#Judd Legum of Popular Information

[filosofablogger]

Playing Both Ends Against The Middle

I was thoroughly disgusted, but not surprised by the latest from Judd Legum et al at Popular Information about the fossil fuel industry’s latest attempts to keep themselves afloat while killing the rest of us.  Read on … 1500 environmental lobbyists are double-dealing with the fossil fuel industry By Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, and Rebecca Crosby 6 July 2023 Hiring a lobbyist is about…

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#environmental lobbyists #F Minus #fossil fuel industry #greed and wealth #Judd Legum of Popular Information #Mississippi River Delta

[ebookporn]

Florida teachers told to remove books from classroom libraries or risk felony prosecution

by Judd Legum

Teachers in Manatee County, Florida, are being told to make their classroom libraries — and any other "unvetted" book — inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution. The new policy is part of an effort to comply with new laws and regulations championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R). It is based on the premise, promoted by right-wing advocacy groups, that teachers and librarians are using books to "groom" students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies. 

Kevin Chapman, the Chief of Staff for the Manatee County School District, told Popular Information that the policy was communicated to principals in a meeting last Wednesday. Individual schools are now in the process of informing teachers and other staff.

Teachers in Manatee County lamented the news on social media. "My heart is broken for Florida students today as I am forced to pack up my classroom library," one Manatee teacher wrote on Facebook. 

READ MORE

#censorship #banned books #florida #teachers #librarians #booksellers #literacy #education #republicans

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

-fae

#mmiw #missing and murdered indigenous women

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

In 2024, reliable access to high-speed internet is no longer a luxury; it is a basic necessity. From job applications to managing personal finances and completing school work, internet access is an essential part of daily life. Without an internet connection, individuals are effectively cut off from basic societal activities. 

But the reality is that many people — particularly those living around the poverty line — can not afford internet access. Without internet access, the difficult task of working your way from the American economy's bottom rung becomes virtually impossible.   On November 21, 2021, President Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The new law included the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided up to $30 per month to individuals or families with income up to 200% of the federal poverty line to help pay for high-speed internet. (For a family of four, the poverty line is currently $31,200.) On Tribal lands, where internet access is generally more expensive, the ACP offers subsidies up to $75 per month.  The concept started during the Trump administration. The last budget enacted by Trump included $3.2 billion to help families afford internet access. The FCC made the money available as a subsidy to low-income individuals and families through a program known as the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. The legislation signed by Biden extended and formalized the program.  It has been a smashing success.

Today, the ACP is "helping 23 million households – 1 in 6 households across America." The program has particularly benefited "rural communities, veterans, and older Americans where the lack of affordable, reliable high-speed internet contributes to significant economic, health and other disparities." According to an FCC survey, two-thirds of beneficiaries "reported they had inconsistent internet service or no internet service at all prior to ACP." These households report using their high-speed internet to "schedule or attend healthcare appointments (72%), apply for jobs or complete work (48%), do schoolwork (75% for ACP subscribers 18-24 years old)." Tomorrow, the program will abruptly end.  In October 2023, the White House sent a supplemental budget request to Congress, which included $6 billion to extend the program through the end of 2024. There is also a bipartisan bill, the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which would extend the program with $7 billion in funding. The benefits of the program have shown to be far greater than the costs. An academic study published in February 2024 found that "for every dollar spent on the ACP, the nation’s GDP increases by $3.89." The program will lapse tomorrow because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to bring either the bill (or the supplemental funding request) to a vote. The Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act has 225 co-sponsors which means that, if Johnson held a vote, it would pass. 

[...]

The Republican attack on affordable internet

Why will Johnson not even allow a vote to extend the ACP? He is not commenting. But there are hints in the federal budget produced by the Republican Study Committee (RSC). The RSC is the "conservative caucus" of the House GOP, and counts 179 of the 217 Republicans in the House as members. Johnson served as the chair of the RSC in 2019 and 2020. He is currently a member of the group's executive committee.  The RSC's latest budget says it "stands against" the ACP and labels it a "government handout[] that disincentivize[s] prosperity." The RSC claims the program is unnecessary because "80 percent" of beneficiaries had internet access before the program went into effect. For that statistic, the RSC cites a report from a right-wing think tank, the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), which opposes the ACP. EPIC, in turn, cites an FCC survey to support its contention that 80% of ACP beneficiaries already had internet access. The survey actually found that "over two-thirds of survey respondents (68%) reported they had inconsistent internet service or no internet service at all prior to ACP."

[...] The RSC also falsely claims that funding for the precursor to the ACP, the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program (EBB), "was signed into law at the end of President Biden’s first year in office." This is false. Former President Trump signed the funding into law in December 2020. The RSC's position is not popular. A December 2023 poll found that 79% of voters support "continuing the ACP, including 62% of Republicans, 78% of Independents, and 96% of Democrats."

In 2024, access to the internet is a necessity and not just a luxury, and the Republicans are set to end the Affordable Connectivity Program if no action is taken. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) provided subsidies to low-income people and families to obtain internet access.

#Internet #Internet Access #Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act #Affordable Connectivity Program #Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act #IIJA #Emergency Broadband Benefit Program #Republican Study Committee #Economic Policy Innovation Center

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Whamond

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 12, 2024 (Tuesday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 13, 2024

Today, Democratic voters in Georgia gave President Joe Biden enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president when the Democratic National Convention is held in August. Republican voters in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington gave Trump enough delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination, although former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race last week, continues to win voters—more than 21% in Washington.

Also today, Special Counsel Robert Hur testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his report on Biden’s handling of classified documents in his possession from his years as vice president. The hearing appeared to show that the Democrats have finally found a way to defang the tactic Republicans have been using since the 1990s. For decades now, under the guise of the important function of congressional oversight, Republicans have weaponized congressional hearings to smear Democrats in the media.

In this Congress, and especially today, rather than accept the framework the Republicans advance as they try to craft a narrative for right-wing media, Democrats have pushed back with facts and their own story. 

In January 2023, apparently wishing to avoid accusations that the Department of Justice was favoring Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur, a partisan Republican whom Trump had appointed U.S. attorney for Maryland, to oversee the investigation into whether Biden had mishandled classified documents.

In his final report, released last month, Hur concluded that “no criminal charges are warranted in this matter...even if there was no policy against charging a sitting president.” But then Hur went on for more than 300 pages to offer a picture of Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Notably, Hur reported that Biden did not remember the date of his son Beau Biden’s death.

The media ran with that editorializing rather than the fact that Hur had concluded that criminal charges were not warranted. Stories about Biden’s age swamped the media. Judd Legum of Popular Information found that in the four days after Hur’s report appeared, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal together published 81 articles about Hur’s assessment of Biden’s memory, suggesting that Biden was sliding into dementia and should not be running for reelection. 

Republicans immediately demanded the transcriptions of Biden’s interviews with Hur and his staff, saying they needed more information for their case for impeaching Biden. Republican House leadership issued a statement that “[a] man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office.”

House Republicans asked Hur to testify before the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Trump loyalist Jim Jordan (R-OH). Hur prepared for his testimony with the help of Trumpworld figures, and he resigned from the Department of Justice effective yesterday, so he appeared before the committee today not as a DOJ employee bound by certain ethical guidelines, but as a private citizen. 

But while Republicans clearly designed their plans for this Congress’s investigations to seed smears of Democrats in the public mind, Democrats have come to hearings exceedingly well prepared to turn the tables back on the Republicans. That strategy was obvious today as it quickly became clear in the hearing that it was not Biden who was on the hot seat.

Hours before the hearing was about to begin, the Department of Justice released a transcript of Biden’s interviews, held in the two days after Hamas attacked Israel as he rushed to respond to that crisis. The transcripts belied Hur’s portrayal of Biden’s answers; among other things, he clearly knew the exact date Beau died. 

The transcript also revealed a pointed contrast between Trump and Biden, with the president telling investigators he didn’t “own a stock or a bond that I’m aware of…. I never wanted to have any argument…. The thing I valued most my whole life, my reputation and integrity. So I never wanted to have anything that someone said, you bought that stock and it went up because you traded. Never did that.” 

Democrats came to the hearing prepared to turn it into a hearing on Trump. Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) called out Hur for unprofessional behavior in disparaging the president after finding the matter should be dismissed. Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) suggested Hur was angling for an appointment in a second Trump administration and asked him to demonstrate his credibility by pledging that he would not accept such an appointment. Hur declined to do so. 

The hearing was covered live on various television channels, and the Democrats used that media time to show videos of Trump slurring his words, forgetting names, and speaking in word salad, getting their own sound bites to voters. They got Hur to spell out the clear contrast between Trump’s theft of documents and Biden’s cooperation with the government. 

Conservative lawyer George Conway wrote on social media: “I think Biden’s State of the Union address last week and Hur’s immolation today will go down in political history as Reagan’s ‘I am not going to exploit…my opponent’s youth and inexperience’ moment…only on steroids.” Conway was referring to Reagan’s response in a 1984 presidential debate to a question about his own age; Reagan’s opponent, Walter Mondale, later said he knew Reagan’s answer was the moment he had lost not only the debate but probably the election. 

In other news today, pressure on House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to bring up the national security supplemental bill that includes aid for Ukraine continues to increase. Although the administration says it has found an additional $300 million from Pentagon cost savings to supply artillery rounds and munitions for Ukraine, national security advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters:

 “It is nowhere near enough to meet Ukraine's battlefield needs and it will not prevent Ukraine from running out of ammunition." 

House Democrats are working to get enough signatures on a discharge petition to force Johnson to bring up a vote on a supplemental bill—which is expected to pass if it makes it to a vote—and today, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also added pressure, encouraging Johnson to bring up the measure that passed the Senate in mid-February. “Allow a vote,” he said. “A vote. Let the House speak.” 

Johnson’s control of the House, such as it is, got a little weaker today as Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) announced he is leaving Congress at the end of next week. “It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress and having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress,” Buck told CNN’s Dana Bash. “But I’m leaving because I think there’s a job to do out there…. This place has just devolved into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people.”

The Internal Revenue Service today launched a pilot program in 12 states to enable taxpayers to file their federal tax returns directly, for free. The Treasury Department estimates that about one third of all tax returns are simple enough to use this new system and that about 19 million taxpayers could use it this season.  

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#letters from an american #Heather Cox Richardson #Judiciary Committee #House democrats #discharge petition

[merelygifted]

According to a new report in Substack publication Popular Information, 50 companies have donated over $23 million to election deniers since Jan. 6, 2021. MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin speaks to Judd Legum, author of Popular Information.

#capitalism #business #fascism #SEDITION #SUBVERSION #domestic terrorism #ESPIONAGE #crime #EVIL #conspiracy idiots #election interference #magats #WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK RETHUGLICANTS?! #rethuglicants #conservative politics #reach complete enlightenment #corruption #screw the people #screw the voters

[kp777]

#saudi arabia #oil and gas industry #donald trump

[meret118]

#Censorship #Books

[filosofablogger]

If You Needed Another Reason ...

Stephen Miller The first time Stephen Miller flew onto my radar, I saw him as a joke, writing just a few days before the 2016 election … “Often called ‘Donald Trump’s warm-up act’, Miller’s job in the campaign has been to go behind Trump with his whisk broom and dustpan, cleaning up the detritus left behind.  Surprisingly, Miller is capable of speaking in complete sentences, hence his value…

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#"America First Legal (AFL)" #Adolf Hitler #Anti-immigration #Judd Legum of Popular Information #Stephen Miller #white supremacy

[vague-humanoid]

[mitchipedia]

In Popular Information Judd Legum reports that Match Group “established a fund to cover the costs of out-of-state abortions after Texas banned most abortions last year…” 

But in 2021, Match Group also donated $137,000 to the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA). Why does that matter? RAGA, by its own admission, played a central role in Dobbs. Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R), a member of RAGA, was in charge of the legal strategy to eliminate the constitutional right to an abortion. 

Does this seem contradictory? It shouldn’t—eliminating the right to abortion unless you work for a certain employer just brings abortion in line with the rest of our national health care policy, where only the submissive employee has a right to any health care at all.

The Lottery—Today in Tabs

#twt #abortion

[maryturck]

ICYMI: Clothes for Goblins, Right-Wing Nuts, Wage Theft, and more 

Illustration from Judd Legum’s Popular Information article Clothe the Goblins!  Judd Legum reports that the Moms for Liberty campaign to make books decent for children has led to Florida teachers drawing clothes on picture book illustrations—such as adding underpants to cartoon child in Maurice Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen and covering a goblin’s butt in Unicorns Are The Worst. Other…

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[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

While Buckley's view prevailed on April 30, over the years, Columbia came to embrace the protests — and political activism — as an important part of its legacy. In the aftermath of the police raid, the university sided with the protestors, "canceling the gym and severing ties with a weapons-research institute affiliated with the Defense Department." Kirk resigned as president within a year.  It also resulted in structural reforms at Columbia that were designed to give students and faculty a more formal role in setting university policy. In 1969, the University Senate, a 100-person body consisting mostly of faculty and students, was created by referendum. Today, the University Statutes stipulate that a president may only consider summoning the NYPD (or other "external authorities") to end a demonstration if it "poses a clear and present danger to persons, property, or the substantial functioning of any division of the University." Even then, the University Statutes require "consultation with a majority of a panel established by the University Senate’s Executive Committee" before the president takes action.  [...]

Columbia University in 2024

On April 18, 2024, Columbia President Minouche Shafik wrote the NYPD regarding a group of students who were occupying the campus' south lawn. The day before, the students had established a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" in protest of Israel's operations in Gaza — and Columbia's investments in companies allegedly profiting from the war. The Israeli assault on Gaza, launched in response to Hamas' October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, has killed thousands of civilians and created a humanitarian crisis. Shafik accused the Columbia students, whose tuition costs $66,000, of trespassing on their own campus. She requested "the NYPD’s help to remove these individuals." Shafik claimed the students were not authorized to protest on the lawn and posed a "clear and present danger." (A policy limiting protests to designated areas was only put in place in February.)

The NYPD responded to the request by descending on the University and arresting 108 students. Some students were restrained in zip ties for several hours and transported to a local police precinct before being released. Shafik also said that all students "participating in the encampment" have been "suspended" for an indefinite period.

According to the NYPD, the protest was entirely non-violent. "To put this in perspective, the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner," NYPD Chief John Chell said.  Antisemitism exists on and off the Columbia campus. But the mass arrests conflated peaceful pro-Palestinian protests with prejudice and hatred toward Jewish people. Shafik claimed she "complied with the requirements of Section 444 of the University Statutes." Section 444 requires "consultation" with the University Senate Executive Committee. While Shafik informed the committee of her decision, it is unclear if a genuine consultation occurred. "The executive committee did not approve the presence of NYPD on campus," Jeanine D’Armiento, chair of the Committee, told the Columbia Spectator. 

Like in 1968, shortly before Shafik called in the NYPD, she faced substantial political pressure from the right. On April 17, 2024, the day before the NYPD raid, Shafik testified for three hours before the Republican-controlled House Committee on Education. The hearing, Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism, was modeled after prior hearings that forced the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania to resign. (Shafik missed the earlier hearing because she was traveling internationally.)

Throughout last week's hearing, Shafik and other representatives of Columbia touted their "work with external investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify and discipline students who breach policy." Shafik assured members of the committee that Columbia students "are getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences."  During the hearing, Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA) told Shakik that, in the Bible, God is "real clear" that "if you bless Israel, I will bless you" and "if you curse Israel, I will curse you." Allen asked Shakik if she wanted "Columbia University to be cursed by God?"  "Definitely not," Shafik replied. 

[...] Shafik's actions, however, appear to have backfired. In the wake of mass arrests, the protests on the south lawn have continued and inspired others to protest in solidarity across the globe. The Columbia protesters are now calling not only for divestment but, in an echo of the 1968 protests, "an end to Columbia expansion into West Harlem."

Students at Columbia University launched Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the campus's south lawn to protest the Israel Apartheid State's occupation of Palestine and the university's investments in companies alleged to be profitting off the Gaza Genocide.

The university's chancellor, Minouche Shafik, called on the NYPD to arrest the students involved in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. The NYPD called the protesters and protesters peaceful and non-violent.

The heavy-handed actions by Shafik have led to Gaza Solidarity Encampments spreading to other campuses, such as MIT, Tufts University, and Michigan.

#Israel/Hamas War Protests #Israel/Hamas War #Israel #Hamas #Columbia University #Gaza Genocide #Gaza #Gaza Solidarity Encampment #Minouche Shafik #Colleges #Rick Allen #Israel Apartheid State #Occupation of Palestine

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Smith :: Las Vegas Sun

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 29, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 30, 2024

In December 2020, when the pandemic illustrated the extraordinary disadvantage created by the inability of those in low-income households to communicate online with schools and medical professionals, then-president Trump signed into law an emergency program to provide funding to make internet access affordable. In 2021, Congress turned that idea into the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and made it part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law). 

The program has enabled 23 million American households to afford high-speed internet. Those benefiting from it are primarily military families, older Americans, and Black, Latino, and Indigenous households. In February, the Brookings Institution cited economics studies that said each dollar invested in the ACP increases the nation’s gross domestic product by $3.89 and that the program has led to increased employment and higher wages. It also cuts the costs of healthcare by replacing some in-person emergency room visits with telehealth.  

Slightly more of the money in the program goes to districts represented by Republicans than to those represented by Democrats, which might explain why 79% of voters want to continue the program: 96% of Democrats, 78% of Independents, and 62% of Republicans.

But the ACP is running out of money. Back in October 2023, President Joe Biden asked Congress to fund it until the end of 2024, and a bipartisan bill that would extend the program has been introduced in both chambers of Congress. Each remains in an appropriation committee. As of today, the House bill has 228 co-sponsors, the Senate bill has 5. 

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said he supports the measure, but House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has not commented. Judd Legum pointed out in Popular Information today that the 2025 budget of the far-right Republican Study Committee (RSC) calls for allowing the ACP to expire, saying the RSC “stands against corporate welfare and government handouts that disincentivize prosperity.” More than four fifths of House Republicans belong to the RSC. 

The differences between the parties’ apparent positions on the ACP illustrates the difference in their political ideology. Republicans object to government investment in society and believe market forces should be left to operate without interference in order to promote prosperity. Democrats believe that economic prosperity comes from the hard work of ordinary people and that government investment in society clears the way for those people to succeed. 

Wealth growth for young Americans was stagnant for decades before the pandemic, but it has suddenly experienced a historic rise. In Axios, Emily Peck reported that household wealth for Americans under 40 has risen an astonishing 49% from where it was before the pandemic. Wealth doubled for those born between 1981 and 1996. This increase in household wealth comes in part from rising home prices and more financial assets, as well as less debt, which fell by $5,000 per household. Households of those under 35 have shown a 140% increase in median wealth in the same time period.

Brendan Duke and Christian E. Weller, the authors of the Center for American Progress study from which Peck’s information came, say this wealth growth is not tied to a few super-high earners, but rather reflects broad based improvement. “A simple reason for the strong wealth growth is that younger Americans are experiencing an especially low unemployment rate and especially strong wage growth,” Duke and Weller note, “making it easier for them to accumulate wealth.” 

In honor of National Small Business Week, Vice President Kamala Harris today launched an “economic opportunity tour” in Atlanta, where she highlighted the federal government’s $158 million investment in “The Stitch,” a project to reconnect midtown to downtown Atlanta. This project is an initial attempt to reconnect the communities that were severed by the construction of highways, often cutting minority or poor neighborhoods off from jobs and driving away businesses while saddling the neighborhoods with pollution. 

While some advocates wanted to use the $3.3 billion available from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act to take down highways altogether, the administration has shied away from such a dramatic revision and has instead focused on creating new public green spaces, bike paths, access to public transportation, safety features, and so on, to link and improve neighborhoods. More than 40 states so far have received funding under this program. 

The administration says that projects like The Stitch will promote economic growth in neighborhoods that have borne the burden of past infrastructure projects. Today it touted the extraordinary growth of small businesses since Biden and Harris took office, noting that their economic agenda “has driven the first, second and third strongest years of new business application rates on record—and is on pace for the fourth—with Americans filing a record 17.2 million new business applications.” 

Small businesses owned by historically underserved populations “are growing at near-historic rates, with Black business ownership growing at the fastest pace in 30 years and Latino business ownership growing at the fastest pace in more than a decade,” the White House said. The administration has invested in small businesses, working to level the playing field between them and their larger counterparts by making capital and information available, while working to reform the tax code so that corporations pay as much in taxes as small businesses do.  

“Small businesses are the engines of the economy,” the White House said today. “As President Biden says, every time someone starts a new small business, it’s an act of hope and confidence in our economy.” 

In place of economic growth, Republicans have focused on whipping up supporters by insisting that Democrats are corrupt and are cheating to take over the government. Matt Gertz of Media Matters noted in February that “Fox News host Sean Hannity and his House Republican allies spent 2023 trying to manufacture an impeachable offense against President Joe Biden out of their fact-free obsession with the president’s son, Hunter.” At least 325 segments about Hunter Biden appeared on Hannity’s show in 2023; 220 had at least one false or misleading claim. The most frequent purveyor of that disinformation was Representative James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, who went onto the show 43 times to talk about the president’s son. 

The House impeachment inquiry was really designed to salt right-wing media channels with lies about the president and, in the end, turned up nothing other than witnesses who said President Biden was not involved in his son’s businesses. Then the Republicans’ key witness, Alexander Smirnov, was indicted for lying about the Bidens, and then he turned out to be in contact with Russian spies. 

Comer has been quietly backing away from impeaching the president until today, when he popped back into the spotlight after news broke that Hunter Biden’s lawyer has threatened to sue the Fox News Channel (FNC) for “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him.” His lawyer’s letter calls out FNC’s promotion of Smirnov’s false allegations. 

Last year, FNC paid almost $800 million to settle defamation claims made by Dominion Voting Systems after FNC hosts pushed the lie that Dominion machines had changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. 

Legal pressure on companies lying for profit has proved successful. Two weeks ago, the far-right media channel One America News Network (OAN) settled a defamation lawsuit with the voting technology company Smartmatic. Today, OAN retracted a false story about former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, apparently made to discredit the testimony of Stormy Daniels about her sexual encounters with Trump. OAN suggested that it was Cohen rather than Trump who had a relationship with Daniels, and that Cohen had extorted Trump over the story.  

“OAN apologizes to Mr. Cohen for any harm the publication may have caused him,” the network wrote in a statement. “To be clear, no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels were having an affair and no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen ‘cooked up’ the scheme to extort the Trump Organization before the 2016 election.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Mike Smith #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #defamation claims #Affordable Connectivity Program #income inequality #small businesses #economic growth #RSC Republican Study Committee #trickle down economics

[macwantspeace]

I don't believe I was speeding, officer.

Judd Legum newsletter Popular Information 8/3/23 - on fraudulent electors scheme -

This scheme alone, if proven in court, would likely be enough to substantiate all four felony charges. And it has nothing to do with whether Trump believed (or still believes) he won the 2020 election. Even if Trump believed with all his heart he actually won Arizona despite the vote count, that does not make it legal for him to conspire to create a fake set of electors to disrupt the certification process and the January 6 congressional proceeding. That is illegal regardless of what he believes. 

In an interview with Popular Information, Marc Elias, one of the nation's most prolific and experienced election attorneys, explained how the law works with an analogy:

I walk into a bank, and I think they are wrongfully holding my money. I think my balance is $5,000, and they think my balance is zero. And I genuinely believe that I am owed $5,000. That doesn't excuse me from robbing the bank. I can't pull out a gun and take the money. Particularly with the fake electors scheme, even if you believed that you won, you were not entitled to have people submit fake forms on January 6.

#trump indictment #fake electors

[the-sayuri-rin]

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has defended his state's new educational standards teaching that Black people learned valuable skills from slavery by saying that it was created by a work group of respectable Black scholars.

But according to Judd Legum's Popular Information investigative blog, at least one of those scholars has a bizarre past.

William B. Allen, a retired professor with a history of promoting far-right, anti-public school, and anti-LGBTQ causes, previously served as chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission in 1989.

However, writes Legum, "during his time as chairman, Allen was also charged with kidnapping a 14-year-old girl from an indigenous reservation in Arizona. The girl was at the center of a custody battle between her birth mother and a white couple that wanted to adopt her. 'Allen contends that the girl wants to leave the reservation, though the mother has formal custody,' TIME reported in 1989."

Allen ultimately apologized but refused to step down from the commission.