We Created a Monster: Trump Was a TV Fantasy Invented for 'The Apprentice'
https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2024-10-16/we-created-a-tv-illusion-for-the-apprentice-but-the-real-trump-threatens-america
NBC’s former chief marketer regrets selling an illusion that has had dire consequences for the world.
By John D. Miller | ContributorOct. 16, 2024, at 5:35 p.m.

I want to apologize to America. I helped create a monster.

For nearly 25 years, I led marketing at NBC and NBCUniversal. I led the team that marketed “The Apprentice,” the reality show that made Donald Trump a household name outside of New York City, where he was better known for overextending his empire and appearing in celebrity gossip columns.

To sell the show, we created the narrative that Trump was a super-successful businessman who lived like royalty. That was the conceit of the show. At the very least, it was a substantial exaggeration; at worst, it created a false narrative by making him seem more successful than he was.

In fact, Trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production, and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting. The imposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set, because his real boardroom was too old and shabby for TV.

Trump may have been the perfect choice to be the boss of this show, because more successful CEOs were too busy to get involved in reality TV and didn’t want to hire random game show winners onto their executive teams. Trump had no such concerns. He had plenty of time for filming, he loved the attention and it painted a positive picture of him that wasn’t true.

President Bush, Put Country Over Party
Bush and the military chiefs who served Trump know he is a threat to democracy. Their silence is unacceptable.
Albert R. HuntOct. 11, 2024

At NBC, we promoted the show relentlessly. Thousands of 30-second promo spots that spread the fantasy of Trump’s supposed business acumen were beamed over the airwaves to nearly every household in the country. The image of Trump that we promoted was highly exaggerated. In its own way, it was “fake news” that we spread over America like a heavy snowstorm. I never imagined that the picture we painted of Trump as a successful businessman would help catapult him to the White House.

I discovered in my interactions with him over the years that he is manipulative, yet extraordinarily easy to manipulate. He has an unfillable compliment hole. No amount is too much. Flatter him and he is compliant. World leaders, including apparently Russian strongman Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, have discovered that too.

I also found Trump remarkably thin-skinned. He aggressively goes after those who critique him and seeks retribution. That’s not very businesslike – and it’s certainly not presidential. This week, he threatened to use the National Guard against Americans who oppose him, calling them the “enemy from within.”

I learned early on in my dealings with Trump that he thought he could simply say something over and over, and eventually people would believe it. He would say to me, “‘The Apprentice’ – America’s No. 1 TV show.” But it wasn’t. Not that week. Not that season. I had the ratings in front of me. He had seen and heard the ratings, but that didn’t matter. He just kept saying it was the “No. 1 show on television,” even after we corrected him. He repeated it on press tours too, knowing full well it was wrong. He didn’t like being fact-checked back then either.

Exaggerating ratings is one thing, but spreading falsehoods about relief work of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, about immigrants eating cats and dogs, about the deadly COVID-19 pandemic, about him winning the 2020 election or countless other lies is far more dangerous.

Trump’s 2024 Election Cheat Sheet
Republican lawyers are filing lawsuits to disenfranchise voters and set the stage for challenging the results if Trump loses.
Albert R. HuntOct. 4, 2024
WASHINGTON, DC - JANUARY 05: People listen to speakers during a Stop the Steal rally in front of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

I also learned from working with him that he has questionable judgment. At the wrap party for “The Apprentice” season three, he pitched an idea for the upcoming season. He told me we should make a team of Black players compete against white players. My first thought was: WTF?! I tried to get through to him by speaking the language he understands: money. I explained that sponsors wouldn’t want to be associated with a show that pitted races against each other. But he could not understand why this was such a bad idea. (And, no, we did not use his idea.)

While we were successful in marketing “The Apprentice,” we also did irreparable harm by creating the false image of Trump as a successful leader. I deeply regret that. And I regret that it has taken me so long to go public.

Now America is facing a critical choice. Should this elderly, would-be emperor with no clothes, who is well known for stretching and abandoning the truth, be president again?


I spent 50 years successfully promoting television magic, making mountains out of molehills every day. But I say now to my fellow Americans, without any promotional exaggeration: If you believe that Trump will be better for you or better for the country, that is an illusion, much like “The Apprentice” was. Even if you are a born-and-bred Republican, as I was, I strongly urge you to vote for Kamala Harris. The country will be better off and so will you.

John D. Miller was the chief marketing officer for NBC and NBCUniversal, and retired as chair of the NBCUniversal Marketing Council.



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Germany honours Biden for contribution to transatlantic ties as election looms
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/national/24661306.germany-honours-biden-contribution-transatlantic-ties-election-looms/
2 hrs ago
By PA News Agency

bodhidave@bodhidave@mstdn.social

@KamalaHarrisWin @GottaLaff

I'm outside Asheville, NC. Despite continuing effects of the hurricane, 76 of 80 polling sites in this region are up and running.

You can early #vote at any polling site in your county.

And, again notwithstanding continuing effects from the hurricane, we broke the record yesterday for first day early voting numbers in this state.
Oct 18, 2024, 09:40 AM

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Chutkan Unseals Four Volume Appendix to Smith’s 165-Page Immunity Filing
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/chutkan-unseals-four-volume-appendix-to-smith-s-165-page-immunity-filing
Katherine Pompilio
Friday, October 18, 2024, 11:46 AM

The unsealed portions of the appendix include interview transcripts, memorandums, handwritten notes, and more.

On Oct. 18, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the four volume redacted appendix to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page motion for immunity determinations in the Jan. 6 case against former President Donald Trump.

The unsealed portions of the appendix include public tweets and retweets from Trump and others, memorandums detailing the fake electors plot and president of the Senate strategy, handwritten notes from meetings prior to Jan. 6, 2021, raw emails, text messages, letters, transcripts of televised interviews, Jan. 6 committee interview transcripts, transcripts of Trump’s phone calls with state officials, and more.

Smith’s filing came in response to the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling on presidential immunity, which affords the executive immunity from criminal prosecution for “official acts.” Smith’s Oct. 2 motion—which aimed to persuade Chutkan that the Supreme Court’s ruling still allows for Trump’s prosecution for his alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election—revealed a new tranche of evidence against the former president. As Lawfare editors wrote of the filing, “It’s the closest the public will likely come to understanding the details of the Jan. 6 prosecution before voters head to the polls. And it provides insight into how Smith is hoping to navigate the obstacle course of the immunity decision as he moves forward with the case.”

You can read all four volumes of the redacted appendix below.........................................



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Judge orders DeSantis administration to stop threats over abortion ads
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/10/17/desantis-abortion-tv-ads-lawsuit/
A federal judge in Florida ordered the state to stop threatening TV stations with criminal charges if they run an ad in support of an abortion rights referendum.

Republicans; Voter suppression usually works for us, what happened?

Joshua Holland
@JoshuaHolland@mastodon.social

Republicans always disenfranchise their own voters cuz you can’t write a law barring Dems from voting. One study found strict voter ID laws drop Dem turnout by 7.7 points and GOP turnout by only 4.6 points.

One MT lawmaker is reportedly distraught that his state’s efforts may have inadvertently reversed that math.




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What does one expect, handlers are having an impossible job. They're not worried though, they will take over if he wins, or even if he loses, they've got the corrupt Supreme Court in their pocket.
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Here's Candidate Trump now, but I must warn you, he won't be SAYING anything or DOING anything.




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My nuclear stocks sure picked up in the last month. LEU going ballistic, UEC not doing to bad either, and others. Where is the top? When might be a retrace and consolidation and how much? Answers are a bit elusive with the upcoming power needs.


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Just criminal trump criming again, the only thing he has known, trying to get Stormy to not talk about him again. I think it was just the old dementia don with his increasing brain cell damage just forgetting where he is in time. Happens with all dementia patients until it gets to a point where they forget how to eat, forget who people are, forget years even decades of time, lose the cognitive ability to even wipe their own ass (which trump might already be there). He was forgetful when he was in White House, couldn't remember reports, briefings, or even what he might of said the day before. Now it is exponentially worse and will go farther downhill from here. There is no stopping it, no cure, can only slow the deterioration only so much with drugs, and strong dosing him has already shown the ill effects of that and will have it's consequences.

Maddow on MSNBC;

https://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/maddow-s-bombshell-reporting-trump-trying-to-pay-stormy-daniels-to-be-quiet-again-221947973843


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Fruit flies and especially fungus gnats are really attracted to balsamic vinegar, most fermented products will attract for trapping. My SCOBYS (symbiotic colonies of bacterial and yeast spores), the "mushroom" will massively collect them in my kombucha tea gallon jars if I don't put some kind of cloth over them and still sometimes manage to get in and of course then lay eggs in my SCOBYS and multiply. I found that keeping the bugs away worked out better.

Peppermint and a little dish soap goes a long way, for surfaces, on your skin for insect repellent (not as powerful as DEET, requires stronger peppermint solution for mosquitos, but works pretty good keeping other protein eating spiders and insects that I don't want crawling and trying to eat me, don't need the soap), and on the garden and house plants (use the soap additive for plants, spray on soil for fungus gnats, the soap will prevent them from laying anymore eggs in the soil).

Peppermint is a good one (I like that smell), but it's just included with others like eucalyptus, clove, lavender, and lemongrass that fruit flies hate the smell of.

What I do for whole house or room deterrent, I mix up a bunch of dried herbs and hang them in a "tea bag" which I make out of a coffee filter or make a tincture or oil in a diffuser. Makes the whole house smell good to us but keeps away the fruit flies. At least it works for me, been making and drinking the kombucha tea for over thirty years, before they commercialized it and sold it in stores.


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Imani Gandy @AngryBlackLady@mstdn.social
https://mastodon.social/@AngryBlackLady@mstdn.social/113317192018646800
If you’re feeling panicky about polling (as I have), you should totally read this https://open.substack.com/pub/statuskuo/p/its-manipulation-plain-and-simple?

Basically there are GOP operatives who are preparing for Trump to claim that the election was rigged because “LOOK AT THE POLLS THEY ALL SAID I’M WINNING.” Polls are a total scam. Elon Musk is even messing with the betting markets. It’s a mess



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Health care fraudster Philip Esformes is latest Trump clemency recipient to be arrested
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/10/15/trump-clemency-recipient-philip-esformes-arrested-florida.html
Published Tue, Oct 15 20244:02 PM EDT
Dan Mangan

Key Points

Philip Esformes, whose 20-year prison sentence for a massive, $1.3 billion Medicare fraud scheme was commuted in 2020 by then-President Donald Trump, was arrested over the weekend in Florida on domestic-violence related charges.
Esformes is at least the seventh person who received executive clemency from Trump, only to be charged with new crimes.
Esformes, who had owned Florida nursing homes, was convicted at trial in 2019 of 20 criminal counts related to what the Department of Justice at the time said was the largest health-care fraud scheme ever prosecuted by the department.


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The Flood-Protection Rule That Trump Rolled Back
A Trump-era rollback of flood-protection rules has left critical infrastructure projects at higher risk, experts say
https://universeodon.com/@Snoro@mastodon.social/113314043234587169
https://archive.ph/lIDr5#selection-466

The Flood-Protection Rule That Trump Rolled Back
A Trump-era rollback of flood-protection rules has left critical infrastructure projects at higher risk, experts say.
By Lisa Friedman
Oct. 15, 2024, 1:17 p.m. ET

In the summer of 2017, Donald Trump stood in the lobby of Trump Tower and declared he would heal a “massive self-inflicted wound on our country” by eliminating red tape that he said was making construction in America an arduous, expensive process.

One policy he eradicated that day was a set of standards aimed at ensuring that anything built with taxpayer money — including hospitals, sewage treatment plants, bridges and libraries — could withstand flooding and rising seas caused by climate change.

Seven years later and in the wake of hurricanes Helene and Milton, federal officials and flood experts say Trump’s decision to roll back those federal infrastructure standards has had financial ramifications. Those are just starting to come into view as officials continue to tally the damage from the storms.

According to state and federal data, at least five water treatment plants in Florida that were in the path of Helene and Milton were exempt from tougher national building standards and sustained damage from the hurricane ranging from water line breaks to power losses. In total, they were funded with about $200 million in federal spending.

Another seven water plants across the Southeast that together received more than $100 million in federal funding were built to lower flood standards and didn’t receive damage during Helene or Milton. But the plants are considered at high risk for damage in the future, and what worries experts is how many crucial infrastructure plants are similarly exposed.

“We can definitively say that risk increased,” said Alice C. Hill, a senior fellow in energy and environment at the Council on Foreign Relations. “The federal government continues to invest in infrastructure destined to fail in the light of worsening climate impacts.”

“Hurricanes Helene and Milton are a stark reminder that catastrophic flooding, and the climate crisis more broadly, present ongoing and worsening challenges for America’s critical water infrastructure,” said Zealan Hoover, a senior adviser to the E.P.A. administrator, Michael Regan.

Hoover said policies like the flood standard “have real consequences for Americans,” including ensuring that communities can maintain access to drinking water in the wake of disasters.

The impact of the flood rules

The standards in question were created under President Obama in 2015, who made the case that climate change would make floods more common and much more destructive.

The rules called for building structures two or three feet above the 100-year flood level, or built at the 500-year level. Alternately, federal agencies could analyze future climate change scenarios like sea-level rise or expected heavier floods, and build according to those projections. But the policy ran into opposition, particularly from homebuilders who argued that new restrictions would lead to higher construction costs even outside federally funded projects.

When Trump was elected, he took aim at every policy linked to the phrase “climate change” and repealed it. President Biden reinstated the standard, which went into effect at most agencies this year.

Quantifying the effects of the standard’s seven-year absence is no easy feat. But Chad Berginnis, executive director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers, said “hundreds of millions if not billions” had been spent on buildings that are unprepared for intense floods.

Can the standard’s elimination be blamed for damage caused by Hurricane Helene or Hurricane Milton? At this stage, officials said, it’s hard to say.
In part that is because there are no national data sets showing infrastructure spending in flood plains. Helene was a one-in-1,000-year hurricane that might have damaged structures even with stricter codes. And finally, federal data might not capture state or local decisions to impose stricter rules even in the absence of federal requirements.

Preparing for a 500-year flood

That’s what happened in Hendersonville, N.C., which was deluged during three days of unrelenting precipitation from Hurricane Helene. Adam Steurer, the city’s utilities director, said that when the town built a new drinking water pumping station a few years ago on the banks of the French Broad River, engineers opted to build to 500-year flood levels.

“It was a very early discussion we had because this area goes underwater all the time,” Steurer said. He said that the cost difference was negligible and that putting electrical equipment at higher elevation gave the pumping station extra resiliency. The station is still being assessed, but officials do not believe it was badly damaged by Helene, he said.

The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

If he wins the White House in November, Trump is widely expected to again eliminate climate policies, including the flood standards.

Carlos Curbelo, a Republican and former congressman from Miami, said doing so would be “reckless,” adding, “This is a great example of how ideology and trying to win the culture wars can get in the way of protecting property and saving taxpayers resources.”

Berginnis said average annual national losses from flooding had doubled each decade since the 1980s, and would quite likely reach $40 billion this decade. Eliminating the standards again, he said, would be fiscally irresponsible, and lead to taxpayer funds “wasted on projects that may not be built to endure the flooding we are already seeing, and know is only going to get worse.”

How climate disasters are making mobile homes a huge risk

Back-to-back catastrophic hurricanes this fall, first Helene and then Milton, have exposed the risks climate change poses to the 16 million Americans who live in mobile or manufactured homes. Built in factories and lighter than conventional houses, manufactured homes are transported to a property and secured to the ground.

The people who live in mobile homes are often poorly served by federal disaster programs, experts say. The result is compounded loss as they are uprooted from their communities with nowhere to go.

Mobile homes are among the least expensive forms of housing; those who live in mobile home parks are three times as likely to live in poverty as those who live in traditional housing and are more likely to be older or disabled. Manufactured homes are also more likely to be located in flood zones, according to data compiled by CoreLogic, a property information and analytics company.

Manufactured homes make up 6 percent of the nation’s housing stock. But the proportions were much higher in several areas hard-hit by Milton and Helene. — Hilary Howard and Christopher Flavelle


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Someone said it sounded like trump belched a fart. Wouldn't surprise me, he always talks out his ass anyway.

Aaron Rupar
?@atrupar.bsky.social?
i don't think i've ever heard a human being make this sound before

i don't think i've ever heard a human being make this sound before

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.bsky.social) 2024-10-16T01:37:22.030Z

Trump is barely cogent tonight. watch this clip. his brain is just flitting around

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.bsky.social) 2024-10-16T01:41:48.169Z

Honorable discharges given to those booted by 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/15/2277014/-Honorable-discharges-given-to-those-booted-by-Don-t-Ask-Don-t-Tell
Tuesday, October 15, 2024 at 2:40:21p MDT


Former U.S. Army soldier Danny Ingram poses for a portrait at his home in Atlanta, Georgia. Ingram was one of the first to be expelled after "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" was enacted. He was given an honorable discharge from the Army soon after the policy was repealed but doesn't want to change the narrative that references his sexual orientation. "It's a badge of honor," he said.

While Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump is posting bizarre videos wishing for a return to the violent masculinity that brought us the Vietnam War, the Biden-Harris administration has scored another big win for LGBTQ+ justice.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced on Tuesday that more than 800 former service members discharged under the homophobic “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy have had their status upgraded to “honorable discharge” after a yearlong review.

“Don't Ask, Don't Tell” affected more than 13,000 military members during the 17 years it was in effect and barred openly gay people from serving. According to Christa A. Specht, a legal policy director at the Pentagon, while most of those members were given honorable discharges, “nearly 2,000 were separated with less than fully honorable characterizations.”

While many of those affected by the policy appealed for an upgrade after the policy was reversed in 2011, others likely didn’t know that was an option and did not apply. Austin announced in September 2023 that the Pentagon would be reviewing the remaining cases in order to “do right by our outstanding service members, military families, and civilian employees.” According to Austin, 96.8% of the cases reviewed received an upgrade to their status.

"We're encouraging anyone who still believes that there is something in their military record that is an error or an injustice—in particular, service members who might have been impacted by records that predate Don't Ask, Don't Tell who were separated for their sexual orientation—to come forward and request relief through the boards," Specht said. "They have a high chance of success."

Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s most notable achievement when it comes to the LGBTQ+ community was banning transgender service members from the military. That bigoted ban was lifted by Joe Biden in 2020, just days after he was sworn in as president.

Trump and his MAGA brethren continue to use anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry as a political tool to incite the most ignorant members of their base. Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville was willing to punish military service members and their families, blocking top-level military promotions and confirmations for most of 2023, in an unpopular attack on what he and Trump deemed the “woke military.”

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1994 as a compromise with hard-liners who wanted all LGBTQ+ people banned from military service. Advocates continued to fight against the policy for years before it was repealed during President Barack Obama’s administration in 2011.

For all his talk about how his Democratic opponent Kamala Harris threatens our country’s "freedom," the reality is that another Trump administration would mean clawing back human and civil rights—and less freedom for all Americans.


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Suicide for democracy.’ What is ‘bothsidesism’ – and how is it different from journalistic objectivity?
https://theconversation.com/suicide-for-democracy-what-is-bothsidesism-and-how-is-it-different-from-journalistic-objectivity-230894
Published: October 15, 2024 3:10pm EDT

“Bothsidesism” is a term of disparagement against a form of journalism that presents “both sides” of an issue without any regard for their relative evidentiary merits.

The term has been used to describe media reporting on Donald Trump and in relation to coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. For some, mentioning Israel’s ongoing occupation of Gaza in the context of last year’s October 7 terror attacks by Hamas will be a form of bothsidesism.

Yale history professor Timothy Snyder has described bothsideism as “suicide for democracy”.

If journalists just say “there are two sides to everything and I am going to find my way into the middle”, he said earlier this year in relation to reporting on Trump’s rallies, “you are always going to give the people who want to overthrow the system an advantage” because you are sharing your legitimacy with theirs.

This week, former publisher Louise Adler criticised the lack of attention paid, on the anniversary of the October 7 attacks, to their consequences for Palestinians, but clarified she wasn’t calling “for bothsidesism”. She continued, quoting writer Jacqueline Rose: “balance is a corrupt term in an unbalanced world”.

Balance, properly understood, is not a corrupt term, but what Adler is alluding to is a well-deserved critique of a kind of reporting that perverts the concept of impartiality. This journalistic quality has become crucial in today’s hyper-partisan political atmosphere. However, far from being an element in impartiality, “bothsidesism” undermines it.

Equal consideration, not treatment

Impartiality does an indispensable service to democracy, whereas bothsidesism does a serious disservice, allowing for the ventilation of lies, hate speech and conspiracy theories, on the spurious ground they represent another, equally valid, side of the story.

Reporting both sides of an issue is a basic requirement of journalism – but this doesn’t mean giving both sides equal weight, regardless of the facts. It requires giving each side equal consideration by reference to the available facts, but not necessarily equal treatment.

Bothsidesism can also be used as an excuse for giving wrongdoers a public relations platform. Some years ago, a Sydney newspaper gave notorious Sydney criminal George Freeman an extensive interview, during which he extolled his virtues, on the basis it was giving him a chance to tell his side of the story. But there was only one side of the Freeman story that mattered to the public: he was a criminal.

Impartiality, or objectivity as some prefer to call it, has been central to the ethical and idealistic norms of journalism from its earliest days. By the middle of the 19th century, impartiality in reporting had become a well established norm. It required, among other things, the separation of opinion from the reporting of news.

It was given what is perhaps its most ringing endorsement by C.P. Scott, first editor, then owner-editor of the Manchester Guardian, when in an essay to mark the newspaper’s centenary, he wrote, “Comment is free, but facts are sacred”.

Just the facts

However, by the 1940s, journalism had become so debased by proprietorial propaganda and commercial ambition that senior figures in the American media became alarmed at the decline in public trust in the press as an institution. Their response was to establish – and pay for – a Commission on the Freedom of the Press.

The resulting report, published in 1947, profoundly influenced the practice of journalism in many Western countries, including Australia. A central tenet of this new approach was not just that opinion should be separated from news, but that the news itself would consist only of factual accounts of events, utterances and causes.

It was a noble aim, but it bred a sterile form of reporting more akin to stenography than journalism. News stories became bereft of explanation or evaluation of the factual content, leaving it to the audience to join the dots, figure out the context and make sense of what they were being told.

Over time, a more analytical style of reporting evolved, which went beyond a strict recitation of facts to include evaluation.

Yet many media platforms remain wedded to the idea that if someone pokes their head up and wishes to comment on an issue, it is included if there is news value in what that person has to say, on the basis it represents “another side of the story”. The evaluative element goes missing.

Climate change deniers and tobacco

So it was that for decades the tobacco industry was able to assert – in the face of strong medical evidence – that the link between smoking and cancer was not conclusively proved.

The same tactic is now being used by climate-change deniers, in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is real and is caused by human activity.

In cases like this, bothsidesism does immense damage to democratic discourse: it creates a false equivalence between two sides, where the weight of evidence is clearly on one side and not the other.

Impartiality, by contrast, does not permit such intellectual dysfunction.

Impartiality has six components: accuracy, fairness, balance, openmindedness, integrity and fidelity to news values. They are all important. But the one that distinguishes impartiality from bothsidesism most clearly is balance.

Balance follows the weight of evidence. It forms part of the evaluative and explanatory functions of impartial news reporting. It provides the basis for a reporter to choose which evidence to give the most prominence. It also informs their choices for the language they’ll use to distinguish between stronger and weaker evidence, and to present the facts underpinning these evaluations.

And on language, there is no need for impartial reporting to be timid: a lie is a lie and a liar is a liar, where there is observable evidence that this is so.

But what about cases where any contest over evidence is drowned out by the force of political rhetoric?

Donald Trump and the media’s duty

A vivid example from the current US presidential election came from last month’s debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. Trump was fact-checked and corrected in real time by the host broadcaster, the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), after telling lies about abortion, immigration and the result of the 2020 election.

Harris was not fact-checked during the debate.

Why were the two candidates treated differently? Because of the established facts on which such editorial judgments are made. CNN later reported that Trump made at least 33 false claims during the debate, compared with one from Harris.

Trump is an inveterate liar. The Washington Post recorded 30,573 lies told by him during the four years of his presidency, and he falsely claimed the 2020 election was stolen from him.

Then, during the debate, he claimed that immigrants were eating family pets in the town of Springfield, Ohio: something so outlandish that leaving it unchecked would have been irresponsible.

Harris, by contrast, has no remotely equivalent history of lying. So treating her as if she did would have been to seriously distort the facts.

Another Trumpian example is his claim that his convictions for falsifying financial records to cover up a sex scandal was the result of a political show-trial conducted by a judge who was “a certified Trump-hater”.

He also warned that he was “not sure the public would stand for it” if he was imprisoned, adding, “at a certain point there’s a breaking point”. He did not elaborate, but left the threat hanging in the air.

It is the duty of the impartial reporter to point this out. It is also their duty to make clear that these veiled threats are similar to those he made about the 2020 election having been stolen, which preceded the insurrection in Washington on January 6 2021. These are facts, based on observable evidence.

To not publish veiled threats to public order by a presumptive presidential candidate in an election year is to rob the public of information they need to have about the candidate.

Yet, to simply report Trump’s latest threats alongside statements of condemnation from others would be an egregious example of bothsidesism.

Abandoning impartiality because of a mistaken conflation with bothsidesism would only worsen the hyper-partisanship that is eroding the democratic consensus.

It would also mean giving up on an ideal which is essential for a functioning democracy to pursue. Walter Lippmann, the 20th-century American political prophet and sage, writing a hundred years ago at a time of similarly great social and political tumult, stated:

---There is room, and there is need, for disinterested reporting … While the reporter will serve no cause, he will possess a steady sense that the chief purpose of “news” is to enable mankind to live successfully towards the future.---


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Tomi T Ahonen Never Not Dancin
@tomiahonen@mastodon.world
https://mastodon.social/@tomiahonen@mastodon.world/113312190188678631

It is so rigged! Absolutely unfair! He got it AGAIN? Fourth time in a row? I think I will quit air accordion, the whole contest is rigged so those rich fat fucks get all the awards! Did they even LOOK at my tape of doing the polka air accordion in Youngstown?

I'm going to take up fake dancing




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Another recall. Yesterday it was the mushrooms https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx? , today meat.


BrucePac meat recall includes these foods from Trader Joe's, Kroger and more. Here's a list.
moneywatch
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/brucepac-recall-meat-poultry-listeria-trader-joes-kroger-usda-list/
By Aimee Picchi
Edited By Anne Marie Lee
Updated on: October 15, 2024 / 11:42 AM EDT / CBS News

Hundreds of products sold at grocery chains such as Kroger, Wegmans and Trader Joe's are part of a BrucePac meat recall involving almost 10 million pounds of meat and poultry that may be contaminated with listeria bacteria, which can cause illness and death.

The products were disclosed Thursday by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a 326-page list. Recalled products range from a Kroger Mexican-style street corn salad to a Wegmans salad bowl with chicken and uncured bacon. Other brands whose products are part of the recall include Taylor Farms, Boston Market, 7-Eleven, Aldi's and Rao's (see list below).

The recall, first announced October 9, was sparked by USDA officials detecting listeria in samples of ready-to-eat poultry products during routine testing. While the recall initially included 75 meat and chicken products, the expanded list covers hundreds of prepared meal products, from salads to pasta dinners, made with recalled meat from BrucePac's Oklahoma plant.

The recalled products have the establishment numbers "51205 or P-51205" inside or under the USDA mark of inspection.

But the USDA is urging consumers to check the list of products involved in the recall because they may have a different establishment on the label due to processing by other companies.

"Consumers are urged to carefully review the information, including the product and label information" involved in the recall, the agency said.

The products were produced from June 19, 2024 to Oct. 8, 2024. Because some consumers may still have the products in their fridge or freezer, they should check and throw away any of the recalled products, officials stressed.

Listeria infections typically cause fever, muscle aches and tiredness and may cause stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions. Symptoms can occur quickly or to up to 10 weeks after eating contaminated food. The infections are especially dangerous for older people, those with weakened immune systems or who are pregnant.

BrucePac meat recall
7-Eleven:

7-Eleven Chicken Caesar Pasta Salad
7-Eleven Country Style Chef Salad with Ham and Chicken 8.1 oz
7-Eleven Caesar Salad with Chicken 7.8 oz
7-Eleven Fiesta Style Salad with Chicken 9.25 oz

Aldi's:

Fusia (Aldi's) Garlic Chicken Bowl - Frozen Bowl Meal, 9 oz

Amazon Kitchen:

Amazon Kitchen Chicken & Pepper Jack Wrap 10.1 oz
Amazon Kitchen Chicken Caesar Wrap 9.4 oz
Amazon Kitchen Caesar Salad with Grilled White Chicken 9.46 oz
Amazon Kitchen Cobb Salad with Grilled White Chicken & Bacon11.9 oz
Amazon Kitchen Mediterranean Style Salad with Grilled White Chicken 9.14 oz
Amazon Kitchen Taco Salad with Paprika Seasoned Grilled White Chicken 11.94 oz
Amazon Kitchen Sesame Chicken Salad with Grilled White Chicken 10.91 oz
Amazon Kitchen Apple & Cheddar Salad with Grilled White Chicken 9.7 oz

Boston Market:

Boston Market Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo 13 oz
Boston Market Chicken Bacon Ranch 13 oz
Boston Market Chicken, Broccoli & Cheese Casserole 13 oz.
Boston Market Chicken Fajita Rice Bowl 12.5 oz
Boston Market Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo 13 oz
Boston Market Chicken Bacon Ranch 369G

Giant Eagle:

Giant Eagle Caesar Salad Bowl with Chicken Family Size 12.15 oz
Giant Eagle Southwest Style Salad Bowl with Chicken Family Size 11.65 oz
Giant Eagle Dill Pickle Crunch Salad Bowl with Chicken and Bacon 6.15 oz

Kroger:

Kroger Salad Kit Southwest Style Salad with Chicken 11.65 oz
Kroger Mexican Style Street Corn Salad 6.4 oz
Kroger Chicken Caesar With Bacon Salad 5.75 oz
Kroger BLT Salad 6.5 oz
Kroger Caesar Salad with Chicken 12.15 oz
Kroger Chef Salad 6.7 oz
Kroger Cobb Salad 6.4 oz
Kroger Chicken Caesar with Bacon 5.75 oz
Kroger Mexican Style Street Corn with Chicken 6.4 oz
Kroger BLT Chicken Salad 6.5 oz
Kroger Garden Salad with Chicken & Bacon 5.75 oz
Kroger Santa Fe Style 6 oz
Kroger Apple Walnut with Chicken 5.5 oz
Kroger Chicken Caesar 6 oz

ReadyMeals:

ReadyMeals Chopped Caesar Salad with Chicken 8.5 oz
ReadyMeals Caesar Salad with Chicken 10 oz
ReadyMeals Family Size Caesar Salad with Chicken 13.75 oz
ReadyMeals Chopped Asian Inspired Salad with Chicken 8.25 oz
ReadyMeals Asian Style Salad with Chicken 11 oz
ReadyMeals Family Size Asian Style Salad with Chicken 15 oz
ReadyMeals Chopped Southwestern Style Salad with Chicken 8.5 oz
ReadyMeals Southwest Style Salad with Chicken 10.5 oz
ReadyMeals Southwest Salad with Brown Rice and Chicken 9 oz
ReadyMeals Chef Salad with Chicken & Ham 10.25 oz
ReadyMeals Family Size Chef Salad with Chicken & Bacon 16.15 oz
ReadyMeals Cobb Salad with Grilled Chicken & Bacon 9.85 oz
ReadyMeals California Inspired Avocado Salad with Chicken & Bacon 10.35 oz
ReadyMeals Berry Salad with Chicken 8.35 oz
ReadyMeals Apple Walnut Salad with Chicken 9 oz
ReadyMeals Chopped Sweet Kale Salad with Chicken 9.5 oz
ReadyMeals Thai Style Salad with Chicken 11.5 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken Caesar Sandwich Wrap 9 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken Chipotle Sandwich Wrap 9.5 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken & Bacon Cobb Wrap 10.9 oz
ReadyMeals Thai Style Peanut Chicken Wrap 11.35 oz
ReadyMeals Romesco Chicken with Mozzarella Sandwich 7.5 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken Salad Sandwich with Superfood Salad 5.8 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken Salad Sandwich with Apples and Grapes 7.3 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken & Teriyaki Sauce with Rice 12.75 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken Alfredo 14 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken Alfredo 31 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken Piccata with Capellini Pasta 12.9 oz
ReadyMeals Chicken Fajita Bowl with Creamy Chipotle Sauce 11.6 oz
ReadyMeals Green Chile Sauce Chicken Enchilada 13 oz

Rao's:

Rao's Chicken Alfredo 8/8.4 oz

Taylor Farms:

Taylor Farms Caesar Salad with Chicken 9.5 oz
Taylor Farms Cobb Salad with Chicken and Bacon 11.4 oz
Taylor Farms Cobb Salad With Chicken 9.4oz
Taylor Farms Creamy Italian Salad with Chicken 10oz
Taylor Farms Chicken Caesar Wrap 7oz
Taylor Farms Santa Fe with Chicken 7.05oz

Trader Joe's:

Trader Joe's Crunchy Slaw 12oz
Trader Joe's Harvest Salad with Grilled Chicken 11 oz
Trader Joe's Curried White Chicken Deli Salad 11 oz
Trader Joe's Curried White Chicken Deli Salad 11 oz
Trader Joe's Curried White Chicken Deli Salad 11 oz
Trader Joe's Chicken Enchiladas Verde 17.6 oz
Trader Joe's Pacific SaladwithChicken13.25 oz
Trader Joe's Wine Country White Chicken Salad with Cranberries & Pecans 12 oz
Trader Joe's Waldorf Salad with Grilled White Chicken Meat 11.5oz
Trader Joe's Green Goddess Salad with Blackened Chicken Thigh Meat 9.75 oz

Wegmans:

Wegmans Salad Bowl BLT Ranch Salad with Chicken 6.5 oz
Wegmans Salad Bowl Apple & Walnut with Chicken 5.5 oz
Wegmans Salad Bowl Chicken Caesar 6.25 oz
Wegmans Salad Bowl Chef 7.75 oz
Wegmans Salad Bowl Chicken & Uncured Bacon Cobb 7.6 oz
Wegmans Salad Bowl Santa Fe Style 6.35 oz




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We'll have Biden press the solar storm button again as soon as he's done with the hurricane and cloud control, give it a chance to clear up then you'll have a better show.




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Donald Trump Is Deteriorating
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/trump-is-deteriorating-helping-j-d-vance-and-project-2025.html
By Sarah Jones

Trump’s dementia is not a political issue--it’s a national security issue.
Why is corporate media refusing to cover this?!
https://deanobeidallah.substack.com/p/trumps-dementia-is-not-a-political?
Dean Obeidallah
Oct 15, 2024

No one can deny that Donald Trump has shown a significant level of cognitive decline since he first ran for President in 2015 at the age of 69 years old to where he is today at 78. But what we’ve seen with Trump is far more than normal aging. Trump—as countless mental health experts have stated—is showing symptoms of dementia. While people can debate if Trump is in the early or mid-stages of severe cognitive decline, what can’t be debated is that this poses a very serious national security issue for our nation. Consequently, this issue demands far more media coverage.

On Monday night, I interviewed, psychologist Dr. John Gartner--the founder of “Duty to Warn” –who was first on my show back in April when he was waving red flags about Trump’s mental decline. In April, Gartner noted that Trump “can't get through a rally without committing one of these” tell-tale signs of dementia, such as saying the incorrect word or “combining or mixing up people and generations.”

He also directed my attention to a petition signed by more than 500 licensed mental health professions—including best-selling authors and well-respected psychologists—warning that Trump was exhibiting signs of dementia. Gartner noted in April that “we're noticing deterioration almost every day” with Trump.

Here we are six months later. After discussing what Dr. Gartner has observed with Trump over the past few months, I asked this simple question: “Does Donald Trump have some form of dementia?” In response, Gartner answered succinctly, “There's absolutely no doubt.”

Gartner explained that on his podcast, “Shrinking Trump,” he has welcomed mental health professionals who specialize in dementia—such as from “Duty to Inform”-- and they reached the same conclusion. “We've had neuropsychologists, neuropsychiatrists on the show who have gone through their analysis” and confirmed what they are observing is dementia, Gartner noted. He added, “When you really talk to the experts and the super experts, it's even more apparent,” that Trump’s exhibiting symptoms consistent with this condition.

Dementia is not a term that should be thrown around whimsically to score political points. Dementia—as Dr. Gartner explained—is “brain damage.” He continued that it’s “a deteriorating organic process in the brain where the cognitive processes start to break down.” He added alarmingly that with people like Trump, “they only go in one direction. They keep sliding downhill.”

Adding to the credibility of this diagnosis is that dementia runs in the Trump family. As Donald’s own nephew, Fred Trump III, explained on my show recently, Donald’s father, Donald’s older sister, Maryanne and Donald’s cousin, John Walters all had dementia.

And as the NY Times reported ten days ago in an article on Trump’s cognitive decline, “Trump has seemed confused, forgetful, incoherent or disconnected from reality lately.” They added, “He rambles, he repeats himself, he roams from thought to thought — some of them hard to understand, some of them unfinished, some of them factually fantastical.”

Just look at Trump’s conduct in the past week that provides more jarring examples. At an event at the Detroit Economic Club when he was supposed to address economic issues, he literally began to speak of Elon Musk’s missiles landing, “Biden circles” that were “beautiful” but Biden “couldn’t fill them up” to “we’ve been abused by other countries, we’ve been abused by our own politicians”–all in the same incoherent answer. I played that clip for Dr. Gartner who commented that it makes “you realize how completely lost Trump is.”

In addition, Trump while appearing on a podcast last week literally delivered a 12 minute (yes, 12 minute) meandering answer that was so incoherent it caused the hosts to joke that Trump was not rambling, he was “weaving.” One host added that they “don’t even want to know the answer anymore,” they just want more “weaving.” They were humoring Trump who was not making sense.

And at a rally in Pennsylvania on Monday, Trump told the crowd to vote on “January 5”—not November. That of course could simply be a minor mental flub, but what came next was truly bizarre. Trump told the audience that it was time to end the questions and just listen to music. I’m not kidding. The context was that two people had passed out from heat at the event, to which Trump asked, would “anybody else would like to faint?”

Trump then declared, “Let’s not do any more questions. Let’s just listen to music. Let’s make it into a music. Who the hell wants to hear questions, right?” Then—as the Washington Post reported—"For 39 minutes, Trump swayed, bopped — sometimes stopping to speak — as he turned the event into almost a living-room listening session of his favorite songs from his self-curated rally playlist.”

Yes, Trump stood on stage for nearly 40 minutes at a packed Town Hall where instead of answering questions, he danced. I know it sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch, but it was real life. If President Biden had done that when he was the nominee, we would’ve seen non-stop coverage exploring his mental state.

All of this is why this is truly a national security issue. As Dr. Gartner explained, a person with dementia like Trump could be easily manipulated by “corrupt businessman or any hostile foreign power.” He cited the examples of how devious people have taken advantage of those with dementia to get them to sign a will that makes the person the sole beneficiary.

But in the case with Trump, we are potentially talking about Trump agreeing to allow wealthy backers like Elon Musk to financially benefit at our expense. Or worse, allow our enemies to take advantage of him—more than they even did in the past.

With all of this you may ask: Why isn’t the corporate media covering this issue wall to wall?! That’s apparently by design. Dr. Gartner shared that he and his colleagues have been pitched to corporate media outlets—like cable news--but the “gatekeepers” don’t want them on. (In fact, I have personally told cable news producers about Dr. Gartner to no avail.) As Gartner explained, “It's not like the corporate media outlets don't know that there's a group of us out there who have this point of view and can speak to it.” Instead, “the gatekeepers have made a decision not to let any of those people on the air.”

Dr. Gartner was correct in April that Trump’s decline would increase over the next few months—as we’ve seen. As Gartner added, “I honestly believe that if Trump were to get reelected that he would become completely incapacitated in office.”

If Trump wins, the question becomes does Trump’s top handlers—such as the Project 2025 drafters-- just manipulate Trump where he’s the President in name only or invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him and replace him with JD Vance? I’d bet the first scenario because it’s less obvious. Hide Trump from view, have others make the decisions and just press Trump to sign documents to turn Project 2025 and other right-wing dreams into policy.


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Harris Goes On Fox. Trump Sticks to the Henhouse.
With Harris taking some real risks in the closing weeks, the ex-president is basically talking to fanboys.
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/harris-goes-on-fox-trump-sticks-to
William Kristol and Andrew Egger
Oct 15, 2024

In regards to True Value problems, knowing the climate crisis was going to put pressure on building supplies, I bought some HD and LOW a few months back. Both up good double digits percentage now and a solid trend upwards. Might retrace a bit being in overbought area and pushing highs, but again due to the climate crisis extreme weather events to continue, I believe the overall trend upwards will continue into next year and beyond. Maybe not, but that's the way I'm playing it.


.

Tomi T Ahonen Prima Ballerina @tomiahonen@mastodon.world

But I haven't finished my dance

Yes yes, grandpa, but now we need to get you to take your nap

I need to dance more. They came here to see me dance

That's ok, grandpa, they saw you dance. You can come dance more after your nap

I don't have my shoes!

Your shoes are on your feet. Hold my hand..




.

I was just reading about that. Walgreens is having issues due to focusing too much on acquisitions and not paying enough attention to their retail stores. Labor issues, non competitive pricing, mismanagement of their retail, and similar to others like CVS and RiteAid, lower reimbursement on scripts. Pricing in their stores has always been high, their sales are still much more expensive than other outlets like Walmart for the same brand item. Used to get scripts from Walgreens, now Mark Cuban's Costplusdrugs.com, sometimes Costco, but Amazon is also being competitive with scripts, as well as others. Prices a lot cheaper without my insurance, than with insurance at Walgreens. Plus major labor issues with employees especially in the pharmacy.


.

Kids and teens who get covid more prone to diabetes, study finds
As the public heads into another viral season, health experts said the findings highlight how the virus continues to reveal ways to pose long-term consequences.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/10/14/kids-teens-covid-diabetes/

Yeh, I was reading that, it's being a "medical incident" every time he babbles and drifts off into dementia land at his events. I'm sure it may of started off with his idea of a fake story to illicit the impression that he "cares", but I'll give odds of a good bet that trump's handlers have paid people in the crowd ready to shout out "MEDIC" when trump starts going into his "weave" or drifting off with empty echos in his mind. Either that or he has pretty unhealthy supporters (which is true to some extent). Harris has ten times the crowd, they wait long hours and miles long lines, and climate crises has extremes everywhere, but it seems that her crowd has plenty of health, dancing and electric energy full steam. It seems that traitor trump has a "medical emergency" in his crowd as often as Russians fall out of windows.


.

Dementia taking over criminal donOLD trump, media hides.

Trump abruptly ended his "town hall" at Greater Philadelphia Expo Center just now, after taking just 5 questions. He stood on the stage looking confused and lost. This man is so not cognitively well!

Trump had a town hall in Pennsylvania tonight, consisting of pre-screened questions moderated by Kristi Noem.

He abruptly cut off the event, then spent 30 minutes simply standing on stage looking at his audience with music playing. Ave Maria played 4-5x.

No explanation of why. pic.twitter.com/HdmdcEM5Ut

— Ian Sams (@IanSams) October 15, 2024

Trump at his town hall: "Let's not do any more questions. Let's just listen to music. Who the hell wants to hear questions?" pic.twitter.com/vc9aZK5YRZ

— Republican Voters Against Trump (@AccountableGOP) October 14, 2024

On the passing of Lilly Ledbetter, the republican's corrupt Supreme Court is deciding on the destruction of the NLRB with their shadow docket;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board

RIP Lilly Ledbetter.

Lilly Ledbetter, Whose Fight for Equal Pay Changed U.S. Law, Dies at 86
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/obituaries/lilly-ledbetter-dead.html?
Her lawsuit against Goodyear helped pave the way for the 2009 Fair Pay Act, which was signed into law by former President Barack Obama.


Lilly Ledbetter at her home in Jacksonville, Ala., in 2009.Credit...Erik S. Lesser for The New York Times

By Trip Gabriel and Claire Moses
Oct. 14, 2024Updated 4:44 p.m. ET

Lilly Ledbetter had worked for 19 years at a tire plant in Alabama when she was sent an anonymous note: her pay was as much as $2,000 a month less than what men were receiving in the same supervisory job.

Ms. Ledbetter sued for sex discrimination in 1999 in federal court in Alabama, and a jury awarded her more than $3 million in back pay and damages. But the decision was reversed on appeal.

Undeterred, she pursued the case to the United States Supreme Court, which in 2007 also ruled against her, saying that she was too late — that she should have filed her claim within 180 days of receiving her first unequal paycheck, citing a narrow interpretation of the law.

In a vigorous dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said it was all but impossible for Ms. Ledbetter to have known of her unfair pay in such a time period.

To close this loophole, Congress passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, which was the first piece of legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law, shortly after his inauguration. It effectively eliminates the statute of limitations on fair-pay claims.

At the signing ceremony in the White House, Ms. Ledbetter, who had retired by then from her job at a Goodyear tire and rubber factory, stood behind Mr. Obama shaking her head and wringing her hands in seeming disbelief.

Ms. Ledbetter, who became a national symbol of unequal treatment of women in the workplace and a hero to many for her yearslong persistence in fighting against the status quo in court, in Congress and on the political campaign trail, died on Saturday in Alabama. She was 86.

The cause was respiratory failure, her family said in a statement, which did not specify where in Alabama she died.

Ms. Ledbetter came to fully embrace her role in the women’s rights movement.

She became a public speaker, addressing the 2008 and 2012 Democratic National Conventions; worked closely with the National Women’s Law Center; and wrote a memoir, “Grace and Grit.” A movie inspired by her life, “Lilly,” premiered at the Hamptons Film Festival this month, with Patricia Clarkson in the title role.


President Barack Obama signing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, with Ms. Ledbetter standing behind him.Credit...Stephen Crowley/The New York Times

“Lilly Ledbetter never set out to be a trailblazer or a household name,” Mr. Obama said in a statement on Sunday. “She just wanted to be paid the same as a man for her hard work.”

Ms. Ledbetter, who married the same year that she graduated from high school, 1956, and raised two children, was hired in 1979 as a supervisor by Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company in Gadsden, Ala. She was one of the few women in her role.

Early on she was the target of sexual harassment, she wrote in an opinion column in The New York Times in 2018. When she complained to a human resources official about harassing statements that a male supervisor had made to her — “You’re going to be my next woman at Goodyear” and “Oh, you didn’t wear your bra today” — she was told to stay home while an investigation was conducted.

Ms. Ledbetter refused, since the man involved was not required also to stay home.

“If he stays, I stay,” she recalled insisting.

In 1998, as she neared retirement, Ms. Ledbetter received an unsigned note saying that she was being underpaid compared with men in the same job. She was earning $3,727 per month, while 14 men in the same position, including those with less seniority, were making $4,286 to $5,236 per month.

Over nearly 20 years, the pay disparity had added up to more than $200,000, as well as lowering her pension and Social Security benefits.

“I was devastated,” Ms. Ledbetter said in 2021 at a Forbes Magazine women’s summit. “We needed that money to pay college tuition and the mortgage and the other necessities of life.”


Ms. Ledbetter speaking at an event marking Equal Pay Day at the White House in 2014.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times

In early 1999, she filed suit in Federal District Court in Birmingham, Ala., claiming wage discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Although her pay when she was hired had been the same as that of male colleagues, over the years she received smaller raises; that was because her supervisors had given her negative job evaluations based on her sex, she claimed.

Over time, some men in the same job were earning 40 percent more than she was, she contended. And all along, she later said, she was in the dark because Goodyear employees stood to be fired if they disclosed their salaries.

The jury in Birmingham awarded Ms. Ledbetter $3.8 million in back pay and damages, which the judge reduced to $360,000. The United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, in Atlanta, overturned the verdict entirely.

The Supreme Court, in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., upheld the appeals court in 2007, citing a provision of the Civil Rights Act that required claims to be filed within 180 days of a discriminatory action. The ruling was 5-4, with the majority decision written by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who said Ms. Ledbetter had waited too long to seek redress in the courts.

In dissent, Justice Ginsburg argued that the 180-day window was unfair: Salaries are usually secret, she wrote, and in the case of small wage differences, a woman or a member of a minority group trying to get ahead might choose to avoid “making waves” by complaining. But eventually, over a career, small differences become magnified as raises build from a lower base.

Justice Ginsburg urged Congress to fix the law to address the 180-day time frame. That same day, Hillary Rodham Clinton, then a senator from New York who was seeking the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, announced that she would file such a bill.

Ms. Ledbetter became a political activist, lobbying members of Congress and appearing with the eventual 2008 Democratic nominee, Mr. Obama, on the campaign trail.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 reset the clock for filing claims to 180 days from an employee’s latest paycheck, not just the first one deemed to be discriminatory. Justice Ginsburg, who considered the act one of her proudest achievements, hung a framed copy of it in her Supreme Court chambers.

Lilly McDaniel was born on April 14, 1938, in Jacksonville, Ala., to J.C. and Edna McDaniel. Her father was a mechanic at Anniston Army Depot, and her mother oversaw the home. Lilly graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1956 and married Charles Ledbetter. He died in 2008. Her survivors include their two children, Vickie Ledbetter Saxon and Phillip Ledbetter, and several grandchildren.

Before Goodyear hired her, Ms. Ledbetter was a financial-aid officer at Jacksonville State College.

Because Ms. Ledbetter’s two decades of discriminatory pay took place before the law named for her was enacted, she never received back salary or other financial compensation.

“Goodyear will never have to pay me what it cheated me out of,” she recalled saying after the 2009 signing ceremony at the White House. “In fact, I will never see a cent. But with the president’s signature today I have an even richer reward.”


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Don't eat these mushrooms;


Nationwide Mushroom Recall Over Bacterial Contamination Fears
Published Oct 14, 2024 at 8:58 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/nationwide-mushroom-recall-bacterial-contamination-listeria-1968545

At least one arrest, kind of drop in the bucket. They should have a sting and arrest all the criminal republicans like MTG and the rest and throw them in the pokey. But instead we have conservative owned and run MSM making excuses for and backing them.

Suspect arrested after reports of threats toward FEMA operations in North Carolina
https://www.komu.com/news/nationworld/suspect-arrested-after-reports-of-threats-toward-fema-operations-in-north-carolina/article_9d803fb7-c161-5eee-86f8-9f48beb61e23.html

Rudy Giuliani's Coffee Company Comes Under Scrutiny
Published Oct 14, 2024 at 9:25 AM EDT
https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-rudy-giuliani-election-workers-ruby-freeman-atlanta-georgia-1968569
By Sean O'Driscoll
Senior Crime and Courts Reporter


Two election workers can go after Rudy Giuliani's coffee profits because the company involved is the former Donald Trump lawyer's "alter ego," a legal expert has said.

New York federal judge Lewis Liman on Thursday sharply criticized Giuliani's attempts to use company law to stop Ruby Freeman and her daughter, Shaye Moss, from freezing funds held by Giuliani Communications.

It was while acting as Trump's attorney during the 2020 election that the former New York mayor wrongly claimed that Freeman and Moss could be seen on CCTV adding ballots for Joe Biden at an Atlanta count center. They sued for defamation, then a Washington, D.C., jury awarded them $148 million in December 2023, and they are now seeking to claim that money from Giuliani.

Giuliani Communications holds the profits to Giuliani's coffee company, Rudy Coffee. The company wasn't sued by Freeman and Moss and has no relation to the 2020 election.

Although company law normally protects a limited liability company from unrelated lawsuits involving one of its executives, there are exceptions.

"Rudy Giuliani's case demonstrates an exception to the rule," according to Eric Chaffee, a business law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. "Rudy Giuliani organized Giuliani Communications, LLC to receive his profits from Ruby Coffee. The judge in his case has held that the company is the mere 'alter ego' of Giuliani based on how it functions."

Giuliani's image and name is on each coffee package and he has recorded online adverts for it.

"When a company is the mere alter ego of an individual, a court will view the assets of the company as belonging to the individual. That is what is occurring in Giuliani's case," Chaffee said. "While piercing the veil of a limited liability company is a rarity, it does occur. Courts will most commonly do it in instances in which there is little separation between an individual and the entity, and the court views the company as being used to shield assets, rather than to conduct business."

As first reported in Newsweek, Giuliani Communications receives its coffee profits through Parkside Financial Bank and Trust in St Louis, Missouri.
Read more

Giuliani fights to keep Hollywood star's car as he's stripped of assets
Mark Meadows' court loss worrying sign for Donald Trump: legal analysts
Rudy Giuliani says he doesn't want to collect Trump money before election
Rudy Giuliani lands discount in bankruptcy case

Liman wrote that Giuliani had put forward an "unpersuasive" argument that Parkside was exempt from the case and that its assets should not be restrained by the court.

"He asserts, in effect, that the assets being restrained are not those in which he has an interest and therefore should not be used to satisfy the judgment," Liman wrote.

"But Plaintiffs' restraining notice does not seek to have Parkside turn over the relevant funds to Plaintiffs or to have the Court or Parkside determine the ownership of those funds."

Quoting from the law book, New York Practice, he said that what the plaintiffs are seeking is "a kind of freeze on such of the debtor's assets as the served person may have...It buys time, in other words," he wrote.

Newsweek sought comment from the attorney of Freeman and Moss on Monday.


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My contribution:

































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True Value declares bankruptcy and sells itself to a hardware rival
https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/14/business/true-value-bankruptcy?
By Jordan Valinsky, CNN
Published 1:41 PM EDT, Mon October 14, 2024

True Value, a 75-year old hardware store brand, has filed for bankruptcy and is selling substantially all of its operations to a rival, the company announced Monday.

In a press release, True Value said it will continue day-to-day operations of selling hardware and other homeware tools to its 4,500 independently operated locations during the Chapter 11 process, which includes a $153 million stalking horse bid from rival company Do it Best.

True Value said its stores will remain open, because they are not part of the bankruptcy proceedings.

In bankruptcy court filings, True Value said it faces a significant cash crunch as the housing market stalled and consumers have become far more picky about discretionary purchases like hardware. Bigger rivals like Home Depot and Lowe’s have also been in a yearslong slump since the pandemic boom, but they remain in a significantly stronger financial situation than True Value.

Still, a number of other chains have voiced similar problems that also tipped them into bankruptcy, including Big Lots and LL Flooring.

“After a thorough evaluation of strategic alternatives, we determined that the sale of our business was the path forward to maximize value and best serve our retail partners and other stakeholders into the future,” said True Value CEO Chris Kempa in a release.

Do it Best is a member-owned wholesaler that sells hardware, lumber and other home goods to independent stores.

“Do it Best has a proven track record of driving profitability through the most efficient operations in the industry,” said Do it Best CEO Dan Starr in a statement. “This acquisition, if consummated, would provide True Value and independent hardware stores the strongest opportunities for growth for years to come.”

The transaction with Do it Best is expected to close by the end of the year, unless there’s better offers.


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Texas county sidelines librarians, reclassifies book on abuse of Native Americans as "fiction"
https://popular.info/p/texas-county-sidelines-librarians
Judd Legum
Oct 14, 2024

Anybody want a free $30 gift number to Penzy's? Have a few left. Holidays are coming, the assorted gift boxes from Penzys are quite festive and rich looking, much more pleasing than that same old food trays you get from Costco for example. The ones I received look much better in person than the pictures.

Of course it's a given that offer not valid for any criminal trump supporters or "on the fence" bothsidesism idiots.

Will private message the number on back.



Beyond the Basket: Growth Projected for the $42 Billion Food Gifting Market
https://www.freedoniagroup.com/press-releases/beyond-the-basket-growth-projected-for-the-42-billion-food-gifting-marketrate and consumer retail sales of food gifts

Not an all inclusive list by any means, but these include:

Boxed chocolates/candies
Cheese assortments
Coffee/tea/hot chocolate gifts
Cooking condiment sets
Food baskets/assortments
Fruit baskets/gifts
Gift baskets or packages with wine or other alcoholic beverages
International/imported food gifts
Meat/deli/seafood food gifts
Nut/salty snack food gifts
Popcorn tins/gifts
Sweet baked food gifts
Sweet condiment sets
U.S. regional or souvenir food gifts
Other food gifts, such as meal kits or prepackaged meals




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The republicans and their criminal cronies are massively suppressing votes nation wide. Make sure your vote is not suppressed, make triple sure you are registered, they are purging 10's of thousands of democratic voter registrations as close to election as possible.




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