Have you noticed that this country is swarming with imaginary people? These people have no names. They’re sort of a nameless and faceless mob. And they exist solely to cause problems for the Republican right. The sins of these strangers are many. Some of them include the following:

Spying on people who own guns as they plot how to take the guns from all who love them.

Attempting to turn children into cats and to “indoctrinate” them by teaching critical race theory to five and six-year-olds.

Pushing little children to read “pornography.”

Coming for the gas stoves of everyone in the country.

Hating white people — ALL white people.

Wanting to not work and demanding everything be given to them for free.

defunding the police.

Using Covid masks as political leverage.

Having abortions at nine months.

Letting criminals run rampant all over city streets.

Yes, this merry band of strangers poses a dire threat to humanity — the direst threat ever, perhaps. Of course, these imaginary strangers do not exist. They are always referred to as “they’re.” I’ve written about “They’re” before. But we must keep an eye on “they’re.” These imaginary figures are the only way left for Republicans to win elections.

It’s true. They’ve repulsed most of the moderate voters. And to get them back, the GOP is using imaginary strangers more frequently than usual. Imaginary strangers are the biggest threat in the world, according to the GOP!

They should inspire terror in people. They exist to take things from the GOP, to lie and to steal, and to create mayhem. The fact that these people have never been born and do not exist is a pesky little problem the GOP ignores.

But there are so many out there who have bought not the myth of imaginary people. These voters are going to require us to educate them about the ruling-by-fear method of the GOP. There is nothing I’d like better than to expose the myth of imaginary people and put it out to pasture for good.

The post The imaginary people of the right wing appeared first on Palmer Report.

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• Pessimism and factional tensions are surging ahead of a possible recession this year.
• Just 40% of respondents in a new global survey believe they’ll be “better off” in the next five years.
• The annual Edelman Trust Barometer also found growing trust in business versus the public sector.

While war rages in Ukraine, layoffs roil a wide range of corporations and industries, and the threat of deeper economic challenges looms, pessimism and factional tensions are surging worldwide, new research shows.

A survey from communications and PR giant Edelman is illustrating how global jitters about a potential recession are fanning the flames of fear and mistrust. Just four in 10 respondents who participated in the Edelman Trust Barometer for 2023 predicted that they and their families will be “better off” in five years — a dramatic 10-point reduction from last year.

The United States and 23 other countries are at an all-time low in this category, said Edelman, which has published its annual Trust Barometer for more than two decades.

Edelman published its 2023 Trust Barometer this weekend, coinciding with a constellation of other warning signs that further economic pain may be on the way. Last week, Brian Moynihan, CEO of Bank of America, joined leaders from fellow Wall Street banks when he told shareholders BofA had come to view a “mild recession” as a “baseline scenario,” according to a Sentieo transcript. And the Wall Street Journal’s latest quarterly survey found a 61% chance of a recession within the coming year. 

The Edelman Trust Barometer, which this year polled more than 32,000 respondents in 28 countries, found that trust is tilting away from the public sector. Sixty-two percent of respondents said they trust businesses, versus 51% who said they trust governmental institutions. In fact, “business increased its ethics score for the third straight year, rising 20 points since 2020,” Edelman said. “It is the only institution viewed as both competent and ethical.”

In a press release, Edelman CEO Richard Edelman said respondents — by a “six-to-one margin” — said they want to see businesses get more engaged on issues like climate change, economic inequality, and workforce reskilling.

The notion that the private sector is benefiting from the public sector’s optics problems may come as a surprise to those who lived through the last economic crisis, when the Great Recession channeled vitriol toward corporate leaders and Wall Street was pilloried for its role in producing economic carnage.

Gulfs and schisms are widening

The rise of “polarization” is setting a fraught mood at a time when political schisms are running deep and people are more likely to feel alienated from those who hold divergent beliefs.

Edelman characterized polarization in three degrees — less polarized, moderately polarized, and severely polarized.

“Severely polarized” indicated that respondents “see deep divisions, and I don’t think we’ll ever get past them.” People in six countries identified their culture as “severely polarized” — the United States, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Colombia, and Argentina.

Meanwhile, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands are “in danger of severe polarization,” the survey found.

Among those who feel strongly about a particular issue, Edelman found, “very few would help, live near, or work with someone who disagreed with their point of view.” Just 30% said they would help someone in need with whom they disagreed, and 20% said they’d live in the same neighborhood as that person or be willing to tolerate them as a coworker.

Dave Samson, Edelman’s global vice chairman for corporate affairs, highlighted the risks of failing to cool rising tensions.

“We are in a period of huge systemic change … with divisive forces fanning economic grievance,” Samson said. “If neglected, the result will be increased levels of polarization, slowing economic growth, deeper discrimination, and an inherent inability to solve problems.”

On The Run Photo/Shutterstock

• Air traffic was temporarily halted last week after an FAA system, known as Notice to Air Missions, crashed.
• Over 10,000 flights were delayed, but Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said he doesn’t blame the agency.
• Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is pushing to confirm President Joe Biden’s pick for FAA Administrator.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian doesn’t blame the Federal Aviation Administration for last week’s system outage.

On Wednesday, January 11, all flights in the US were temporarily halted after the FAA’s Notice to Air Missions (NOTAM) system crashed, delaying over 10,000 flights. 

NOTAMs send essential, safety-critical information to pilots when other means of communication cannot be done further in advance. These real-time messages identify potential hazards, like a rocket launch or a taxiway closure.

Many passengers and industry personnel looked at the FAA for the failure, which was caused by a data file “damaged by personnel who failed to follow procedures,” the agency said. However, Delta’s CEO, who described the event as “unacceptable,” said it comes down to funding. 

“I lay this on the fact that we are not giving them [the FAA] the resources, the funding, the staffing, the tools, the technology they need,” he said in an interview with CNBC on Friday. “Hopefully this will be the call to our political leaders in Washington that we need to do better.”

In a separate interview, American Airlines CEO Rob Isom told CNBC that there needs to be more investment in FAA technology.

“It’s going to be billions of dollars and it’s not something that’s done overnight,” he said. “It’s something that we have to plan for and build over a number of years.”

The system crash was the first time in more than 20 years that the US national airspace system was completely shut down, and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is taking measures to avoid any future problems.

“Our immediate focus is technical — understanding exactly how this happened, why the redundancies and the backups that were built into the system were not able to prevent the level of disruption that we saw,” he said, according to the Associated Press.

After the outage, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said he will push to confirm President Joe Biden’s nomination of Phillip Washington as FAA Administrator.

The agency has been without a confirmed leader since March when former administrator and former President Donald Trump’s appointee Stephen Dickson stepped down, CNN reported.

“There is no doubt about it: it’s time to clear the runway for President Biden’s choice for FAA Administrator, Phil Washington,” Schumer said in a statement to CNN on Sunday. “With recent events, including airline troubles and last week’s tech problem, this agency needs a leader confirmed by the Senate immediately.”

Jeff Chiu/AP Photo

• Human skeletal remains were discovered in a vacant building at the University of California, Berkeley.
• Police said it was unclear how long the remains had been there.
• Both university police and the local coroner’s office have opened investigations.

Human skeletal remains were discovered in a vacant residential building at the University of California, Berkeley, on Tuesday.

It’s unknown how long the remains have been there.

The UC Berkeley Police Department did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for further information. But the police told CNN in a statement that “there are no outstanding cases of missing individuals from the campus community” and that the building where the remains were found “has not been occupied for many years.”

A police report indicates the remains were found in an old residential and theater building on the university’s Clark Kerr campus, which is about a mile away from the main campus, and hosts many of the university’s sports facilities.

“Although the remains are skeletonized, it is not clear how many years they have been there,” a University of California, Berkeley spokesperson said in a statement shared with ABC News.

Both the UCPD and the Alameda County Coroner’s Office have opened investigations into the remains, according to CNN.

Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Citizen)

• New York City Mayor Eric Adams called for federal and state aid to address the migrant crisis.
• The city recently received the largest number of asylum seekers in a single day, City Hall said. 
• Adams, a Democrat, traveled to the Texas border over the weekend to speak with migrants. 

New York City Mayor Eric Adams traveled to the southern border over the weekend, continuing his public calls for federal and state aid to address the influx of asylum seekers into the US that he says is overwhelming the city he runs. 

“Our cities are being undermined. And we don’t deserve this. Migrants don’t deserve this. And the people who live in the cities don’t deserve this,” Adams said on Sunday in El Paso, Texas, according to the Associated Press.

Adams, a Democrat, said sanctuary cities like New York that are experiencing a migrant crisis need assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, according to the Associated Press.  

Adams’ office declared a state of emergency last October as the number of people arriving in New York City strained the city’s shelters and services. City Hall said in a statement on Friday that the city recently received 835 asylum seekers in a day, the largest number to date. 

About 40,000 migrants have traveled to New York City in search of shelter since last spring, according to the city. New York City has opened 74 emergency shelters and four humanitarian relief centers, according to Adams’ office. The associated cost is $1 billion for fiscal year 2023. 

“We expect more from our national leaders to address this in a real way,” Adams said on Sunday in Texas, according to The New York Times. 

The city welcoming migrants seeking care and shelter is exacerbating New York City’s homelessness crisis, Brad Lander, the city’s comptroller, said earlier this month. In a Saturday tweet, Lander also criticized Adams’ Texas trip, saying it did little to bring in the money that New York City needs to provide shelter and services. 

Earlier this month, Lander said 67,600 people are sleeping in shelters and 3,400 more are sleeping on the streets and in the subway. The Department of Homeless Services does not track the number of undocumented immigrants it looks after, Lander noted. 

“The need for expanding and accelerating the distribution of rental assistance to low-income New Yorkers has never been more urgent than it is today,” he said in testimony before the Human Resources Administration.

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• Two commercial jets operated by Delta Air Lines and American Airlines nearly collided on Friday.
• The event occurred at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport.
• The Federal Aviation Administration and the National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.

Two federal agencies are looking into a near-collision between aircrafts at New York’s biggest airport.

On Friday, a Delta Air Lines Boeing 737 was rolling at 115 mph down the runway when it abruptly stopped to avoid colliding with an American Airlines Boeing 777. 

The FAA confirmed to Insider on Monday that it is investigating the incident. The National Transportation Safety Board will also conduct an investigation.

The event occurred at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport after what looks like a misstep by the American Airlines crew. 

According to public air traffic control recordings, the Delta plane, which was headed for the Dominican Republic, was given clearance for takeoff on Runway 4L.

However, the American pilots, who were bound for London, taxied across the active runway without authorization from ATC just as the Delta plane was taking off, resulting in a near-accident. The event is known as a “runway incursion,” according to the NTSB. 

“The safety of our customers and team members is our top priority,” American told Insider. “We are conducting a full internal review and cooperating with the National Transportation Safety Board in their investigation.”

—Breaking Aviation News & Videos (@aviationbrk) January 15, 2023

A runway incursion, which means an aircraft is incorrectly situated on a runway, is “very uncommon” in the US, former TSA and American spokesperson Ross Feinstein told The New York Times, but they can be deadly.

The airline industry’s worst crash in history was in 1977 when two Boeing 747s collided on the runway in Tenerife, Spain. One jet was taking off without ATC clearance while the other was still taxiing off the same runway, resulting in the accident — similar to Friday’s incident.

Fortunately, the planes at JFK were saved when an air traffic controller noticed the two on a collision course and quickly reacted, commanding the Delta aircraft to immediately abort its takeoff. 

The plane, which had 145 passengers and six crew members onboard, came within “approximately 1,000 feet” of where the American aircraft was crossing the runway, the FAA said.

The agency told Insider that New York-JFK has a “system that alerts air traffic controllers of potential runway conflicts by providing detailed coverage of movement on runways and taxiways.” This technology was absent from Tenerife.

According to Delta passenger Donall Brian Healy, there were “vocal reactions” and “a few screams” when the plane suddenly stopped, saying everyone was thrust forward.

“The safety of our customers and crew is always Delta’s number-one priority,” the airline told Insider. “Delta will work with and assist aviation authorities on a full review of flight 1943 on Jan. 13 regarding an aborted takeoff procedure at New York-JFK.”

China’s population fell last year for the first time since 1961, a historic turn that is expected to mark the start of a long period of population decline.

The country had 1.41175 billion people at at the end of 2022, compared with 1.41260 billion a year earlier, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said.

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China’s population fell last year for the first time since 1961, a historic turn that is expected to mark the start of a long period of decline in its citizen numbers and see India become the world’s most populous nation in 2023.

The country had 1.41175 billion people at at the end of 2022, compared with 1.41260 billion a year earlier, China’s National Bureau of Statistics said.

Last year’s birth rate was 6.77 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 7.52 births in 2021 and marking the lowest birth rate on record.

China also logged its highest death rate since 1976, registering 7.37 deaths per 1,000 people compared with a rate of 7.18 deaths in 2021.

Much of the demographic downturn is the result of China’s one-child policy that it imposed between 1980 and 2015 as well as sky-high education costs that have put many Chinese off having more than one child or even having any at all.

China’s stringent zero-COVID policies that were in place for threee years before an abrupt reversal which has overwhelmed medical faciliites, have caused further damage to the country’s bleak demographic outlook, population experts have said.

Although local governments have since 2021 rolled out measures to encourage people to have more babies, including tax deductions, longer maternity leave and housing subsidies, the steps are not expected to arrest the long-term trend.

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