The U.S. voted against a resolution condemning Russia

 

The U.S. voted against a resolution condemning Russia as the aggressor in the war in Ukraine that passed the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, February 24, marking three years since Russia’s launched its full-scale invasion of the country. 

The resolution is an expression of the body, and not a binding action, but signals weakening U.S. political support for Ukraine under the Trump administration, in favor of improved relations with Russia.

The resolution, titled “Advancing a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” passed the General assembly with a vote of 93 in favor, 18 against, and 65 abstaining.  The text of the resolution calls for de-escalation, early cessation of hostilities and peaceful resolution of the war against Ukraine. 

Among those countries that also rejected the resolution along with the U.S. were Hungary, whose Prime Minister Viktor Orban is a close ally to President Trump, Israel and Russia.

The U.S. is proposing a competing resolution. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. resolution is “consistent with President Trump’s view” that the U.N. must return to its “founding purpose… to maintain international peace and security, including through the peaceful settlement of disputes.”

Ambassador Dorothy Shea, acting head of the U.S. mission to the UN, said in remarks before the vote that the language included in Ukraine’s resolution mirrors previous resolutions, which “have failed to stop the war.” “ It has now dragged on for far too long, and at far too terrible a cost to the people in Ukraine, in Russia, and beyond,” Shea said. 

-The Hill

A Bill to End Illinois Property Taxes for Qualified Taxpayers

 

    

(The Center Square) – A bill filed at the Illinois Statehouse seeks to end property taxes for qualified taxpayers who live in and pay taxes on a residential home for at least 30 years. State Sen. Neil Anderson, R-Andalusia, said at some point, you have to own your own property.

“This country is founded upon freedom and property rights and at some point, you have to be able to own your property,” said Anderson. “This [bill] is a way to keep people in Illinois. If they own a home for 20 years and they have an option of moving to another state because they're tired of being taxed in Illinois, now all of a sudden, maybe [with the passage of this bill], they hang out another 10 years and now they don't have to pay property tax. That keeps them in the state and buying goods in the state and paying taxes in a different way.”

Illinois lost 32,826 residents from July 2022 to July 2023, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That was the 10th consecutive year of population loss for the state.

Anderson suspects there will be opposition.

“I posted on Facebook about this and I've gotten a lot of feedback already. I tend to agree with the people that are in the comment section that are upset, that are saying, ‘well, you know, I've owned my house for 20 years because I paid for it in cash or I paid it off early, why shouldn't I be able to not pay property taxes?’ I get it,” said Anderson. “This [bill] is a starting point. If we can start somewhere and just get some kind of agreement that at some point, whether it's 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, 50 years, whatever the agreement on the time period is, if we can agree that at some point you've paid enough money and you actually own your property and you don't have to pay anything anymore, that's the starting point I want to get to here.”

Senate Bill 1862 is co-sponsored by state Sen. Dave Syverson, R-Cherry Valley.

The measure says "qualified taxpayers,” or individuals who for at least 30 continuous years as of Jan. 1 of the taxable year have occupied the same homestead property as a principal residence and domicile, will be exempt from paying property taxes.

According to Anderson, the bill doesn’t apply to properties that provide income. "Qualified homestead property" is defined in the bill as a single-family residence that is occupied as a principal residence and domicile by a qualified taxpayer.

Anderson said the bill was not just created to provide property tax relief for Illinoisans, who pay the highest property taxes in the nation. “If I lived in Texas or Tennessee where property taxes are super low, I would also introduce this legislation. You have to be able to say, ‘yes, I own this property, and they can't take it away from me,’” said Anderson.

Anderson doubts the legislation will pass. “I'm hoping that I can get some friends on the other side of the aisle that just agree with the concept of, ‘oh, my gosh you're right, we do have to be able to own our property at some point and not pay anything else.’ If the compromise is to go to 50 years, fine, I'll take that starting point,” said Anderson.

-NewsBreak

 

Governor Mills vs. Trump

 

Donald Trump spent the day throwing a tantrum at the Governor of Maine because she refused to kneel before his latest ridiculous executive order banning transgender women from playing in women’s sports. It was classic Trump—loud, petulant, and so obviously desperate to be seen as a tough guy that it had the opposite effect.

He tried to wield federal funding like a bludgeon, warning Governor Janet Mills that her state would suffer if she didn’t comply. She met his threats with a casual, “We’ll see you in court,” a response so perfect, so effortlessly dismissive, that you could almost hear the air hissing out of Trump’s ego like a punctured parade balloon.

The man has built his entire persona on the idea that he is the world’s most dominant alpha male—an image that falls apart the moment he faces a challenge he can’t simply buy off or shout down. He is a bully, but more importantly, he is a coward. 

When he’s on the attack, he swaggers and postures like a professional wrestling villain, but when confronted by someone who won’t back down, he folds faster than a cheap lawn chair. His idea of masculinity is a bad 1980s action movie—loud, brash, and entirely built on illusion.

Trump isn’t angry because Mills disagrees with him; he’s angry because she isn’t afraid of him. That’s what really burns. He thrives on fear, on the illusion of unchecked power, and when that illusion is shattered—when someone like Mills stands toe-to-toe with him and refuses to budge—he doesn’t know what to do. So he sputters, he threatens, and he lashes out in every direction, hoping something will stick. It never does.

Meanwhile, JD Vance was weeping into a CPAC microphone about how America is turning men into “androgynous idiots.” “Our culture wants men to suppress every masculine urge,” he cried, no doubt wishing he was being cradled in the warm embrace of a father figure who actually loves him. 

It was a speech meant to conjure up the image of some glorious lost era of chest-thumping American manhood, but instead, it only reinforced what anyone with a functioning brain already knew: JD Vance has no idea what masculinity actually means.

These two buffoons love to cosplay as warriors, champions of testosterone in a world gone soft. But let’s take a look at what they’re actually doing. Trump, a man who dodged the draft because of imaginary bone spurs, is threatening to withhold federal funding from Maine because its governor won’t bow to his demands. 

And JD Vance, a man who once wrote an entire book about the dangers of sucking up to elites, is now licking Trump’s boots so hard you’d think they were made of chocolate.

Masculinity, real masculinity, is about strength, courage, and integrity. It’s about standing up for what’s right, even when it’s hard. It’s about protecting the vulnerable, not attacking them for political gain. It’s about facing adversity head-on, not throwing a fit when someone tells you “No.” By that measure, Trump and JD Vance are about as masculine as a wet paper towel.

Trump can puff out his chest and scream at governors all he wants, but at the end of the day, he’s just a blustering coward who folds under the slightest pressure. JD can cry about the decline of masculinity, but no real man spends his days groveling at the feet of a guy who wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire.

The irony is that the people they’re attacking—women who stand their ground, LGBTQ people fighting for equality—are showing more guts, more resilience, more true strength than either of these pathetic frauds could ever muster.

Trump and JD don’t represent masculinity. They represent the weak, whimpering, flailing desperation of men who know, deep down, that they are frauds. And nothing is more pathetic than a man who has to constantly remind you how strong he is.

from Fear and Loathing

Harbinger

 

In 1923 Adolf Hitler incited an insurrection against the German government. He was tried, given a slap on the wrist, and became a convicted felon. Despite being treated charitably by the judge, Hitler claimed the trial was political persecution and successfully portrayed himself as a victim of the “corrupt" Social Democrats.

Hitler cleverly positioned himself as the voice of the "common man," railing against the "elites," cultural "degeneracy," and the establishment, who he all labeled as "Marxists." He claimed the education system was indoctrinating children to hate Germany and promised to return Germany to greatness.

To solidify his base, Hitler masterfully scapegoated minorities for the nation's problems, exploiting societal divisions with an "us vs. them" narrative. Many Germans took the bait. Hitler's Nazi Party continued to gain traction, until he became Chancellor in 1933.

Hitler appointed German oligarchs as his economic advisors. He proceeded to privatize government run utilities, solidifying support of the economic elite.

With the working class divided along cultural and ethnic lines, the Nazis shut down workers unions and abolished strikes. Progressives and trade unionists were imprisoned and sent to concentration camps. Corporate profits skyrocketed while working class Germans lived paycheck to paycheck.

Hitler, who became a billionaire while in office, knew he and his clan of oligarchs could get away with the scam if they constantly had an "enemy within" to blame while the corporatocracy robbed the country blind.

An easy target was one of the smallest minorities. Hitler removed birthright citizenship rights of Jews and started rounding them up for mass deportations for being "illegally" in the country. The German press under Nazi rule highlighted instances of violence by Jews to convince the public that Jewish immigrants were a danger to the "real Germans."

Hitler wasted no time dismantling democratic institutions. Loyalty wasn't just encouraged; it was demanded. Opponents were silenced. Media that dared to questioned[sic] him were vilified as "the enemy" and "Marxists."

Hitler's Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels, bragged about how the Nazis were able to intimidate the media into giving them favorable coverage, and didn't need to give direct orders. The Nazi regime and its followers collected all books they saw as promoting "degeneracy" or what would be considered "woke" today and burned them in large bonfires. They also burned books that promoted class consciousness.

Berlin had a thriving LGBTQ community in the 1920s and even had the first transgender clinic. The Nazis burned it to the ground. LGBTQ people were sent to concentration camps and forced to wear triangle badges. Many were killed in the Holocaust.

The Nazis also saw manhood as under threat by independent women who didn't rely on men. In 1934, Hitler proclaimed, “A women’s world is her husband, her family, her children, her house." Laws that had protected women's rights were repealed and new laws were introduced to restrict women to the home and in their roles as wives and mothers.

Reproductive rights were severely rolled back, and doctors who performed abortions could face the death penalty. Despite all of this, the German people didn't have a similar historical parallel to look upon as a warning. Most Germans never acted like the sky was falling.

Most just went along with their lives as usual, until many of their lives were snuffed out. By the time Hitler's reign was forced to an end by the Allied Powers, 11 million people were murdered in the Holocaust, and 70-85 million were killed in WW2.

-Monica Aksamit

Instagram Thread, Bluesky

 

The past week has solidified a sea change in American—and global—history

On Wednesday, February 12, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, Belgium, that President Donald Trump intended to back away from support for Ukraine in its fight to push back Russia’s invasions of 2014 and 2022.

Hegseth said that Trump wanted to negotiate peace with Russia, and he promptly threw on the table three key Russian demands. He said that it was “unrealistic” to think that Ukraine would get back all its land—essentially suggesting that Russia could keep Crimea, at least—and that the U.S. would not back Ukraine’s membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the mutual security agreement that has kept Russian incursions into Europe at bay since 1949.

Hegseth’s biggest concession to Russia, though, was his warning that “stark strategic realities prevent the United States of America from being primarily focused on the security of Europe.” Also on Wednesday, President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, for nearly an hour and a half and came out echoing Putin’s rationale for his attack on Ukraine. 

Trump’s social media account posted that the call had been “highly productive,” and said the two leaders would visit each other’s countries, offering a White House visit to Putin, who has been isolated from other nations since his attacks on Ukraine.

In a press conference on Thursday, the day after his speech in Brussels, Hegseth suggested again that the U.S. military did not have the resources to operate in more than one arena and was choosing to prioritize China rather than Europe, a suggestion that observers of the world’s most powerful military found ludicrous.

Then, on Friday, at the sixty-first Munich Security Conference, where the U.S. and allies and partners have come together to discuss security issues since 1963, Vice President J.D. Vance attacked the U.S.A.’s European allies. He warned that they were threatened not by Russia or China, but rather by “the threat from within,” by which he meant the democratic principles of equality before the law that right-wing ideologues believe weaken a nation by treating women and racial, religious, and gender minorities as equal to white Christian men. 

After Vance told Europe to “change course and take our shared civilization in a new direction,” he refused to meet with Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz and instead met with the leader of the far-right German political party that has been associated with neo-Nazis.

While the Munich conference was still underway, the Trump administration on Saturday announced it was sending a delegation to Saudi Arabia to begin peace talks with Russia. Ukrainian officials said they had not been informed and had no plans to attend. European negotiators were not invited either. 

When U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov spoke on Saturday, the Russian readout of the call suggested that Russia urgently needs relief from the economic sanctions that are crushing the Russian economy. The day before, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of both Putin and Trump, assured Hungarian state radio on Friday that Russia will be “reintegrated” into the world economy and the European energy system as soon as “the U.S. president comes and creates peace.”

Talks began yesterday in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In a four-and-a half-hour meeting, led by Rubio and Lavrov, and including national security advisor Mike Waltz, the U.S. and Russia agreed to restaff the embassies in each other’s countries, a key Russian goal as part of its plan to end its isolation. Lavrov blamed the Biden administration for previous “obstacles” to diplomatic efforts and told reporters that now that Trump is in power, he had “reason to believe that the American side has begun to better understand our position.”

Yesterday evening, from his Florida residence, Trump parroted Russian propaganda when he blamed Ukraine for the war that began when Russia invaded Ukraine’s sovereign territory. When reporters asked about the exclusion of Ukraine from the talks, Trump answered: “Today I heard, ‘Oh, well, we weren’t invited.’ Well, you've been there for three years. You should have ended it three years ago. You should have never started it. You could have made a deal.” He also said that Zelensky holds only a 4% approval rating, when in fact it is about 57%.

Today, Trump posted that Zelensky is a dictator and should hold elections, a demand Russia has made in hopes of installing a more pro-Russia government. As Laura Rozen pointed out in Diplomatic, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev posted: “If you’d told me just three months ago that these were the words of the US President, I would have laughed out loud.”

“Be clear about what’s happening,” Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark posted. “Trump and his administration, and thus America, is siding with Putin and Russia against a United States ally.” To be even clearer: under Trump, the United States is abandoning the post–World War II world it helped to build and then guaranteed for the past 80 years.

The struggle for Ukraine to maintain its sovereignty, independence, and territory has become a fight for the principles established by the United Nations, organized in the wake of World War II by the allied countries in that war, to establish international rules that would, as the U.N. charter said, prevent “the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights.” 

Central to those principles and rules was that members would not attack the “territorial integrity or political independence” of any other country. In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) came together to hold back growing Soviet aggression under a pact that an attack on any of the member states would be considered an attack on all.

The principle of national sovereignty is being tested in Ukraine. After the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukraine held about a third of the USSR’s nuclear weapons but gave them up in exchange for payments and security assurances from Russia, the United States, and the United Kingdom that they would respect Ukraine’s sovereignty within its existing borders. 

But Ukraine sits between Russia and Europe, and as Ukraine increasingly showed an inclination to turn toward Europe rather than Russia, Russian leader Putin worked to put his own puppets at the head of the Ukrainian government with the expectation that they would keep Ukraine, with its vast resources, tethered to Russia.

In 2004 it appeared that Russian-backed politician Viktor Yanukovych had won the presidency of Ukraine, but the election was so full of fraud, including the poisoning of a key rival who wanted to break ties with Russia and align Ukraine with Europe, that the U.S. government and other international observers did not recognize the election results. The Ukrainian government voided the election and called for a do-over.

To rehabilitate his image, Yanukovych turned to American political consultant Paul Manafort, who was already working for Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska. With Manafort’s help, Yanukovych won the presidency in 2010 and began to turn Ukraine toward Russia. 

When Yanukovych suddenly reversed Ukraine’s course toward cooperation with the European Union and instead took a $3 billion loan from Russia, Ukrainian students protested. On February 18, 2014, after months of popular protests, Ukrainians ousted Yanukovych from power in the Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity, and he fled to Russia.

Shortly after Yanukovych’s ouster, Russia invaded Ukraine’s Crimea and annexed it. The invasion prompted the United States and the European Union to impose economic sanctions on Russia and on specific Russian businesses and oligarchs, prohibiting them from doing business in U.S. territories. E.U. sanctions froze assets, banned goods from Crimea, and banned travel of certain Russians to Europe.

Yanukovych’s fall had left Manafort both without a patron and with about $17 million worth of debt to Deripaska. Back in the U.S., in 2016, television personality Donald Trump was running for the presidency, but his campaign was foundering. Manafort stepped in to help. He didn’t take a salary but reached out to Deripaska through one of his Ukrainian business partners, Konstantin Kilimnik, immediately after landing the job, asking him, “How do we use to get whole? Has OVD [Oleg Vladimirovich Deripaska] operation seen?”

Journalist Jim Rutenberg established that in 2016, Russian operatives presented Manafort a plan “for the creation of an autonomous republic in Ukraine’s east, giving Putin effective control of the country’s industrial heartland.” 

In exchange for weakening NATO and U.S. support for Ukraine, looking the other way as Russia took eastern Ukraine, and removing U.S. sanctions from Russian entities, Russian operatives were willing to help Trump win the White House. The Republican-dominated Senate Intelligence Committee in 2020 established that Manafort’s Ukrainian business partner Kilimnik, whom it described as a “Russian intelligence officer,” acted as a liaison between Manafort and Deripaska while Manafort ran Trump’s campaign.

Government officials knew that something was happening between the Trump campaign and Russia. By the end of July 2016, FBI director James Comey opened a counterintelligence investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election. After Trump won, the FBI caught Trump national security advisor Lieutenant General Michael Flynn assuring Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak that the new administration would change U.S. policy toward Russia. 

Shortly after Trump took office, Flynn had to resign, and Trump asked Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn. When Comey refused, Trump fired him. The next day, he told a Russian delegation he was hosting in the Oval Office: “I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a real nut job…. I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.”

Trump swung U.S. policy toward Russia, but that swing hit him. In 2019, with the help of ally Rudy Giuliani, Trump planned to invite Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, Petro Poroshenko, to the White House to boost his chances of reelection. In exchange, Poroshenko would announce that he was investigating Hunter Biden for his work with Ukrainian energy company Burisma, thus weakening Trump’s chief rival, Democrat Joe Biden, in the 2020 presidential election.

But then, that April, voters in Ukraine elected Volodymyr Zelensky rather than Poroshenko. Trump withheld money Congress had appropriated for Ukraine’s defense against Russia and suggested he would release it only after Zelensky announced an investigation into Hunter Biden. 

That July 2019 phone call launched Trump’s first impeachment, which, after the Senate acquitted him in February 2020, launched in turn his revenge tour and then the Big Lie that he had won the 2020 election. The dramatic break from the democratic traditions of the United States when Trump and his cronies tried to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election was in keeping with his increasing drift toward the political tactics of Russia.

When Biden took office, he and Secretary of State Antony Blinken worked feverishly to strengthen NATO and other U.S. alliances and partnerships. In February 2022, Putin launched another invasion of Ukraine, attempting a lightning strike to take the rich regions of the country for which his people had negotiated with Manafort in 2016. 

But rather than a quick victory, Putin found himself bogged down. Zelensky refused to leave the country and instead backed resistance, telling the Americans who offered to evacuate him, “The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride.” With the support of Biden and Blinken, NATO allies and other partners stood behind Ukraine to stop Putin from dismantling the postwar rules-based international order and spreading war further into Europe.

When he left office just a month ago, Biden said he was leaving the Trump administration with a “strong hand to play” in foreign policy, leaving it “an America with more friends and stronger alliances, whose adversaries are weaker and under pressure,” than when he took office.

Now, on the anniversary of the day the Ukrainian people ousted Victor Yanukovych in 2014—Putin is famous for launching attacks on anniversaries—the United States has turned its back on Ukraine and 80 years of peacetime alliances in favor of support for Vladimir Putin’s Russia. 

“We now have an alliance between a Russian president who wants to destroy Europe and an American president who also wants to destroy Europe,” a European diplomat said. “The transatlantic alliance is over.”

This shift appears to reflect the interests of Trump, rather than the American people. Trump’s vice president during his first term, Mike Pence, posted: “Mr. President, Ukraine did not ‘start’ this war. Russia launched an unprovoked and brutal invasion claiming hundreds of thousands of lives. The Road to Peace must be built on the Truth.” 

Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker (R-MS) said, “Putin is a war criminal and should be in jail for the rest of his life, if not executed." Courtney Kube and Carol E. Lee of NBC News reported that intelligence officials and congressional officials told them that Putin feels “empowered” by Trump’s recent support and is not interested in negotiations; he is interested in controlling Ukraine.

A Quinnipiac poll released today shows that only 9% of Americans think we should trust Putin; 81% say we shouldn’t. For his part, Putin complained today that Trump was not moving fast enough against Europe and Ukraine.

In The Bulwark, Mark Hertling, who served as the Commanding General of the United States Army Europe, commanded the 1st Armored Division in Germany, and the Multinational Division-North in Iraq, underlined the dramatic shift in American alignment. 

In an article titled “We’re Negotiating with War Criminals,” he listed the crimes: nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped and taken to Russia; the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, and energy facilities; the execution of prisoners of war; torture of detainees; sexual violence against Ukrainian civilians and detainees; starvation; forcing Ukrainians to join pro-Russian militias.

“And we are negotiating with them,” Hertling wrote. Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out that the talks appear to be focused on new concessions for American companies in the Russian oil industry, including a deal for American companies to participate in Russian oil exploration in the Arctic.

For years, Putin has apparently believed that driving a wedge between the U.S. and Europe would make NATO collapse and permit Russian expansion. But it’s not clear that’s the only possible outcome. Ukraine’s Zelensky and the Ukrainians are not participating in the destruction of either their country or European alliances, of course. 

And European leaders are coming together to strengthen European defenses. Emergency meetings with 18 European countries and Canada have netted a promise to stand by Ukraine and protect Europe. “Russia poses an existential threat to Europeans,” President Emmanuel Macron of France said today. Also today, rather than dropping sanctions against Russia, European Union ambassadors approved new ones.

For his part, Trump appears to be leaning into his alliance with dictators. This afternoon, he posted on social media a statement about how he had killed New York City’s congestion pricing and “saved” Manhattan, adding “LONG LIVE THE KING!” White House deputy chief of staff Taylor Budowich reposted the statement with an image of Trump in the costume of an ancient king, with a crown and an ermine robe. Later, the White House itself shared an image that imitated a Time magazine cover with the word “Trump” in place of “Time,” a picture of Trump with a crown, and the words “LONG LIVE THE KING.”

The British tabloid The Daily Star interprets the changes in American politics differently. Its cover tomorrow features Vladimir Putin walking “PUTIN’S POODLE”: the president of the United States.

—Heather Cox Richardson

 

Protect Your Credit Cards from Hidden Scanners

 

   

According to the FBI, a new type of theft is surging across the country, with seniors losing over $28 billion last year alone. These "digital pickpockets" can steal your credit card numbers, banking information, and even your identity – all without ever touching your wallet.

"This isn't like traditional theft," explains cybersecurity expert James Chen. "These criminals use hidden scanners that can read your cards right through your purse or wallet from up to 30 feet away. By the time you get the fraud alert, your accounts are already drained."

The Most Frightening Part?

"Anyone can buy these scanning devices online for less than $50," warns Former FBI agent Robert Miller. "We're seeing teenagers do this now. They just walk through crowded stores, and their device silently collects everyone's financial information."

Miller demonstrated how quickly it happens. In just one pass through a busy shopping mall, his test scanner picked up credit card information from 42 different people.

"Your regular wallet offers zero protection," Miller explains. "These scanners can read right through leather, fabric, even those old-fashioned aluminum foil wraps people used to use."

The Rise of Digital Theft

In 2024 alone:

- Over 15 million Americans had their identities stolen

- Someone becomes a victim every 22 seconds

- Average losses per victim: $17,000

- Seniors are targeted 73% more often than other age groups

But There's Hope

A former NASA cybersecurity expert, who himself lost $70,000 to this type of theft, has developed a solution that's being called "revolutionary" by security experts.

The SafeCard is a thin, credit card-sized device that creates an impenetrable electromagnetic shield around your wallet. Using the same technology developed for protecting sensitive space equipment, it blocks even the most advanced scanning devices.

"It's basically an invisible force field for your wallet," explains its inventor. "Just slip it in next to your cards, and digital thieves can't touch you."

How It Works

The SafeCard uses patented SafeShield™ technology to:

✅ Block unauthorized scans within a 6-foot radius

✅ Protect all cards in your wallet simultaneously

✅ Work without batteries or charging

✅ Last indefinitely

"What makes SafeCard different is its advanced AI chip," says Chen. "Unlike basic RFID blockers, it actively detects and neutralizes scanning attempts. Your cards are completely invisible to thieves."

Don't let AI phantom hackers drain your bank account

 

Tech support scams have been around for years, but a new variant called the Phantom Hacker scam is rapidly gaining traction. It has cost victims, primarily older Americans, over $500 million since 2023. This scam is particularly deceptive because it unfolds in three carefully orchestrated phases and uses AI-powered social engineering tactics to avoid detection. Attackers leverage caller ID spoofing and AI-generated voices to make their scheme more persuasive, but there are ways to protect yourself.

How the phantom hacker scam works

As highlighted by the FBI, the scam begins with the tech support impostor phase. You might receive a call, email, text or even a pop-up on your computer warning you that your device has been compromised. The message urges you to call a customer support number for assistance.

Once you do, a scammer posing as tech support claims that hackers have targeted your accounts. To "help," they instruct you to download remote access software, allowing them to take control of your computer. Under the guise of scanning for threats, they trick you into revealing your financial accounts, setting up the next phase of the scam.

Next comes the financial institution impostor phase. Another scammer, pretending to be from your bank or investment firm, calls to warn that a foreign hacker has infiltrated your accounts. They advise moving your money to a "safe" government-protected account, often using wire transfers, cryptocurrency or cash deposits. They might also insist on keeping the transaction confidential, claiming it’s necessary for security reasons.

In the final U.S. government impostor phase, a third scammer impersonates a federal official – often from the Federal Reserve – who pressures you to act quickly. If you start doubting the scheme, they may send you an official-looking email or document to convince you that the transfer is legitimate. By the time victims realize they’ve been tricked, their money is gone, often sent overseas beyond the reach of U.S. authorities.

How AI is making things worse

AI is making scams like the Phantom Hacker scam more deceptive and harder to spot. Scammers are using AI-powered chatbots to automate their schemes. Instead of relying on human operators, they can now deploy AI-driven responses that sound natural and convincing.

AI-generated deepfake voices are also being used to impersonate bank officials and government representatives. With just a short audio sample, scammers can clone a voice to make their calls seem even more authentic. This means a victim might hear what sounds like their bank manager or an official from the Federal Reserve.

Email scams are also becoming more sophisticated. AI tools can craft messages that mimic the tone and style of official communications. Scammers can even generate fake but realistic-looking documents with official letterheads to convince victims that the scam is legitimate.

The best way to defend yourself against the Phantom Hacker scam is to stay informed, be cautious and follow these steps:

1) Ignore unsolicited messages: Scammers often send pop-ups, text messages or emails claiming that your computer is infected or that your bank account is at risk. These messages may look official, but they are designed to create panic and pressure you into taking immediate action. Never click on links or attachments from unknown senders, as they may contain malware or lead to phishing websites that steal your personal information.

2) Have strong antivirus software: The best way to safeguard yourself from malicious links that install malware, potentially accessing your private information, is to have antivirus software installed on all your devices. This protection can also alert you to phishing emails and ransomware scams, keeping your personal information and digital assets safe. Get my picks for the best 2025 antivirus protection winners for your Windows, Mac, Android and iOS devices.

3) Verify phone numbers before calling: If you receive an unexpected message urging you to call tech support, do not use the number provided in the message. Instead, visit the official website of the company in question and find their customer support contact information. Scammers often create fake websites or use caller ID spoofing to make their phone numbers appear legitimate, so always double-check before making a call.

4) Avoid downloading unknown software: No reputable company will ever ask you to install remote access tools unless you have specifically reached out for tech support. Scammers use these programs to take control of your computer, monitor your activity and access sensitive information. If someone unexpectedly asks you to download software to "fix a problem" or "protect your account," it is likely a scam.

5) Never give control of your device to a stranger: If you allow a scammer to remotely access your computer, they can view your personal files, log your keystrokes and manipulate your accounts without your knowledge. Legitimate customer support representatives will never request remote access unless you have initiated the support request through an official company channel. If someone insists on taking control of your device, hang up immediately.

6) Be skeptical of urgent financial warnings: The U.S. government will never contact you unexpectedly and demand that you move your money to a "safe account." They will also never ask you to wire funds, purchase gift cards or send cryptocurrency as a form of payment. Scammers create a false sense of urgency to trick victims into acting before they can think critically about the situation. If someone claims to be from a bank or government agency and pressures you to move money, stop and verify their identity through official channels.

7) Invest in personal data removal services: Scammers often gather information from data broker websites to make their scams more convincing. Your name, phone number, home address and even financial history may be publicly available without your knowledge.

Consider using a data removal service to regularly scan and request the removal of your personal information from these databases. This reduces the chances of scammers targeting you with highly personalized attacks. You can also manually opt out of major data broker sites, but using a service automates the process and keeps your information protected over time. Check out my top picks for data removal services here.

by Kurt Knutsson, CyberGuy Report

 

"Since Inauguration Day, the Office for Civil Rights has only opened about 20 investigations focused on Trump’s priorities, placing more than 10,000 student complaints related to disability access and sexual and racial harassment on hold"

 

In the three-and-a-half weeks since Donald Trump returned to the presidency, investigations by the agency that handles allegations of civil rights violations in the nation’s schools and colleges have ground to a halt.

At the same time, there’s been a dramatic drop in the number of new cases opened by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights — and the few that attorneys have been directed to investigate reflect some of Trump’s priorities: getting rid of gender-neutral bathrooms, banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports and alleged antisemitism or discrimination against white students.

The OCR has opened about 20 new investigations since Trump’s inauguration, sources inside the department told ProPublica, a low number compared with similar periods in previous years. During the first three weeks of the Biden administration, for instance, the office opened about 110 new investigations into discrimination based on race, gender, national origin or disability, the office’s historic priorities. More than 250 new cases were opened in the same time period last year.

Historically, the bulk of investigations in the office have been launched after students or their families file complaints. Since Trump took office, the focus has shifted to “directed investigations,” meaning that the Trump administration has ordered those inquiries.

“We have not been able to open any (investigations) that come from the public,” said one longtime OCR attorney who asked not to be named for fear of losing their job.

Several employees told ProPublica that they have been told not to communicate with the students, families and schools involved in cases launched in previous administrations and to cancel scheduled meetings and mediations. “We’ve been essentially muzzled,” the attorney said.

What We’re Watching

During Donald Trump’s second presidency, ProPublica will focus on the areas most in need of scrutiny. Here are some of the issues our reporters will be watching — and how to get in touch with them securely…

-Jennifer Smith Richards and Jodi S. Cohen for ProPublica

https://www.propublica.org/article/department-of-education-civil-rights-office-investigations?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=secondary

 

Say What?

 

 “A Mississippi senator shocked residents last week as he proposed a satirical new bill that would bizarrely see men fined for masturbating. It has left everyone wondering how it could possibly be enforced.  

“It was on January 20, that Mississippi state Senator Bradford Blackmon made the unusual move to propose that it should be made unlawful within the state for men to masturbate in any other sexual relations that involved 'discharging genetic material' without the express intention of 'fertilizing a human egg'.

“Meanwhile, the bill, which has been called the 'Contraception Begins at Erection Act' would still need to make its way past Republican Governor, Tate Reeves, for it to become set in law. It has left many wondering how such rules could ever be enforced by those in power.”

 

Illinois Judge Tosses Out Firearm Identification Law, Says Second Amendment Shields Home Gun Possession

 

An Illinois circuit court has recently made a significant ruling, declaring the state's Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) law unconstitutional in certain circumstances. White County Resident Circuit Judge T. Scott Webb stated, "the Defendant’s activity of possessing a firearm within the confines of her home is an act protected by the Second Amendment."

This groundbreaking decision occurred in the context of the Illinois v. Vivian Brown case, involving a woman who was charged with having a firearm in her home without a FOID card, despite not using it nor having any criminal record. The news of this ruling has been reported by WGN-TV and WFIE.

The incident leading to this legal dispute began when Brown's husband filed a complaint against her, alleging that she had a .22 caliber rifle at her residence and had fired it. However, police investigations found that the rifle had not been fired. Despite this, charges were still brought against Brown for possession of a firearm without the necessary identification.

During the case proceedings, Judge Webb identified that to have to pay a fee associated with exercising the core fundamental Constitutional right of armed self-defense within the confines of one's home violates the Second Amendment, according to a statement obtained by WGN-TV.

This decision marked a significant moment for Illinois' gun laws, particularly regarding how the state regulates firearm possession within the privacy of one's home. The ruling is narrow, applying specifically to individuals possessing guns in their homes. While this does not entail a sweeping invalidation of the FOID Act, it does suggest that future legal challenges could further alter the landscape of firearm regulation in Illinois.

Judge Webb's ruling reflects an ongoing national dialogue about the tension between gun rights and gun control, particularly when it comes to what is deemed reasonable regulation. According to information provided by WFIE, Webb argued that Brown "should not have been charged" and was afforded protection under the second amendment.

A deeper analysis of the evidence led the Court to strike down the part of the Illinois law that would otherwise have criminalized Brown's possession of the rifle within her home. Local and national stakeholders are closely monitoring the implications of this ruling, aware that it may set a precedent for future challenges to firearm ownership laws.

This decision marked a significant moment for Illinois' gun laws, particularly regarding how the state regulates firearm possession within the privacy of one's home. The ruling is narrow, applying specifically to individuals possessing guns in their homes.

 by Jo Marquez, Hoodline

 

"If this is not a coup d’etat, I don’t know what is"

 

I want to talk today about the media’s coverage of the Trump-Vance-Musk coup. I’m not referring to coverage by the bonkers right-wing media of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and its imitators.

I’m referring to the U.S. mainstream media — The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, National Public Radio — and the mainstream media abroad, such as the BBC and The Guardian.

By not calling it a coup, the mainstream media is failing to communicate the gravity of what is occurring.  

Yesterday’s opinion by The New York Times’ editorial board offers a pathetic example. It concedes that Trump and his top associates “are stress-testing the Constitution, and the nation, to a degree not seen since the Civil War” but then asks: “Are we in a constitutional crisis yet?” and answers that what Trump is doing “should be taken as a flashing warning sign.”

Warning sign?

Elon Musk’s meddling into the machinery of government is a part of the coup. Musk and his muskrats have no legal right to break into the federal payments system or any of the other sensitive data systems they’re invading, for which they continue to gather computer code.

This data is the lifeblood of our government. It is used to pay Social Security and Medicare. It measures inflation and jobs. Americans have entrusted our private information to professional civil servants who are bound by law to use it only for the purposes to which it is intended. In the wrong hands, without legal authority, it could be used to control or mislead Americans.

By failing to use the term “coup,” the media have also underplayed the Trump-Vance-Musk regime’s freeze on practically all federal funding — suggesting this is a normal part of the pull-and-tug of politics. It is not. Congress has the sole authority to appropriate money. The freeze is illegal and unconstitutional.

By not calling it a coup, the media have also permitted Americans to view the regime’s refusal to follow the orders of the federal courts as a political response, albeit an extreme one, to judicial rulings that are at odds with what a president wants.

There is nothing about the regime’s refusal to be bound by the courts that places it within the boundaries of acceptable politics. Our system of government gives the federal judiciary final say about whether actions of the executive are legal and constitutional. Refusal to be bound by federal court rulings shows how rogue this regime truly is.

Earlier this week, a federal judge excoriated the regime for failing to comply with “the plain text” of an edict the judge issued last month to release billions of dollars in federal grants. Vice President JD Vance, presumably in response, declared that “judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” Vance graduated from the same law school I did. He knows he’s speaking out of his derriere.

In sum, the regime’s disregard for laws and constitutional provisions surrounding access to private data, impoundment of funds appropriated by Congress, and refusal to be bound by judicial orders amount to a takeover of our democracy by a handful of men who have no legal authority to do so.

If this is not a coup d’etat, I don’t know what is.

The mainstream media must call this what it is. In doing so, they would not be “taking sides” in a political dispute. They would be accurately describing the dire emergency America now faces.

Unless Americans see it and understand the whole of it for what it is rather than piecemeal stories that “flood the zone,” Americans cannot possibly respond to the whole of it. The regime is undertaking so many outrageous initiatives that the big picture cannot be seen without it being described clearly and simply.

Unless Americans understand that this is indeed a coup that’s wildly illegal and fundamentally unconstitutional — not just because that happens to be the opinion of constitutional scholars or professors of law, or the views of Trump’s political opponents, but because it is objectively and in reality a coup — Americans cannot rise up as the clear majority we are, and demand that democracy be restored.

-Robert Reich

Ukrainian fears grow as Trump threatens and humiliates Europe

 

This week, as the war in Ukraine took a dramatic turn, we welcomed Sasha Dovzhyk to the Guardian offices. Sasha is director of Index, a new institution in Lviv devoted to the documentation of the war. Sasha spoke movingly about Ukrainians’ hopes and fears after three years of war – including the situation for those living under the terror of occupation, with daily threats to life and safety from the Russian authorities.

She was in London for the launch of a book she helped bring together after its author, the brilliant Ukrainian novelist Victoria Amelina, was killed in a Russian missile attack before she was able to complete the manuscript. Margaret Atwood introduced our extract from this important book, and Charlotte Higgins’s review is in today’s magazine.

Also this week, Shaun Walker had an exclusive interview with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. In it, the Ukrainian president made it clear that Europe would not have the means to guarantee his nation’s security if the US were to withdraw defence support.

Not long after we published Zelenskyy’s words, new US defence secretary Pete Hegseth was in Brussels telling his European counterparts they would have to take the lead in defending Ukraine and that the US would no longer prioritise Europe’s safety. That was just the entree for an even bigger shift: Donald Trump announcing he’d agreed to begin negotiations with Vladimir Putin to broker a ceasefire.

It was another seismic geopolitical moment in the nascent days of the second Trump era. And it was “precisely what Putin had been waiting for”, according to the experts and insiders our Russian affairs correspondent Pjotr Sauer spoke to.

Global affairs correspondent Andrew Roth wrote that Trump “does not care who controls the blood-soaked soils of east Ukraine, so long as he can access the rare earth minerals that lie beneath” while Patrick Wintour gauged the scale of Europe’s diplomatic humiliation as the Munich security conference began.

Shaun Walker and Artem Mazhulin spoke to those on the ground in Kyiv, where reaction ranged from feelings of betrayal to grim relief the war may at least be ending.

Columnist and Europe expert Timothy Garton Ash was left flabbergasted by the dire consequences of Trump’s decision, writing that his “appeasement of Vladimir Putin makes Neville Chamberlain look like a principled, courageous realist”.

We’re entering a critical new stage for Ukraine, Europe and the Middle East as the world reorientates to Trump’s second presidency. Our live blogs remain essential in keeping up with the latest developments, while our correspondents and experts are committed to explaining how these overlapping stories are shaping the world for our readers and revealing their human impact on the ground.

-Owen Gibson, The Guardian

"All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them"

 

Nothing mattered, in the end. Not the probable dementia, the unfathomable ignorance, the emotional incontinence; not, certainly, the shambling, hate-filled campaign, or the ludicrously unworkable anti-policies.

The candidate out on bail in four jurisdictions, the convicted fraud artist, the adjudicated rapist and serial sexual predator, the habitual bankrupt, the stooge of Vladimir Putin, the man who tried to overturn the last election and all of his creepy retinue of crooks, ideologues and lunatics: Americans took a long look at all this and said, yes please.

There is no sense in understating the depth of the disaster. This is a crisis like no other in our lifetimes. The government of the United States has been delivered into the hands of a gangster, whose sole purpose in running, besides staying out of jail, is to seek revenge on his enemies. 

The damage Donald Trump and his nihilist cronies can do – to America, but also to its democratic allies, and to the peace and security of the world – is incalculable. We are living in the time of Nero.

The first six months will be a time of maximum peril. NATO must from this moment be considered effectively obsolete, without the American security guarantee that has always been its bedrock. 

We may see new incursions by Russia into Europe – the poor Ukrainians are probably done for, but now it is the Baltics and the Poles who must worry – before the Europeans have time to organize an alternative. China may also accelerate its Taiwanese ambitions.

At home, Mr. Trump will be moving swiftly to consolidate his power. Some of this will be institutional – the replacement of tens of thousands of career civil servants with Trumpian loyalists. But some of it will be … atmospheric.

At some point someone – a company whose chief executive has displeased him, a media critic who has gotten under his skin – will find themselves the subject of unwanted attention from the Trump administration. It might not be so crude as a police arrest. It might just be a little regulatory matter, a tax audit, something like that. They will seek the protection of the courts, and find it is not there.

The judges are also Trump loyalists, perhaps, or too scared to confront him. Or they might issue a ruling, and find it has no effect – that the administration has called the basic bluff of liberal democracy: the idea that, in the crunch, people in power agree to be bound by the law, and by its instruments the courts, the same as everyone else. Then everyone will take their cue. Executives will line up to court him. Media organizations, the large ones anyway, will find reasons to be cheerful.

Of course, in reality things will start to fall apart fairly quickly. The huge across-the-board tariffs he imposes will tank the world economy. The massive deficits, fueled by his ill-judged tax policies – he won’t replace the income tax, as he promised, but will fill it with holes – and monetized, at his direction, by the Federal Reserve, will ignite a new round of inflation.

Most of all, the insane project of deporting 12 million undocumented immigrants – finding them, rounding them up and detaining them in hundreds of internment camps around the country, probably for years, before doing so – will consume his administration. But by then it will be too late.

We should not count upon the majority of Americans coming to their senses in any event. They were not able to see Mr. Trump for what he was before: why should that change? Would they not, rather, be further coarsened by the experience of seeing their neighbours dragged off by the police, or the military, further steeled to the necessity of doing “tough things” to “restore order?”

Some won’t, of course. But they will find in time that the democratic levers they might once have pulled to demand change are no longer attached to anything. There are still elections, but the rules have been altered: there are certain obstacles, certain disadvantages if you are not with the party of power. It will seem easier at first to try to change things from within. Then it will be easier not to change things.

All of this will wash over Canada in various ways – some predictable, like the flood of refugees seeking escape from the camps; some less so, like the coarsening of our own politics, the debasement of morals and norms by politicians who have discovered there is no political price to be paid for it. And who will have the backing of their patron in Washington.

All my life I have been an admirer of the United States and its people. But I am frightened of it now, and I am even more frightened of them.

-Andrew Coyne, Toronto Globe

Fight Back

 

“It’s important that we understand and recognize their effort to overwhelm us. They want us to give up. They want us to resign ourselves to the inevitability of whatever Trump is going to do for the next four years. That, of course, is what we can’t do. This is the time to summon our moral outrage, call it the coup that it is, and make sure we don’t let up on our senators, representatives, or even the White House; we must continue to express our concerns and our outrage.” -Joyce Vance

"I'm a liberal, but that doesn't mean what a lot of you apparently think it does..."

 

Let's break it down, shall we? Because quite frankly, I'm getting a little tired of being told what I believe and what I stand for. Spoiler alert: not every liberal is the same, though many liberals I know think along roughly these same lines:

1. I believe a country should take care of its weakest members. A country cannot call itself civilized when its children, disabled, sick, and elderly are neglected. PERIOD.

2. I believe healthcare is a right, not a privilege. Somehow that's interpreted as "I believe Obamacare is the end-all, be-all." This is not the case. I'm fully aware that the ACA has problems, that a national healthcare system would require everyone to chip in, and that it's impossible to create one that is devoid of flaws, but I have yet to hear an argument against it that makes "let people die because they can't afford healthcare" a better alternative. I believe healthcare should be far cheaper than it is, and that everyone should have access to it. And no, I'm not opposed to paying higher taxes in the name of making that happen.

3. I believe education should be affordable. It doesn't necessarily have to be free (though it works in other countries so I'm mystified as to why it can't work in the US), but at the end of the day, there is no excuse for students graduating college saddled with five- or six-figure debt.

4. I don't believe your money should be taken from you and given to people who don't want to work. I have literally never encountered anyone who believes this. Ever. I just have a massive moral problem with a society where a handful of people can possess most of the wealth while there are people literally starving to death, freezing to death, or dying because they can't afford to go to the doctor. Fair wages, lower housing costs, universal healthcare, affordable education, and the wealthy paying their share would go a long way toward alleviating this. Somehow believing that makes me a communist.

5. I don't throw around "I'm willing to pay higher taxes" lightly. If I'm suggesting something that involves paying more, well, it's because I'm fine with paying my share as long as it's going to something besides lining corporate pockets or bombing other countries while Americans die without healthcare.

6. I believe companies should be required to pay their employees a decent, livable wage. Somehow this is always interpreted as me wanting burger flippers to be able to afford a penthouse apartment and a Mercedes. What it means is that no one should have to work three full-time jobs just to keep their head above water. Restaurant servers should not have to rely on tips, multibillion-dollar companies should not have employees on food stamps, workers shouldn't have to work themselves into the ground just to barely make ends meet, and minimum wage should be enough for someone to work 40 hours and live.

7. I am not anti-Christian. I have no desire to stop Christians from being Christians, to close churches, to ban the Bible, to forbid prayer in school, etc. (BTW, prayer in school is NOT illegal; *compulsory* prayer in school is - and should be - illegal). All I ask is that Christians recognize *my* right to live according to *my* beliefs. When I get pissed off that a politician is trying to legislate Scripture into law, I'm not "offended by Christianity" -- I'm offended that you're trying to force me to live by your religion's rules. You know how you get really upset at the thought of Muslims imposing Sharia law on you? That's how I feel about Christians trying to impose biblical law on me. Be a Christian. Do your thing. Just don't force it on me or mine.

8. I don't believe LGBT people should have more rights than you. I just believe they should have the *same* rights as you.

9. I don't believe illegal immigrants should come to America and have the world at their feet, especially since THIS ISN'T WHAT THEY DO (spoiler: undocumented immigrants are ineligible for all those programs they're supposed to be abusing, and if they're "stealing" your job it's because your employer is hiring illegally). I believe there are far more humane ways to handle undocumented immigration than our current practices (i.e., detaining children, splitting up families, ending DACA, etc.).

10. I don't believe the government should regulate everything, but since greed is such a driving force in our country, we NEED regulations to prevent cut corners, environmental destruction, tainted food/water, unsafe materials in consumable goods or medical equipment, etc. It's not that I want the government's hands in everything -- I just don't trust people trying to make money to ensure that their products/practices/etc. are SAFE. Is the government devoid of shadiness? Of course not. But with those regulations in place, consumers have recourse if they're harmed and companies are liable for medical bills, environmental cleanup, etc. Just kind of seems like common sense when the alternative to government regulation is letting companies bring their bottom line into the equation.

11. I believe our current administration is fascist. Not because I dislike them or because I can’t get over an election, but because I've spent too many years reading and learning about the Third Reich to miss the similarities. Not because any administration I dislike must be Nazis, but because things are mirroring authoritarian and fascist regimes of the past.

12. I believe the systemic racism and misogyny in our society is much worse than many people think, and desperately needs to be addressed. Which means those with privilege -- white, straight, male, economic, etc. -- need to start listening, even if you don't like what you're hearing, so we can start dismantling everything that's causing people to be marginalized.

13. I am not interested in coming after your blessed guns, nor is anyone serving in government. What I am interested in is the enforcement of present laws and enacting new, common sense gun regulations. Got another opinion? Put it on your page, not mine.

14. I believe in so-called political correctness. I prefer to think it’s social politeness. If I call you Chuck and you say you prefer to be called Charles, I’ll call you Charles. It’s the polite thing to do. Not because everyone is a delicate snowflake, but because as Maya Angelou put it, when we know better, we do better. When someone tells you that a term or phrase is more accurate/less hurtful than the one you're using, you now know better. So why not do better? How does it hurt you to NOT hurt another person?

15. I believe in funding sustainable energy, including offering education to people currently working in coal or oil so they can change jobs. There are too many sustainable options available for us to continue with coal and oil. Sorry, billionaires. Maybe try investing in something else.

16. I believe that women should not be treated as a separate class of human. They should be paid the same as men who do the same work, should have the same rights as men and should be free from abuse. Why on earth shouldn’t they be?

I think that about covers it. Bottom line is that I'm a liberal because I think we should take care of each other. That doesn't mean you should work 80 hours a week so your lazy neighbor can get all your money. It just means I don't believe there is any scenario in which preventable suffering is an acceptable outcome if money is saved.”

-Lori Gallagher Witt