Thom Hartmann on CNN Interview of Harris and Walz

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2024 //
80

I don’t know about you but I was disappointed by the CNN interview of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz. Interviewer Dana Bash wanted her colleagues to say she was tough, so she asked several gotcha questions. In particular, I was annoyed by the “what will you do in your first day in office?” question. It seems to be a standard question, but the answers it elicits are either banal or unrealistic. I recall that Trump told Sean Hannity that he would “drill, baby, drill” and “build the wall” on his first day. Oh, and he would be a dictator on day one. Harris just offered some platitudes about starting “the opportunity culture.” The realistic answer might be “I’m going to meet with my new staff; I’m going to find out where the bathroom is; I’m going to check out the desk drawers and arrange my family pictures; I’m going to plan our legislative agenda.” If Harris were coming in after Trump, she would have many executive orders to sign, reversing his bad ideas. But she follows Biden, and it is unlikely she will reverse anything.

Thom Hartmann was disappointed by the CNN interview. He explains here:

CNN shows everything that’s wrong with 2024’s repeat of 2016’s election coverage. In an interview with Vice President Harris and Governor Walz Thursday night, CNN’s Dana Bash chose to repeat pathetic rightwing attacks on the candidates instead of engaging in issues of importance to a majority of Americans. Only four of the questions she asked during the entire interview were not rightwing talking points. She could have asked about their pledge to protect Social Security and Medicare after Trump proposed cuts to both programs every year for his 4 years in office, or the 90% of Americans who want weapons of war off our streets, or their efforts to revive labor unions in the face of GOP opposition, or how they feel about Republicans on the Supreme Court thwarting Biden’s efforts to cut student loan debt, or what they’d do about the severe ethics problem with bribed Supreme Court justices Alito, Roberts, and Thomas, or their support for the queer community in the face of unrelenting attacks by JD Vance and other rightwingers, but, no. Instead, she had to ask about a one-word misspeak by Walz five years ago, whether Harris identified as Black or Indian or what, and why Walz implicitly lied when he said he and his wife had undergone “IVF” treatment for infertility when, in fact, they’d undergone the similar “IUI” treatment. As if anybody, anywhere, gives a damn. Probably the best analysis of the interview is here on Substack by Jeff Teidrich. Meanwhile, CNN’s management is ebullient about having pulled in a “whopping 6 million viewers.” Like I said, money over country…

Categories Elections, Harris, Kamala, Media, Walz, Tim

Margaret Sullivan: False Equivalence Between Harris and Trump in The New York Times

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2024 //
23

Margaret Sullivan was the ombudsman (public editor) for the New York Times. She writes a blog called American Crisis. There are so many amazing blogs these days that it’s hard to keep track. This one appeared in my email today, and it speaks to a debate among readers on this blog about whether the media, and most especially The New York Times, normalizes Trump’s behavior and ideas in an effort to be “fair.” I’m subscribing.

She writes:

I once asked Jill Abramson, the former top editor of the New York Times, to name the best reporters she had ever encountered.
I recall she mentioned her friend and co-author Jane Mayer — definitely on my list, too — and a few others. Mayer’s book, “Dark Money,” about the Koch Brothers, is a classic of investigative reporting.

Another one was James Risen, the renowned investigative reporter formerly of the New York Times, and later at the Intercept. I agreed again, particularly because of an investigation that Risen did during the George W. Bush administration about the government surveillance of American citizens through warrantless wiretapping. (There’s quite a backstory there, but suffice it to say that Times editors held back the investigation for many months after the administration claimed that publishing would threaten national security; Risen eventually forced the hand of his editors, resulting in the publication of the blockbuster co-authored with Eric Lichtblau — and it won a Pulitzer Prize.)

I heard from Risen a few days ago, as I do from time to time; I got to know him while I was the Times public editor or ombudswoman. He wrote to express his outrage at his former employer for a recent story. I pay particular attention to him as a former Timesman himself and a journalist of integrity.

“At first, I thought this was a parody,” Risen told me. Unfortunately, it wasn’t. Even more unfortunately, the lack of judgment it displays is all too common in the Times and throughout Big Journalism as mainstream media covers Donald Trump’s campaign for president.

“Harris and Trump Have Housing Ideas. Economists Have Doubts,” is the headline of the story he was angered by. If you pay attention to epidemic of “false equivalence” in the media — equalizing the unequal for the sake of looking fair — you might have had a sense of what was coming.

The story takes seriously Trump’s plan for the mass deportation of immigrants as part of his supposed “affordable housing” agenda.
Here’s some both-sidesing for you, as the paper of record describes Harris’s tax cuts to spur construction and grants to first-time home buyers, and Trump’s deportation scheme.
“Their two visions of how to solve America’s affordable housing shortage have little in common …But they do share one quality: Both have drawn skepticism from outside economists.” The story notes that experts are particularly skeptical about Trump’s idea, but the story’s framing and its headline certainly equate the two.

There’s only one reason I disagree with Risen’s reaction. He wrote: “This story is unbelievable.”

I wish.

Stories like this run rampant in the Times, and far beyond. It matters more in the Times because — even in this supposed “post-media era” — the country’s biggest newspaper still sets the tone and wields tremendous influence. And, of course, the Times has tremendous resources, a huge newsroom and the ability to hire the best in the business. Undeniably, it does a lot of excellent work.

But its politics coverage often seems broken and clueless — or even blatantly pro-Trump. There’s so much of this false-balance nonsense in the Times that there’s a Twitter (X) account devoted to mocking it, called New York Times Pitchbot. 

Sometimes, sadly, it’s hard to tell the difference between the satire and the reality. Hence, Risen’s parody line.

At the same time, when Trump does something even more outrageous than usual, the mainstream press can’t seem to give it the right emphasis. Last week, NPR broke the news that Trump and his campaign staff apparently violated federal law — and every norm of decency — by trying to film a campaign video at Arlington National Cemetery and getting into a scuffle with a dutiful cemetery employee.

Of course, the story got picked up elsewhere and got significant attention. But did it get the huge and sustained treatment that — let’s just say — Hillary Clinton’s email practices did in 2016? Definitely not, as a former Marine, Ben Kesling, wrote in Columbia Journalism Review:

“Lumped together, the reporting this week left readers and listeners, especially with no knowledge of the military, at a loss to understand what actually happened — and crucially, why it mattered so much. The Trump campaign had successfully muddied the waters by alleging that the photographer had been invited to the event by family members of soldiers buried there.”

It came off, he wrote, “like a bureaucratic mix-up or some tedious violation of protocol,” not a deeply disrespectful moral failure, which it surely was. “The sacred had been profaned.”

The political cartoonist Darrin Bell, however, certainly got the point across in a time-lapse video cartoon. Check it out here. (Open the link to see this).

Why does this keep happening, not just in the Times but far beyond? 

Nearly 10 years after Trump declared his candidacy in 2015, the media has not figured out how to cover him. (My last major piece in the Washington Post laid out how coverage should change if Trump decided to run again, and I’ve also written recommendations here from the Media and Democracy Project.)

And what’s more — what’s worse — they don’t seem to want to change. Editors and reporters, with a few exceptions, really don’t see the problem as they normalize Trump. Nor do they appear to listen to valid criticism. They may not even be aware of it, or may think, “well, when both sides are mad at us, we must be doing it right.” Maybe they simply fear being labeled liberal.

American Crisis is a community-supported project where I explore how journalism can help save democracy. Please consider joining us! Subscribe

All of this matters immensely as the extraordinarily important campaign for president heads into its last couple of months. I’ll be continuing to monitor coverage here, and trying to find ways to improve it.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Media, Propaganda, Trump

CBS News Interviewed Biden After He Stepped Aside

By dianeravitch
September 3, 2024 //
9

The Republican Party is flailing around in search of a way to attack Kamala Harris, looking for any way to discredit her. As expected, they have made snide comments about her race, her gender, and her intellect. Trump says she’s “too dumb” to be president, which, coming from a man who refused to read his briefing books, is hilarious. He has even repeated revolting remarks about her sexual history, which is funny in a sick way since his is a disgrace and is well-documented.

One of the absurd charges against Harris is that she failed to tell the American public that Joe Biden had become senile. She “covered up” his mental decline, say the GOP critics.

But was he in fact in declining condition? Was he unable to carry out the functions of the presidency?

Biden announced his decision to step aside on July 21. Robert Acosta of CBS News conducted the first interview of Biden on August 12.

The conversation was wide-ranging. They discussed his decision to withdraw; why he decided to run in 2016; his belief that Trump is a threat to the security of the U.S.; his hopes for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza; his belief in the importance of NATO.

He spoke slowly and chose his words with care. He hesitated while thinking through his answers. He stumbled and corrected himself once or twice. His manner was that of a man past his prime. He is old.

But his answers were pointed and clear. He showed no sign of cognitive decline. He was on top of all the issues (as he was in his post-NATO press conference, where he gave what some commentators called a “master class” in international relations.)

He spoke from the depths of his wisdom and experience. He left the race to save the nation from another chaotic and divisive Trump term.

Kamala Harris was not protecting or hiding Biden. She has nothing to apologize for.

Biden has been an incredibly effective president, working with a deeply divided Congress. He came to realize that the campaign would be about his age, not the issues. The greatest thing he could do for his country was to step down, and he did, for the sake of the democracy he loves.

Categories Biden, Character, Democracy, Democrats, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Harris, Kamala

Biden and Harris Bring the Campaign to Pittsburgh for Labor Day

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2024 //
1

Watch President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris as they speak to union leaders and members in Pittsburgh today!

Please note: President Biden is old and he shows it, but he is mentally sharp and animated.

The clips are contained in a post called “The Meidas Touch.” The speeches by Biden and Harris are the second of three videos. The third video is Governor Tim Walz in Wisconsin, speaking to union workers.

Sixty-six days until Election Day. Early voting starts in a couple of weeks. Will the nation build for the future or go back to the past?

Categories Biden, Democracy, Elections, Harris, Kamala, Trump

Elon Musk Posts Fake Image of Kamala in Communist Uniform

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2024 //
13

Twitter (X) has few rules but one of them bars fake images.

X belongs to Elon Musk, the richest man in the world. He can do whatever he wants on X. Rules are for others. So he did.

Tech billionaire Elon Musk, a supporter of former President Donald Trump, on Monday posted a fake image of what appears to be Vice President Kamala Harris dressed in a red communist uniform.

“Kamala vows to be a communist dictator on day one. Can you believe she wears that outfit!?” Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, in response to the vice president’s post warning about Trump being a “dictator on day one.”

According to X’s policy, users “may not share synthetic, manipulated, or out-of-context media that may deceive or confuse people and lead to harm. … In addition, we may label posts containing misleading media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context.”

Musk’s post does not have any such label on it.

Last month, Trump posted a fake, AI-generated image depicting Harris speaking in front of a communist symbol at the Democratic National Convention. 

The least trustworthy tweets are those posted by Musk.

Categories Billionaires, Elections, Ethics, Extremism, Lies, Media

Bernie Sanders on the Importance of Labor Day

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2024 //
22

Senator Sanders of Vermont is leading a campaign to restore collective bargaining rights. [CORRECTION!]

He wrote today:

As we celebrate Labor Day, 2024, there is some very good news. 

Public approval of labor unions, at 70%, is higher today than it has been in decades. Over the last year major unions like the UAW have won some highly publicized strikes, while many other unions have negotiated trail-blazing contracts for their members. Young people at Starbucks and on college campuses are now more involved in labor organizing than ever before. And, for the first time in American history, a president of the United States, Joe Biden, walked a picket line with striking workers.

It is not an accident as to why we are now seeing more militancy and growth in the labor movement. The working people of our country are increasingly aware of the unprecedented level of corporate greed and power we are now experiencing, and the outrageous level of income and wealth inequality that exists. They understand that never before in American history have so few had so much, while so many continue to struggle. And they are fighting back. They know that workers in unions can negotiate contracts that give them better wages, working conditions and benefits than non-union workers. They appreciate that when you’re in a union you have some power against the arbitrary decisions corporate bosses. 

Working people today are more than aware that, over the last 50 years, there has been a massive transfer of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%. They are disgusted that, despite huge increases in worker productivity, real inflation-accounted for wages for the average American worker are lower now than they were over 50 years ago as 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck. They are insulted that CEOs of major corporations make almost 350 times as much as their average employee. They are concerned that the American dream is ending and that their kids may have an even lower standard of living than they do. And they worry that with the rapid growth of Artificial Intelligence and robotics, they have no power as to what will happen to their jobs as the economy undergoes major transformations.

The average American worker also understands that his/her political power has been significantly diminished as billionaires pour huge amounts of money into both political parties as they undermine our democracy. It is no great secret as to who now has the clout in Congress. It is the billionaires, the corporate CEOs, the campaign donors and their well-connected lobbyists.

Bottom line: The average American worker is sick and tired of status quo economics and politics. He/she knows that in the richest country on earth we can and should have an economy and political system that works for all, and not just the wealthy few, and that a strong union movement is the vehicle for bringing about the changes that we need.

On this Labor Day, as we reaffirm our support for the trade union movement and for labor solidarity throughout the world, as we continue to fight the day to day struggles against corporate greed, it’s important that we not lose sight of our vision for the future and what kind of country we want to become. Here, in my view, are just a few components of the agenda we need to fight for. 

We must establish a vibrant democratic political system. One person, one vote. We must end the disastrous Citizens United Supreme Court decision and the billionaire funding of campaigns through super-PACs. We need to move to the public funding of elections and give political power back to ordinary Americans. 

We need to pass the PRO Act and end the ability of companies to illegally intimidate and fire workers who want to join a union. Corporate interests spend an estimated $400 million a year on anti-union consultants who do everything possible, legal and illegal, to fight the right of workers to join unions.

We need to end starvation wages in America and raise the $7.25 an hour federal minimum wage to a living wage. People should not have to work two or three jobs just to pay the bills for their families.

We need trade policies that benefit workers in the U.S. and abroad, not just the CEOs and stockholders of major conglomerates. We need to rebuild our manufacturing sector and create good paying jobs here.

We need to join the rest of the industrialized world and guarantee health care to all people as a human right through a Medicare for All, single payer system. No one should go bankrupt because of a hospital stay. Everyone in America, regardless of income, should have the right to see a doctor. 

We must finally guarantee paid family and medical leave to every worker in America. New moms and dads should be able to spend the first few months after delivery with their newborn child. Family members should be able to care for a loved-one who is sick without having to worry about missing a paycheck. 

Like health care, education and job training must be considered a human right from childcare to graduate school. At a time when, in a highly competitive global economy, we need the best-educated workforce in the world, no one should be forced to go deeply in debt to get the education and training they need to be productive members of our society. 

At a time when 50% of older workers have nothing in the bank for retirement, and 25% of seniors are trying to live on $15,000 a year or less, we must re-establish Defined Benefit Pension plans and increase Social Security benefits. Workers are entitled to a secure and dignified retirement.

And finally, we must address the unprecedented and outrageous level of income and wealth inequality that currently exists. No. It is not acceptable that three multibillionaires own more wealth than the bottom half of American society. It is not acceptable that many billionaires pay an effective tax rate that is lower than truck drivers or nurses. We need a progressive tax system that demands that the wealthiest people in our country finally start paying their fair share of taxes. 

Let’s be clear. None of these progressive concepts are “radical.” While they are opposed by the Big Money interests and marginalized by the corporate media and the political establishment, they are strongly supported by a majority of the American people. Most of these ideas, in one form or another, are already in place in other wealthy countries around the world.

So, on this Labor Day, let us redouble our efforts to grow trade unionism in America and create the kind of grassroots movement we need to take on the power of the Oligarchy. Let us, in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, create an economy that provides a decent standard of living for all, and not just massive and obscene income and wealth inequality. 

As we enter the last two months of the election season, please contribute $54 to my campaign. I will use the donations we receive to travel the country with trade union and progressive leaders to defeat Donald Trump and to elect the most progressive Congress possible this November. We’ve already had great events in Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Maine and New York. But much more needs to be done. 

If you’ve stored your info with ActBlue, we’ll process your contribution instantly:CONTRIBUTE $54CONTRIBUTE OTHER

And let us never forget: When we stand united, and not let authoritarians and bigots divide us up, there is nothing that we cannot accomplish.

Happy Labor Day! 

Bernie

Categories Economy, Unions

Meanwhile, in Israel…A Time for Truth

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2024 //
8

Soldiers of the Israeli Defense Force discovered the bodies of six young hostages while searching the vast tunnel infrastructure under Gaza. All six had been captured on October 7, 2023 They were young people, and each had been shot in the head within 24-48 hours of being found. This event provoked massive protests in Israel, with hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, demanding both a ceasefire and a release of all the hostages. The national labor federation called a general strike in support of these demands. Sadly, while the public wants an end to the war, the leaders on both sides do not.

The following article by Amir Tibon appeared yesterday in Ha’aretz, a liberal Israeli news site.

It seems like a lifetime ago, but just two weeks ago, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Israel, and ended his visit to the country with a surprising statement. The Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he said, had accepted the latest bridging proposal put forward by the United States and the other mediators in the talks for a hostage release and cease-fire deal.

Blinken’s intention was good: He wanted to increase the pressure on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who has been stalling and refusing to compromise for months now, sticking to maximalist positions and doing everything he can to avoid negotiating in good faith. Almost 11 months into the war that Sinwar initiated with the October 7 massacre, Gaza is in ruins, tens of thousands are dead, but the man who brought this calamity on his people is hiding in a tunnel and haggling for time.

The problem with Blinken’s statement is that on the other side of the negotiating table is a cynical and ruthless politician who feels even less urgency to reach a deal than Sinwar. Netanyahu pulled on Blinken the same trick he has been pulling on American diplomats for his entire career: Doublespeak. One message in English, the opposite in Hebrew.

And so, after a lengthy conversation in which Netanyahu promised the secretary that he will accept the bridging documentput forward by the mediators, Blinken gave his statement – and the Israeli prime minister, having “pocketed” the achievement, moved on to his next move.

In the two weeks that have passed since the visit, Netanyahu has done everything humanly possible to turn Blinken’s statement into a total joke. He imposed new conditions for any future agreement, stated that Israel will “never” evacuate its forces from the Philadelphi corridor along the Gaza-Egypt border, and pushed Israel’s security cabinet to pass a decision that prohibits any withdrawal from there. His own defense minister warned the cabinet members during a heated discussion on Friday morning that Netanyahu’s desired decision is a de facto death sentence for the dozens of living hostages still held in Gaza. Netanyahu ignored him.

It’s too late to save the six hostages who were murdered last week by Hamas, after surviving 11 months in the tunnels of Gaza. The time to save them was in June and July, when a deal was in hand, and Netanyahu again added new, last-minute obstacles.

At the end of the day, the Biden administration – which seems much more eager than the Israeli government and Hamas to reach a deal – is facing an impossible situation. Sinwar is an ultrareligious fanatic with a murderous zeal and a messianic world view. Netanyahu is an egotistic, selfish man who values the survival of his own coalition over the survival of the hostages. It’s not clear if the administration can truly get a deal under these circumstances. But if it can’t, it owes one thing to the families of the hostages, especially the American ones: to tell the truth, and stop allowing either side to use political tricks and manipulations.

Categories Accountability, Cruelty, Extremism, International

Happy Labor Day!

By dianeravitch
September 2, 2024 //
6

Today is an ironic holiday. The nation recognizes the day and most offices are closed to honor the dignity of labor. But it was not created in the late nineteenth century to honor labor in general but to honor labor unions.

Why ironic? Because right wingers have always hated labor unions. Today, unions represent about 10-11% of workers. Most unionized workers belong to public sector unions. In the 1950s, about one-third of private-sector workers belonged to a union; now only 6% do. Most people think that the decline in union membership has been bad for the country. They are right.

Why does it matter? Because unions were crucial in building the middle class. Because they have always been a stepping stone from low-wage jobs to better-paying jobs with benefits, including healthcare and pension. Because they promote better working conditions and higher salaries. Because unions are the answer to closing the vast gap between rich and poor. Without unions, there will be more super-billionaires and more living in poverty.

We need more unionized workers and workplaces.

The Department of Labor has a page about the day’s history.

The first Labor Day holiday was celebrated on Tuesday, September 5, 1882, in New York City, in accordance with the plans of the Central Labor Union. The Central Labor Union held its second Labor Day holiday just a year later, on September 5, 1883.

By 1894, 23 more states had adopted the holiday, and on June 28, 1894, President Grover Cleveland signed a law making the first Monday in September of each year a national holiday.

A Nationwide Holiday

Women's Auxiliary Typographical Union

Many Americans celebrate Labor Day with parades and parties – festivities very similar to those outlined by the first proposal for a holiday, which suggested that the day should be observed with – a street parade to exhibit “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” of the community, followed by a festival for the recreation and amusement of the workers and their families. This became the pattern for the celebrations of Labor Day.

Speeches by prominent men and women were introduced later, as more emphasis was placed upon the economic and civic significance of the holiday. Still later, by a resolution of the American Federation of Labor convention of 1909, the Sunday preceding Labor Day was adopted as Labor Sunday and dedicated to the spiritual and educational aspects of the labor movement.

American labor has raised the nation’s standard of living and contributed to the greatest production the world has ever known and the labor movement has brought us closer to the realization of our traditional ideals of economic and political democracy. It is appropriate, therefore, that the nation pays tribute on Labor Day to the creator of so much of the nation’s strength, freedom, and leadership – the American worker.

Categories Economy, Unions

Lottery Scams in Mass. and Texas: How to Beat the System, Win Millions, and (Maybe) Get Away with It

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2024 //
4

Every once in a while, you read a story about a person winning the lottery twice or three times, and it seems amazing that anyone could be so lucky. But when the same person wins the lottery thousands of times, something is wrong. The two biggest lottery scams in recent years happened in Massachusetts and Texas. The trick was different in each case but very effective. The perpetrators of the winning plan were jailed in Massachusetts, but not in Texas, where almost anything is legal except abortion.

In Massachusetts, the story appeared in the Boston Globe magazine about a family—a father and two sons—who collected $20 million from the lottery in less than a decade, with more than 14,000 winning tickets.

Dan O’Neil, the director of compliance and security for the Massachusetts State Lottery Commission, doesn’t typically get alerted when someone shows up to claim a $1,000 prize from a scratch-off ticket. Such transactions are usually quiet, pleasant, unremarkable. The lucky winner produces the ticket and the agent, sitting at a counter behind a pane of glass in Dorchester, doles out the money.

The call came from a customer service agent in the lobby at lottery headquarters and the message was short. The Jaafars are here again, the agent said. Yousef Jaafar, this time….

An information technology expert at the lottery had run the math to show just how unlikely it was. An instant-win game called “$10,000,000 Big Money” had a 1 in 1,106.72 chance of producing a jackpot of $1,000 or more, he reported. Yet somehow, over a recent span of six months, the Jaafars had managed to claim nearly $2 million in winnings, the bulk of it from instant tickets like “$10,000,000 Big Money.” To win at that rate, the Jaafars would’ve had to purchase 22,859 such tickets every day, 952 tickets every hour, 16 tickets every minute. “Every minute of every day,” the official said. “Twenty-four hours a day.”

In lottery terminology, there was a name for this. The Jaafars were “high-frequency winners.” They were also breaking the law and the rules of the lottery itself by working with dozens of convenience store operators in an underground network where everyone was trying to avoid paying taxes on lottery prizes. In this network, everyone got cash under the table while the Jaafars got the winning tickets to claim as their own. A lot of them. In 2019 alone, the Jaafars claimed more than $3.2 million in winnings. Yousef was the sixth-highest ticket casher in the entire state that year, Mohamed was third, and their father topped the list…

The Jaafars’ scheme was built on a premise that’s been known to gamblers for decades: Some people prefer not to publicly claim their winnings, particularly if they want to hide money from the Internal Revenue Service.

At American racetracks since at least the 1960s, these reluctant winners have turned to “ten percenters” for help. In the shadows beneath the grandstands, ten percenters would pay cash for someone’s winning ticket, minus a 10 percent cut off the top and often even more — 15 or 25 percent. The real winner would walk away with cash in hand, off the books, tax-free, while the ten percenter would claim the full prize at the racetrack window and often avoid taxes by claiming large gambling losses at the end of the year or by submitting fake identification at the track.

It usually amounted to tax evasion and could have devastating ramifications: the government sometimes lost as much as $1 million a week in tax revenue at a single track. It was only a matter of time before a similar practice of ten percenting infected state-run lotteries. For any jackpot over $600, winners have to produce a valid ID and Social Security number, and pay taxes. Those who owe back taxes or child support have one more obstacle to clear: Massachusetts authorities will take that money before paying out any winnings.

In this world, someone holding a scratch-off ticket worth $1,000 can sell their prize to a convenience store operator for $750 or $850. The winner leaves with cash under the table. The convenience store clerk picks up the phone and calls a runner. This person shows up and buys the ticket for the discount price, minus a cut for the clerk — maybe $50. The runner then pretends to be the real winner and claims the ticket at a lottery office for its full value, scoring a profit of $100 or $200.

Quite a racket. But they didn’t get away with it. The father was sentenced to five years in prison, the older son got 50 months, and the younger son got a plea deal.

In Texas, a slick operation based in New Jersey managed to score a $95 million jackpot by buying every numerical combination.

By April 22, seven months had passed without a winner of the jackpot, and the top prize had grown to $95 million.

That night’s draw — 3, 5, 18, 29, 30, 52 — matched a single ticket purchased in a small store in Colleyville, outside of Fort Worth. 

Winners have six months to claim their prize, either in payments over 30 years or a lump-sum, typically worth about half. On June 27, the state of Texas issued a check for $57.8 million to a New Jersey-based limited partnership apparently formed to collect the jackpot, called Rook TX.

The Texas Lottery Commission, whose proceeds mainly fund public education, celebrated the big win — “generating much needed revenue for Texas Schools,” then-Executive Director Gary Grief wrote. “What the Texas lottery is all about.”

But a statistical analysis of the April 22 Lotto Texas drawing strongly suggests that night’s draw wasn’t what a lottery is about at all. Rather, the numbers indicate Rook TX beat the system.

Unbeknownst to the millions of players who’d invested their hopes and dreams into the game and its life-changing jackpot, the winner had already been decided.

Rook TX appears to have engineered a nearly risk-free — and completely legal — multimillion-dollar payday.

And the state of Texas helped.

Warning: Numbers ahead

While lottery players have occasionally exploited a hidden mathematical advantage to guarantee a lottery profit, there is one sure way to win a jackpot. Stefan Mandel did it 14 times, and it had little to do with luck. He simply bought up every numeric combination.

Yet Mandel, a Romanian economist and mathematician, had to master both probability and logistics. The jackpots needed to be both big enough to cover his costs, as well as favor his chances of being the only winner; splitting a payout could be ruinous. Because buying so many lottery tickets required going to dozens, if not hundreds of separate stores, he required a team of accomplices. 

The recent introduction in Texas of digital lottery apps has lowered the logistical obstacles. The Lotto Texas drawing of April 22, meanwhile, presented a perfect-storm of high reward and low risk that practically guaranteed that an opportunistic player with a sizable bankroll could walk away with tens of millions of dollars.

The evidence is in the numbers.

The first thing someone wanting to buy a lottery drawing would need to know: How many tickets would you need to buy to cover every numeric combination in a game like Lotto Texas? The answer, said Tim Chartier, a Davidson College math professor who studies sports and lottery analytics: 25.8 million.

Lotto Texas draws typically generate 1 million to 2 million ticket sales. Records from the Texas Lottery Commission show that in the days leading up to the Saturday night draw, just over 28 million Lotto Texas tickets were purchased.

That doesn’t prove Rook TX accumulated the nearly 26 million tickets necessary to guarantee a win. But an examination of the second prizes awarded indicates it almost certainly did.

In addition to the jackpot for matching all six numbers, Lotto Texas pays lesser prizes to players who guess five-of-six, four-of-six and three-of-six of the draw. The total possible combinations for each, according to Nicholas Kapoor, a Fairfield University statistics professor who studies lottery probability: 288 five-of-six combos, 16,920 four-of-six combos and 345,920 three-of-six winners.

Lower-value prizes can be cashed in at any retailer that sells tickets, and the state doesn’t track them. But Texas requires any prize over $599 to be redeemed at an official Texas Lottery Commission center, which records the winners. The April 22 drawing paid $2,015 to its five-of-six winners.

Records from the Texas Lottery Commission show Rook TX cashed in 289 winning tickets in the five-of-six game — the same number as all possible combinations plus one for the grand prize ticket. The odds a single entity managed to win the grand prize and every possible five-of-six prize — but somehow didn’t buy up every combination — are vanishingly small, said Chartier…

There is compelling evidence that Lotto Texas’ ballooning jackpot was being probed by sophisticated players in the weeks leading up to Rook TX’s big win.

With the jackpot climbing to $60 million, the April 1, 2023, draw saw a sudden sales spike. Three million tickets were purchased, more than double the previous game.

No one matched all six numbers, but the draw produced a large number of five-of-six winners. More unusual: 17 of the 40 winning five-of-six tickets were held by the same person — a rate that is extremely unlikely to have occurred randomly.

Records show the claimant, Thomas Ashcroft, purchased all his winners through two stores — the Colleyville outlet and Luck Zone, an app-affiliated store in Round Rock. Although Ashcroft gave a Connecticut address, the Chronicle could not locate anyone with that name in the region.

Another burst of sales preceded the April 15 drawing — 7.4 million tickets. While no one claimed the jackpot, the number of five-of-six winners was again high. This time, more than three-quarters of the 71 winners were claimed by a single entity — Rook TX. State records show it purchased all 55 winning tickets from the same two stores. 

For one entity to randomly win that many of the five-of-six prizes, Chartier calculated a person would have to play a lottery game every day for 327 years. 

The Texas Lottery Commission said there was nothing suspicious about the games, which it said were attracting more players because of the big prize and relatively good odds of winning: “This is not indicative of unusual activity in the lottery industry, but rather a strategic decision made by players or groups that are in pursuit of high jackpots.” 

A week later Rook TX won the $95 million jackpot and 289 five-of-six winners. The April 15 and 22 draws are the only times its name appears in the state’s registry of lottery winners.

The Texas Lottery Commission allows winners of $1 million and more to remain personally anonymous, so identifying Rook TX’s members is practically impossible. Delaware corporation records show it was formed two weeks before claiming the top prize. The limited partnership’s registered agent, Glenn Gelband, a lawyer in Scotch Plains, N.J., did not respond to a request for comment.

Texas lottery officials said there was nothing illegal about buying up all the numbers.

Massachusetts put the guys who played the system into prison. Texas can’t find them and apparently doesn’t care. The only way to beat the guys who beat the system is to hope that two or three other combines copy their tactics; they would all lose money by splitting the prize.

Categories Cheating, Corruption, Ethics, Fraud, Massachusetts, Texas

Jennifer Rubin: Brave Republicans and Those Who Are M.I.A.

By dianeravitch
September 1, 2024 //
10

Jennifer Rubin was a solid conservative journalist and lawyer who was hired by the Washington Post to express the conservative view on politics in a column called “Right Turn.” After Trump’s election, she became increasingly critical of him and eventually reversed her ideology. She is today one of the most incisive critics of the MAGA movement. In this column, she chastises Prominent Republicans for remaining silent in this election.

She writes:

One of the most uplifting parts of last week’s Democratic convention was the presence of so many Republicans, such as former Illinois congressman Adam Kinzinger and former Georgia lieutenant governor Geoff Duncan. Both decided to put country over party and self.

“I know Kamala Harris shares my allegiance to the rule of law, the Constitution and democracy, and she is dedicated to upholding all three in service to our country,” Kinzinger said. “Whatever policies we disagree on pale in comparison with those fundamental matters of principle, of decency and of fidelity to this nation.” Likewise, Duncan said, “Let me be clear to my Republican friends at home watching: If you vote for Kamala Harris in 2024, you’re not a Democrat. You’re a patriot.”

The day after the convention, a dozen former lawyers from the three Republican administrations before Donald Trump’s published a letter endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris. They wrote, “Trump’s attempt to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after losing the election proved beyond any reasonable doubt his willingness to place his personal interests above the law and values of our constitutional democracy.” They argued that returning Trump to office “would threaten American democracy and undermine the rule of law in our country.” Then, a four-star general who served under President George W. Bush and hundreds of former Republican staffers endorsed Harris.

So, the question remains: Where are the rest of the Republicans who understand Trump is an existential threat to democracy? Most of the big names still refuse to follow Kinzinger and Duncan’s lead.

Former president George W. Bush must be in a witness protection program; he has virtually disappeared. Former Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney courageously stood up to Trump when he tried to stage a coup. But, sorry — if you pledge to do everything possible to prevent Trump’s return to power, you have an obligation to endorse Harris, the only person who can beat him.

Former New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who shredded Trump in the primaries, previously objected to endorsing President Joe Biden because of Biden’s age. (“President Biden, in my view, is past the sell-by date.”) What is his excuse now for refusing to endorse the new, 59-year-old Democratic nominee?

Paul Ryan, a Fox board member and former speaker of the House, was quoted in May as saying, “Character is too important for me. … [The presidency] is a job that requires the kind of character [Trump] doesn’t have.” But Ryan too lacks the nerve to support the only viable alternative. When he rationalizes his refusal to endorse a Democrat on the grounds that he differs on “policy,” he is telling us that preserving democracy is not a high policy priority for him.

The list goes on: H.R. McMaster (actually commending Trump’s foreign policy in the Atlantic!), Jim Mattis, Condoleezza Rice. Moral cowardice, or craving for access in future Republican administrations, seems to have silenced even those most vocal on America’s defense of Ukraine and other allies. History will not treat them kindly.

Certainly, getting some Republicans to refrain from voting for Trump is helpful. But if they are as devoted to democracy and as committed to the international world order as they say, there is no moral argument for refraining from going the rest of the way to endorse Harris, especially after such a robust affirmation of her foreign policy views.

Biden gave up the presidency for the sake of our democracy. Can’t these Republicans give Harris their votes?

Categories Accountability, Citizenship, Courage, Democracy, Elections, Ethics, Freedom, Harris, Kamala, Republicans, Trump
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »