#Judd Legum

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Another mass shooting in America, so where's this "good guy with a gun" that conservatives love to screech about whenever we bring up gun control?

A gunman wearing military gear and livestreaming with a helmet camera opened fire with a rifle at a Buffalo, New York, supermarket in what authorities described as “racially motived violent extremism,” killing 10 people and wounding three others Saturday before he surrendered, authorities said.

Police officials said the gunman, who also wore body armor in addition to military-style clothing, pulled up in the afternoon and opened fire amid shoppers at a Tops Friendly Market, the shooting streamed via a camera affixed to the man’s helmet.

“He exited his vehicle. He was very heavily armed. He had tactical gear. He had a tactical helmet on. He had a camera that he was livestreaming what he was doing,” city Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia said at a news conference afterward.

Gramaglia said the gunman initially shot four people outside the store, three fatally. Inside the store, a security guard who was a retired Buffalo police officer fired multiple shots at the gunman and struck him, but the bullet hit the gunman’s bulletproof vest and had no effect, Gramaglia added. The Commissioner said the gunman then killed the security guard.

Video also captured the suspect as he walked into the supermarket where he shot several other victims inside, according to authorities.

Police said 11 of the victims were Black and two are white. The supermarket is in a predominantly Black neighborhood a few miles (kilometers) north of downtown Buffalo.

“This is the worst nightmare that any community can face, and we are hurting and we are seething right now,” Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown said at the news conference. “The depth of pain that families are feeling and that all of us are feeling right now cannot even be explained.”

Gramaglia said Buffalo police entered the store and confronted the gunman in the vestibule.

“At that point the suspect put the gun to his own neck. Buffalo police personnel -- two patrol officers -- talked the suspect into dropping the gun. He dropped the gun, took off some of his tactical gear, surrendered at that point. And he was led outside, put in a police car,” he said.

The suspected gunman was later identified as Payton Gendron, 18, of Conklin, a New York state community about 200 miles (320 kilometers) southeast of Buffalo, two law enforcement officials told The Associated Press. The officials were not permitted to speak publicly on the matter and did so on the condition of anonymity.

The suspect was being questioned Saturday evening by the FBI, one of the officials said, and Conklin was expected to appear in court later Saturday.

At the news briefing, Erie County Sheriff John Garcia pointedly called the shooting a hate crime.

“This was pure evil. It was straight up racially motivated hate crime from somebody outside of our community, outside of the City of Good neighbors ... coming into our community and trying to inflict that evil upon us,” Garcia said.

Elsewhere, NAACP President Derrick Johnson issued a statement in which he called the shooting “absolutely devastating.”

“Our hearts are with the community and all who have been impacted by this terrible tragedy. Hate and racism have no place in America. We are shattered, extremely angered and praying for the victims’ families and loved ones,” he added.

Separately, the Rev. Al Sharpton called on the White House to convene a meeting with Black, Jewish and Asian “to underscore the Federal government (is) escalating its efforts against hate crimes.” In a tweet, Sharpton said that “leaders of all these communities should stand together on this!”

The shooting came little more than a year after a March 2021 attack at a King Soopers grocery in Boulder, Colorado, that killed 10 people. Investigators have not released any information about why they believe the man charged in that attack targeted the supermarket.

At the scene in Buffalo on Saturday afternoon, police closed off an entire block, lined by spectators, and yellow police taped surrounded the full parking lot.

Braedyn Kephart and Shane Hill, both 20, pulled into the parking lot just as the shooter was exiting. They described him as a white male in his late teens or early twenties sporting full camo, a black helmet and what appeared to be a rifle.

“He was standing there with the gun to his chin. We were like what the heck is going on? Why does this kid have a gun to his face?” Kephart said. He dropped to his knees. “He ripped off his helmet, dropped his gun, and was tackled by the police.”

Tops Friendly Markets released a statement saying, “We are shocked and deeply saddened by this senseless act of violence and our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.”

At the White House, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said President Joe Biden was receiving regular updates on the shooting and the investigation and had offered prayers with the first lady for the victims and their loved ones.

“The president has been briefed by his Homeland Security advisor on the horrific shooting in Buffalo, N.Y., this afternoon. He will continue to receive updates throughout the evening and tomorrow as further information develops,” she said.

Attorney General Merrick Garland was briefed on the shooting, Justice Department spokesperson Anthony Coley said.

More than two hours after the shooting, Erica Pugh-Mathews was waiting outside the store, behind police tape.

“We would like to know the status of my aunt, my mother’s sister. She was in there with her fiance, they separated and went to different aisles,” she said. “A bullet barely missed him. He was able to hide in a freezer but he was not able to get to my aunt and does not know where she is. We just would like word either way if she’s OK.”

Payton Gendron is the suspect accused of killing at least 10 people at a Tops Friendly Market grocery store in Buffalo, New York, on Saturday, May 14, 2022. Gendron was taken into custody at the scene, Buffalo Police said. Three others were wounded. Gendron is facing first-degree murder charges in New York state court and could also face federal charges, including hate crimes, officials said. The names of the victims have not been released yet.

A racist and anti-Semitic manifesto and a Twitch livestream were attributed online to the gunman, but authorities have not verified those accounts. A graphic video emerged that shows bodies lying in the parking lot as law enforcement officers take the suspect into custody. Gendron is from Conklin, New York. He said in the manifesto he is an 18-year-old college student and a self-described white supremacist. Gendron was shot by a security guard, but was not injured because he was wearing body armor, Buffalo Police said at a press conference

Conklin is more than 200 miles southeast of Buffalo in the Southern Tier region of New York. Gendron included his name in the manifesto and The Associated Press confirmed his identity with law enforcement sources. Gendron appeared in court Saturday night for his arraignment, officials said. He is being held without bail. He is scheduled to return to court in five days, according to authorities. A mugshot has not been released, but photos from the local media show Gendron in court:

The manifesto, which talks about the extremist far-right white or great replacement theory and includes alt-right 4chan memes and jokes, is similar to ones written by shooters who attacked a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand, the Tree of Life synagogue in Pennsylvania and an El Paso, Texas, Walmart in recent years, Yale professor Jason Stanley says.

[...]

The manifesto fixates on mass immigration.

“Mass immigration and the higher fertility rates of the immigrants themselves are causing this increase in population. We are experiencing an invasion on a level never seen before in history,” it says. “Millions of people pouring across our borders, legally. Invited by the state and corporate entities to replace the White people who have failed to reproduce, failed to create the cheap labor, failed to create new consumers and tax base that the corporations and states need to have to thrive.”

It continues, “This crisis of mass immigration and sub-replacement fertility is an assault on the European people that, if not combated, will ultimately result in the complete racial and cultural replacement of the European people.”

The manifesto, which refers to “white genocide,” contains a name and says that the author is “18 years old as of writing this. I am the sole perpetrator of the recent attempted mass shooting. I lived in Southern Tier, New York all my life with both my parents and 2 brothers. I believe I am ethnically white since my parent’s nationalities are from north-western Europe and Italy. I graduated highschool with a regents diploma with advanced designation and am currently enrolled in SUNY Broome with a major in Engineering Science.”

It continues, “I would love to continue this but there are bigger problems I’m more concerned with. I am not a warfighter, nor have I been enrolled in any military or tactical training, so excuse any mistakes I make during my attack. I was never diagnosed with a mental disability or disorder, and I believe to be perfectly sane.”

He claimed to be an “INTJ” personality type and included photos of a fake active shooter that often circulate online after mass shootings. The manifesto contains many pages of anti-Jewish memes and graphics.

The manifesto states:

"Why did you decide to carry out the attack?

To show to the replacers that as long as the White man lives, our land will never be theirs and they will never be safe from us.

To directly reduce immigration rates to European lands by intimidating and physically removing the replacers themselves.

To intimidate the replacers already living on our lands to emigrate back to their home countries.

To agitate the political enemies of my people into action, to cause them to overextend their own hand and experience the eventual and inevitable backlash as a result.

To incite violence, retaliation and further divide between the European people and the replacers currently occupying European soil…

To add momentum to the pendulum swings of history, further destabilizing and polarizing Western society in order to eventually destroy the current nihilistic, hedonistic, individualistic insanity that has taken control of Western thought."

The shooting is being investigated as a hate crime and case of racially motivated violent extremism, FBI Special Agent in charge of the Buffalo field office Stephen Belongia said. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of New York is also assisting in the investigation along with state and local authorities.

Erie County District Attorney John Flynn said at the press conference, “This individual will be arranged on a charge of murder in the first degree.” He called the shooting “despicable.” Flynn added, “That charge of murder in the first degree carries with it a life without parole sentence.” He said additional charges could also be filed at a later date.

#us politics #news #buffalo shooting #mass shootings #mass shooter #gun control #gun violence #2022 #biden administration #president joe biden #@mmpadellan #Judd Legum #white supremacists #white supremacy #fuck white supremacy #xenophobia #great replacement #ap news #Payton Gendron #heavy.com #Jeff Sharlet #hasan piker #hasanabi #hasanthehun #tweet #twitter #these white people are dangerous #these white men are dangerous

[filosofablogger]

A Sigh Of Relief ... BUT ...

On Tuesday came the welcome news that the U.S. Supreme Court, ruling in the case of Moore v Harper, ruled that state legislatures do NOT have unlimited authority to overthrow the voice of the people in elections and rejected the ‘Independent State Legislature’ theory.  We all breathed a sigh of relief … but having read no less than 6 or 7 opinion pieces on the topic, I think caution needs to be…

View On WordPress

#Clay Jones of Claytoonz #independent state legislature theory #Judd Legum #Moore v Harper #Popular Information #U.S. Constitution #U.S. Supreme Court

[arcticdementor]

(link)

#twitter #screenshot #richard hanania #elon musk #judd legum #chen weihua #china

[ebookporn]

Florida teachers told to remove books from classroom libraries or risk felony prosecution

by Judd Legum

Teachers in Manatee County, Florida, are being told to make their classroom libraries — and any other "unvetted" book — inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution. The new policy is part of an effort to comply with new laws and regulations championed by Governor Ron DeSantis (R). It is based on the premise, promoted by right-wing advocacy groups, that teachers and librarians are using books to "groom" students or indoctrinate them with leftist ideologies. 

Kevin Chapman, the Chief of Staff for the Manatee County School District, told Popular Information that the policy was communicated to principals in a meeting last Wednesday. Individual schools are now in the process of informing teachers and other staff.

Teachers in Manatee County lamented the news on social media. "My heart is broken for Florida students today as I am forced to pack up my classroom library," one Manatee teacher wrote on Facebook. 

READ MORE

#censorship #banned books #florida #teachers #librarians #booksellers #literacy #education #republicans

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

-fae

#mmiw #missing and murdered indigenous women

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum at Popular Information:

In 2024, reliable access to high-speed internet is no longer a luxury; it is a basic necessity. From job applications to managing personal finances and completing school work, internet access is an essential part of daily life. Without an internet connection, individuals are effectively cut off from basic societal activities. 

But the reality is that many people — particularly those living around the poverty line — can not afford internet access. Without internet access, the difficult task of working your way from the American economy's bottom rung becomes virtually impossible.   On November 21, 2021, President Biden signed the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The new law included the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP), which provided up to $30 per month to individuals or families with income up to 200% of the federal poverty line to help pay for high-speed internet. (For a family of four, the poverty line is currently $31,200.) On Tribal lands, where internet access is generally more expensive, the ACP offers subsidies up to $75 per month.  The concept started during the Trump administration. The last budget enacted by Trump included $3.2 billion to help families afford internet access. The FCC made the money available as a subsidy to low-income individuals and families through a program known as the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program. The legislation signed by Biden extended and formalized the program.  It has been a smashing success.

Today, the ACP is "helping 23 million households – 1 in 6 households across America." The program has particularly benefited "rural communities, veterans, and older Americans where the lack of affordable, reliable high-speed internet contributes to significant economic, health and other disparities." According to an FCC survey, two-thirds of beneficiaries "reported they had inconsistent internet service or no internet service at all prior to ACP." These households report using their high-speed internet to "schedule or attend healthcare appointments (72%), apply for jobs or complete work (48%), do schoolwork (75% for ACP subscribers 18-24 years old)." Tomorrow, the program will abruptly end.  In October 2023, the White House sent a supplemental budget request to Congress, which included $6 billion to extend the program through the end of 2024. There is also a bipartisan bill, the Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act, which would extend the program with $7 billion in funding. The benefits of the program have shown to be far greater than the costs. An academic study published in February 2024 found that "for every dollar spent on the ACP, the nation’s GDP increases by $3.89." The program will lapse tomorrow because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) refuses to bring either the bill (or the supplemental funding request) to a vote. The Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act has 225 co-sponsors which means that, if Johnson held a vote, it would pass. 

[...]

The Republican attack on affordable internet

Why will Johnson not even allow a vote to extend the ACP? He is not commenting. But there are hints in the federal budget produced by the Republican Study Committee (RSC). The RSC is the "conservative caucus" of the House GOP, and counts 179 of the 217 Republicans in the House as members. Johnson served as the chair of the RSC in 2019 and 2020. He is currently a member of the group's executive committee.  The RSC's latest budget says it "stands against" the ACP and labels it a "government handout[] that disincentivize[s] prosperity." The RSC claims the program is unnecessary because "80 percent" of beneficiaries had internet access before the program went into effect. For that statistic, the RSC cites a report from a right-wing think tank, the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC), which opposes the ACP. EPIC, in turn, cites an FCC survey to support its contention that 80% of ACP beneficiaries already had internet access. The survey actually found that "over two-thirds of survey respondents (68%) reported they had inconsistent internet service or no internet service at all prior to ACP."

[...] The RSC also falsely claims that funding for the precursor to the ACP, the Emergency Broadband Benefit Program (EBB), "was signed into law at the end of President Biden’s first year in office." This is false. Former President Trump signed the funding into law in December 2020. The RSC's position is not popular. A December 2023 poll found that 79% of voters support "continuing the ACP, including 62% of Republicans, 78% of Independents, and 96% of Democrats."

In 2024, access to the internet is a necessity and not just a luxury, and the Republicans are set to end the Affordable Connectivity Program if no action is taken. The Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) provided subsidies to low-income people and families to obtain internet access.

#Internet #Internet Access #Affordable Connectivity Program Extension Act #Affordable Connectivity Program #Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act #IIJA #Emergency Broadband Benefit Program #Republican Study Committee #Economic Policy Innovation Center

[soberscientistlife]

Via Judd Legum at Popular Info: Here in the Florida Panhandle, the Escambia County School District has now removed dictionaries from its schools. Because those dictionaries contain definitions of "sex" which is a direct violation of Ron DeSantis' HB 1069 law prohibiting any library book that "depicts or describes sexual conduct" whether or not that description is "pornographic." And that includes dictionaries. Not only dictionaries, but also eight different encyclopedias, two thesauruses, and five editions of The Guinness Book of World Records. Biographies of Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Oprah Winfrey, Nicki Minaj, and Thurgood Marshall are also banned. Also, The Diary of Anne Frank has been removed because apparently conservatives consider the descriptions of Nazi genocide too sexually titillating for young minds. Sherlock Holmes, Agatha Christie, and Stephen King were also banned. Ironically so was Ayn Rand and Bill O'Reilly. Eventually they won't allow any book in school, not even the bible. Because in addition to graphic descriptions of various sex acts far beyond those of a simple dictionary, they sure as hell are going to want kids reading anti-conservative ideas like "feed the hungry, clothe the poor, heal the sick, love your neighbor as yourself, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, don't pray in public like the hypocrites do, give up your worldly goods, etc" and get the wrong idea. The Word must ALWAYS be filtered through a Zampolit, er, ah, I mean, a preacher man who knows what their god REALLY means.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Smith :: Las Vegas Sun

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

April 29, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

APR 30, 2024

In December 2020, when the pandemic illustrated the extraordinary disadvantage created by the inability of those in low-income households to communicate online with schools and medical professionals, then-president Trump signed into law an emergency program to provide funding to make internet access affordable. In 2021, Congress turned that idea into the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and made it part of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law). 

The program has enabled 23 million American households to afford high-speed internet. Those benefiting from it are primarily military families, older Americans, and Black, Latino, and Indigenous households. In February, the Brookings Institution cited economics studies that said each dollar invested in the ACP increases the nation’s gross domestic product by $3.89 and that the program has led to increased employment and higher wages. It also cuts the costs of healthcare by replacing some in-person emergency room visits with telehealth.  

Slightly more of the money in the program goes to districts represented by Republicans than to those represented by Democrats, which might explain why 79% of voters want to continue the program: 96% of Democrats, 78% of Independents, and 62% of Republicans.

But the ACP is running out of money. Back in October 2023, President Joe Biden asked Congress to fund it until the end of 2024, and a bipartisan bill that would extend the program has been introduced in both chambers of Congress. Each remains in an appropriation committee. As of today, the House bill has 228 co-sponsors, the Senate bill has 5. 

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has said he supports the measure, but House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has not commented. Judd Legum pointed out in Popular Information today that the 2025 budget of the far-right Republican Study Committee (RSC) calls for allowing the ACP to expire, saying the RSC “stands against corporate welfare and government handouts that disincentivize prosperity.” More than four fifths of House Republicans belong to the RSC. 

The differences between the parties’ apparent positions on the ACP illustrates the difference in their political ideology. Republicans object to government investment in society and believe market forces should be left to operate without interference in order to promote prosperity. Democrats believe that economic prosperity comes from the hard work of ordinary people and that government investment in society clears the way for those people to succeed. 

Wealth growth for young Americans was stagnant for decades before the pandemic, but it has suddenly experienced a historic rise. In Axios, Emily Peck reported that household wealth for Americans under 40 has risen an astonishing 49% from where it was before the pandemic. Wealth doubled for those born between 1981 and 1996. This increase in household wealth comes in part from rising home prices and more financial assets, as well as less debt, which fell by $5,000 per household. Households of those under 35 have shown a 140% increase in median wealth in the same time period.

Brendan Duke and Christian E. Weller, the authors of the Center for American Progress study from which Peck’s information came, say this wealth growth is not tied to a few super-high earners, but rather reflects broad based improvement. “A simple reason for the strong wealth growth is that younger Americans are experiencing an especially low unemployment rate and especially strong wage growth,” Duke and Weller note, “making it easier for them to accumulate wealth.” 

In honor of National Small Business Week, Vice President Kamala Harris today launched an “economic opportunity tour” in Atlanta, where she highlighted the federal government’s $158 million investment in “The Stitch,” a project to reconnect midtown to downtown Atlanta. This project is an initial attempt to reconnect the communities that were severed by the construction of highways, often cutting minority or poor neighborhoods off from jobs and driving away businesses while saddling the neighborhoods with pollution. 

While some advocates wanted to use the $3.3 billion available from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act to take down highways altogether, the administration has shied away from such a dramatic revision and has instead focused on creating new public green spaces, bike paths, access to public transportation, safety features, and so on, to link and improve neighborhoods. More than 40 states so far have received funding under this program. 

The administration says that projects like The Stitch will promote economic growth in neighborhoods that have borne the burden of past infrastructure projects. Today it touted the extraordinary growth of small businesses since Biden and Harris took office, noting that their economic agenda “has driven the first, second and third strongest years of new business application rates on record—and is on pace for the fourth—with Americans filing a record 17.2 million new business applications.” 

Small businesses owned by historically underserved populations “are growing at near-historic rates, with Black business ownership growing at the fastest pace in 30 years and Latino business ownership growing at the fastest pace in more than a decade,” the White House said. The administration has invested in small businesses, working to level the playing field between them and their larger counterparts by making capital and information available, while working to reform the tax code so that corporations pay as much in taxes as small businesses do.  

“Small businesses are the engines of the economy,” the White House said today. “As President Biden says, every time someone starts a new small business, it’s an act of hope and confidence in our economy.” 

In place of economic growth, Republicans have focused on whipping up supporters by insisting that Democrats are corrupt and are cheating to take over the government. Matt Gertz of Media Matters noted in February that “Fox News host Sean Hannity and his House Republican allies spent 2023 trying to manufacture an impeachable offense against President Joe Biden out of their fact-free obsession with the president’s son, Hunter.” At least 325 segments about Hunter Biden appeared on Hannity’s show in 2023; 220 had at least one false or misleading claim. The most frequent purveyor of that disinformation was Representative James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Oversight Committee, who went onto the show 43 times to talk about the president’s son. 

The House impeachment inquiry was really designed to salt right-wing media channels with lies about the president and, in the end, turned up nothing other than witnesses who said President Biden was not involved in his son’s businesses. Then the Republicans’ key witness, Alexander Smirnov, was indicted for lying about the Bidens, and then he turned out to be in contact with Russian spies. 

Comer has been quietly backing away from impeaching the president until today, when he popped back into the spotlight after news broke that Hunter Biden’s lawyer has threatened to sue the Fox News Channel (FNC) for “conspiracy and subsequent actions to defame Mr. Biden and paint him in a false light, the unlicensed commercial exploitation of his image, name, and likeness, and the unlawful publication of hacked intimate images of him.” His lawyer’s letter calls out FNC’s promotion of Smirnov’s false allegations. 

Last year, FNC paid almost $800 million to settle defamation claims made by Dominion Voting Systems after FNC hosts pushed the lie that Dominion machines had changed the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. 

Legal pressure on companies lying for profit has proved successful. Two weeks ago, the far-right media channel One America News Network (OAN) settled a defamation lawsuit with the voting technology company Smartmatic. Today, OAN retracted a false story about former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, apparently made to discredit the testimony of Stormy Daniels about her sexual encounters with Trump. OAN suggested that it was Cohen rather than Trump who had a relationship with Daniels, and that Cohen had extorted Trump over the story.  

“OAN apologizes to Mr. Cohen for any harm the publication may have caused him,” the network wrote in a statement. “To be clear, no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen and Ms. Daniels were having an affair and no evidence suggests that Mr. Cohen ‘cooked up’ the scheme to extort the Trump Organization before the 2016 election.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Mike Smith #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #defamation claims #Affordable Connectivity Program #income inequality #small businesses #economic growth #RSC Republican Study Committee #trickle down economics

[merelygifted]

According to a new report in Substack publication Popular Information, 50 companies have donated over $23 million to election deniers since Jan. 6, 2021. MSNBC's Ayman Mohyeldin speaks to Judd Legum, author of Popular Information.

#capitalism #business #fascism #SEDITION #SUBVERSION #domestic terrorism #ESPIONAGE #crime #EVIL #conspiracy idiots #election interference #magats #WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK RETHUGLICANTS?! #rethuglicants #conservative politics #reach complete enlightenment #corruption #screw the people #screw the voters

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Noah Carl

Published: May 10, 2023

Since the death of Jordan Neely on the New York subway, there has been much discussion of interracial violent crime on Twitter. Conservatives have been pointing out (correctly) that blacks commit a disproportionate amount, while leftists have been trying to argue (erroneously) that they don’t.

The latest attempt to show that blacks don’t commit a disproportionate amount of interracial violent crime was by a guy named Judd Legum, whom I’d never heard of before. Here I’ll explain exactly why he’s wrong.

Note that Legum has a Substack newsletter with 258,000 subscribers, of which more than 10,000 are paying subscribers. This equates to a minimum annual income from Substack of around $600,000 (minus fees). So this guy is earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, despite the fact that he’s making completely erroneous claims about an important subject. What’s more, his newsletter previously won an award for “online journalism”.

Legum made several erroneous claims in his recent article but I want to focus on this one: “when you normalize the data for population, the rate of “Black on White” crime is similar to the rate of “White on Black” crime”. To support the claim, he refers to a table in a report by the US Department of Justice – which is reproduced below.

[ Table from ‘Criminal Victimization, 2018 ]

As Legum notes, “The data shows that 15.3% of crimes against whites are committed by Black people. And 10.6% of crimes against Black people are committed by whites.” Since 15.3% is not that much greater than 10.6%, he’s claiming that blacks and whites commit a “similar” amount of interracial violent crime.

Here’s what’s actually going on.

3,581,360 is the total number of violent incidents with a white victim. Of these, 15.3% had a black perpetrator. This means the total number of violent incidents committed by blacks against whites is 3,581,360 × 0.153 = 547,948.

563,940 is the total number of violent incidents with a black victim. Of these, 10.6% had a white perpetrator. This means the total number of violent incidents committed by whites against blacks is 563,940 × 0.106 = 59,778.

Dividing 547,948 by 59,778 gives us 9.2. Which means the total number of violent incidents committed by blacks against whites is 9 times greater than the total number of violent incidents committed by whites against blacks.

If we compare blacks and Asians, we get an even bigger disparity. In fact, the total number of violent incidents committed by blacks against Asians is 89 times greater than the total number of violent incidents committed by Asians against blacks.

These massive ratios have nothing to do with the population sizes of different groups. Although there are more whites than blacks in the US, there are more blacks than Asians. Yet both whites and Asians commit many fewer violent incidents against blacks than blacks commit against them.

Adjusting for population size by calculating “rates”, as some conservatives have been doing, is actually wrong in this context. To see why, consider the following example – which I borrowed from the Twitter user Lao Yang.

[ Image made by Twitter user Lao Yang. ]

First, let’s check that both populations have the same overall crime rate.

The total number of crimes committed by members of population A is 9,801 + 99 = 9,900. (9,801 crimes were committed against other members of population A and 99 were committed against members of population B). Therefore, population A’s crime rate is 9,900/990,000 × 100 = 1 per 100.

The total number of crimes committed by members of population B is 99 + 1 = 100. (99 crimes were committed against members of population A and 1 was committed against another member of population B). Therefore, population B’s crime rate is 100/10,000 × 100 = 1 per 100.

So both populations have the same overall crime rate. And each committed the same number of crimes against the other. Why, then, is it wrong to calculate “rates” of interracial crime?

Well, we can calculate both offending rates and victimisation rates. Population A’s offending rate is 99/990,000 × 100 = 0.01 per 100. And population B’s offending rate is 99/10,000 × 100 = 0.99 per 100. So population B’s offending rate is 99 times higher.

Now let’s do victimisation rates, which are exactly the same. Population A’s is 99/990,000 × 100 = 0.01 per 100. And population B’s is 99/10,000 × 100 = 0.99 per 100. So population B’s victimisation rate is also 99 times higher.

Population B commits crime against population A 99 times more often than population A commits crime against population B. Yet population B is victimised by population A 99 times more often than population A is victimised by population B? This can’t be right.

The reason is that interracial crimes involve encounters. And the number of times blacks encounter whites has to be equal to the number of times whites encounter blacks. Therefore, interracial crime numbers do not need to be adjusted for population. (You could adjust them for the combined population of both groups, but that would be pointless.)

In summary: comparing interracial crime across groups is relatively simple. You just divide, say, the total number of crimes committed by blacks against whites by the total number of crimes committed by whites against blacks. Doing so confirms that blacks commit a disproportionate amount. Age can explain part of the disparity between blacks and whites, and an even smaller part of the disparity between blacks and Asians.

#Noah Carl #violent crime #interracial crime #interracial violent crime #crime statistics #religion is a mental illness

[abyssal-debonair]

For its thousands of book fairs in elementary schools this year, the company has segregated books focusing on a huge array of topics and stories — fiction and nonfiction — that share little in common aside from not centering white, heterosexual experience. Books on Black identity, picture books with LGBTQ+ characters, stories of Indigenous history and migration, among others, have been grouped together in a collection under the cloying title “Share Every Story, Celebrate Every Voice.” School officials can then opt to exclude the entire section from their schools’ book fairs in one fell swoop. As Judd Legum reported, one librarian called the option a “bigot button.”

#politics #book bans #racism #poc #lgbt #lgbtq #queer #homophobia #books

[filosofablogger]

Playing Both Ends Against The Middle

I was thoroughly disgusted, but not surprised by the latest from Judd Legum et al at Popular Information about the fossil fuel industry’s latest attempts to keep themselves afloat while killing the rest of us.  Read on … 1500 environmental lobbyists are double-dealing with the fossil fuel industry By Judd Legum, Tesnim Zekeria, and Rebecca Crosby 6 July 2023 Hiring a lobbyist is about…

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#environmental lobbyists #F Minus #fossil fuel industry #greed and wealth #Judd Legum of Popular Information #Mississippi River Delta

[dontmeantobepoliticalbut]

Last Saturday, as the entire world now knows, an 18-year-old man named Payton Gendron killed 10 people in a Tops supermarket in Buffalo.

Of the 13 people Gendron shot, 11 were Black — in his livestream of the shooting, he's heard saying "sorry" to a white man he shoots. The other victims seem to have hardly even been spared a thought.

Gendron's motivations for the shooting were made clear in a 180-page manifesto he published online. The document, which includes multiple antisemitic references and makes clear he was expressly targeting the store, and that particular Buffalo neighborhood, because of the area's large Black population, leaves little to the imagination.

The manifesto included a nearly word-for-word repeat of Fox News host Tucker Carlson's interpretation of the racist "Great Replacement" narrative, a far-right conspiracy theory that claims Democrats and/or Jews are trying to dilute the white American electorate by importing immigrants of color.

This should come as no surprise to anyone who's paid even the slightest attention to Carlson over the past few years. The TV-dinner heir and child of total privilege who claims to speak for the common man has long had an affinity for the most racist of conspiracy theories.

Yet rather than reflect on the similarity between the ideological conspiracy theory they're pushing and the motivations of the Buffalo shooter, many conservatives are crying foul at the suggestion they might have some culpability for spreading hate.

Carlson is hardly alone. His allies and followers in the Republican Party have been parroting the "replacement" line for years. GOP rising star Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., one of the biggest proponents of the conspiracy, used it in a September 2021 campaign ad. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., used the term directly in a tweet praising Carlson, and candidates such as Ohio Republican U.S. Senate nominee J.D. Vance have also embraced the language. Judd Legum has a good overview here.

But instead of rethinking how they talk about immigrants and people of color, conservatives have gone on the offensive, playing aggrieved to drown their critics in crocodile tears. Stefanik, in a statement, expressed her sympathies for the victims of the shooting — and then turned things over to senior advisor Alex DeGrasse for a doubling down on anti-immigrant sentiments.

Meanwhile, Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo. — whom Stefanik replaced in the GOP House leadership after Cheney was ousted for her criticism of Donald Trump — tried to distance herself and her party from the racism she has supported for years, claiming that "House GOP leadership has enabled white nationalism, white supremacy, and anti-semitism" while conveniently ignoring her own support for the racist birther movement, her career of Islamophobic hate speech and her hardline anti-immigration rhetoric — all of which is functionally little different from the more explicit conspiracy theories being repeated by Stefanik, et al.

Social media influencer and frequent Carlson guest Glenn Greenwald (a former Salon columnist), writing on his Substack blog, argued that those seeking to look into the ideological ties between the Fox News host and the shooter were being unfair. "There is no racial hierarchy in Carlson's view of American citizenship and to claim that there is is nothing short of a defamatory lie," Greenwald wrote, conveniently ignoring — as usual — the fact that Carlson's entire worldview is based on racial hierarchy and bigotry.

Other media figures also leapt at the opportunity to play defense, whining about fairness and respect for the dead. Commentator Kmele Foster complained, "When a lunatic goes on a deadly rampage, maybe wait 24-48 hrs before co-opting the tragedy to malice your political enemies." Daily Wire writer Megan Basham pretended to take the high road, calling on critics "not to pit racial groups against one another," a principle that, if applied, would erase the majority of her boss Ben Shapiro's output. Breitbart's Joel Pollack protested that inquiring into the shooter's obvious ideological links to other right-wingers was a "predictable attempt to exploit the shooting to censor debate and opposition" — even as he reiterated his support for the "Great Replacement" theory.

Wailing about persecution and unfairness is the right's go-to move whenever its leading voices are forced to actually answer for the reality of their belief system, and the fallout from Saturday's shooting is no different. The more noise they make to distract you, the more worried they are that people are beginning to pay attention to what they actually say.

#us politics #news #2022 #buffalo shooting #mass shooter #mass shootings #gun violence #payton gendron #gop #Republicans #conservatives #salon #great replacement #tucker carlson #tucker carlson tonight #cucker tarlson #eoin higgins #Rep. Elise Stefanik #rep. matt gaetz #J.D. Vance #Judd Legum #Glenn Greenwald #donald trump #rep. liz cheney #Kmele Foster #the daily wire #Megan Basham #ben shapiro #breitbart #Joel Pollack

[kp777]

#saudi arabia #oil and gas industry #donald trump

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judd Legum and Tesnim Zekeria at Popular Information:

In his 2024 campaign, like his previous campaigns, Trump is pitting native-born Americans against immigrants. Sometimes, this is expressed through rank bigotry. Trump has claimed repeatedly that undocumented immigrants are "poisoning the blood of our country," a phrase with a dark history. In other instances, Trump makes more specific claims about the impact of immigrants on the American economy. In a February rally in Michigan, Trump told the crowd that immigrants coming into the country are "going to take your jobs." During his presidency, Trump imposed significant restrictions on legal immigration, arguing that new arrivals displace American workers and reduce wages. 

New data, however, confirms that these claims are false. Rather, immigrants have powered the remarkable recovery of the US economy after the shock of the pandemic. In 2023, the US economy grew at a 2.5% rate, "outpacing all other advanced economies." The US is on track "to do so again in 2024." This is only possible because of a substantial increase in immigration. Since February 2020, there has been no net job growth among native-born Americans. One reason is that the native-born workforce is flat or shrinking. Baby boomers are retiring, and birth rates remain low. But there has been substantial job growth in the US since February 2020 because more immigrants are working

[...]

How immigrants help keep inflation in check

The push-and-pull of economic policy is that if growth is too rapid, it can spur rapid inflation, leading to a host of other problems. Immigrants can help an economy achieve steady growth without excessive inflation.  [...]

How immigration reduces prejudice and increases foreign investment

Living near people from different countries can also help reduce prejudices and negative stereotypes, recent research shows. A study published earlier this year found that “long-term exposure to a larger population from a given country induces greater generosity toward that group.” According to the study, which focused on behaviors towards Arab-Muslims, white Americans were “less implicitly and explicitly prejudiced” against Arab-Muslims and more knowledgeable of Islam if they lived in areas with a larger percentage of Arab-Muslims. White residents were also less supportive of policies targeting Arab-Muslims, like Trump’s Muslim Ban, researchers said.  Immigration can also help attract foreign investment. In 2016, researchers amassed 130 years of county-level, immigration data and discovered that counties “that historically received more migrants from a given country were significantly more likely to later receive investments from that country.” Specifically, the group observed that “doubling…the number of residents with ancestry from a given foreign country” increased the probability of foreign investment by 4%. 

Popular Information debunks the myth pushed by Donald Trump and anti-immigrant bigots that immigrants hurt the American economy.

In fact, immigrants make the economy stronger.

#Immigration #Economy #Donald Trump

[mitchipedia]

I had been thinking the Stormy Daniels case was bullshit, but Judd Legum makes the case why it matters.

Elections are supposed to be about information and transparency. Daniels’ statements could have changed enough voters’ minds to swing the election the other way.

Trump schemed to conceal relevant information from the voting public in the days before the election, engaged in an elaborate coverup, and then lied about his involvement.

This deceit may have changed the course of history.