https://taskandpurpose.com/news/pentagon-racism-diversity-tom-cotton/

Racism didn’t exist in the military before Biden, US Senator says with straight face

A white senator from the South told America’s first Black defense secretary on Thursday that President Joe Biden’s nascent administration has witnessed the birth of racism and sexism within the military.

The cause of this completely new phenomenon is allegedly the anti-extremism and diversity training that troops have taken so far this year, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) said during Thursday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

“Mr. Secretary: We’re hearing reports of plummeting morale, growing mistrust between the races and sexes where none existed just six months ago, and unexpected retirements and separations based on these trainings alone,” said Cotton, a former Army captain and a graduate of Ranger School.

Dog whistles aside, there is plenty of evidence that racism and sexism within the ranks actually predates the Biden administration. Task & Purpose has documented 40 cases since 2016 of service members and veterans participating in extremist organizations, such as white supremacist groups.

The Pentagon tried to bury a 2017 survey that found nearly one-third of Black service members who responded said they had experienced racism. Moreover, 30% of Black respondents and 22% of Asian respondents felt their chances for promotion would be harmed if they reported the racial harassment and discrimination that they endured.

Source: Pew Research

The election of Joe Biden as president has led to a dramatic shift in America’s international image. Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, publics around the world held the United States in low regard, with most opposed to his foreign policies. This was especially true among key American allies and partners. Now, a new Pew Research Center survey of 16 publics finds a significant uptick in ratings for the U.S., with strong support for Biden and several of his major policy initiatives.

In each of the 16 publics surveyed, more than six-in-ten say they have confidence in Biden to do the right thing in world affairs. Looking at 12 nations surveyed both this year and in 2020, a median of 75% express confidence in Biden, compared with 17% for Trump last year.

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In France, for example, just 31% expressed a positive opinion of the U.S. last year, matching the poor ratings from March 2003, at the height of U.S.-France tensions over the Iraq War. This year, 65% see the U.S. positively, approaching the high ratings that characterized the Obama era. Improvements of 25 percentage points or more are also found in Germany, Japan, Italy, the Netherlands and Canada.

Still, attitudes toward the U.S. vary considerably across the publics surveyed. For instance, only about half in Singapore and Australia have a favorable opinion of the U.S., and just 42% of New Zealanders hold this view. And while 61% see the U.S. favorably in Taiwan, this is actually down slightly from 68% in a 2019 poll.


Read more: https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2021/06/10/americas-image-abroad-rebounds-with-transition-from-trump-to-biden/

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Dude, look at these X's

Source: Axios

Criminals may have stolen as much as half of the unemployment benefits the U.S. has been pumping out over the past year, some experts say...

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By the numbers: Blake Hall, CEO of ID.me, a service that tries to prevent this kind of fraud, tells Axios that America has lost more than $400 billion to fraudulent claims. As much as 50% of all unemployment monies might have been stolen, he says.

Haywood Talcove, the CEO of LexisNexis Risk Solutions, estimates that at least 70% of the money stolen by impostors ultimately left the country, much of it ending up in the hands of criminal syndicates in China, Nigeria, Russia and elsewhere...

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"President Biden has been clear that this type of activity from criminal syndicates is despicable and unacceptable. It is why we passed $2 billion for UI modernizations in the American Rescue Plan, instituted a Department of Justice Anti-Fraud Task Force and an all-of-government Identity Theft and Public Benefits Initiative.”

Read more: https://www.axios.com/pandemic-unemployment-fraud-benefits-stolen-a937ad9d-0973-4aad-814f-4ca47b72f67f.html

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A lot of it is scammers, international gangs with some foreign state affiliation, and professional fraudsters.

Much of the blame lies with the state governments that didn't take precautions against international wire fraud.

Under "how it works" the article links to another article on how the Secret Service is uncovering the ways state government payouts were hijacked by criminals using identity theft.

We must work harder to ensure more bipartisanship.

Will have less than a snowball's chance in hell of being ratified. Probably the only measures that could unite the nation are Congressional term limits or a balanced budget amendment. Neither proposal would do that much to fix the institutional problems in Washington.

And the balance budget amendment would either be toothless and meaningless or would cause grave damage to our fiscal health.

Guess who I am!

Need a clue?

If fact, they're getting sooooo clloooose to self-awareness, it's like watching hominids evolving up to homo sapiens in real time:

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/az-goper-who-supported-sketchy-election-audit-now-says-it-makes-us-look-like-idiots

AZ GOPer Who Supported Sketchy Election Audit Now Says It ‘Makes Us Look Like Idiots’

Arizona state Sen. Paul Boyer (R) apparently has regrets about backing his fellow GOP senators’ push for a shady audit of Maricopa County’s 2020 election ballots to boost ex-President Donald Trump and his allies’ bogus conspiracy theories about voter fraud.

“It makes us look like idiots,” Boyer told the New York Times in an interview published on Sunday. “Looking back, I didn’t think it would be this ridiculous. It’s embarrassing to be a state senator at this point.”

{snip}

There have been indications that the audit is being shaped by MAGAland’s bonkers conspiracy theories, including an analysis of the ballots looking for bamboo fibers, a recognition of one conspiracy theory claiming that tens of thousands of ballots were shipped in from Asia.

The review has caught the attention of the Justice Department, which sent a letter to Arizona Senate President Karen Fann (R) last week outlining its concerns that the ballots being examined were “not being adequately safeguarded by contractors.”

The DOJ also criticized the auditors’ plan to knock on voters’ doors to verify the addresses they had listed when registering to vote,” telling Fann that “Such investigative efforts can have a significant intimidating effect on qualified voters that can deter them from seeking to vote in the future.”

Most of his female characters were mankilling harpies who tormented Charlie and Linus. It was only after his remarriage to a younger more supportive woman that his "second generation" more positive characters like Peppermint Patti and Marcie came along and lightened the mood of the strip.

Honestly, the darker themes is what set Peanuts apart from the Howdie Doodie antics of the other newspaper funnies.

A week from now we'll reach 600,000 deaths from Covid-19

100k - May 22 - 85 days
200K - Sep 13 - 114 days
300K - Dec 9 - 87 days
400K - Jan 13 - 35 days
500K - Feb 14 - 32 days
600K - May 16 - 91 days