Crooked Media - What A Day: Burying the lead

We’re back! (On the Clarence Thomas corruption beat!) 
 

• A new investigation by the New York Times details that just months after Clarence Thomas was sworn in as a Supreme Court justice, he was welcomed into the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans (yes, that is its actual name) a group of extremely wealthy self-mythologizing weirdos who worship at the altar of the American Dream. (The group does provide millions of dollars in academic scholarships for students from underprivileged backgrounds, but we still want to give anyone who identifies as a “Distinguished American” a wedgie.) At the center of this society was an even wealthier inner circle of conservative members who used Thomas as their ultimate proof that America was, in fact, a “race-blind” and meritocratic.
   

• Over the years, Thomas’s friends at the Horatio Alger Association have contributed to his ascension from a career judge of modest means to the highest heights of material privilege. They’ve brought him on their lavish vacation retreats, given him exclusive access to sporting events, and invited him to opulent parties, like a three-day birthday party in Montana for billionaire industrialist Dennis Washington, attended by Oprah Winfrey and Ed McMahon. 
   

• In return, the Times reports, Thomas gave the Horatio Alger Association extremely rare access to the Supreme Court, going so far as to host the group’s annual event where he places Horatio Alger medals around the necks of new members, which some have referred to as “the closest thing to being knighted in the United States.” Thomas hosts this medal ceremony…in the SCOTUS courtroom.

Justice Thomas’s history of accepting expensive gifts from his wealthy pals goes far beyond Harlan Crow. 
 

• It seems that the Horatio Alger Association was teeming with Harlan Crows. One of them was David Sokol, a mega-rich executive who was at one time thought to be the successor to Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway (before Sokol had to resign amid insider-trading allegations, classic!). As we learned during the Crow leg of Thomas’s story, the justice has not disclosed many gifts or travel benefits since the Los Angeles Times took a look under the hood and found a lot of private jet flights in 2004. 

• A series of interviews sheds new light on the fact that Thomas has been accepting gifts long before he sat on the highest court in the land. But his comrades at the Horatio Alger Association also included the late Wayne Huizenga, who owned the Miami Dolphins, and Jerry Jones, owner of the Dallas Cowboys, both of whom showered him with gifts over the past three decades. In the wake of his confirmation hearing, which almost unraveled amid Anita Hill’s credible accusations of sexual harassment, the Horatio Alger Association was evidence to Thomas that super-rich conservative elites were willing to look past his indiscretions to gain proximity to his power. The society gave Thomas its highest honor in 2010, and thereafter made him an honorary board member. 

Thomas is not alone among current and former justices in accepting expensive gifts. But unlike his late former colleagues Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, he has barely disclosed any of them. While concealing them, he advanced a fictitious storyline about his own success, which he ascribed to hard work, determination, and a modest lifestyle. When this term is over, we’re sure he will congratulate himself for helping to kill student-loan forgiveness and affirmative action while drifting off to sleep on a billionaire’s yacht.

Exciting news! If you’re in the Los Angeles area, come join Mobility author, Lydia Kiesling and Tommy Vietor for a Mobility book launch event at Dynasty Typewriter on July 27 at 7:30 PM. 
 

EVENT TICKETS HERE
 

Not in LA, but want to pre-order Mobility?! Pre-order today and be the first to read when it’s released on August 1.

Remember how ingesting lead is…bad? Well, an investigation by the Associated Press has found that for years, cities and towns across the United States have been leaving lead pipes in the ground, even ones that could easily be removed. Lead exposure poses particular dangers to young children, including irreparable damage to the central nervous system, lower IQ, and diminished problem-solving abilities. The EPA says lead is not safe for children at any level, but public utilities have tried to cut costs and eschew responsibility. The telecom giants saw what public utilities were doing and said “Hold my toxic lead.” A simultaneous Wall Street Journal investigation found that major service providers like AT&T and Verizon have left behind a network of cables (over 2,000 of them) covered in toxic lead stretching across the United States, underwater, in the soil, and on telephone poles. 

Lead poses maximal risk when it contaminates the water supply, and has been found on the banks of major rivers from coast to coast. Lead has contaminated the soil at a popular fishing destination in Louisiana, a playground in New York state, and school grounds in suburban New Jersey. Like municipal utilities, the telecom companies have known about the potential risks posed by these lead-covered cables, particularly to their workers and the environment, for a long time. They responded to the Journal’s reporting by saying they don’t believe their cables are a public-health or environmental hazard and insist they have complied with all pertinent regulations. According to the report—which was reviewed by the EPA—roughly 330 of the underwater cable locations are in “source water protection” areas, meaning they contribute to the drinking-water supply. Forty-eight thousand American students go to schools adjacent to these cables.

Turkey has agreed to pave the way for Sweden to join NATO. The announcement came just hours after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the European Union should first advance his country’s bid to join the bloc as a condition of any bid to move Sweden closer to NATO membership. Making strong demands but then folding immediately: a negotiating tactic after my own heart. 

Disgraced former president Donald Trump’s onetime chief of staff John Kelly testified under oath that Trump asked the IRS to investigate two FBI agents who were investigating him. 

The New York Times announced that it will shutter its sports department and instead rely on coverage from The Athletic, a website the paper acquired last year. The Times said this would not result in any layoffs, but it is worth noting that the NYT writers are unionized, while The Athletic’s are not. 

Wildfires in Canada have already broken all-time season records for forced evacuations, damage costs, and total area burned—and wildfire season is only halfway through.

Heavy rains are flooding the northeastern United States, causing evacuations and interruptions in airline travel, as well as one death in New York. 

Elon Musk has outsized control of American electric-vehicle infrastructure like the national network of charging stations, and that’s bad!

Schools in India’s capital of New Delhi were closed on Monday after monsoons caused landslides and flash floods in the country’s northern region, resulting in at least 15 deaths over the weekend. 

Larry Nassar, the disgraced sports doctor who sexually abused U.S. olympic gymnasts for decades was stabbed multiple times by a fellow inmate in federal prison. 

The European Union’s medical-oversight agency is investigating the blockbuster diabetes/weight-loss drug Ozempic after Iceland’s regulatory board flagged three cases of suicidal ideation correlated with the drug’s usage.

If you’ve ever had the displeasure of scrolling through one of the internet’s countless right-wing pseudonews websites, you will doubtless have seen scam ads featuring fake endorsements from celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Dolly Parton, Reba McEntire, Elon Musk, and even Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Conservative publishers make money off of the clickbait ads, and the biggest player in the game is AdStyle, a company whose website says it is registered in Delaware and headquartered in Florida. The only problem is, a ProPublica investigation found that corporate registries in Delaware and Florida have no record of the company. It appears to be run by a Latvian couple living in Italy (which, honestly, good for them!). AdStyle’s ads are inherently scam-oriented, like ones proclaiming preposterous results like “This 197-Year-Old Man’s Longevity Secret Makes Your Cells 4 TIMES Younger,” and are designed to exploit gullible readers. Right-wing publications know this, and are intentionally defrauding their audience. AdStyle works with far-right websites across the globe including Sweden’s anti-immigrant nationalist party. The network of far-right websites and right-wing candidates that use AdStyle to fleece their audiences is just the latest example of rapacious greed from influential right-wing organizations that seem to openly scorn their loyal supporters.

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Field archeologists in Oregon found human remains thought to be at least 18,000 years old, possible proof of North America’s oldest human-occupied site. The oldest human-occupied human site in North America was previously thought to be Sen. Chuck Grassley’s house. 

The number of migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border has plummeted following the expiration of Title 42, flying in the face of right-wing predictions/hopes. 

Last week, Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska became only the second woman ever to win the Fields Medal in its 60-plus year history.