Writers and Editors

Check out Letty Cottin Pogrebin's Dec. 20 newsletter

"Lots of political wisdom, and heed worthy warnings emanate from E.B. White’s 1940 essay, “Freedom,” written in response to Americans’ passivity in the face of Adolf Hitler’s increasingly tyrannical actions in Europe."

• American Oligarchy (Mother Jones)

For its January + February 2024 issue, Mother Jones explores the rise and power of the emerging class of billionaires—fueled by the monopolistic growth of Big Tech—who are remaking America in their own decadent and extractive image. Their bored whims and futuristic fantasies shape how and where you live and work, even as their own worlds are increasingly siloed off from the rest of us. Welcome to the American Oligarchy.

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/american-oligarchy/

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

• The Rise of the American Oligarchy (by Tim Murphy, Mother Jones, January 2024)

When the US targeted Russia’s oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine, the trail of assets kept leading to our own backyard. Not only had our nation become a haven for shady foreign money, but we were also incubating a familiar class of yacht-owning, industry-dominating, resource-extracting billionaires. What targeting Russia’s wayward billionaires revealed about our own. American oligarchy is built on a different kind of resource, not nickel or potash, but you—your data, your attention, your money, your public square.

• It’s Time the Word “Oligarch” Lost Its Russian Veneer (Jeffrey A. Winters, Mother Jones, January 2024)

America does oligarchy better than anyone.

PART 2: HOARDING

• How the US Became the World’s Refuge for Dirty Money (by Casey Michele)

When the US targeted Russia’s oligarchs after the invasion of Ukraine, the trail of assets kept leading to our own backyard. Not only had our nation become a haven for shady foreign money, but we were also incubating a familiar class of yacht-owning, industry-dominating, resource-extracting billionaires.

• The Dark Side of the $100 Bill (by Oliver Bullough)

Benjamins are fueling international crime and corruption. So why are we printing more than ever?

• When Gilded Age Lawmakers Saved America From Plutocracy (Daniel Schulman, Nov. 2023)

And how Biden’s team is using their playbook to take on Big Tech.

• How the Rich Keep Their Riches Out of Reach by Tim Murphy

Eight ways to hide an asset

• Refuge for the Robber Barons by Michael Mechanic.

Deranged stalkers? Bitter exes? Angry mobs? Tom Gaffney’s clients are ready.

• This Is What It Costs to Be Rich by Tim Murphy and Jacob Rosenberg (1-25-24)

Our attempt to document the uncommon common costs for the uber-wealthy.

• Martha’s Vineyard Is Being Gutted by Skyrocketing Housing Costs. Yes, You Should Care. (January 30, 2024)

The fight for affordable year-round housing in this elite summer destination offers lessons for dealing with a national crisis.

PART 3: INFLUENCING

• Philanthropy in America Is Broken (Michael Mechanic)

We taxpayers heavily subsidize ultrawealthy giving. But who really benefits?

• Billionaires’ Giving Pledge: Part Tax Strategy, Part PR Stunt (Michael Mechanic and Tim Murphy)

Has it made the world a better place? You be the judge.

• A Brief History of Superyachts (by Tim Murphy)

And how they explain the world.

• How “Woke Capitalism” Became a Right-Wing Obsession by Hannah Levintova

Vivek Ramaswamy may no longer be running for president. But his anti-ESG legacy has already won.

• Receipts. Proof. Timelines. Screenshots: Why We Can’t Look Away From Rich People’s Drama by Scaachi Koul

The uber-wealthy are losing it over the dumbest things—and we’re hooked.

• How Hollywood Learned to Eat the Rich by Morgan Jerkins (2-5-24)

From “Clueless” to “Parasite,” film and TV have long been barometers for how Americans feel about wealth.

PART 4: DOMINATING

• Elon Musk’s Texas Takeover by Abby Vesoulis (photography by Christopher Lee)

How the world’s richest man transformed the Lone Star State into “the modern incarnation of the company town.”

• There Is a Very Good Reason Why Donald Trump Thinks Everything Is Rigged by David Corn

In business, he was a master of gaming the system.

• Meet the Silicon Valley CEOs Who Insist That Greed Is Good (Politics) by Ali Breland

Even if “effective accelerationism” kills us all.

• These Billionaires Want to Disrupt Death—and Keep Their Fortunes Forever by Kalena Thomhave

Sci-fi meets Silicon Valley meets the trust industry.

• Welcome to America’s Wealthiest Zip Code by Dave Gilson. Our guide to one of the nation’s priciest plutocrat playgrounds: Fisher Island

• It's OK to Be Angry About Capitalism by Bernie Sanders.

"Only by ending oligarchy can we begin to realize America's promise."

• Monet Changes Everything by Ezra Chowaiki

Tainted billionaires rejoice—redemption is an auction away.

• Australia vs. Rupert Murdoch by Sean Kelly

What's the future of the aging mogul's global empire? Look to the place where it all began.

• Note-Taking is Not Enough: Knowledge Management for Researchers and Writers (morganeua, Writing Cooperative, 5-10-23)

        ["is" should be capitalized; it's a verb.]    

"It wasn’t until halfway through my PhD that I began managing my knowledge. Here’s why I wish I started sooner. It wasn’t until the fourth year of my PhD that I learned about personal knowledge management (PKM) and specifically, the “Zettelkasten” system of note-taking and knowledge management. The zettelkasten ticked all my boxes: it is a flexible, intuitive and enduring method of taking, making, storing, and thinking alongside notes.
     "The zettelkasten, or “slip-box” in English, is a literal box full of slips of paper that the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann used to store his knowledge in the 1960s. Many others have used similar systems before and since Luhmann; including, notably, Umberto Eco, who outlines a similar research process in his book How to Write a Thesis. But Luhmann’s “Zettelkasten” terminology has stuck. Today, many researchers, like myself, house their Zettelkasten not on slips of paper, but digitally as files on their computer.
     "This is the first article in a series of articles I will write to help you better understand the ins and outs of the Zettelkasten — AKA your second brain. However, if you want to get started right away, you can check out my YouTube videos on the topic. David B. Clear also wrote an article for The Writing Cooperative that covers Luhmann’s life and process as well as everything else to do with Zettelkasten. I also recommend refering to the “Getting Started” page on the Zettelkasten website to aid in your knowledge management journey. If books are more your speed, then Sonke Ahrens published a book called How to Take Smart Notes that covers all the basics and will motivate you to start a Zettelkasten of your own.

• Getting Started:Introduction to the Zettelkasten Method (Sascha, Zettelkasten, 10-27-20) The meat of the system.
• Field Report #1: A PhD About Writing with His Zettelkasten (@henrikenggaard, Zettelkasten, 5-27-21)

• How I use Outlines to Write Any Text (Christian, Zettelkasten, 5-24-14)
Outlines are composed of movable parts, as opposed to finished paragraphs and blocks of texts.
Hierarchy creates context. You can see the structure of the ideas you employ.
You can attach research notes as references as they are at first instead of embedding them in the text immediately.

• Zettelkasten — How One German Scholar Was So Freakishly Productive (David B. Clear, Writing Cooperative, 12-31-19)

     Luhmann wrote over 70 books and more than 400 scholarly articles using the Zettelkasten notetaking method.

    'Let's begin with the word "Zettelkasten". This Teutonic word can be broken down into two components: "Zettel", which means note or slip of paper, and "Kasten", which means box. A Zettelkasten is therefore nothing more than a box of notes, properly called a slip box or card index in English.

    Luhmann's Zettelkasten was in fact a piece of furniture. It comprised six stacks of four wooden drawers each, with each drawer filled to the brim with paper notes.'

• How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens. Read the comments about Ahrens' work on the Amazon page, for more insight into this way of organizing thoughts/material for a book.

• Preparing Fragments Helps You to Ease Into Writing (Christian, Zettelkasten, 11-26-13) Prepare Research First, Compile a Draft Second.
The task of writing a text can be deferred until you’re well-equipped with notes on the topic. It’s easy to connect the parts when it’s time to write the piece itself since you already prepared phrasing their relationships when you linked notes with each other. You prepare your text in manageable parts this way and afterwards get to a complete first draft in no time.

• Composing and Revising – The Two Modes of Writing

• Count Your Words to Increase Your Productivity (Sascha, 2-6-14)

• How to improve your IT support workflow (Atlassian)

    "A knowledge base is the foundation of a knowledge management practice. In IT, the knowledge base is a self-serve online library of information about a product, service, department, or topic. The data in your knowledge base can be from anywhere, but usually comes from several contributors who are well versed on the relevant subject. The knowledge base can include FAQs, troubleshooting guides, and any other details you may want or need to know. (This page is worth a long look.)

    "In service request management, each time an agent handles an issue, they consult the knowledge base first to see if a fix is already documented. If so, they follow the steps outlined in the article, updating it if any of the steps have changed or if the current documentation is confusing. If no such documentation exists, the agent uses the proper process to troubleshoot and resolve an issue while also documenting the issue and the fix in a new knowledge base article.

    "What is knowledge-centered service (KCS)? Knowledge-centered service—also known as knowledge-centered support or KCS—is when support teams not only provide real-time customer, system, or employee support, but also create and maintain documentation as part of the same process. Simply put, KCS is about getting the in-depth knowledge of IT teams out of their heads and onto the page, creating detailed documentation that employees, system users, and new or less experienced engineers can use without constantly bombarding the service desk with the same requests. It’s about treating knowledge as a business asset and not relying entirely on memory and experience to resolve problems quickly.

• Bluesky Welcome to the social internet.
• Debbie's unofficial guide to Bluesky (Debbie Ridpath Ohi) A useful unofficial resource.
• Blue Sky
    To reply to a chat message on BlueSky, click on the message to open it, type your reply in the gray box that says "Write a message," then click the blue arrow on the right.
    If you're trying to reply to a post or a comment, click on the item you're replying to, type your reply in the box, then click the blue "reply" button.
   There are videos on YouTube that can explain whatever process you are attempting.

• What is Bluesky and why are so many people suddenly leaving X for the platform? (The Guardian, 11-16-24)
• What is Bluesky? Everything to know about the X competitor (Amanda Silberling, Cody Corrall, Alyssa Stringer, TechCrunch, 12-3-24)

• Tips and tricks for advanced Bluesky Search  Read More 

Publications that offer free email newsletters (typically in a particular subject area)

Newsletters and magazines, in alphabetical order:
• The Atlantic
• Arkansas Democrat Gazette
• CNN email newsletters
• Early Chirp about the latest happenings in technology, business, and culture
• The Guardian newsletters (UK) 
• Morning Brew 5-minute updates about the business world every day of the week from Wall St. to Silicon Valley
• The New Yorker newsletters
• New York Times e-mail newsletters Most are free and accessible for everyone, but some are available only to digital or Home Delivery subscribers.
• Washington Post newsletters

What other free newspaper-supported email newsletters do you recommend?

Ways to fact-check myths and lies
• Climate action against disinformation: a coalition of over 50 organizations that work to identify, analyze, and counter climate disinformation.
• Natural Resources Defense Council:: a hard look at climate misinformation and ways to combat it, such as pre-bunking.  See Learn About the Climate Crisis
• Environmental Defense Fund: a range of actions, fact sheets, and toolkits for combating climate myths. See Battling climate myths and fighting for the truth
• Science Feedback.org : a worldwide network of scientists who help separate fact from fiction in climate-change media.
• The Fact Checker (Washington Post) A network of scientists who help separate fact from fiction in climate-change media.
• Snopes.com : a popular fact-checking website's entries on climate change
• Cranky Uncle vs Climate Change A game that teaches critical thinking using cartoons, available in the App Store and Google Play and playable online in Firefox and Chrome browsers.

Riveting videos:

• Overcoming the Fossil Fuel Playbook – Untangling Obstructionism and Disinformation: sessions from The Climate Reality Project
• Part One: The National Level an inside look by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD) into their investigative work, moderated by Al Gore, former US Vice President and founder and chairman of The Climate Reality Project.
• Part Two: The Community Level a discussion with Matt Traldi, President and CEO of Greenlight America, and Katie Worth, author of Miseducation: How Climate Change Is Taught in America moderated by Amy Westervelt, Executive Editor of Drilled
• Combating Climate Disinformation: a recording of the Climate Reality Chicago meeting in June, 2024 (video and transcript). Chapter leaders Tom Coleman and Bruce Mainzer offer a fascinating look at types of climate disinformation, ways to identify and combat it, and the campaigns being funded by fossil fuel companies.

With thanks to

The Climate Reality Project DC

DC Chapter Leadership Team Series contributors:

  DC chapter members: Nicole Elinoff, John Fine, Sarah Gallagher, and Paula Seidel
  DC chapter leadership: Kelsey Brown, Max Mozes, Holly Pollinger, and Marelise Voss

Special thanks to Holly Pollinger for sharing this.

See also Climate change: Understanding,covering, and writing or arguing about it and about science denial (in the science section of the Writers and Editors site)

• Public Opinion Polling Basics (Pew Research) A short course explaining how public opinion polling works

• 5 basic things journalists need to know about polls and surveys (Denise-Marie Ordway, Journalist's Resource, 10-9-24) This useful piece shares insights from a political scientist, a social psychologist, a statistician and an investigative journalist.

Main points (explained):

1. Survey and poll results are estimates, and sometimes rough estimates.

2. The best surveys and polls are transparent about their methodology and results.

3. The margin of error is important.

4. Researchers often use the terms “poll” and “survey” interchangeably, although they are technically different.

5. Knowing why people have a certain opinion can be more useful than knowing the percentage of people who hold that opinion at a single point in time.

• The margin of error: 7 tips for journalists covering polls and surveys (Denise-Marie Ordway, Journalist's Resource,11-5-18) To help journalists understand margin of error and how to correctly interpret data from surveys and polls, JR put together a list of seven tips, including clarifying examples.

   "Let’s say that 44 percent of the 1,200 U.S. adults who responded to a poll about marijuana legalization said they support legalization. Let’s also say the margin of error for the results is +/- 3 percentage points. The margin of error tells us there’s a high probability that nationwide support for marijuana legalization falls between 41 percent and 47 percent."

    And other explanations, such as "Note that there are real trends, and then there are mistaken claims of a trend."

• Percent change versus percentage-point change: What’s the difference? 4 tips for avoiding math errors (Denise-Marie Ordway, Tip Sheet, Journalist's Resource, 10-5-22) Many people get 'percent change' and 'percentage-point change' confused. Use this tip sheet, featuring insights from data journalism pioneer Jennifer LaFleur, to get it right.

• Why journalists should look at question order when covering survey and poll results (Denise-Marie Ordway, JR, 9-18-24) How question order bias can affect how people answer questions and five tips to help journalists spot the problem

• What’s a nationally representative sample? 5 things you need to know to report accurately on research (Denise-Marie Ordway, JR, 7-9-24) Knowing what a nationally representative sample is — and isn't — will help you avoid errors in covering clinical trials, opinion polls and other research.To help journalists understand margin of error and how to correctly interpret data from surveys and polls, we’ve put together a list of seven tips, including clarifying examples.

• Covering political polls: A cautionary research roundup (Clark Merrefield, Journalist's Resource, 4-25-19) Journalist's Resource rounds up some of the latest political polling research as Joe Biden jumps into the 2020 presidential race. Fascinating roundup and summary of key articles and warnings.

• ‘Horse race’ coverage of elections: What to avoid and how to get it right (Denise-Marie Ordway, JR, 10-12-23) It’s unlikely journalists will stop covering elections as a competitive game, despite researchers’ warnings that it can harm voters and others. Scholars Thomas E. Patterson and Erik Gahner Larsen offer ideas for at least improving so-called ‘horse race’ reporting, concluding with "What to avoid" and "How to Get It Right."

• Election Beat 2020: Polls, polls and more polls — navigating the numbers (Thomas E. Patterson, Journalist's Resource, 10-13-20) Which of the dozens of polls that cross journalists’ desks are reliable, and which should be ignored?

• How did everyone get it so wrong? (Kenneth P. Vogel and Alex Isenstadt, Politico, 11-9-16) “There was too great a belief that demographics are destiny, and that demographics would lead to a certain outcome,” said veteran pollster Geoff Garin. “The reality turned out to be much different that.” “The very premise of polling is based on the idea that voters will be completely honest with total strangers,” said veteran GOP operative Ned Ryun.

     “Most of the press and folks in DC were science deniers when it came to this election,” said veteran GOP operative Curt Anderson, an adviser to a pro-Trump super PAC. “Even in the face of polls that showed it very close, they all said that Trump had almost no chance. It was because they couldn’t imagine it happening.”

• Disney Must Pay Campaign The #DisneyMustPay Task Force’s website.

AND
• The #DisneyMustPay Task Force Calls on Disney–Again–to Pay the Writers (Victoria Strauss, Writer Beware, 4-28-22)

Walt Disney said, “When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way.” We believe all authors must be paid. The #DisneyMustPay campaign started in November 2020 with a press conference and an open letter to Mickey Mouse.
     "You’ve paid some authors what you owed them. But there are other creators that you don’t want to talk about. And, because you did not take our advice, new creators are coming forward who are owed money, too."
     "You still refuse to recognize your obligations to lesser known authors who wrote media tie-in works for Marvel, for Star Wars, for Aliens, for Predator, for Buffy: TVS and more, universes that you’ve bought the rights to, along with the obligations to those creators. You’ve re-published their works but have failed to do even the bare necessities of contract and talent management. You’ve failed to pay these writers royalties they’re legally owed, and have not given them the courtesy of royalty statements and reprint notices."

     "These pandemic years have been hard on creators. Surveys by the Authors Guild and the Society of Authors have shown 71.4% of writers' incomes in the USA and 57% in the UK have declined since it began. Inflation is growing, bills still need to be paid. Honor the contracts."

• Disney Must Pay $270 Million in Battle Over ‘Millionaire’ (New York Times Archive, 7-8-10) The Walt Disney Company on Wednesday was ordered to pay almost $270 million in damages to Celador, the British production company that created the hit game show “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” more than a decade ago.
    Regis Philbin hosted the game show series “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” when it was a hit in the United States in 1999, Brian Stelter and Brooks Barnes reported for The New York Times.
    Celador asserted that Disney cheated it out of revenue owed from “Millionaire,” which became a television sensation in the United States in 1999. The jurors agreed that Disney was guilty of breaching a contract.

• #DisneyMustPay: Disney Is Still Not Paying Authors (Reddit) "Disney is taking the position that while they've purchased the rights to those properties, they haven't acquired the corresponding obligations stipulated in the contracts...such as payment and reporting."

• #DisneyMustPay Uncovers Additional Unpaid Writers Owed Royalties by Disney (Authors Guild, 4-29-21) Contract issues with Disney-owned/controlled companies continue to affect multiple authors across different writer organizations. To advocate for these writers, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA) formed the #DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force with the Authors Guild, Horror Writers Association, National Writers Union, Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime to identify and guide authors who might be owed money. The task force includes members such as Neil Gaiman, Tess Gerritsen, Mary Robinette Kowal, and Chuck Wendig.

  Are You Owed Money?
      Authors may be missing royalty statements or checks across a wide range of properties in prose, comics, or graphic novels. This list is incomplete and based on properties for which we have verified reports of missing statements and royalties:
    LucasFilm (Star Wars, Indiana Jones, etc.)
    Boom! Comics (licensed comics including Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
    Dark Horse Comics (licensed comics including Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
    20th Century Fox (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Alien, etc.)
    Marvel Worldwide (Spider-Man, Predator)
    Disney Worldwide Publishing (Buffy, Angel)

 
• Disney Must Pay Campaign (Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers Association)
• SFWA Publisher Reporting Tool By submitting your information to SFWA, you agree that SFWA will follow up and take appropriate action as needed with the appropriate party/committee within our organization to resolve your issue.
• DisneyMustPay: authors form task force to fight for missing payments (Alison Flood,The Guardian 4-28-21) Coalition of author groups call for Disney to pay outstanding royalties owed to writers of novels and comics including Star Wars, Alien and Buffy the Vampire Slayer series it now owns

• What I Learned When I Read 887 Pages of Project 2025 (Carlos Lozada, NY Times, 2-29-24) "There is plenty here that one would expect from a contemporary conservative agenda: calls for lower corporate taxes and against abortion rights; criticism of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and the “climate fanaticism” of the Biden administration; and plans to militarize the southern border and target the “administrative state,” which is depicted here as a powerful and unmanageable federal bureaucracy bent on left-wing social engineering. Yet what is most striking about the book is not the specific policy agenda it outlines but how far the authors are willing to go in pursuit of that agenda and how reckless their assumptions are about law, power and public service."

• The Truth About Project 2025 (Project 2025, Presidential Transition Project) The Left has spent millions fearmongering about Project 2025, because they’re terrified of losing their power. And they should be. Project 2025 offers a menu of solutions to the border crisis, inflation, a stagnant economy, and rampant crime. It shows how we can take on China, fix our schools, and support families. But most importantly, it dismantles the unaccountable Deep State, taking power away from Leftist elites and giving it back to the American people.

• How Project 2025 would change American life (Jacob Knutson, Axios 7-20-24)  Trump's teams would "privatize" and "commercialize" segments of our federal system that provide us with key services (public broadcasting, student debt relief, free pre-school), plus shrinking the social safety net, capping funding for Medicaid,  Read More 

Updated 10-28-24. Originally published Feb. 2024.

If you don't have access to particular articles, do a Google search on the topic and find the story covered elsewhere.

• Inside the Republican false-flag effort to turn off Kamala Harris voters

(Michael Scherer and Josh Dawsey, Washington Post, 11-15-24)

A multipronged dark money effort by advisers to Elon Musk targeted liberals, Jews, Muslims and Black voters with ads that were not quite what they seemed.
     'Muslims in Michigan began seeing pro-Israel ads this fall praising Vice President Kamala Harris for marrying a Jewish man and backing the Jewish state. Jews in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, saw ads from the same group with the opposite message: Harris wanted to stop U.S. arms shipments to Israel.

     'Another group promoted “Kamala’s bold progressive agenda” to conservative-leaning Donald Trump voters, while a third filled the phones of young liberals with videos about how Harris had abandoned the progressive dream. Black voters in North Carolina were told Democrats wanted to take away their menthol cigarettes, while working-class White men in the Midwest were warned that Harris would support quotas for minorities and deny them Zyn nicotine pouches.

      'What voters had no way of knowing at the time was that all of the ads were part of a single, $45 million effort created by political advisers to Tesla founder Elon Musk who had previously worked on the presidential campaign of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), according to a presentation about the group’s efforts obtained by The Washington Post.'

• Keeping Track of the Trump Criminal Cases (New York Times, 10-28-24)  For the first 234 years of the nation's history, no American president or former president had ever been indicted. That changed in 2023. Over a five-month span, former President Donald Trump was charged in four criminal cases. Together, the indictments accused him of wide-ranging criminal conduct before, during and after his presidency. One of those indictments has now led to the first criminal conviction of a former president; the other three remain pending. This is POLITICO's guide to the four Trump criminal cases.
---Trump's federal Jan. 6 Case Related to Mr. Trump’s efforts to retain power after the 2020 election and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
---Trump Georgia Election Case Related to efforts to reverse Mr. Trump’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
---Trump’s Classified Documents Inquiry Related to Mr. Trump’s handling of sensitive government documents he took with him when he left office
---Trump N.Y. Hush Money Case Related to payments to cover up a sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign.

Two cases against Mr. Trump at the state level have been led by district attorneys in New York and Fulton County, Ga. His handling of sensitive federal government documents when he left office is at the center of a criminal investigation by the Justice Department.
---Judge Declines to Toss Trump’s New York Hush-Money Conviction (Corinne Ramey, Wall Street Journal, 12-16-24) A New York judge ruled Monday that Donald Trump’s hush-money conviction this year remains valid, rejecting arguments from the president-elect that it should be dismissed on immunity grounds. Ruling concludes that Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity didn’t void prosecution.
---Trump Seeks to Delay His Sentencing Until After the Election Having routinely sought delays in his four criminal cases, he wants to use the extra time to fight his conviction on 34 felony counts in Manhattan.
---Trump is found guilty on 34 felony counts. Read the counts here (Ximena Bustillo and Hilary Fung, NPR, 5-30-24) Jurors in the New York criminal trial against former President Donald Trump have convicted him of 34 felony counts of falsified business records. This is the first time a former or sitting U.S. president has been convicted of criminal charges. The jurors said they unanimously agreed that Trump falsified business records to conceal a $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
• Donald Trump Basically Admits to Interfering in 2020 Election, Makes Clear He Won’t Hesitate to Do It Again (Bess Levin, Vanity Fair, 9-3-24) Nothing to see here, just Trump claiming he had “every right” to interfere in a federal election. Meanwhile, this isn’t even the first time Trump has made clear he will very likely pull a 2020 again in 2024.

•  "A third of Trump's campaign funding has come from billionaires, including several he's pledged to appoint to his cabinet. Fascism backed by Big Money is one of the most dangerous of all political alliances. We saw it in 1930s Germany, and we're seeing it again today."~Robert Reich

• Trump’s Final Days on the Campaign Trail (Antonia Hitchens, New Yorker, 11-3-24) 'As he wrapped up the speech, he quickly summarized his political beliefs: “Just very briefly, I am pro-life. I am against gun control. . . . I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it.” He ended on “Our country will be great again.”'

• The right place to make the best case against Trump (Washington Post Editorial Board,10-28-24)

     "Donald Trump considers Jan. 6 a day of love. What might a day of hate look like?"

• Candidate threatens Liz Cheney with a firing squad (Lucian K. Truscott IV, 11-1-24) "In the closing days of this campaign, Trump is defaulting to threats of violence and arrest.... The New York Times reported this week that Trump’s threats against election officials appear to be having some effect. In an article entitled The Army of Election Officials Ready to Reject the Vote, the Times describes efforts in Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and Pennsylvania by election boards to reject certification of the vote if the election does not go Trump’s way. The people described in the article are partisan Republicans. When even they fear arrest and prosecution by their own candidate, something is seriously wrong in this country." The idea of “battleground states” has become a reality, where armed police officers may be necessary to secure the Constitutional right to vote. One political party and one presidential candidate are responsible for turning this election into a warzone."

• In Nov. 1 Milwaukee rally, Trump offers falsehoods on economy, climate change (Louis Jacobson, PolitiFact, 11-2-24) He said "today’s economic conditions are "like a depression," which is wrong. The unemployment rate is 4.1%, compared to about 25% during the Great Depression, and the economy is growing at 2.8% a year.

   "Trump cast claims about climate change as alarmist. He said, "The ocean will rise in 500 years one-eighth of an inch. Who the hell cares?" This Pants on Fire claim drastically undercounts how fast the oceans are rising.
    "Trump also said illegal immigrant gangs are taking over apartment complexes in Aurora, Colorado (local officials disagree), that countries such as the Congo and Venezuela are emptying their prisons and "insane asylums" to send people to the U.S. (claims that are unsupported), that he signed the largest tax cut in the history of the country (False), that Americans will become "rich as hell" from his plan to hike tariffs on imported goods by 10% to 20% (economists almost unanimously disagree), that "we have more liquid gold under our feet than any other nation in the world … including Saudi Arabia and Russia" (the U.S. ranks ninth, behind both of the countries he mentioned), and even that he was the first Republican to win all 77 Oklahoma counties (George W. Bush, John McCain, Mitt Romney beat him to it).
• Trump aides who don’t want him on the ballot (Mariana Alfaro, Washington Post 4-2-24)
---Former Trump officials are among the most vocal opponents of returning him to the White House (Michelle L. Price, Associated Press and PBS News, 4-5-24)
• Trump has made more than 100 threats to prosecute or punish perceived enemies (Tom Dreisbach, All Things Considered, NPR, 10-21-24) Two weeks before the presidential election, Donald Trump has used his most recent appearances on podcast and cable interviews to investigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents, fellow Americans he calls “the enemy from within.” Vice President Kamala Harris “should be impeached and prosecuted,” he says. “I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family,” Trump said last year. A review of Trump’s rally speeches, press conferences, interviews and social media posts shows that the former president has repeatedly indicated that he would use federal law enforcement as part of a campaign to exact “retribution.”

• How to Prevent the Worst From Happening (Peter Wehner, The Atlantic, 10-24) On just one issue (immigration): "Trump is cut from a very different cloth. He curtailed legal immigration during his presidency. Temporary visas for highly skilled noncitizen workers were reduced. Refugee admissions were slashed. Trump, who peddled outrageous lies against Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, says he plans to strip them of their legal status. (At his rallies, Trump has whipped the crowds into a frenzy, getting them to chant, “Send them back! Send them back! Send them back!”)

Support for that paragraph:
---President Trump Reduced Legal Immigration. He Did Not Reduce Illegal Immigration (Cato Institute)
---Visa denial rates for highly skilled workers were already hurting Texas businesses before Trump administration ordered new limits (Texas Tribune)
---What Did America Lose from Trump’s Mass Exclusion of Refugees? It Includes Billions of Dollars per Year (Center for Global Development)
---Trump says he would revoke the temporary protective status of Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio. (Libbey Dean)
---Trump urges getting Haitian migrants out of Springfield, Ohio (X.com) One comment: "Meanwhile the residents of Springfield, OH are rallying around the Haitians."
• This Is Not the End of America (McKay Coppins, The Atlantic, 11-1-24) "Trump has, in his third campaign, been more explicit than ever about his illiberal designs. He has talked about weaponizing the Justice Department against his political enemies, replacing thousands of civil servants with loyalists, and revoking broadcast licenses for TV networks whose news coverage he doesn’t like." But "The power of the people doesn’t disappear overnight just because the White House is occupied by an illiberal leader."

• Who REALLY Knows Trump? Maggie Haberman Does (YouTube video, Maggie Haberman with Anthony Anthony Scaramucci ("The Mooch"), 6-20-23, 59 minutes) An excellent overview of the man.
• Maggie Haberman, the Confidence Man’s Chronicler (Katy Waldman, New Yorker, 1-7-23) In her book Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America, Haberman 'presents Trump as a bullshit artist whose grand theme is his own greatness. Trump, Haberman writes, “was usually selling, saying whatever he had to in order to survive life in ten-minute increments.” He “was interested primarily in money, dominance, power, bullying, and himself.”

     'Haberman sees herself as a demystifier. Her coverage is often grounded in statements about Trump's character—that he thrives on chaos but loves routine, or that he stirs up infighting among his cronies. When I asked her about these conceptual scoops, she corrected me: "They're contextual scoops."

     'Context is key to Haberman's project. A characteristic article, which she co-wrote in July of 2017, emphasized that Donald Trump, Jr.,'s huddle with a Kremlin-linked lawyer proved "unusual for a political campaign" but "consistent with the haphazard approach the Trump operation, and the White House, have taken in vetting people they deal with." It was a quintessential Haberman balancing act, which underlined both the meeting's extraordinary nature (for Washington) and the mundane pattern that it fit (for the Trumps). A reader wondering whether to be surprised by such carelessness, such corruption, gets her answer: yes and no.'
• Maggie Haberman on What an Unleashed Trump Might Do (YouTube, The Ezra Klein Show, 10-25-24) This conversation was taped before Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly went on the record saying that Trump met the definition of a fascist and that the former president had told him, “You know, Hitler did some good things, too.”  

    "His relationship to the truth is what he can get away with, and what he can get away with saying. He does not look at truth the way most people do."

     What if he loses [in 2024]? "He'll still be dealing with prosecutions, although they're in limbo. He will face a sentencing in New York, maybe...  "He has said he won't run again. I am very skeptical...I suspect he will say that he will run again, because it freezes the field for two years, and the Republican party is the most successful endeavor he has ever had."

• White people without college degrees (men more than women) are Trump's most reliable demographic.

• Trump claims abortion is infanticide at election events (KFF Health Misinformation Monitor, 10-24-24) False claims about abortions later in pregnancy are often spread to distort perceptions of when and how often pregnant people have abortions. Some have exaggerated these claims even further, falsely stating that individuals seek abortions after birth. During the presidential debate on September 10, former President Trump falsely claimed that Democrats support "abortion after birth," equating it to execution.
• Rush Limbaugh, Talk Radio’s Conservative Provocateur, Dies at 70 (Robert D. McFadden, NY Times, 2-17-21) A longtime favorite of the right, he was a furious critic of Barack Obama and a full-throated cheerleader for Donald J. Trump. For more than three decades he led attacks on liberals, Democrats, feminists, environmentalists and many others. Using often misogynistic and racist language and trafficking in conspiracy theories, he pushed conservative talk radio into extreme right-wing territory while building a regular audience of as many as 15 million Americans. In the Limbaugh lexicon, advocates for the homeless were “compassion fascists,” women who favored abortion were “feminazis,” environmentalists were “tree-hugging wackos.”
• Trump’s closing argument: full-throated fascism (Robert Reich, 10-24) Trump's fascism is now in the open. On Sunday, Trump told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo that the biggest problem on Election Day will “not be the people who have come in, who are destroying our country,” but, rather “the people from within — we have some very bad people, sick people, radical left lunatics. And it should be easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military.”
     "Retired General Mark A. Milley, whom Trump picked to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that former president Donald Trump is a “fascist to the core” and “the most dangerous person to this country” in new comments voicing his mounting alarm at the prospect of the Republican nominee’s election to another term (according to a forthcoming book by Washington Post associate editor Bob Woodward)."
• Trump Is Speaking Like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini (Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic, 10-18-24) 'The word vermin, as a political term, dates from the 1930s

and ’40s, when both fascists and communists liked to describe their political enemies as vermin, parasites, and blood infections, as well as insects, weeds, dirt, and animals. The term has been revived and reanimated, in an American presidential campaign, with Donald Trump’s description of his opponents as “radical-left thugs” who “live like vermin.”
     'This language isn’t merely ugly or repellant: These words belong to a particular tradition. Adolf Hitler used these kinds of terms often. In 1938, he praised his compatriots who had helped “cleanse Germany of all those parasites who drank at the well of the despair of the Fatherland and the People.” '
     "His talk of mass deportation is equally calculating. When he suggests that he would target both legal and illegal immigrants, or use the military arbitrarily against U.S. citizens, he does so knowing that past dictatorships have used public displays of violence to build popular support. By calling for mass violence, he hints at his admiration for these dictatorships but also demonstrates disdain for the rule of law and prepares his followers to accept the idea that his regime could, like its predecessors, break the law with impunity."
• Trump gets profane at Catholic charity dinner (Peter Weber, The Week, 10-18-24) Trump "rushed through prepared remarks, stumbling at times as he read through pointed political jokes, bitter grievances and crude and at times profane personal attacks," The New York Times said. He "seemed most energized when he ditched his script, caught between being an insult comic or just being insulting."

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