November
The Social Security COLA Increase Will Ease the Sting of Inflation
About 70 million Americans collecting Social Security will receive an 8.7 percent bump in their benefits next year, the largest raise since 1981, the Social Security Administration said on Thursday. This will provide some measure of relief to retirees struggling with soaring prices on everyday necessities, from groceries to housing.
Prices have remained stubbornly high over the past year, even as federal policymakers have taken aggressive measures to rein them in. Social Security is designed to keep pace with inflation through its cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, which is calculated annually. Starting in January, the increase will lift the typical monthly retiree benefit by $140 to $1,827. That follows a 5.9 percent increase for 2022, a four-decade high at the time. Read more …
The Vast Majority of Americans have had Covid Vaccinations
Nearly half of Oklahoma’s overall population has declined the COVID-19 vaccine. Yet more than 90 percent of seniors in the state have completed at least one round of inoculations, and almost two-thirds have received at least one booster. Both figures fall close to national averages.
The same pattern plays out in other Republican-majority states. Public health data suggests red-state resistance to the COVID-19 vaccine is largely the province of the young. Seniors in the reddest states are inoculated and boosted at nearly the same rate as older Americans overall. The trend holds in Wyoming, West Virginia, North Dakota, Oklahoma and Idaho, all states where large majorities of voters cast ballots for former President Trump in 2020. Read more …
Do Disabilities Impact Older People’s Moves to other Locations
Older adults aged 65 and older move to a different residence far less frequently than younger adults and when they do move, they’re more likely to stay close to their communities.
Most move within their counties, either to downsize or because they need housing (e.g., one-story or assisted living facilities) to accommodate changes in their health and disability status.
A new U.S. Census Bureau report uses data from the Census Bureau’s 2015-2019 American Community Survey (ACS) to show the number and characteristics of older U.S. adults who moved and how far they moved. The ACS collects data on where people currently live and where they lived in the prior year, and on their disability status. Read more …
September
This section could fill our entire newsletter this month with news reports from the January 6th Commission and the Mar-a-Lago raid in which 42 boxes of classified documents were found. The irony of the finding from the raid is that they were looking for Russiagate documents, and found a whole lot more.
The Fraud Effect
In June of this year, seven weeks before the FBI raided former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in search of classified materials, former Defense Department appointee and outspoken Trump loyalist Kash Patel vowed to retrieve classified documents from the National Archives and publish them on his website. Read on …
Lachlan Murdoch is Awfully Defensive About the Implication Fox News Helped Incite Jan. 6
The Fox Corp. boss is threatening legal action over what he claims is a "defamatory" article suggesting his family bears responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack. Speaking of defamatory, an election technology company’s $1.6 billion libel case against Fox appears to be ramping up. Read on …
What Allen Weisselberg’s Guilty Plea means for Trump
ALLEN WEISSELBERG, the Trump Organization’s former finance chief, has now confessed, which is the latest and largest development in New York State’s multiyear investigation into the company headed by the former president.
Weisselberg pleaded guilty to 15 counts related to tax fraud and will serve five months in prison followed by five years of probation. He will also pay almost $2 million in back taxes and penalties.
As part of Weisselberg’s plea deal, he has agreed to testify against The Trump Corporation and the Trump Payroll Corporation at trial, which is scheduled for October. Read on …
Fox News Poll: A record 65 percent favor keeping Roe v. Wade
Two-thirds of voters want to keep the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 abortion decision Roe v. Wade in place, according to a new Fox News survey released Thursday.
This comes as the court prepares for its new term, including hearing a case in December concerning a Mississippi abortion law that will challenge the landmark ruling
There is and will be much more to report on, all of which affects senior voters, but we found this one to be especially horrific.
Two Pennsylvania judges ordered to pay $200m to kids-for-cash scandal victims
In Pennsylvania 2 judges were ordered to pay $200 million to hundreds of families of kids they victimized by sending them to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks. This from the “family values” party! Read more …
July
15 Ways we give social media companies personal data
Crypto Cash - RobertReich highlights how this fraud scheme targets seniors
May/June
Former FBI & CIA Director William Webster warns about Elder Fraud
WHAT? She promised him a good time with a Nigerian princess, and nobody would ever know? Or something? USUALLY scam artists are craftier than that. The smarter ones do some homework and have an idea of the emotional or identity buttons they might push. See more …
Charities and non-profit organizations
As we look forward to outcomes from the myriad of lawsuits against the former President, in this article we look back over the past 4 years to remind us of some of the lawsuits concerning Donald Trump, now settled, against charities and non-profit organizations.
At IOP Disinformation Conference, Obama Warns of “Anger, Resentment, Conflict, Division” Monetized Online
Some countries put up with being used as platforms for international online swindles, so long as they are not aimed at their own citizens. The journalist who covers such stuff in those countries, when looking up the fraud artists online, finds a plethora of bogus promotional stuff, made to look like it's from other sources. Search engines are gamed so that disinformation about the scam is the first several pages of anything that comes up. This criminal modus operandi was common enough before being introduced into politics. Now it has a life in the political discourse of the United States and a number of other countries.
Former President Barack Obama joined Nobel and Pulitzer laureates and other top journalists at a University of Chicago conference last month on Disinformation and the Erosion of Democracy. The discussion needs to continue far and wide, and get deeper. Those of us who were taught how the Nazis adapted the late 19th century Wall Street "big lie" ad campaigns — typically about patent medicines at the time — and applied them to German racist politics in 1930s media should update our knowledge about how this sort of thing is done today. With the former president, Filipina Nobel laureate journalist Maria Ressa and Pulitzer prize winner Anne Applebaum we get the lay of the cyber-landscape on which we must fight this year's campaign.
Thanks to Eric Jackson for these contributions.
March
Facebook Messenger
Most of us have gotten strange private messages (PMs or DMs - Direct messages) from fake accounts pretending to be one of our friends. What to do??? Tell your friend by email, if possible to CHANGE THEIR PASSWORD immediately. If you don’t have their email, go to their real Facebook page and send them a message from there.
Passwords – how to keep them safe.
Next month we’ll report on apps that keep your passwords safe.
February - Inaugural Edition
F-word to which all senior citizens should pay attention: FRAUD
by Eric Jackson
The material misrepresentation of relevant facts, often enough “just” by omission, to make ourselves and our assets part of, is a lifestyle hazard for us.
At our age, we have seen so much of it. Cigarette ads to get us to smoke. Pitches for convenient innovations that turned out to be toxic, terribly polluting or way overpriced. Balloon payments and mortgage traps. All manner of financial schemes. Phishing lurks in our email. Myriad other frauds are aimed directly at our age group.
Then there are frauds aimed at stealing our votes, and our voting rights.
At the moment the USA still hasn’t recovered from a nightmare encounter with a serial con man, and court cases about aspects of that will likely affect this year’s midterm elections.
This newsletter is going to look at the world of fraud as it is most likely to affect us. It’s about mutu