limited to what is requested," the spokesperson said.
But Deirde Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer at the ACLU, told Salon that the report raises serious questions about the independence of the FBI under the Trump administration.
"A hallmark of authoritarian governments is the abuse of government power to protect friends and punish opponents," she said.
Lawyers for Blasey Ford, meanwhile, said in a statement that they were disappointed but not surprised by the report’s findings.
“The congressional report published today confirms what we long suspected: the FBI supplemental investigation of then-nominee Brett M. Kavanaugh was, in fact, a sham effort directed by the Trump White House to silence brave victims and other witnesses who came forward and to hide the truth,” attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks said.
IN THE LAND OF STUPID!!!
penalizing the trash!!!
Far-right site Gateway Pundit settles defamation suit with election workers
Website falsely accused Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss of wrongdoing in 2020 election
Sam Levine in New York-the guardian
Thu 10 Oct 2024 11.25 EDT
The Gateway Pundit, the far-right news website that played a critical role in spreading false information about the 2020 election, has settled a defamation lawsuit with Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, two Georgia election workers it falsely accused of wrongdoing.
Notice of the settlement was filed in circuit court in Missouri, where Freeman and Moss had sued the site for defamation. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in the filing.
“The dispute between the parties has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement,” the legal team for Moss and Freeman said in a statement. Attorneys for the Gateway Pundit did not immediately return a request for comment.
After the 2020 election, the Gateway Pundit published a series of stories amplifying a misleading video that showed Freeman and Moss counting ballots. The site pushed the false claim that the two women were committing fraud and counting illegal ballots after counting had ended for the night. The Gateway Pundit was the first news outlet to identify Freeman and later identified Moss, who have been cleared of all wrongdoing.
Even after Georgia election officials debunked the video, the site continued to publish numerous articles falsely accusing Moss and Freeman of fraud. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, also attacked the two women publicly. A Washington DC jury ordered Giuliani to pay nearly $150m to the two women last year for libel, a decision the former New York mayor is appealing. At the trial, Giuliani’s lawyer at one point accused the Gateway Pundit of being the basis of the false claims about the two women.
The two women faced vicious harassment, including death threats, and fled their homes and went into hiding after people showed up unannounced at Freeman’s home. Moss’s son received death threats on his phone and fell behind in school. Freeman testified last year that she had nowhere to live. Moss testified to the committee investigating the January 6 attack in 2022, but has otherwise not spoken much publicly.
“I was terrorized,” Freeman said during a trial in Washington DC last year. “I’d rather stay in my car and be homeless rather than put that on someone else.”
The site’s founder, Jim Hoft, had refused to concede that the site said anything false about the women, even though the state quickly debunked accusations of wrongdoing and a longer investigation formally cleared them. Hoft and his twin brother, Joe, also a contributor, held a press conference in Milwaukee during the Republican national convention in July and repeated many of the false claims about Freeman and Moss.
The settlement with the Gateway Pundit is notable because of the influential role the site plays in spreading misinformation. One recent analysis by the group Advance Democracy found that the site is continuing to spread false information about voting and seed the idea that the 2024 election could be stolen.
The two women have already settled a settled suit with One America News, another far-right outlet. The network issued an on-air apology after the settlement.
They are also seeking to collect on the money Giuliani owes them. Their lawyers recently asked a New York judge to allow them to take control over Giuliani’s assets.
The Gateway Pundit still faces a libel suit from Eric Coomer, a former employee of the voting system company Dominion who was falsely accused of subverting the 2020 election.
The site had declared bankruptcy in an attempt to delay the case, but a judge dismissed the effort earlier this year.
The case was one of several libel lawsuits filed against Trump allies and conservative networks that aired false claims about the 2020 election. Nearly all of those cases have settled, which observers have said may underscore the limited role defamation law can have in curbing misinformation.
Notice of the settlement was filed in circuit court in Missouri, where Freeman and Moss had sued the site for defamation. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed in the filing.
“The dispute between the parties has been resolved to the mutual satisfaction of the parties through a fair and reasonable settlement,” the legal team for Moss and Freeman said in a statement. Attorneys for the Gateway Pundit did not immediately return a request for comment.
After the 2020 election, the Gateway Pundit published a series of stories amplifying a misleading video that showed Freeman and Moss counting ballots. The site pushed the false claim that the two women were committing fraud and counting illegal ballots after counting had ended for the night. The Gateway Pundit was the first news outlet to identify Freeman and later identified Moss, who have been cleared of all wrongdoing.
Even after Georgia election officials debunked the video, the site continued to publish numerous articles falsely accusing Moss and Freeman of fraud. Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer, also attacked the two women publicly. A Washington DC jury ordered Giuliani to pay nearly $150m to the two women last year for libel, a decision the former New York mayor is appealing. At the trial, Giuliani’s lawyer at one point accused the Gateway Pundit of being the basis of the false claims about the two women.
The two women faced vicious harassment, including death threats, and fled their homes and went into hiding after people showed up unannounced at Freeman’s home. Moss’s son received death threats on his phone and fell behind in school. Freeman testified last year that she had nowhere to live. Moss testified to the committee investigating the January 6 attack in 2022, but has otherwise not spoken much publicly.
“I was terrorized,” Freeman said during a trial in Washington DC last year. “I’d rather stay in my car and be homeless rather than put that on someone else.”
The site’s founder, Jim Hoft, had refused to concede that the site said anything false about the women, even though the state quickly debunked accusations of wrongdoing and a longer investigation formally cleared them. Hoft and his twin brother, Joe, also a contributor, held a press conference in Milwaukee during the Republican national convention in July and repeated many of the false claims about Freeman and Moss.
The settlement with the Gateway Pundit is notable because of the influential role the site plays in spreading misinformation. One recent analysis by the group Advance Democracy found that the site is continuing to spread false information about voting and seed the idea that the 2024 election could be stolen.
The two women have already settled a settled suit with One America News, another far-right outlet. The network issued an on-air apology after the settlement.
They are also seeking to collect on the money Giuliani owes them. Their lawyers recently asked a New York judge to allow them to take control over Giuliani’s assets.
The Gateway Pundit still faces a libel suit from Eric Coomer, a former employee of the voting system company Dominion who was falsely accused of subverting the 2020 election.
The site had declared bankruptcy in an attempt to delay the case, but a judge dismissed the effort earlier this year.
The case was one of several libel lawsuits filed against Trump allies and conservative networks that aired false claims about the 2020 election. Nearly all of those cases have settled, which observers have said may underscore the limited role defamation law can have in curbing misinformation.
talking to the stupid is a waste of time!!!
american values redefined: greed, racism, hypocrisy
racism: The unfair treatment of people who belong to a different race. Violent behavior towards them. Having the belief that some races of people are better than others. General beliefs about other people based only on their race. Showing this through violent or unfair treatment of people of other races.
greed: intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, power, or food
hypocrisy: the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense.
exposing another gop thief!!!
'Serious conflict of interest': GOP Senate candidate funneled millions to his firm as governor
Carl Gibson - alternet
October 10, 2024
One candidate in a high-profile U.S. Senate race is now being accused of corrupt behavior by awarding millions of dollars in development contracts to his real estate firm.
On Thursday, TIME Magazine reported that Larry Hogan — the former two-term Republican governor of Maryland now running for Senate — helped steer almost 40% of all affordable housing contracts to clients of the company he refused to divest from during his eight-year tenure. The ex-governor's firm, HOGAN, which TIME described as a "multi-purpose real estate brokerage firm based in Annapolis," had no such success during his predecessor's time in office.
In its report, TIME noted that HOGAN clients were awarded 0% and 30% of affordable housing contracts in the Old Line State in 2011 and 2012, respectively. But after he took office, his company became much more successful at winning development deals. In 2020, for example, HOGAN's clientele got $40 million in state funds and federal tax credits on 18 different projects.
As governor, Hogan sat on the three-member Board of Public Works, which votes on awarding development contracts. The Maryland Republican personally voted in favor of awards between $600,000 and $1.8 million worth of contracts to four different HOGAN clients during his first three years in office. And as Maryland's governor, Hogan signed off on transportation infrastructure projects that were a short distance away from his company's properties in Brandywine and Hyattsville, making them more valuable as a result.
HOGAN's success in securing affordable housing contracts for its clients may have translated to a lucrative payday for Hogan, dwarfing his $165,000 to $180,000 annual salary as governor. Financial disclosure forms filed ahead of his second gubernatorial campaign showed that he made $2.4 million during his first term — notably the first time in Maryland history a governor made millions of dollars. TIME pointed out that in a recent financial disclosure form as a senate candidate, Hogan's net worth ranged from $12.3 million to $35 million.
When he was elected governor, Hogan didn't put his wealth in a blind trust, but rather put his brother in charge of the company and had multiple meetings with both his brother and company trustees during his first three years in the governor's mansion. According to former George W. Bush administration ethics official Richard Painter, Hogan committed "a serious conflict of interest" by participating in the contract award process without fully divesting from his firm.
Bart Harvey, who is a former Fannie Mae director and a former affordable housing developer in Maryland, told TIME that Hogan's hands-on approach to his real estate firm was likely enticing for potential clients doing business with the company, and gave HOGAN an inherent advantage.
“The state has a large role to play in this because they actually allocate the credits. Hogan, as governor, was in charge of that,” Harvey said. “Developers, knowing that, may on their own go to his entity because they think they get a step up in the very competitive tax credit allocation process.”
Hogan is running against Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland's U.S. Senate race. While he has positioned himself as a more moderate candidate and distanced himself from former President Donald Trump in an attempt to appeal to voters in the deep blue state, that may be more difficult given Trump's endorsement of his candidacy in June.
"Yeah, I'd like to see him win. I think he has a good chance to win," the former president told Fox Business. "We gotta take the majority."
On Thursday, TIME Magazine reported that Larry Hogan — the former two-term Republican governor of Maryland now running for Senate — helped steer almost 40% of all affordable housing contracts to clients of the company he refused to divest from during his eight-year tenure. The ex-governor's firm, HOGAN, which TIME described as a "multi-purpose real estate brokerage firm based in Annapolis," had no such success during his predecessor's time in office.
In its report, TIME noted that HOGAN clients were awarded 0% and 30% of affordable housing contracts in the Old Line State in 2011 and 2012, respectively. But after he took office, his company became much more successful at winning development deals. In 2020, for example, HOGAN's clientele got $40 million in state funds and federal tax credits on 18 different projects.
As governor, Hogan sat on the three-member Board of Public Works, which votes on awarding development contracts. The Maryland Republican personally voted in favor of awards between $600,000 and $1.8 million worth of contracts to four different HOGAN clients during his first three years in office. And as Maryland's governor, Hogan signed off on transportation infrastructure projects that were a short distance away from his company's properties in Brandywine and Hyattsville, making them more valuable as a result.
HOGAN's success in securing affordable housing contracts for its clients may have translated to a lucrative payday for Hogan, dwarfing his $165,000 to $180,000 annual salary as governor. Financial disclosure forms filed ahead of his second gubernatorial campaign showed that he made $2.4 million during his first term — notably the first time in Maryland history a governor made millions of dollars. TIME pointed out that in a recent financial disclosure form as a senate candidate, Hogan's net worth ranged from $12.3 million to $35 million.
When he was elected governor, Hogan didn't put his wealth in a blind trust, but rather put his brother in charge of the company and had multiple meetings with both his brother and company trustees during his first three years in the governor's mansion. According to former George W. Bush administration ethics official Richard Painter, Hogan committed "a serious conflict of interest" by participating in the contract award process without fully divesting from his firm.
Bart Harvey, who is a former Fannie Mae director and a former affordable housing developer in Maryland, told TIME that Hogan's hands-on approach to his real estate firm was likely enticing for potential clients doing business with the company, and gave HOGAN an inherent advantage.
“The state has a large role to play in this because they actually allocate the credits. Hogan, as governor, was in charge of that,” Harvey said. “Developers, knowing that, may on their own go to his entity because they think they get a step up in the very competitive tax credit allocation process.”
Hogan is running against Prince George's County Executive Angela Alsobrooks in Maryland's U.S. Senate race. While he has positioned himself as a more moderate candidate and distanced himself from former President Donald Trump in an attempt to appeal to voters in the deep blue state, that may be more difficult given Trump's endorsement of his candidacy in June.
"Yeah, I'd like to see him win. I think he has a good chance to win," the former president told Fox Business. "We gotta take the majority."
a state full of trash!!!
Home to about 50 white extremist groups, Ohio’s social landscape undergoes rapid change
The Conversation - raw story
October 9, 2024 2:50PM ET
The first time many Americans heard about Springfield, Ohio, came during the September 2024 presidential debate when Donald Trump falsely claimed that Haitian immigrants in the city were eating other residents’ cats and dogs.
Though shocking, these harmful rumors had been spreading on social media since the beginning of the summer and had gained more notoriety when JD Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio and Trump’s running mate, made similar statements on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter.
But what has gone mostly overlooked is the effect these racist lies have had on energizing Ohio’s nearly 50 white extremist groups.
Members of the white supremacist group Blood Tribe marched through Springfield on Aug. 10, 2024, with with swastikas on their signs.
Since then, members of the Ku Klux Klan and the right-wing extremist group Proud Boys have each marched in separate demonstrations through Springfield.
As scholars of extremism who live in Ohio and work at the University of Dayton, we have seen these events unfold at a time when city officials have received multiple bomb threats targeting local government offices and schools since Trump’s false and racist claims against Haitian immigrants.
The changing landscape
In our research, we have found that the rapidly changing social conditions in Ohio have played a significant role in the growth of extremism.
Between 1990 and 2019, for instance, manufacturing jobs shrank from 21.7% of all employment in the state to 12.5%, a loss of nearly 360,000 jobs. As a result, income disparities between the professional and working classes have widened – as has the heightened sense among some alienated white men that white conservatives are the real victims of bias in a society growing more racially and culturally diverse.
For many of these alienated men, particularly those in rural areas that lack significant numbers of Black and Hispanic residents, extremist ideologies offer easy answers to complex questions that involve their sense of disenfranchisement.
In 2020, for example, the population of Springfield was about 60,000. But over the past three years, city officials estimate that the population has grown by about 25%, partly fueled by the arrival of as many as 15,000 Haitian immigrants during that time. Many of them are legally living in the U.S. under a special federal program.
Similar demographic shifts are occurring throughout the state. Between 2010 and 2022, the percentage of the white population dropped from 81.2% to 77.3%, a loss of about 250,000, putting the state’s white population at about 9.1 million. During the same time, the Hispanic population, for instance, grew from about 357,000 in 2010 to nearly 525,000.
For some of these white extremists, these population changes will lead to an inevitable race war between white people and nonwhite people. We have found that the attraction of belonging to a group that promises strength, protection and a source of identity can be particularly compelling.
The Ohio connection
In recent years, white extremism in Ohio has received attention as a result of the extremist rhetoric of and often violent crimes committed by white men who call the state home. Consider just a few examples:
Born and raised in Ohio, Andrew Anglin founded the Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi website, in 2016.
James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio, poses for a mug shot after he drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017.
Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail via Getty Images
James Alex Fields Jr., a white nationalist from the Toledo area, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia. Fields was convicted of driving his car into a crowd of counterprotesters during the white nationalist Unite the Right Rally in August 2017.
Prior to the attack, Fields frequently posted the hashtag #Hitlerwasright on his social media accounts and called for violence against nonwhites and Jews.
In the summer of 2022, Ohio law enforcement officers shot and killed Ricky Shiffer after the armed Navy veteran fired a nail gun at the FBI field office in Cincinnati. On his social media accounts, Shiffer had called for violence against federal law enforcement officials after the FBI searched Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago as part of the federal probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
Tres Genco, a self-described incel – short for “ involuntary celibate” – who hated women and believed he was owed sex from them, was from the Cincinnati area and pled guilty in 2022 to plotting a mass shooting of women at Ohio State University. Law enforcement officials in Ohio stopped the planned attack before it happened.
On April 21, 2023, Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio, and others were sentenced to nearly eight years in prison for his plan to attack power grids across the U.S. Cook and his accomplices believed that they were starting a race war and used neo-Nazi propaganda and white supremacist ideology to recruit young people to join their group.
Online recruitment tactics
Leaders of white supremacist and militia groups often use both traditional outreach and digital platforms to recruit people to their groups. Traditional outreach includes recruitment in conversations, attending events, and sharing books, pamphlets, flyers and posters.
At the same time, social media has become a critical tool for extremist groups to spread their message, recruit members and organize events.
These online platforms create echo chambers that reinforce extremist beliefs in debunked conspiracy theories, such as the assumption that the federal government is part of a plot to eliminate the white race.
In addition to the increased traffic on social media, we have seen a rise of extremist groups in Ohio known as active clubs, where members engage in physical fitness, combat training and emotional support that encourages the development of a warrior mentality in preparation for what followers believe is an inevitable race war.
Countering extremism in Ohio
Though the emergence of white extremist groups goes far beyond the borders of Ohio, we have found that community-based, educational initiatives are effective in understanding and ultimately eradicating the root causes of racial and ethnic hatred on the local level.
In our view, community engagement that emphasizes dialogue and understanding across different racial groups is crucial for demonstrating the dangers of intolerance – and the benefits of diversity.
Though shocking, these harmful rumors had been spreading on social media since the beginning of the summer and had gained more notoriety when JD Vance, a U.S. senator from Ohio and Trump’s running mate, made similar statements on X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter.
But what has gone mostly overlooked is the effect these racist lies have had on energizing Ohio’s nearly 50 white extremist groups.
Members of the white supremacist group Blood Tribe marched through Springfield on Aug. 10, 2024, with with swastikas on their signs.
Since then, members of the Ku Klux Klan and the right-wing extremist group Proud Boys have each marched in separate demonstrations through Springfield.
As scholars of extremism who live in Ohio and work at the University of Dayton, we have seen these events unfold at a time when city officials have received multiple bomb threats targeting local government offices and schools since Trump’s false and racist claims against Haitian immigrants.
The changing landscape
In our research, we have found that the rapidly changing social conditions in Ohio have played a significant role in the growth of extremism.
Between 1990 and 2019, for instance, manufacturing jobs shrank from 21.7% of all employment in the state to 12.5%, a loss of nearly 360,000 jobs. As a result, income disparities between the professional and working classes have widened – as has the heightened sense among some alienated white men that white conservatives are the real victims of bias in a society growing more racially and culturally diverse.
For many of these alienated men, particularly those in rural areas that lack significant numbers of Black and Hispanic residents, extremist ideologies offer easy answers to complex questions that involve their sense of disenfranchisement.
In 2020, for example, the population of Springfield was about 60,000. But over the past three years, city officials estimate that the population has grown by about 25%, partly fueled by the arrival of as many as 15,000 Haitian immigrants during that time. Many of them are legally living in the U.S. under a special federal program.
Similar demographic shifts are occurring throughout the state. Between 2010 and 2022, the percentage of the white population dropped from 81.2% to 77.3%, a loss of about 250,000, putting the state’s white population at about 9.1 million. During the same time, the Hispanic population, for instance, grew from about 357,000 in 2010 to nearly 525,000.
For some of these white extremists, these population changes will lead to an inevitable race war between white people and nonwhite people. We have found that the attraction of belonging to a group that promises strength, protection and a source of identity can be particularly compelling.
The Ohio connection
In recent years, white extremism in Ohio has received attention as a result of the extremist rhetoric of and often violent crimes committed by white men who call the state home. Consider just a few examples:
Born and raised in Ohio, Andrew Anglin founded the Daily Stormer, a popular neo-Nazi website, in 2016.
James Alex Fields Jr. of Maumee, Ohio, poses for a mug shot after he drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017.
Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail via Getty Images
James Alex Fields Jr., a white nationalist from the Toledo area, was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 for the murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville, Virginia. Fields was convicted of driving his car into a crowd of counterprotesters during the white nationalist Unite the Right Rally in August 2017.
Prior to the attack, Fields frequently posted the hashtag #Hitlerwasright on his social media accounts and called for violence against nonwhites and Jews.
In the summer of 2022, Ohio law enforcement officers shot and killed Ricky Shiffer after the armed Navy veteran fired a nail gun at the FBI field office in Cincinnati. On his social media accounts, Shiffer had called for violence against federal law enforcement officials after the FBI searched Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago as part of the federal probe into Trump’s handling of classified documents.
Tres Genco, a self-described incel – short for “ involuntary celibate” – who hated women and believed he was owed sex from them, was from the Cincinnati area and pled guilty in 2022 to plotting a mass shooting of women at Ohio State University. Law enforcement officials in Ohio stopped the planned attack before it happened.
On April 21, 2023, Christopher Brenner Cook, 20, of Columbus, Ohio, and others were sentenced to nearly eight years in prison for his plan to attack power grids across the U.S. Cook and his accomplices believed that they were starting a race war and used neo-Nazi propaganda and white supremacist ideology to recruit young people to join their group.
Online recruitment tactics
Leaders of white supremacist and militia groups often use both traditional outreach and digital platforms to recruit people to their groups. Traditional outreach includes recruitment in conversations, attending events, and sharing books, pamphlets, flyers and posters.
At the same time, social media has become a critical tool for extremist groups to spread their message, recruit members and organize events.
These online platforms create echo chambers that reinforce extremist beliefs in debunked conspiracy theories, such as the assumption that the federal government is part of a plot to eliminate the white race.
In addition to the increased traffic on social media, we have seen a rise of extremist groups in Ohio known as active clubs, where members engage in physical fitness, combat training and emotional support that encourages the development of a warrior mentality in preparation for what followers believe is an inevitable race war.
Countering extremism in Ohio
Though the emergence of white extremist groups goes far beyond the borders of Ohio, we have found that community-based, educational initiatives are effective in understanding and ultimately eradicating the root causes of racial and ethnic hatred on the local level.
In our view, community engagement that emphasizes dialogue and understanding across different racial groups is crucial for demonstrating the dangers of intolerance – and the benefits of diversity.
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exposing another gop traitor!!!
GOP Senate hopeful who accused Dems of fostering 'emboldened Russia' linked to Russian funds
Carl Gibson - alternet
October 10, 2024
As a hedge fund manager, Pennsylvania Republican U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick's company held roughly $415 million in Russian sovereign bonds prior to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
According to a Thursday report in the Guardian, McCormick — who is running against three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) — was found to have held the Russian debt through his firm, Bridgewater Associates, between 2017 and 2021. Sovereign debt is a major source of funding for countries to pay for operations and service debt, and has become increasingly subjected to sanctions since 2019.
McCormick has previously taken full ownership of Bridgewater's decisions during his tenure as CEO — a position he held until 2022, when he unsuccessfully ran in Pennsylvania's Republican Senate primary (he went on to lose to Mehmet Oz). In a 2023 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, McCormick told the audience: "Whatever we did I'm responsible for."
The Guardian reported that U.S. Department of Labor 5500 forms show Bridgewater held $415.2 million in Russian sovereign bonds in 2017, $234.9 million in 2018, $36.5 million in 2019, $80.5 million in 2020 and $119.8 million in 2021. McCormick, who is a veteran of the first Gulf War, has positioned himself as a foreign policy hawk, accusing President Joe Biden of a "botched withdrawal from Afghanistan" and suggesting his foreign policy agenda was responsible for an "emboldened Russia waging war on Ukraine."
While the Republican Senate hopeful offloaded his firm's Russian debt prior to the Russian military's incursion across Ukrainian borders in 2022, he notably managed Russian debt many years after its illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014, which resulted in Russia getting booted from the G8 (now G7). After his annexation of Crimea, Putin also encouraged pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine — territory he has since illegally recognized as Russian.
Since Putin's invasion, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has also found that Russian sovereign bonds have been subjected to increasingly punishing sanctions by the U.S. government. The CRS published a report in 2023 acknowledging that those sanctions now "restrict dealings with 80% of Russian banking sector assets."
"The Biden administration expanded sanctions on Russian sovereign debt... including prohibiting US financial institutions from processing debt payments from the Russian government to foreign investors," the CRS wrote. "As a result, Russia defaulted on its debt in June 2022."
While the Republican Senate hopeful offloaded his firm's Russian debt prior to the Russian military's incursion across Ukrainian borders in 2022, he notably managed Russian debt many years after its illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014, which resulted in Russia getting booted from the G8 (now G7). After his annexation of Crimea, Putin also encouraged pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine — territory he has since illegally recognized as Russian.
Since Putin's invasion, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has also found that Russian sovereign bonds have been subjected to increasingly punishing sanctions by the U.S. government. The CRS published a report in 2023 acknowledging that those sanctions now "restrict dealings with 80% of Russian banking sector assets."
"The Biden administration expanded sanctions on Russian sovereign debt... including prohibiting US financial institutions from processing debt payments from the Russian government to foreign investors," the CRS wrote. "As a result, Russia defaulted on its debt in June 2022."
According to a Thursday report in the Guardian, McCormick — who is running against three-term incumbent Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pennsylvania) — was found to have held the Russian debt through his firm, Bridgewater Associates, between 2017 and 2021. Sovereign debt is a major source of funding for countries to pay for operations and service debt, and has become increasingly subjected to sanctions since 2019.
McCormick has previously taken full ownership of Bridgewater's decisions during his tenure as CEO — a position he held until 2022, when he unsuccessfully ran in Pennsylvania's Republican Senate primary (he went on to lose to Mehmet Oz). In a 2023 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, McCormick told the audience: "Whatever we did I'm responsible for."
The Guardian reported that U.S. Department of Labor 5500 forms show Bridgewater held $415.2 million in Russian sovereign bonds in 2017, $234.9 million in 2018, $36.5 million in 2019, $80.5 million in 2020 and $119.8 million in 2021. McCormick, who is a veteran of the first Gulf War, has positioned himself as a foreign policy hawk, accusing President Joe Biden of a "botched withdrawal from Afghanistan" and suggesting his foreign policy agenda was responsible for an "emboldened Russia waging war on Ukraine."
While the Republican Senate hopeful offloaded his firm's Russian debt prior to the Russian military's incursion across Ukrainian borders in 2022, he notably managed Russian debt many years after its illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014, which resulted in Russia getting booted from the G8 (now G7). After his annexation of Crimea, Putin also encouraged pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine — territory he has since illegally recognized as Russian.
Since Putin's invasion, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has also found that Russian sovereign bonds have been subjected to increasingly punishing sanctions by the U.S. government. The CRS published a report in 2023 acknowledging that those sanctions now "restrict dealings with 80% of Russian banking sector assets."
"The Biden administration expanded sanctions on Russian sovereign debt... including prohibiting US financial institutions from processing debt payments from the Russian government to foreign investors," the CRS wrote. "As a result, Russia defaulted on its debt in June 2022."
While the Republican Senate hopeful offloaded his firm's Russian debt prior to the Russian military's incursion across Ukrainian borders in 2022, he notably managed Russian debt many years after its illegal invasion of Crimea in 2014, which resulted in Russia getting booted from the G8 (now G7). After his annexation of Crimea, Putin also encouraged pro-Russian separatists in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine — territory he has since illegally recognized as Russian.
Since Putin's invasion, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has also found that Russian sovereign bonds have been subjected to increasingly punishing sanctions by the U.S. government. The CRS published a report in 2023 acknowledging that those sanctions now "restrict dealings with 80% of Russian banking sector assets."
"The Biden administration expanded sanctions on Russian sovereign debt... including prohibiting US financial institutions from processing debt payments from the Russian government to foreign investors," the CRS wrote. "As a result, Russia defaulted on its debt in June 2022."
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IT'S OBVIOUS!!!
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'Dude faked a family': GOP candidate ridiculed for campaign photos featuring non-relatives
Kathleen Culliton - eaw story
September 27, 2024 6:34PM ET
Republican Derrick Anderson looked like the perfect family man in a campaign photo flanked by a loving wife and three smiling daughters — there was just one problem, as New York Times reporting revealed Friday and a baffled lawmaker summarized.
"Dude faked a family," jabbed former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). "Wtf is wrong with these candidates i mean just wut."
According to the Times, Anderson, a former Green Beret hoping to represent Virginia's District 7 in Congress, has posed with a woman and three children of a longtime friend.
Anderson himself is engaged and has no children, the Times reported. That did not stop Anderson from posting photos of himself with a wife and three kids which has appeared on his YouTube page on a National Republican Campaign Committee website.
After the Times reporting went public, it also popped up repeatedly on social media — alongside jokes.
"Y'all [Anderson] has fake family pictures," wrote On Democracy podcast host Fred Wellman. "Amazing."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) had a question for Sen. J.D. Vance, who repeatedly makes headlines with claims that childless Americans are sociopaths who don't have a stake in America's future.
"Do you think that applies to GOP candidate Derrick Anderson, who doesn’t have children but is trying to mislead voters by renting a family in his pictures?" asked Lieu. "Asking for a friend."
"New levels of weird and creepy," replied abortion rights activist Olivia Julianna. "THESE ARE NOT HIS CHILDREN AND THAT AINT HIS WIFE."
One person was not laughing, according to New York Times reporter Annie Karni.
"A spokesman for Mr. Anderson criticized The New York Times’s decision to focus on the footage and said that 'Derrick’s opponent and every other candidate in America are in similar pictures and video with supporters of all kinds,'" Karni wrote. "The spokesman said the video simply showed Mr. Anderson 'with female supporters and their kids.'"
Jake Lahut, campaign reporter for the Columbia Journalism Review, shared his previous reporting on Anderson and whether or not he lived in the district he hoped to represent.
"Thought I had a weird story about this guy about a year ago," wrote Lahut, "but sheeeesh."
CJ Warnke, communications for the Democratic political group House Majority PAC, reminded followers of the 2013 comedy "We're the Millers" in which a drug-dealing Jason Sudeikis assembles a fake family (which includes Jennifer Aniston as a stripper/pseudo wife) to smuggle drugs across the U.S. border.
"We're The Andersons," Warnke wrote. "#VA07."
"Dude faked a family," jabbed former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL). "Wtf is wrong with these candidates i mean just wut."
According to the Times, Anderson, a former Green Beret hoping to represent Virginia's District 7 in Congress, has posed with a woman and three children of a longtime friend.
Anderson himself is engaged and has no children, the Times reported. That did not stop Anderson from posting photos of himself with a wife and three kids which has appeared on his YouTube page on a National Republican Campaign Committee website.
After the Times reporting went public, it also popped up repeatedly on social media — alongside jokes.
"Y'all [Anderson] has fake family pictures," wrote On Democracy podcast host Fred Wellman. "Amazing."
Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) had a question for Sen. J.D. Vance, who repeatedly makes headlines with claims that childless Americans are sociopaths who don't have a stake in America's future.
"Do you think that applies to GOP candidate Derrick Anderson, who doesn’t have children but is trying to mislead voters by renting a family in his pictures?" asked Lieu. "Asking for a friend."
"New levels of weird and creepy," replied abortion rights activist Olivia Julianna. "THESE ARE NOT HIS CHILDREN AND THAT AINT HIS WIFE."
One person was not laughing, according to New York Times reporter Annie Karni.
"A spokesman for Mr. Anderson criticized The New York Times’s decision to focus on the footage and said that 'Derrick’s opponent and every other candidate in America are in similar pictures and video with supporters of all kinds,'" Karni wrote. "The spokesman said the video simply showed Mr. Anderson 'with female supporters and their kids.'"
Jake Lahut, campaign reporter for the Columbia Journalism Review, shared his previous reporting on Anderson and whether or not he lived in the district he hoped to represent.
"Thought I had a weird story about this guy about a year ago," wrote Lahut, "but sheeeesh."
CJ Warnke, communications for the Democratic political group House Majority PAC, reminded followers of the 2013 comedy "We're the Millers" in which a drug-dealing Jason Sudeikis assembles a fake family (which includes Jennifer Aniston as a stripper/pseudo wife) to smuggle drugs across the U.S. border.
"We're The Andersons," Warnke wrote. "#VA07."
Welcome to RepublicanDebt.org
This site tracks the current Republican Debt.
The Republican Debt is how much of the national debt of the United States
is attributable to
the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush,
George W. Bush, Donald J. Trump,
and
the Republican fiscal policy of Borrow-And-Spend.
As of Monday, September 23, 2024 at 11:04:30PM PT,
The Current Republican Debt is:
$16,895,552,333,277.40
which means that in a total of 24 years,
these four presidents have led to the creation of
94.75%
of the entire national debt
in only 9.6774% of the 248 years of the existence of the United States of America.
Racist disinformation is nothing new
Kamala Harris, Donald Trump and America's long history of racist disinformation
Donald Trump's racial insults belong to a lengthy history of false, fantastical and contradictory claims
By Joe Hayden - salon
Professor of journalism, University of Memphis
Published October 6, 2024 6:00AM (EDT)
In the spring of 1892, Ida B. Wells had had enough. The 29-year-old Memphis editor was sick of reading about the lynchings of Black Americans and angry about the bogus excuse often used to justify them: fraudulent claims of sexual assault — “the same old racket,” as she called it. “Nobody in this section of the country believes the old thread-bare lie that Negro men rape white women.”
And so she set out to convince other Americans. Wells collected data for hundreds of cases, investigated dozens herself and even hired private investigators, and carefully tracked and catalogued how those cases were reported. What she found was a concerted newspaper campaign of false propaganda that encouraged lynching and then excused or covered it up.
Wells muckraked the failings of the press, in other words. And her exposés of racist lies form a crucial part of the history of disinformation in America.
That’s not the way I originally conceived such a history, though. In trying to chronicle media malpractice in America for a book, I expected to cover infamous hoaxes, such as the New York Sun’s batmen-on-the-moon series in 1835 or the New York Herald’s fictitious zoo escape of 1874, which featured rampaging grizzlies and bloodthirsty panthers. I also anticipated writing about conspiracy theories, like the various “Satanic panics” and QAnon, along with notorious examples of partisan deception, whether in the 1790s or today. But in doing the research, I kept seeing cases like Wells’ critique, and that changed my entire frame of reference.
The most consequential part of the history of disinformation in America, it soon became obvious, isn’t the episodic lying driven by pranking or profit. Instead, it’s the longstanding “bipartisan” myths that have targeted marginalized groups: women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ communities, labor unions, the poor and others. These lies have proved far more enduring and much more lethal.
Disinformation about Black people is one of the oldest traditions in America. It turns out that, for centuries, what white people have said and written about communities of color was false, fantastical, unfair and often self-contradictory.
This is evident in the many oxymoronic myths spread about African Americans. One of the first of those was that slavery was benign and enslaved persons were generally well-treated. Why, then, did so many try to escape, protest or revolt? Other lies asserted that Black people weren’t as smart or chaste or hardworking as white people, even though many examples to the contrary abounded, and even though the entire Southern plantation economy was sustained by forced labor under the most brutal conditions.
For generations after slavery, white writers routinely disparaged the Black family, claiming it wasn’t as strong or as wholesome as their own. They called African-American men “beasts,” portraying them as dangerous predators barely able to contain their impulses to rape, pillage and kill. This was the infuriating hypocrisy that drove Wells to set the record straight. She was perhaps America’s first great investigative journalist.
But the lies didn’t end in the Jim Crow era. They persisted through the 20th century, rearing their heads anytime racists needed to push back against the progress of civil rights. And they had many skillful practitioners.
Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett was one of the most convincing liars of his day. In the wake of the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, he gave a televised speech announcing his intention to fight the ruling. Barnett insisted that no school in the state would integrate — and couldn’t be forced to, he claimed, because Mississippi’s sovereign power superseded the federal government’s.
That’s not what he told the public, however. “Of course I know interposition is invalid,” he admitted. “I’m bluffing. But you wait and see. I’ll bluff the Justice Department into backing down.”
Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus also practiced doublespeak. After reversing his public position on segregation several times, he snapped to reporters: “Just because I said it doesn’t make it so.”
That same lack of truthfulness becomes clear in the media's sensationalistic coverage of drug use. Long before the manufactured myth of the “crack baby” epidemic of the 1980s, which was altogether unsupported by evidence, many newspapers in the early 20th century peddled the narrative that cocaine was the African-American drug of choice. “Negro cocaine fiends” was a fearsome trope the press loved to brandish, even though the vast majority of cocaine users then were white. For too many editors, the combination of Black criminality and exotic substances was a potent elixir, something that Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger exploited in his openly racist public relations strategy and selective enforcement. Anslinger was one of the greatest con men of that century, and racist canards were his stock in trade.
Disinformation about people of color never disappeared. It has flourished on talk radio, on Fox News and on websites like Newsmax and Breitbart, which for a time featured a “Black Crime” menu option and regularly traffics in stories about “illegals,” the “border crisis” and “migrant crime.” Outlets with no journalistic ethics don’t just happen to dabble in these fictions; they bank on them. Disinformation is part of their business model.
Into this fraught media ecosphere strolled Donald Trump. From his “birther” conspiracy theory, alleging that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, to his insults targeting Muslims, Mexicans, Black Lives Matter activists and others, Trump milks racial animosity regularly, hawking lies about people of color at nearly every rally. He, too, is a kind of racketeer.
His attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris often descend to insults about her identity — that she’s not Black or too Black or in some way not sufficiently American — but mostly they lump her in with the myths so often told about African Americans, essentially that they’re deficient in some way and thus not equal to white citizens.
Only in America can a white man convicted of multiple felonies try to paint a Black former prosecutor as a criminal. Only in America can a trust-fund heir with numerous bankruptcies and and an endless list of lawsuits accuse a former McDonald’s employee of privilege. Only in America can a “businessman” with financial ties to the Russian mob suggest others are corrupt.
When Alexander Hamilton contemplated recruiting African-American soldiers to fight in the Revolutionary War, he recognized the resistance that would ensue from many white people. As he lamented, “The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor in experience.”
Those delusions die hard. Too many white Americans today still fail to see clearly, and continue to chase phantoms instead of reality. If Ida B. Wells were alive today, she’d be fighting for facts and challenging the dishonest schemers. So should we all.
And so she set out to convince other Americans. Wells collected data for hundreds of cases, investigated dozens herself and even hired private investigators, and carefully tracked and catalogued how those cases were reported. What she found was a concerted newspaper campaign of false propaganda that encouraged lynching and then excused or covered it up.
Wells muckraked the failings of the press, in other words. And her exposés of racist lies form a crucial part of the history of disinformation in America.
That’s not the way I originally conceived such a history, though. In trying to chronicle media malpractice in America for a book, I expected to cover infamous hoaxes, such as the New York Sun’s batmen-on-the-moon series in 1835 or the New York Herald’s fictitious zoo escape of 1874, which featured rampaging grizzlies and bloodthirsty panthers. I also anticipated writing about conspiracy theories, like the various “Satanic panics” and QAnon, along with notorious examples of partisan deception, whether in the 1790s or today. But in doing the research, I kept seeing cases like Wells’ critique, and that changed my entire frame of reference.
The most consequential part of the history of disinformation in America, it soon became obvious, isn’t the episodic lying driven by pranking or profit. Instead, it’s the longstanding “bipartisan” myths that have targeted marginalized groups: women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ communities, labor unions, the poor and others. These lies have proved far more enduring and much more lethal.
Disinformation about Black people is one of the oldest traditions in America. It turns out that, for centuries, what white people have said and written about communities of color was false, fantastical, unfair and often self-contradictory.
This is evident in the many oxymoronic myths spread about African Americans. One of the first of those was that slavery was benign and enslaved persons were generally well-treated. Why, then, did so many try to escape, protest or revolt? Other lies asserted that Black people weren’t as smart or chaste or hardworking as white people, even though many examples to the contrary abounded, and even though the entire Southern plantation economy was sustained by forced labor under the most brutal conditions.
For generations after slavery, white writers routinely disparaged the Black family, claiming it wasn’t as strong or as wholesome as their own. They called African-American men “beasts,” portraying them as dangerous predators barely able to contain their impulses to rape, pillage and kill. This was the infuriating hypocrisy that drove Wells to set the record straight. She was perhaps America’s first great investigative journalist.
But the lies didn’t end in the Jim Crow era. They persisted through the 20th century, rearing their heads anytime racists needed to push back against the progress of civil rights. And they had many skillful practitioners.
Mississippi Gov. Ross Barnett was one of the most convincing liars of his day. In the wake of the Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, he gave a televised speech announcing his intention to fight the ruling. Barnett insisted that no school in the state would integrate — and couldn’t be forced to, he claimed, because Mississippi’s sovereign power superseded the federal government’s.
That’s not what he told the public, however. “Of course I know interposition is invalid,” he admitted. “I’m bluffing. But you wait and see. I’ll bluff the Justice Department into backing down.”
Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus also practiced doublespeak. After reversing his public position on segregation several times, he snapped to reporters: “Just because I said it doesn’t make it so.”
That same lack of truthfulness becomes clear in the media's sensationalistic coverage of drug use. Long before the manufactured myth of the “crack baby” epidemic of the 1980s, which was altogether unsupported by evidence, many newspapers in the early 20th century peddled the narrative that cocaine was the African-American drug of choice. “Negro cocaine fiends” was a fearsome trope the press loved to brandish, even though the vast majority of cocaine users then were white. For too many editors, the combination of Black criminality and exotic substances was a potent elixir, something that Bureau of Narcotics Commissioner Harry Anslinger exploited in his openly racist public relations strategy and selective enforcement. Anslinger was one of the greatest con men of that century, and racist canards were his stock in trade.
Disinformation about people of color never disappeared. It has flourished on talk radio, on Fox News and on websites like Newsmax and Breitbart, which for a time featured a “Black Crime” menu option and regularly traffics in stories about “illegals,” the “border crisis” and “migrant crime.” Outlets with no journalistic ethics don’t just happen to dabble in these fictions; they bank on them. Disinformation is part of their business model.
Into this fraught media ecosphere strolled Donald Trump. From his “birther” conspiracy theory, alleging that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States, to his insults targeting Muslims, Mexicans, Black Lives Matter activists and others, Trump milks racial animosity regularly, hawking lies about people of color at nearly every rally. He, too, is a kind of racketeer.
His attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris often descend to insults about her identity — that she’s not Black or too Black or in some way not sufficiently American — but mostly they lump her in with the myths so often told about African Americans, essentially that they’re deficient in some way and thus not equal to white citizens.
Only in America can a white man convicted of multiple felonies try to paint a Black former prosecutor as a criminal. Only in America can a trust-fund heir with numerous bankruptcies and and an endless list of lawsuits accuse a former McDonald’s employee of privilege. Only in America can a “businessman” with financial ties to the Russian mob suggest others are corrupt.
When Alexander Hamilton contemplated recruiting African-American soldiers to fight in the Revolutionary War, he recognized the resistance that would ensue from many white people. As he lamented, “The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor in experience.”
Those delusions die hard. Too many white Americans today still fail to see clearly, and continue to chase phantoms instead of reality. If Ida B. Wells were alive today, she’d be fighting for facts and challenging the dishonest schemers. So should we all.
grifters never pay bills!!!
'He left without paying the bill': Report reveals Trump's unpaid fees owed to rally cities
David McAfee - raw story
October 11, 2024 9:54AM ET
Donald Trump owes more than $750,000 to at least four cities and one county, according to a new Friday report.
Trump has long been accused of hosting rallies in various jurisdictions, and then leaving without paying fees due for public safety costs. Those bills have been accruing over the course of eight years and now near almost $1 million, according to NBC.
"Former President Donald Trump held a third rally last month in Erie, Pennsylvania, which sits in the northwest corner of a swing state that could decide who wins the White House," the report states. "Like the two other times Trump has been to Erie to rev up his supporters, he left without paying the bill."
According to the report, this is a pattern and city officials "haven't yet tallied up what the Trump campaign owes Erie for public safety costs for his most recent rally in September."
"But according to a city official, Trump owes the city more than $40,000 for the rallies he held there in 2018 and 2023," NBC reported on Friday. "Erie, whose bills were previously reported by the Erie Times-News, isn't the only city that has hosted Trump rallies and not been paid by the campaign."
While other cities and municipalities have gone on the record about Trump's bills in the past, he has still reportedly failed to pay some fees he owes. NBC was able to confirm that Trump still owes money to at least four cities and one county.
"Including Erie, four cities and a county confirmed to NBC News that they're still waiting for the Trump campaign to pay bills often associated with reimbursements for the costs of local law enforcement and other first responder personnel," the report states. "The final price tag is more than $750,000 for those five jurisdictions, with some bills dating back eight years."
Trump and his campaign have reportedly pushed these bills to Secret Service.
Read it here.
Trump has long been accused of hosting rallies in various jurisdictions, and then leaving without paying fees due for public safety costs. Those bills have been accruing over the course of eight years and now near almost $1 million, according to NBC.
"Former President Donald Trump held a third rally last month in Erie, Pennsylvania, which sits in the northwest corner of a swing state that could decide who wins the White House," the report states. "Like the two other times Trump has been to Erie to rev up his supporters, he left without paying the bill."
According to the report, this is a pattern and city officials "haven't yet tallied up what the Trump campaign owes Erie for public safety costs for his most recent rally in September."
"But according to a city official, Trump owes the city more than $40,000 for the rallies he held there in 2018 and 2023," NBC reported on Friday. "Erie, whose bills were previously reported by the Erie Times-News, isn't the only city that has hosted Trump rallies and not been paid by the campaign."
While other cities and municipalities have gone on the record about Trump's bills in the past, he has still reportedly failed to pay some fees he owes. NBC was able to confirm that Trump still owes money to at least four cities and one county.
"Including Erie, four cities and a county confirmed to NBC News that they're still waiting for the Trump campaign to pay bills often associated with reimbursements for the costs of local law enforcement and other first responder personnel," the report states. "The final price tag is more than $750,000 for those five jurisdictions, with some bills dating back eight years."
Trump and his campaign have reportedly pushed these bills to Secret Service.
Read it here.
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in the land of stupid!!!
THE DAILY TRASH REPORT FEATURING TODAY'S DESPICABLES
THOMAS JEFFERSON CALLED THEM "WASTE PEOPLE" AND BENJAMIN FRANKLIN CALLED THEM "RUBBISH" WE CALL THEM "MAGA PEOPLE" and the worthless media gives them a voice.
they are more accurately called euro-trash!!!
‘Kamala Harris built this’: J.D. Vance cracks joke after woman falls and screams on stage
Fox And Friends: 'Taylor Swift Needs To Have Babies'
The weirdo things these people elaborate on is mind-numbing.
Newly revealed J.D. Vance audio shows him hoping for 'Trump to lose' an election
Now GOPers Sue To Make It Harder For Service Members To Vote
A federal lawsuit has accused three swing states of enabling fraudulent ballots by failing to verify the identities of voters who cast their votes while living overseas.
Susie Madrak — crooks & liars
October 11, 2024
Republicans have filed a flurry of lawsuits in battleground states to target ballots cast by American voters living abroad — including members of the military service. Sounds like they're even planning to cast doubt on the legitimacy of military voters. Via The Independent:
A federal lawsuit from a Pennsylvania Republican’s congressional delegation has accused the state of enabling fraudulent ballots by failing to verify the identities of voters who cast their votes while living overseas. And in Michigan and North Carolina, the Republican National Committee filed lawsuits alleging that the states have unlawfully allowed ballots cast by people who can’t claim residence in the state.
The lawsuits challenge the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, a 40-year-old federal law that affirms the right to vote to US citizens who live overseas. The law requires states to allow certain citizens to register and vote by mail in federal elections.
The lawsuits followed Donald Trump’s baseless claims on his Truth Social, where he raged without evidence on September 23 that Democrats are “working so hard to get millions of votes from Americans living overseas.” “Actually, they are getting ready to CHEAT!” he wrote.
The Republicans really are a bunch of flying monkeys, just sitting around waiting for cues from the Wicked Warlock of Mar-A-Lago.
A federal lawsuit from a Pennsylvania Republican’s congressional delegation has accused the state of enabling fraudulent ballots by failing to verify the identities of voters who cast their votes while living overseas. And in Michigan and North Carolina, the Republican National Committee filed lawsuits alleging that the states have unlawfully allowed ballots cast by people who can’t claim residence in the state.
The lawsuits challenge the Uniformed and Overseas Citizens Absentee Voting Act, a 40-year-old federal law that affirms the right to vote to US citizens who live overseas. The law requires states to allow certain citizens to register and vote by mail in federal elections.
The lawsuits followed Donald Trump’s baseless claims on his Truth Social, where he raged without evidence on September 23 that Democrats are “working so hard to get millions of votes from Americans living overseas.” “Actually, they are getting ready to CHEAT!” he wrote.
The Republicans really are a bunch of flying monkeys, just sitting around waiting for cues from the Wicked Warlock of Mar-A-Lago.
the stupid are many!!
Should Billionaires Exist?
by Robert Reich | the smirking chimp
May 4, 2024 - 6:07am
Do billionaires have a right to exist?
America has driven more than 650 species to extinction. And it should do the same to billionaires.
Why? Because there are only five ways to become one, and they’re all bad for free-market capitalism:
1. Exploit a Monopoly.
Jamie Dimon is worth $2 billion today… but not because he succeeded in the “free market.” In 2008, the government bailed out his bank JPMorgan and other giant Wall Street banks, keeping them off the endangered species list.
This government “insurance policy” scored these struggling Mom-and-Pop megabanks an estimated $34 billion a year.
But doesn’t entrepreneur Jeff Bezos deserve his billions for building Amazon?
No, because he also built a monopoly that’s been charged by the federal government and 17 states for inflating prices, overcharging sellers, and stifling competition like a predator in the wild.
With better anti-monopoly enforcement, Bezos would be worth closer to his fair-market value.
2. Exploit Inside Information
Steven A. Cohen, worth roughly $20 billion headed a hedge fund charged by the Justice Department with insider trading “on a scale without known precedent.” Another innovator!
Taming insider trading would level the investing field between the C Suite and Main Street.
3. Buy Off Politicians
That’s a great way to become a billionaire! The Koch family and Koch Industries saved roughly $1 billion a year from the Trump tax cut they and allies spent $20 million lobbying for. What a return on investment!
If we had tougher lobbying laws, political corruption would go extinct.
4. Defraud Investors
Adam Neumann conned investors out of hundreds of millions for WeWork, an office-sharing startup. WeWork didn’t make a nickel of profit, but Neumann still funded his extravagant lifestyle, including a $60 million private jet. Not exactly “sharing.”
Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of fraud for her blood-testing company, Theranos. So was Sam Bankman-Fried of crypto-exchange FTX. Remember a supposed billionaire named Donald Trump? He was also found to have committed fraud.
Presumably, if we had tougher anti-fraud laws, more would be caught and there’d be fewer billionaires to preserve.
5. Get Money From Rich Relatives
About 60 percent of all wealth in America today is inherited.
That’s because loopholes in U.S. tax law —lobbied for by the wealthy — allow rich families to avoid taxes on assets they inherit. And the estate tax has been so defanged that fewer than 0.2 percent of estates have paid it in recent years.
Tax reform would disrupt the circle of life for the rich, stopping them from automatically becoming billionaires at their birth, or someone else’s death.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing against big rewards for entrepreneurs and inventors. But do today’s entrepreneurs really need billions of dollars? Couldn’t they survive on a measly hundred million?
Because they’re now using those billions to erode American institutions. They spent fortunes bringing Supreme Court justices with them into the wild.They treated news organizations and social media platforms like prey, and they turned their relationships with politicians into patronage troughs.
This has created an America where fewer than ever can become millionaires (or even thousandaires) through hard work and actual innovation.
If capitalism were working properly, billionaires would have gone the way of the dodo.
America has driven more than 650 species to extinction. And it should do the same to billionaires.
Why? Because there are only five ways to become one, and they’re all bad for free-market capitalism:
1. Exploit a Monopoly.
Jamie Dimon is worth $2 billion today… but not because he succeeded in the “free market.” In 2008, the government bailed out his bank JPMorgan and other giant Wall Street banks, keeping them off the endangered species list.
This government “insurance policy” scored these struggling Mom-and-Pop megabanks an estimated $34 billion a year.
But doesn’t entrepreneur Jeff Bezos deserve his billions for building Amazon?
No, because he also built a monopoly that’s been charged by the federal government and 17 states for inflating prices, overcharging sellers, and stifling competition like a predator in the wild.
With better anti-monopoly enforcement, Bezos would be worth closer to his fair-market value.
2. Exploit Inside Information
Steven A. Cohen, worth roughly $20 billion headed a hedge fund charged by the Justice Department with insider trading “on a scale without known precedent.” Another innovator!
Taming insider trading would level the investing field between the C Suite and Main Street.
3. Buy Off Politicians
That’s a great way to become a billionaire! The Koch family and Koch Industries saved roughly $1 billion a year from the Trump tax cut they and allies spent $20 million lobbying for. What a return on investment!
If we had tougher lobbying laws, political corruption would go extinct.
4. Defraud Investors
Adam Neumann conned investors out of hundreds of millions for WeWork, an office-sharing startup. WeWork didn’t make a nickel of profit, but Neumann still funded his extravagant lifestyle, including a $60 million private jet. Not exactly “sharing.”
Elizabeth Holmes was convicted of fraud for her blood-testing company, Theranos. So was Sam Bankman-Fried of crypto-exchange FTX. Remember a supposed billionaire named Donald Trump? He was also found to have committed fraud.
Presumably, if we had tougher anti-fraud laws, more would be caught and there’d be fewer billionaires to preserve.
5. Get Money From Rich Relatives
About 60 percent of all wealth in America today is inherited.
That’s because loopholes in U.S. tax law —lobbied for by the wealthy — allow rich families to avoid taxes on assets they inherit. And the estate tax has been so defanged that fewer than 0.2 percent of estates have paid it in recent years.
Tax reform would disrupt the circle of life for the rich, stopping them from automatically becoming billionaires at their birth, or someone else’s death.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not arguing against big rewards for entrepreneurs and inventors. But do today’s entrepreneurs really need billions of dollars? Couldn’t they survive on a measly hundred million?
Because they’re now using those billions to erode American institutions. They spent fortunes bringing Supreme Court justices with them into the wild.They treated news organizations and social media platforms like prey, and they turned their relationships with politicians into patronage troughs.
This has created an America where fewer than ever can become millionaires (or even thousandaires) through hard work and actual innovation.
If capitalism were working properly, billionaires would have gone the way of the dodo.
a congress of traitors, thieves, grifters!!!
elected officials who owe their offices to stupid voters and the greedy
Creepy FL Republican Demands Hurricane Aid She Voted To Block
Just weeks ago Rep. Anna Paulina Luna voted against a bill that provided $20 billion for federal emergency funds. Now she wants the money.
DeSantis Administration Threatens News Station for Airing Abortion Amendment Ad
The ad highlights how Florida’s anti-abortion statute restricts abortion even in cases where a person’s life is at risk.
The GOP Is Engaged in an Eleventh-Hour Effort to Change Mail-In Voting Rules
The GOP’s lawsuits against mail-in voting could pave the way for vote suppression and election denial in swing states.
Trump Junior Tells Bald-Faced Lie About $750 FEMA Grants
The Trump family are putting hurricane survivors at risk with their lies.
John Amato — crooks & liars
October 11, 2024
Don Junior was holding a Q&A on FEMA's hurricane relief on his podcast Triggered (which is funny in of itself), but he then turned it into a MAGA liefest.
Can you imagine getting hurricane relief information from this jackass?
TRUMP JR.: You know, make sure you know what's going on.
Don't just sort of sign off on it because you could sign off on something you think is totally fine only to find out in a month or a year that your house was effectively totaled, you just didn't know it.
So think about that, pass along that information.
You know, so we'll get to the news of the day.
I'll take you through, you know, some of this stuff and then we will get to your questions.
It's so easy to take that sort of, hey, a couple bucks, right?
You know, here's 750 bucks from FEMA.
Yeah, you know, your house was totaled, but you didn't know it.
Think about that very carefully before you do anything.
Make sure your neighbors, your friends, anyone you know in the area that could have been affected.
He heard this, not because he knew, because you know, honestly, tornadoes happen here a little bit.
We're used to the hurricane stuff, but we don't necessarily think of it the way they do in, you know, in Oklahoma or Nebraska or places where it's more common.
So he was talking to some of his friends over there and they're like, hey, just make sure your people know that.
So just trying to spread that message.
He's probably gonna put some stuff up on social later on.
Yeah, I'm looking at the comments.
Yeah, $750 loan.
Don't worry guys, the illegals will get 13,000.
They'll give you 750 only to find out that your $250,000 home is totally totaled.
You don't even know it.
Just make sure you're paying attention.
For me, it was really eyeopening because you look at something that's totally, it looks almost fine and then I'm like, oh my God, you know, and I'm a builder. I understand that's what we do.
I'm like, wait a minute, that doesn't look right. This whole thing's off the foundation. If you're not paying attention, you don't realize that it could be so much worse than you ever saw.
So, you know, don't take the $250 loan. Hopefully FEMA's gonna do it right.
The $750 is not a loan. It's a grant for immediate relief. The longer term and much larger amounts are applied for through the SBA. But the $750 is not a loan.
It's hard listening to this creep make people's lives worse after they experience the trauma of a hurricane just to help his Nazi-Daddy.
Can you imagine getting hurricane relief information from this jackass?
TRUMP JR.: You know, make sure you know what's going on.
Don't just sort of sign off on it because you could sign off on something you think is totally fine only to find out in a month or a year that your house was effectively totaled, you just didn't know it.
So think about that, pass along that information.
You know, so we'll get to the news of the day.
I'll take you through, you know, some of this stuff and then we will get to your questions.
It's so easy to take that sort of, hey, a couple bucks, right?
You know, here's 750 bucks from FEMA.
Yeah, you know, your house was totaled, but you didn't know it.
Think about that very carefully before you do anything.
Make sure your neighbors, your friends, anyone you know in the area that could have been affected.
He heard this, not because he knew, because you know, honestly, tornadoes happen here a little bit.
We're used to the hurricane stuff, but we don't necessarily think of it the way they do in, you know, in Oklahoma or Nebraska or places where it's more common.
So he was talking to some of his friends over there and they're like, hey, just make sure your people know that.
So just trying to spread that message.
He's probably gonna put some stuff up on social later on.
Yeah, I'm looking at the comments.
Yeah, $750 loan.
Don't worry guys, the illegals will get 13,000.
They'll give you 750 only to find out that your $250,000 home is totally totaled.
You don't even know it.
Just make sure you're paying attention.
For me, it was really eyeopening because you look at something that's totally, it looks almost fine and then I'm like, oh my God, you know, and I'm a builder. I understand that's what we do.
I'm like, wait a minute, that doesn't look right. This whole thing's off the foundation. If you're not paying attention, you don't realize that it could be so much worse than you ever saw.
So, you know, don't take the $250 loan. Hopefully FEMA's gonna do it right.
The $750 is not a loan. It's a grant for immediate relief. The longer term and much larger amounts are applied for through the SBA. But the $750 is not a loan.
It's hard listening to this creep make people's lives worse after they experience the trauma of a hurricane just to help his Nazi-Daddy.
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Bites from Real News
*10/11/2024*
*Israel Attacks UN Peacekeeper Headquarters in Lebanon for Second Time in 2 Days Human Rights Watch has called for an urgent UN investigation into Israel’s escalation against UN peacekeepers.
*Israel Has Killed at Least 3,100 Palestinians Under Age of 5 Since Last Year
Roughly 710 children killed in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and August 31, 2024, were younger than a year old.
*Netanyahu Openly Threatens Lebanese Civilians With Violence “Like Gaza”
The Israeli prime minister openly threatened to escalate Israel’s campaign of mass killing in Lebanon.
*Israel Orders 400,000 Palestinians to Leave Northern Gaza While Firing on Them Hospitals and shelters have been forced to shut down in an area that has not received humanitarian aid in over a week.
*US Disproportionately Convicts Native People of Felonies, Harming Voting Rights Federal courts often convict Native people of felonies for crimes that tribal courts would prosecute less harshly.
*Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Palestine Visit Revealed the Plain, Brutal Truth of Apartheid Coates’s new book is based on his visit to the West Bank, where he saw a system of segregation reminiscent of Jim Crow.
*As Israel Extends Its Genocide Into the West Bank, It Targets and Kills Children Israel is killing scores of Palestinian children, Defense for Children International-Palestine’s Miranda Cleland says.
*A Single Day of Genocide Would Be Too Much. What Then When It Lasts a Year?
Israel and the US have spent 365 days trying normalize civilian slaughter. We must fight for another future.
*Fossil Fuel Interests Are Working to Kill Solar in One Ohio County. The Hometown Newspaper Is Helping.
A retired gas industry executive, a shadowy “grassroots” group and a controversial media company are spreading misinformation while turning residents against a proposed solar farm — and each other.
*City of villains:Republicans stoke fears of Democratic-run cities
As a result, conservative state governments are cauterizing upstart municipalities, burning any pretense of respect for small-D democracy at the local level in the process. They fear those blue dots will bleed enough Black political power into red states to turn them purple and cost them the White House, not just in 2024, but permanently.
Race is at the center of the fear.
The Atlantic Rips Trump as it Makes Fifth Presidential Endorsement in Its 167-Year History
GET OUT THE VOTE
Claire Lampen
Reporter
Published Oct. 10, 2024 11:07AM EDT
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
The Atlantic would like you to know that, for only “the fifth time in its 167-year history,” it has decided to endorse a presidential candidate. The magazine has thrown its weight behind Democrat Kamala Harris in the impending election, less because of who she is and more because of who she isn’t. The editorial largely defines Harris in opposition to Donald Trump, noting that in his 2024 iteration, the former president is “even more vicious and erratic than in the past,” not to mention more extreme in his policies. Harris, by contrast, is “untainted by corruption, let alone a felony record or a history of sexual assault,” the editors argue. “She doesn’t embarrass her compatriots with her language and behavior, or pit them against one another. She doesn’t curry favor with dictators. She won’t abuse the power of the highest office in order to keep it. She believes in democracy.” This is the third time The Atlantic has publicly supported the person running against Trump; the two other times it has come out in favor of a candidate were ahead of the 1860 election (Abraham Lincoln) and of the 1964 election (Lyndon B. Johnson). The mag is aware that its opinion “will not matter” to Trump supporters, but reminds the ambivalent or undecided among its readers that “electing [Harris] and defeating [Trump] is the only way to release us from the political nightmare in which we’re trapped.” And wouldn’t that be nice?
Elite Colleges Overcharged Students With Divorced Parents: Lawsuit
FAMILY AFFAIR
Sean Craig
Reporter
Published Oct. 10, 2024 12:20PM EDT
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
A federal class action lawsuit filed this week in Illinois alleges that 40 elite private U.S. colleges and universities conspired to overcharge students with divorced or separated parents. Lawyers for the plaintiffs said the schools—which include Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, MIT, NYU, Stanford, and Yale—require students seeking non-federal financial aid to use an online application called CSS profile, which is administered by the College Board. That app, they alleged, requires students to disclose the financial assets of “noncustodial parents,” which they claimed is then calculated to reduce the amount of financial aid made available to them. The lawsuit estimates 20,000 people nationwide have been potentially affected in the last 18 years. “Those affected—mostly college applicants from divorced homes—could never have foreseen that this alleged scheme was in place, and students are left receiving less financial aid than they would in a fair market,” Steve Berman, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told multiple outlets. The College Board told The Washington Post “we are confident that we will prevail in this action.”
the key to republican support
*What's Inside*
Poor People Are Business Owners, Too – But Myths Around Poverty and Entrepreneurship Hold Them Back(Reality)
Higher prices, lower turnover, more workers: The reality of California's $20 fast-food minimum wage(Reality)
During antitrust trial, exec admits Kroger jacked up milk and egg prices above inflation(Capitalism)
Us Has Its First National Strategy To Reduce Plastic Pollution − Here Are 3 Strong Points and a Key Issue To Watch(Environment)
Debunking the myth that 'inflation is caused by wage increases and too much government spending'
REALITY
AMERICA IS STILL HAUNTED BY THE GHOST OF RONALD REAGAN'S CORRUPTION
america
ROBERT REICH DEBUNKS THE MYTH THAT 'THE RICH DESERVE TO BE RICH'
reality
THE MOST COMMON ESSENTIAL JOBS IN THE US DON’T PAY A LIVING WAGE
THE ECONOMY IS IMPROVING, BUT INEQUALITY IS TEARING THE US APART. DEMOCRATS IGNORE WORKING-CLASS PAIN AT THEIR PERIL.(SLAVERY 21ST CENTURY)
SHATTERING DECEPTIVE MIRRORS: YOUNGER GENERATIONS HAVE THE CHANCE TO BUCK THE BEAUTY INDUSTRY SCAM(REALITY)
BOTTLED WATER CONTAINS HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PLASTIC BITS: STUDY
REALITY
THE GREAT MEDICARE ADVANTAGE MARKETING SCAM
CORPORATE CRIMINALS
2023 SAW RECORD KILLINGS BY US POLICE. WHO IS MOST IMPACTED?
GESTAPO USA
AMERICA HAS NEVER BEEN UNITED. SO HOW DO WE MOVE FORWARD TOGETHER?
COMMENTARY
MEDICARE ADVANTAGE PLANS: THE HIDDEN DANGERS AND THREATS TO PATIENT CARE
REALITY
enduring commentary
How stupidity is an existential threat to America
Bobby Azarian, Raw Story
May 31, 2024 7:00AM ET
It may sound like an insensitive statement, but the cold hard truth is that there are a lot of stupid people in the world, and their stupidity presents a constant danger to others. Some of these people are in positions of power, and some of them have been elected to run our country. A far greater number of them do not have positions of power, but they still have the power to vote, and the power to spread their ideas. We may have heard of “collective intelligence,” but there is also “collective stupidity,” and it is a force with equal influence on the world. It would not be a stretch to say that at this point in time, stupidity presents an existential threat to America because, in some circles, it is being celebrated.
Although the term "stupidity" may seem derogatory or insulting, it is actually a scientific concept that refers to a specific type of cognitive failure. It is important to realize that stupidity is not simply a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but rather a failure to use one's cognitive abilities effectively. This means that you can be “smart” while having a low IQ, or no expertise in anything. It is often said that “you can’t fix stupid,” but that is not exactly true. By becoming aware of the limitations of our natural intelligence or our ignorance, we can adjust our reasoning, behavior, and decision-making to account for our intellectual shortcomings.
To demonstrate that stupidity does not mean having a low IQ, consider the case of Richard Branson, the billionaire CEO of Virgin Airlines, who is one of the world’s most successful businessmen. Branson has said that he was seen as the dumbest person in school, and has admitted to having dyslexia, a learning disability that affects one’s ability to read and correctly interpret written language. But it wasn’t just reading comprehension that was the problem — “Math just didn’t make sense to me,” Branson has said. “I would certainly have failed an IQ test.”
So, what is responsible for his enormous success, both financially and in terms of being a prolific innovator? Branson attributes his success to surrounding himself with highly knowledgeable and extremely competent people. Branson’s smarts come from his ability to recognize his own limitations, and to know when to defer to others on topics or tasks where he lacks sufficient knowledge or skill.
This means you don’t have to be traditionally intelligent or particularly knowledgeable to be successful in life, make good decisions, have good judgment, and be a positive influence on the world. Stupidity is a consequence of a failure to be awareof one’s own limitations, and this type of cognitive failure has a scientific name: the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a well-known psychological phenomenon that describes the tendency for individuals to overestimate their level of intelligence, knowledge, or competence in a particular area. They may also simultaneously misjudge the intelligence, expertise, or competence of others. In other words, they are ignorant of their own ignorance. The effect has been widely written about, and investigated empirically, with hundreds of studies published in peer-reviewed journals confirming and analyzing the phenomenon, particularly in relation to the dangers it poses in certain contexts.
It is easy to think of examples in which failing to recognize one’s own ignorance can become dangerous. Take for example when people with no medical training try to provide medical advice. It doesn’t take much Internet searching to find some nutritionist from the “alternative medicine” world who is claiming that some herbal ingredient has the power to cure cancer. Some of these people are scam artists, but many of them truly believe that they have a superior understanding of health and physiology. There are many people who trust these self-proclaimed experts, and there is no doubt that some have paid with their lives for it.
What’s particularly disturbing about the Dunning-Kruger effect is that people are attracted to confident leaders, so politicians are incentivized to be overconfident in their beliefs and opinions, and to overstate their expertise. For example, Donald Trump — despite not having any real understanding of what causes cancer — suggested that the noise from wind turbines is causing cancer (a claim that is not supported by any empirical studies). It is well documented that on topics ranging from pandemics to climate change, Trump routinely dismissed the opinions of the professionals who have dedicated their lives to understanding those phenomena, because he thought that he knew better. It’s bad enough that politicians like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene don’t recognize their own ignorance and fail to exercise the appropriate amount of caution when making claims that can affect public health and safety — but what is really disturbing is that they are being celebrated for their overconfidence (i.e., stupidity).
Although the term "stupidity" may seem derogatory or insulting, it is actually a scientific concept that refers to a specific type of cognitive failure. It is important to realize that stupidity is not simply a lack of intelligence or knowledge, but rather a failure to use one's cognitive abilities effectively. This means that you can be “smart” while having a low IQ, or no expertise in anything. It is often said that “you can’t fix stupid,” but that is not exactly true. By becoming aware of the limitations of our natural intelligence or our ignorance, we can adjust our reasoning, behavior, and decision-making to account for our intellectual shortcomings.
To demonstrate that stupidity does not mean having a low IQ, consider the case of Richard Branson, the billionaire CEO of Virgin Airlines, who is one of the world’s most successful businessmen. Branson has said that he was seen as the dumbest person in school, and has admitted to having dyslexia, a learning disability that affects one’s ability to read and correctly interpret written language. But it wasn’t just reading comprehension that was the problem — “Math just didn’t make sense to me,” Branson has said. “I would certainly have failed an IQ test.”
So, what is responsible for his enormous success, both financially and in terms of being a prolific innovator? Branson attributes his success to surrounding himself with highly knowledgeable and extremely competent people. Branson’s smarts come from his ability to recognize his own limitations, and to know when to defer to others on topics or tasks where he lacks sufficient knowledge or skill.
This means you don’t have to be traditionally intelligent or particularly knowledgeable to be successful in life, make good decisions, have good judgment, and be a positive influence on the world. Stupidity is a consequence of a failure to be awareof one’s own limitations, and this type of cognitive failure has a scientific name: the Dunning-Kruger effect.
The Dunning-Kruger effect is a well-known psychological phenomenon that describes the tendency for individuals to overestimate their level of intelligence, knowledge, or competence in a particular area. They may also simultaneously misjudge the intelligence, expertise, or competence of others. In other words, they are ignorant of their own ignorance. The effect has been widely written about, and investigated empirically, with hundreds of studies published in peer-reviewed journals confirming and analyzing the phenomenon, particularly in relation to the dangers it poses in certain contexts.
It is easy to think of examples in which failing to recognize one’s own ignorance can become dangerous. Take for example when people with no medical training try to provide medical advice. It doesn’t take much Internet searching to find some nutritionist from the “alternative medicine” world who is claiming that some herbal ingredient has the power to cure cancer. Some of these people are scam artists, but many of them truly believe that they have a superior understanding of health and physiology. There are many people who trust these self-proclaimed experts, and there is no doubt that some have paid with their lives for it.
What’s particularly disturbing about the Dunning-Kruger effect is that people are attracted to confident leaders, so politicians are incentivized to be overconfident in their beliefs and opinions, and to overstate their expertise. For example, Donald Trump — despite not having any real understanding of what causes cancer — suggested that the noise from wind turbines is causing cancer (a claim that is not supported by any empirical studies). It is well documented that on topics ranging from pandemics to climate change, Trump routinely dismissed the opinions of the professionals who have dedicated their lives to understanding those phenomena, because he thought that he knew better. It’s bad enough that politicians like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene don’t recognize their own ignorance and fail to exercise the appropriate amount of caution when making claims that can affect public health and safety — but what is really disturbing is that they are being celebrated for their overconfidence (i.e., stupidity).
