cdarwin

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

In a statement, the Biden campaign’s Black media director, Jasmine Harris, accused Donald Trump of racism
after a former producer on The Apprentice accused him of using a racial slur on set:

"No one is surprised that Donald Trump, who entered public life by falsely accusing Black men of murder and entered political life spreading lies about the first Black president,
reportedly used the N-word to casually denigrate a successful Black man.

Anyone notice a pattern?
Donald Trump is exactly who Black voters know him to be:
a textbook racist who disrespects and attacks the Black community every chance he gets,
and the most ignorant man to ever run for president.

It’s why Black voters kicked him out of the White House in 2020,
and it’s why they’ll make him a loser a second time this November."

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

Donald Trump recently said he’s “looking at” imposing restrictions on contraception if he is elected president,
and even promised a concrete policy.

Then he quickly walked it back.

But certain constituencies on the right have not given up
—far from it.

We chatted with Politico reporter Alice Miranda Ollstein, co-author of a great new piece detailing
the blueprint that Trump’s MAGA allies are developing for him to restrict birth control through executive action,
about how far this could get if he regains the White House.

It isn’t pretty.

https://newrepublic.com/article/182061/inside-secretive-trump-maga-plot-take-away-birth-control

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

Navient, a large owner of private student loan debt, has created, but not publicized, a program that allows borrowers to apply to have their loans forgiven. Some who succeeded have jubilantly shared their stories in chat groups and other forums.

“I cried, a lot,” said Danielle Maynard, who recently received notice from Navient that nearly $40,000 in private loans she owed for her studies at the New England Institute of Art in Brookline, Mass., would be wiped out.

Navient, (formerly Sallie Mae) has not publicized the discharge program that helped Ms. Maynard. Other borrowers have complained on social media about difficulties getting an application form.

When asked about the program and the criticisms, a company spokesman said, “Borrowers may contact us at any time, and our advocates can assist.”

A pressure campaign from lawmakers, federal regulators and lawyers representing borrowers prompted the company to create the “school misconduct discharge.”

Navient began sending a 12-page application form this year to some borrowers who complained about their private loans.

The document lists dozens of types of impropriety by schools
— such as inflating job placement rates and graduates’ earnings, or misrepresenting their educational programs
— and asks borrowers to choose which apply to their experience.

Applicants are required to submit documentation for their claims.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/30/business/navient-private-student-loan-debt.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

What’s behind the anti-Biden ‘wildfire’ among TikTok influencers

Trump content is generating about 500 million views a month on the site, compared with more than 300 million for Biden posts, as of late May.

And Trump videos are much more likely to be posted by allies than Biden videos, according to CredoIQ data.

That adds to a similar advantage Trump has on Facebook, which reaches an older audience.

Conservatives produced more than 70,000 posts about Biden in the first half of this year, compared with about 18,000 posts about Biden from liberals

The Facebook advantage is not new. Trump has been mining the platform since 2016, when he took advantage of the site’s propensity to elevate content that elicits outrage and anger.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2024-05-30/2024-election-tik-tok-influencers-biden-trump

cdarwin, 9 days ago to revenge

The jury is still out,
but Donald Trump’s campaign has already suggested that
the presumptive Republican presidential nominee will seek
#revenge against whoever was involved in his myriad legal trials.

Trump campaign press secretary Karoline Leavitt warned that
🔥people will “certainly… be held accountable for the crimes that have been committed over the last several years”
—that is, all the people who have attempted to prosecute Trump and give the former president the same legal treatment as they would any other private citizen.
"We’ve seen them lie, we’ve seen them abuse our justice system, we’ve seen Joe Biden target innocent Americans across this country such as the protesters on January 6,” Leavitt said.
🔥Insinuating that Trump’s followers do not expect to be held to the law if they commit a crime, Leavitt said:
“Yes, justice needs to be served for the good-hearted Americans across this country who want to see an equal application of the law,And this trial proves we don’t have that in America right now."
“They’ve thrown in the gulag in Washington, D.C. President Trump has said he will pardon those protesters on day one of his presidency,” she continued, referring to the Soviet Union-era work camps for criminals and political prisoners.

https://newrepublic.com/post/182071/trump-revenge-lawsuits-hush-money-january-6

cdarwin, 9 days ago to Energy

By increasing its use of #renewable #energy, the US has not only

♦️slashed its planet-warming emissions but also
♦️improved its air quality,

👍yielding hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits, a new report has found

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/29/renewable-energy-us-financial-benefits?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

Supreme court to release opinions with Trump immunity and abortion cases pending

🔸Clarence Thomas’s wife calledfor the 2020 election to be overturned.
🔸Samuel Alito had rightwing flags flying at two of his properties.

Yet both conservative justices are set to rule on Donald Trump’s claim of immunity from prosecution for his election meddling,
despite calls from Democrats that they step back from that and other cases because they are conflicted.

Democratic congressman #Jamie #Raskin, proposed ⭐️a novel way to force the two justices off the case:⭐️
"The US Department of Justice
– including the US attorney for the District of Columbia, an appointed US special counsel and the solicitor general,
– all of whom were involved in different ways in the criminal prosecutions underlying these cases and are opposing Mr Trump’s constitutional and statutory claims
– can ⭐️petition the other seven justices to require Justices Alito and Thomas to recuse themselves ⭐️not as a matter of grace but as a matter of law.
The Justice Department and Attorney General Merrick Garland
can invoke two powerful textual authorities for this motion:
the Constitution of the United States, 🔹specifically the due process clause,
and the federal statute mandating judicial disqualification for questionable impartiality, 🔹28 USC Section 455"

👉We’ll have to see if the justice department takes him up on this strategy.

Meanwhile, the Trump immunity case could be among those released at 10am ET, when the supreme court issues decisions.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/live/2024/may/30/supreme-court-trump-immunity-abortion-biden-updates?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

Trump proceeded to have an imaginary conversation with himself and unnamed Toughest Business People
-- begging him to tell them how he puts his pants on.

“‘How do you get up in the morning and put your pants on?
Why do you put those pants on?’

‘I’ll explain it to you someday’

‘How do you do it? How do you get up? How?’”

https://newrepublic.com/post/181922/trump-brags-pants-bronx-rally

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

Republican activist with ties to DeSantis and Rubio indicted over January 6

Barbara Balmaseda, 23, charged with five counts after FBI investigation identifies her at riot alongside Proud Boys

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/may/29/young-republican-jan-6-indictment?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

Joe Biden is a good and successful American President.
The country is clearly better off.
And we have a very strong case for his re-election.
The Democratic Party is strong, winning elections across the country,
raising tons of money and is
building the most powerful political machine we’ve ever had.

And what does GOP have?
They have Trump,
the ugliest political thing any of us has ever seen,
leading a party far more a raging dumpster fire than a well-oiled machine.
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/id-much-rather-be-us-than-them-my

cdarwin, 9 days ago to random

Mother of Jan. 6 Capitol Police officer Michael Fanone
was swatted after he called Trump 'authoritarian'

Fanone was abducted by the mob on Jan. 6
and nearly killed when a MAGA-hatted rioter who believed Donald Trump's lies about the 2020 election drove a stun gun into his neck.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/mother-jan-6-officer-michael-fanone-swatted-called-trump-authoritarian-rcna154467

angiebaby, 10 days ago to random

The Democratic Party is a moral corpse.

cdarwin, 10 days ago to random

As the American economy grows radically unequal it is holding back economic growth

The "elephant in the room"
is #extreme income #inequality.

How big is this elephant?

A staggering $50 trillion.

That is how much the upward redistribution of income has cost American workers over the past several decades.

This is not some back-of-the-napkin approximation.

According to a groundbreaking new working paper by Carter C. Price and Kathryn Edwards of the RAND Corporation,
had the more equitable income distributions of the three decades following World War II (1945 through 1974) merely held steady,
🔸the aggregate annual income of Americans earning below the 90th percentile would have been $2.5 trillion higher in the year 2018 alone.

🔸That is an amount equal to nearly 12 percent of GDP
—enough to more than double median income
—enough to pay every single working American in the bottom nine deciles an additional $1,144 a month.
— Every month.
— Every single year.

Price and Edwards calculate that the cumulative tab for 🔹our four-decade-long experiment in radical inequality 🔹had grown to over $47 trillion from 1975 through 2018.

At a recent pace of about $2.5 trillion a year,
that number we estimate crossed the $50 trillion mark by early 2020.

That’s $50 trillion that would have gone into the paychecks of working Americans had inequality held constant
—$50 trillion that would have built a far larger and more prosperous economy
—$50 trillion that would have enabled the vast majority of Americans to enter this pandemic far more healthy, resilient, and financially secure.

As the RAND report [whose research was funded by the Fair Work Center which co-author David Rolf is a board member of] demonstrates,
💥a rising tide most definitely did not lift all boats.
💥It didn’t even lift most of them,
as nearly all of the benefits of growth these past 45 years were captured by those at the very top.

https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/

cdarwin, 10 days ago to random

Barbara Fields,
the first Black woman awarded tenure at Columbia University,
clearly identifies slavery as the foremost cause of the Civil War,
and is emphatic about the war’s devastating racial legacy.

In one of the film’s most powerful moments, Fields says,
🔸“The Civil War is still going on.
It’s still to be fought and, regrettably, it can still be lost.”🔸

https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2020/10/a-mistaken-form-of-trust-ken-burnss-the-civil-war-at-thirty/

cdarwin, 10 days ago to random

Trump makes sweeping promises to donors on audacious fundraising tour

By tying donation requests to pledges of tax cuts and other policies, Trump is testing the boundaries of federal campaign finance laws.

By frequently tying the fundraising requests within seconds of promises of tax cuts, oil project infrastructure approvals and other favorable policies
and asking for sums more than his campaign and the GOP can legally accept from an individual,
Trump is exceeding the boundaries of federal campaign finance laws.
In one recent meeting staged by his super PAC, Trump asked oil industry executives to raise $1 billion for his campaign
and said raising such a sum would be a “deal” given how much money they would save if he were reelected as president.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/28/trump-wealthy-donors-fundraising/

cdarwin, 10 days ago to random

The media and sullen nonvoters should listen to Ken Burns

“Othering is the simplistic binary way to make and identify enemies, but it is also the surest way to your own self-imprisonment.”

His plea to oppose repression everywhere earned sustained applause.

Celebrated filmmaker and chronicler of American history Ken Burns delivered a powerful address at Brandeis University to a rapt audience.
Burns offered some elegantly phrased life advice
— “Leadership is humility and generosity squared.”

At a university with a long Jewish heritage and large Jewish student body (which has withstood the threefold horror of Oct. 7, the Gaza war and a spike in antisemitism),
he counseled:
“There’s only us. There is no them. Whenever someone suggests to you, whomever it may be in your life, that there is a them, run away.” He added, His most compelling words came when he departed, apologetically, from his usual position of neutrality.

“Do not be seduced by easy equalization,” he said. “There is nothing equal about this equation. We are at an existential crossroads in our political and civic lives.”

He bluntly warned that
🔸 “the presumptive Republican nominee is the opioid of all opioids,” 🔸a drug meant to alleviate pain whereby
“you end up re-enslaved with an even bigger problem, a worse affliction and addiction, a bigger delusion.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/05/28/ken-burns-graduation-election-trump/

cdarwin, 11 days ago to random

Two former police officers
who came under attack from a pro-Trump mob in the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot
are coming to Arizona
to warn about the possible political violence that might follow Donald Trump into a second White House term.

👍Sgt. Aquilino #Gonell 👍and
💪Officer Harry #Dunn 💪will campaign Thursday in Arizona on behalf of President Joe Biden's reelection effort.
Gonell and Dunn are set to meet with "elected officials, and community leaders, advocates against political violence and concerned community members," per the Biden campaign.
@cdarwin says: Bravo 👏
Now recruit NYC council member, and member of the #ExoneratedFive ,
to campaign for Biden!]

https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/politics/arizona/2024/05/28/jan-6-veterans-aquilino-gonell-and-harry-dunn-to-campaign-for-biden/73873838007/

cdarwin, 11 days ago to random

Trump told donors he will crush pro-Palestinian protests, deport demonstrators
Trump has waffled on whether the Israel-Gaza war should end.
-- But speaking to wealthy donors behind closed doors, he said that he supports Israel’s right to continue “its war on terror.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/05/27/trump-israel-gaza-policy-donors/

cdarwin, 11 days ago to random

Trump Just Sold His $10M Jet to one of his Megadonors

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-just-sold-his-dollar10m-jet-to-one-of-his-megadonors-mehrdad-moayedi

cdarwin, 11 days ago to random

Amid a roadkill epidemic, California builds world’s largest wildlife bridge
The construction is meant to give threatened animals a path over a 10-lane freeway instead of through it, hopefully extending their lives and their habitat

https://wapo.st/3WS6Onv

cdarwin, 11 days ago to random

The toxic surveillance business model
– and the big tech monopolies that built their empires on top of this model:

The roots of this business model can be traced to the 1990s, as scholar Matthew Crain’s work illuminates.

In a rush of enthusiasm to commercialize networked computation,
the Clinton administration laid down the rules of the road for the profit-driven internet in 1996.

In doing so, they committed two original sins
–sins that we’re still paying for today.

🔸First, even though they were warned by advocates and agencies within their own government about the privacy and civil liberties concerns that rampant data collection across insecure networks would produce,
they put NO restrictions on commercial surveillance.
None.
Private companies were unleashed to collect and create as much intimate information about us and our lives as they wanted
–far more than was permissible for governments.
(Governments, of course, found ways to access this goldmine of corporate surveillance, as the Snowden documents exposed.)

And in the US, we still lack a federal privacy law in 2024.

🔸Second, they explicitly endorsed advertising as the business model of the commercial internet–fulfilling the wishes of advertisers who already dominated print and TV media.

This combination was–and is–poison.

Because, of course, the imperative of advertising is
“know your customer,”
in service of identifying the people most likely to be convinced to buy or do the things you want them to.

And to know your customer you need to collect data on them.

This incentivized mass surveillance, which now feeds governments and private industry well beyond advertising,
with strong encryption serving as one of our few meaningful checks on this dynamic.

On this toxic foundation, over the course of the 2000s, the Big Tech platforms established themselves
through search, social media, marketplaces, ad exchanges, and much more.

They invested in research and development to enable faster and bigger data collection, processing, and to build and maximize computational infrastructures and techniques that could facilitate such collection and ‘use’ of data.

Economies of scale, network effects, and the self-reinforcing dynamics of communications infrastructures enabled the firms early to this toxic model to establish monopoly dominance.

This was aided by the US government’s use of soft power, trade agreements, and imperial dominance to ensure that the EU and other jurisdictions adopted the US paradigm.

This history helps explain why the majority of the world’s big tech corporations are based in the US, with the rest emerging from China.

The US got a head start, via military infrastructure and neoliberal policies and investment,
while China built a self-contained market, capable of supporting its own platforms with its own norms for content that further limited external competition.

https://www.helmut-schmidt.de/en/news-1/detail/the-prizewinners-speech