Truth on April Fools Day

On April Fools Day, many people write about pranks played on others or fake stories that readers may believe. This true news shows what fools believe.

In Bulwark, conservatives Wiilliam Kristol and Andrew Egger reprise Robert Kagan’s article about how MAGA calls for “America First” wants to return the U.S. to the 1930s and its aftermath when Adolf Hitler began invading European countries—starting with Austria and Czechoslovakia before moving through another five countries and then taking over France. His effort finally failed after President Franklin Delano Roosevelt persuaded the nation to join Europeans and Russia against Hitler and Germany.

Determined isolationists after World War I, Republicans wanted to avoid all world conflicts. Nazi supporters, such as aviator Charles Lindbergh, praised Nazi Germany for its economy, and Sen. Robert Taft (R-OH) mocked those who feared advancing fascism. He said that world was “big enough to contain all kinds of different ways of life.” Instead, conservative Republicans worried about communism and believed that Hitler and Mussolini would protect the U.S. The antisemitic conservatives also felt Jews were responsible for their conspiracy theories and called the New Deal the “Jew Deal.” According to conservatives, Jews were pushing the United States into war “for reasons which are not American.”

By the 1940s, most people in the U.S. rejected arguments of these original American Firsters, which had 800,000 members in 400 chapters. FDR succeeded in entering World War II because of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the majority of people who wanted to send aid to Britain in the Lend-Lease plan. “America First was generally rejected until former Dictator Donald Trump (DDT) used it to take over the U.S. His current authoritarianism has led to MAGA support for Russian President Vladimir Putin who threatens the world with the possibility that Putin will take over where Hitler failed. Putin has a better chance than Hitler to bamboozle the U.S. than 75 years ago when the GOP presidential candidate, Wendell Wilkie, opposed Hitler’s takeover and the abdication of U.S. responsibility. In 2024, the candidate DDT has a large number of supporters who think like Hitler. Once again, the U.S. faces the greatest ground war since World War II in a contrast between democracy and tyranny.  

If DDT is victorious and turns against Ukraine, international power will undergo a huge change. Before the election, MAGA is following DDT’s orders and blocking help for Ukraine. Even if Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson caves in to let Democrats vote for Ukrainian aid, in a effort to keep his position, the funding might not be quickly forthcoming. People are foolish is they believe that a coalition of Russia, Iran, and North Korea will not impact the United States.  

Russia has been spreading lies about Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelinsky and his wife to give the GOP Putin wing an excuse to not send funding to save the country in Russia’s invasion. According to a specialist in disinformation, tainting Zelensky then taints Ukraine’s image. One lie that went viral was Zelensky’s purchase of two yachts for $75 million. Russia even provided proof of purchase, but the yachts are still for sale. Another falsehood is that his wife Olena Zelenska bought $1.1 million worth of jewelry in New York when she came to New York last September with her husband who sought support from Congress. In fact, she was in Canada with her husband where they met with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on the date of the fake receipt that was provided. The woman who made the original claims was the owner of a store in Russia, not an employee of Cartier.

China is also using disinformation similar to that of Russia against Democrats to influence the 2024 election by masquerading as U.S. supporters of DDT in promoting conspiracy theories, pushing domestic divisions, and attacking Biden. These attacks come from Chinese government accounts called Spamouflage. Like Russia, China prefers DDT to Biden as president. In February, a Chinese-linked X account with a Western name beside a “MAGA 2024” reference shared a video from Russian state TV that claimed Biden and the CIA sent a neo-Nazi gangster to fight in Ukraine. The account declared it belonged to a 43-year-old DDT supporter in Los Angeles, but the profile image had been lifted from a Danish man’s travel blog. It appeared to originally be in Mandarin. Alex Jones shared the hoax with 2.2 million followers. Another account was posted in Mandarin until it was corrected. Meta removes these accounts, but X lets them flourish.

Rejection of immigrant workers and a desire to pay lower wages are behind the weakened child labor laws in at least 16 states. Another issue is the arrival of migrant children from Latin America who can easily be abused in the work environment. In Florida, 16- and 17-year-olds can work seven days in a row and take overnight shifts if they are schooled online or in the home. Federal law forbids all minors from working in jobs deemed hazardous, including manufacturing, roofing, meatpacking, and demolition, but child-labor violations are soaring in the past few years. Contrary to federal law, Iowa permits minors to work in these areas. One way to avoid federal law is to call these children “apprentices.” Six other states consider laws permitting minors to work in dangerous jobs. In Virginia and Iowa, children as young as 13 clean head splitters and other kill-floor equipment at slaughterhouses on overnight shifts for Fayette Janitorial Services. The GOP argument for relaxed laws is to improve teenagers’ work ethic and reduce screen time. Some legislators simply say that they had jobs when were teenagers or they would let their own children work.

Yet another 13 states are trying to strengthen these laws. After deaths of minors illegally employed in dangerous jobs, Virginia unanimously approved a bill increasing employer penalties for child labor violations from $1,000 to $2,500 for routine violations. GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin hasn’t signed it yet, but it has enough votes to override a veto. Colorado has introduced the strongest bills that not only raise fines for violations but also publicize information about companies violating child labor laws.

Michelle Cottle warns the GOP that DDT bring the party to financial ruin because the RNC is helping him pay his legal expenses and focusing on his election to the detriment of all other candidates. Chris LaCivita, who got his job through DDT’s insistence, vowed that committee funds wouldn’t be used for DDT’s legal costs, but the arrangement for the April 6 fundraiser shows a different approach. The invitation states that he gets the first $6,600 for his campaign, the legal maximum, and the following $5,000 to Save America PAC, paying for DDT’s legal costs. The next $413,000 of the $814,600 asking price goes to the RNC and the rest to state GOPs, some of this battleground cash-strapped states Arizona, Michigan, and Georgia. Impoverished parties in chaos from leaders’ indictments and infighting don’t receive large donations. Congressional GOP candidates also aren’t getting the big bucks since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), an excellent fundraiser, was ousted from the position. And new Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson lacks confidence as House members have formed their own tribes in more infighting.

These aren’t pranks:

 With no facts, the RNC has to publish lies to convince the ignorant that Biden is incompetent. This video is an example with the message, “Biden slowly descends the Capitol steps (as his handlers keep a watchful eye), points toward his motorcade, and shuffles back into his limo. Vigor!” He is flanked by Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson and former Irish PM Leo Varadkar who resigned this month.

Judge Juan Merchan has expanded DDT’s gag order to limit his attacks on Merchan’s and Manhattan’s DA Alvin Bragg’s family members. DDT’s lawyers argued against the order, claiming that DDT needed to issue these threats as part of his campaigning with First Amendment rights. During his civil lawsuit regarding fraud, DDT also targeted Judge Arthur Engoron’s wife and son.

DDT has posted a $175 million bond, due on Thursday, to prevent New York from seizing his assets. An appeals court had let him post the bond for under 40 percent of what he owed. The amount owed is growing by $100,000 a day from interest. After posting the bond, DDT can file an appeal for the verdict.

DDT celebrated Easter posting and reporting 43 Truth Social messages with grievances about Judge Arthur Engoron, humorist Jon Stewart, Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter, New York AG Letitia James, and gag orders. He didn’t say whether he attended church on Easter Sunday.

Stock for DDT’s Truth Social dropped almost 22 percent on Monday to $48.66, about $1 billion, after the report of a $58 million annual loss in its regulatory filings. The cost had gone up to $79.38 last Friday after shareholders permitted stocks to trade. With a revenue of $4.1 million, the company spent $16 million on operative expenses and $39.4 million on interest. It expects losses during the foreseeable future. The company’s accountants doubts that it can “continue as a going concern.” Monthly active users are down 51 percent to 494,000 monthy users whereas X has 75 million U.S. users. Meta’s new Threats has ten times as many users as Truth Social. DDT is prevented from selling his millions of shares for six months.

National Security Threats—Social Media, Tuberville

Social Media Platforms Threaten Democracy:

Elon Musk may sue the Anti-Defamation League for defamation, but his pushing Russian propaganda about Ukraine on X is spreading lies throughout the European Union, according to a report from the European Commission. After purchasing Twitter, Musk’s removal of restrictions on Kremlin-backed accounts led to a 36 percent growth in their online engagement and he abandoned the voluntary code of conduct to oppose disinformation, eased content rules, and cut enforcement staff. X removed state-affiliated media labels from government-controlled Russia Today (RT) and other Kremlin-controlled accounts while allowing them to pay for the X’s blue-check verification program.

According to a law firm representing a Saudi Arabia victim’s family, X is “unfit” to hold banking licenses because of its alleged “intentional complicity” with Saudi human rights violations and treatment of users’ personal data. Trying to increase his lagging revenue, Musk plans to begin financial services. Starting almost a decade ago, Twitter began approving Saudi requests for confidential information in “droves,” allowing 85 percent of then in 2016 which was a much higher rate than for Canada and the U.S. Now, Saudi investors are the second largest in the country.

X isn’t alone; Russian disinformation also thrives on Meta which owns Instagram, Telegram, and Facebook. Pro-Kremlin accounts more than tripled on Telegram since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Digital Services Act to stop the worst lies from being boosted by algorithms and to subject social media performance to auditing went into effect on August 25, but the damage has already been done. Legal and voluntary measures haven’t had success.

According to Reset senior adviser Felix Kartte, social media propaganda used hate speech, boosted extremists, and threatened national security. Volunteers on Telegram channels, such as Cyber Front Z, working for Russian interests, coordinated simultaneous posts to manipulate formulas boosting popular content. One key technique was initially posting messages in unregulated spaces with less traffic before promoting them with links on more popular channels. In addition, they filed false mass claims that pro-Ukraine accounts violated platform rules to get them suspended and intimidated others with doxing and other threats. According to Reset, which concentrated on 2022:

“The reach of pro-Kremlin accounts has increased between January and May of 2023, with average engagement rising by 22 percent across online platforms. However, this increased reach was largely driven by Twitter, where engagement grew by 36 percent after CEO Elon Musk decided to lift mitigation measures on Kremlin-backed accounts, arguing that ‘all news is to some degree propaganda.’”

According to Musk’s biographer Walter Isaacson, the X owner also helped Russia in its invasion of Russia. An hour because the Kremlin launched its invasion on February 24, 2022, it used a massive malware attack to disable the U.S. satellite company Viasat’s routers to provide communication to Ukraine. With the Ukrainian military command system crippled, it couldn’t mount a defense against Russia. Officials appealed to SpaceX founder Musk for assistance and asked for terminals for the company’s satellite system, Starlink. Musk sent 500 terminals two days later adding another 2,000 terminals with solar+battery kit because of no electricity in some areas. Musk got great press coverage and adulation for the Western public with ways to defeat Russian jamming and voice connections.

By September, however, Musk became concerned about a nuclear war, partly because of Starlink, and disagreed with Ukraine using drone to recapture Crimea. He secretly told his engineers to turn off Starlink coverage within 60 miles of the Crimean coast; Ukrainian drone subs lost connections when they neared the Russian fleet in Sevastopol and simply washed ashore. Although Ukraine begged him for help, Musk refused because Ukraine “is now going too far and inviting strategic defeat.” He also told the Russian ambassador that Starlink would be used only for defensive purposes and proposed a peace plan that gave Ukrainian land to Russia and kept the country out of NATO. Musk also threatened to pull his donation of Starlink from Ukraine, but the press backlash caused him to withdraw his demand for funding.

U.S. government agencies are now paying for increased Starlink service in Ukraine, and over 100,000 new satellite dishes were sent to Ukraine at the beginning of 2023 along with a companion service, Starshield, designed for military use.

Nevertheless, Russia has praised Musk’s actions that saved the Russian Navy, prolonged the way, cost Ukrainian civilian lives, and blocked food delivery to a starving world. Russia’s fleet of almost 50 warships in the Black Sea serve as missile platforms, launching attacks on Ukrainian cities and some of the terrible attacks on their civil homes. The ships also stop commercial traffic on the Black Sea and threaten ships hauling grain to starving populations in other parts of the world. Ukraine isn’t trying to conquer the Black Sea; it’s trying to end the Russian threat on the country. Failure was caused by X-controller who supports conspiracy theories, white supremacy, and authoritarianism but who has tremendous influence in the U.S. government.

Voting conspiracy theories spread in the U.S. have provided a great opportunity for disinformation from Russian and Chinese government-affiliated operatives and organizations by amplifying U.S. conversations on social media platforms. A report has also shown that a Chinese marketing firm organized and promoted protests in Washington last year and used a network of over 70 false news websites to promote pro-China content to influence U.S. political debate in recent years. One of them was against a U.S. government ban on Chinese goods and another at an international religious freedom conference. On social media platforms, suspected Chinese operatives also spread disinformation about divisive political issues—racial, economic, and ideological—with fake artificial intelligence images impersonating U.S. voters on accounts tied to the Chinese Communist Party.

Presidential candidate Vivek Ramasamy said if he were elected, he could appoint Musk as an advisor “because he laid off 75% of the employees at Twitter.” Musk is one of the rich “welfare queens,” receiving as much as $1 billion in credits from Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act after building much of his wealth from government handouts to his companies.

A new report also describes Musk’s control over X’s content moderation, ordering employees to make his own posts the most visible and tweak the feed of his top venture capitalist friend at his request. The “social media platform” is not a neutral “public forum” but instead gives an advantage to hate and disinformation while making the company addictive by exploiting psychological triggers. Algorithms promote companies owners and the values, politics, and ideas benefiting them the most.

Tuberville Continues Holds on Military Promotions, Cries “Woke”:

The military rarely criticizes politicians, but the secretaries of the Army, Navy, and Air Force wrote a joint op-ed for The Washington Post this week, urging Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) to be more responsible because he is eroding “the foundation of America’s enduring military advantage” with his hold on all promotions of military officers. Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro referred to his native country, Cuba, in a televised interview:

“For someone who was born in a communist country, I would have never imagined that actually one of our own senators would actually be aiding and abetting communists and other autocratic regimes around the world.”

Perhaps Tuberville’s excuse of blocking military promotions to “protect life” may be growing old because he has a new one: “poems” on battleships. Last week’s false rationale is “people doing poems on aircraft carriers” making the U.S. Navy “so woke.” On Fox’s The Ingraham Angle, Tuberville declared that Del Toro “needs to get wokeness out of our Navy.” He blamed the lack of recruits for “woke,” ignoring the possibility that it could partly come from the chaos he has caused.

https://neoskosmos.com/en/2023/09/09/dialogue/tubervilles-attack-on-poetry-in-the-military-reveals-lack-of-understanding-of-ancient-greeces-martial-history/    Tuberville didn’t explain his distress but may have been referring to a spoken-word event on the USS Gerald Ford. As usual, Tuberville displays his overwhelming ignorance of history: war poetry goes back to The Illiad. Its first written form appeared in the eighth century B.C. The U.S. national anthem is a poem written by an American on a ship during war, and for many years, school children were required to memorize Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride.” In World War I, “the war poets,” several of them dying in the trenches, changed the arc of English literature.

The retread coach from Alabama who doesn’t even live in the state he represents was wrong before when he lied about the illegality of the Pentagon’s travel-reimbursement policy and the military paying for abortions. His claim that his unprecedented blockage “only” affects several hundreds of high-ranking military officers ignores the 6,000 people directly feeling the impact of his ill-conceived actions. And the military has gathered en masse to dispute his disinformation that his intransigent decision doesn’t undermine the U.S. military that he declares he reveres.  

Tuberville’s GOP colleagues are trying to cover for him by claiming that other senators have held up promotions, but the comparisons don’t hold water. Their colleague’s stubbornness in attacking the military may cause them to lose the ability to put holds on anything; a simple majority vote of senators can remove the rule. President Nixon held up promotions in 1973 by vetoing the War Powers Act, but Congress overrode his veto.

Although Tuberville said he would drop the hold if the majority of Alabamans disagreed, he fails to keep his promise. And he’s not up for re-election until 2026.