On Wednesday (8 January), Have I Got News for You panelist Ian Hislop, who edits satirical magazine Private Eye, appeared on Andrew Marr’s LBC show and questioned Musk’s intrusion into UK politics.
“He’s
riddled with contradictions, and at some point I am hoping that even
his followers will begin to notice that from sentence to sentence, he
makes no sense,” he said.
“So
when you get Musk pretending to be a champion of women and young girls,
and then he calls Jess Phillips an ‘evil witch’ – I mean, how is that
on a scale of medieval misogyny?”
Hislop complained that “it’s impossible to avoid” Musk’s misinformation as “he has enormous power” due to his wealth.
He also said that the X/Twitter owner’s reach is helped by “people who
have been persuaded over the past five years or so that the mainstream
media hasn’t covered any stories and that the only people who have
noticed anything happening in the world are people sitting in their
bedrooms and sending messages to each other”.
The president of Panama is reportedly taking into consideration asking the United Nations Security Council to step in if Donald Trump continues his repeated demand that the United States regain control of the Panama Canal.
Trump has still not yet reached Inauguration Day,
but his territorial ambitions have already sparked Panamanian President
José Mulino to issue his own threat at the incoming American president,
Politico reported, citing Panama’s former President Ernesto Balladares.
The Convicted Felon did not have a good Friday as he was declared a Convicted Felon by a court. The only sentence imposed was the shame of being known now and forever as a Convicted Felon. How trashy and how poorly his becoming president makes us look in the eyes of the world.
This week came the news from Mark Zuckerberg that META—Facebook, Instagram, and Threads—will end its fact-checking program.
Yes,
the fact-checking that Donald Trump and MAGA didn’t like over the past
eight years, put in place beginning in 2016 after Russian interference
in our election. The fact-checking that continued—flawed and weak as it
was—over the following years to fight the kind of misinformation that
fed conspiracies like the Big Lie that helped fuel the attack on the
Capitol in 2020.
"Mr. Zuckerberg, “the New York Times reports,
“noted that 'recent elections also feel like a cultural tipping point
towards once again prioritizing speech.'" The Times made clear that
Zuckerberg’s moves—all his moves—are meant to placate Trump.
Last week, Mr. Zuckerberg elevated [Joel] Kaplan,
a longtime conservative and the highest-ranking Meta executive closest
to the Republican Party, to the company’s most senior policy role. And
on Monday, Mr. Zuckerberg announced that Dana White, the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a close ally of Mr. Trump’s, would join Meta’s board.
This
claim about speech is an absolute travesty because promoting “free
speech” is not the same as allowing unchecked misinformation. But also
because Trump is not interested in free speech. He only wants his speech elevated while any negative news about him is squashed.
Mark Suckerberg. As we noted Friday, all hell was about to reign down on Suck as he announced and implemented a new policy for FACEBOOK that will promote hate speech and lies which he refused to acknowledge because he was too busy lying. Did Suck not grasp that he doesn't own FACEBOOK/META? He may be the largest single stockholder but he's answerable to the board and -- yes, FACEBOOK is a publicly traded company, one that sells itself as being positive and diverse -- the stockholders. Facts were never Suckerberg's strong suit. That's why he keeps showing up lying about 2020 and 'pressure' from Joe Biden. Joe Biden was a candidate in 2020. He didn't get elected until the end of 2020 and he didn't get sworn in until January 2021. We've been pointing this out forever -- most recently August 28th:
Mark
Zuckerberg says he regrets that Meta bowed to Biden administration
pressure to censor content, saying in a letter that the interference was
"wrong" and he plans to push back if it happens again.
Meta's
CEO aired his grievances in a letter Monday to the House Judiciary
Committee in response to its investigation into content moderation on
online platforms. Zuckerberg detailed how senior administration
officials leaned on the company to censor certain posts about Covid-19,
including humor and satire, and “expressed a lot of frustration” when
the social media platform resisted.
FACEBOOK started as garbage. Sorry, I never had a FACEBOOK account. But you do see the lie don't you?
Ruth
posted "There are numbers and then there are the fake numbers in Trump's crazy head" last night. Convicted Felon Donald Trump -- a worm
apparently eating what was left of his brain -- was raving like a nut
that in 2020 Joe Biden's White House was having him censored. Joe
wasn't in the White House. Donald was.
Twitter
Inc., Facebook Inc. and Google’s YouTube have all removed posts shared
by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for including coronavirus
misinformation that violates the social media companies’ rules against
posting harmful content.
So
FACEBOOK was censoring post on COVID in March 2020. Per Mark's
testimony -- if you believe the liar -- that's due to the White House.
Again, Joe Biden wasn't president in 2020. He's sworn in January of the
following year.
Facts is
hard for garbage like Zuckerberg. He wanted to endorse Donald a few
months back but he was told it would be bad for the shares in the
company -- so he claimed he wasn't endorsing despite calling Donald "bad ass."
This is his way of endorsing him: Lying to Congress that FACEBOOK only
censored COVID posts due to Joe Biden's White House.
In
2019, before the pandemic began, Facebook announced that they were
looking to reduce the influence of anti-vaccination posts on their
social media platform.
“We
will reduce the ranking of groups and Pages that spread misinformation
about vaccinations in News Feed and Search. These groups and Pages will
not be included in recommendations or in predictions when you type into
Search,” stated Facebook at the time.
“When
we find ads that include misinformation about vaccinations, we will
reject them. We also removed related targeting options, like ‘vaccine
controversies.’ For ad accounts that continue to violate our policies,
we may take further action, such as disabling the ad account.”
Again,
Joe was president in 2021. However, he wasn't president in 2019. That
was Donald Trump. So if Zuckerberg was having his arm twisted to
censor by a White House, in 2019 that would have been Donald.
Under
mounting pressure to counter misinformation around the COVID-19
pandemic, Facebook is increasingly dictating what its users should see
and think.
Facebook
already downgrades any posts it doesn’t like the look of regarding the
virus, but it’s apparently concerned that some of its users might still
interact with the wrong content. It’s not Facebook users’ fault, you
see, they’re just hapless plebs with not critical faculties of their
own. Thankfully Facebook is on the case.
The social media giant’s VP of Integrity (an Orwellian job title if there ever was one), Guy Rosen, recently provided An Update on Our Work to Keep People Informed and Limit Misinformation About COVID-19.
“We’re going to start showing messages in News Feed to people who have
liked, reacted or commented on harmful misinformation about COVID-19
that we have since removed,” said Rosen.
Again, that would be when Donald Trump was president.
Legal idiot Jonathan Turley felt the need to Tweet:
Fox
posted my column on Mark Zuckerberg's admission that Facebook did
censor Americans under pressure from the Administration. He wants
people to know that they are really regret now their role. It is the
feigned regret that comes with forced exposure...
No,
you fool, the censorship began under Donald -- as we took the time to
document above. Jonathan, you're a damn liar and a bigger disgrace and
disappointment than even Robert Kennedy Junior. Matt Taibbi and
Glynneth Greenwald are equally stupid.
Deliver us from the idiots, please.
Again,
Zuckerberg made statements that are being spun as truth but it is
public record that the censorship began long before Joe was president.
He's lying and he's been lying and the media has let him get away with this lie for months and months now. It's not that hard to demonstrate he's lying. But for some reason, the media can't do a basic fact check on Mark Suckerberg. We can but they can't. In the words of John and Yoko, "I hope someday you'll join us and the world will live as one." Lily Mae Lazarus (THE DAILY BEAST) reports:
Mark Zuckerberg’s shock choice to scrap fact-checking on Facebook and Instagram has sparked concern and outrage—including from inside the top ranks of the company.
Michael
McConnell, co-chair of Meta’s Oversight Board, said in an interview
Friday that the move looks like “buckling to political pressure.”
“I would have liked to
have seen these reforms laid out in less contentious and partisan
times, so that they would be considered on the merits rather than…Donald
Trump is president and now they’re caving in,” McConnell told NPR.
According
to him, neither he nor the board, an international group of experts in
law, human rights and journalism, were not told about the new policy
ahead of time.
Meta
executives, however, allegedly informed Trump officials about the
change in policy prior to the announcement, a source with knowledge of
the conversations told the New York Times.
Again, a publicly traded company with a board of directors and a publicly traded company that's sold itself to shareholders as a company that respected diversity and was socially conscious.
In other news, MAGA Congress trash is preparing to attack the American people in order to reward billionaires like Mark Suckerberg and Elon Musk. David Badash notes:
House Republicans are circulating a “menu” of options that Speaker Mike
Johnson’s conference could chose from—reportedly a massive $5 trillion
worth of federal government programs to put on the chopping block to pay
for the President-elect’s promised priorities, including tax cuts and
border security.
According to Politico, there is an “early list”
of proposed cuts (below) that “includes changes to Medicare and ending
Biden administration climate programs, along with slashing welfare and
‘reimagining’ the Affordable Care Act.” Also, in addition to suggesting
cuts to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), “the document
floats clawing back bipartisan infrastructure and Inflation Reduction
Act funding.”
Politico also reports that Republicans appear to be considering cuts to
“the country’s largest anti-hunger program”—or, SNAP, the Supplemental
Nutrition Assistance Program formerly known as food stamps. This would
“spark massive opposition from Democrats and would also face some GOP
resistance.”
As we often do on Saturdays, we noted Patti LaBelle today.
I thought about including something in that but I'll do it now. Kat's "Patti and Luther" noted the Luther Vandross documentary and some people slamming Patti. Kat asked for a comment from me for that post and here's what I stated:
Patti is not a homophobe. Nona Hendryx is gay and, long
before she came out, Patti knew that and it was never a problem for
Patti. Patti was there for Laura Nyro during a difficult time and she
remained friends with Laura. Laura dated men early on but learned she
was was really attracted to woman. That change never changed Patti's
love for her friend. I haven't seen the documentary and I don't know
who this Richard Marx is -- I'm assuming it's not the White
singer-songwriter of the 80s -- but he actually seems the homophobe
based on what you read me. Luther was gay. That was not a secret in
the industry. And it is part of the reason Luther died so early. By
that I mean, he did not feel he could be who he was. He did not feel he
would be accepted. And that was because he was gay and that was
because he was sometimes overweight. Someone like Sam Smith has more
confidence and they know who they are and share who they are. Luther
had too much weight on his shoulders because there were too many things
that he felt could drive fans away. He had a wonderful voice and, if he
were coming up today, it could be different and he might not torture
himself over his weight or who he loved. Patti was Luther's friend and
she loved him dearly. Richard Marx is the homophobe. He's the one
appalled that Patti is talking about Luther the person and about the
impact this all had on him. She's continuing to be Luther's friend.
Richard Marx sounds like someone who would prefer to bury Luther in a
closet.
I should have noted that Nona, along with the late Sarah Dash, was part of Labelle with Patti -- their monster hit being "Lady Marmalade." I was speaking off the top of my head. Again, if you take a step back and pay attention, Patti's done nothing wrong. She spoke truth about Luther -- and spoke with no hate or shame -- who she loved and he was already dead. There was no reason for him, in death, to stay in the closet. The attacks on Patti this were outrageous and shameful Again, she's not a homophobe and she has years and years of lived experience to back that up.
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Miss Sassy On A Leash" went up Friday, Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Cult Member? Yes. Sex Slave? No" went up on Thursday and Isaiah's latest THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "The Ugly Rudy G" went up Wednesday -- three comics here in one week on top of all the comics he does for the community newsletters. The following sites updated:
Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY NUT NUTS "Miss Sassy On A Leash." In light of Trump's hatred for all things human and non-human, JD Vance delights in discovering a role he can fill in the administration, "With Elon butting in as co-president, I was worried about my place but now I know Miss Sassy will be the White House pet. Trump holds my leash and Elon holds Trump's." Isaiah archives his comics at THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS.
Friday, January 10, 2025. Rudy G doesn't need a sick day from school after all, Donald Chump wants a woman who threatened a doctor's office to become a US ambassador, Elon Musk's father shows off the racism that is the hallmark of the Musk family, Senator *Elizabeth Warren* has serious questions for Chump' IRS nominee and much more.
There's bad weather in parts of the United States, fires here in California and former President Jimmy Carter's memorial was this week so, for a number of reasons, people have been missing work. So it might be considered normal that West Virginia's House Delegate Brandon Steele (Republican) missed his swearing in Wednesday to the state legislature However, Amelia Ferrell Knisely (RAW STORY) explains there was a little more than that going on:
Two days before Christmas, the wife of a West Virginia lawmaker called
911 telling the operator she was concerned about him drunkenly handling
assault rifles and screaming at people looking at Christmas lights in
their neighborhood.
The report contains statements from Brandon Steele expressing concern
about “possible threats regarding trials that he is working,” and
concerns from Brianne Steele about her husband’s “paranoid” behavior and
alcoholism.
According to audio recordings sent anonymously to the media and House leaders, there were two separate 911 calls.
The
first came from a child who reported someone was breaking into the home
before Steele's wife got on the phone and said no one was trying to
break in. She told the dispatcher her husband was "extremely drunk" and
outside the home with rifles. "He's got the kids so scared and he says
there's somebody who keeps driving by the house."
She abruptly hung up when the dispatcher asked if he was under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both.
After calling operators back, she said she had to hang up because her husband had come back inside the house.
The
second call lasted more than 20 minutes while she stayed inside a
bathroom with their three children waiting for police to arrive.
When
the dispatcher asked her if she was safe, she said, "I don't know." She
explained Steele was carrying "very dangerous" rifles and had access to
many weapons. She could also be heard trying to comfort and calm the
children.
Being an attorney and having a degree in criminal justice, you might think the 43-year-old would know better; however, the anti-abortion, coronavirus 'skeptic' (conspiracy nut -- even though he caught corona -- maybe he forgot and thought it was the case of beer in the garage?), anti-worker Republican clearly did not know better and so he took to terrorizing his family. But, hey, swear him in, right? Just another crook or kook in our government.
On the topic of violence and Republicans, Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports on the woman Donald Chump wants to be the US Ambassador to Swedene:
The president-elect tapped Christine Jack Toretti, a
Pennsylvania-based GOP fundraiser, as the top diplomat to the
Scandinavian nation after she was twice rejected by the Senate during
Trump's last term as ambassador to Malta, reported Politico.
“Christine is an incredible businesswoman, philanthropist, public
servant, and (Republican National) Committeewoman for the Great
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Trump said in a statement posted on Truth
Social.
She's a violent person who apparently prone to believing that threatening a doctor's office is a solid anger management tool:
Toretti at the time reportedly was under a restraining order
filed against her by her ex-husband's doctor, who she blamed for the
end of her marriage to former University of Arizona men's basketball
coach Lute Olson.
The doctor alleged that Toretti came to his
Tucson, Arizona, office and "behaved in a threatening manner" toward
staff members and then came into his office and placed a bullet-riddled
target practice sheet on his desk.
Speaking of political crooks, Rudy Giuliani. Ann covers Rudy G at her site (where her focus tends to be the crooks of politics) and has noted Rudy G this week in the following:
As Ann's noted this week, Rudy G continues attempting to evade the court and refuses to pay what he's been sentenced to pay. The new twist has been his claim that he's infirm and can't get on a plane and leave Florida. The judge asked for proof. 'Proof' was presented and the judge was talking travel ban for the 'sickly' Rudy G. Travel ban? B-b-b-but the love of his pathetic life, Donald Chump, is sworn in Monday January 20th!!!!
Faced with missing out on his man, Rudy G has done an about face as his bad tummy ache suddenly disappeared and he could get dressed to go to school after all. David Edwards (RAW STORY) reports, "Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani
withdrew a request to appear virtually for an upcoming trial in New
York after a judge ruled that he would also not be able travel to
President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration." Now Rudy can make the inauguration and, no doubt, sing "Stand By Your Man" to Donald in person.
THE VANGUARD continues to probe and explore what makes people grifters. We'll note two of the videos they did with Mahdi Hasan discussing the grift of MORNING JOE, TYT and Matt Taibi.
While
discussing how Trump beat Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024
presidential election, guest and NYU professor Scott Galloway told
Brzezinski: “We are in the midst of a series of small revolutions to
correct income inequality. And the reason we put an insurrectionist and a
rapist in office is because, for the first time in our nation’s
history, a 30-year-old man or woman isn’t doing as well as his or his or
her parents were at 30.”
After their conversation ended, Brzezinski quickly corrected Galloway’s wording.
“I
want to make a comment about a word that was used in this interview,”
she told viewers. “Donald Trump was tried civilly and was found liable
of sexual abuse, not rape. The judge in the case likened his actions to
rape, but the liability was officially called ‘sexual abuse.’”
ABC News settled a defamation suit with Trump in
December, after anchor George Stephanopoulos inaccurately said the
president-elect was found “liable for rape” in E. Jean Carroll’s case
against him during an on-air interview with Nancy Mace in March.
It was rape, per the judge. The conviction was sexual assault. There are differences in the wording but the popular understanding of sexual assault is rape. Chump objects to that. And yet . . . Jerry Lambe (LAW AND CRIME) notes:
Donald Trump implored a federal judge in Pennsylvania to toss out the defamation lawsuit filed against him by members of the Central Park Five over
comments the president-elect made during last year’s presidential
debate, claiming the falsely-accused quintet are portraying his “substantially true” comments out of context.
The 12-page reply motion seeking
to have the suit dismissed was filed Wednesday in the Eastern District
of Pennsylvania and reiterated many of Trump’s previous arguments about
the case, mainly, claiming the plaintiffs rely on “misrepresentations of
President-elect Trump’s arguments” that could only be defamatory if one
were “reviewing the at-issue statements out of context.”
Unlike Chump, the Central Park Five are actually innocent. Chump has been lying about them for years. There is no popular understanding of "innocent" beyond being innocent. So he's bothered when the shapes are filled in on sexual assault but he feels he's free to demonize and lie without any responsibility?
The United States Air Force, Department of Defense, and other agencies are investigatingElon Musk and SpaceX for allegedly failing to disclose meetings with adversarial foreign leaders as required by federal law.
This is absolutely inexcusable. Musk's SpaceX has handled nearly 80 percent
of U.S. government sponsored rocket launches this year, including
critical national security missions. Yet Musk has reportedly met with
China and Russia's top leaders numerous times; the Wall Street Journalreported that Vladimir Putin explicitly asked Musk to help Xi Jinping,
the chairman of China's Central Military Commission, with a political
matter. These communications may present a concern for the U.S. because
China and Russia are America's top space rivals, and they are working
together to challenge America's space dominance.
The United States Air Force, Department of Defense, and other agencies are investigatingElon Musk and SpaceX for allegedly failing to disclose meetings with adversarial foreign leaders as required by federal law.
This is absolutely inexcusable. Musk's SpaceX has handled nearly 80 percent
of U.S. government sponsored rocket launches this year, including
critical national security missions. Yet Musk has reportedly met with
China and Russia's top leaders numerous times; the Wall Street Journalreported that Vladimir Putin explicitly asked Musk to help Xi Jinping,
the chairman of China's Central Military Commission, with a political
matter. These communications may present a concern for the U.S. because
China and Russia are America's top space rivals, and they are working
together to challenge America's space dominance.
You know what else they should do? Revoke Musk's security clearance.
You can only ride one horse at a time.
You can only be dedicated to one country.
Elon
Musk has citizenship from the country he grew up in and was raised in
(and that his father hails from -- South Africa) from the country his
mother was born in before she moved to South Africa (Canada) and,
despite breaking the rules, managed to purchase US citizenship.
No.
A
dual national would be suspicious enough. He has citizenship in three
countries. Iraq, when they did their 2005 Constitution, rightly said
hell no to that nonsense. You're not supposed to be able, for example,
hold office in Iraq if you have dual citizenship.
He's
got triple citizenship -- allowing him to flee if he wants -- and so
these secret meetings with rivals/enemies/what-have-you are not
acceptable.
Again, just on
the citizenship issue, I would question his loyalties. But when you add
on to that his secret meetings with two other governments -- neither of
which is he a citizen of, as far as we know -- you've got a very big
problem. He is a security risk. It's insane to pretend otherwise. He
does not understand this country and he doesn't care about it enough to
renounce his citizenship in two other countries. So we're not first on
the list and, therefore, he can't be trusted with national security
issues.
Repeating,
Elon Musk is not an American. He was born in South Africa which is
also his father's native country. Via his mother, he got Canadian
citizenship. She moved to South Africa as a child and stayed until
apartheid was falling. That's when the family flees. If you don't
understand that, you don't understand Elon and his trashy family or the
level of racism that he considers 'normal' and 'natural.' His ugly
mother was White and tall so she got to be a minor model in South
Africa. She's an idiot and is often in the news for her gross
stupidity. Now Elon's father has made the news. No surprise, he's
expressing racism.
Matters
escalated when the father of the X/Twitter owner doubled down on his
comparison between far-right leader Robinson – whose real name is
Stephen Yaxley Lennon – and Nelson Mandela, before shifting to the issue
of a Canadian referendum.
Reid
called the comparison “utterly bizarre”, quickly shutting down the rant
as she interjected: “Right, Errol, thank you very much indeed but I
feel that we’re drifting slightly from the core issues for our
audience.”
She
then addressed viewers as she explained: “I think we slightly drifted
away from how democracy works and the legal system in this country as
well.”
Elon
Musk, who bought his American 'citizenship' (and didn't follow the
rules required for American citizenship), has been glorified by idiots
in the US forever and a day. And I'm not talking about the MAGA fools
that got on board with him more recently. I'm talking about
'progressives' and other idiots. I'm talking about THE SIMPSONS'
cartoon. I'm talking about Alyssa Milano.. Last night, Stan noted ("3 actors (only one worth praising") the role FAMILY GUY has played in attempting to turn hate mongers into cuddly friends.
I
offended people -- and on this issue and at this site, and I honestly
don't care -- when I noted a popular actress who is from South Africa
and I noted that I didn't trust her. She's White. She grew up under
apartheid. She's never denounced it. As I explained, if you lived in
South Africa during apartheid and you were White and did nothing to end
apartheid, I don't trust you. Oh, I'm sure you'd smile to my face. And
I'm just as sure you'd mock me or rip me apart as soon as I walked out
of the room.
Apartheid was a
destructive system that destroyed so many lives. And it took decades
to end it. It took all of us around the world protesting and calling it
out and calling out the filth that labeled Nelson Mandela a
'terrorist.' So, yeah, I am prejudiced against Whites who thrived under
apartheid. I feel you owe the world an apology. And if you can't even
denounce it today, I assume you miss it.
Everything about Elon goes to his being raised to believe that being White makes him superior to others.
And
everything about him -- back when he was 'left' and today when he's
moved over to the right -- testifies to someone who is a racist and
believes in and supports racism.
And
when THE SIMPSONS and others were glorifying him, whispers of NDAs
where he was trying to silence victims of his racism were abundant.
So I never understood that.
But
here's your chance to catch up if you got left behind due to the 'left'
previously praising him. (I should probably say the White 'left.' But
I hope that was already understood.)
His father went on TV and it wasn't fifty years ago and it wasn't thirty years ago. It was this week.
This
White man was wealthy in South Africa thanks to his skin color and who
was not at all troubled by the barriers constructed to prevent Black
people from getting ahead or even just surviving.
And
now, decades later, apartheid may have crumbled but he still clutches
the hate and he goes on TV and calls Nelson Mandela a 'terrorist.'
This is not rare strand, this is the core of the Musk family.
Every
time he does or says something, you need to grasp that apartheid is the
filter to look through because he was raised in that system, he
believes in that system and he's never denounced it.
Instead
of addressing this, the corporate press and some on the 'left' turned
him into some sort of a folk hero in the '10s and we're suffering today
because of it.
If you never
get how White the filter the US media looks through is, just grasp that
a more diverse media would have been questioning Musk all along, not
building him up, but studying to see if he was attempting to duplicate
apartheid in his companies and via his companies.
Free
speech is not making threats -- though Elon allows it. You can
threaten Black people as a whole or an individual on Twitter. You could
threaten to shoot up Target over the merchandise and Elon didn't take
those down. (When reported to the authorities, some of the 'free
speechers' took their Tweets down themselves.)
Free
speech is not threatening violence against
Black people. But too much of the media -- and the 'left' -- wanted to
pretend it was. When you see those photos on Twitter where a White
person is trying to hang a Black person, grasp that for Elon Musk this
is natural and unoffensive.
Racism doesn't belong on social media. Hatred aimed at whole groups of people does not belong on social media.
Again,
this is not a free speech issue. I support free speech. Doctored or
AI images that are violent and denigrate Black people are defended by
Glenn Greenwald and Jonathan Turley but they don't call out book banning
and they don't call out attacks on trans people at public events.
Freedom
of speech, for them, just means free to be as racist and ugly as they
can be. And if you've seen Jonathan or Glenneth, you know they are
deeply, deeply ugly -- on the outside and the inside.
And
the corporate media's not going to hold them accountable. NEWSWEEK,
yesterday, did celebrity porn for Elon Musk because someone said Elon
might be "best hope" for a development. Might be. That's the fawning
corporate media always does. Kissing up like crazy. Regular people?
They usually have to actually do something to get praise. NEWSWEEK too
often mistakes ad copy for journalism.
Erika Hilton, a Black trans member of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies, has asked the U.N. to investigate Mark Zuckerberg’s revelation that
Meta will end fact-checking and allow anti-LGBTQ+ hate speech to go
unchecked on its platforms, which include Facebook and Instagram.
“Policy
changes by large corporations like Meta continue to put the lives of
LGBTQIA+ individuals at risk,” Hilton wrote in a document sent to
Nicolas Levrat, the U.N.’s special rapporteur on minority issues, as reported byInfoMoney.
She
added that Meta’s new policies “can be considered complicit in the
dissemination of practices that violate the rights of groups protected
by Brazilian legislation.”
Suckerberg is a lying piece of trash who's about to have hell rain down on him. It's called karma. And he'll deserve every bit of it.
In other news, many are wondering where the Democrats have been of late? Not US House Rep Jasmine Crockett, mind you, but the many, many elected Dems in Congress who seem to have lost their voice in recent weeks. Is it a nasty cold? Ross Rosenfeld (THE NEW REPUBLIC) notes:
On Tuesday, the House of Representatives passed the Laken Riley Act, which would allow Homeland Security to detain and deport undocumented immigrants who have merely been charged—not convicted—of minor, nonviolent crimes. If the bill also prevails in the Senate, where it is expected to advance later this week, Donald Trump would sign it immediately upon taking office—at which point we could see people deported, without due process, simply because a cop alleges that they stole, say, a tube of toothpaste from CVS. It’s also easy to imagine how MAGA-friendly law enforcement and prosecutors could take advantage of such a law, exaggerating or even fabricating charges in the hopes of nabbing an “illegal.”
We’ve seen a similar tone from many other Democrats since Kamala Harris’s loss to Trump—and not just the usual moderates, but also progressive torchbearers like Bernie Sanders. He has been offering to work with Trump to cap credit card fees and raise the minimum wage (good luck with those). He told Business Insider last month that Elon Musk is a “very smart guy” whom he’d like to work with on cutting defense spending. Though he criticized Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s conspiratorial thinking and views on vaccines, Sanders seemed eager to work with him on other health-related issues.
It’s as if Democrats have become accomplices in their perceived fait accompli. Many of them have taken it as a given that defaulting to an oppositional stance is antithetical to democratic principles, and that it is incumbent upon them following an election loss to find compromises with Republicans in order to achieve progress where possible. They’re ignoring, however, the actual dynamics of the situation—namely that, by helping Trump achieve victories, they will only increase his power and influence, and thereby advance Trumpism. This is the Trump paradox.
[. . .]
We might expect such rhetoric from a Democratic congressman in southwest Ohio, but even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that working-class pugilist from the Bronx, opined to Punchbowl, “The reason why I think oftentimes Democrats occasionally lose elections is because we’re too reflexively anti-Republican, and that we don’t lean into an ambitious vision for working-class Americans strongly enough.” It was the Democrats, mind you, who included $83 billion under Biden’s American Rescue Act to shore up pensions for American workers, including over a million Teamsters who then largely turned their back on Kamala Harris in November. As for her contention that Democrats are too reflexively anti-Republican, well, there’s much to reflexively oppose. Republicans are the party of bigotry, sophistry, and cruelty. And they’re certainly reflexively anti-Democratic (not to mention anti-democratic).
Ocasio-Cortez is not out of line with other New York pols, by the way: As Politico noted on Wednesday, Governor Kathy Hochul and numerous state legislators have backed away from confronting Trump, mistakenly calculating that voters will respect them more if only they cower and kowtow a bit more.
What a difference four years—and an election decided by fewer than two and a half million votes—can make. So long, #Resistance. Hello, #Surrender.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:
Long bragged about securing
$3 million faulty refund, claimed “everybody qualifies” for credit,
encouraged people to question accountants
“Borders on absurdity,” said external auditor about Long’s firm’s interpretation of ERTC eligibility
Podcast with Billy Long detailing his work pushing the ERTC mysteriously removed from online platforms last month
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to
Billy Long, President-elect Trump’s nominee for Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) Commissioner, detailing her concerns with Long’s qualifications
and requesting answers to his involvement in potential abuse of the
Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC).
“Although you bill yourself as a ‘Certified Business and Tax
Adviser,’ this certification appears to only require a three-day
training. Indeed, your lack of significant management or tax
experience—and your promotion of credits that have been “magnet[s] for
fraud”—raise serious questions about your qualifications to lead the
IRS,” wrote Senator Warren.
After leaving Congress in 2023, Billy Long worked for Commerce
Terrace Consulting and Lifetime Advisers, where he repeatedly pushed
businesses to file for the ERTC, a refundable tax credit designed to
support struggling businesses able to demonstrate that the COVID-19
pandemic impacted their bottom line and helped keep them afloat. Firms
known as “ERTC mills” specialize in exploiting the credit’s eligibility
criteria, opening the door for fraud and abuse — resulting in huge
delays and harms to honest businesses trying to rightfully claim the
credit.
Long himself has a troubling record of appearing to exploit the
credit’s eligibility criteria for his clients’ — and his own — profit.
Long publicly claimed that “everybody qualifies” for the credit and
instructed his social media followers to “DM [him] to save 40% on
[their] taxes.” Long bragged that he helped secure a $3.6 million ERTC
payout for an organization, only for its chief executive to say that “it
had ultimately dropped its claim after receiving advice that it may not
qualify for the credit. Long also stated that businesses he’s worked
with “have had the best two years of their life” during the pandemic,
and urged people to question their accountants — and turn to him to
produce an ERTC success story, instead. When Congress was considering
shutting the program down due to rampant fraud, Long “traveled to
Washington to try to persuade [his] former colleagues in Congress…not to
follow through.”
“Your most significant tax experience has been your recent work
promoting a fraud-ridden pandemic-era tax credit, which you have
incorrectly claimed “everybody qualifies” for,” wrote Senator Warren.
Lifetime Advisors, the lawsuit-ridden firm that Long promoted, has
been criticized for taking an “aggressive stance” on ERTC eligibility.
Two accredited accountants reportedly left the company “after raising
concerns about how the firm prepared taxes.” Meanwhile, Lifetime had a
clear financial stake in pushing questionable ERTC claims – with one
contract granting Lifetime 20% of a $300,000 ERTC credit in fees from a
client. One nonprofit hired Lifetime but was later warned by an external
auditor that Lifetime’s “expansive interpretation” of the ERTC
eligibility criteria “borders on absurdity” – causing the nonprofit to
return its refund to avoid a potential IRS audit (Lifetime refused to
refund its fee).
“Given the widespread issues caused by ERTC mills, taxpayers deserve a better understanding of your role in this space,” wrote Senator Warren.
A podcast episode in which Billy Long detailed his work pushing the
ERTC and potentially exploiting its eligibility criteria was
mysteriously removed from online platforms last month.
“I am also troubled that shortly after the announcement of your
nomination, with no explanation, and after press reports of your
appearance on it, the podcast cited above was pulled down from multiple
podcast platforms, including the Listen Notes website, Apple, Spotify,
and YouTube, raising questions about whether your full record on tax
issues is being obscured in advance of your confirmation hearing,” concluded Senator Warren.
Senator Warren highlighted
her concerns with Long's qualifications when his nomination was first
announced, saying: “Billy Long’s nomination to lead the I.R.S. is bad
news for middle-class taxpayers and a win for ultra-wealthy tax
cheats...If he’s confirmed, taxpayers can expect longer wait times for
customer service, a more complicated process to file taxes, and free
rein for the rich and powerful to continue rigging the system at the
expense of everyone else.”
