Monkey monikers: Like humans, marmosets give each other names

Washington (AFP) – Naming others is considered a marker of highly advanced cognition in social animals, previously observed only in humans, bottlenose dolphins and African elephants.


Issued on: 29/08/2024 - 

Pygmy marmoset cubs are pictured with their mother in their enclosure at the Mulhouse Zoo, eastern France 

© SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP/File

Marmoset monkeys have now joined this exclusive club, according to a new study published in Science on Thursday.

The diminutive primates use loud, high-pitched calls to assign each other "vocal labels," as shown in research conducted by a team at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

"We are very interested in social behavior because we think that social behavior is essentially what drove us humans to be so special compared to other animals," senior author David Omer told AFP.

"We don't run fast, we don't fly, we don't excel in anything else besides being social and all our achievements as a society are our societal achievements."

Marmosets are ideal subjects to study the evolution of social behavior and language in humans, he explained, because they exhibit similar traits, living in small monogamous family groups of six to eight individuals that cooperatively rear their young.

Led by graduate student Guy Oren, the researchers recorded natural conversations between pairs of marmosets separated by a visual barrier, as well as interactions between the monkeys and a computer system that played back pre-recorded calls.

They discovered that marmosets use "phee calls" -- very high-pitched vocalizations, as loud as power tools -- to address one another. Notably, the monkeys could recognize when such calls were directed at them and were more likely to respond when addressed by their name.

Machine learning advances

The ten marmosets they tested came from three separate families, and the research also revealed that members within a family group used similar sound features to code different names, akin to dialects or accents in humans. This held true even for adult marmosets that weren't related by blood, suggesting they learned from others within the family group.

Marmosets are relatively distant relatives of humans. We last shared a common ancestor around 35 million years ago, while the split between ourselves and chimpanzees could have happened 5-7 million years ago.

Rather than genetic proximity, Omer attributes the acquisition of vocal labels by marmosets to "convergent evolution," or the idea that they evolved similar traits in response to comparable environmental challenges.

For marmosets, vocal labeling may have been crucial for maintaining social bonds and group cohesion in the dense rainforests of South America, where visibility is often limited.

How and when humans first began talking is a matter of debate, but until recently many scientists had dismissed the idea we could look to other primates for clues. Omer stressed the latest research was yet another blow to that long-standing opinion.

"We can still learn a lot from non-human primates about the evolution of language in humans," he said.

The team's statistical analysis of the marmosets' calls was made possible by recent advancements in computational power and machine learning, he added. Looking ahead, one exciting avenue for future research could be leveraging AI to further decipher the content of marmoset conversations.

© 2024 AFP

Harris election bid galvanizes Black students at her alma mater

Washington (AFP) – At Howard University, the historically Black college that educated Kamala Harris four decades ago, students are dreaming about how her victory in the US presidential election could elevate the institution -- and their own ambitions.


Issued on: 29/08/2024

Howard University in Washington is one of around 100 so-called Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the United States 

© Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

"I like seeing people that look like me and are doing such great things, like Kamala," said Serena Evans, who said she experienced racism at majority-white schools in her native North Carolina before she enrolled at Howard two years ago.

Evans followed in the footsteps of Democratic presidential nominee Harris, who began her studies in 1982 at the university, located in the nation's capital -- one of around 100 such institutions nationwide that cater primarily, though not exclusively, to African Americans.

For many, these so-called "historically black colleges and universities" or HBCUs serve as safe havens in a country still marred by racism -- even if those same racist attitudes lead to some doubting Howard's credibility.

"People think that we're underdeveloped compared to Ivy League schools like Harvard," said Evans, who is studying classics.

But with Harris aiming for the White House in November's vote, Howard students are feeling "on top of the world," 20-year-old Jomalee Smith told AFP.

"I feel like once Kamala wins, (Howard) will not only be an American thing, it will be a global thing," said Smith, an international relations student.

"More people will know about Howard. It will showcase more job opportunities internationally, not just domestically," Smith added.
'She loves Howard'

Vice President Kamala Harris gave a speech on abortion at Howard University in April 2023 © Stefani Reynolds / AFP/File

Among the red-brick buildings and their tall columns, white students are rare, and it's difficult to find anyone who isn't proud to be studying at the vice president's alma mater.

For her part, Harris, 59, regularly returns to the Washington campus -- and was there earlier this month to prepare for her September debate against Donald Trump, according to the New York Times.

"She loves Howard," said Yusuf Kareem, who came from Texas on the advice of a cousin who was disappointed by her experience at a majority-white university.

"For people to see that a Black woman could be the president of the United States, and she went to Howard University -- they can't take us as a joke," Kareem said.

Other major figures have passed through Howard, including Nobel Prize in Literature winner Toni Morrison, and the first Black Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.

"All we want is a fair shot, you know, a foot in the door," said Kareem, a second-year finance student.

'Refuge'

Access to education is still an ongoing battle for racial minority groups in the United States © Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

Access to education is still an ongoing battle for racial minority groups in the United States.

Among Black adults, 28 percent have an undergraduate degree or higher, compared to about 40 percent of all Americans, according to 2022 data from the Pew Research Center.

In June 2023, the Supreme Court effectively ended the right for colleges and universities to consider race when admitting applicants.

MIT, a prestigious college in Boston, said it saw a nine percentage point drop in admissions of students identifying as Black, Hispanic, Native American or Pacific Islander following the ruling.

Developments like that make Howard -- where 82 percent of the incoming class last year was Black, in a country where African Americans make up 14 percent of the population -- stand out more than ever before.

For Howard law student Opeyemi Faleye, historically Black colleges provide a "refuge, a sanctuary, where you don't have to pretend, you don't have to engage in that kind of performance, you just are accepted, and that allows you to thrive."

Sitting on a campus bench with a laptop on his knees, he said the colleges "have been sort of the hallmark of Black-centered education."

"And I feel if things continue to go the way that they are, where other institutions become increasingly hostile or increasingly sort of discriminatory, then historically Black universities will sort of become even more of a refuge," Faleye said.

© 2024 AFP

'More than triple-checked it': Data expert shocked by new Dem voter registration numbers

Maya Boddie, Alternet
August 29, 2024

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks to the press after meeting with Israeli Prime

 Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 25, 2024 (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP)

New York Times reporter Francesca Paris earlier this month noted that "new voter registration data" in Pennsylvania and North Carolina — both battleground states — proves that Vice President Kamala "Harris' candidacy has energized potential Democratic voters."

Paris emphasized, "For nearly the entire year, more people had been registering as Republicans than as Democrats when signing up to vote in" the two states, which "use party registration and that release this data regularly."

On Wednesday, Tom Bonier, with the data firm Target Smart, shared new numbers with CBS News' Major Garrett, according to Mediate.

"We're tracking something really interesting right now — it’s a surge in voter registration in key groups ahead of the November election," Garrett said. "Among young Black women, registration is up more than 175%. You heard that right. More than 175% in 13 states. That’s compared to the same time in 2020. This, according to the data firm Target Smart, registration has also increased among young Latinas and Black Americans."

Garrett then asked Bonier, "Could that possibly be right? If you must have triple-checked this or many more times than that."

The data expert replied, "You’re right to repeat the number because I more than triple-checked it. It’s incredibly unusual to see changes in voter registration that are anywhere close to this. I mean, there might be 175% is almost tripling of registration rates among this specific group. You just don’t see that sort of thing happen in elections normally."

Responding to the question of what the increase says about voter "enthusiasm," Bonier said, "Tells us a lot. The reason that we look at this voter registration data is because the polls will only tell us so much. The polls tell us how people are going to vote. They don’t tell us if or who is going to vote. It’s a big question.'"

He emphasized, "The best indicator of that is the actions that people are taking. Number one, registering to vote. Someone who says, I want to participate in this election. And so as we’ve seen these questions of which side has the advantage and intensity and enthusiasm, we look for changes in voter registration like this. People who are newly registered to vote are much more likely to vote on Election Day."

Watch the video below 

https://www.alternet.org/data-voter-registration-harris/

Poll shows Missouri voters back Trump, Hawley, abortion rights and minimum wage hike

Rudi Keller, Missouri Independent
August 29, 2024

Former President Donald Trump greeted then- Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley before speaking at the Veterans of Foreign Wars National Convention during a 2018 stop in Kansas City at Municipal Auditorium. - Tammy Ljungblad/Kansas City Star/TNS

Missourians seem poised to legalize abortion and increase the minimum wage in November but are unlikely to embrace the Democratic statewide candidates who are among the ballot measures’ most ardent supporters, a new poll shows.

The proposal to enshrine the right to abortion up until the point of fetal viability in the Missouri Constitution drew support from 52% of people surveyed between Aug. 8 and 16 for the St. Louis University/YouGov poll. The minimum wage increase, to $15 an hour by Jan. 1, 2026, had even stronger backing, with 57% of those surveyed saying they support it.

The poll also found majorities supporting every Republican running statewide, who each held at least a 10-percentage point lead over Democratic opponents. Former President Donald Trump was selected by 54% of respondents, with 41% backing Vice President Kamala Harris. The poll gives Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe a 51% to 41% advantage over House Minority Leader Crystal Quade in the governor’s race.

The best-funded Democratic statewide candidate, Lucas Kunce, was 11 percentage points behind incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, with the poll showing Hawley with a 53% to 42% edge.

“I’d be very surprised if any Democrat won a statewide race this year,” poll director Steven Rogers said. “It’s not breaking news that Democrats struggle in statewide races in Missouri.”

The poll surveyed 900 voters and has a 3.8% margin of error. It included 69 questions, seeking views on major issues facing the state in addition to tracking approval ratings for politicians and testing election contests.

The results showed:

The economy is the biggest concern for voters, listed as the No. 1 issue by 47%. The survey also showed 69% view the national economy as fair or poor and 71% give that rating to the state economy. Health care, at 18%, and education, 16%, are the second and third issues listed as top concerns.

A plurality of voters, 42%, oppose four-day school weeks, but those aged 18 to 29 support it by a 44% to 35% margin. Voters 65 years old or older had the strongest opposition. A new law requiring a public vote to adopt a four-day week in districts in charter counties and cities larger than 30,000 people had overwhelming support at 77%, which was consistent across all demographic, income and partisan groups.

Laws to require a background check for gun sales and banning minors from carrying guns on public property without adult supervision also had overwhelming support, 79% and 85% respectively. But voters oppose other measures to control firearms, including allowing local ordinances that are stronger than state law.

Polling by SLU/YouGov began in 2020, making this the second presidential election year for the project. Its last poll before the 2020 election pointed correctly to the outcome, but Republican candidates generally did better than the poll indicated.

Gov. Mike Parson was shown with a 50% to 44% lead over Democratic State Auditor Nicole Galloway and ended up winning by a 57-41 margin. That poll showed then-President Donald Trump with a 52% to 43% advantage over Joe Biden, with the final result a Trump win, also by a 57-41 margin.

Democrats are banking heavily on voter support for ballot measures, especially the abortion rights proposal, to help overcome some of the other disadvantages they face. No Democrat has won a statewide race since 2018.

Historically, however, ballot measures have only a marginal impact on candidate races, said Rogers, an associate professor of political science at St. Louis University.

“A presidential election year is probably the least effective time to have something else to boost turnout,” he said.

Ballot measures can drive turnout. Three of the most high-profile Missouri ballot measures this century — same-sex marriage in 2004, right to work in 2018 and Medicaid expansion in 2020 — were placed on the August primary ballot by governors worried about the impact of ballot-measure voters on November campaigns.

In 2004, the issue coincided with a titanic battle for the Democratic nomination for governor and 847,000 Democrats voted. In 2018, with no significant primary, 607,577 votes were tallied in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate and in 2020, where there again was no hotly contested primary, 537,000 Democrats voted in the gubernatorial race.

In years with no high-profile ballot measures, Democrats since 2000 have averaged about 350,000 voters in statewide primaries for governor and U.S. Senate.

Republicans also showed an increase in primary voters in the years with ballot measures, but not by the same degree. In years without controversial ballot measures, the GOP has averaged about 530,000 voters in statewide contests for governor and U.S. Senate. The average for 2004, 2018 and 2020 was about 640,000 votes.

That data shows that ballot measures can impact low-turnout elections, Rogers said. Presidential election years traditionally have the highest turnout.

“Those voters may already be turning out, and so the difference that you’re making is probably going to be marginal,” Rogers said.

The poll found very few voters are undecided, so the target for Democrats will have to be voters who support the ballot measures but intend to vote for Republican candidates. The poll shows that about one-third of voters who said they will vote for Trump, Kehoe and Hawley will also support the abortion rights amendment and minimum wage propositions.

Democrats will have a tough time switching voters, Rogers said.

“There isn’t much evidence of what we would call reverse coattails for ballot measures,” he said.

The only Democrat already airing television ads in advance of the November election is Kunce, who has spent $2.7 million through Tuesday, according to FCC records reviewed by The Independent. Hawley has spent $1.2 million on television ads in defense of the seat he won in 2018.

Hawley is in the best position he has been in any of the previous SLU/YouGov polls. His approval rating is 53%, which is 14 percentage points higher than his negative rating. That is the best overall number recorded, Rogers said.

He also had a 14-point net positive rating in July 2021 in the first SLU/YouGov poll after the Jan. 6 attempt to overturn the 2020 election.

Hawley’s lowest net positive was two points in an August 2022 poll taken just after video of him running away from the Senate chamber during the Jan. 6 riot was included in hearings of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack. In that survey, Hawley had a 46% favorable rating and a 44% unfavorable rating.

The only Republican statewide candidate who equals Hawley’s support is state Sen. Denny Hoskins of Warrensburg, shown with a 54-36 lead in the secretary of state race over state Rep. Barbara Phifer, the Democratic nominee.

Hoskins ran in the primary as a team with state Sen. Bill Eigel, who finished second in the primary for governor. Eigel’s combative style found an enthusiastic audience in some areas and that is likely helping Hoskins, Rogers said.

Hawley also has a reputation for being combative and that may explain why he is doing so well, Rogers said.

“Hawley is not Eigel, but he sometimes acts Eigel-like,” he said.

The poll found support for the abortion rights initiative, which is slated to appear on the November ballot as Amendment 3, is increasing. It is eight percentage points higher than found in a February poll, Rogers said.

Amendment 3 has a plurality or majority of voters in most demographic, income and education subgroups, with only Republicans, as a group, and voters in rural areas of northeast and southern Missouri showing more opposition than support.

The abortion measure would overturn a Missouri law that took effect in June 2022 after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that provided federal constitutional protection for abortion. Under current Missouri law, abortions are only allowed to save the life of the mother or when “a delay will create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”

Exactly how many initiative proposals will be on the Nov. 5 ballot remains uncertain.

The abortion rights measure and the proposal to legalize sports wagering must survive court challenges, and backers of a proposal to allow a new casino near the Lake of the Ozarks are trying to overturn the decision that they fell short of the required signatures in one congressional district.

No hearing had been set as of Wednesday afternoon for the challenge to the abortion rights amendment. Attorneys will be in court Sept. 5 for arguments over the sports wagering proposal, which would be Amendment 2 on the ballot, and on Friday for the casino proposal.

With no legal challenge, the campaign committee for increasing the minimum wage, known as Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages, has already begun reserving television ad time for the final three weeks of the campaign. Through Tuesday, the committee had spent $904,000, according to FCC records.

The minimum wage proposal, which also includes a requirement for businesses to provide paid time off to full-time employees, is supported across all regional, demographic, income, and education subgroups. Only Republicans, as a group, showed more opposition than support. On another question, pollsters surveyed what voters thought the minimum wage should be in Missouri and the median was $15, the level targeted in the initiative.

Support for sports wagering, seen in 50% of those polled, was also widespread. Only one subgroup, voters in southeast Missouri, showed more opposition to sports wagering than support.

Each of the initiative campaigns is poised to spend millions to hold and expand the support shown in the polls. Rogers said he’s confident that effort will pay dividends.

“My anticipation,” he said, “is that as the campaigns become more active, and based off our previous polling, that support will only go up.”

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: info@missouriindependent.com. Follow Missouri Independent on Facebook and X.

The absurdity of calling Kamala Harris a commie

Bruce VanWyngarden, Memphis Flyer
August 27, 2024 

Vice President Kamala Harris (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage / AFP)

Look, comrades, I grew up at a time in this country when the thing we kids were taught to fear more than anything else in our little Midwestern lives was COMMUNISM!

Communist Russia — the USSR — was the big, scary enemy, a country led by authoritarian leaders like Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, who were attempting to take over the world and destroy democracy and the American way of life. They were the commies, the pinkos, the red menace — a nuclear-armed adversary who was also our rival in space, with their cursed Sputnik satellites. The Russians were so bold they even propped up Fidel Castro in a communist state 90 miles away from Miami. Russia, we were told by our teachers and parents, was determined to force everyone in the world to live in a commune and toil under communism, a fate presumably worse than death.

In our schools, we had two kinds of drills: fire drills, in which at the sound of a long bell, every student high-tailed it “single file” down the stairs and out the doors onto the schoolyard lawn, goose-assing and laughing all the way. (If you were lucky, you attended a school that had one of those cool fire-escape slides out a third-story window, which livened up the process.) But the real serious stuff took place during the air-raid drills, where, at the sound of a keening siren, we had to “duck and cover” under our desks, which, as everyone knows, will protect you against nuclear holocaust. Mainly, of course, it just scared the crap out of us and traumatized a couple generations.

This went on through the 1980s, at which point, President Reagan had turned standing up to Russia into performance art (“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”). It turned out to be a surprisingly effective gambit, or at the worst, Reagan’s timing was spot-on. The Soviet Union’s economy was collapsing during the 1980s, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and lending a measure of stature to Reagan’s latter years in office.

ALSO READ: Trump's 'communist' attack on Harris 'simply not credible' — and costing him: GOP pollster

If there was one benefit of this strange, decades-long international game of Russian roulette, it was the fact that we were actually taught what communism is. We learned most of Karl Marx’s greatest one-liners, including the scariest one: “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs,” which we Americans were taught to see as the mantra of a system that destroyed ambition and the drive to succeed that American capitalism was built upon. I think that’s simplistic, but it’s also mostly true. Living on the dole is living on the dole. All communism does is narrow economic opportunity to oligarchs. Everyone else? Pass the beans and borscht and keep your head down, comrade.

The fact is that communism has proven to be a horrible system of government, one that concentrates power under an authoritarian rule, censors books and newspapers, offers only rudimentary education for the poor, discriminates on the basis of gender and race, and controls healthcare. In communist countries, posters of the authoritarian Dear Leader are plastered on every open space. Flags with his image are flown in every public square.

That’s why it seems so absurd to me to hear MAGA types — and Donald Trump himself — call Kamala Harris and Democrats “communists.” It sounds like you’re being tough when you call someone a communist, but they literally appear to have no idea what a communist is.

Think of the two major American political parties: When it comes to a cult of personality, one that features posters of Dear Leader, flags, religious iconography, clothes, and even tattoos, which party comes to mind? Which party has come out in support of banning books? Which party wants to give public tax dollars to private schools? Which party openly demonizes LGBTQ Americans and people of color? Which party wants to centralize power and give it to an authoritarian who will “be a dictator on day one”? Which party wants to control the healthcare decisions of the country’s females? Which party literally rejected democracy in 2020?

If your answer to those questions is anything other than the Republican Party, you’ve gone down into a scary rabbit hole, a place where the light of the obvious won’t penetrate. It’s like you’re in a permanent duck-and-cover drill.

ALSO READ: Even Trump's fans aren't buying his scaremongering threats: analyst

'Wow': Observers stunned by new polls showing Harris 'surging' over Trump in national vote

Brad Reed
August 29, 2024 

Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris 

Nick Oxford and Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP)

A pair of new polls released on Thursday morning indicate that Vice President Kamala Harris has surged ahead of former President Donald Trump in the national polls, although the race remains very tight in crucial battleground states.

The two polls in question come from USA Today/Suffolk, which shows Harris with a five-point national lead, and Reuters, which shows Harris with a four-point national lead.

Political observers said that the polls appeared to be good news for Harris but cautioned that the race is still up for grabs thanks to much tighter polling in swing states.

"Harris's margin in the poll among likely voters is 4.3%," wrote The Bulwark's conservative Bill Kristol. "Biden beat Trump in 2020 by 4.5%. So Harris has--to her great credit--gotten the race from a Trump lead back up to the 2020 numbers. But this is still (especially in the EC) a knife's edge race."

"A bunch of new polls out this morning, both national and battleground," wrote national security attorney Bradley Moss. "Harris maintains a solid national lead for now but the battlegrounds remain tight as ever. Vote."

Semafor reporter Dave Weigel argued that while the polling now may look similar to the polling in 2016, Harris's lead may be more durable than Clinton's given that her favorable numbers are significantly higher at the moment than the 2016 Democratic nominee's.

"Polling looks a lot like it did around Labor Day 2016, with one big difference — both candidates have much higher favorables, so there’s less scatter to third parties," he noted.

CBS News' Norah O'Donnell highlighted some striking differences in how Harris is polling now compared to how President Joe Biden was polling before he dropped out of the race.

"Voters 18 to 34 years old moved from supporting Trump by 11 points to supporting Harris by 13 points, 49%-36%," she observed. "Hispanics moved from supporting Trump by 2 points to supporting Harris by 16 points, 53%-37%."

Anti-Trump attorney and conservative activist George Conway, however, did not include any caveats in his analysis and said that it looked like a clear win.

"Is this bad for convicted felon Donald Trump?" he asked sarcastically. "Because it kinda seems bad."

Independent's White House correspondent Andrew Feinberg simply replied with, "Wow."

'Rats jumping off a sinking ship': Insiders dumping Truth Social stock as price tanks

Tom Boggioni
August 29, 2024 

RAW STORY

(Shutterstock.com)

According to a new report, if Donald Trump wants to tap into a cash windfall that awaits him from his stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, his time is coming soon but there are also indications some of the company's insiders are seeing the writing on the wall and it is not good.

Stock in the long-troubled social media platform has plummeted 40 percent in the past month, which puts the former president under the gun due to restraints placed upon him that keep him from doing a sell-off or borrowing against his shares until September 25.

That restraint has not held back some of the tech company's executives who have already started cashing in their stock as the value plummets.

According to a report from CNN, "Some Trump insiders are already selling, perhaps contributing to the recent selloff in the share price. For instance, Phillip Juhan, Trump Media’s chief financial officer and treasurer, recently disclosed selling $1.9 million worth of stock. Trump Media’s general counsel Scott Glabe, chief operating officer Andrew Northwall and chief technology officer Vladimir Novachki made smaller sales last week too. Even Devin Nunes, the former Republican congressman who now serves as Trump Media’s CEO and president, dumped $632,000 worth of stock last week."

According to Charles Whitehead, professor of business law at Cornell Law School, there is the danger of a massive sell-off, explaining, "You don’t see sizable shareholders like President Trump selling a lot of stock because it drives the price down. From the market’s perspective, it may look like rats jumping off a sinking ship.”
Jay Ritter, of the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, added there is additional political peril if the former president does a massive stock dump.

“If Trump were to sell a large number of shares and the stock price tanks, to some degree he would be burning his own supporters who bought the stock,” Ritter suggested. “Politically, that may not play out real well for him.”

You can read more right here.

The real reason corporate media won't cover Trump's attacks on democracy

D. Earl Stephens
August 29, 2024

(Photo by Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images)

This article was paid for by Raw Story subscribers. Not a subscriber? Try us and go ad-free for $1. Prefer to give a one-time tip? Click here.

We need to talk about the abominable headline below, and how it is we have come to the fatal point where The New York Times and our broken mainstream media seem to need the America-attacking Donald Trump a helluva lot more than the America-attacking Donald Trump seems to need The New York Times and our broken mainstream media.



substackcdn.com

During the past few, rocky years my feelings about the newspaper I grew up reading as a kid — the paper that influenced me more than any other to become a newspaperman — in the New Jersey suburbs have evolved from surprise, to shock, to disappointment, to anger, to rage, to complete revulsion ...

Aside from platforming maniacal, caustic headlines topping spurious content like the one above (which I promise to get to in a minute), this newspaper’s inability to spot the biggest news story of our lifetimes, and treat it with the heft it deserves, is journalistic malpractice, and a very real danger to our country.

The Times isn’t alone in its mishandling and disregard of the continuing attack on our country and its institutions that back it up. In fact, I can’t point to ONE so-called reputable news source in our “mainstream” media that has appropriately sounded the alarms, and given this perpetually breaking news story the treatment it demands.

There is not a single day that toddles by, when I don’t sit at my cluttered desk as the retired newspaperman I ultimately became, and stare at my keyboard wondering just what in the hell is being discussed in the newsrooms of our most foremost “news” operations in this nation.

Why have they abandoned us, and the most important story in the world?

Our country has been under steady attack for nearly four years now. Why aren’t our newsrooms on wartime footing? Bare minimum, why haven’t Democracy Desks been set up in these broken newsrooms staffed with journalists who do nothing but monitor the Republicans’ movements as they ruthlessly defend an attack on America, and go about annihilating truth, justice, and our right to even vote?

What news could possibly override monitoring the dangerous maneuvers of a sociopath, who is still free and on the loose after unleashing his rabid attack dogs to besiege our Capitol, stomp on law enforcement officials, seek out political leaders for harm and hanging, and prevent the certification of our vote, while doing nothingfor three hours except root for the attack’s success?

Backed by his morally busted political party, the son of a bitch means to finish us off whether or not he ever gets power again. He is the literal definition of a terrorist and/or an authoritarian strongman — a thug. He bows to murderous fascists like Putin, and openly revels in their success.

There’s not a single thing I have typed here that isn’t completely true. So what in the hell is going on with our addled media, and their disgusting refusal to do their jobs?

Why just the the other day, this pathetic man outdid even himself when he illegally barged into Arlington National Cemetery for a photo op. He once again disgraced our fallen, who he has called “suckers” and “losers” to get his wrinkled, orange mug in front of a camera.

My God. Now let’s pretend what would happen if Joe Biden or Kamala Harris did something like that …

It has been more than 160 years since a threat like this presented itself in the United States of America, and we know how that turned out. Hundreds of thousands dead and wounded, an assassinated president, cities in ruin, and the very real chance that America would not be able to rebuild itself again.

She did, but all these decades later, still walks with a limp from that horrific period in her life.

We are but 69 days from repeating all this, though it could be even worse this time, because if the enemies of our Democracy win this election they will have successfully breached our Capitol, and will be setting up headquarters in our White House.


The repugnant Confederacy, thank God, never made it that far last time.

So I ask again: Just what in the hell is being discussed in all these newsrooms while Trump bangs the drums of hate, follows the roadmap created for him in Project 2025, and backstopped by a radical, bought-off Supreme Court, bolstered by known election-deniers, promises retribution to anybody who dares get in his way?

Since that terrible attack on our Democracy began four years ago, our broken media has given us almost nothing but normalization and capitulation.


How else to explain this headline and the story it trumpeted written by one of the NYT’s leaders in its editorial department, Deputy Opinion Editor Patrick Healy:



substackcdn.com

What matters most? You mean, the safety and well-being of our country and its citizens from those who would attack it?


Of course it didn’t mean that ...

That headline and the one I lead this piece with above topping an offensive, ridiculous slice of gaslighting by the ultra-Conservative Rich Lowry of the National Review, were splashed across the pages of The New York Times on Monday.

And let’s get this out of the way quickly: Yes, I understand that they were produced by the editorial department of this dumpster fire of a news source, but if that makes you feel any better about things, then they have you right where they want you: accepting that running this kind of propagandist bilge is acceptable.

It’s not.

It’s not from any news source that wants us to take them seriously, and displays the credibility that any reputable news organization must possess to serve its readership adequately.

My only plausible guess for the mainstream media’s failure to cover the attack on our country, besides sheer and incomprehensible incompetence, is that they are hedging their bets. Trump has been undeniably good for their bottom lines, which looks to me to be the only damn thing they truly care about.

If Trump goes away, so does the money. And what of the millions of dollars of tax cuts he’s promising to once again give the owners of these pompous rags?

Otherwise, there’s no making sense of any of this.

Regular readers will know that this is not the first time I have written about our media’s catastrophic failure to protect and inform us. And fair warning: Unless things radically change with the way our mainstream media comport themselves in the coming days, it won’t be the last.

I take these threats to our country and our media institutions very seriously, and I have learned many of you do, too. You (we) are owed a damn explanation for the greatest failure by our media in the 248-year history of our country.

We are furious about it, we have a right to be, and we deserve some damn answers PRONTO.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. Follow @EarlofEnough

Watch: J.D. Vance relentlessly booed by firefighters

Brad Reed
August 29, 2024 

Trump's pick for Vice President, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) arrives on the first day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 15, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) did not exactly receive a warm reception when he spoke on Thursday before the International Association of Firefighters.

Vance, who talked to the group at its Boston conference one day after Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz did the same, took to the podium to try to pitch himself and former President Donald Trump as Republicans who were of a different mold compared to past GOP administrations.

After being introduced by Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL), Vance took to the podium and thanked the audience — only to be greeted by boos.

"Semper fi, guys," Vance said in response. "Sounds like we've got some fans and we've got some haters, that's okay! Listen to what I have to say here, and I'll make my pitch."

Later in his speech, Vance touted the blue-collar bonafides of both himself and former President Donald Trump.

"President Trump and I are proud to be the most pro-worker Republican ticket in history," Vance began. "And I want to talk about why we're fighting for working people, why we're going to fight for unions and non-union alike."

At this point, Vance was again hit with a cascade of boos.

Watch the videos below or at this link.

Right-wing editor roasted for investigating whether Harris 'really' worked at McDonald's

Matthew Chapman
August 29, 2024 

Vice President Kamala Harris (Photo by Elijah Nouvelage / AFP)

One anecdote from Vice President Kamala Harris' middle-class upbringing on the campaign trail is that she worked a summer job at McDonald's after her freshman year of college to make ends meet. But Peter J. Hasson, editor of the right-wing Washington Free Beacon, tried to investigate whether this was really true — and ended up embarrassing himself.

"NEW: Kamala Harris’s missing 'summer job' at McDonald’s job," posted Hasson to X. "Her resume and job application a year after graduating college — [Free Beacon] obtained through FOIA — don’t mention it. Neither do either of her books, or either of the biographies on her." He posted the paper's report, written by Joseph Simonson, Chuck Ross, and Andrew Kerr, complete with scans of her original application to work in the district attorney's office.

But commenters on social media buried Hasson in mockery, with many people pointing out the obvious flaw in this investigation: people leave irrelevant details of their work history off of resumes and job applications all the time.

"This is a non-story. Plenty of people don't put their high-school jobs on their resume (partly because working at a fast food place as a 16-year-old often has no relevance or utility for most post-college employers)," wrote elections analyst Lakshya Jain.

"LOL - They’re checking to see if she put working at McDonalds on her post-grad resume?" wrote Maryville College history professor Aaron Astor. "I didn’t put my four years of working at a gas station on mine either. Wait, is this a serious article?"

"Imagine having McDonald’s on your resume applying to a law clerk position in an DA’s office," wrote investigative reporter Jacqueline Sweet.

"I wonder why Kamala Harris listed working at a law firm, Charles Schwab, and the FTC when applying for a legal job instead of McDonalds. Very suspicious!" wrote former White House economic adviser Brendan Duke.

Even Colin Wright, a fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute, also thought this investigation was silly.

"I don't know whether Harris ever actually worked at McDonalds, and don't particularly care. But I used to work a crappy job at a buffet called Fresh Choice after high school," he wrote. "I opened the door for customers and said 'Welcome to/Thank you for coming to Fresh Choice!' That was my job. When I went to college and started applying for research internships, I never mentioned Fresh Choice on my previous work experience. I only put down work and experience relevant to the position I was applying for ... If I was applying to a clerk position at a district attorney's office, I probably wouldn't list my summer job at McDonald's either. I'm not voting for Harris so it's not like I'm running defense for her, but this line of attack ain't it."