Wow: “Early in the COVID-19 pandemic a blizzard of disinformation had deadly consequences. A Carnegie Mellon study analyzed more than 200 million tweets discussing COVID-19 at the height of the first lockdown. Eighty-two percent of influential users advocating for “reopening America” were bots. This was a targeted “propaganda machine,” most likely Russian, designed to intensify the worst public health crisis in a century.”
Trump and Allies Forge Plans to Increase Presidential Power in 2025
The former president and his backers aim to strengthen the power of the White House and limit the independence of federal agencies. #nytimes
wow: "In 2004, [Justice Clarence Thomas] joined celebrities including Oprah Winfrey and Ed McMahon at a three-day 70th birthday bash in Montana for the industrialist Dennis Washington."
Where Clarence Thomas Entered an Elite Circle and Opened a Door to the Court
The exclusive Horatio Alger Association brought the justice access to wealthy members and unreported V.I.P. treat. #scotus#clarenceThomas#supremecourt#ethics
What does Donald Trump have over these Republicans in Congress. Watching Senator Lankford- Oklahoma, talk about immigration to Margaret Brennan on Face The Nation -- you can sense the animal fear these people have of Trump.
What does he have over them?
[Robert Welch, The John Birch Society] sharpened his conspiracy theories, notions that were also deeply rooted in the history and culture of American life, which Welch had a special talent for exploiting.”
Birchers
Matthew Dallek
Such ideas had existed in the hothouse of US politics since the founding of the republic. They were endemic to the United States, and the nation’s freewheeling culture created ideal conditions to host and sustain them. ..
So. I got disgusted w xfinity and cut my cable. Kept the internet because .. in 2024, in San Francisco, there are no other options for high speed internet.. really.. that aside..
Now, I'm without live news. no msnbc, no cnn, etc. I'm looking around at options before I go back to my abuser, xfinity.
what have other people done.
I like having access to live news..
thoughts? Ideas? thanks
How Russia Punched an $11 Billion Hole in the West’s Oil Sanctions
Moscow’s monthly income from oil exports is greater now than before the invasion of Ukraine, highlighting the failure of measures to curb its war chest.
Bloomberg By Alaric Nightingale, Julian Lee, and Alex Longley
“.. in the forest outside Lyman, these freshly dead Russian men, with their civilian backpacks containing their meager possessions, with their sleeping bags and pouches of fever and pain medication, were no longer anonymous and generic invaders. I looked at their faces and felt anger. What had they died for? Putin’s megalomania? The wounded pride of old men whose empire collapsed in 1991, just as they were supposed to inherit it? The Russian idea, whatever that may be?”
While #RFKJr has railed at billionaires, he has described Sacks and Musk as “incredibly patriotic and incredibly committed to democracy.” He seems largely uninterested in many progressive economic-policy ideas, including a wealth tax, universal basic income, or a federal jobs guarantee, and regularly reaffirms that he is “a free-market-capitalism kind of guy.”
Wow. Just had an insane interaction with an ex-older-‘hippie’ pro-Kennedy canvasser at the Ferry Building. That same tenor, cult-like conviction & refusal to listen or engage respectfully as Trump supporters - it’s shocking
#GOPDebate @NikkiHaley
None of the Republicans mentioned the reason health care costs have spiraled : private equity. Private equity investors are extracting wealth from the hospitals, dr's offices, ER, hospice, and providing worse care, fewer staff --all to maximize profits.
Bob Menendez must be removed. now.
Menendez Co-Defendant’s Curious Path From Bad Deals to a Meat Monopoly
After emigrating to New Jersey from Egypt, Wael Hana faced a string of business and legal problems. Then his friend started dating a powerful U.S. senator.
Random: no one will know this ancient television reference but—it just struck me that —in Petticoat Junction— “lotsa curves, you bet! Even more —when you get, to the junction—Petticoat Junction!” They lived in Hooterville. Hooterville! Hooter ville- like was that a coy reference to women’s breasts? In the sixties—with censors..
I was just thinking …
‘A native of the Texas Hill Country, he settled in Dallas, the center of ultra-right-wing advocacy, much of it funded by H.L. Hunt, the billionaire oil tycoon. Hunt, who believed that he belonged to a genetically superior strain of humanity and that voting rights should be apportioned by wealth, told [Maj. Gen. Edwin] Walker there was a “legion of potential followers who would welcome you as a new type of Commander in Chief.”’ #extremism
“By failing to seize Kyiv in March, Putin had already suffered a strategic military defeat in Ukraine, Zelensky believed. “He opened his mouth like a python and thought that we’re just another bunny. But we’re not a bunny and it turned out that he can’t swallow us—and is actually at risk of getting torn apart himself….
@yasminvossoughian "by not voting for Joe Biden".. they're going to vote for the definitive evil. .. the guy who'll deport them for the color of their skin vs. the guy running shuttle diplomacy 24/7 ..
Those guys are the problem .. @Msnbc
[Foreign Policy]: The West Is Still Oblivious to Russia’s Information War
Paralyzed by free speech concerns, Western governments are loath to act. By Ian Garner, a historian and translator of Russian war propaganda, March 9, 2024
