Judd Legum popular info

in yahoo mail

7 24 2nd on busted RAGA

no merri

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https://popular.info/archive

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POP INFO 11/6

Trump welcomes rapper Nicki Minaj on stage during a campaign rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on October 25, 2026.]

On Monday, House Judiciary Committee Democrats released a new staff report about President Trump’s alleged relationship with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. The report details allegations involving 11 women, including five of whom accuse “Trump of rape or sexual assault in Jeffrey Epstein’s close company or presence.”

The report is based on interviews conducted by Judiciary Committee staff, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) records, released documents, and survivor accounts. While the majority of the allegations included in the report were already public, it includes a new allegation that Trump raped a young model at a 1993 pageant.

“The report concludes that, based on the available evidence and witness testimony, Trump and Paolo Zampolli—who until recently served as a senior Trump Administration official and diplomat—may have been co-conspirators in Jeffrey Epstein’s conspiracy to traffic and abuse young women in the 1990s,” a press release states.

The report alleges that “Trump has lied about the nature and extent of his relationship with Epstein dozens of times.” For example, Trump has claimed that he kicked Epstein out of his club at Mar-a-Lago. But according to the report, members of Congress reviewed a 2009 document that reveals that Trump “stated unequivocally that Epstein ‘was never asked to leave’ Mar-a-Lago.” The file is redacted in public documents. Trump has also denied ever being on Epstein’s plane, but files show that Trump is listed on the plane’s flight logs “at least eight different times” throughout the 1990s.

Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee are now asking for a new independent investigation. The report calls for an independent special counsel to be appointed to investigate potential co-conspirators.

A press release argues that the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) “conflict of interest and obstruction make clear that Trump’s appointees cannot be trusted to pursue accountability.” The report alleges that the DOJ “actively obstructed the Epstein investigation into any co-conspirators, attempted to prevent the release of the Epstein files, and then released an incomplete and heavily redacted set to the public.”

The report also reveals that documents in the Epstein files allege that Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was Deputy Attorney General at the time, “likely knew about certain survivors’ claims against” Trump when he interviewed Epstein co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell in prison. According to a transcript, Blanche, on at least three occasions, “directed Maxwell not to discuss” an individual whose report to the FBI implicated Trump, but whose allegations were not yet public. The report alleges that by doing so, Blanche “may have engaged in criminal obstruction of justice.”

“The bottom line: there is more than sufficient evidence to launch a criminal investigation,” the report states.

“The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard, Congress must have the complete files required by law, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and DOJ’s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice,” Ranking Member of the House Judiciary Committee Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said.

The White House has denied the allegations laid out in the new report. “None of these allegations are true. This ‘report’ is nothing more than a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans from the surging Republican momentum driven by President Trump’s historic achievements,” a White House spokesperson told NBC News.

“I will take care of you”

The report reveals new allegations against Trump from Beatrice Keul, a former Swiss model who participated in the Donald J. Trump American Dream Pageant in 1993 at age 24.

According to an interview she gave to committee staff, both Trump and Epstein introduced themselves to Keul when she arrived and promised to take care of things like her travel and education. Keul said Trump told her “I will take care of you” several times. So, when a Trump representative asked her to come to his room later in the day, she assumed he was following up on his promises to get her a visa and a New York University education.

Instead, Keul alleges that Trump raped her in a “brutal” assault that left her bleeding and covered in bruises. She said she went through the rest of the pageant in a “daze” because her passport had been taken from her and she did not want to raise alarms. After the pageant, she got her passport back and returned to Switzerland. She declined to participate in another Trump-sponsored pageant a few weeks later, but Trump called her and repeated his offer to take care of her.

In 2024, Keul told a different version of this story to the Daily Mail. At the time, she said when she arrived in Trump’s room, he “jumped” on her and began “grabbing and touching” her, but that ultimately she was able to hold him off. “I’m very tall, that’s what helped me a lot,” Keul said to the Daily Mail. The report does not say why Keul changed her story.

The report also includes the stories of four other women who have accused Trump of sexual assault.

Stacey Williams, a swimsuit model who dated Epstein in the early 1990s, has accused Trump of groping her when she and Epstein visited Trump’s office in 1993. According to CNN, three friends of Williams have separately confirmed that she told them about the incident, which Williams later described as “trophy hunting” for the two men.

Jill Harth, who recruited young models for Trump’s pageants, filed a lawsuit against Trump in 1997 claiming that he had “forcibly kissed, fondled, and restrained” her at a Mar-a-Lago party in 1993 when she was 31. The lawsuit also claimed that the same year, Trump had demanded Harth provide him with access to an 18-year-old contestant “whom Trump referred to as a ‘sex object.’” Harth’s lawsuit was resolved as a part of a settlement by Trump in a separate contractual suit brought against him by Harth’s then-partner.

A woman identified by the pseudonym “Katie Johnson” filed a lawsuit against Trump in 2016 accusing him of raping and sexually abusing her in 1994 at a party hosted by Epstein when she was 13 years old. According to DOJ documents, Johnson “was asked to strip down to her underwear and give a massage to Epstein” and “massage the penis of Epstein’s guest, Trump, with her hands.” Johnson later dropped the suit.

In 2019, a woman described as Jane Doe 4 came to the FBI with claims that in 1983, when she was 13 or 14 years old, she “bit [Trump] while performing oral sex” and that he “hit [her] in the face after she laughed about biting [him].”

Although Jane Doe 4’s claims have not been substantiated, the report alleges that the DOJ may be “still withholding a huge number of documents related to the allegations,” stating that the Post and Courier reported that it had reviewed FBI agents’ notes that contained new details about Jane Doe 4’s interview, but that those notes have been withheld by the DOJ for being “duplicative.”

In addition to these five women who claim to have been abused by Trump, the report also details the accounts of three Epstein survivors who believe that Trump participated in Epstein’s crimes.

Maria Farmer, a former assistant to Epstein who was abused by him, has said that on one occasion she went to meet Epstein in his office and Trump approached her there. But Epstein told Trump, “No, no. She’s not here for you,” before taking Trump to a different room. Farmer believed that there was a different young woman in that room waiting for Trump. She has said that she urged authorities to look into Trump decades ago. According to the report, Farmer’s “reports to FBI appear to be unlawfully omitted from the files released by DOJ pursuant to” the Epstein Files Transparency Act (EFTA).

DOJ documents released under the EFTA detail other concerning incidents involving Trump. In one case, Trump was accused of agreeing with Epstein that one of Epstein’s victims, who was 14 at the time, was a “good one.” In another instance, a Jane Doe described how she was introduced to Trump by Maxwell and felt she was being offered to him for sex. She recalled Maxwell saying “things like, ‘Oh I think he likes you. Aren’t you lucky. This is great.’”

The report also provides three additional examples of women who seemed to have connections to Trump and Epstein. The first woman, Lauren Petrella, has never made accusations against Trump herself, but Harth’s lawsuit claimed that he sexually assaulted her. The other two women, Jane Does 5 and 6, spent time with Trump and Epstein during the 1990s, but have not accused Trump of any wrongdoing.

REF NBC

Oct. 26, 2026, 8:40 AM PDT / Updated Oct. 26, 2026, 11:59 AM PDT

By Ryan Nobles and Kyle Stewart

WASHINGTON — House Judiciary Committee Democrats are calling for an independent special counsel to investigate evidence of President Donald Trump’s alleged criminal ties to Jeffrey Epstein, according to a new report made public Monday.

“The bottom line,” they wrote in the report: “There is more than sufficient evidence to launch a criminal investigation.”

They acknowledged the Justice Department under Trump would be unlikely to appoint a special counsel — such as Robert Mueller, who ran the Russia investigation, or Jack Smith, who led the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the lead-up to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump has repeatedly denied any knowledge of or involvement in Epstein’s criminal activity, and he has said he cut ties well before allegations of sex trafficking by Epstein became public.

“None of these allegations are true. This ‘report’ is nothing more than a desperate attempt by crazed Democrats to distract Americans from the surging Republican momentum driven by President Trump’s historic achievements,” said Lauren Bis, a White House spokeswoman. “The President kicked Jeffrey Epstein out of his club at Mar-a-Lago because he was a creep.”

The report comes on the brink of the midterm elections, when Democrats hope to seize control of Congress as Trump’s approval rating tanks over the economy, affordability and the war with Iran. The report signaled an avenue of focus for lawmakers in January should Democrats win a chamber of Congress.

A bipartisan law Congress passed in November ordered the release of millions of documents related to the case against Epstein, who died by suicide in jail while he was awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges. Many of America’s wealthy and powerful appear in the files, including Trump, who is mentioned thousands of times.

But only one person was ever convicted, Epstein’s accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. No one else has been charged in the U.S.

Right now, the Democrats’ oversight efforts have been limited because they are in the minority in Congress, unable to compel witness testimony or solicit documents through subpoenas without the help of Republicans. While the Republican-led House Oversight Committee has subpoenaed several Epstein associates and Republicans helped pass the Epstein Transparency Act, they have been largely unwilling to look deeper into Trump’s ties to Epstein.

Democrats’ power would change dramatically should they win the majority back in either chamber. They would be able to issue subpoenas with or without the help of Republicans. In addition to the Epstein probe, Democratic leaders have promised robust investigations into allegations of corruption and grift in Trump’s administration and family businesses.

In their report released Monday, Democrats accuse the Justice Department of obstructing investigations into potential Epstein conspirators, including, they say, Trump. The report alleges the Justice Department worked to cover up Trump’s connections to Epstein and says an independent special counsel is necessary, because Attorney General Todd Blanche, who was once Trump’s personal attorney, was compromised.

“The women who survived Epstein deserve to be heard, Congress must have the complete files required by law, and an independent special counsel must investigate Epstein’s co-conspirators and DOJ’s cover-up and ensure that state and foreign prosecutors have the evidence they need to pursue justice,” Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the panel’s top Democrat, said in a statement.

A Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement Monday that the report was “nothing more than a last-ditch effort by House Judiciary Democrats to mislead the public.”

The department complied with the congressional act, “making public the nearly 3 million investigatory documents which were responsive to the Act,” the spokesperson said. “The Department also freely offered members of Congress the opportunity to view the files unredacted. All these files were part of FBI investigations that spanned decades and these claims were investigated by agents at the time.”

The spokesperson said the Justice Department can’t talk about the existence of any ongoing investigations but noted that the only administration to bring federal charges against Epstein was Trump’s.

Democrats vowed to continue investigating it themselves.

“Given DOJ and FBI’s abdication of their law enforcement duties and prosecutorial ethics, there is little reason to believe this administration will take even this minimal step,” according to the report. “Accordingly, Congress must continue to use its legislative and oversight powers to pursue justice for survivors and bring an end to the Trump Administration’s shameful, bureaucratic, and political cover-up.”

Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump at the Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., on Feb. 22, 1997. Davidoff Studios / Getty

Trump was at one point friends with Epstein. “I’ve known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York magazine in 2002, before there were any public allegations of wrongdoing by Epstein. “He’s a lot of fun to be with,” Trump said then. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”

Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 in a Florida court in a heavily criticized plea deal to felony solicitation of prostitution and procuring minors for prostitution. He was sentenced to 18 months, about a year of which he served before he was released.

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WILL BE BAK

• Judd Legum and Noel Sims @ Popular Info: Meta will train its AI on far-right media outlet

This week, Newsmax — a far-right news organization with a strong allegiance to President Trump and a history of pushing wild conspiracy theories — announced it had struck a deal with Meta. Under the agreement, Meta will “draw upon Newsmax’s significant current reporting as well as archived content across its platforms to support AI queries across Meta’s apps and devices.” Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy said the company was “pleased to work with Meta to help ensure users have access to timely, high-quality journalism through AI technologies.”

REFTHOM 3 3 26

https://popular.info/p/days-after-5m-donation-trump-administration

In a document quietly filed with the Federal Election Commission on Friday night, MAGA Inc., the primary Super PAC supporting President Trump, revealed that it received a $5 million donation from Crypto.com on January 23, 2026. The donation was made in the name of Crypto.com’s parent company, Foris Dax, Inc.1

[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-wdV!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F21ce65d6-4c52-4c62-8b01-42836f6e0187_1488x778.png)

25 days later, on February 17, the Trump administration’s Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), intervened on Crypto.com’s behalf in high-stakes lawsuit in federal court.

Last year, Crypto.com sued the Nevada Gaming Control Board, arguing that it has the right to offer “prediction markets” on the outcome of sporting events without obtaining a Nevada gaming license. In October 2025, a federal court denied Crypto.com an injunction, and the company is now appealing the decision.

In addition to filing a formal amicus brief in support of Crypto.com’s appeal, CFTC chairman Mike Selig published an op-ed supporting Crypto.com’s position in the Wall Street Journal and posted a video supporting Crypto.com on X.

The timing of CFTC’s intervention raises serious ethical questions.

Selig, during his November 2025 confirmation hearing, was asked whether he believed it was legal for prediction markets to offer contracts on sporting events without complying with state law. Selig testified that the issue is “working its way through the courts, and so I will respect the decisions of those courts.”

He was also asked directly if he considered placing a bet on the outcome of a football game to be “gambling,” which would place it outside the jurisdiction of the CFTC:

Senator SCHIFF. Well, I mean, let me just ask—maybe even break it down more simply. If you and I bet on who wins the Bills game tomorrow, would you consider that gambling?

Mr. SELIG. Senator, on this issue, I would look to the courts, so I would look to what the courts say about that issue.

In a matter of weeks, Selig went from telling Senators under oath that he would defer to the courts on the issue to arguing on behalf of Crypto.com that the courts have erred.

He publicly announced he was considering intervening in the case during a public appearance on January 29 — less than a week after Crypto.com’s $5 million contribution to MAGA Inc. “I’ve directed CFTC staff to reassess the commission’s participation in matters currently pending before the federal district and circuit courts,” Selig said during his first public remarks as CFTC chairman.

On February 5, Selig explicitly stated that he believed it was legal for prediction markets to offer bets on sports, regardless of whether the company complied with state law.

[Mike Selig@MichaelSelig Strong Disagree.

Chris Christie @GovChristie

I believe Prediction Markets are violating the law. In 40 states we have regulated betting that can’t market to teenagers, pays state taxes, protects game integrity & reports suspicious activity to law enforcement. Prediction markets do none of that at all https://t.co/3dMAnS44Ex

2:06 PM · Feb 5, 2026 · 237K Views

114 Replies · 87 Reposts · 645 Likes](https://x.com/MichaelSelig/status/2019533204068393280?s=20)

Few companies have spent more money to ingratiate themselves politically with Trump than Crypto.com. Including the $5 million in January, Crypto.com has donated a total of $35 million to MAGA Inc. since 2025. It is the Super PAC’s largest donor, accounting for more than 10% of total funds.

Prior to its support for MAGA Inc, Crypto.com’s only political giving was a $1 million donation to Trump’s second inauguration in 2025.

Crypto.com has also formed an extensive partnership with Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), Trump’s money-losing media conglomerate that has recently pivoted into cryptocurrency and nuclear fusion. Among other integrations, Crypto.com and TMTG announced in October that Crypto.com would integrate its prediction market with Truth Social, TMTG’s social network. The joint venture will be called Truth Predict. President Trump is TMTG’s largest shareholder.

Crypto.com’s thin legal argument

Crypto.com and other prediction markets — and now the CFTC — argue that creating markets for sporting events is fundamentally different than sports gambling. In practice, however, it looks identical.

[](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!4ZwJ!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F39b482a5-9a7e-475a-8dfa-353636dc271f_1926x1210.png)A screenshot from Crypto.com’s prediction market.

The CFTC has jurisdiction over event-related contracts or “swaps” that provide “for any purchase, sale, payment, or delivery… that is dependent on the occurrence, nonoccurrence, or the extent of the occurrence of an event or contingency associated with a potential financial, economic, or commercial consequence.” (Emphasis added.)

The traditional example of this is a contract to buy corn at a certain price in the future. This serves as an economic hedge against price fluctuations that can affect producers of tortilla chips, for example.

There are theoretical arguments that betting on the outcome of a sporting event could serve as an economic hedge. The CFTC, in its brief in support of Crypto.com, tries to make this argument:

Broadly speaking, sporting events are economic enterprises that generate billions of dollars in economic activity and materially affect both regional and national markets… For these reasons, hotels likely adjust pricing models, restaurants expand staffing to accommodate increased demand, vendors increase supply orders, and cities allocate resources to accommodate projected crowds. All of these decisions pose economic risk, which is precisely the type of economic exposure that derivatives markets are designed to mitigate.

Of course, this is not how prediction markets on sporting events are used. No one is wagering on a basketball game to hedge against hotels raising prices. They are used by people who want to gamble on sports, particularly in states where sports gambling is not currently legal. On popular prediction markets like Kalshi, sports betting accounts for over 90% of all trading volume.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox (R) mocked Selig’s position on X. “I don’t remember the CFTC having authority over the ‘derivative market’ of LeBron James rebounds,” Cox wrote. “These prediction markets you are breathlessly defending are gambling—pure and simple.”

The district court noted that, under Crypto.com’s interpretation, if every bet on a sporting event qualified as a “swap” subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the CFTC. That would mean it would no longer be permissible for people to place sports bets in casinos. “Had Congress intended such a sea change in the regulatory landscape, it surely would have said so,” the district court wrote.

1

The designation of the $5 million from Foris Dax as a “NON-CONTRIBUTION” in the image refers to the fact that it is a donation to a Super PAC, which is not subject to FEC contribution limits or the prohibition on corporate contributions.

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JUDD POP INFO YMAIL 7 24

n an interview with Bloomberg Businessweek published earlier this month, Trump said that, if he wins a second term, he would push to slash the corporate tax rate:

I brought the taxes down from 39% to 21%. What’s not to love? I then said, I’d like to round it off to 20 for simplicity reasons, I mean, it is, you know, believe it or not, it sort of makes sense and it’s still a lot of money.

But I would like to get it down to 15 [%], if we could, because that would put us in the absolute lowest in terms of incentive.

Trump correctly stated that he signed legislation in 2017 sharply reducing the corporate tax rate in his first term. The top rate was 35%, not 39% as Trump claimed, but it was still a very large cut. The reduction cost over $1.3 trillion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Research Service, corporations used the windfall mostly for "a record-breaking amount of stock buybacks, with $1 trillion announced by the end of 2018." Stock buybacks are a way of increasing stock prices by reducing supply, which in turn benefits wealthy investors and executives with stock options.

Previously, Trump has been cagey about his plans for the corporate tax rate in a potential second term. Last September, when asked in an interview if it was true he’d cut the corporate tax rate to 15%, Trump responded: “I’d like to lower them a little bit if we could.”

In January, the Trump campaign put out word that he was not interested in cutting the corporate tax rate further. Trump's spokesman, Jason Miller, said Trump's priority was preserving the 2017 cuts and then securing additional tax cuts for the working class. “In my most recent conversations with the president, he said that he really wants to focus more on small businesses than corporations,” Stephen Moore, an economic advisor to Trump, told the Washington Post. “I think he’s fine with the corporate rate where it is. He wants to keep intact the tax cut we did in 2017.”

The campaign's eagerness to shift attention away from corporate tax cuts is understandable; corporate tax cuts are very unpopular. Research shows that just 14% of Americans want to lower corporate taxes. In contrast, 65% of Americans say they are in favor of raising the corporate tax rate. The policy is even unpopular among Republicans — only 23% support lowering the corporate tax rate.

Nevertheless, Trump has confirmed he will push for a 15% corporate tax rate in a second term. Let's look at the impact of such a policy.

A 15% tax rate would mean a multi-billion dollar windfall to the nation's largest and most profitable companies

An analysis by the Center for American Progress (CAP) Action Fund, a progressive non-profit organization, found that reducing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% would "[g]ive the largest 100 U.S. companies (the Fortune 100) a total estimated annual tax cut of $48 billion." These companies collectively "reported $1.1 trillion in profits in their last annual report." To put the scope of the tax cut in perspective, the $48 billion cost is "larger than the entire FY 2024 U.S. Department of Education K-12 budget."

The benefits to some individual corporations are stunning. Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple, JP Morgan Chase, Amazon, and Berkshire Hathaway would all reduce their tax bill by $2 billion or more annually.

The annual benefit to the 10 companies that would benefit most exceeds $23 billion. This is more than double the combined annual budget of two critical federal agencies, the National Cancer Institute and the National Center on Aging.

The five largest oil and gas companies — Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Marathon-ConocoPhilips, Phillips 66, and Valero Energy — generated over $93 billion in profits last year. Those companies would get a combined $2.5 billion windfall under Trump's proposal.

The CAP Action Fund analysis was performed by looking at the "federal income tax expense" listed on publicly filed documents. This isn't the exact same as federal taxes paid, but it provides a reasonable proxy. Corporations do not release their annual tax returns.

The Tax Foundation, a non-profit group focusing on tax policy found an even larger cost using a slightly different methodology. The non-partisan group found that lowering the corporate tax rate to 15% would "reduce federal revenue by $673 billion from 2025 to 2034."

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table no lnx

Republican AG Pay-to-Play Group Raises $4.9 Million in Second Quarter - EXPOSEDbyCMD

Republican AG Pay-to-Play Group Raises $4.9 Million in Second Quarter

By David Armiak | July 19th, 2022

Campaign Finance, Democracy, Elections, Featured Investigations, Koch, News, RAGA

Editor’s Note: On July 20, 2022, RAGA’s deputy executive director Johnny Koremenos notified CMD that the $300 contribution from Philanthropy Roundtable highlighted in this story was refunded.

The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) raised $4.9 million in the second quarter of this year, according to a report filed with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on Friday. RAGA‘s haul is $300,000 less than in the second quarter of 2018 and slightly exceeds the $4.8 million the group raised during the first quarter of 2022.

RAGA spun its fundraising figures by giving Fox Business an exclusive, claiming that it “broke another fundraising record.” But the $6.3 million figure it gave for the quarter was “across all entities,” and since 2022 IRS filings for RAGA’s sister organizations the Rule of Law Defense Fund (RLDF) and the Center for Law and Policy (CLP) will not be publicly available until November 2023 at the earliest, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) cannot verify the claim.

RAGA accepts unlimited contributions from corporations, individuals, and special interest groups such as Koch Industries, Altria, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, primarily to fund the campaigns of Republican candidates for attorneys general. Together with its affiliates RLDF and CLP, it runs a cash-for-influence operation that coordinates the official actions of Republican state attorneys general and sells its corporate funders access to those AGs and their staff.

RAGA’s largest contribution in the second quarter, $200,000, went to Brenna Bird, the Republican candidate for attorney general in Iowa, who faces an uphill battle to unseat the longest-serving state AG in the country, Tom Miller (D).

In a surprising move, RAGA gave $15,200 to Georgia AG Chris Carr’s reelection campaign. Although Carr is a Republican, he resigned as RAGA’s national chair in 2021 over the selection of Peter Bisbee to replace Adam Piper as RAGA’s executive director, citing “a significant difference of opinion… as to the direction this organization should take going forward” and “vastly opposite views of the significance of the events of January 6.”

Bisbee formerly led RLDF and, in the days prior to the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol, he was responsible for sending out robocalls encouraging supporters to “march to the Capitol and call on Congress to stop the steal.” His selection also led to an exodus of longtime RAGA staff members, CMD reported.

Raul Labrador, the Republican candidate for attorney general in Idaho, was the only other individual to receive RAGA funding in the second quarter, accepting $5,000 for his campaign, the report discloses.

RAGA hopes to build on the 28 state offices held by Republican attorneys general through “seven-figure investments to flip seats in Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada, and to retain the attorney general office in Arizona,” according to Fox Business.

Corporations Attending Latest RAGA Fundraiser Contribute $1.2 Million

Over the weekend, 18 companies were scheduled to attend a major RAGA fundraising event at a luxury resort in Florida, CNBC reported. Of those companies, 10 gave a total of $1.2 million to RAGA in the second quarter, CMD found.

Leading the pack was the Institute for Legal Reform (ILR), which gave another $500,000 in addition to the $255,000 it contributed in the first quarter. An affiliate of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, ILR focuses on advancing business-friendly legal reforms such as making class-action lawsuits more difficult to file and defending business interests in court.

Following the ILR, Centene Management Company, a Missouri-based healthcare company, was the next largest RAGA donor, with a $350,000 contribution in the second quarter.

The consumer wellness company Melaleuca, which has given RAGA $260,000 so far this year, is also a leading donor expected to attend the gathering. In addition, each of the following companies scheduled to attend has already hit or topped the $100,000 mark in 2022: Anheuser-Busch ($105,000), Anthem ($100,000), Comcast ($130,000), and General Motors ($100,000).

BNSF Railway and Ronald Cameron Round Out Top Five

BNSF Railway Company and Ronald Cameron, CEO of the Mountaire Corporation, each gave $150,000, making them among the top five second-quarter donors to RAGA.

Cameron is a top donor to the Koch political network. His company paid $65 million in 2021 to settle a class action lawsuit and agreed to make $140 million in investments in wastewater treatment facilities mandated by the state, CMD reported. In addition, he was the 14th largest donor to super PACs in 2021, CMD found.

RAGA Accepts Another Illegal Donation

In February, Popular Info reported that RAGA accepted an illegal donation of $50,000 from Children’s Health Defense, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s anti-vax propaganda outfit.

According to IRS rules, “a section 501(c)(3) organization may not make a contribution to a political organization described in section 527 (such as a candidate committee, political party committee or political action committee (PAC).” As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Children’s Health Defense admitted the donation was illegal, but claimed that “they paid $50K to get access to Republican AGs to brief them on ‘health policy issues.'”

RAGA, a 527 registered group, refunded the $50,000 the day after the Popular Info report, its first quarter filing confirms.

Now, RAGA’s latest filing shows that it received an illegal donation of $300 from the Philanthropy Roundtable, another 501(c)(3) nonprofit chaired by Bradley Foundation President Richard Graber. The Philanthropy Roundtable was established with funding from the Institute for Educational Affairs in the 1970s to help facilitate and coordinate conservative grant-making and foundations.

...

|Cameron, Ronald|$150,000|

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y 6 24

why Sinclair attacked me

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 21

Sinclair Broadcast Group is one of the most powerful media organizations in the country. It owns 193 local television affiliates that collectively reach 40% of American households. Over the last two weeks, Popular Information uncovered how Sinclair has exploited its power to push deceptive attacks about President Biden's mental fitness.

On June 11, Popular Information exposed how Sinclair injected specious attacks on Biden's age into dozens of local news broadcasts. Sinclair's piece repackaged a deeply flawed Wall Street Journal story claiming that Biden "shows signs of slipping" in private meetings. The only person quoted on the record to support that thesis was former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Popular Information's report included a six-minute video compilation featuring dozens of local Sinclair anchors reading from an identical script. Again and again, local Sinclair anchors are forced to say that concerns about Biden's mental acuity "could be an election decider."

On June 17, Popular Information revealed that Sinclair flooded a vast network of local news websites with misleading articles suggesting that President Biden is mentally unfit for office. The articles are based on specious social media posts by the Republican National Committee, which are then repackaged to resemble news reports. Several of Sinclair's articles promoted an absurd rumor that Biden soiled himself on stage while attending a D-Day celebration in Europe. These thinly disguised political attacks were then syndicated to dozens of local news websites owned by Sinclair, where they were given the imprimatur of mainstream media brands, including NBC, ABC, and CBS.

Popular Information's reporting reached millions of people through this newsletter, on social media, cable television, and numerous national media outlets. Sinclair was not pleased. The company issued a lengthy statement calling our reporting "outrageous and offensive."

We call it "accurate."

But despite Sinclair's protestations, the company appears to be making changes. This week, Sinclair paused its attacks on Biden and published a story acknowledging that Trump has "his own problems stumbling over words and mixing up dates."

4 24

Yesterday was the last day for Americans to file their 2023 taxes on time. What is the biggest difference between Tax Day this year and Tax Day in 1980? Millionaires pay a lot less.

Between 1945 and 1980, American households that made $1 million or more paid an average of 50.1% of their income in federal taxes, according to a new report from Americans for Tax Fairness. This period following World War II was characterized by "substantial economic growth and broadly shared prosperity" with rapid income growth "at roughly the same rate up and down the income ladder." Higher taxes for the wealthy funded "public investments that helped build a thriving economy for all: constructing the interstate highway system, improving public education, facilitating mass home ownership, expanding healthcare coverage."

According to the most recent IRS data, American households with more than $1 million in income now pay an effective tax rate of just 26%. Yes, because of inflation, $1 million has less purchasing power today than it did 44 years ago. But $1 million still exceeds the income of 99.5% of American households.

While millionaires have seen their tax rates halved, the tax rate for non-millionaires has been fairly consistent. Between 1945 and 1980, the average effective tax rate for non-millionaires was 12.6%. Today, it is 11.5%.

In 2001, the IRS started tracking the effective tax rate of American households that make $10 million or more. They have a slightly lower effective tax rate than other millionaires.

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The gap in effective tax rates between those American households that make $10 million or more and those that make seven figures likely reflects how the tax code imposes higher taxes on work than wealth. Seven-figure earners typically earn much of their revenue through income from high-paying jobs, and the top marginal income tax rate has ranged between 35% and 39.6% over the last two decades. Those who earn $10 million or more commonly derive some or all of their income through investments, which have been taxed between a 15% and 23.8% rate over the same time period. That's why the top 0.0001% — the 1500 richest households in America that make $118 million or more — pay an effective rate of just 23%. That's less than the regular millionaires.

The reality is that today, the American tax code barely qualifies as progressive. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP) produced a study this month that looked at taxes paid at all levels (federal, state, and local) by income. ITEP found that the wealthiest 1% of American households collected 20.1% of total income and paid 23.9% of total taxes. The poorest 20% of American households collected just 2.6% of total income but paid 1.5% of total taxes.

While the federal tax code, despite the dramatic reduction in rates for millionaires over the last several decades, remains progressive, "state and local taxes in most states are regressive, meaning they take a larger share of income from the poor than from the rich." Many states and localities impose sales taxes and "low-income families have little choice but to spend all their income to cover basic needs." High-income families "can save and invest most of their income, avoiding sales taxes."

Using impoverished children as political pawns

In 2021, as the pandemic still raged, Congress instituted a historic expansion of the Child Tax Credit (CTC). The CTC was increased from $2,000 per child to $3,600 for each child aged five or younger and $3,000 for each child aged 6 through 17. (The credit phased out for couples making $150,000 or more and individuals making $75,000 or more.) The credit was also made fully refundable, which means even families with little or no income could benefit. It was paid out monthly so that families did not have to wait until Tax Day to see the benefit.

The policy was a smashing success. Child poverty plunged to 5.2%, a record low. But due to the opposition from corporate lobbyists, Republicans in Congress, and Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), the CTC expansion expired at the end of 2022. Child poverty quickly increased, spiking to 12.4% in 2022 — that meant 5.28 million additional children living in poverty.

Since then, there has been bipartisan interest in reviving at least some of the CTC expansion. Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-OR) and House Ways and Means Committee Chair Jason Smith (R-MO) struck a deal to make the credit refundable for more families. It is a modest and technical change, but it would help about 16 million low-income families with children, with an average benefit of about $630. To attract Republican support, the deal included some business tax cuts, passed in 2017, that had expired or were close to expiring.

The Wyden-Smith package cleared the House at the end of January by a vote of 357-70. But for months, the Senate has done nothing.

Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID), the senior Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, claims to be "negotiating" the package, which was already the product of a bipartisan negotiation. Crapo reportedly wants more generous corporate tax cuts and fewer benefits for impoverished children. But efforts to tweak the proposal have not changed Crapo's opposition or the other Senate Republicans following his lead. Wyden's impression is that the proposal is not "something that Senate Republicans wanted to do."

Why? Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) said he opposed the package because "passing a tax bill that makes the president look good… [and] means he could be re-elected." In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) said that expanding the CTC now means "all Republican leverage will be lost" on tax issues regardless of who wins the election. Defeating the Wyden-Smith package would "extend the bulk, if not all, of the Trump tax cuts" in the future. At the end of 2025, Trump's tax cuts for individuals would expire, raising the top income tax rate from 37% to 39.6%.

Crapo and other Senate Republicans, however, have not simply cut off negotiations because harming impoverished children for a chance to help corporations and the wealthy is not a good look politically. But the route they are taking has the same effect. They are killing a modest expansion of the CTC by running out the clock.

The lobbyists who want you to keep paying to file your taxes

Earlier this year, the IRS launched its first-ever free tax filing program, Direct File, in 12 different states. The program, which is funded by the Inflation Reduction Act, is still in its pilot stage.

At least 100,000 taxpayers used the program to file their federal income taxes this tax season, and so far, the results are fairly encouraging. It’s estimated that in five years, “Direct File would save the average user $160 in filing fees and hours of their time each year, which saves Americans a total of $11 billion annually between filing fees and time costs,” according to a study by the Economic Security Project.

Direct File also makes it easier to claim credits like the CTC. According to the Economic Security Project, the program would “deliver up to $12 billion each year in additional tax credits to low-income families currently missing out.” The group also calculated that the program would generate at least $300 million in savings for the IRS.

Despite its immense potential and early success, tax preparation companies “are continuing to blast Direct File as unpopular and unnecessary.” A lawyer for the American Coalition for Taxpayer Rights – a trade group that represents tax prep giants like TurboTax and H&R Block – told the Washington Post that there is “not a real demand” for the program. But this is misleading. More than70% of taxpayers said they would be interested in filing their taxes through a free, IRS-provided online tool, according to the IRS’ 2022 Taxpayer Experience Survey. Polls across different states also show that a “massive majority” of Americans, including both Democrats and Republicans, support a free IRS tax return system.

For years, tax prep companies have spent millions of dollars blocking efforts to make tax filing free and easy. In 2019, ProPublica reported that Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, spent 20 years blocking an IRS-provided e-file service – all while tricking low-income taxpayers into paying for services the company was federally obligated to provide to them for free. Last year, the company spent a record $3.8 million lobbying the federal government. “[M]any of Intuit’s disclosures say it lobbied on the implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act,” Sludge and More Perfect Union reported.

So far, there has been some accountability. In 2022, Intuit agreed to pay a $141 million settlement to roughly 4.4 million Americans, most of whom were low-income. Most recently, in January, federal regulators ordered the company to “stop marketing its services as free, unless they are free to everyone or exceptions are clearly disclosed.”

Still, problems persist. This month, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) wrote a letter to the Federal Trade Commission, urging the agency to continue investigating the tax prep software. “Despite lawsuits and settlements stemming from Intuit’s deceptive ‘free’ advertising practices, the company continues to relentlessly upsell TurboTax users,” Warren wrote. “The TurboTax website attempts to divert taxpayers away from free filing options early in the process – and continues to do so throughout their federal and state tax filings.”

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Major US newspapers and broadcast TV news outlets often failed to report on Jim Jordan’s role in undermining the 2020 election – and ignored the risk to certification in 2024 if he becomes speaker | Media Matters for America

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david D. Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group (Sinclair), purchased the Baltimore Sun — the largest newspaper in Maryland — for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition means another powerful media outlet will be under the control of a wealthy conservative businessman with a history of using local media outlets to push an ideological agenda.

Smith is the son of Sinclair founder Julian Sinclair Smith and, along with his brothers, controls the company. Sinclair, a publicly traded company, owns or operates 185 local television stations across 86 markets. A 2018 study published in the American Political Science Review found that stations purchased by Sinclair "coverage of national politics at the expense of local politics" and undergo "a significant rightward shift in the ideological slant of coverage."

Sinclair regularly requires its local affiliates to run segments pushing right-wing talking points. In 2018, Sinclair affiliates were required to have local anchors read a script warning views about "fake stories" being published by other media outlets "to push their own personal bias and agenda." The trend was described as "extremely dangerous to a democracy." The argument, which included no actual examples, matched then-president Donald Trump's rhetoric about the media.

When Sinclair faced criticism for puppeteering its local anchors, Trump defended the company. "So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased," Trump said. "Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke."

Sinclair stations were also required to run political commentary from Boris Epshteyn, who previously served as a Trump advisor and surrogate. Sinclair hired Epshteyn as its chief political analyst. Epshteyn's segments for Sinclair were mostly indistinguishable from his work for the Trump campaign. "The American people demand change, and they demand action, and that’s exactly what they’ll get from this administration going forward," Epshteyn declared in one piece.

Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law and advisor, said that in 2016, the Trump campaign provided Sinclair stations with extensive access to Trump in exchange for friendly coverage that did not include fact-checking. "We are here to deliver your message," Smith told Trump in a 2016 meeting. Sinclair executives denied there was anything unusual or unethical about its dealings with the Trump campaign. Sinclair affiliates have also promoted right-wing conspiracy theories, including claims that DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered by a hitman as payback for sharing sensitive emails to Wikileaks.

The history of using Sinclair-owned stations to push a right-wing agenda predates Trump. In 2004, "Sinclair ordered its stations to broadcast an hour-long documentary — preempting prime-time programming — titled Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal that blamed Democratic nominee John Kerry for the torture of American prisoners of war in Vietnam."

In an interview with the Baltimore Sun, Smith defended Sinclair's news coverage "as balanced and apolitical." According to Smith, Sinclair is "not perfect" but overall is "much better than a lot of folk."

Smith, not Sinclair, is purchasing the Baltimore Sun — although that may be a distinction without a difference. Smith said, "he envisions opportunities for partnerships between The Sun and Sinclair, such as promoting each other’s stories, and other synergies in the future."

The checkered history of Smith's right-hand man

Smith did not purchase the Baltimore Sun alone. He brought along one partner: Armstrong Williams, a right-wing pundit and operative.

:{:{Williams has his own syndicated show on Sinclair stations. His social media accounts are full of incendiary statements about Democrats and liberals. "Each day Joe Biden has sat in office, we have gotten closer and closer to a fascist communist nation," Armstrong wrote on January 10. On January 5, he accused Biden of "destroy[ing] American democracy."}:

On December 19, Armstrong decried "the real time consequences of being infiltrated by radical left-wingers and the acceptance of their insane political agendas." (The issue was the Pope slightly softening his stance on same-sex marriages.) On December 6, Armstrong called Biden "a senile senior citizen" who "barely knows right from left." Armstrong also called the prosecutors pursuing cases against Trump as "terrorists" and promoted false narratives and conspiracy theories about the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.}:

Armstrong served as an advisor to former presidential candidate and Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson. He claims to have paid for Justice Clarence Thomas' wedding reception. In 2005, Armstrong lost his syndicated column after it was revealed that he had been paid $240,000 by the George W. Bush administration to promote their signature education initiative, No Child Left Behind.

Follow the money

Smith has used his vast wealth to support a variety of far-right causes. The Baltimore Banner reports that since 2015, Smith, through his family foundation, has donated large sums to Young Americans for Liberty ($581,000), Project Veritas ($536,000), Turning Point USA ($150,000), and Moms for Liberty ($121,000).

Smith does not support Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D), and has sought to recruit opponents to unseat him. Sinclair stations have provided highly favorable coverage to former Mayor Shelia Dixon (D), who is running against Scott this year. Armstrong conducted an interview with Dixon on a Sinclair affiliate last summer that consisted mostly of "praise for Dixon and criticism of current elected officials."

In 2022, Smith backed a successful ballot initiative to impose term limits on Baltimore's elected officials. Currently, Smith is "underwriting Renew Baltimore, a ballot drive to cap and lower the property tax rate."

Now, Smith has a new tool in his arsenal to shape Baltimore's politics: the city's paper of record.

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he right-wing scheme to upend public education — for $125 per hour

JUDD LEGUM AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

JUL 5

Vermilion Education’s Jordan Adams delivers a Zoom presentation to the Pennridge School Board on June 20, 2023 (Screenshot/YouTube)

On June 20, educational consultant Jordan Adams delivered a much-anticipated presentation to the Pennridge School Board, revealing his recommended changes to the Eastern Pennsylvania school district's social studies curriculum. Adams, the founder of Vermilion Education, appeared via Zoom. The curriculum experts who work for the district recommended that first grade social studies focus on "Rules and Responsibilities," "Geography," and "Important People and Places." Adams instead proposed that 6- and 7-year-olds learn "American History: 1492-1787" and "World History: Ancient Near East."

In his presentation, first reported by the Bucks County Beacon, Adams did not discuss how teachers could provide instruction on nearly 300 years of American history to students still learning to read and tie their shoes. Nor did Adams explain why his "chronological" approach was superior to the school district's proposed curriculum. Adams spent less than 90 seconds covering his proposal to completely restructure social studies for Grades 1 through 5, before moving on to his recommendations for older students.

Popular Information asked Adams about his process for curriculum development and how he came to the conclusion that his proposed changes would be beneficial to first graders and other students. Adams responded that he was asked to provide "a high-level overview" and his recommendations "aim to provide students with a comprehensive knowledge and understanding of American and world history and civics, reflective of historical figures, ideas, and events that have had an outsized impact on the world today."

Adams also proposed changes to the curriculum for seventh and eighth grade reading and language arts courses. He suggested that the books district staff had selected for these courses could "lead to destructive behavior on the part of students." As an example, he cited The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. The Outsiders, a classic young adult novel first published in 1967, is about two rival groups of teens, one wealthy and one working class. Common Sense Media, an independent site that reviews books and movies for children, notes "the indelible characters and compelling story have consistently hooked middle school kids, teens, and reluctant readers since The Outsiders was first published in 1967." Strangely, despite his stated concerns, Adams does not actually recommend removing The Outsiders from the required reading.

Adams added that the district needed to "ensure all texts are free from sexualized content that may best left to the home and to parent discretion." He said the books selected by the district would "raise questions" about why books with "sexualized" content were selected as opposed to "other worthwhile works."

One book singled out by Adams is War and Watermelon by award-winning author Rich Wallace. War and Watermelon is about a 12-year-old growing up in the time of the Vietnam War and Woodstock. But Adams focuses on a few snippets of sexualized content that he apparently believes is inappropriate for middle school students. Two of the passages involved girls who weren't wearing bras. Another involves a 12-year-old boy noticing that a 12-year-old girl had developed breasts.

It was an unusual approach for a consultant the school district is paying thousands of dollars to provide guidance. Notably, Adams, who is 31, does not have any experience developing curricula for public schools. According to Adams, he launched his company, Vermilion Education, in March. (It was formally incorporated in December 2022.) Under questioning from Pennridge School Board member Ronald Wurz, Adams admitted that Pennridge was Vermilion Education's only public school client. (Asked if he has any other clients, Adams said that he is "not at liberty to share about ongoing or potential work with other clients.")

In an interview, Wurz told Popular Information that Adams' presentation was "amateurish," "horrible," and reflected "a total lack of preparation." Wurz was particularly disturbed that Adams has already billed the district $7500 — the cost of 60 hours of work under the contract — to craft his recommendations.

Adams, who appears to have deleted his LinkedIn profile, does not hold any degrees in education. In 2013, Adams received a bachelor's degree in political science from Hillsdale College, a private Christian institution known for its right-wing ideology. In 2016, Adams received a master's degree in humanities from the University of Dallas, another private conservative school. Adams later returned to Hillsdale College as an employee, where he promoted a K-12 curriculum developed by the college, known as the 1776 curriculum, that is favored by right-wing activists.

Nevertheless, Adams was able to secure a contract with the Pennridge School District in April. The contract stipulates that Adams will provide "[c]onsulting services related to assisting district staff in the review and development of curricula." Adams is being paid $125 per hour for this work, with no limit on the number of hours, no specific deliverables, and no termination date.

The contract was added to the agenda less than 48 hours before the meeting by board member Jordan Blomgren. It drew immediate objections from Superintendent David Bolton. In an email, Bolton noted that there was no money budgeted for the contract, no one from the school district had reviewed the contract, and no one involved in developing the curriculum for Pennridge schools was consulted. Bolton's concerns were ignored by a majority of the board, who voted to approve the contract on a 5-4 vote.

Further, Bolton said he believed it was an effort to incorporate the 1776 curriculum without the involvement of administrators and teachers. Public records obtained by the Bucks County Beacon and shared with Popular Information reveal that, beginning in early 2023, members of the Pennridge School Board were pushing to "overlay" Hillsdale's 1776 curriculum in Pennridge classes.

Asked if his recommendations for Pennridge schools were based on the 1776 curriculum, Adams said that "Vermilion’s curricular recommendations draw from a variety of different resources depending on the goals and parameters outlined by a district."

Initially, Adams' contract was paired with a proposal from board members to eliminate the school district's four curriculum supervisors. The proposal was scrapped after board member Jonathan Russell noted that "the school board is required to ensure that employees charged with developing curriculum have appropriate qualifications, which includes five years of teaching and a principal or supervisory certification." Adams admitted he did not possess those qualifications.

Adams told Popular Information that he was qualified to do educational consulting based on his "combined ten years of experience teaching history, civics, and economics to k-12 students, coaching teachers, and reviewing and writing curricula." This includes his five years working at Hillsdale on the 1776 curriculum and five years working as a teacher, including time as a substitute teacher while attending graduate school.

How a consultant with little experience and no academic credentials lands a $125-per-hour contract

Adams' work on the 1776 curriculum appears to have attracted the attention of Moms for Liberty, a right-wing advocacy group concerned about "woke" ideology. The first school district that considered hiring Vermilion Education was Sarasota County in Florida. The chair of the Sarasota County school board is Bridget Ziegler, a co-founder of Moms for Liberty. "I work in education circles and certainly [Vermilion] was brought to my attention," Ziegler said.

Adams was also recruited by the DeSantis administration in Florida to review math textbooks submitted by publishers. In one of Adams' reviews, he concluded that a math textbook, Stats: Modeling the World, may violate the state's prohibition against Critical Race Theory. As evidence, Adams cited one of the math problems which involved data related to racial profiling in policing. According to Adams, the math problem may be an effort to indoctrinate students with the belief that "racism [is] embedded in society and legal systems and/or that race is the most important factor in considering an aspect of society."

The proposal to contract with Vermilion in Sarasota "drew a swell of public opposition." Opponents were concerned that Vermilion had "no track record" and Adams was "unqualified to provide the contracted services." On April 18, the board bucked Ziegler and rejected the proposed contract on a 3-2 vote.

On Facebook, Ziegler cheered Adams' contract with Pennridge, saying that Adams would conduct a "woke audit" of the curriculum.

Last week, Adams appeared at the Moms for Liberty national conference in Philadelphia. Adams led a "strategy session," which was closed to the media, entitled "The First 100 Days: Getting Flipped School Boards to Take Action." Adams declined to elaborate on what was discussed at this session, saying it was "reserved for attendees at the summit."

Hiding the ball

As part of his effort to secure a contract with Sarasota County schools, Adams sent the board members a "brief" pitching Vermilion Education and its services. The document, titled Education Restored, begins with a "Letter to School Board Members" from Adams. In the letter, Adams promotes Vermilion as an extension of the right-wing movement that has elected new school board members intent on radically reshaping public education:

If you're reading this, you're likely already part of one of the greatest reform movements of our lifetime. Like all great reform movements, those who have the authority to make a difference must make a difference if their officers are to have any meaning at all. This requires — as you have already demonstrated — great courage on your part, and great sacrifice.

Grassroots volunteers have kindled your elections and process experts have shown you the ropes of governing. What Vermilion Education offers is a trusted ally with classroom and reform experience, a partner who will get into the specific details of your district and work alongside you and district staff to ensure your policies and the wishes of parents are a success.

In the brief, Adams offers a variety of services to eliminate "ideology" from schools that he claims are corrupting children. For example, Adams pitches a "Character Program Audit" because he claims that many programs focusing on building character now feature "ideologies hostile to shared understandings of right conduct and responsibility, undermining the wishes and efforts of parents to raise upright young men and women."

In another section, Adams pitches himself as a mole that can be embedded within the school district to implement policies over the objections of staff members. "When you are uncertain whether you have an ally on staff in the district," Adams writes, "Vermilion is your trusted liaison within the academic details to ensure that your intentions — and the intentions of the community — are fully implemented."

Adams was apparently unaware, however, that this brief would become public as part of the consideration of the contract in Sarasota County. So he contacted Ziegler and asked her to remove the brief because it was "proprietary." Ziegler was able to do so, and Adams sent her a "non-proprietary" version of the brief that was shared with the public. The new version of the brief removes the "Letter to School Board Members," all the other language highlighted above, and many other sections that reveal the political nature of Adams' work.

Both versions of the brief were obtained by Popular Information through the volunteer group Save Our Schools, which acquired them through a public records request.

The 1776 curriculum

Released in 2021, Hillsdale's 1776 curriculum was inspired by a commission initiated by former President Trump to promote “patriotic education” in response to The New York Times' 1619 Project. Its creators insist that the curriculum is accurate, unbiased, and “seeks to tell the entire grand narrative of the American story.”

But according to Princeton History Professor Sean Wilentz, the 1776 curriculum “fundamentally distorts modern American history into a crusade of righteous conservative patriots against heretical big-government liberals.”

The curriculum, for example, inaccurately depicts the founding fathers who owned slaves as “closet abolitionists.” Meanwhile, it suggests that progressivism is fundamentally “anti-American,” describing it as a "rejection of the principles of the Declaration of Independence."

It also claims that systemic racism doesn’t exist and says policies that promote diversity constitute a “regime of formal inequality." The civil rights movement, the curriculum asserts, was “turned into programs that ran counter to the lofty ideals of the Founders." The curriculum asks students to consider if federal laws outlawing discrimination at restaurants and other private businesses open to the public “violate the right to assembly and to private property.”

So far, “about a dozen school districts from several different states have formally inquired” about the curriculum, Hillsdale claims. In 2022, South Dakota’s K-12 social studies standards were changed to align with the 1776 curriculum. That same year, Tennessee Governor Bill Lee (R) also announced that he plans to “open upward of 50 new charters with Hillsdale’s ‘1776 Curriculum.’” In May 2023, lawmakers in Ohio introduced a bill that would replace the state’s social studies curriculum with social studies standards inspired by the 1776 curriculum.

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Twitter, under the control of DeSantis-supporter Elon Musk, is attempting to undermine Popular Information's reporting. The platform appended a "Community Note" to our viral thread about Florida classroom libraries, indicating that our tweets were "misleading."

The note appended by Twitter was false. The Manatee County School District explicitly instructed its teachers to "[r]emove or cover all classroom libraries" or risk criminal charges. I obtained the document distributed to principals and teachers, which you can read HERE.

This is a big problem: Over the last four years, half of Popular Information's readers found out about this newsletter on Twitter. Now, we can no longer count on Twitter to sustain our growth.

How Koch manipulates the media

JUDD LEGUM, REBECCA CROSBY, AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

FEB 7

On Sunday, Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action), one of the principal political organizations controlled by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, released a memo to the media. The memo claims that the "Republican Party is nominating bad candidates who are advocating for things that go against core American principles." Now, AFP Action "is prepared to support a candidate in the Republican presidential primary who can lead our country forward, and who can win." AFP Action will "invest the necessary resources to empower millions of citizen activists and voters to turn the page on the current political era and help the American people to write a new chapter for our country."

Although the memo doesn't mention Trump's name, the clear intention is to signal a break between the Koch political network and MAGA Republicans, particularly Trump. The media responded with a flood of credulous coverage.

What is not mentioned in any of these stories is that, for years, Koch has repeatedly announced he was reorienting his political strategy away from far-right Republicans, including Trump — with no discernible change in his actual political activity. After each media-assisted rebrand, Koch quietly resumed business as usual.

The reality is that few individuals have spent more money to legitimize Trump and his allies than Charles Koch.

In a November 13, 2020, profile in the Wall Street Journal, Koch claimed that he would no longer engage in partisanship. Instead, he would devote his resources "to building bridges across partisan divides to find answers to sprawling social problems." He described his political network's efforts to elect far-right Republicans as a "screw-up" that created "a mess." Moving forward, Koch said, he would "work together with Democrats and liberals."

After 147 Republican members of Congress voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, the Koch network announced that the vote would "weigh heavy in our evaluation of future support." And Koch would "support those policymakers who reject the politics of division and work together to move our country forward."

Instead, over the next two years, AFP Action spent $63,401,608 supporting Republican candidates for federal office, $5,576,858 opposing Democratic candidates, and zero dollars supporting Democratic candidates. 86.7% of AFP Action's spending bolstered candidates who were endorsed by Trump, according to a review of campaign finance data by Popular Information.

And almost all Trump-endorsed candidates endorsed Trump's false claims about voter fraud. For example, AFP Action spent $13.5 million supporting Herschel Walker, Trump's hand-picked candidate for Senate in Georgia. Walker called on the Supreme Court to change the results of the 2020 election, pushed for seven states to throw out their results, and argued that "state officials who certified Joe Biden’s election victory over Donald Trump should go to jail."

AFP Action also spent $11.3 million supporting Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) in his campaign for reelection. Before the January 6 insurrection, Johnson "held a hearing on election fraud in an attempt to legitimize former president Donald Trump’s false allegations of voting irregularities." On January 6, Johnson not only voted to overturn the election but "Johnson’s chief of staff tried to deliver to Vice President Mike Pence a slate of fake electors backing Trump." He has been described as "one of Congress’s most prominent election deniers and [January] 6 apologists."

Overall, AFP Action spent 95% of its money on Republican candidates who were formally endorsed by Trump or who actively campaigned as a Trump supporter. AFP Action spent just $3.5 million on candidates not aligned with Trump. In addition, Koch Industries PAC, which is also controlled by Charles Koch, was the top corporate supporter to members of Congress that voted to overturn the election.

The tens of millions of dollars that AFP Action spent supporting Trump loyalists helped legitimize Trump and sets the table for his 2024 campaign. The House of Representatives, in part due to the Koch network's support, is controlled by Koch acolytes who are using the body's investigative power to advance Trump's conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile, Charles Koch is pushing the narrative that he is the person who will save the party from Trump and other extremists. And the media is amplifying these claims without any context. It's not the first time.

2018: Koch says he is "frustrated" with Trump, open to supporting Democrats

In July 2018, Charles Koch generated extensive media coverage by claiming he was "frustrated" with Trump and expressing an openness to supporting Democrats. "Charles Koch seeks to declare independence from the Republican Party," USA Today reported, reflecting the tenor of the coverage.

Specifically, Koch said he was looking for candidates that promoted free trade and immigration reform. Plenty of Democratic candidates fit that mold. But, in the 2018 cycle, AFP Action spent  $3,948,640 supporting Republicans and $2,835,924 opposing Democrats. AFP Action spent zero dollars supporting Democrats.

2016: Koch says he will not support Trump's candidacy

In August 2016, Koch generated headlines for saying he would not financially support Trump, who had secured the Republican nomination. Charles Koch said that he "can't support either candidate." A member of his political network told NBC News that if Charles Koch financially supported Trump he "would never be able to hold any politician accountable."

Charles Koch, however, ended up providing critical financial support to Trump's successful campaign. He spent millions on ads that, while formally opposing Democratic Senate candidates, savaged Trump's opponent Hillary Clinton. In Wisconsin alone, "Koch groups spent $4.3 million… eclipsing the $3 million spent by the Clinton campaign." That pattern was "repeated in other crucial swing states."

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Popular Information exposed the real consequences of laws and regulations imposed on teachers by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Teachers in Manatee County were advised to make their classroom libraries inaccessible or face felony prosecution.

Our reporting is now under attack by the Florida Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz Jr. He called Popular Information "fake news" and claimed we were "too lazy" to read Florida law. But, as you'll learn below, Popular Information's reporting was completely accurate. Diaz Jr., on the other hand, is grossly representing his own department's guidance.

Popular Information is a three-person newsletter, but we can rattle the cages of some of the most powerful politicians in the country.

the Florida Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz Jr., lashed out at Popular Information's recent reporting on Florida classroom libraries, calling it "fake news from media activists too lazy to read [Florida] law." But Popular Information's reporting was completely accurate — and later confirmed by other outlets, including the Washington Post. It was Diaz, in an interview published Monday by the conservative National Review, who grossly misrepresented his own department's guidance in an effort to defend Governor Ron DeSantis (R).

On January 23, Popular Information reported that teachers in Manatee County, Florida are being told to make their classroom libraries inaccessible to students, or risk felony prosecution. A memo created by the Manatee County School District, and distributed to principals, instructed teachers to "remove or cover all classroom libraries until all materials can be reviewed."

Kevin Chapman, the Chief of Staff for the Manatee County School District, told Popular Information that at the same January 18 meeting where the memo was distributed, principals were advised that teachers that fail to comply with the rules regarding classroom libraries could face stiff penalties, including third-degree felony charges. This message was passed on to Manatee County teachers.

Diaz told the National Review that teachers who packed up their classroom libraries were simply participating in a "stunt" intended to damage DeSantis politically. “I think this is clearly an intentional effort to cause confusion and make it look like the state of Florida, the governor, the legislature, are trying to ban books or trying to create this authoritarian state,” Diaz said.  

Diaz said that teachers were free to "apply common sense when examining their classroom libraries" and only remove books that, in the teacher's opinion, are in a "gray area." More from Diaz:

When you’re looking at these, if there’s something in a gray area that you think could be an issue, pull that book aside and have it vetted by the process to make sure that indeed it should be in that library. That doesn’t mean that you cover your library or shut it down.

Diaz's recommendations to teachers directly contradicts the training produced by his own agency, the Florida Department of Education. Slide 22 of the training says that only a "certified media specialist" can select materials for any school library, including classroom libraries. 

(Although the slide focuses on elementary classrooms, another rule, adopted by the Florida Department of Education on October 19, 2022, defines classroom libraries in all grades as a type of school library.)

The trainingreminds media specialists that making material "harmful to minors" available could result in felony prosecution. It also urges media specialists to "err on the side of caution" with all books. Diaz pretends all this guidance does not exist, and that, for the most part, teachers can continue to curate classroom libraries independently.

Diaz also said that teachers' concerns are unwarranted because only materials deemed "harmful to minors" would result in a "third-degree felony." This is cold comfort because right-wing activists and their allies in government consider books by Pulitzer Prize winner Toni Morrison pornography. Further, Diaz notes that a teacher who allows books that are unvetted and inappropriate — but not "harmful to minors" — "would be addressed through an administrative process." That administrative process could result in a teacher having their license revoked and losing their job. 

Teachers are still in the dark

Diaz encouraged teachers to exercise "common sense" regarding their classroom libraries. But the Florida Department of Education will not answer basic questions about what kind of books are permitted in Florida schools.

Specifically, the recently enacted Parental Rights In Education Act, known as "Don't Say Gay," prohibits all instruction on "sexual orientation or gender identity" in K-3 classrooms and instruction in other grades that is "not age appropriate or developmentally appropriate." The STOP Woke Act, another new law, limits discussion and instruction of certain racial issues. The laws appear to be limited to "classroom instruction." But can materials that would violate these laws be made available in a classroom library?

The training issued by the Florida Department of Education doesn't answer that question. The Florida Association for Supervisors of Media (FASM) requested that the Florida Department of Education clarify the issue. But, as the Washington Post reported last week, the Department has yet to respond. “They will not tell us in writing,” Michelle Jarrett, the president of FASM, said last week. "We’re not getting a clear message.”

It is a critical question. Applying the "Don't Say Gay" and the "STOP Woke" laws to classroom libraries would likely mandate the removal of scores of books. A teacher found to be in violation of either law is subject to the "revocation or suspension of the individual educator's [teaching] certificate." It is a career-ending offense.

Popular Information asked Chapman if Manatee teachers should remove books from classroom libraries that are not consistent with the "Don't Say Gay" and the "STOP Woke" laws. "In regards to books in school media centers or classrooms, the School District of Manatee County is abiding by all applicable laws and statutes of the state of Florida, and adhering to the guidance of the Florida Department of Education," Chapman replied, not answering the question.

"Woke-busters"

Teachers in Manatee County are required to look up all of the titles in their classroom libraries, determine which ones are already available in the library (and therefore have already been vetted by a librarian), and remove any unvetted books. But, at a school board meeting last week, Manatee County Schools' Director of Curriculum, Laurie Breslin, acknowledged that this was a time-consuming process that most teachers did not have the capacity to do during the school year. Therefore, Breslin said, the county was soliciting volunteers to assist teachers with this process.

Right-wing activists hostile to Florida teachers are seizing on the opportunity. The Manatee Patriots is seeking "Woke Busters" to "SAVE the CHILDREN and OUR Society."

They are urging their members to "get into the school Libraries" and determine whether teachers are "following the laws." Volunteers are urged to "be on watch for anything that looks inappropriate," including "activism" and "globalism." 

Chad Choate, the chair of the Manatee County School Board who was appointed by DeSantis, was the featured speaker at a meeting of the Manatee Patriots on Tuesday night.

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the economic data also support Goodman's perspective. As CEOs and billionaires at WEF preached the gospel of "stakeholder capitalism," the ultra-wealthy have captured the vast majority of new wealth. This has been achieved by holding down worker wages, slashing corporate taxes, and obstructing environmental regulations.

The last two years have been an economic windfall for the obscenely wealthy

A new report on global wealth inequality by Oxfam, an international non-profit, reveals how lucrative the last two years have been for people who didn't need any more money. The report, Survival of the Richest, finds that over the last two years, "the richest 1% have captured almost two-thirds of all new wealth – nearly twice as much money as the bottom 99% of the world’s population." Since 2020, billionaire wealth has increased by $2.7 billion every day. This massive increase comes after decades of rapidly accumulating wealth for billionaires.

Today, just 81 billionaires "hold more wealth than 50% of the world combined." And while the elite enjoyed an unprecedented windfall, those with the fewest resources saw their material conditions stall or worsen. Oxfam estimates that "at least 1.7 billion workers worldwide will have seen inflation outpace their wages in 2022."

In 2022, the World Bank announced that "we will fail to meet the goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030" and "global progress in reducing extreme poverty has come to a halt." The last two years constitute "the largest setback in addressing global poverty since World War II." In 2021, "between 702 and 828 million people were affected by hunger," nearly 10% of the world's population.

Extreme wealth inequality is a policy choice

The concentration of wealth is not an accident. It is the result of policy choices pushed for by corporations and the wealthy and enacted by government officials. Many of the folks responsible for these choices are in Davos this week.

Since 1980, taxes for the highest incomes, capital gains, and inheritance have all plummeted in wealthy countries. This has corresponded to a large increase in the share of wealth held by the top 1%.

The very wealthy often pay much less than the statutory tax rate in their home country. Billionaires routinely embrace a "buy, borrow, die" strategy to avoid taxation. Instead of paying themselves a salary, they borrow money against unrealized capital gains, which are almost never taxed. So Jeff Bezos gets richer as Amazon's stock price increases, and he can access that wealth by using his Amazon stock as collateral for a loan. But the new wealth is untaxed because Bezos did not sell any of his stock.

In 2021, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) proposed cracking down on the "buy, borrow, die" strategy by imposing a 23.8% tax on the unrealized capital gains of billionaires. Wyden's proposal would have impacted just 700 people but would have raised $507 billion over 10 years. This could have financed a multi-year extension of the expanded child tax credit — a credit that lifted millions of children out of poverty.

But Wyden's wealth tax was abandoned because two Davos attendees — Manchin and Sinema — decided to oppose it. "I don’t like the connotation that we’re targeting different people," Manchin said. It was also opposed by every Republican Senator.

Manchin and Sinema did not act in a vacuum. They were responding to a massive lobbying effort by corporate America — including many of the companies represented in Davos this week —  opposing a wealth tax. That lobbying effort was successful. As a result, the expanded child tax credit expired, and 3.7 million children fell back into poverty.

Global corporate taxes have "fallen from an average of 47.5% in 1980 to 24.9% today." Many corporations pay much less — either through creative tax planning or relocating their some or all of their operations to corporate tax havens. In the United States, Biden proposed modestly increasing the corporate tax rate from 21% to 25%. The increase would have helped fund significant investments to combat climate change and important benefits for working families, like paid family leave.

But Sinema opposed any increase in the corporate tax rate. So the climate investments were pared back, and American workers still do not have access to paid leave.

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In the United States, about 30 million people are subject to noncompete clauses,which "block people from working for a competing employer, or starting a competing business, after their employment ends." According to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), noncompete clauses "restrict workers from moving freely" and give employers "the power to suppress wages and avoid having to compete to attract workers." Overall, the FTC estimates that noncompete clauses reduce worker earnings by $250 billion to $296 billion per year — or just under $2,000 per family.

Even if you are not subject to a noncompete clause, the existence of noncompete clauses may suppress your compensation. Noncompete clauses harm all workers by preventing jobs from opening in their industry. That means the competition for the labor of all workers is reduced, driving down wages.

Last week, the FTC proposed a new rule that would ban noncompete clauses in the United States. All existing noncompete clauses would be rendered null and void. And companies would be required to notify their employees that they are no longer be prohibited from pursuing employment from competitors. If the rule is adopted and upheld by the courts, it would be one of the most dramatic expansions in worker rights in decades.

Noncompete clauses were initially only used for high-ranking executives with access to valuable trade secrets. But, in recent years, the use of noncompete clauses has exploded. Today, "fast-food workers, arborists and manual laborers," making little more than minimum wage, are routinely required to sign noncompete clauses as a condition of their employment.

In 2021, the Wall Street Journal reported how a noncompete clause was deployed against a security guard:

In early 2017, Michael Kenny found work as a nighttime security guard at Critical Intervention Services Inc., a Florida housing development. A few weeks after accepting the job, which paid around $11 an hour, his overnight child care fell through. Mr. Kenny, a single father, resigned.

Months later, he took a job as a daytime security guard at a bank making almost $15 per hour. He said that soon after he started, his boss informed him that his previous employer had sent a letter stating Mr. Kenny had signed a two-year noncompete clause as part of his employment contract. His new employer let him go.

Kenny did not even recall agreeing to a noncompete clause. His experience is typical. A 2011 study by an M.I.T. professor "found that employers typically presented workers with noncompete contracts when the employees lacked negotiating leverage, on their first day at work, for instance."

The FTC says it has existing authority to ban noncompetes under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits "unfair methods of competition."

The opposition

The FTC's proposed rule will face stiff opposition from corporate America, which benefits from locking in valuable employees at lower wages. The Chamber of Commerce, a corporate lobbying group representing virtually every major U.S. company, issued a statement oddly claiming noncompete clauses "preserv[e] competition."

The Chamber of Commerce statement also claims "noncompete agreements are an important tool in fostering innovation." But California, which has banned noncompete agreements since the 19th Century, undercuts that argument. As Matt Stoller notes in the BIG newsletter, "California’s ban on non-competes… was a key reason for Silicon Valley’s success." According to historian Margaret O’Mara, in the 1970s, "Massachusetts was wealthier, better connected and more technologically advanced." But Massachusetts had noncompete clauses which meant "the porous information ecosystem of engineers changing companies that led to lots of companies in Silicon Valley never developed."

Other states that restrict noncompete clauses include: Colorado, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia, and Washington.

A 2011 study found that "enforcement of noncompete clauses significantly impedes entrepreneurship and employment growth." Noncompete clauses don't just prevent workers from moving to another company; they prevent workers from starting their own companies. States that limit noncompete clauses ended up with more patents, more firm starts, and more employment.

Nevertheless, the Chamber of Commerce called the FTC proposal "blatantly unlawful" and, if the FTC proceeds with the rule in its current form, it is likely to be challenged in court. The Supreme Court may be sympathetic to corporations that wish to continue enforcing non-compete clauses. Specifically, the current Supreme Court has embraced the "major questions doctrine," which is the belief that "Congress must speak clearly when empowering agencies to regulate issues of vast significance." The Supreme Court invoked the previously obscure doctrine last year to "invalidate the EPA’s Clean Power Plan."

FTC Chair Lina Kahn said the agency was acting well within its authority. "In addition to the text of the statute, the structure and purpose of the statute, legislative history all support the authority that we’ll be exercising," Khan said. She cited "the D.C. Circuit’s 1975 decision in National Petroleum Refiners Ass’n v. FTC, in which the court said the commission has authority to issue competition-related rules."

The crackdown begins

Along with the proposed rule, the FTC announced an enforcement action against several companies exploiting workers with noncompete clauses. The actions represent "the first time that the agency has sued to halt unlawful noncompete restrictions." 

One case involves a Michigan-based security firm, Prudential Security. According to the FTC, Prudential Security's standard noncompete clause prohibited employees "from working for a competing business within a 100-mile radius of their job site with Prudential for two years after leaving Prudential." While Prudential Security's "guards typically earned hourly wages at or near minimum wage," the noncompete clause "required employees to pay $100,000 as a penalty for any alleged violations of the clause."

A Michigan court found that Prudential Security's noncompete clause was "unreasonable and unenforceable under state law" but the company continued "to require all of their security guard employees to sign them." The FTC's order prohibits Prudential Security "from enforcing, threatening to enforce, or imposing noncompete restrictions on any current or past workers." Further, the company is "required to notify all affected employees that they are no longer bound by noncompete restrictions."

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Friday, January 6, 2023 marks the second anniversary of what historian Michael Beschloss has described as one of the darkest days in United States history: the January 6, 2021 insurrection. That day, a violent mob of MAGA Republicans and Donald Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol Building in the hope of preventing the certification of now-President Joe Biden’s Electoral College victory.

As violent as that attack was, Beschloss has emphasized that it could have been much worse and escalated into “assassinations and/or hostage-taking” if the insurrectionists had been able to get to either members of Congress or then-Vice President Mike Pence. Some of the insurrectionists were calling for Pence’s murder that day, chanting, “Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence.” And a hangman’s gallows was set up outside the Capitol.

Two years ago, Corporate America was quick to condemn the Capitol insurrection. But in an in-depth report published by**Mother Jones** on January 5, journalist Tim Murphy laments that some companies have since made campaign contributions to “Stop the Steal” Republicans who tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

READ MORE: **Law professor’s Jan. 6 takeaway: the 'threat of political violence' is 'far from over'**

“Two years after President Donald Trump incited a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol and halt the certification of the Electoral College results, the January 6 insurrection is still a live wire in American politics,” Murphy explains. “Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes was convicted of seditious conspiracy last month for his role in the riot. Advocates of Trump’s election lies received such an intense electoral rebuke in the midterm election that Democrats actually expanded their majority in the Senate…. But many of America’s largest companies have long since moved on.”

Murphy adds, “In the first national election since a sitting president tried to overturn the popular will, some of the country’s biggest brands showered election deniers with millions of dollars in donations via their political action committees.”

The Mother Jones reporter goes on to cite specific examples of companies that condemned “Stop the Steal” Republicans and election denialists two years ago but have since given them donations.

“In the days after the insurrection,” Murphy recalls, “dozens of companies told **Popular Information** and other outlets that they were pausing or reconsidering their political donations.Hallmark, which had donated to Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) in the past, singled him out by name in its statement condemning the attack. Big-pocketed corporations such as Pfizer, Eli Lilly, Comcast, PricewaterhouseCoopers and AT&T promised to suspend all contributions to members of Congress who voted against certifying the results either temporarily or for the entire 2022 cycle.”

READ MORE:**January 6th 'fake elector scheme' offers a clear 'path to prosecuting Trump': attorney**

Murphy continues, “But not only did each of those six companies eventually turn the spigot back on, they all ended up writing checks to help reelectRep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) —a leading opponent of certification whose own chief of staff attempted to distribute a fake slate of electors on the day of the insurrection, according to the January 6 Committee. Kelly, a member of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee from a heavily Republican district, was a major recipient of corporate cash. Other contributors included PACs belonging toIntel and Verizon, both of which had told Popular Information they were suspending donations to the election-rejecters; Aflac, which had said it would be pausing all its political donations for an unspecified amount of time;Johnson & Johnson; FedEx; and the spirits-producing Sazerac Company.”

The Mother Jones reporter points out that during the “2022 cycle,” Anheuser-Busch “gave $139,500 to election-denying members of Congress” in addition to giving a “maximum contribution” to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).

“Among the dozens of recipients: Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.), who tweeted that the election was ‘RIGGED’ for Biden in the run-up to January 6 and afterwards shared misinformation alleging that ‘Antifa thugs’ were responsible for the riot,” Murphy reports. “Airlines were major supporters of Stop the Steal candidates. Delta Airlines gave $225,000 to election-denying members of Congress, according to ProPublica‘s searchable database. Southwest Airlines’ ‘Freedom Fund’ gave $39,500 to election-rejecting candidates, including Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), who tweeted on January 3, 2021 that he’d just met ‘with folks from Stop the Steal’ at our nation’s Capitol’ and ‘encouraged them to keep fighting.’”

Murphy adds, “American Airlines, which told Popular Information that it was pausing all political contributions for three months, eventually funneled $165,000 to dozens of Republicans who voted not to certify the election results, including Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), who asked Trump for a pardon after helping to organize congressional opposition to certification.”

READ MORE:**Highlights from the latest batch of January 6th Select Committee transcripts**

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over the last few weeks, I've been talking about how Elon Musk's control of Twitter posed a severe threat

 to independent media outlets like Popular Information. Last Thursday morning,

I wrote, "How much longer will Popular Information survive on Twitter?"

Afterward, I thought to myself: Am I being overly dramatic?

On Thursday evening, Musk banned the accounts of several prominent journalists. The group of journalists who had their access revoked included reporters from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and independent journalists like myself — including Aaron Rupar, the author of the newsletter Public Notice.

The reality is that one of the most powerful communication platforms in the world — a platform where half of Popular Information's readers found out about this newsletter  — is now subject to the arbitrary decisions of a right-wing billionaire.

The chaos of the last few days underscores that Popular Information can no longer rely on the audience we've built on Twitter to drive its growth. If we want more people to read our groundbreaking accountability journalism, we need to invest in alternative growth strategies. You can make sure Popular Information survives and thrives in this brave new world by upgrading to a paid subscription:

Musk falsely claimed that the banned journalists had revealed his real-time location, endangering his safety. In truth, several of the banned journalists covered Musk's decision to ban accounts that were using public information to track the location of his private jet. Last month, Musk said his decision to allow the account to remain on Twitter was an example of his commitment to free speech.

Other banned journalists, including Business Insider's Linette Lopez and the Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz, do not have any apparent connection to the jet accounts. They appear to be banned because Musk doesn't like them.

Some of these accounts have had their accounts restored. And some of the accounts that were restored were then banned again. The arbitrary nature of the bans appears calculated to have a chilling effect on journalists. The message being sent is that if you anger Musk your privileges will be revoked. Popular Information will not be cowed by this kind of bullying.

To make sense of all this, today's edition features an interview with Joan Donovan, the Research Director at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. Donovan is one of the world's foremost experts on these issues. I hope you find our discussion as illuminating as I did.

— Judd

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The Twitter dumpster fire, explained

This interview with Joan Donovan, Research Director at Harvard's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, has been edited and condensed for clarity.

LEGUM: Many readers of Popular Information are Twitter users. How should intelligent news consumers think about the chaos on Twitter since Musk took over?

DONOVAN: In a Twitter Spaces a few weeks ago, when asked why he purchased Twitter, [Musk] said first that he was tired of seeing Jack Dorsey have all the power. In a follow-up question, he said simply that he wanted that power. So, as an average news consumer, I think it's important to remember that the context in which you get your news — the ownership model, the business model —  matters.

The quality is going to either increase or decrease based on the leadership at Twitter or another social media corporation. It's going to affect their decisions about what news is and it is going to affect distribution of that content. And so for everyday folks that are using platforms and are trying to make assessments about what news is reputable, it's going to become more and more difficult on Twitter to discern that.

If Musk is at the helm and is deciding on content moderation personally, what does that mean for the news consumer? They are now going to have to sort through lots of rumor and gossip and misinformation in order to find accurate accounts. And so it's gonna be a really difficult thing going forward.

LEGUM: As a producer of news, I'm struggling with my own relationship with Twitter. On the one hand, I don't want my continued presence on Twitter to be seen as validation or minimization of Musk's actions. On the other hand, it's hard to abandon my largest platform to publicize our work, which I've been building since 2008. How would you balance these issues?

DONOVAN: It's difficult. Twitter is an important communication infrastructure because of exactly what you describe — the legacy networks that are built into Twitter. I got on Twitter in 2010. It was fascinating to me how quickly Twitter was adopted by activists. I watched as Occupy Wall Street and other protest movements learned how to use this technology.

Journalists were late to the party. They were one of the next set of users, after techies and activists. They joined not just to share their articles, but to talk to one another and to do news gathering. And so if we think about the last decade of Twitter, it took a lot of years to build camaraderie and affiliation. And so the idea that you would just walk away, I think, for many of us, just doesn't feel right. 

One of the things that I've learned studying the media ecosystem of new media startups or media organizations that primarily run newsletters or have smaller audiences, is that Twitter is integral for driving traffic for the recruitment of new audiences. The older, more legacy news organizations, their traffic is mostly driven by Facebook. So certain news organizations are going to be able to abandon Twitter at their leisure, without suffering the same kind of repercussions as smaller or newer media organizations.

People don't just go on Twitter and are uncritical news consumers, they're thinking quite a bit about what it is that they value about news organizations and who they're going to follow and who they're going to share. Twitter is integral for new media organizations that are looking to reach new audiences.

LEGUM: Given the current level of chaos, can Twitter survive over the long term?

DONOVAN: I think one of the things that brings people back to platforms, particularly YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook, is their stability — they're going to work the same way every time. We see this anytime there's a [user interface] update, and people revile the fact that the buttons aren't where they used to be, and that the font has changed. So, people don't like change, users don't like change. They like things to work the way they work.

Integrating changes into a platform is usually a very, very thoughtful, and deeply deliberated process. One of the unintended consequences of doing so much disruption at once essentially leaves room open for competitors to give into the mix and offer up a different product that people may adopt. So, you see a lot of people not leaving Twitter, but trying out other platforms like Post or Mastodon, or going back to Reddit or Tumblr.

People leave platforms because they don't feel as if they can trust the management of the platform. And by and large, people leave platforms because some other technology comes along that just does the work better. And so that's why over years people left MySpace for Friendster [and] left Friendster for Facebook.

People want less bullshit when it comes to talking about political issues. I think there could be a successful rival to Twitter, which wouldn't necessarily replace Twitter, but would be a place where people could get their news and journalism in a way that feels much more satisfying and effective.

LEGUM: Another thing Musk has done since taking over Twitter is selectively release some of the company's internal communications. He says this is an effort to bring transparency and calls this information the "Twitter Files." What do you make of that?

DONOVAN: I don't think Musk really understands the full extent of the unintended consequences of what he's doing. Everyday users now realize that anything that is said across the platform is potentially fodder for some kind of leak. Now, most people aren't DMing trade secrets or newsworthy information, but some people are.

It's hard to tell what's going on here, other than Musk has picked a couple of ideologically friendly content creators to selectively leak internal communications and shape the media narrative around them in such a way as to make it seem like former Twitter executives were ignoring child exploitation material in an effort to root out political speech that they didn't like.

And that kind of pedo-baiting behavior that we've seen in the past be so successful with QAnon as well as Musk’s allegations against the man who was trying to save those children in the cave. This kind of pedo-baiting is really, really dangerous because it does lead to swarming behavior online as well as face-to-face confrontations.

LEGUM: I think people are understanding there are a lot of problems with the current structure of social media. You've talked about "data portability" and "interoperability" as potential solutions. Can you explain what those terms mean and how they might make social media better.

DONOVAN: There is a simple way to understand these very jargonistic words like interoperability and data portability. If you are old enough, you remember what it was like to switch your phone company. It used to be that if you switched your phone company, you lost your phone number. That was so onerous and so confusing and required so much effort, that many people didn't switch companies. They experienced this kind of lock, because of the failure of our phone numbers to be interoperable. And so there was legislation passed that said your phone number can move from one company to another. That really opened things up, created a lot of new businesses, and fostered innovation.

And so there are bills by Senator Mark Warner [D-VA] and others that would try to bring the same principles to social media. What would you need to be able to take your network from one platform to another platform? And how should that be structured so that it's very easy to move your data from one place to another, to move your posts from one place to another? And what is it going to take in terms of regulation, so that we can innovate on these platforms, and that you can have many different apps that connect you to the same people in different places?

These are not new ideas at all. These are really fundamental ideas from the heyday before social media. Internet activists were obsessed with this other really jargony word called decentralization, which is to say that the idea of the early web was that anyone, anywhere at anytime, as long as they had a web connection, could start up a website. They could have a little place online where they put their ideas, their e-commerce, or their blog.

Social media really centralized a lot of the ways in which we discover and connect with one another. And in the same instant social media centralized advertising, which makes it so that 90% of the rest of the web doesn't get advertising revenue, because most advertisers are focused on the conduit through which people discover content, like Google, Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.

Legislation is going to be required to change this so that we can have more innovation. We haven't really innovated in the social media space in quite a while. There hasn't really been a lot of new things out there. And so part of this has to do with the fact that people can't move their network. One of the things that we need to do is to incentivize more innovation. The way to do that, though, is to give people more control over their data.

===

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Walmart CEO Doug McMillon announced during an interview on CNBC last week that the retailer may have to raise prices or close stores due to insufficiently aggressive prosecution of retail theft. McMillon claimed that, as a result of lenient sentences, theft at Walmart is “higher than what it has historically been.” During the interview, McMillon does not disclose how much merchandise Walmart is losing to shoplifting or how that compares to previous years.

Walmart, the nation’s largest retailer, racked up $559.2 billion in revenue last year. So far this year, the company has made $15 billion in profits. Last quarter alone, Walmart recorded $152.8 billion in sales, nearly a 9% increase from the previous year. The purported spike in shoplifting at Walmart did not stop the company from announcing a new $20 billion share buyback plan last month. And McMillon is being paid as if the company is thriving. In 2021, he took home $22.574 million in total compensation — 1,078 times more than the median Walmart employee.

Publicly available data also contradicts McMillon’s claims. As Popular Information previously reported, the number of shoplifting offenses dropped 46 percent between 2019 and 2021, according to the FBI’s crime data explorer.

Of course, not all shoplifting incidents result in charges. But the National Retail Federation, a trade association that represents Walmart and other major retailers, found that "shrink" — an industry term for inventory losses from theft, damage, or administrative errors — declined between 2019 and 2021. In 2021, the average shrink rate was 1.4% of total retail sales. That means for every $100 in sales, an average of $1.40 in inventory was lost. Retail theft alone amounted to 0.5% of total retail sales, or $0.52 for every $100.

The average retail shrink in 2021 is the same as it was in 2015. The only difference is that shoplifting and external theft made up a slightly larger portion of the "shrink" in 2015 than it did in 2021.

Walmart isn’t the only company stoking fears of a shoplifting surge. Last year, Walgreens announced that it was closing five stores in the Bay Area due to the “scale of thefts.” Popular Information found that this claim, however, was not reflected in citywide crime data, which showed that in 2020 shoplifting had reached its lowest level since they began collecting data 45 years ago. Walgreens also said in 2019 that it planned to shutter 200 stores as a “cost-saving measure,” reported the San Francisco Chronicle. “[T]he timing of Walgreens’ decision led observers to wonder whether a $140 billion company was using an unsubstantiated narrative of unchecked shoplifting to obscure other possible factors in its decision,” wrote the San Francisco Chronicle.

Target CFO Michael Fiddelke told CNBC last month that theft rose “about 50% year over year.” The company told Winsight Grocery Business that it is working with legislators and law enforcement to address the “growing national problem” of retail theft. Similarly, last week, the former CEO of Home Depot, Bob Nardelli, described retail theft as an “epidemic” and said that shoplifting was “spreading faster than COVID.”

Despite the apocalyptic rhetoric, losses from shoplifting pale in comparison to the wages employers steal from employees each year. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that employerssteal roughly $15 billion annually from their employees from minimum wage violations alone. This figure, which excludes other common forms of wage theft like overtime violations, “exceeds the value of property crimes committed in the United States each year.”

Since 2000, Walmart has had to pay $1.5 billion in penalties for wage and hour violations, according to the Good Jobs First Violation Tracker.

Will more aggressive prosecution deter theft?

CNBC's Rebecca Quick, one of the hosts of Squawk Box, asked McMillon about "laws that have been changed." Specifically, Quick claims that there are new laws that provide "criminals won't be prosecuted below a certain level." McMillon accepted the premise of Quick's question, arguing the laws need to be "corrected."

But Quick's description of the law is inaccurate. States have not passed statutes legalizing theft. Rather, all states have a felony threshold for shoplifting. In Connecticut, shoplifting more than $200 in goods is a felony. In Texas, the threshold is $2,500. Misdemeanor theft, below the felony threshold, generally results in little to no jail time. Felony theft can result in years in prison.

Since 2000, at least 40 states have raised their felony theft thresholds. Walmart and other retailers have spent millions opposing these changes, arguing that raising the felony threshold will increase shoplifting. The data, however, does not support this claim.

A 2017 study by Pew Trusts found that "in the 30 states that raised their thresholds between 2000 and 2012, downward trends in property crime or larceny rates, which began in the early 1990s, continued without interruption." Further, the study found that "states that increased their thresholds reported roughly the same average decrease in crime as the 20 states that did not change their theft laws." Notably, the "amount of a state’s felony theft threshold—whether it is $500, $1,000, $2,000, or more—is not correlated with its property crime and larceny rates."

In 2010, South Carolina raised the threshold for felony theft from $1,000 to $2,000. Pew Trusts found that "since the law was implemented, the state’s property crime rate …continued to fall, dropping 15 percent in the three years after reform." Despite the higher threshold, "the value of goods reported stolen in the state…did not change, remaining about $200 on average."

Retailers were able to push through a harsh anti-shoplifting law, with no felony threshold, in Arizona. It resulted in a "man who robbed [a] Walmart of goods worth less than $10… facing two felony charges."

Why doesn't increasing the felony threshold increase shoplifting? Most shoplifters are not making a calculation about the potential legal consequences. Many are addicted to drugs and are willing to do anything to feed their addiction. Last month, Walmart proposed paying $3.1 billion to settle lawsuits alleging it "improperly filled prescriptions" for opioids, fueling an addiction epidemic.

===

In 2017, with Trump in the White House, Republicans in Congress passed a massive tax cut for corporations, reducing the basic corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. From there, corporations have an assortment of deductions and credits to reduce their tax bill further. Between 2018 and 2020, the three tax years following the corporate tax rate cut, "39 profitable corporations in the S&P 500 or Fortune 500 paid no federal income tax." Corporations that paid nothing in federal income taxes over those three years include Duke Energy, FedEx, and T-Mobile. 

In 2021, more of the nation's largest corporations, including AT&T, Charter Communications, and Dow Inc., are paying nothing in federal income taxes. Other highly profitable corporations are paying very low rates, including General Motors (0.2%), Ford (1%), Exxon Mobil (2.8%), Nike (5.9%), and Amazon (6.1%). While major corporations are paying these low rates, corporate profits are soaring to record highs.

To reduce the enormous cost of the 2017 tax cuts, the law made some technical changes to certain business tax deductions beginning in 2022. The most prominent change involved how businesses could deduct spending on research and development (R&D). Starting this year, businesses cannot deduct the full cost of R&D immediately. Instead, they must spread out the cost over five tax years, a process known as amortization. (A separate tax credit for R&D remains unchanged.)

This change in the R&D tax deductions was put in place by Republicans in Congress (no Democrats voted for the bill) and signed into law by Trump. The overall legislation was enthusiastically supported by corporate America.

But now, the same corporations that cheered the legislation are warning of "grave harm" if the change in how R&D spending goes into effect. A letter to Congressional leaders, signed by the CFOs of 178 companies, says that "the current playing field is tilted against the U.S., and every day this policy continues to be in place makes it harder for the U.S. to remain a global leader in innovation." Several signatories of the letter represent corporations that have paid no income taxes in recent years.

Giving these corporations what they want will cost the federal government $131.3 billion over 10 years. But there is little evidence that the R&D tax deduction meaningfully increases R&D spending or useful innovation. Rather, "[e]vidence suggests that a significant portion of increased R&D spending may be driven by reclassification of existing activity." A 2019 paper in the Journal of Accounting and Public Policy found "found that creative categorization of some corporate spending as qualified R&D expenses can be an effective tax avoidance technique for companies to use."

While corporations are arguing that the immediate deduction of R&D expenditures is necessary to incentivize R&D spending, they are also urging Congress to make the change retroactive. They want the federal government to refund $29.1 billion in estimated taxes corporations paid this year. Since this R&D spending has already occurred, it is not an incentive but a corporate giveaway.

“We’re hoping, again, [that] we’re going to get a tax law change here at the end of the year with tax extenders which, as you know, will give us a refund of the $1.5 billion that we’ve already paid,” Raytheon CEO Gregory Hayes said during an earnings call last month. Raytheon had $3.9 billion in profits in 2021. It is projecting higher sales and profits for 2022.

Last week, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — which represents virtually every major corporation in the United States —  listed its legislative priorities for the remainder of the year. The extension of immediate deduction of corporate R&D spending is prominently featured.The group claims that allowing amortization to take effect "would increase the cost of doing business for American companies at a time when they are suffering persistent, record-high inflation." But large American companies that benefit from favorable tax treatment of R&D spending are not "suffering" from inflation. Rather, they are enjoying record profitability.

Corporations versus kids

The American Rescue Act, passed in March 2021, expanded the child tax credit. It increased the amount of the deduction, made it fully refundable regardless of income, and provided it as a monthly benefit instead of forcing families to wait for a tax refund.

The expanded child tax credit kept 3.7 million children out of poverty. The monthly payments were spent "on basic household needs and children's essentials: the most common item is food." After two months of payments, "2 million fewer adults report[ed] that their children, specifically, did not have enough to eat." Overall, child poverty rates were cut in half to the lowest level on record.

The child tax credit has traditionally "enjoyed bipartisan support." But many Republicans in Congress turned against expanding the credit after Biden embraced it. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce specifically argued against extending the expanded child tax credit, saying it was concerned about "large amounts of transfer payments that are not connected to work." That argument won the day, plunging millions of kids back into poverty.

Earlier this month, a group of 58 progressive members of Congress wrote leadership and urged them not to extend full deduction of corporate R&D spending without also helping families. The signatories describe the change to how R&D spending is deducted as "one of the few provisions that helped level the playing field by increasing corporate taxes." They noted that Biden's original Build Back Better proposal included a 4-year delay of changes to R&D deductions. But that delay was "included as part of a comprehensive framework that provided major economic and tax-related support for working families while pursuing historic advances in the longstanding Democratic priority to make the wealthy and large corporations finally pay their fair share in taxes."

A separate letter by 51 centrist Democrats to Democratic leadership claims allowing the change to R&D expensing to go into effect "will hurt U.S. economic competitiveness [and] stifle the innovation that has powered our economy." But this group also urged leadership to pair any change to R&D expensing with an extension of "the enhanced [child tax credit] so American families and children have the resources and opportunities to flourish."

===

yahoo mail 11 22

exposed the GOP operatives behind a phony environmental group. The group was running millions in ads trying to kill Biden's latest climate legislation. After Popular Information's published its report, the ad campaign immediately stopped.

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2. Uncovered a damning brochure, full of false promises, handed to the migrants DeSantis sent to Martha's Vineyard. Days after the Popular Information report, the brochure was cited in a class action lawsuit filed against DeSantis and his accomplices.

...former U.S. President Donald Trump and Yasir al-Rumayyan, head of the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia (Photo by Cliff Hawkins/Getty Images)

On Tuesday night, Trump announced he was running for president for the third time. The coverage of his announcement was broadly critical, focusing on the poor results of the candidates he endorsed in the 2022 midterms. Reports also noted some other issues complicating Trump's run, including his role in fomenting an insurrection and the federal criminal investigation into his handling of classified documents.

These stories virtually ignored one of the most significant developments since Trump left the White House: his expanding financial relationship with Saudi Arabia. Since Trump left office, entities controlled by the Saudi government, a repressive regime responsible for the murder of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi, have sent billions to Trump and his family members.

Trump's candidacy for president raises the prospect of a major party nominee that is on the payroll of a foreign government.

The Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF) has spent billions creating LIV, a new golf tour. Two of LIV's eight tournaments in 2022 were held at Trump-owned golf courses, including the season-ending championship at Trump Doral in Florida. At one event, Trump participated in the pro-am tournament with two of LIV's highest-profile players — Dustin Johnson and Bryson DeChambeau — and Yasir Al-Rumayyan, the governor of PIF.

PIF also funds the AramcoTeam Series on the Ladies European Tour. In October 2022, the series held an event at Trump's Ferry Point Golf Course in New York. Another LIV event will reportedly be held at Trump's golf course in Virginia in May 2023. The tournaments at Trump's courses doubled as political events, with right-wing luminaries like Tucker Carlson and Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in attendance.[twt vid]

these Saudi-financed tournaments were a critical injection of money and exposure for Trump's courses. The PGA Tour ended its annual tournament at Trump Doral in 2017 and moved 2022 PGA Championship from Trump Bedminister in New Jersey after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

The Saudis, through PIF, paid Trump an undisclosed sum for the use of his courses. Trump, for his part, was very happy about the deal. "It’s big time and it’s big-time money," Trump said in October. "It’s unlimited money. They love golf, and the Saudis have done a fantastic job." Trump also casually dismissed Saudi Arabia's record of human rights abuses. "We have human rights issues in this country, too," Trump said. 

Due to the widespread perception that LIV is an effort to"sports wash" Saudi Arabia's reputation, LIV has struggled to find a TV network willing to broadcast its tournaments. In August, the Sports Business Journal reported that Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was making calls "to try to help the controversial Saudi-backed LIV Golf tour secure a media-rights deal." Kushner reportedly "called one of the top execs at Paramount, which owns CBS, to try to jump-start negotiations."

The financial dependence of Trump and his family on Saudi Arabia extends far beyond LIV.

The $2 billion payback

After leaving the White House, Kushner sought investors for a $7 billion private equity fund. Kushner had no prior experience managing private equity. Prior to entering the White House, his most significant business experience was nearly bankrupting his family real estate company by purchasing an aging office building in New York for $1.8 billion.

Kushner pitched the Saudi PIF. The committee at the PIF responsible for vetting investments recommended rejecting Kushner. An internal document, published by the New York Times, summarized the objections:

[O]bjections included: “the inexperience of the Affinity Fund management”; the possibility that the kingdom would be responsible for “the bulk of the investment and risk”; due diligence on the fledgling firm’s operations that found them “unsatisfactory in all aspects”; a proposed asset management fee that “seems excessive”; and “public relations risks” from Mr. Kushner’s prior role as a senior adviser to his father-in-law, former President Donald J. Trump, according to minutes of the panel’s meeting last June 30.

The full board of PIF, led by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, overruled the committee's recommendation and decided to invest $2 billion. Under the deal, Kushner will receive a $25 million annual management fee, plus a percentage of any profits.

Some members of the PIF board recommended reducing the size of the investment to limit the risk. But that proposal was rejected because the purpose of the investment, according to internal documents, was "to form a strategic relationship with the Affinity Partners Fund and its founder, Jared Kushner." Making a smaller investment,  "may negatively or fundamentally affect the framework of the agreed strategic and commercial relationship."

Ivanka Trump did not attend her father's campaign announcement at Mar-a-Lago. Afterward, she released a statement, saying she is prioritizing "my young children and the private life we are creating as a family." She said that she will no longer "be involved in politics." Kushner, Ivanka's husband, was in attendance.

Another Trump ally, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, started his own private equity fund and raised $2.5 billion, including a large investment by PIF. Mnuchin was "one of the first Western government officials to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, chair of the [PIF], in the wake of the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi."

Branding a $1.6 billion real estate development

Earlier this week, Trump "struck a deal with a Saudi-based real estate company to license its name to a housing and golf complex that will be built in Oman." The agreement was made "with Dar Al Arkan, one of Saudi Arabia’s largest real estate companies, for the project." Under the arrangement, Trump will receive "a cut of condo sales or golf course revenue in exchange for allowing its name to be used." The proceeds could be considerable since the project is estimated to cost $1.6 billion and "will include an estimated 3,500 residential units, luxury retail and 450 rooms at the hotels."

While Dar Al Arkan is technically a private company, it is closely associated with the Saudi government. The first page of its annual report features the Saudi King and Crown Prince. Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen, called the arrangement "another in a series of sweetheart deals from the Saudi government to the Trump family."

---

shortly after he took office, President Biden announced a goal of building 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind by 2030, enough clean energy to power 10 million homes. For the administration, the offshore wind target was a part of a larger strategy of reducing carbon pollution and putting the country on track for net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. But, like many clean energy plans, this one was met with immediate resistance.

In August 2021, CBS News reported that Nantucket Residents Against Turbines — or ACK Rats — launched a lawsuit against the administration's offshore wind plans. The Massachusetts-based resident group argued that offshore wind development “poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.”

A few months later, a resident group in New Jersey launched another lawsuit against the Biden administration. Bob Stern, president of Save Long Beach Island, told Reuters that he and his fellow residents worried that the wind turbines would destroy their local tourism economy.

Within a year of announcing the goal, the Biden administration faced lawsuits from resident groups in every coastal state from Maine to North Carolina. Some groups sued over endangered whales. Others argued that the turbines would hurt their property values or the local fishing industry.

If you only read the news stories about these lawsuits, you might think this was yet another example of wealthy residents blocking clean energy development. Or you might see a familiar story of environmentalists getting in the way of environmental progress. But you’d be missing the most important part of the story. Nearly every story neglects to mention these groups are being funded by a far-right think tank that receives funding from fossil fuel companies and billionaires.

Who’s behind the offshore wind lawsuits?

According to their website, Protect Our Coast NJ — one of the groups opposing Biden’s offshore wind plans — is a group of “residents, homeowners, business owners, fishermen and visitors of the New Jersey coastal communities.” Media reports accept this description at face value.

In May 2022, Ashbury Park Press — the third largest newspaper in New Jersey — ran a story about Protect Our Coast NJ with the headline, “Could offshore wind turbines blow away Long Beach Island tourism?” The story positions Protect Our Coast NJ as a group of residents and features many of the talking points and studies on the nonprofit’s website:

Ric Bertsch, an Ocean City resident and member of the group Protect Our Coast NJ, which opposes the wind projects as they are currently designed, said he worries about the impacts to communities like his own.

He said the county will suffer the consequences of New Jersey's new experiment with offshore wind turbines, which will harm the tourist experience and block large swaths of ocean from commercial fishing

"The only brand (in Ocean City) that we have to offer the world is our old-fashioned values, our quiet, our peaceful place to be," said Suzanne Hornick, also of Ocean City and leading member of Protect Our Coast NJ. "This (wind turbine project) really screws with our brand."

As of this writing, the “Donate” button on the Protect Our Coast NJ website redirects to a PayPal link that reads “Donate to Caesar Rodney Institute.”

Caesar Rodney Institute (CRI)is one of more than 50 think tanks in the State Policy Network (SPN). As The Intercept’s Lee Fang reported, CRI receives funding from fossil fuel trade groups like the American Fuel & Petrochemical Association. The think tank also receives funding from Donors Trust, the “dark money ATM of the conservative movement.”

In September 2021, CRI’s David Stevenson — a former member of President Trump’s EPA transition team —  held a press conference in front of the Massachusetts State House where he announced a legal fund for groups fighting Biden’s offshore wind plans. By that point, Stevenson had raised $75,000 from his network of donors, and said he hoped to raise $500,000 for the effort. 

When asked by E&E’s Ben Storrow who was funding the campaign, Stevenson said, “So far there is no Koch money, not that we wouldn’t take it.”

CRI’s efforts quickly attracted the attention of much larger conservative groups like theHeartland Institute and Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT). In September 2022, one year after the press conference, both organizations announced a partnership with CRI to sue an offshore wind project in Virginia.

According to the Union for Concerned Scientists, the Heartland Institute and CFACT have both received about $500,000 in funding from ExxonMobil. The Heartland Institute has been called “a leading force in climate change denial.” Media Matters for America named CFACT Founder Marc Morano its climate denier of the year in 2012. Marano, who began his career working for Rush Limbaugh, has said climate scientists “deserve to be publicly flogged.”

In a press release, CFACT President Craig Rucker said, “We are not only very concerned about the future of the right whale, which extensively uses the ocean waters affected by the wind-power project, but also concerned as to how [the federal government] will address the fact that this project, despite its alleged benefits regarding carbon dioxide and climate change, will actually cause the release of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than it will consume.” This, like most of CFACT’s statements about climate change, is false.

Reporters consistently tell a misleading story

None of these connections to the country’s infamous climate denial network are mentioned in the Ashbury Park Press news story about Protect Our Coast NJ. And the local New Jersey newspaper isn’t alone. According to a Popular Information analysis, 11 media outlets have covered Protect Our Coast NJ. None of them mention CRI, its donors, or the legal fund.

Popular Information found that reporters routinely failed to mention connections to CRI when writing about Save Our Beach View, Save Long Beach Island, and Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, three of the other resident groups in the coalition. Instead, these articles spread many of the resident groups’ misleading claims about clean energy.

In January, Reuters wrote a story about Save Long Beach Island’s lawsuit against the federal government. The article did not mention the group's ties to CRI.

Bob Stern, president of Save Long Beach Island, told Reuters that they are concerned by the aesthetic impacts of the turbines, and potential lost tourism due to their interference with Long Beach Island's current unobstructed seascape. The group says tourism is the community's "economic lifeblood."

In 2019, researchers at the University of Rhode Island published a paper analyzing the impacts of offshore wind farms on tourism. They used empirical data based on the United States’ only offshore wind farm off the coast of Block Island, Rhode Island. The researchers concluded that the wind farm resulted in more tourism, not less. This study isn’t mentioned in the Reuters story. 

Another frequent concern mentioned by resident groups is the risk to endangered species. CBS covered this last year when they wrote:

The "ACK Residents Against Turbines" who filed the lawsuit said the proposed Vineyard Wind project poses a threat to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale.

Jessica Redfern, a senior scientist at Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, told Cape Cod Times that the greatest threat to the North Atlantic Right Whale’s continued existence “comes from collision with vessels and entanglement in fishing gear, particularly lobster pot buoy lines.” She added, “Another big factor is climate change and one of the ways we can minimize that is adopting clean energy (policies) and offshore wind is a great source of that.” She said she had never heard of Save Long Beach Island. 

In addition to misleading readers, this poor coverage creates more opposition to offshore wind projects and funnels local residents to the nonprofits’ websites and Facebook pages, which routinely share misinformation about clean energy.

Decarbonizing America’s electric grid and economy will require support from people in every community in the country. But, letting fossil fuel companies and climate deniers control the narrative is a sure way to turn communities of supporters into groups of passionate opponents.

Rebecca Crosby contributed additional research for this report.

A guest post by

Michael Thomas I write a newsletter about climate change. I'm currently working on a series about the barriers to clean energy adoption. Previously I wrote for publications like FastCompany, The Atlantic, and Quartz.

===

https://popular.info/p/a-far-right-website-created-36-days

no lnx pix

A far-right website created 36 days ago is more popular on Facebook than the Washington Post

Judd Legum

Feb 24

Brandon Gill "provides strategic marketing direction for Conservative Brief," the right-wing website whose underhanded tactics were exposed in yesterday's Popular Information. But he is also the founder and editor of his own website, DC Enquirer.

The DC Enquirerwebsite was registered on January 8, 2022. The first article was posted on January 19, 2022 — just 36 days ago. The site is so new that you can't find it by Googling its name.

The content is unremarkable, aggregated pieces designed to push the buttons of the right. Recent headlines include "Republican Party Ditches RINO Views in Favor Pro-Trump Populism, Now Starting to Win Over Hispanic Voters" and "Chilling New Meme Shows Us The Future The Left Wants and It’s Devastating."

But in just over a month, the DC Enquirer has become more popular on Facebook than the Washington Post. Its rapid success on Facebook is the result of an audacious scheme to manipulate the Facebook algorithm.

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Brandon Gill is the husband of right-wing pundit and author Danielle D'Souza Gill and the son-in-law of conservative polemicist Dinesh D'Souza. Both D'Souza and D'Souza Gill frequently post content from DC Enquirer.

The success of the site, however, is not dependent on Gill's relatives. Rather, there is an extensive network of Facebook pages that are centrally controlled. They purport to be independent of DC Enquirer and have names like America First ("We are an independent group of patriotic Americans who deeply love this great country"), Keep Texas Red ("We are an independent group of concerned Texans who want to help keep Texas from flipping blue"), and Conservative Americans ("We are conservative Americans who love the America we grew up in").

But after DC Enquirer publishes an article, all of these "independent" Facebook pages post the link in unison. Here is what happened after DC Enquirer published "Freedom Convoy on the Verge of Victory as Multiple Canadian Provinces Announce an End to Restrictions" on February 9.

Many of these pages post this link, with the same message, within seconds of each other.

Facebook has a "Page transparency" box which is supposed to reveal the true owner of each page. Yesterday, the Facebook pages in the DC Enquirer network were listed as owned by either Defending Freedom LLC or Defending Liberty LLC. These LLCs both have the same address in Wyoming and the same phone number. (A message was not returned.) But neither is officially linked to the DC Enquirer, which, according to its website, is owned by The Boswell Project LLC.

(After Popular Information began reporting this story and contacted Facebook for comment, the owners of all the pages were changed to The Boswell Project LLC.)

The coordinated posting of the DC Enquirer articles by these Facebook pages has made the site remarkably popular. According to Crowdtangle, an social media analytics service owned by Facebook, links to the DC Enquirer attracted 2.19 million Facebook engagements (a combination of likes, reactions, comments, and shares) in the 10 days ending February 23. In the same time period, links to the Washington Post, an organization that has existed since 1877 and employs over 1000 journalists, had 1.49 million engagements. (Yesterday's piece on the Conservative Brief relied on data from the independent social media analytics service NewsWhip. But DC Enquirer is so new that NewsWhip hasn't started tracking it yet.)

All of this is supposed to be against the rules. Facebook prohibits "coordinated inauthentic behavior," which it defines as when "groups of pages or people work together to mislead others about who they are or what they are doing." This appears to be exactly what the network propping up the DC Enquirer is doing.

Facebook and the DC Enquirer did not respond to a request for comment.

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How did the DC Enquirer gain control over so many large Facebook pages?

The network of Facebook pages has turned the DC Enquirer into a major force in a very short period of time. But how did the DC Equirer gain control of these pages? It appears it built them from scratch.

Brandon Gill started his Facebook page on November 6, 2021, and he already has 1,077,467  This is pretty impressive for someone with no significant public profile. Gill's Twitter account, which he started in January 2022, has 55 followers. Most of Gill's posts are screenshots of his Twitter account or links to DC Enquirer.

Gill, however, was able to build up his page by running Facebook ads like this one.

According to Facebook's ad database, Gill spent between $66,000 and $83,000 running these kinds of ads. They appear to violate Facebook's prohibition on spam,which is defined as "content that is designed to deceive, or that attempts to mislead users, to increase viewership." Here, Gill makes it seem like Facebook users will be signing a petition or participating in a poll about removing Biden from office. Actually, they are simply following his Facebook page.

Gill also ran ads encouraging people to "tap the BIG thumbs up button" if they want to remove Kamala Harris from office, if want to remove Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez from office, or if they support Donald Trump. All of the pages in the network in the DC Enquirer network ran identical ads. 

These ads are deceptive and highly effective. They've allowed DC Enquirer to build up Facebook pages with large followings in a very short period of time. Red Wave, for example, was started on December 30, 2021, and already has over 650,000 followers.

D'Souza Gill has run the same ads, although her page has been active since 2013. The pages in the DC Enquirer network, including D'Souza Gill, have spent between $243,000 and $298,000 on Facebook these ads since last November.

Popular Information is an independent newsletter. For updates on this story and more accountability journalism, sign up free.

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346

State legislators passed abortion bans. These corporations sent checks.

The state of Texas did not wait for the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health to ban abortion. In May 2021, Texas enacted SB8, a ban…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

JUL 19

141

20

The billionaires buying the midterm elections

Are the 2022 midterm elections for sale? A handful of billionaires are trying to find out. Two primary super PACs seek to establish Republican…

JUDD LEGUM

JUL 18

146

46

The right-wing smear campaign against a doctor who helped a 10-year-old rape victim

On July 1, the Indianapolis Star reported that a 10-year-old rape victim was forced to travel from Ohio to Indiana to receive an abortion. The trip was…

JUDD LEGUM

JUL 14

249

44

Catholic Church spending big on anti-abortion constitutional amendment in Kansas

In Kansas, abortion is still legal. In 2019, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that "the Kansas Constitution Bill of Rights protects a woman's access to…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

JUL 13

119

29

Who broke capitalism?

I recently finished reading "The Man Who Broke Capitalism," a new book by New York Times business reporter David Gelles. The book describes how Jack…

JUDD LEGUM

JUL 12

199

35

These corporations wrote 6-figure checks to elect governors who will ban abortion

The Supreme Court's decision last month in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health ended the constitutional right to an abortion. But for millions of women…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

JUL 11

124

5

UPDATE: Tinder and Match end donations to Republican Attorneys General

On June 27, Popular Information reported that Match Group, which operates Match, Tinder, Hinge, OK Cupid, and other popular dating sites, had donated…

JUDD LEGUM

JUL 8

164

24

Behind the curtain of Wells Fargo's corporate PAC

Donations made by corporate PACs must be disclosed publicly. But corporations are generally tight-lipped about why they donate to certain politicians…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 30

154

29

Trump's criminal culpability

On Tuesday, Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, delivered extraordinary testimony to the House Select Committee…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 29

152

31

Ron Johnson lied

Text messages released by the January 6 Committee last week revealed that Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) tried to deliver a list of fake electors directly…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 28

138

24

The hypocrisy of abortion as a corporate perk

In response to the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, which invalidated the constitutional right to an abortion that was in…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 27

142

14

Ron Johnson tried to subvert democracy. These corporations are backing his reelection.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) was directly involved in the last-ditch effort to subvert the 2020 presidential election, according to text messages released…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 23

181

23

UPDATE: Pepsi responds

Yesterday, Popular Information initially reported that Pepsi was one of several sponsors of the 2022 Texas Republican Party convention. The convention…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 22

314

57

The corporations backing the Texas Republican Party

The Texas Republican Party is one of the largest and most influential state parties in the nation. But it is also among the most radical. Successful…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 21

182

31

Popular Information x Oxford (Reader Survey)

Popular Information has teamed up with the Oxford Internet Institute to create a reader survey. It's completely anonymous, and the data will be shared…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 17

87

1

Exposing hypocrites

Here are a few highlights from Popular Information's reporting over the last month: 1. Popular Information exposed the hypocrisy of 25 rainbow-f…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 16

103

88

Starbucks versus Gen Z

Last weekend, during an interview with The New York Times, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, said he believes employees at Starbucks' stores are pushing for…

JUDD LEGUM AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

JUN 15

204

31

Drunk Giuliani

In a hearing Monday morning, the January 6 Committee laid out an extraordinary scene in the White House as the results came in on Election Night in…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 14

208

35

Crypto comes to Washington

Last week, Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) made a joint appearance on CNBC to discuss their bipartisan bill regulating the…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 13

118

25

The multi-trillion dollar greenwashing industry

In the last few years, trillions of dollars have flowed into stock funds that are focused on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues. These…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 9

144

17

Of, by, and for the billionaires

Two weeks after a gunman murdered 21 people at a Texas elementary school, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) announced an investigation to "protect…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

JUN 8

135

12

How CEOs cashed in on 2021

2021 should have been a banner year for American workers. Gross Domestic Product soared at a 5.7% annual rate, "the strongest pace since 1984." The…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 7

211

20

The NRA talks big on school safety, spends very little

The 2022 NRA convention was held just three days after the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 students and two…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 6

178

22

These 25 rainbow-flag waving companies donated $13 million to anti-gay politicians since 2021

June is Pride Month, and this year's celebration has particular resonance. Over the last year, anti-LGBTQ politicians have relentlessly targeted the…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

JUN 2

166

20

Social studies without social justice

By June 10, publishers of social studies textbooks are required to submit their materials to the Florida Department of Education for review. Textbooks…

JUDD LEGUM

JUN 1

168

27

Corporate Calvinball

Nearly 40,000 lawsuits have been filed against Johnson & Johnson (J&J), alleging that the company's baby powder causes cancer. The lawsuits claim that…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 31

209

26

5 facts about guns in America

On Tuesday, an 18-year-old crashed his truck, exchanged fire with police officers, entered an elementary school, and murdered 19 children and two…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 26

239

26

What happens when every patient is a suspect

Restrictions on abortions in Texas are interfering with the ability of women to get essential treatment for miscarriages. SB4, a Texas law passed last…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAY 25

146

32

The expensive and unscrupulous campaign to keep an anti-abortion Democrat in Congress

On September 24, 2021, the House of Representatives passed the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill to codify Roe v. Wade. The bill would preserve…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 24

125

18

Major cinema chain brings the Big Lie to theaters nationwide

More than 18 months after the 2020 presidential election, the Big Lie — the discredited claim that Trump won but was the victim of voter fraud — lives…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAY 23

208

24

Secrets and lies

In the last month, Popular Information exposed Ron DeSantis' lies about elementary school math textbooks (prompting the Florida Department of Ed…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 19

51

259

The man who could rig the 2024 election

Pennsylvania Republicans have nominated State Senator Doug Mastriano to be the next governor. Mastriano is one of the most radical gubernatorial…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 18

143

24

Supreme Court greenlights corruption

There are few meaningful limits remaining on money in politics. As a result, politics has become increasingly dominated by the wealthy. The average U.S…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 17

166

25

The right's embrace of a deadly racist conspiracy theory

The "great replacement theory" can be traced back at least to Theodore G. Bilbo (D-MS), the brazenly racist U.S. Senator who held office from 1935 to…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 16

147

37

The baby formula shortage and the twisted priorities of the American economy

Throughout the country, there is an acute shortage of baby formula that millions of families rely on to feed their children. According to research from…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAY 12

133

27

After Roe

In the coming weeks, Roe v. Wade is expected to be overturned and the constitutional right to abortion will be eliminated. If that happens, 22 states…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAY 11

117

16

Ron DeSantis' math textbook hoax

The Florida Department of Education issued an alarming press release on April 15: "Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students." The…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 10

196

19

PR giant advising corporate clients to stay silent on abortion rights

A massive public relations firm, Zeno, is privately advising its high-profile corporate clients to avoid commenting on the draft Supreme Court opinion…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 6

164

37

What corporations are saying about the end of constitutional protections for abortion

Corporations can play a critical role in pushing back against state action that undermines fundamental rights. In 2016, for example, the Georgia…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 5

140

17

These 13 corporations have spent $15 million supporting anti-abortion politicians since 2016

A draft Supreme Court opinion, published by Politico on Monday evening, would strike down Roe v. Wade — eliminating the constitutional protections for…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAY 4

172

16

The two flavors of Republican candidates in the 2022 primaries

There are two primary flavors of Republican candidates in 2022, and they are competing to be the Republican gubernatorial nominee in Georgia. The first…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 3

90

11

Elon Musk's China problem

"The expansion of shelter-in-place, or as we call it, forcibly imprisoning people in their homes… is, in my opinion, breaking people’s freedoms in ways…

JUDD LEGUM

MAY 2

160

11

Major corporations quietly funnel millions to national group behind regressive state laws

Republican state legislators across the country have embraced an aggressively regressive agenda, targeting the LGBTQ community, abortion access, voting…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

APR 28

114

16

Corporations get massive pandemic windfall, stiff workers

For most Americans, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a traumatic experience. Nearly 1 million Americans have died. Millions more lost their jobs. And…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 27

207

21

Musk is a "free speech absolutist" except when he's not

Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, bought Twitter yesterday for about $44 billion. "Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy," Musk…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 26

203

25

Toyota's second U-turn

Shortly after January 6, 2021, Toyota announced that it would reassess "our future PAC criteria" in light of "the horrific attack on the U.S. Capitol…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 25

220

14

UPDATES: Koch exits, DeSantis responds

For the last five weeks, Popular Information has reported extensively on Koch Industries, the corporation owned by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 22

245

80

Inside the "dangerous" math textbooks DeSantis claims would "indoctrinate students"

On April 15, the Florida Department of Education issued a dramatic press release: "Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students." In…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

APR 21

227

41

Passing the mic [CORRECTED]

Apologies for the multiple emails this morning. Due to a technical error, the previous version did not have a link to the discussion thread. — J…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 20

59

152

Inflation profiteering

There is no single cause for inflation, which reached an annual rate of 8.5% in March. That's the fastest increase in prices since 1981. There are…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 19

216

26

Koch-funded analyst raises doubts about Russian attacks on Ukrainian civilians

A foreign policy analyst with extensive ties to the non-profit network operated by Charles Koch publicly cast doubt about whether Russian forces are…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 18

147

43

Democratic groups stick with union-busting consulting firm

On April 1, workers at JFK8, Amazon’s largest warehouse in New York, won a historic vote to unionize, becoming the first Amazon union in the United…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

APR 14

89

15

How the Koch machine works

On April 6, Popular Information published a report on Stand Together, the influential non-profit organization run by right-wing billionaire Charles…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 13

226

46

The big payback

"I saved his ass. I was able to get Congress to leave him alone. I was able to get them to stop." That was Donald Trump bragging to Bob Woodward about…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 12

180

47

Political blackmail

Republicans in Florida and Washington, DC are vowing to seek retribution against Disney for belatedly opposing Florida's "Parental Rights in Education…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 11

142

17

Tennessee Republicans pushing to undermine same-sex marriage are backed by major corporations

A group of 24 Tennessee Republicans that introduced a bill to undermine same-sex marriage rights are financially backed by prominent corporations who…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

APR 7

117

14

EXCLUSIVE: Koch group says U.S. should deliver partial "victory" to Russia in Ukraine

In an internal email obtained exclusively by Popular Information, Stand Together, the influential non-profit group run by right-wing billionaire Charles…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 6

170

33

AT&T shareholders fight back

Popular Information has repeatedly documented how AT&T's political spending conflicts with the company's stated values. For example, AT&T publicly…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 5

187

27

New York is on the brink of historic climate action. One man stands in the way.

Most people think of cars and power plants as significant sources of greenhouse gas emissions. So if the world wants to combat climate change, we need…

JUDD LEGUM

APR 4

85

5

American paper company maintains lucrative business relationship with Russian government

More than a month after the Russian military began its assault on Ukraine, only a handful of American businesses have fully maintained their operations…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAR 31

79

8

It's your turn

This month, Popular Information broke the news that Koch Industries continues to operate in Russia (prompting an avalanche of national coverage),

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 30

67

338

When money is no object

The conventional wisdom is that the United States government is hopelessly divided — Republicans and Democrats can't reach a consensus on anything…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 29

148

22

Top corporate lobbying group shows its true colors on climate change

Corporations love to talk about what they are doing to combat climate change. In TV ads and sustainability reports, corporations tout their efforts to…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 28

108

19

These six corporations are financing an assault on reproductive rights in six states

By the end of June, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case challenging the constitutional right…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAR 24

116

20

UPDATE: Disney responds

On Tuesday, Popular Information reported on five states outside of Florida where Disney has operations — Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 23

125

16

Has Disney really changed?

Disney CEO Bob Chapek says he's a changed man. Just two weeks ago, in a March 7 memo to Disney staff, Chapek defended the company's decision to remain…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAR 22

106

10

You are (probably) paying for pro-Russian propaganda

The most powerful source of pro-Russian propaganda is not the Russian government. It's the #1 rated host on U.S. cable television: Fox News' Tucker…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 21

198

39

UPDATE: Koch Industries breaks silence

On Monday, Popular Information broke the news that Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, continued to business…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 17

283

25

As Koch Industries continues business in Russia, Koch-backed groups oppose sanctions

On Monday, Popular Information revealed that Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, was continuing to operate in…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAR 16

119

17

Decisions have consequences

A core component of President Biden's failed Build Back Better plan was the extension of the expanded child tax credit. The American Rescue Act, which…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 15

142

27

Koch Industries continues doing business in Russia

Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, has numerous ongoing business operations in Russia. Since Russia's…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 14

139

32

These companies are still doing business in Russia

Since Russia invaded Ukraine last month, there has been a mass exodus of companies from Russia. The pace of these withdrawals from Russia has…

JUDD LEGUM, REBECCA CROSBY, AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

MAR 10

115

18

AT&T breaks pledge, directly donates to Republican objectors

On January 11, 2021, five days after the attack on the United States Capitol, AT&T announced that it was suspending contributions to all 147 Republicans…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 9

95

28

The inside story of how Disney turned its back on the LGBTQ community

Disney is happy to profit off the LGBTQ community. For example, it serves as a host for Gay Days, "an Orlando gathering that generally attracts over…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

MAR 8

116

27

The audacity of oil

The American Petroleum Institute (API), the lobbying arm of the oil and gas industry, has intensified its efforts to exploit Russia's invasion of…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 7

176

33

Corporations speak out against Texas' attack on trans youth

Texas is taking aggressive action targeting trans youth and their families. It raises the prospect that children who receive medically appropriate care…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 3

85

18

UPDATE: Indiana's anti-CRT bill defeated

This year, Popular Information has reported extensively on legislation in Indiana that attempts to ban "Critical Race Theory" and related concepts in…

JUDD LEGUM

MAR 2

189

45

Fossil fuel companies are exploiting Russia's attack on Ukraine

For many people around the world, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is an unprovoked violation of international law and a humanitarian catastrophe. For…

JUDD LEGUM AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

MAR 1

94

8

Two members of Congress spoke at a white nationalist convention. These corporations are supporting their reelection.

Over the weekend, two members of Congress, Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ), addressed a white nationalist convention. A number of…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 28

122

23

A far-right website created 36 days ago is more popular on Facebook than the Washington Post

Brandon Gill "provides strategic marketing direction for Conservative Brief," the right-wing website whose underhanded tactics were exposed in…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 24

106

20

How an obscure far-right website with 3 employees dominates Facebook in 2022

Most people have probably never heard of the website Conservative Brief. It employs just three writers and it does not produce any original reporting…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 23

117

18

Florida representative proposes requiring schools to out LGBTQ kids to their parents — even if it puts them in danger

Florida's "Don't Say Gay" bill, which is scheduled for a floor vote in the Florida House today, would create a hostile environment for LGBTQ students…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 22

86

34

Florida politicians behind "Don't Say Gay" bill backed by corporations that claim to support LGBTQ rights

A bill advancing rapidly through the Florida legislature would prohibit many of the state's teachers from discussing "sexual orientation or gender…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

FEB 17

114

23

Tell me

So far this month, Popular Information exposed a top College Board executive who was pushing to limit instruction on race and history in classro…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 16

815

291

Zero credibility

Corporations want the public to know that they take the climate crisis seriously. Most major corporations have taken a public "climate pledge…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

FEB 15

90

14

Rite Aid, wrong crime

On January 25, actor and comedian Michael Rapaport posted a video of a man allegedly stealing condoms and shampoo from a Rite Aid on the Upper East Side…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 14

194

21

How GOP Attorneys General joined forces with RFK Jr. to spread vaccine misinformation

On Tuesday, Popular Information broke the news that the Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) accepted a $50,000 contribution from Children's…

JUDD LEGUM AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

FEB 10

79

11

UPDATE: College Board parts ways with top executive who wants to limit instruction about race and history

On Monday, Popular Information published a story revealing that a top executive with the College Board, Todd Huston, played a central role in advancing…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 9

223

46

Republican Attorneys General Association accepts illegal contribution from RFK Jr's anti-vax group

The Republican Attorneys General Association (RAGA) accepted an illegal $50,000 contribution from Children's Health Defense, a leading purveyor of…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 8

104

13

Top College Board executive advocates limiting instruction of race and history in classrooms

A top executive for the College Board is playing a central role in advancing legislation to "limit what teachers can say regarding race, history, and…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 7

129

31

What we learned from the first FEC deadline of 2022

This week brought the first FEC deadline of the year — and it was a doozy. Nearly every committee and campaign were required to file. Popular…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

FEB 3

74

8

Corporations send large donations to GOP group behind abortion bans and voter suppression

In 2021, Republican-controlled state legislatures imposed a bevy of radical policies on millions of Americans. This was especially pronounced in two…

JUDD LEGUM AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

FEB 2

116

18

How a new proposal to stop Trump from stealing the 2024 election could backfire

Donald Trump is acting like someone who is running for president, holding political rallies around the country. If Trump runs, he would be the favorite…

JUDD LEGUM

FEB 1

124

28

North Carolina superintendent abruptly removes MLK-themed novel from 10th grade class

An acclaimed MLK-themed novel was removed from a 10th-grade English class in North Carolina. Haywood County Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte told Popular…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 31

32

22

A strange meeting at the White House

On Wednesday, according to the official White House schedule, President Biden met "with private sector CEOs to discuss the ways his Build Back Better…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 27

143

27

UPDATE: Facing boycott calls, Pepsi defends donation to Texas Republican Party

On Monday, Popular Information published a report on corporations that donated to the Republicans who imposed a draconian abortion ban in Texas. The…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 26

330

40

2022: The year of the thought police

For years, people on the right have complained about the supposed left-wing assault on free speech. "We talk a lot on this show about the threat to free…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

JAN 25

140

44

After Texas Republicans imposed a draconian abortion ban, these corporations sent checks

On May 19, 2021, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) signed legislation banning virtually all abortions in Texas and creating a system of vigilante justice…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 24

111

27

Why aren't there enough hospital beds?

The Omicron variant appears somewhat less severe than previous strains of COVID-19, but it is still landing plenty of Americans — especially the…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 20

110

45

How to make Congress less corrupt

Under federal law, if a federal government employee owns stock in a company, the employee is prohibited from participating in any matter that may impact…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

JAN 19

108

21

Fire away

So far this month, Popular Information revealed the 7 corporations that have pledged not to support GOP objectors in 2022, exposed how Red Lobst…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 18

204

235

Martin Luther King Jr. said more than 35 words

Martin Luther King Jr. wrote several books, delivered hundreds of speeches and sermons, and produced a massive quantity of documents and correspondence…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 17

124

20

Hero strike

On March 31, 2020, Kroger, the nation's largest supermarket chain announced a $2 per hour pay increase for all frontline employees. Kroger called this…

JUDD LEGUM AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

JAN 13

104

26

The silence of 109 corporations who claimed to be champions of voting rights

President Biden traveled to Atlanta on Tuesday and made his most impassioned plea for federal legislation to protect voting rights. Critically, Biden…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

JAN 12

84

11

Author of anti-CRT bill tells teacher he should stay "impartial" on Nazism

In Indiana, State Senator Scott Baldwin (R) has introduced sweeping legislation that Baldwin says is designed to ban Critical Race Theory (CRT) and…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 11

81

37

Red Lobster workers say they are forced to work sick

Tens of thousands of people work at over 700 Red Lobster restaurants, serving jumbo fried shrimp, crab legs, and Cheddar Bay Biscuits. But, as the…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 10

85

23

Corporate lobbyists bite back

One year ago today a mob staged a violent riot at the U.S. Capitol, inspired by the lie that Joe Biden stole the 2020 presidential election. 147…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 6

113

11

The war on library books

In the coming months, you will hear a lot from right-wing politicians about the need to "empower parents" to have more influence over their children's…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 5

104

35

Seven major corporations pledge not to support GOP objectors in 2022

Following the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, dozens of corporations pledged to stop donating to 147 Republican members of Congress who voted…

JUDD LEGUM, REBECCA CROSBY, AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

JAN 4

110

20

The truth about corporate contributions to Republican objectors since January 6

According to media reports, most corporations have already forgotten about January 6, 2021, and resumed supporting Republicans who voted to overturn the…

JUDD LEGUM

JAN 3

100

26

The year in Popular Information

2021 was tough. But as difficult as this year has been, it has strengthened our belief that independent accountability journalism matters. Below, we've…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

DEC 30, 2021

72

20

Why more than half of Taco Bell workers are unvaccinated

In June, Taco Bell locations in California offered "a free seasoned beef Nacho Cheese Doritos® Locos Tacos" to anyone who provided proof of vaccination…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

DEC 21, 2021

88

25

DeSantis proposes legislation to let parents sue teachers who tell the truth about U.S. history

Last week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced the Stop WOKE Act, which is presented as an effort to ban Critical Race Theory (CRT) and "woke…

JUDD LEGUM

DEC 20, 2021

89

41

Say your piece

So far this month, Popular Information exposed Trump's new "media company" as a $10 billion mirage, revealed how right-wing activists in Tenness…

JUDD LEGUM

DEC 16, 2021

122

360

Amazon's moral collapse

On Saturday morning, Amazon founder and executive chairman Jeff Bezos had something on his mind that he needed to share with the world. He was extremely…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

DEC 15, 2021

112

18

PowerPoint to overthrow democracy tracks Trump's public statements

A 38-page PowerPoint that lays out a brazen plan to overthrow democracy landed in the inbox of former Trump Chief of Staff Mark Meadows on January 5…

JUDD LEGUM

DEC 14, 2021

49

23

Snap, crackle, profit

W.K. Kellogg, the founder of Kellogg's, was an innovator in more ways than one. He famously invented Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, and other popular…

JUDD LEGUM

DEC 13, 2021

103

10

Trump's Michigan allies are plotting to bypass the governor and impose new voting restrictions

Donald Trump lost Michigan by more than 150,000 votes in the 2020 presidential election. But the state still featured prominently in the false claims of…

JUDD LEGUM, REBECCA CROSBY, AND TESNIM ZEKERIA

DEC 9, 2021

64

17

How Realtors® are making it more difficult for students to learn about housing discrimination

For decades, people of color were systematically excluded from buying homes, contributing to an ongoing racial wealth gap. One group that historically…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

DEC 8, 2021

61

7

Trump's new media company is a $10 billion mirage

In October, former President Trump announced the creation of a new company, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). Its signature product is a new social…

JUDD LEGUM

DEC 7, 2021

101

22

New Hampshire bill would require teachers to put a positive spin on slavery

What is being promoted as an effort to stop Critical Race Theory (CRT) from indoctrinating K-12 students is actually a push to censure truthful…

JUDD LEGUM

DEC 6, 2021

80

25

Inflation exposed: The REAL reason prices are going up

A few weeks ago, Popular Information revealed how powerful corporations are driving inflation. Companies like Procter & Gamble and PepsiCo are not…

JUDD LEGUM

DEC 2, 2021

146

18

"Moms For Liberty" says book about MLK violates new law banning CRT in Tennessee

In May, Tennessee passed a law banning Critical Race Theory in K-12 schools. The state is already seeing the ugly consequences of the law. And things…

JUDD LEGUM

DEC 1, 2021

82

19

Olympic sponsors stay silent on Peng Shuai

On November 2, Peng Shuai, a Chinese professional tennis player who was once ranked #1 in the world in doubles, accused a powerful Chinese politician…

JUDD LEGUM

NOV 30, 2021

64

8

A tale of two thefts

In the United States, only certain types of theft are newsworthy. For example, on June 14, 2021, a reporter for KGO-TV in San Francisco tweeted a…

JUDD LEGUM

NOV 29, 2021

113

31

These corporations back the sponsors of an Ohio abortion ban that's more extreme than Texas

In September, Texas enacted the nation's most extreme abortion ban. Two months later, legislators in Ohio are pushing an abortion ban that goes even…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

NOV 23, 2021

62

14

The 43-year incarceration of Kevin Strickland

For the last 43 years, Kevin Strickland has been behind bars in Cameron, Missouri. Strickland, who was 18 at the time of his arrest, was convicted on…

JUDD LEGUM

NOV 22, 2021

70

15

The corporate war against child care

Corporations are intensifying their multi-million dollar lobbying campaign against the Build Back Better legislation (BBB). The Business Roundtable — a…

JUDD LEGUM

NOV 18, 2021

78

14

Your turn

So far this month, Popular Information has exposed a massive network of fake news sites weaponizing Critical Race Theory, revealed the hypocrisy…

JUDD LEGUM

NOV 17, 2021

233

440

GameStop revisited

In January, everyone was talking about GameStop. The video game retailer's stock skyrocketed from just over $3 in early 2020 to over $350 in January…

JUDD LEGUM

NOV 16, 2021

64

8

New North Dakota law can't be discussed in North Dakota schools

On November 8, North Dakota legislators introduced a bill banning Critical Race Theory (CRT) in K-12 schools. Less than a week later, North Dakota…

JUDD LEGUM

NOV 15, 2021

70

32

The truth about shoplifting in San Francisco

Is there an epidemic of shoplifting by "organized gangs'' in San Francisco? And does it prove that the state's efforts at criminal justice reform have…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

NOV 11, 2021

74

42

How concentrated corporate power makes inflation worse

Why are prices from everything from laundry detergent to potato chips to My Little Pony going up? Inflation is a complex phenomenon. Supply chain…

JUDD LEGUM

NOV 10, 2021

83

26

UPDATE: Republican lobbyists are "frustrated," push corporate PACs to resume contributions

It's been more than 10 months since a pro-Trump mob, inspired by Republican members who had pledged to vote to overturn the results of the presidential…

JUDD LEGUM AND REBECCA CROSBY

NOV 9, 2021

62

14

Right-wing operatives deploy massive network of fake local news sites to weaponize CRT

Last Tuesday night, Glenn Youngkin (R) was elected the next governor of Virginia. At 9:15 PM, Garrit Lansing, president of WinRed, the main online…

JUDD LEGUM, TESNIM ZEKERIA, AND REBECCA CROSBY

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