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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 2 years

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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.

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filosofablogger · 10 months

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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…

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

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arcticdementor · 2 years

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

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ebookporn · 1 year

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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.

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

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metalheadsforblacklivesmatter · 11 months

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-fae

#mmiw #missing and murdered indigenous women

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soberscientistlife · 4 months

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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.

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didthekingdieyet · 2 years

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i try to keep this blog relatively fun but with the recent news from the US supreme court i would like to let you all know that this blog supports abortions and anyone who makes the difficult decision to have one. abortion is a fundamental right and no one should be able to force another person to remain pregnant.

here are some resources

if you have any more pop them in the replies or reblog with more

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justinspoliticalcorner · 5 days

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Judd Legum at Popular Information:

While Buckley's view prevailed on April 30, over the years, Columbia came to embrace the protests — and political activism — as an important part of its legacy. In the aftermath of the police raid, the university sided with the protestors, "canceling the gym and severing ties with a weapons-research institute affiliated with the Defense Department." Kirk resigned as president within a year. It also resulted in structural reforms at Columbia that were designed to give students and faculty a more formal role in setting university policy. In 1969, the University Senate, a 100-person body consisting mostly of faculty and students, was created by referendum. Today, the University Statutes stipulate that a president may only consider summoning the NYPD (or other "external authorities") to end a demonstration if it "poses a clear and present danger to persons, property, or the substantial functioning of any division of the University." Even then, the University Statutes require "consultation with a majority of a panel established by the University Senate’s Executive Committee" before the president takes action. [...]

Columbia University in 2024

On April 18, 2024, Columbia President Minouche Shafik wrote the NYPD regarding a group of students who were occupying the campus' south lawn. The day before, the students had established a "Gaza Solidarity Encampment" in protest of Israel's operations in Gaza — and Columbia's investments in companies allegedly profiting from the war. The Israeli assault on Gaza, launched in response to Hamas' October 7, 2023, terrorist attack, has killed thousands of civilians and created a humanitarian crisis. Shafik accused the Columbia students, whose tuition costs $66,000, of trespassing on their own campus. She requested "the NYPD’s help to remove these individuals." Shafik claimed the students were not authorized to protest on the lawn and posed a "clear and present danger." (A policy limiting protests to designated areas was only put in place in February.)

The NYPD responded to the request by descending on the University and arresting 108 students. Some students were restrained in zip ties for several hours and transported to a local police precinct before being released. Shafik also said that all students "participating in the encampment" have been "suspended" for an indefinite period.

According to the NYPD, the protest was entirely non-violent. "To put this in perspective, the students that were arrested were peaceful, offered no resistance whatsoever, and were saying what they wanted to say in a peaceful manner," NYPD Chief John Chell said. Antisemitism exists on and off the Columbia campus. But the mass arrests conflated peaceful pro-Palestinian protests with prejudice and hatred toward Jewish people. Shafik claimed she "complied with the requirements of Section 444 of the University Statutes." Section 444 requires "consultation" with the University Senate Executive Committee. While Shafik informed the committee of her decision, it is unclear if a genuine consultation occurred. "The executive committee did not approve the presence of NYPD on campus," Jeanine D’Armiento, chair of the Committee, told the Columbia Spectator.

Like in 1968, shortly before Shafik called in the NYPD, she faced substantial political pressure from the right. On April 17, 2024, the day before the NYPD raid, Shafik testified for three hours before the Republican-controlled House Committee on Education. The hearing, Columbia in Crisis: Columbia University’s Response to Antisemitism, was modeled after prior hearings that forced the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania to resign. (Shafik missed the earlier hearing because she was traveling internationally.)

Throughout last week's hearing, Shafik and other representatives of Columbia touted their "work with external investigators and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to identify and discipline students who breach policy." Shafik assured members of the committee that Columbia students "are getting the message that violations of our policies will have consequences." During the hearing, Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA) told Shakik that, in the Bible, God is "real clear" that "if you bless Israel, I will bless you" and "if you curse Israel, I will curse you." Allen asked Shakik if she wanted "Columbia University to be cursed by God?" "Definitely not," Shafik replied.

[...] Shafik's actions, however, appear to have backfired. In the wake of mass arrests, the protests on the south lawn have continued and inspired others to protest in solidarity across the globe. The Columbia protesters are now calling not only for divestment but, in an echo of the 1968 protests, "an end to Columbia expansion into West Harlem."

Students at Columbia University launched Gaza Solidarity Encampment on the campus's south lawn to protest the Israel Apartheid State's occupation of Palestine and the university's investments in companies alleged to be profitting off the Gaza Genocide.

The university's chancellor, Minouche Shafik, called on the NYPD to arrest the students involved in the Gaza Solidarity Encampment. The NYPD called the protesters and protesters peaceful and non-violent.

The heavy-handed actions by Shafik have led to Gaza Solidarity Encampments spreading to other campuses, such as MIT, Tufts University, and Michigan.

#Israel/Hamas War Protests #Israel/Hamas War #Israel #Hamas #Columbia University #Gaza Genocide #Gaza #Gaza Solidarity Encampment #Minouche Shafik #Colleges #Rick Allen #Israel Apartheid State #Occupation of Palestine

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 2 months

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Whamond

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 12, 2024 (Tuesday)

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 13, 2024

Today, Democratic voters in Georgia gave President Joe Biden enough delegates to win the Democratic nomination for president when the Democratic National Convention is held in August. Republican voters in Georgia, Hawaii, Mississippi, and Washington gave Trump enough delegates to win the Republican presidential nomination, although former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who dropped out of the race last week, continues to win voters—more than 21% in Washington.

Also today, Special Counsel Robert Hur testified before the House Judiciary Committee about his report on Biden’s handling of classified documents in his possession from his years as vice president. The hearing appeared to show that the Democrats have finally found a way to defang the tactic Republicans have been using since the 1990s. For decades now, under the guise of the important function of congressional oversight, Republicans have weaponized congressional hearings to smear Democrats in the media.

In this Congress, and especially today, rather than accept the framework the Republicans advance as they try to craft a narrative for right-wing media, Democrats have pushed back with facts and their own story.

In January 2023, apparently wishing to avoid accusations that the Department of Justice was favoring Biden, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed Hur, a partisan Republican whom Trump had appointed U.S. attorney for Maryland, to oversee the investigation into whether Biden had mishandled classified documents.

In his final report, released last month, Hur concluded that “no criminal charges are warranted in this matter...even if there was no policy against charging a sitting president.” But then Hur went on for more than 300 pages to offer a picture of Biden as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Notably, Hur reported that Biden did not remember the date of his son Beau Biden’s death.

The media ran with that editorializing rather than the fact that Hur had concluded that criminal charges were not warranted. Stories about Biden’s age swamped the media. Judd Legum of Popular Information found that in the four days after Hur’s report appeared, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal together published 81 articles about Hur’s assessment of Biden’s memory, suggesting that Biden was sliding into dementia and should not be running for reelection.

Republicans immediately demanded the transcriptions of Biden’s interviews with Hur and his staff, saying they needed more information for their case for impeaching Biden. Republican House leadership issued a statement that “[a] man too incapable of being held accountable for mishandling classified information is certainly unfit for the Oval Office.”

House Republicans asked Hur to testify before the Judiciary Committee, chaired by Trump loyalist Jim Jordan (R-OH). Hur prepared for his testimony with the help of Trumpworld figures, and he resigned from the Department of Justice effective yesterday, so he appeared before the committee today not as a DOJ employee bound by certain ethical guidelines, but as a private citizen.

But while Republicans clearly designed their plans for this Congress’s investigations to seed smears of Democrats in the public mind, Democrats have come to hearings exceedingly well prepared to turn the tables back on the Republicans. That strategy was obvious today as it quickly became clear in the hearing that it was not Biden who was on the hot seat.

Hours before the hearing was about to begin, the Department of Justice released a transcript of Biden’s interviews, held in the two days after Hamas attacked Israel as he rushed to respond to that crisis. The transcripts belied Hur’s portrayal of Biden’s answers; among other things, he clearly knew the exact date Beau died.

The transcript also revealed a pointed contrast between Trump and Biden, with the president telling investigators he didn’t “own a stock or a bond that I’m aware of…. I never wanted to have any argument…. The thing I valued most my whole life, my reputation and integrity. So I never wanted to have anything that someone said, you bought that stock and it went up because you traded. Never did that.”

Democrats came to the hearing prepared to turn it into a hearing on Trump. Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) called out Hur for unprofessional behavior in disparaging the president after finding the matter should be dismissed. Representative Eric Swalwell (D-CA) suggested Hur was angling for an appointment in a second Trump administration and asked him to demonstrate his credibility by pledging that he would not accept such an appointment. Hur declined to do so.

The hearing was covered live on various television channels, and the Democrats used that media time to show videos of Trump slurring his words, forgetting names, and speaking in word salad, getting their own sound bites to voters. They got Hur to spell out the clear contrast between Trump’s theft of documents and Biden’s cooperation with the government.

Conservative lawyer George Conway wrote on social media: “I think Biden’s State of the Union address last week and Hur’s immolation today will go down in political history as Reagan’s ‘I am not going to exploit…my opponent’s youth and inexperience’ moment…only on steroids.” Conway was referring to Reagan’s response in a 1984 presidential debate to a question about his own age; Reagan’s opponent, Walter Mondale, later said he knew Reagan’s answer was the moment he had lost not only the debate but probably the election.

In other news today, pressure on House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to bring up the national security supplemental bill that includes aid for Ukraine continues to increase. Although the administration says it has found an additional $300 million from Pentagon cost savings to supply artillery rounds and munitions for Ukraine, national security advisor Jake Sullivan told reporters:

“It is nowhere near enough to meet Ukraine's battlefield needs and it will not prevent Ukraine from running out of ammunition."

House Democrats are working to get enough signatures on a discharge petition to force Johnson to bring up a vote on a supplemental bill—which is expected to pass if it makes it to a vote—and today, Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also added pressure, encouraging Johnson to bring up the measure that passed the Senate in mid-February. “Allow a vote,” he said. “A vote. Let the House speak.”

Johnson’s control of the House, such as it is, got a little weaker today as Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) announced he is leaving Congress at the end of next week. “It is the worst year of the nine years and three months that I’ve been in Congress and having talked to former members, it’s the worst year in 40, 50 years to be in Congress,” Buck told CNN’s Dana Bash. “But I’m leaving because I think there’s a job to do out there…. This place has just devolved into this bickering and nonsense and not really doing the job for the American people.”

The Internal Revenue Service today launched a pilot program in 12 states to enable taxpayers to file their federal tax returns directly, for free. The Treasury Department estimates that about one third of all tax returns are simple enough to use this new system and that about 19 million taxpayers could use it this season.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#letters from an american #Heather Cox Richardson #Judiciary Committee #House democrats #discharge petition

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merelygifted · 26 days

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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

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 2 months

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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

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filosofablogger · 10 months

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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

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abyssal-debonair · 6 months

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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

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 2 years

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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.

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