Veterans – Patriotism – Page 119

Five key takeaways from Donald Trump’s financial fraud case ruling

The Guardian

Five key takeaways from Donald Trump’s financial fraud case ruling

Lauren Aratani – September 26, 2023

<span>Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images</span> — Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

A New York judge ruled on Tuesday that Donald Trump committed financial fraud by overstating the value of his assets to broker deals and obtain financing.

The ruling is an acceleration of the case that the New York attorney general, Letitia James, has been building against Trump since 2019, that the former president fudged financial statements and inflated his net worth up to $2.2bn more than the actual figure.

In a dramatic step just days before the trial is set to start, New York supreme court justice Arthur Engoron issued a partial ruling largely agreeing with James. He also ordered the cancellation of New York business certificates of all companies related to Trump and his two sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, making it difficult for Trump to continue running his real estate business in the state.

A trial is still set to start 2 October, in which Engoron will decide whether Trump, his allies and his companies will have to pay the $250m in monetary damages James is asking for. Trump’s lawyers say they will appeal the judge’s ruling.

Here are five takeaways from Tuesday’s ruling:

1. A big win for Letitia James

Though the trial is technically not over, the ruling is a huge win for the New York attorney general, who started her investigation into the Trump Organization in 2019.

Over three years, her office interviewed 65 witnesses and reviewed “millions of pages of documents”. Trump was ultimately fined $110,000 for not complying with subpoenas for documents. When he eventually sat for a deposition, Trump told James that “the whole case is crazy” and that he created “the hottest brand in the world”.

The former president tried to sue James after she filed her lawsuit in September 2022, but Trump ended up dropping his lawsuit earlier this year. Trump has denied wrongdoing and has called the case a “witch-hunt”.

2. A bench trial will still take place, but it will be shorter

Engoron initially scheduled the trial to go from 2 October to 22 December. But his judgement on Tuesday will dramatically shorten the trial since he already ruled in agreement with James’s main case against Trump: that he and his allies wrote up “false and misleading” financial statements and that they used these doctored financial statements to conduct business transactions.

It is unclear how much shorter the trial will be after the ruling. It is a bench trial, meaning there will be no jury and the case will be decided solely by the judge.

3. Doing business in New York will be difficult for Trump, and his company could still face a $250m fine

Engoron ruled that the New York business certificates of the Trump Organization and other Trump subsidiaries listed in the suit will be cancelled. Certificates of companies owned by the named defendants, including Trump and his two sons, Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump, will also be cancelled.

The impact of this is still unclear, though it does not bode well for the Trump Organization, which has multiple major real estate holdings in New York City.

This means that his companies can no longer hold certificates that make them incorporated or set up as limited liability companies (LLCs) in the state. Engoron gave the Trumps 10 days to name three people who can oversee the dissolution of existing incorporated companies and LLCs in the Trumps’ name, including the Trump Organization.

James also asked Engoron to rule on monetary damages of up to $250m, which is how much the attorney general’s office believes the Trump Organization gained by issuing false and misleading financial statements. Engoron could also permanently bar Trump and his sons from serving as officers, which includes C-suite executive roles, of New York-based companies and place a five-year ban on any real estate acquisitions.

4. Trump is a real estate ‘genius’ only in a ‘fantasy world’

In pre-trial hearings before the ruling, Trump lawyer Christopher Kise told the judge that the former president is “an investment genius” and “probably one of the most successful real estate developers in the country”.

“President Trump is a master at finding value where others see nothing,” Kise told Engoron.

In his ruling, it is clear that Engoron sees things differently.

“In defendants’ world: rent-regulated apartments are worth the same as unregulated apartments; restricted land is worth the same as unrestricted land; restrictions can evaporate into thin air; a disclaimer by one party casting responsibility on another party exonerates the other party’s lies,” Engoron wrote.

“This is a fantasy world, not a real world.”

5. The ruling is just another legal woe that is teed up for Trump

Trump has been actively campaigning for the 2024 presidential election and is leading the polls among his peers in the Republican primaries. But his campaign may be interrupted by more trials set to take place next year in New York, Washington DC and Florida.

In January, Trump will be facing another trial around accusations of defamation from writer E Jean Carroll. Carroll is seeking damages of $10m. Trump has two trials scheduled for March: one around hush-money payments made to Stormy Daniels and a second in Washington around the January 6 Capitol insurrection. Then in May, Trump will have a trial in Florida for the withholding of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. Another trial over election meddling in Georgia has yet to be scheduled.

As much of a setback as Tuesday’s ruling may be for the former president, this may only be the beginning.

Floridians stunned by Citizens Insurance ‘depopulation’ letters

South Florida Sun Sentinel

Floridians stunned by Citizens Insurance ‘depopulation’ letters

Ron Hurtibise – September 25, 2023

Tens of thousands of customers of Florida’s state-owned Citizens Property Insurance Corp. are getting a stunning surprise in their mailboxes.

It’s a letter from Citizens’ “Depopulation Unit” stating their policies have been assumed by a private-market company.

Cause for celebration? Not if the private company’s estimated annual premium is higher than what the policyholder is paying Citizens.

Delores Smerkers, a Davie retiree, said her Citizens policy renewed in July for $5,523 — $650 more that what she paid last year. Less than two months later, in late August, she received a letter saying her coverage was being assumed by Safepoint Insurance Co.

The letter stated that her estimated cost to renew her Safepoint policy will be $6,650 — an increase of $1,127.

That’s a substantial price hike, but because it’s less than 20% above her Citizens premium, she is ineligible to reject the offer and stay with Citizens.

Smerkers says she doesn’t know how many more insurance price hikes she and her disabled husband can endure as they try to live out the remainder of their lives in the modest 1,750-square-foot villa they bought new in 1978.

“It’s a shame,” she said. “People on fixed incomes are hurting the most. We’re not rich. We worked like dogs all our lives. Now look at where we are at.”

More than 300,000 Citizens policyholders are getting letters stating that their policies have been selected for removal in October by one or more of five private-market companies.

Targeted policyholders are ineligible to remain with Citizens if their letter identifies a private company’s “estimated renewal premium” that’s less than 20% over Citizens’ estimated renewal premium for comparable coverage.

But if all estimated renewal premiums exceed 20% of Citizens’, the policyholder can opt to remain with Citizens by logging onto the company’s website or asking their insurance agent to make the selection for them.

Removal is automatic for those who don’t take action

October marks the first of two depopulation efforts. Another is scheduled in November.

Five companies have been approved to take 184,000 policies from Citizens in October: Florida Peninsula (up to 19,000 policies), Monarch (10,000), Safepoint (30,000), Slide (100,000) and Southern Oak (25,000).

Letters sent to selected policyholders state that the transfer will take place on Oct. 17 unless the policyholder selects another option by Oct. 5. But the Oct. 5 deadline was moved to Oct. 10 after a vendor handling the mail-outs fell behind, leaving some recipients with only a couple weeks to act.

Of 311,250 policyholders informed that they’ve been selected for takeout in October, 99,500 have so far elected to remain with Citizens, according to data provided by Citizens spokesman Michael Peltier. Just 9% — 28,750 — have selected a private company. And the majority, 183,000, have not yet registered a selection.

Anyone who fails to make a selection will automatically be transferred on Oct. 17 to the private company identified in their letter with the lowest premium, Peltier said.

Targeted policyholders don’t have to pay more now

Some policyholders who have received a depopulation letter say they were confused about the estimated renewal premiums identified in the letter.

The premiums are just estimates of the following year’s insurance costs and don’t have to be paid right away. Even if a policyholder accepts the transfer, the coverage remains in place at the current Citizens rate until the policy expires.

In Smerkers’ case, she won’t owe the new $6,650 premium until her Citizens policy is set to expire in July.

Deerfield Beach resident Jeff Torrey said it took a phone call to his agent to clarify that he didn’t owe more money immediately.

He received a letter in mid-September saying Slide was assuming his policy on Oct. 17 and that he was ineligible for Citizens because Slide’s estimated renewal premium was nearly $1,000 more but $185 under the 20% threshold.

“I thought come Oct. 17, I was going to have to pay more,” Tolley said in an interview. The agent told him “the letter is not very clear. It’s confusing.”

In addition, those estimates could change prior to the policy renewal date, and that could change policyholders’ eligibility to remain with Citizens.

Policyholders currently ineligible to remain with Citizens are advised to wait until 90 days before their policies are set to renew with the new company and then look at the difference between the actual renewal rates at that time. If the difference falls below 20%, the policyholder will be eligible to return to Citizens.

Steve Rogosin, a Plantation-based insurance agent, said 55 of his clients have received depopulation letters and of those, only half are currently eligible to remain with Citizens.

“I tell them to carefully read the offer, and then on an individual basis, we help them make their decision,” he said.

Most who remain eligible to stay with Citizens are choosing to do so, he said. Other options are available beyond the private companies identified in the letters, but “they’re not cheaper than Citizens,” he said.

Brian Murphy, co-owner of a Brightway Insurance agency in Palm Beach Gardens, said one of his clients who’s currently paying $4,400 for his Citizens policy received a letter estimating the new company would charge him $8,200 when it comes time to renew his policy.

“So he gets to stay in Citizens,” Murphy said.

New law will make more ineligible to stay in Citizens

The current round isn’t like recent depopulation efforts.

What’s new is the 20% threshold. It’s being used to reduce the number of policies held by the state’s “insurer of last resort.”

Citizens’ board of governors and legislators that oversee the program have become anxious in recent years about the company’s renewed growth. As private-market companies stopped writing policies or were driven to bankruptcy, Citizens’ policy count increased from 420,000 in 2019 to 1.4 million currently.

Such a large number of policies sets off alarm bells, because if a major hurricane wipes out Citizens’ ability to pay claims, the company will have to levy surcharges and assessments to make up the shortfall.

Citizens’ policyholders would first face surcharges of up to 45% of their premiums.

If that’s not enough, a special assessment would be imposed to collect 2% of the cost of every homeowner, auto, specialty and surplus lines policy in the state.

And there’s more. If those two levies don’t generate enough, Citizens has the right to impose on all policies — Citizens and private-market — an emergency assessment of up to 10% for each of Citizens’ three accounts.

Until this year, Citizens customers targeted for removal could opt out for any reason.

And that worked for awhile, as a 10-year stretch without a major hurricane making landfall in Florida enabled some private-market companies to offer rates lower than Citizens.

But over the past five years, the private insurance market has hemorrhaged tens of millions of dollars, forcing companies to raise their rates far above Citizens.

Citizens, in turn, was prohibited from keeping pace by raising its rates more than an average 10% each year.

Last year, the state Legislature enacted the 20% threshold and put Citizens on a path to increase rates by increasing the rate cap by a percentage point a year until it reaches 15% in 2026.

More companies signal an improved insurance market

Murphy said his firm has a team of people answering questions from clients about their depopulation letters.

They’ve haven’t heard many complaints, he said, possibly because clients understand that Citizens is “stretched” and has to depopulate.

But he sees the number of companies willing to assume Citizens policies as a good sign that the market is poised to recover.

A big reason companies are reentering the market, experts say, is that reforms enacted by the state Legislature last year remove enticements for repair contractors and plaintiffs attorneys to file lawsuits against insurers.

Removing those enticements reduces potential for losses and should help convince insurers that they’ll again be able to make a profit in the Florida market, they say.

“Other carriers are coming in with some appetite,” Murphy said. “And I believe we’re going to see more in 18 months.”

Meanwhile, depopulation targets who were able to remain in Citizens shouldn’t get too comfortable. They might soon get targeted again.

Agents are gearing up for a fresh round of depopulation offers to start going out in late September.

Six companies, including the four participating in this month’s round, have been approved to remove up to 196,399 Citizens policies on Nov. 21.

According to letters informing policyholders about the Oct. 17 takeouts, “If your policy is not successfully assumed, you may continue receiving future offers from private-market insurance companies interested in removing your policy from Citizens.”

Republican Case Against Biden Beautifully Goes Up in Flames on Fox News

The New Republic

Republican Case Against Biden Beautifully Goes Up in Flames on Fox News

Tori Otten – September 25, 2023

Former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko on Monday completely—and hilariously—destroyed one of Republicans’ main arguments to prove that Joe Biden is corrupt.

Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into Biden, after months of insisting that the president is guilty of criminal wrongdoing. The GOP has yet to produce any actual evidence of their claims. But one of their main talking points is that Poroshenko fired former Ukrainian prosecutor general Viktor Shokin after Biden pressured him to do so.

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade played Poroshenko a clip of Shokin saying Biden wanted him fired because he had been investigating the oil company Burisma Holdings while Hunter Biden served on the board.

“First of all, this is [a] completely crazy person,” Poroshenko replied without hesitation, referring to Shokin. “This is something wrong with him. Second, there is not one single word of truth.”

“Please do not use such a person like Shokin to undermine the trust we feel” from both U.S. parties, he continued.

Poroshenko added that Shokin was fired because “he played very dirty games.”

Shokin was fired in 2016 for corruption. Three years later, Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani started a conspiracy theory that the Biden family accepted a $10 million bribe to remove Shokin to stop a probe into Hunter Biden’s role at Burisma. This claim has been repeatedly debunked by the owner of Burisma, Mykola Zlochevsky, as well as Giuliani’s associate Lev Parnas. And now, the former Ukrainian president himself.

AAA says it now costs more than $12,000 a year to drive a vehicle

Auto blog

AAA says it now costs more than $12,000 a year to drive a vehicle

Jonathon Ramsey – September 25, 2023

It’s time for the American Automobile Association’s (AAA) 2023 “Your Driving Costs” study. The spreadsheet breaks down the average yearly costs of owning a new vehicle and driving it for either 10,000, 15,000, or 20,000 miles. The five top-selling vehicles of 2023 across nine categories are included, from small sedan to half-ton pickup, hybrid, and EV. Sample costs factored in are fuel, maintenance, full-coverage insurance, registration and taxes, finance charges, and depreciation at each mileage level. In 2019, Your Driving Costs came up with an annual outlay of $9,282 for the first five years of ownership, driving 15,000 miles per year. That was a 5% bump over 2018. In 2021, the annual cost had risen to $9,666 for the same use case. This year’s study is out, and no one will be surprised to find costs are up: AAA says it costs an average of $12,182 every year — $1,015.17 every month — to drive for five years at 15,000 miles per year.

That’s almost $1,500 more last year’s study result of $10,728 annually.

The average annual cost to own and maintain a small sedan is $8,939. A compact front-wheel drive SUV needs $10,066, a midsize AWD SUV is $11,971, an electric vehicle is $10,112. It’s the enormous popularity of half-ton crew cab pickups that drives the final figure, their annual costs $15,858. We’d be interested in results that excluded pickups just to see the difference.

No denying it costs more to own any kind of car, though. It starts with MSRPs still being elevated. The knock-on effect is elevated car payments, especially with more new buyers choosing shorter terms to get manufacturer incentives that don’t come with the 84-month terms. And higher interest rates eat up savings no matter the term. Earlier this month, Experian Automotive research said the average monthly car payment is $729 for a new car and $528 for a used car. J.D. Power followed that up with news about the rising costs of auto insurance, rates getting so high that more households have stopped buying coverage. The same story explained that higher insurance premiums are partly due to skyrocketing vehicle repair costs.

Of note, the AAA study doesn’t include luxury cars, so the average MSRP of the new cars among the field is $35,000. Even though that’s up 4.7% from last year, there’s quite the gap between that number and the most recent data on average transaction prices; KBB information for July put the average price paid for a new non-luxury vehicle at $44,700, an amount that’s held pretty steady throughout the year. The KBB number jives with Experian Automotive’s finding that the average loan amount for a new vehicle in Q1 of this year was $40,851.

Going lightly used was once a slam dunk for big savings, but those days are gone for now. A new study from iSeeCars showed that buyers spending $23,000 could get a three-year-old car in 2019, but now, that amount struggles to buy a six-year-old vehicle.

‘Full fascist’ Trump condemned after ‘treason’ rant against NBC and MSNBC

The Guardian

‘Full fascist’ Trump condemned after ‘treason’ rant against NBC and MSNBC

Martin Pengelly in Washington – September 25, 2023

<span>Photograph: John Locher/AP</span> — Photograph: John Locher/AP

Donald Trump said Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC, “should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’” and promised to do so should he be re-elected president next year.

In response, one progressive group said the former US president and current overwhelming frontrunner in the Republican 2024 presidential nomination race had “gone full fascist”.

The Biden White House said Trump threatened “an outrageous attack on our democracy and the rule of law”.

The US media was “almost all dishonest and corrupt”, Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Sunday, “but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC News, and in particular MSNBC … should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason’.”

Listing familiar complaints about coverage of his presidency – during which he regularly threatened NBC, MSNBC and Comcast – Trump added: “I say up front, openly, and proudly, that when I win the presidency of the United States, they and others of the lamestream media will be thoroughly scrutinized for their knowingly dishonest and corrupt coverage of people, things, and events.”

Trump also used familiar terms of abuse for the press: “the enemy of the people” and “the fake news media”.

Observers reacted to Trump’s threat to NBC, MSNBC and Comcast with a mixture of familiarity and alarm.

In a statement, Andrew Bates, White House deputy press secretary, said: “President Biden swore an oath to uphold our constitution and protect American democracy. Freedom of the press is a fundamental constitutional right.

“To abuse presidential power and violate the constitutional rights of reporters would be an outrageous attack on our democracy and the rule of law. Presidents must always defend Americans’ freedoms – never trample on them for selfish, small and dangerous political purposes.”

Elsewhere, Paul Farhi, media reporter for the Washington Post, pointed to Trump’s symbiotic relationship with outlets he professes to hate, given that only last week Trump was “the featured interview guest last week on Meet the Press, the signature Sunday morning news program on … NBC”.

Others noted that on Monday night, the former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson, a key witness for the House committee that investigated the January 6 attack on Congress, which Trump incited, was due to be interviewed on MSNBC.

“Female political or media antagonists really cause blood to come pouring out of Trump’s eyes,” wrote Howard Fineman, a columnist and commentator.

Sounding a louder alarm, Occupy Democrats, a progressive advocacy group, said Trump had gone “full fascist” with an “unhinged Sunday-night rant”.

“There you have it, folks,” it said. “While Trump and his Republican enablers love to falsely accuse Democrats of ‘weaponizing’ the government against Trump, Trump himself is now openly threaten[ing] to weaponize the presidency to completely remove entire news channels from the airwaves simply because they expose his rampant criminality.”

Juliette Kayyem, a Kennedy School professor and CNN national security analyst, pointed to a previous warning: “To view each of Trump’s calls to violence in isolation – ‘he attacked Milley’ or ‘he attacked NBC’ or ‘he attacked the jury, the prosecutor, the judge’ – is to miss his overall plan to ‘introduce violence as a natural extension of our democratic disagreement’.”

Trump’s rantings were also coupled with threats to Gen Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff whose attempts to cope with Trump were detailed in an Atlantic profile last week.

They come after a Washington Post poll gave Trump a 10-point lead over Joe Biden, who beat him in 2020, in a notional 2024 general election matchup.

The Post said the poll was an “outlier” but Trump dominates the Republican nomination race and generally polls close to Biden despite facing 91 criminal charges – for election subversion, retention of classified information and hush-money payments – and civil threats including a defamation trial arising from an allegation of rape a judge said was “substantially true”.

Another new poll, from NBC, showed Trump and Biden tied at 46% but Trump up 39%-36% if a third-party candidate was added. A “person familiar with White House discussions” about the prospect of a candidacy from No Labels, a centrist group, said it was “concerning”, NBC said. Biden, the report added, was “worried”.

Jimmy Carter makes rare public appearance, days before his birthday and 7 months after starting hospice

ABC News

Jimmy Carter makes rare public appearance, days before his birthday and 7 months after starting hospice

Tal Axelrod – September 24, 2023

Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn Carter, made a surprise appearance in their Georgia hometown on Saturday — having largely retreated from the spotlight amid health challenges.

The Carters went to the Plains Peanut Festival in what seems to have been their first outing since the announcement seven months ago that Jimmy Carter would receive hospice care. The couple previously attended two events last year.

“Beautiful day for President & Mrs. Carter to enjoy a ride through the Plains Peanut Festival! And just a week before he turns 99. We’re betting peanut butter ice cream is on the menu for lunch! #JimmyCarter99,” the Carter Center wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. (Peanut butter is a favorite of Jimmy Carter’s.)

At 98, he is both the oldest living and longest-lived U.S. president. He will turn 99 on Oct. 1.

MORE: Jimmy Carter’s grandson pays tribute ahead of his 99th birthday

PHOTO: Former President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn at the 25th annual Peanut Festival parade in Plains, Ga., on Sept. 24, 2022, in a photo shared by The Carter Center. (The Carter Center/Facebook)

The former president’s office announced in February that he had decided to receive hospice care following a series of short hospital stays. He had suffered multiple falls in 2019 and survived cancer in 2015.

In May, the Carter Center said the former first lady had been diagnosed with dementia. The Carters are also the longest-married presidential couple in American history, having wed in 1946.

The Carter Center launched a tribute earlier this month for the former president’s upcoming birthday.

PHOTO: Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and his wife, former first lady Rosalynn Carter sit together during a reception to celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary in Plains, Ga., July 10, 2021. (John Bazemore/Pool via Reuters, FILE)

Jason Carter, the former president’s grandson, recently said on “GMA3” that “we didn’t know, and we didn’t believe at the time, that we were going to get to this 99th birthday.”

“They are coming to the end, of course, at this time in their lives. But they are at peace, they are together, they’re at home, they’re in love. And you don’t get much more than that, and they don’t expect more,” he said.

“It’s a true blessing for all of us to have had this much time with him,” Jason Carter added.

ABC News’ Matt Foster contributed to this report.

How Texas became the new “homebase” for white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups

Salon

How Texas became the new “homebase” for white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups

Areeba Shah – September 23, 2023

Texas has seen a sudden surge in extremist activity within the past three years, with white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ+ groups making the Lone Star state its base of operations.

According to a new report by the Anti-Defamation League, there has been an 89% increase in antisemitic incidents in Texas from January 2021 to May of this year. Along with six identified terrorist plots and 28 occurrences of extremist events like training sessions and rallies, Texas also saw an increase in the frequency of propaganda distribution.

“Texas has a long history of white nationalist activity and for many years has had a very active presence of white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups in the state, but the report’s findings really do paint a very troubling picture of the current situation,” Stephen Piggott, who studies right-wing extremism as a program analyst with the Western States Center, a civil rights group, told Salon.

“Texas is the homebase for a number of really active white nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, such as the Patriot Front and the Aryan Freedom Network.”

This is one of the main factors driving extremism in the state. Patriot Front has contributed to Texas experiencing the highest number of white supremacist propaganda distributions in the United States in 2022, the report found.

The group has a “nationwide footprint,” with members all around the country and their messaging contributing to 80% of nationwide propaganda in 2022 – a trend replicated every year since 2019, according to the report.

Patriot Front has also held rallies in major cities across the country, including Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia and Indianapolis, where the events are frequently the largest public white supremacist gatherings.

Texas’ close proximity to Mexico also makes it a hotbed for anti-immigrant activity, Piggot added, pointing to a growing number of nationalist and neo-Nazi groups focusing on immigration issues.

“They’ll have rallies where a lot of the rhetoric is focused on demonizing immigrants and using dehumanizing rhetoric about immigrants,” he said. “They’re focused on the issue of immigration because Texas is a border state, but also an avenue for getting more recruits.”

The political context further amplifies this phenomenon, Peter Simi, a sociology professor at Chapman University and an expert on white supremacists in the U.S., told Salon.

“When you look at the political context of what’s happening in Texas as far as [the movement of] anti-CRT, anti-reproductive rights, anti-gay… that is extremely conducive and consistent with groups like the Patriot Front, so they kind of thrive,” Simi said.

Last year, 31 members of Patriot Front were arrested near Idaho after police stopped a U-Haul truck near a “Pride in the Park” event and found members dressed uniformly and equipped with riot shields. Every present Patriot Front member was charged with criminal conspiracy to riot.

But this hasn’t deterred the group from putting on public demonstrations and in many cases, even documenting them. In July, close to 100 masked group members recognized Independence Day by holding a flash demonstration in Austin while carrying riot shields, a banner reading “Reclaim America” and upside-down American flags.

“Whenever they have a gathering or any type of kind of public demonstration, they have folks filming and they put out really kind of flashy videos on social media, especially on places like Telegram and it’s all designed to make it look cool and edgy,” Piggot said.

Extremist groups often use online platforms to recruit and spread their ideology. Over the past year, ADL found that online hate and harassment rose sharply for adults and teens ages 13-17.

Among adults, 52% reported being harassed online in their lifetime, the highest number we have seen in four years, up from 40% in 2022, ADL spokesperson Jake Kurz said.

“Many online platforms either recommend more extreme and hateful content or make it easier to find once searched,” Kurz said pointing to the report’s findings. “For some, this could lead to a dark spiral into hate and extremism.”

Patriot Front has emerged as one of the most aggressive groups in terms of distributing propaganda, Simi pointed out. They often even post pictures of the propaganda they’ve distributed online and circulate those images more broadly.

“In a nutshell, they’re trying to really be aggressive in establishing a physical presence through [distributing] flyers as well as through actual demonstrations,” Simi said. “They’ve also been known to do these flash mob style demonstrations and sometimes more coordinated demonstrations where they’ve shown up in places, like our nation’s capital.”

As a part of their recruitment strategies, white supremacist groups have consistently targeted the LGBTQ+ community, disrupting drag shows, targeting pride events and even going after businesses that support LGBTQ+ events. They have used slurs like “groomers” when talking about the LGBTQ+ community to draw more individuals to their movement.

“The anti-LGBTQ+ animus is probably the single greatest driver of white nationalist and anti-democracy activity that we’re seeing across the country right now,” Piggot said.

ADL tracked 22 anti-LGBTQ+ incidents in 2022 across Texas. While some actions involved extremists, others engaged more mainstream anti-LGBTQ+ entities, offering extremists opportunities to expose new audiences to different forms of hate.

“Hate and extremism seem to be a growing issue across the United States,” Kurz said. “The number of antisemitic incidents across the country are the highest we have ever measured. Instances of white supremacist propaganda are high and we are seeing an alarming amount of violence motivated by hate and misinformation.”

Kurz added that people should look at the Texas report and recognize that while some of the types of extremism are different, extremism is a problem in every community in the country.

The communities that are being targeted in Texas mirror those targeted nationwide, said Rachel Carroll Rivas, deputy director for research, reporting and analysis at the SPLC.

“Some of the real intense false conspiracies that circulate around QAnon are resulting in an increase in the sovereign citizen movement – a conspiratorial movement that is not followed and and even recognized a lot in the U.S.,” Carroll Rivas said.

Other trends in Texas that are indicative of broader extremism patterns in the country include the targeting of school curriculums, she added.

The reason why these groups feel comfortable operating in Texas is because of the role that elected officials in the state are playing in “echoing white nationalist talking points,” Piggot said.

He pointed to Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s extreme anti-immigrant actions, putting up barbed wire across the Rio Grande and a chain of buoys with circular saws.

“Governor Abbott is essentially doing the work for white nationalists by echoing and then amplifying their dehumanizing rhetoric,” Piggot said. “Just this week, he declared an invasion [at the border]. That’s a phrase that white nationalists have used to describe what’s happening on the U.S. [and] Mexico border for decades.”

In both Texas and Florida, neo-Nazis and white nationalists are “feeling energized” and have increased their activities due to seeing this type of messaging from Abbot and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, he added.

“We need elected officials to be closing the political space for these groups and denouncing them instead of amplifying their messages for them,” Piggot said.

Hillary Clinton: Trump ‘Engaged In What Psychologists Call Projection’

HuffPost

Hillary Clinton: Trump ‘Engaged In What Psychologists Call Projection’

Sebastian Murdock – September 22, 2023

Hillary Clinton blasted former President Donald Trump, saying his behavior is “what psychologists call projection.”

In an interview set to air on Sunday, the former U.S. secretary of state and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki that Trump often accuses others of behavior he’s engaging in himself.

“You know, the thing about [Trump] ― and I’m not the only person who’s noticed this ― is he engaged in what psychologists call projection,” Clinton said in an excerpt from the interview that aired on “Morning Joe” on Friday.

“So, whenever he accuses somebody else of doing something, it’s almost guaranteed he’s doing it himself or he’s already done it,” she continued. “Or whenever he denies thinking about doing something or doing it, it’s almost guaranteed he is thinking about it or he’s already done it.”

Clinton was responding to Trump’s claim that he wouldn’t pardon himself for his multiple alleged crimes if he became president again. She dismissed the notion.

“I don’t believe him on anything,” she said. “Why would I start believing him on that?”

Trump has often been accused of using projection as a political tactic. In 2020, for instance, the anti-Trump group Really American PAC released an ad that showed footage of Trump accusing Democrats of things he had actually done himself.

“Donald Trump is often guilty of the very things he accuses of others,” MSNBC’s Ari Melber said in the viral ad.

Revelations of Clarence Thomas’s Koch links stoke supreme court reform calls

The Guardian

Revelations of Clarence Thomas’s Koch links stoke supreme court reform calls

Martin Pengelly in Washington DC – September 22, 2023

<span>Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters</span> — Photograph: Jonathan Ernst/Reuters

A report detailing how Clarence Thomas secretly participated in donor events staged by the hard-right Koch network drew more fierce protests and outrage over the conservative supreme court justice’s proliferating ethics scandals.

Sheldon Whitehouse, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Senate judiciary committee who has advanced ethics reform amid reports about Thomas and other justices, said: “Oh, my.

“More undisclosed private jet travel, more fingerprints of the billionaire-funded court fixer Leonard Leo” – a rightwing activist widely linked to Thomas – “more engagement with billionaire-funded organisations scheming to influence the court.”

Dick Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, said: “Once again, Justice Thomas’s gaggle of fawning billionaires expands and their influence on the court grows larger.

“The Koch brothers are the architects of one of the largest, most successful political operations in history, aimed at influencing all levels of government and the courts. Justice Thomas hid the extent of his involvement with the Koch political network and never reported gifts associated with these engagements.”

Kyle Herrig, senior adviser to the campaign group Accountable.us, said: “It’s clear that Justice Thomas sees his position on our nation’s highest court as a way to upgrade his own lifestyle with no regard for ethics or consequences.”

The report linking Thomas to Koch donor summits at Bohemian Grove, an exclusive all-male resort in California, was just the latest blockbuster from ProPublica, the nonprofit newsroom that has hounded the justice over his failure to declare links to and generous gifts from rich rightwing donors often with business before the court.

Outlets including the New York Times and Politico have also reported on links between Thomas, his wife, the far-right activist Ginni Thomas, and influential activists and donors.

The new report said Thomas attended Koch events at least twice, putting him “in the extraordinary position of having served as a fundraising draw for a network that has brought cases before the supreme court, including one of the most closely watched of the upcoming term”.

That case, Loper Bright Enterprises v Raimondo, concerns the right of federal agencies to regulate businesses in areas including labor rights and environmental and consumer protection. Durbin said Thomas should step aside.

“The Koch network has invested tremendous capital to overturn longstanding legal precedent known as Chevron deference, which would handcuff regulators and serve the interests of corporate fat cats,” Durbin said.

“As more details are revealed of Justice Thomas’s undisclosed involvement with the Koch political network, there are serious questions about his impartiality in cases squarely confronting the Chevron doctrine. For these reasons, I’m calling on Justice Thomas to recuse himself from consideration of Loper Bright v Raimondo.”

A Koch spokesperson denied wrongdoing, saying: “The idea that attending a couple events to promote a book or give dinner remarks, as all the justices do, could somehow be undue influence just doesn’t hold water.”

Thomas did not comment. He has said he did not declare gifts from donors because he was advised he did not have to. Subsequent filings revealed more such links.

Supreme court justices are nominally subject to the same ethics rules as all federal judges.

On Friday, Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer now a law professor at the University of Minnesota, said the new ProPublica report showed Thomas “violated: 1) financial disclosure laws, 2) laws prohibiting judges from participating in partisan fundraising (the Kochs have a super pac) and 3) recusal laws for judges. 28 U.S.C. 455. He simply does not understand or care about the law.”

In practice, however, the justices govern themselves. John Roberts, the chief justice, has rebuffed demands for testimony in Congress about reports of links with rightwing donors also involving Samuel Alito, another hard-right justice.

With Republicans opposed and holding the House, Democratic-led ethics reform stands next to no chance of success. Calls for Thomas to resign or be impeached have come from figures as influential as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive congresswoman from New York. But such calls also stand next to no chance. Only one supreme court justice has been impeached: Samuel Chase, unsuccessfully, in 1804-05. In 1969, Abe Fortas resigned, amid a scandal over his financial dealings.

Thomas is 75 but has no apparent reason to resign or retire. The senior conservative on the court, he is a key part of a 6-3 rightwing majority, years in the making by activists and Republicans in Congress, that has handed down epochal decisions including the removal of the right to abortion.

Herrig, of Accountable.us, added: “As ethics violations by Thomas and others keep piling up, Chief Justice Roberts’s lack of action becomes more egregious. The chief justice must demand Justice Thomas recuse himself from upcoming cases with Koch network conflicts of interest. We need accountability and reform now.”

Media observers also reacted to the new ProPublica report.

Jane Mayer of the New Yorker, co-author of Strange Justice, a seminal book on Thomas’s controversial confirmation in 1991, asked: “Does justice go better with Koch?”

Dahlia Lithwick, who covers the supreme court for Slate magazine and hosts the Amicus podcast, wrote simply: “Pay. To. Play.”

David Rothkopf, a columnist and author of books including Traitor: A History of American Betrayal from Benedict Arnold to Donald Trump, asked: “Is Clarence Thomas the most corrupt supreme court justice in our history? One of the most corrupt senior officials in our history?

“There is no doubt any more.”

“What are we going to find out next?”: Clarence Thomas’ shocking ethics scandal “sickens” experts

Salon

“What are we going to find out next?”: Clarence Thomas’ shocking ethics scandal “sickens” experts

Tatyana Tandanpolie – September 22, 2023

Clarence Thomas Erin Schaff-Pool/Getty Images

Legal and political experts have erupted with disgust online Thursday after a report revealed Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has participated in two Koch donor summits and ultimately aided the political network, which has appeared before the high court in multiple cases — including one of the most highly anticipated of the upcoming term — in its efforts to raise funding.

According to ProPublica, who conducted interviews with three former network employees and one major donor, Thomas has attended Koch donor events at least twice over the years with the justice, staffers said, being flown in to speak in hopes that it would encourage attendees to continue donating. Thomas did not report the 2018 flight he took to Palm Springs for the Koch organization’s annual summit on his disclosure form, and a spokesperson for the network told ProPublica it did not pay for the jet.

As the outlet notes, Thomas’ participation in the events is part of a yearslong, personal relationship he has with the networks founders — libertarian billionaires David and Charles Koch — that has largely remained out of the public eye and sprouted from years of trips to the Bohemian Grove, a secretive, all-men’s retreat in Northern California Thomas has attended for two decades.

The revelation comes after ProPublica’s previous reports have also shed light on the conservative justice’s ties to GOP megadonor and billionaire Harlan Crow, who financed a number of luxury trips for Thomas across decades, paid private-school tuition for two years for the child Thomas raised and purchased property from Thomas — including his mother’s home — in 2014.

Thomas neglected to report these dealings with Crow in his annual financial disclosures but acknowledged in his most recent financial report that he took three trips aboard the billionaire’s private plane last year and included amendments to reports filed between 2017 and 2021 to address matters he “inadvertently omitted.”

Thomas’ ties to billionaires whose political interests have been brought — if not also seen success — before the Supreme Court has sparked calls for the imposition of an ethics code on the justices and instilled doubt in the public’s trust of the high court. The latest revelation has only bolstered those concerns with some experts and officials on Friday renewing calls for his resignation.

“Justice Clarence Thomas continues to bring shame upon himself and the United States Supreme Court,” Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “He should resign. What are we going to find out next? A fundraiser for Trump headlined by Clarence Thomas? Ridiculous.”

“Personally, I’d go right to resign. It’s long overdue. And I’d revisit the cases he’s decided—including Citizens United and Shelby v Holder, which together handed our democracy to the rich—while we’re at it. Corruption of the highest order,” said Boston College professor of 19th-century U.S. history Heather Cox Richardson, whose research focuses on American political history and ideology.

Other experts have expressed outrage and further critiqued Thomas over his acceptance of gifts and failure to disclose them or recuse himself from relevant cases.

“The whole point of disclosing conflicts & recusing is to maintain public confidence in key democratic institutions, like the Court,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance tweeted. “It’s clear that the integrity of the branch of gov’t he serves in is not important to Justice Thomas.”

“Clarence Thomas might not be the finest Justice money can buy, but he’s definitely bought,” attorney and retired U.S. Air Force Colonel Moe Davis, said on X. “Imagine if Supreme Court justices were held to the same ethical standards we demand of a 21-year-old Army lieutenant.”https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-3&features=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%3D%3D&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1705197204053414297&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.salon.com%2F2023%2F09%2F22%2Fwhat-are-we-going-to-find-out-next-clarence-thomas-shocking-ethics-scandal-sickens-experts%2F&sessionId=3f497b0df6d0efbd4a8714586fcd62d8aac8a429&theme=light&widgetsVersion=aaf4084522e3a%3A1674595607486&width=550px

“As a public servant who sacrifices donor $ (I don’t take donations from elected officials, PBAs, or attorneys with cases before my office), b/c I believe the justice system should be free from even the appearance of political influence, this sickens me,” added Mimi Rocah, a former federal prosecutor and current district attorney