Below the fold – May 25, 2021

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Below The Fold: The news that do not make the headlines but are important. By PL Hade

  1. NJ
    • Indoor mask mandate and six foot separation rule end on May 28.
    • June 4th — no more indoor gathering limits. The 30% limit on large indoor venues with a fixed seating capacity of 1,000 or greater is also lifted.
  2. An online lending platform called Kabbage sent 378 pandemic loans worth $7 million to fake companies (mostly farms) with names like “Deely Nuts” and “Beefy King.”
    • “The shoreline communities of Ocean County, New Jersey, are a summertime getaway for throngs of urbanites, lined with vacation homes and ice cream parlors. Not exactly pastoral — which is odd, considering dozens of Paycheck Protection Program loans to supposed farms that flowed into the beach towns last year.” https://www.propublica.org/article/ppp-farms…
  3. When you don’t quite think through the consequences. Florida’s new laws allow motorists to run over protesters if they’re in the street. Florida also has a stand your ground law which technically would allow protesters to shoot someone trying to run them over in the street.
  4. Late last week the Biden administration countered with a 1.7 trillion dollar American Jobs plan, down from the initial 2.3 trillion. The counter offer removed money for rural broadband and roads, bridges, etc. The GOP said No. When are we going to learn that when McConnell says he’s going to try to see that 100% of the Biden agenda doesn’t get passed, the GOP means it. White House makes $1.7 trillion infrastructure counteroffer — but Republicans say sides now seem further apart https://www.cnbc.com/…/white-house-makes-1point7…
  5. Why Does Social Media Lead Us to Believe Things That Are Not True?
    • Overcoming vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. – Part 1
    • “A second, understated and more powerful, force in social media is implicit bias. We tend to trust information that comes from social media users that look like, talk like and think like we do. Social media naturally herds us into online communities of like-minded and similar looking users specially selected from our family, friends, co-workers and those we admire. When our herd delivers information into our electronic feeds, we tend to believe the information— whether it’s true or not—because we implicitly trust people from our digital tribe.”
    • “The first thing that someone sees is more likely to be believed.” (Which means we have to pro-actively get out information about the candidates rather than respond.)
    • “Information consumers are likely to believe false information if it’s not challenged by the truth.”https://clintwatts.substack.com/…/why-does-social-media…
  6. Another N.J. resident, alleged member of Oath Keepers, charged with storming U.S. Capitol https://www.nj.com/…/another-nj-resident-alleged-member…
  7. Covid19

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