So far this month, Popular Information exposed Trump's new "media company" as a $10 billion mirage, revealed how right-wing activists in Tennessee are trying to stop second graders from learning about Martin Luther King Jr., and documented how corporate greed is contributing to inflation.
Today, however, I want to hear from you. What are your hopes (and fears) for 2022? What topics would you like to see Popular Information take on?
You can leave your thoughts in the discussion thread linked below, starting now. I’ll be dropping by to participate in the discussion and answer your questions at 1 PM Eastern, for about an hour.
Please investigate Joe Manchin for conflicts of interest beyond the dividends he receives from coal stocks. (His defence: It’s in a blind trust, which is no excuse, but it’s not going to be news.) His yacht; his money; there has to be more there. He’s undermining a multi trillion dollar bill for poorly justified reasons, and threatening the midterms, making Dems look like idiots. Could he have ulterior motives? He must know dems are appearing incapable of governing, which would be a goal of McConnell, not a democrat. He’s hurting his constituents in West Virginia who are poor and need the child credit. So why is he doing it? Thanks.
Not sure it's really a secret. He has a financial interest in the continued use of coal for energy. Another aspect of all this is the diaspora of former staffers representing fossil fuel interests: https://popular.info/p/the-manchin-industry
The donor class has captured a plurality of Congress...Manchin is just a particularly egregious example. At the end of the day, the reality is that if Manchin/Sinema succeed in blocking voting rights legislation (and attendant democracy hardening legislation), neither will be rewarded. Their usefulness to donors will be at an end, they'll lose reelection even if they attempt to switch parties, and lavish donor dollars will dry up overnight. The only ones who fail to understand that their transactional perks will disappear under 1-party GOP rule are Manchin and Sinema themselves.
I was going to reply, Judd revealed the answers to your question in two previous articles of Popular Information. So, maybe the lingering question is: what can we do about this. Would more exposure make him uncomfortable enough to shift?
The Manchin’s have a poor reputation among people with long memories. AJ Manchin was Joe Manchin’s uncle. Always heard from folks in Fairmont, WV the Manchin clan looked out for themselves and not constituents. All is hearsay so not print worthy.
Also sleep walking now as the Republicans build out the infrastructure to steal next year's elections: gerrymandering, laws to suppress voting, people in position to play with the counts, not certify results they don't like, pinning anything and everything on Biden.
You indicated 'we' slept walked through some 2018 Senate elections. My point was to follow that up and say we continue to sleep while the Republicans are making it even harder for 2022.
Why does everyone say Manchin wil be replaced by a republican? Maybe with the billboards going around WV and solid campaigning it will be possible to flip WV after they realize who this guy really is…
Have you seen the polling around West Virginia? Trump, the Republican governor, all positions in 2020 beat out Democrats by a 2/3 margin. This is one of the most conservative, blood red states in the union. And one of the most ignorant.
Manchin has thrived in obscurity as a senator in a state that voted for Trump in massive numbers. He's only on the public radar because the Democrats have such a slim majority in the Senate. If Biden had made voting rights and hardening our democracy the central driving tenet of his first term, there would have been intense unrelenting pressure on Mancin, Sinema to explain what guarantees they gave to McConnell during the month McConnell refused to yield the gavel to Schumer. Instead, the media stories swirled around an endless battle over the $amount for BBB. 2 weeks before EOY, Biden finally decides that democracy is worth saving. Manchin is who he's always been, but Biden's advisers are tone deaf...his passivity has alienated almost every constituency while the few things he has done have alienated the others (choosing not to honor his campaign promises re student loans, slow-walking replacement of deJoy, giving lip service to civil rights leaders while giving his cell number to survivors of the Mayfield tornado, appointing cronies to Ambassadorships, embracing Trump's 'stay in Mexico's immigration debacle, the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal). Biden doesn't need any help from Manchin to continue to alienate voters. I can only hope that he focuses on his actual constituents next year...
Democrats spending the next year attacking Biden instead of Republicans; disregarding how narrow a hold we have in the House and Senate; ignoring the number of GOP-led states; completely closing our eyes to the reality of what we have after 2020, which includes a GOP more determined to tank Dems and Biden than to actually do anything useful.
I'm sure this will be a huge winner for us in 2022.
Between the courts, and the states, and our narrow, narrow leads, it's astonishing that Biden has been able to accomplish as much as he has. Why are we so blind to this? It's not as if the difficulties of getting anything passed haven't been staring at us for the last several months.
Agreed. One begins to wonder if "Corporation Joe Biden" secretly favors a position similar to that of Manchin's. I seem to remember a promise being made that nothing substantial will change. Perhaps I am jumping at shadows but the inaction of the Biden administration on this, the seeming ineffectiveness of Garland's DOJ, the overall failure to use the bully pulpit effectively and get 2 outlier senators in line among other questions, makes me wonder just why there is such a lack of urgency.
Biden is a traditionalist bringing knives to a gun fight. Obama was the same. Trump's stupidity allowed this opportunity to get things straightened out a bit. The decimation of voting rights going on right now is a shame and should have been 1st. There is a very real possibility the Republicans will take the House and Senate, effectively ending Biden's Presidency. 2010 all over again.
First, thanks again for the journalism you do here at Popular Information.
There are so many stories and themes that I appreciate that you do. But I think in 2022, one of the important things will be the kinds of work you did in your story in the truth about inflation a few weeks ago. Your story exposed, not only corporate greed and basically profiteering off the pandemic but also how the story of "rising inflation" was being reported unquestioned in much of the news and headlines.
In an election year, especially this first one post January 6, it seems there will be a lot lot lot of noise, fear, manipulation, and falsehood that will make it into the newstream, intentionally and unintentionally, as part of some politicians' desire to acquire or hold power at any cost, including that of democratic rights such as an accurately informed vote in a free and fair election.
So I guess I'm saying please continue what you are doing because the need for it is going to be in high in 2022.
Better stated than what I was intending. I’m frustrated that news stories begin stating the historic levels of inflation but absolutely fail to mention the levels of corporate profiteering.
Amen! Let's remember that one article on corporations being unnecessarily greedy and thus adding to inflation should not suggest "oh, that's covered, let's move on"--do please continue to expose the details of corporations' practices, profits, and who they make huge donations to.
My top concerns are, in roughly this order: protecting voting rights; locking up insurrectionists and those in the Trump administration and Congress who conspired with them; passing BBB; encoding Roe v. Wade into statutory law; and taking steps beyond what's in BBB to fight global warming.
Again, who in a responsible position in the Democratic Party is advocating "prison abolition and defunding police"? No one at the federal level, conservative media rantings notwithstanding.
Where are you getting your information from? Please scrutinize your sources.
Defunding the police is really about the insane percentage of our tax dollars the police get which is increasingly resulting in militarization and real harm and neglect to the communities. I’d encourage you to look at the actual budgets in your area to see how much goes to policing versus social services, schools, firefighters, hospitals, etc. In my current home county it’s actually pretty balanced but in so many areas you will see a tiny sliver to social services and a huge percentage to policing. Those also tend to be areas where the police are militarized and busting around killing and terrorizing folks when the situation is not actually life threatening, meanwhile those folks have little access to the social infrastructure that can prevent the sort of low level criminal situations that police are getting involved in and escalating.
For those who are serious about reforming the carceral system, defunding the police is an essential piece of the puzzle. Absolutely no one is trying to use the insurrectionists, nor any rapists, pedophiles, murderers, etc as the proof of concept. I do actually follow a lot of these more radical conversations and while people will encourage each other to rethink calls for simply locking everyone up in light of their ideals, no one is seriously suggesting we start out towards our vision of a prison free society by letting insurrectionists and rapists and murderers &c go free with a slap on the wrist- while leaving the mostly poor, black and brown population to rot and slave away in jails and prisons meanwhile.
As you’re learning and reading about these movements keep the context in mind and look at the ways idealistic conversations differ from actual policy. Also note that policy will tend to be tempered by reality and the plurality of voters and legislators. I
I’d also encourage you to look at the prison industrial complex- for profit prisons and their ties to money and politics, the immigrant prisons we’ve heard so much about lately where children and families seeking asylum in the US are a great place to start. When you start asking who is profiting off of these prison population you will reveal quite a lot of disturbing information.
Really- we all want justice- and we do not believe that the carceral system is delivering it, not even close. Here’s a recent example of a confessed serial rapist going free to illustrate how broken the system we wish to reform is: https://youtu.be/sM5WrLoonFI
Voting rights (and fair district lines) are essential for a functioning democracy. One thing that gets lost is that making it easier to vote doesn't mean that Democrats will win. Virginia made it quite easy to vote and Republicans took advantage.
I don't disagree, Judd, but I'd submit that Virginia was an outlier due to a number of factors (a poorly run campaign by McAuliffe, a smart, focused campaign run by Youngkin, the Republicans' successful effort to make CRT an issue with suburban voters, and the absence of the Orange Asscactus from the race no matter how much the Democrats tried to bring him back into it). On balance, I believe that making it easier to vote benefits Democrats more than Republicans. However, I will absolutely concede that you are far more knowledgeable than I am on this subject and would therefore defer to your judgment.
Federal voting rights legislation is a necessity! At the federal level, definitely, so the red states can’t simply disenfranchise groups of people. This must be the top priority! Absolutely essential!!
Biden should have got this done 1st thing. Now that all this time has been wasted on BBB, Biden is making Voting a top priority. There should be enormous pressure on our two strays to get with the program. I have my doubts though he can bring them in line as they have no fear of him.
While POTUS was in Ky yesterday, he said voting rights are the number one issue in the nation. Hopefully that means it will be the main focus instead of BBB (which honestly is dead in the water right now). Again, Manchin and Sinema are the hold outs. They have to convince them to vote for a carve out of the filibuster.
I am wondering how the ‘news/political operatives’ like Ingram and Hanity at Fox can be more fully exposed for breaching every journalistic norm? And whether the Fox station has violated norms of truthfulness associated with their right to broadcast under FCC rules? Where is the accountability for the privilege of using national airways paid for by ALL Americans?
It's entertainment and not news. This isn't something the FCC will or should fix. But there are structural issues with how everyone pays for cable. Fixing those could do a lot of good: https://popular.info/p/tucker-lachlan-and-subsidized-speech
When Fox has been sued in the past, they claim under oath that their opinion hosts are clearly making absurd statements for the purposes of entertainment, and that no reasonable person would take them seriously. This has been a winning strategy. Their viewers believe what they see, but judges believe the 'absurdity' argument. I do think, if it proceeds, the slander lawsuits from the voting machine companies stand a decent chance of success.
Hard to belileve isn't it? That a judge would issue a ruling that basically lets them get away with it because no reasonably intelligent person would believe them! Alex Jones has used that dodge on the past too but he lost in a recent ruling on Sandy Hook and now is justifiably "on the hook," if you will.
And it’s not inflation. It’s corporate price gouging to increase corporate profit that then creates inflation at the retail level. I know you covered it, but it needs to become a drum beat.
That cost is being driven by vulture capitalists gobbling up all the rental housing, jacing up the rents, and not taking care of maintenance as they should. It's appalling, and it's an area ripe for government intervention.
My biggest fear for 2022 is that we will go another year without seeing little donnie doing time. The most perilous of times must be matched by the most serious consequences.
Don’t leave history to wonder why we kept wringing our hands and saying Ain’t it Awful.
That’s a false and dangerous idea. “Doesn’t matter what we say because it’s on the internet, get over it.” The internet is a real place, more and more so as we move work and other activities to the digital sphere. Content that is published on the internet and interactions taking place there do shape and affect the “real” world.
“ raping young boys”, “extreme domestic violence””serial predator” are fox talking points, never mentioned at CNN or MSNBC. You are a right winger or a troll
I see you have yet to answer my question from days ago yet here you are trying to bully someone. One could call that behavior trollish, if you will. Troll adjacent perhaps. You do give the appearance of trolling madam.
The two victims shot by a murderous teen had every every right to feel threatened by a youth with a rifle and an agenda. He's shooting people and you expect anyone who sees him to think what? He's got a gun so he must be a good guy? What was your opinion of this guy who actually was a "good guy with a gun?"
Based on many of my posts you would label me as "the twitter left". You are among the people for whom everything is either black or white - or they're wrong; I'm right. I would gladly pull the lever of the electric chair, or push the needle, for a child abuser, only wishing that the punishment could be more severe. There is no evidence to suggest that those that you label as the twitter left are focused on attacking the need for justice, rather than upholding it. No evidence, although I'm sure you can produce a few rare fringe examples. So go away troll, and get your commission elsewhere.
I do not support prison abolition. No one with any sense wants to defund the police, but rather, re-organize/fund police to better serve each community.
You continually point to the same 4 Representatives and the same GOP talking points, and I still have no idea what you're trying to say. 4 progressive House members are not representative of 220 House members. The Democrats have a messaging problem, but in this case, Biden is to blame for his failure to prioritize and marshall ever tool to prevent the implosion of democracy.
I've said it before on here, so I'll say it again: "The Twitter Left" as you characterize it is not the real world, even on Twitter. More importantly, please point me to even one Democrat in a responsible position at the federal level who supports "finding 'non-carceral' solutions to rape and child molestation." Go on, dear; we'll wait.
You quote an OPINION by someone who isn't a member of Congress to support what seems to be non-stop trolling on this thread. No point in engaging further, you're wedded to your own narrative.
I've reached my limit of free NYT articles, so I can't read the piece, but I note hw's objection above to your reading of this piece. If in fact they had introduced such an amendment, and if in fact that amendment did what you say it does, perhaps you can find a non-paywalled source, or a paywalled source that is among those I subscribe to, which include WaPo, The Atlantic, Daily Beast, and others.
Dems messaging is weak, ineffective, and inconsistent. A. They should focus on voting rights and show images of old people (men, women, all races) having their ballots discarded. Seniors vote. B. Infrastructure was a big deal. Dems don't sell it; C. Biden ran on decency. Dems should have viral, consistent marketing appealing to Mom's about decency and their kids and the future. GOP are effective culture war fighters, Dems aren't. There is no excuse for that.
I'm a bit confused about this post. Messaging is not content or governing. As a Dem, I do not want a Dem version of Trump or the GOP. 'Viral' and 'consistent' would seem to have nothing in common. The best government is one that quietly keeps the peace and handles problems that arise with competence. Let us live our lives without the trumped up drama. Get elected, and get your job done!
It's messaging we need, but not viral fake culture war crap. Do not reflect hyperbole and lies, but communicate the truth, good or bad, explain your plan and rationale, and get it done. 'Viral' may reach lots of people, but it is no kind of proof of competence.
The world is complicated. People are complicated. Any message which cuts through those facts is likely, in part at least, false.
It pays to educate your self before masking sweeping statements. I did a Google search using your words and this is what I found:
“The ACLU does not support pornography or child porn. However, we do oppose virtually all forms of censorship. Possessing certain books or films, even pornographic ones, should not make one a criminal. Once society starts censoring ‘bad or offensive’ ideas, it becomes very difficult to draw the line. As the saying goes, ‘one man’s art is another man’s pornography.’ As for child pornography, the ACLU supports the right of the government to prosecute the makers of child pornography for exploiting minors.”
Feb. 18, 2010 - American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Most of what you have written is nonsense. The ACLU does not support child pornography. No one defends pedophilia as sexual preference, etc. These are misinformed arguments.
I agree. The best PR folks in the country have offered to help, former GOP strategists have provided clear instructions and pointed out traps laid by their former colleagues/clients...Democratic leadership ignores every piece of advice. At some point, it begins to seem deliberate. The only leadership I've personally seen in the past year is Liz Cheney's performance on the 1/6 Committee. I abhor her politics, but she's a leader.
#1 remains the same. Find out who paid off Brett Kavanaugh's debts. There has to be a paper/ electronic trail.
#2 Merrick Garland. He had ties to Federalist Society and let's get a clear look at the DoJ and its thus far seeming lukewarm response to Jan. 6 and the Trump family dealings including Duetsch Bank, Saudi Arabia, Russia.
There would still have to be tax consequences for any amount over 11k. I think itvwould be worth a look. Don't know just how wealthy his parents are, but whatever they gave him over 11K would have to be in his tax return with where the money came from. Surely the SCOTUS have to provide a return every twar.
As a very smart investigator once told me, "We have to go from 'I think' to 'I know' and thats why we investigate."
Show me the return. Show me his parents return because we NEED to know. Did that pay off come from their accounts or from a loan or from the sale of something?
actually cathy you can gift 14K each to kav, his spouse and their kids and then have your wife do the same without having to file a gift return.....so it adds up and if you did it on dec 31st you could do the same again the next day.
Voting rights. It should be the top issue. Nothing else will matter if this is not dealt with. And so all the rest is noise without this. There is no country, no constitution, no USA without voting rights. Without voting rights the next years will make the past five look like a vacation.
Teaching faculty positions at US colleges have been increasingly staffed by adjuncts, around 70% in many cases. Why are there so few fully contracted faculty currently and how much of the budget is being consumed by administrative budgets in comparison? How many administrators actually have teaching experience and understand how their policies affect teachers, students and classrooms? What was the percentage of adjuncts 30 years ago?
Well, 20 years ago, a number of us up at Rutgers (all overly educated and energetically teaching writing to our students) figured out that with the commutes we were earning between $1 and 2 an hour! We lobbied.... Bureaucracy is so enervating!
Good news! For Republicans: Their direct, relentless assaults on the foundations of our democracy are steadily succeeding, as states suppress votes, gerrymander, and contrive ways to OVERTURN election results.
Yet, with the midterms just 11 months away, the Freedom to Vote Act -- which would counter that sabotage and achieve much more -- remains stalled out in the Senate, hostage to the filibuster.
Implementing and enforcing the Act could be a lengthy process. Republican midterm wins would/will be a massive catastrophe of historic proportions.
How come getting the Act passed PRONTO is not Job #1 for the Senate? For Biden? For all of us, who can be hammering our Senators & the White House about this?
MLK's reflection on the civil rights movement speaks directly to this: ". . . the greatest tragedy . . . was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
Please apply your laser focus to this grave and worsening crisis, which is playing out in broad daylight as the clock runs out.
I enjoy reading your newsletters and the focus many bring to money in politics. I always wonder about the military budget. No matter how "bad" our debt is, there is absolutely no debate among Democrats or Republicans about throwing even more money to them (this year $25 billion or $68 million per day!). Yet for every new weapon system all I ever see is how excessive the cost per unit seems, how late it is, how it doesn't perform, how we need to spend more to fix the problem, etc. Is that true? Are the military contractors taking us for a ride? If so, which CEO's are milking us the most? Are hedge funds active in this space, maximizing their take while making the taxpayer foot the bill? Maybe my impression from the news is wrong and all is dandy in military procurement. Would love to see some analysis of this.
Added to your points and questions, we apparently pay for a great deal of waste such as warehouses full of parts that aren't useful anymore. I'd like to add that our true war seems to be against Mother Nature--that we need well trained and well equipped "soldiers" to deal with our disasters of fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados (today), droughts, contaminations, temperature extremes that kill people....
This might be more of a long-term idea but I'm concerned about the fate of the middle class in the US. There's a housing bubble and I see corporate investors snapping up properties all over the country., sustaining the boom and pushing ordinary people who want to live in those properties out of the market. Big corporations control more and more of people's lives, many hold monopolies on goods, services and information, wages are low, employment benefits hard to come by. It seems we're headed for a feudal system where "workers" are beholden to corporations for where they live, where they buy essential services and how much they pay for them. Nobody stands up for normal people. Instead, politicians of both parties look bought and paid for and refuse to do anything about breaking up the big monopolistic players. I believe capitalism is the best system but the US has lost the balance. For most of us normal people, hard work isn't paying off.
Housing prices up 20%. COLA in our county is 10.1%. Rents up 16.4%. The next wage increase set for 2022 is 3.25%.
How can potential homeowners save a down payment while paying their rent? DTI ratios, affordabilty index, .... Bleak prospects for my children to buy a home.
What are the 2-3 best actions one person can take to protect election integrity in 2022? If it is writing letters or contributing money, to whom should I write? And which organizations are being the most cost effective in protecting election integrity (or voter registration, which I believe are intertwined)
This is outside of my area of expertise (direct activism) but I'd recommend plugging in with an org like fairfight.com. There are other good ones as well.
thanks. Already contribute to FairFight monthly. I will spend some time checking for others. Keep up the great work Judd. PI's positive impact on American democracy is huge in my opinion
I find myself sometimes avoiding reading your articles because I can't take it. The word balance comes to mind. You guys are REALLY GOOD at digging, finding, exposing. And I'm super interested and so grateful for that! You haven't written about topics I've submitted here so I'm asking for a psychological addition to your work instead.
I know a lot of politicians and corporations are greedy or corrupt. However, there MUST be good ones, too, right? How is this balance reflected in your work? Are you ever mindfully acknowledging those that do right? Or is it a constant window into negative, horrible and bad truth?
In life there is balance. I truly appreciate your work but if you want me to read it consistently, you'll need to add a couple morsels of good once in a blue moon stuff to keep me going.
This is a very valid point. Part of it is my own orientation to digging up muck. I can't promise "balance" but I will try to include more positive news. There are certainly a lot of people trying to do good in the world.
If you think about it, Popular Opinion’s listing of corporations who have stopped funding insurrectionist-supporting politicians is one example of balance.
Indeed it is a step in the direction! One. But out of how many pieces? That's not balance. Please know I'm not complaining! I control whether to read or not read. Just offering insight into how/why I choose to consume news bc it may be helpful for Judd to see PI from this reader's perspective.
I feel you! Couple of suggestions for finding more hope— I get a little boost from following Dan Price on LinkedIn hehe. Watching all the reaction in his threads is challenging but usually heartening. Also really heartened by a lot of renewed union activity and I like to write in/chat with and encourage the staff at businesses I patronize when they are trying to organize 💕
I would suggest reducing the amount of news you read. There's too much "content" out there and it gets overwhelming. I've had to stop reading books part way through and pick up Harry Potter or something else more fun to read.
Unsolicited advice without learning or knowing how much news I consume. The ego of some people amazes me. It is possible to have an opinion about something we read online without offering judgment or advice.
Heading into work and just wanted to say that I believe our biggest problem is that all media are not focused on the criminal nature of what GOP and right wing media are doing to undermine democracy. Too many times, major media presents the issue as having value on both sides.
Why isn’t the FCC acting to stop / limit “broadcasting” by Fox / OANN / Newsmax of all the lies and misinformation? Like regulating social media algorithms that “amplify” hate speech or violent threats, it seems to me that we won’t stop the current disintegration of our public discourse without returning extremism back to the fringe…
Your work on current high inflation and its roots in corporate greed is so vital, and the newspapers I read (the NYT and a local paper that relies on the USA Today aand AP networks for its national content) show no awareness of this. The NYT last weekend had a piece marveling that the stock market was going up despite inflation. (No, it's not despite but because of exploitative price increases/inflation, per your info. on what's feeding the high profits that are raising areas of the stock market.) And its front pages were showing how high inflation is, explaining it with the reasons those greedy corporations are claiming explain it all--supply-chain issues, scarcer products, labor shortages. All those are real, but as you showed, not enough to explain the rate of increase. Journalists are saying how bad the inflation is for Biden and for Democrats' election prospects. Huge stakes here. Very frustrating that national outlets aren't picking up on that important work of yours!
I am so grateful I found you! I deeply appreciate the attention to detail in all your reporting. Keep doing what your doing! Follow the money and stay safe while doing so!
Corporate malfeasance is top on my list. As a case in point: the insurer, UNUM, recently doubled the monthly premium for long term care from under $100/mo to over $200/mo. Many if not most of the insured are now retired and that increase is impossible to meet on a social security income. The 30 years we have paid into the plan will evaporate if we cannot afford the increase. We bought into the assurance that premiums would never increase. The company states that the increase is legal since it is all of the insured who are affected and has been approved by the attorney general. The CEO brings home $13 million per year. Many of us will have to drop the plan, kiss our old age security good by and walk away from $20-50K worth of premiums paid in over the last several
decades. The company offers to reduce premiums if the insured agrees to switch to a greatly reduced benefit. This is so wrong, yet it will be allowed to happen because corporate America owns the legislators.
Get to the bottom of the claims that notation and the lack of and or shortage of supplies and stock on the shelves is the fault of this President. Also - Please address the lack of brain power currently in the Senate , where an overblown budget for military gets passed but something for the public good doesn’t. And I do not want to see any words about how that huge military spending budget is the the public good.
I think main stream media news is billionaire owned brainwashing propaganda. How can they be called news?
I won't watch it, I haven't watched the "news" in decades. Yet it's the news source for most Americans. This is what frightens me. Doesn't matter what the truth is, most Americans will never know because the billionaires control most of the news outlets. Scary
If feasible, would it be possible to look into how not telling the US's real history will continue to indoctrinate the next generations of youth and how this will leave our Democracy routinely in peril.
Or, dig in and find out why Manchin & Sinema do not want all voters, especially Black & Brown ppl to vote.
Or, why the fillibuster is part of the Confederate hold on our Democracy, still.
Great work as always Judd. I would like to see more about Manchin and Sinema as well. They aren't true democrats and their obstruction is ruining everything. It seems like they are more concerned with their own interests and making a name for themselves, rather than helping their constituents and doing what they were elected to do. Also what's going on with the Dominion lawsuits? Has there been any movement there?
My fears are that too many Democrats and Left leaning folks will ignore the midterms and that the GOP will win back the Senate and the House and that voting rights will be lost forever.
I still want to see journalist do a deep dive on my Congressman, Brian Fitzpatrick. He's close friends with Jim Worthington who was paid a visit by the FBI over Jan 1. He occasionally votes with Dems so that the media gives him a pass and lets him pretend to be bipartisan, which he most definitely is not. There's so much smoke there surrounding him, but no one want to look for the fire because he appears bland and boring. Not a sexy story because he isn't one of frothing at the mouths GQP. No instead I think he's more of a McConnell, which can be so much worse.
The information Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has on the dark money sources in politics and how the money is used to get what the Federalist Society wants. Unless this information is parsed out so that the public can grasp what is happening, it will be extremely difficult to escape this noose. You, Judd, would be an excellent person to expose these levers in ways that we the people can see how democracy is being suffocated.
My fears for 2022 are that not enough will continue to be done on a global scale to combat COVID and climate change and that the people from the least developed countries will continue to most acutely feel the pain of our collective inaction. I really don't see us improving on these fronts.
Least developed countries =most exploited countries by USA, Canada, UK, etc. It’s not in the best interest of capitalism for these countries to be strong and healthy.
Speaking as someone who scrimped and scraped to pay off his student loan, and who worked full-time as an overnight DJ while also a full-time student to keep that loan manageable in the first place, I don't view debt forgiveness as unfair at all. Nothing about my experience was ennobling or character-building, and I fervently wish that no other student ever again has to experience anything like what I did.
I don’t adhere to the rugged individualism ideology. I believe strongly that student debt cancellation benefits small businesses, creation of small businesses, housing industry, etc. Ppl find this unfair while the ultra wealthy laugh at us for attacking each other.
Second to voting rights is the necessity for the Attorney General and the Justice Department to bring charges against those who planned the January 6th insurrection. Third: ethics and disclosure rules for SCOTUS. Finally, laws forbidding social media companies’ use of algorithms that feed into our lowest instincts, along with holding them to the same standards as journalists because once they steer discussions they are no longer neutral conveyors of communications.
Can a two-party system in a country this large survive, given that social media/media thrive by convincing gop that dems are evil and vice versa? How can we change our system so that coalitions are encouraged to seek common ground? How do healthy democracies do it? Thank you for your excellent work!
Voting rights, indeed. If the right succeeds in their voter suppression, gerrymandering, and setting up that Republican Legislatures can simply overturn elections, we will be hammered by unethical minority rule for at least 10 years. I'd leave the country but I'm on social security and could never afford to do so.
Can you investigate how the Alt Right (and accompanying white supremacists) are NOT, as Bill Maher and other have suggested, "mostly Baby Boomers"? I'm a blue dot in a very red area and I regularly see Millennials at anti-vaxxer and pro-open carry protests.
Try to find ways to defeat disinformation. The right wing has already built a disinformation juggernaut, and they know that lying gives them a running head start on every issue. The right wing, along with Russia and China and other authoritarian forces have been running a psyop on the American people. Even well meaning Dem's are guilty of spreading disinformation. What kind of money/power is behind the mainstream media's refusal to call out the lies. "Messaging" is useless against a tsunami of disinformation.
I don't think I have a grand plan to defeat the "disinformation juggernaut" but Popular Information is my effort to get accurate news to people without intermediaries.
6 companies own almost all media outlets: https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic/ There are hundreds of alt news sites, (VisionLaunch has a link list of over 260), sub stacks, podcasts, each in its niche, you can find anything you want. There are ratings of left v right leanings (like AllSides), but it still comes down to a personal decision of which information source to trust. Psyops dissects neurological programming, targeting the vulnerable, to gain trust. Things as subtle as trace element deficiencies or imbalances in one's diet can make significant enough changes in brain function to make one vulnerable. All media - entertainment, games, news - influences our opinions. The money hoarding power possessors need to be outed for what they are up to, and that is a steep hill to climb. Get your boots on.
I really need a source - or my sources need to make special editions - that can communicate with someone whose news universe is Fox and Wall Street Journal. The worlds we live on are so different that straight reporting is rejected as leftist opinion.
Please stay on the issue of voting rights in this country. Nothing is more important than mobilizing fair-minded citizens to fight for and preserve our system of government. If we start down this slippery slope, we will mostly likely lose it all.
In Alberta where the hospitalization rate is 34.81% fully vaccinated and 3.87 partially vaccinated and 61.33% vaccinated. Many unvaccinated people think this means that the vaccine doesn't really do much or is only about twice as good (34.81% vs 61.33%) than not getting it. However our full vaccination rate (2 shots+ 14 days wait time) for the population is 89.4% for 18 and over closing in on 80% for 12 to 18 year old's and we are at 24.3% on 5-11 year old's first shots which just started being given a couple weeks ago. When the Hospitalization numbers are layered over the difference in size of the vaccinated and non vaccinated populations it shows that the vaccines are closer to 15 times better than being vaccinated. Can you do an article on statics showing these trends. I can do the math but I can't put the words together in a way that clearly shows how huge a deal vaccination really is.
Please compare and contrast the British and American political environments and their impact on division (very little in the UK other than the anomaly of Brexit). In particular, the UK limits how much can be spent by a candidate to get elected, and a fairness doctrine exists to balance the time allocated to political parties in national media. The result is far less division, and a multi-party system that discourages extreme polarization (I have been politically active in both the UK and the US). I now live in deeply red SW Missouri and it is deeply offensive to my British sense of fair play that gerrymandering has resulted in one party rule here for 18-years and it is even worse in some other former confederate states with seemingly no recourse to change it. Thanks for your work Judd. It is very valuable.
I enjoy the way you keep digging out who’s donating to republicans that support authoritarianism but let’s dig deeper into who’s funding people like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott and the other crazy right wing governors and what we can do as grass roots in each state to stop them.
My fear is that the least of us will continue to be swept away into dark corners to die while those that make the policies stand on a stage and pretend that they're separate entities. I only hope that people begin to learn that they have more power than they realize, and how to channel it to help their communities. It'd be pretty neat to see you do a collab with Discontents. Thanks for all that you do.
Nothing seems to be able to get through the Senate not only because of Republicans but Democrat Senators Manchin and Sinema. Who is funding these two senators? Do they care more about their donors than the country? I would like to see these two Senators investigated. They are more concerned about the ultra rich not having to pay more taxes than helping working class people. If we don't pass federal voting right now we may lose democracy. We also need to pass Build Back Better to help working class people, Manchin and Sinema continue to stand in the way of these important bills.
Voting rights and "audits", Roe, killing education by a thousand cuts, manipulation of the judiciary, convenient vigilante laws, money used to vote for policy... it's all part of a package being worked on as long as I can remember. As heinous as Jan 6 was, it was a terrible sideshow to cover what Republicans and "conservatives" have been doing behind the scenes. While the mob tramps out in "tactical" gear and khakis, the real work is being done in power suits, pearls and judges robes. Add the continuous stream of media noise dressed up as news, and the unwillingness of those who should be defending us at the highest levels to get their knuckles bruised and do so - mostly fearing how they think they'll appear in media - sets our people and our republic up for disaster, if not willingly, for certain ignorantly. When I was young we made quite a show of denouncing other countries for doing the very things we're doing now to our own people.
At age 53 I discovered I was trans and the road ahead was painful. I’ve dealt with that and the medical and personal costs. What I can’t deal with is murder. There’s an epidemic in the US of transgender murder. People are killed for trying to live a fulfilling life. One that brings the constitutional promises to fruition. Most killed are trans women of color. Republicans are routinely targeting young people, destroying lives of the most vulnerable for political gain. Shine a light on the plight of the smallest minority in the US
My only comment is that while I often don't read your emails, I read every post and reply you make on Twitter in my Twitter feed, so don't take my email non-opens as non-interest. I think you are great and I'm glad I'm able to subscribe and help pay you for your valuable work.
Please investigate Joe Manchin for conflicts of interest beyond the dividends he receives from coal stocks. (His defence: It’s in a blind trust, which is no excuse, but it’s not going to be news.) His yacht; his money; there has to be more there. He’s undermining a multi trillion dollar bill for poorly justified reasons, and threatening the midterms, making Dems look like idiots. Could he have ulterior motives? He must know dems are appearing incapable of governing, which would be a goal of McConnell, not a democrat. He’s hurting his constituents in West Virginia who are poor and need the child credit. So why is he doing it? Thanks.
Not sure it's really a secret. He has a financial interest in the continued use of coal for energy. Another aspect of all this is the diaspora of former staffers representing fossil fuel interests: https://popular.info/p/the-manchin-industry
The donor class has captured a plurality of Congress...Manchin is just a particularly egregious example. At the end of the day, the reality is that if Manchin/Sinema succeed in blocking voting rights legislation (and attendant democracy hardening legislation), neither will be rewarded. Their usefulness to donors will be at an end, they'll lose reelection even if they attempt to switch parties, and lavish donor dollars will dry up overnight. The only ones who fail to understand that their transactional perks will disappear under 1-party GOP rule are Manchin and Sinema themselves.
I was going to reply, Judd revealed the answers to your question in two previous articles of Popular Information. So, maybe the lingering question is: what can we do about this. Would more exposure make him uncomfortable enough to shift?
I suggest that you read Tim Miller's Bulwark post of this a.m.
His ties to Koch funded groups explains a lot.
The Manchin’s have a poor reputation among people with long memories. AJ Manchin was Joe Manchin’s uncle. Always heard from folks in Fairmont, WV the Manchin clan looked out for themselves and not constituents. All is hearsay so not print worthy.
If we want to just toss 2022 into the GOP bin than yeah, sure, let's spend all our time attacking...a Democrat.
Even if all he is is a placeholder, him being replaced means being replaced by a Republican. Which means giving the senate back to McConnell.
Manchin is what he is. He won't change. Let's just move on.
Manchin is a Democrat in name only; seems obvious. He’a drunk on the power.
This is the power we gave him.
Did we manage to get enough Democratic senators voted so that he would irrelevant?
Nope. We slept walked through several state elections. And we're paying the price for doing so.
Also sleep walking now as the Republicans build out the infrastructure to steal next year's elections: gerrymandering, laws to suppress voting, people in position to play with the counts, not certify results they don't like, pinning anything and everything on Biden.
And? What is the point you're trying to make relative to the topic of this writing?
You indicated 'we' slept walked through some 2018 Senate elections. My point was to follow that up and say we continue to sleep while the Republicans are making it even harder for 2022.
Why does everyone say Manchin wil be replaced by a republican? Maybe with the billboards going around WV and solid campaigning it will be possible to flip WV after they realize who this guy really is…
Have you seen the polling around West Virginia? Trump, the Republican governor, all positions in 2020 beat out Democrats by a 2/3 margin. This is one of the most conservative, blood red states in the union. And one of the most ignorant.
Seriously, no one believes that a progressive Democrat can win in W. Virginia. https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-elections/west-virginia-results
Manchin has thrived in obscurity as a senator in a state that voted for Trump in massive numbers. He's only on the public radar because the Democrats have such a slim majority in the Senate. If Biden had made voting rights and hardening our democracy the central driving tenet of his first term, there would have been intense unrelenting pressure on Mancin, Sinema to explain what guarantees they gave to McConnell during the month McConnell refused to yield the gavel to Schumer. Instead, the media stories swirled around an endless battle over the $amount for BBB. 2 weeks before EOY, Biden finally decides that democracy is worth saving. Manchin is who he's always been, but Biden's advisers are tone deaf...his passivity has alienated almost every constituency while the few things he has done have alienated the others (choosing not to honor his campaign promises re student loans, slow-walking replacement of deJoy, giving lip service to civil rights leaders while giving his cell number to survivors of the Mayfield tornado, appointing cronies to Ambassadorships, embracing Trump's 'stay in Mexico's immigration debacle, the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal). Biden doesn't need any help from Manchin to continue to alienate voters. I can only hope that he focuses on his actual constituents next year...
Even better for 2022:
Democrats spending the next year attacking Biden instead of Republicans; disregarding how narrow a hold we have in the House and Senate; ignoring the number of GOP-led states; completely closing our eyes to the reality of what we have after 2020, which includes a GOP more determined to tank Dems and Biden than to actually do anything useful.
I'm sure this will be a huge winner for us in 2022.
Between the courts, and the states, and our narrow, narrow leads, it's astonishing that Biden has been able to accomplish as much as he has. Why are we so blind to this? It's not as if the difficulties of getting anything passed haven't been staring at us for the last several months.
I so appreciate this viewpoint. Thank you!
Agreed. One begins to wonder if "Corporation Joe Biden" secretly favors a position similar to that of Manchin's. I seem to remember a promise being made that nothing substantial will change. Perhaps I am jumping at shadows but the inaction of the Biden administration on this, the seeming ineffectiveness of Garland's DOJ, the overall failure to use the bully pulpit effectively and get 2 outlier senators in line among other questions, makes me wonder just why there is such a lack of urgency.
Biden is a traditionalist bringing knives to a gun fight. Obama was the same. Trump's stupidity allowed this opportunity to get things straightened out a bit. The decimation of voting rights going on right now is a shame and should have been 1st. There is a very real possibility the Republicans will take the House and Senate, effectively ending Biden's Presidency. 2010 all over again.
Yes!!!
I honestly think Mansion has his eyes on the White House in '24.
First, thanks again for the journalism you do here at Popular Information.
There are so many stories and themes that I appreciate that you do. But I think in 2022, one of the important things will be the kinds of work you did in your story in the truth about inflation a few weeks ago. Your story exposed, not only corporate greed and basically profiteering off the pandemic but also how the story of "rising inflation" was being reported unquestioned in much of the news and headlines.
In an election year, especially this first one post January 6, it seems there will be a lot lot lot of noise, fear, manipulation, and falsehood that will make it into the newstream, intentionally and unintentionally, as part of some politicians' desire to acquire or hold power at any cost, including that of democratic rights such as an accurately informed vote in a free and fair election.
So I guess I'm saying please continue what you are doing because the need for it is going to be in high in 2022.
Better stated than what I was intending. I’m frustrated that news stories begin stating the historic levels of inflation but absolutely fail to mention the levels of corporate profiteering.
News is owned by 6-7 firms that are in the Corporate profiteering business. So of course news doesn't focus on their employer's trangressions.
I’m in completely agreement with BearNation. Updates on corporate profiteering, please.
Thanks. I'll be continuing to explore this topic from various angles.
Thank you!
Amen! Let's remember that one article on corporations being unnecessarily greedy and thus adding to inflation should not suggest "oh, that's covered, let's move on"--do please continue to expose the details of corporations' practices, profits, and who they make huge donations to.
Spoken with breathtaking amounts of white privilege. We don't put basic human rights up to a popular vote.
I am curious as to what corporate ties or funding is related to the Supreme Court Justices and the Federalist Society that chose them.
My top concerns are, in roughly this order: protecting voting rights; locking up insurrectionists and those in the Trump administration and Congress who conspired with them; passing BBB; encoding Roe v. Wade into statutory law; and taking steps beyond what's in BBB to fight global warming.
Again, who in a responsible position in the Democratic Party is advocating "prison abolition and defunding police"? No one at the federal level, conservative media rantings notwithstanding.
👋🏻 Hi!
Where are you getting your information from? Please scrutinize your sources.
Defunding the police is really about the insane percentage of our tax dollars the police get which is increasingly resulting in militarization and real harm and neglect to the communities. I’d encourage you to look at the actual budgets in your area to see how much goes to policing versus social services, schools, firefighters, hospitals, etc. In my current home county it’s actually pretty balanced but in so many areas you will see a tiny sliver to social services and a huge percentage to policing. Those also tend to be areas where the police are militarized and busting around killing and terrorizing folks when the situation is not actually life threatening, meanwhile those folks have little access to the social infrastructure that can prevent the sort of low level criminal situations that police are getting involved in and escalating.
For those who are serious about reforming the carceral system, defunding the police is an essential piece of the puzzle. Absolutely no one is trying to use the insurrectionists, nor any rapists, pedophiles, murderers, etc as the proof of concept. I do actually follow a lot of these more radical conversations and while people will encourage each other to rethink calls for simply locking everyone up in light of their ideals, no one is seriously suggesting we start out towards our vision of a prison free society by letting insurrectionists and rapists and murderers &c go free with a slap on the wrist- while leaving the mostly poor, black and brown population to rot and slave away in jails and prisons meanwhile.
As you’re learning and reading about these movements keep the context in mind and look at the ways idealistic conversations differ from actual policy. Also note that policy will tend to be tempered by reality and the plurality of voters and legislators. I
I’d also encourage you to look at the prison industrial complex- for profit prisons and their ties to money and politics, the immigrant prisons we’ve heard so much about lately where children and families seeking asylum in the US are a great place to start. When you start asking who is profiting off of these prison population you will reveal quite a lot of disturbing information.
Really- we all want justice- and we do not believe that the carceral system is delivering it, not even close. Here’s a recent example of a confessed serial rapist going free to illustrate how broken the system we wish to reform is: https://youtu.be/sM5WrLoonFI
VOTING RIGHTS. GERRYMANDERING. If we don’t get a handle on these two things, all is lost.
Voting rights (and fair district lines) are essential for a functioning democracy. One thing that gets lost is that making it easier to vote doesn't mean that Democrats will win. Virginia made it quite easy to vote and Republicans took advantage.
I don't disagree, Judd, but I'd submit that Virginia was an outlier due to a number of factors (a poorly run campaign by McAuliffe, a smart, focused campaign run by Youngkin, the Republicans' successful effort to make CRT an issue with suburban voters, and the absence of the Orange Asscactus from the race no matter how much the Democrats tried to bring him back into it). On balance, I believe that making it easier to vote benefits Democrats more than Republicans. However, I will absolutely concede that you are far more knowledgeable than I am on this subject and would therefore defer to your judgment.
Federal voting rights legislation is a necessity! At the federal level, definitely, so the red states can’t simply disenfranchise groups of people. This must be the top priority! Absolutely essential!!
^^^^^^What she said.
Biden should have got this done 1st thing. Now that all this time has been wasted on BBB, Biden is making Voting a top priority. There should be enormous pressure on our two strays to get with the program. I have my doubts though he can bring them in line as they have no fear of him.
While POTUS was in Ky yesterday, he said voting rights are the number one issue in the nation. Hopefully that means it will be the main focus instead of BBB (which honestly is dead in the water right now). Again, Manchin and Sinema are the hold outs. They have to convince them to vote for a carve out of the filibuster.
I am wondering how the ‘news/political operatives’ like Ingram and Hanity at Fox can be more fully exposed for breaching every journalistic norm? And whether the Fox station has violated norms of truthfulness associated with their right to broadcast under FCC rules? Where is the accountability for the privilege of using national airways paid for by ALL Americans?
It's entertainment and not news. This isn't something the FCC will or should fix. But there are structural issues with how everyone pays for cable. Fixing those could do a lot of good: https://popular.info/p/tucker-lachlan-and-subsidized-speech
When Fox has been sued in the past, they claim under oath that their opinion hosts are clearly making absurd statements for the purposes of entertainment, and that no reasonable person would take them seriously. This has been a winning strategy. Their viewers believe what they see, but judges believe the 'absurdity' argument. I do think, if it proceeds, the slander lawsuits from the voting machine companies stand a decent chance of success.
Hard to belileve isn't it? That a judge would issue a ruling that basically lets them get away with it because no reasonably intelligent person would believe them! Alex Jones has used that dodge on the past too but he lost in a recent ruling on Sandy Hook and now is justifiably "on the hook," if you will.
Let's not forget Tucker Carlson!
And it’s not inflation. It’s corporate price gouging to increase corporate profit that then creates inflation at the retail level. I know you covered it, but it needs to become a drum beat.
That cost is being driven by vulture capitalists gobbling up all the rental housing, jacing up the rents, and not taking care of maintenance as they should. It's appalling, and it's an area ripe for government intervention.
My biggest fear for 2022 is that we will go another year without seeing little donnie doing time. The most perilous of times must be matched by the most serious consequences.
Don’t leave history to wonder why we kept wringing our hands and saying Ain’t it Awful.
Twitter is not a real place.
That’s a false and dangerous idea. “Doesn’t matter what we say because it’s on the internet, get over it.” The internet is a real place, more and more so as we move work and other activities to the digital sphere. Content that is published on the internet and interactions taking place there do shape and affect the “real” world.
I know, it's pretty depressing that many people don't see the damage that "social" media is doing to us as a society.
I don't even know what point you are trying to make...many of your posts echo far-right talking points.
Troll
Point me to the progressive journalists pandering to the all powerful Twitter Left.
“ raping young boys”, “extreme domestic violence””serial predator” are fox talking points, never mentioned at CNN or MSNBC. You are a right winger or a troll
I see you have yet to answer my question from days ago yet here you are trying to bully someone. One could call that behavior trollish, if you will. Troll adjacent perhaps. You do give the appearance of trolling madam.
The two victims shot by a murderous teen had every every right to feel threatened by a youth with a rifle and an agenda. He's shooting people and you expect anyone who sees him to think what? He's got a gun so he must be a good guy? What was your opinion of this guy who actually was a "good guy with a gun?"
https://www.npr.org/2018/11/26/670788898/family-demands-video-release-after-alabama-mall-shooting-death
Based on many of my posts you would label me as "the twitter left". You are among the people for whom everything is either black or white - or they're wrong; I'm right. I would gladly pull the lever of the electric chair, or push the needle, for a child abuser, only wishing that the punishment could be more severe. There is no evidence to suggest that those that you label as the twitter left are focused on attacking the need for justice, rather than upholding it. No evidence, although I'm sure you can produce a few rare fringe examples. So go away troll, and get your commission elsewhere.
word salad. stop
I do not support prison abolition. No one with any sense wants to defund the police, but rather, re-organize/fund police to better serve each community.
You have indeed hit a nerve—-my gag reflex.
And I know why.
Cheers.
You continually point to the same 4 Representatives and the same GOP talking points, and I still have no idea what you're trying to say. 4 progressive House members are not representative of 220 House members. The Democrats have a messaging problem, but in this case, Biden is to blame for his failure to prioritize and marshall ever tool to prevent the implosion of democracy.
I am educating myself on prison abolition. I’m liking the idea.
Try again, this time in English.
I've said it before on here, so I'll say it again: "The Twitter Left" as you characterize it is not the real world, even on Twitter. More importantly, please point me to even one Democrat in a responsible position at the federal level who supports "finding 'non-carceral' solutions to rape and child molestation." Go on, dear; we'll wait.
You quote an OPINION by someone who isn't a member of Congress to support what seems to be non-stop trolling on this thread. No point in engaging further, you're wedded to your own narrative.
I've reached my limit of free NYT articles, so I can't read the piece, but I note hw's objection above to your reading of this piece. If in fact they had introduced such an amendment, and if in fact that amendment did what you say it does, perhaps you can find a non-paywalled source, or a paywalled source that is among those I subscribe to, which include WaPo, The Atlantic, Daily Beast, and others.
The article you linked is about the abolition of slavery including prison labor. Not the abolition of prison itself.
Dems messaging is weak, ineffective, and inconsistent. A. They should focus on voting rights and show images of old people (men, women, all races) having their ballots discarded. Seniors vote. B. Infrastructure was a big deal. Dems don't sell it; C. Biden ran on decency. Dems should have viral, consistent marketing appealing to Mom's about decency and their kids and the future. GOP are effective culture war fighters, Dems aren't. There is no excuse for that.
I'm a bit confused about this post. Messaging is not content or governing. As a Dem, I do not want a Dem version of Trump or the GOP. 'Viral' and 'consistent' would seem to have nothing in common. The best government is one that quietly keeps the peace and handles problems that arise with competence. Let us live our lives without the trumped up drama. Get elected, and get your job done!
It's messaging we need, but not viral fake culture war crap. Do not reflect hyperbole and lies, but communicate the truth, good or bad, explain your plan and rationale, and get it done. 'Viral' may reach lots of people, but it is no kind of proof of competence.
The world is complicated. People are complicated. Any message which cuts through those facts is likely, in part at least, false.
It pays to educate your self before masking sweeping statements. I did a Google search using your words and this is what I found:
“The ACLU does not support pornography or child porn. However, we do oppose virtually all forms of censorship. Possessing certain books or films, even pornographic ones, should not make one a criminal. Once society starts censoring ‘bad or offensive’ ideas, it becomes very difficult to draw the line. As the saying goes, ‘one man’s art is another man’s pornography.’ As for child pornography, the ACLU supports the right of the government to prosecute the makers of child pornography for exploiting minors.”
Feb. 18, 2010 - American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)
Most of what you have written is nonsense. The ACLU does not support child pornography. No one defends pedophilia as sexual preference, etc. These are misinformed arguments.
Marketing/branding is what matters, it's what people see/hear. Dems don't have consistent, emotion-based, effective marketing strategies.
I agree. The best PR folks in the country have offered to help, former GOP strategists have provided clear instructions and pointed out traps laid by their former colleagues/clients...Democratic leadership ignores every piece of advice. At some point, it begins to seem deliberate. The only leadership I've personally seen in the past year is Liz Cheney's performance on the 1/6 Committee. I abhor her politics, but she's a leader.
2 things.
#1 remains the same. Find out who paid off Brett Kavanaugh's debts. There has to be a paper/ electronic trail.
#2 Merrick Garland. He had ties to Federalist Society and let's get a clear look at the DoJ and its thus far seeming lukewarm response to Jan. 6 and the Trump family dealings including Duetsch Bank, Saudi Arabia, Russia.
I'm pretty convinced that Kavanaugh's debts were paid by his parents: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/09/heres-the-truth-about-brett-kavanaughs-finances/
There would still have to be tax consequences for any amount over 11k. I think itvwould be worth a look. Don't know just how wealthy his parents are, but whatever they gave him over 11K would have to be in his tax return with where the money came from. Surely the SCOTUS have to provide a return every twar.
As a very smart investigator once told me, "We have to go from 'I think' to 'I know' and thats why we investigate."
Show me the return. Show me his parents return because we NEED to know. Did that pay off come from their accounts or from a loan or from the sale of something?
actually cathy you can gift 14K each to kav, his spouse and their kids and then have your wife do the same without having to file a gift return.....so it adds up and if you did it on dec 31st you could do the same again the next day.
When did it go up to 14?
Anyway using your system. 12/31 and 1/1
So 14 × 4 =56 × 2= 132.
Still well below what he owed. Should still have tax consequences.
I am wondering how Joe Manchin can best be exposed as the POS he is (on a bi-weekly basis)?
Also the new acronym for ‘22 is COOP (Conspiracy to Obstruct an Official Proceeding).
Voting rights. It should be the top issue. Nothing else will matter if this is not dealt with. And so all the rest is noise without this. There is no country, no constitution, no USA without voting rights. Without voting rights the next years will make the past five look like a vacation.
Teaching faculty positions at US colleges have been increasingly staffed by adjuncts, around 70% in many cases. Why are there so few fully contracted faculty currently and how much of the budget is being consumed by administrative budgets in comparison? How many administrators actually have teaching experience and understand how their policies affect teachers, students and classrooms? What was the percentage of adjuncts 30 years ago?
This is a very important issue. I'm not sure if I'm the right person to delve into it or not. Thanks for suggesting.
Well, 20 years ago, a number of us up at Rutgers (all overly educated and energetically teaching writing to our students) figured out that with the commutes we were earning between $1 and 2 an hour! We lobbied.... Bureaucracy is so enervating!
Good news! For Republicans: Their direct, relentless assaults on the foundations of our democracy are steadily succeeding, as states suppress votes, gerrymander, and contrive ways to OVERTURN election results.
Yet, with the midterms just 11 months away, the Freedom to Vote Act -- which would counter that sabotage and achieve much more -- remains stalled out in the Senate, hostage to the filibuster.
Implementing and enforcing the Act could be a lengthy process. Republican midterm wins would/will be a massive catastrophe of historic proportions.
How come getting the Act passed PRONTO is not Job #1 for the Senate? For Biden? For all of us, who can be hammering our Senators & the White House about this?
MLK's reflection on the civil rights movement speaks directly to this: ". . . the greatest tragedy . . . was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
Please apply your laser focus to this grave and worsening crisis, which is playing out in broad daylight as the clock runs out.
Are you from the racist wing of the party?
She is as well as being what I suspect to be a despicable troll. Check her trail.
Always follow the money. Who funded the 1/6 insurrection, and the all the Big Lie shenanigans in its lead-up?
I enjoy reading your newsletters and the focus many bring to money in politics. I always wonder about the military budget. No matter how "bad" our debt is, there is absolutely no debate among Democrats or Republicans about throwing even more money to them (this year $25 billion or $68 million per day!). Yet for every new weapon system all I ever see is how excessive the cost per unit seems, how late it is, how it doesn't perform, how we need to spend more to fix the problem, etc. Is that true? Are the military contractors taking us for a ride? If so, which CEO's are milking us the most? Are hedge funds active in this space, maximizing their take while making the taxpayer foot the bill? Maybe my impression from the news is wrong and all is dandy in military procurement. Would love to see some analysis of this.
So important. Would really love to dig into this.
Added to your points and questions, we apparently pay for a great deal of waste such as warehouses full of parts that aren't useful anymore. I'd like to add that our true war seems to be against Mother Nature--that we need well trained and well equipped "soldiers" to deal with our disasters of fires, floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, tornados (today), droughts, contaminations, temperature extremes that kill people....
This might be more of a long-term idea but I'm concerned about the fate of the middle class in the US. There's a housing bubble and I see corporate investors snapping up properties all over the country., sustaining the boom and pushing ordinary people who want to live in those properties out of the market. Big corporations control more and more of people's lives, many hold monopolies on goods, services and information, wages are low, employment benefits hard to come by. It seems we're headed for a feudal system where "workers" are beholden to corporations for where they live, where they buy essential services and how much they pay for them. Nobody stands up for normal people. Instead, politicians of both parties look bought and paid for and refuse to do anything about breaking up the big monopolistic players. I believe capitalism is the best system but the US has lost the balance. For most of us normal people, hard work isn't paying off.
Income inequality is the story of our future and has been exponentially pushed forward by Covid *and* the proliferation of social media.
Housing prices up 20%. COLA in our county is 10.1%. Rents up 16.4%. The next wage increase set for 2022 is 3.25%.
How can potential homeowners save a down payment while paying their rent? DTI ratios, affordabilty index, .... Bleak prospects for my children to buy a home.
What are the 2-3 best actions one person can take to protect election integrity in 2022? If it is writing letters or contributing money, to whom should I write? And which organizations are being the most cost effective in protecting election integrity (or voter registration, which I believe are intertwined)
This is outside of my area of expertise (direct activism) but I'd recommend plugging in with an org like fairfight.com. There are other good ones as well.
thanks. Already contribute to FairFight monthly. I will spend some time checking for others. Keep up the great work Judd. PI's positive impact on American democracy is huge in my opinion
I find myself sometimes avoiding reading your articles because I can't take it. The word balance comes to mind. You guys are REALLY GOOD at digging, finding, exposing. And I'm super interested and so grateful for that! You haven't written about topics I've submitted here so I'm asking for a psychological addition to your work instead.
I know a lot of politicians and corporations are greedy or corrupt. However, there MUST be good ones, too, right? How is this balance reflected in your work? Are you ever mindfully acknowledging those that do right? Or is it a constant window into negative, horrible and bad truth?
In life there is balance. I truly appreciate your work but if you want me to read it consistently, you'll need to add a couple morsels of good once in a blue moon stuff to keep me going.
This is a very valid point. Part of it is my own orientation to digging up muck. I can't promise "balance" but I will try to include more positive news. There are certainly a lot of people trying to do good in the world.
How about including a section in your daily email about the good people and corporations?
If you think about it, Popular Opinion’s listing of corporations who have stopped funding insurrectionist-supporting politicians is one example of balance.
Indeed it is a step in the direction! One. But out of how many pieces? That's not balance. Please know I'm not complaining! I control whether to read or not read. Just offering insight into how/why I choose to consume news bc it may be helpful for Judd to see PI from this reader's perspective.
I feel you! Couple of suggestions for finding more hope— I get a little boost from following Dan Price on LinkedIn hehe. Watching all the reaction in his threads is challenging but usually heartening. Also really heartened by a lot of renewed union activity and I like to write in/chat with and encourage the staff at businesses I patronize when they are trying to organize 💕
YES!!! The little ONE location Starbucks union gave me so much hope! Thank you, I will follow Dan on LI. Happy holidays!
I would suggest reducing the amount of news you read. There's too much "content" out there and it gets overwhelming. I've had to stop reading books part way through and pick up Harry Potter or something else more fun to read.
Unsolicited advice without learning or knowing how much news I consume. The ego of some people amazes me. It is possible to have an opinion about something we read online without offering judgment or advice.
No offense was intended. But go ahead and respond to my comment with more rudeness.
Heading into work and just wanted to say that I believe our biggest problem is that all media are not focused on the criminal nature of what GOP and right wing media are doing to undermine democracy. Too many times, major media presents the issue as having value on both sides.
Why isn’t the FCC acting to stop / limit “broadcasting” by Fox / OANN / Newsmax of all the lies and misinformation? Like regulating social media algorithms that “amplify” hate speech or violent threats, it seems to me that we won’t stop the current disintegration of our public discourse without returning extremism back to the fringe…
I don't think this is a good solution. I think we need better choices for media and the ability to stop subsidizing outlets and platforms.
1st ammendment, free speech.
Yes, but we used to have the Fairness Doctrine. Balanced viewpoints, fact-checking, etc.or you can’t have a broadcasting license.
Name one.
Your work on current high inflation and its roots in corporate greed is so vital, and the newspapers I read (the NYT and a local paper that relies on the USA Today aand AP networks for its national content) show no awareness of this. The NYT last weekend had a piece marveling that the stock market was going up despite inflation. (No, it's not despite but because of exploitative price increases/inflation, per your info. on what's feeding the high profits that are raising areas of the stock market.) And its front pages were showing how high inflation is, explaining it with the reasons those greedy corporations are claiming explain it all--supply-chain issues, scarcer products, labor shortages. All those are real, but as you showed, not enough to explain the rate of increase. Journalists are saying how bad the inflation is for Biden and for Democrats' election prospects. Huge stakes here. Very frustrating that national outlets aren't picking up on that important work of yours!
Yes… the capitalistic corporate greed is strong in too many. Power and money truly can corrupt. Makes former believers of our brother’s keepers.
Tis truly maddening that they don’t look at the world from the aspect that we’re only as strong as our weakest link.
I am so grateful I found you! I deeply appreciate the attention to detail in all your reporting. Keep doing what your doing! Follow the money and stay safe while doing so!
Corporate malfeasance is top on my list. As a case in point: the insurer, UNUM, recently doubled the monthly premium for long term care from under $100/mo to over $200/mo. Many if not most of the insured are now retired and that increase is impossible to meet on a social security income. The 30 years we have paid into the plan will evaporate if we cannot afford the increase. We bought into the assurance that premiums would never increase. The company states that the increase is legal since it is all of the insured who are affected and has been approved by the attorney general. The CEO brings home $13 million per year. Many of us will have to drop the plan, kiss our old age security good by and walk away from $20-50K worth of premiums paid in over the last several
decades. The company offers to reduce premiums if the insured agrees to switch to a greatly reduced benefit. This is so wrong, yet it will be allowed to happen because corporate America owns the legislators.
Get to the bottom of the claims that notation and the lack of and or shortage of supplies and stock on the shelves is the fault of this President. Also - Please address the lack of brain power currently in the Senate , where an overblown budget for military gets passed but something for the public good doesn’t. And I do not want to see any words about how that huge military spending budget is the the public good.
You are one of the only news outlets I trust.
I think main stream media news is billionaire owned brainwashing propaganda. How can they be called news?
I won't watch it, I haven't watched the "news" in decades. Yet it's the news source for most Americans. This is what frightens me. Doesn't matter what the truth is, most Americans will never know because the billionaires control most of the news outlets. Scary
If feasible, would it be possible to look into how not telling the US's real history will continue to indoctrinate the next generations of youth and how this will leave our Democracy routinely in peril.
Or, dig in and find out why Manchin & Sinema do not want all voters, especially Black & Brown ppl to vote.
Or, why the fillibuster is part of the Confederate hold on our Democracy, still.
Thank you.
Great work as always Judd. I would like to see more about Manchin and Sinema as well. They aren't true democrats and their obstruction is ruining everything. It seems like they are more concerned with their own interests and making a name for themselves, rather than helping their constituents and doing what they were elected to do. Also what's going on with the Dominion lawsuits? Has there been any movement there?
My fears are that too many Democrats and Left leaning folks will ignore the midterms and that the GOP will win back the Senate and the House and that voting rights will be lost forever.
I still want to see journalist do a deep dive on my Congressman, Brian Fitzpatrick. He's close friends with Jim Worthington who was paid a visit by the FBI over Jan 1. He occasionally votes with Dems so that the media gives him a pass and lets him pretend to be bipartisan, which he most definitely is not. There's so much smoke there surrounding him, but no one want to look for the fire because he appears bland and boring. Not a sexy story because he isn't one of frothing at the mouths GQP. No instead I think he's more of a McConnell, which can be so much worse.
Perfectly said. Also how about some exposure of "Problem Solvers Caucus?" What a sham.
Climate change initiatives n powerful opposition forces
The information Senator Sheldon Whitehouse has on the dark money sources in politics and how the money is used to get what the Federalist Society wants. Unless this information is parsed out so that the public can grasp what is happening, it will be extremely difficult to escape this noose. You, Judd, would be an excellent person to expose these levers in ways that we the people can see how democracy is being suffocated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Money_(book)
My fears for 2022 are that not enough will continue to be done on a global scale to combat COVID and climate change and that the people from the least developed countries will continue to most acutely feel the pain of our collective inaction. I really don't see us improving on these fronts.
Least developed countries =most exploited countries by USA, Canada, UK, etc. It’s not in the best interest of capitalism for these countries to be strong and healthy.
Why is Biden breaking his promise to cancel student debt, whether all or partially?
Speaking as someone who scrimped and scraped to pay off his student loan, and who worked full-time as an overnight DJ while also a full-time student to keep that loan manageable in the first place, I don't view debt forgiveness as unfair at all. Nothing about my experience was ennobling or character-building, and I fervently wish that no other student ever again has to experience anything like what I did.
I love your comment!
I don’t adhere to the rugged individualism ideology. I believe strongly that student debt cancellation benefits small businesses, creation of small businesses, housing industry, etc. Ppl find this unfair while the ultra wealthy laugh at us for attacking each other.
Second to voting rights is the necessity for the Attorney General and the Justice Department to bring charges against those who planned the January 6th insurrection. Third: ethics and disclosure rules for SCOTUS. Finally, laws forbidding social media companies’ use of algorithms that feed into our lowest instincts, along with holding them to the same standards as journalists because once they steer discussions they are no longer neutral conveyors of communications.
I'm interested in rising censorship and journalist's repression in the US
Can a two-party system in a country this large survive, given that social media/media thrive by convincing gop that dems are evil and vice versa? How can we change our system so that coalitions are encouraged to seek common ground? How do healthy democracies do it? Thank you for your excellent work!
Voting rights, indeed. If the right succeeds in their voter suppression, gerrymandering, and setting up that Republican Legislatures can simply overturn elections, we will be hammered by unethical minority rule for at least 10 years. I'd leave the country but I'm on social security and could never afford to do so.
Can you investigate how the Alt Right (and accompanying white supremacists) are NOT, as Bill Maher and other have suggested, "mostly Baby Boomers"? I'm a blue dot in a very red area and I regularly see Millennials at anti-vaxxer and pro-open carry protests.
Read the Atlantic article by Barton Gellman--it contains much of the demographic data.
Try to find ways to defeat disinformation. The right wing has already built a disinformation juggernaut, and they know that lying gives them a running head start on every issue. The right wing, along with Russia and China and other authoritarian forces have been running a psyop on the American people. Even well meaning Dem's are guilty of spreading disinformation. What kind of money/power is behind the mainstream media's refusal to call out the lies. "Messaging" is useless against a tsunami of disinformation.
I don't think I have a grand plan to defeat the "disinformation juggernaut" but Popular Information is my effort to get accurate news to people without intermediaries.
Keep up the great work! We just need to amplify your voice x 1000 (or more).
6 companies own almost all media outlets: https://www.webfx.com/blog/internet/the-6-companies-that-own-almost-all-media-infographic/ There are hundreds of alt news sites, (VisionLaunch has a link list of over 260), sub stacks, podcasts, each in its niche, you can find anything you want. There are ratings of left v right leanings (like AllSides), but it still comes down to a personal decision of which information source to trust. Psyops dissects neurological programming, targeting the vulnerable, to gain trust. Things as subtle as trace element deficiencies or imbalances in one's diet can make significant enough changes in brain function to make one vulnerable. All media - entertainment, games, news - influences our opinions. The money hoarding power possessors need to be outed for what they are up to, and that is a steep hill to climb. Get your boots on.
I really need a source - or my sources need to make special editions - that can communicate with someone whose news universe is Fox and Wall Street Journal. The worlds we live on are so different that straight reporting is rejected as leftist opinion.
Please stay on the issue of voting rights in this country. Nothing is more important than mobilizing fair-minded citizens to fight for and preserve our system of government. If we start down this slippery slope, we will mostly likely lose it all.
In Alberta where the hospitalization rate is 34.81% fully vaccinated and 3.87 partially vaccinated and 61.33% vaccinated. Many unvaccinated people think this means that the vaccine doesn't really do much or is only about twice as good (34.81% vs 61.33%) than not getting it. However our full vaccination rate (2 shots+ 14 days wait time) for the population is 89.4% for 18 and over closing in on 80% for 12 to 18 year old's and we are at 24.3% on 5-11 year old's first shots which just started being given a couple weeks ago. When the Hospitalization numbers are layered over the difference in size of the vaccinated and non vaccinated populations it shows that the vaccines are closer to 15 times better than being vaccinated. Can you do an article on statics showing these trends. I can do the math but I can't put the words together in a way that clearly shows how huge a deal vaccination really is.
Please compare and contrast the British and American political environments and their impact on division (very little in the UK other than the anomaly of Brexit). In particular, the UK limits how much can be spent by a candidate to get elected, and a fairness doctrine exists to balance the time allocated to political parties in national media. The result is far less division, and a multi-party system that discourages extreme polarization (I have been politically active in both the UK and the US). I now live in deeply red SW Missouri and it is deeply offensive to my British sense of fair play that gerrymandering has resulted in one party rule here for 18-years and it is even worse in some other former confederate states with seemingly no recourse to change it. Thanks for your work Judd. It is very valuable.
Thanks Donald! As you've mentioned, I'm not sure the British system is bulletproof. I think the idea of a comparison is interesting.
I enjoy the way you keep digging out who’s donating to republicans that support authoritarianism but let’s dig deeper into who’s funding people like Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott and the other crazy right wing governors and what we can do as grass roots in each state to stop them.
My fear is that the least of us will continue to be swept away into dark corners to die while those that make the policies stand on a stage and pretend that they're separate entities. I only hope that people begin to learn that they have more power than they realize, and how to channel it to help their communities. It'd be pretty neat to see you do a collab with Discontents. Thanks for all that you do.
Nothing seems to be able to get through the Senate not only because of Republicans but Democrat Senators Manchin and Sinema. Who is funding these two senators? Do they care more about their donors than the country? I would like to see these two Senators investigated. They are more concerned about the ultra rich not having to pay more taxes than helping working class people. If we don't pass federal voting right now we may lose democracy. We also need to pass Build Back Better to help working class people, Manchin and Sinema continue to stand in the way of these important bills.
Job #1: voting rights!
Voting rights and "audits", Roe, killing education by a thousand cuts, manipulation of the judiciary, convenient vigilante laws, money used to vote for policy... it's all part of a package being worked on as long as I can remember. As heinous as Jan 6 was, it was a terrible sideshow to cover what Republicans and "conservatives" have been doing behind the scenes. While the mob tramps out in "tactical" gear and khakis, the real work is being done in power suits, pearls and judges robes. Add the continuous stream of media noise dressed up as news, and the unwillingness of those who should be defending us at the highest levels to get their knuckles bruised and do so - mostly fearing how they think they'll appear in media - sets our people and our republic up for disaster, if not willingly, for certain ignorantly. When I was young we made quite a show of denouncing other countries for doing the very things we're doing now to our own people.
At age 53 I discovered I was trans and the road ahead was painful. I’ve dealt with that and the medical and personal costs. What I can’t deal with is murder. There’s an epidemic in the US of transgender murder. People are killed for trying to live a fulfilling life. One that brings the constitutional promises to fruition. Most killed are trans women of color. Republicans are routinely targeting young people, destroying lives of the most vulnerable for political gain. Shine a light on the plight of the smallest minority in the US
My only comment is that while I often don't read your emails, I read every post and reply you make on Twitter in my Twitter feed, so don't take my email non-opens as non-interest. I think you are great and I'm glad I'm able to subscribe and help pay you for your valuable work.
Thanks Marrena!
Thanks for your great work Judd - I'm always sharing your investigations.