Updates on Reiner, Brown & Bondi Beach

Law enforcement officials say the suspect in last Saturday’s shooting at Brown University was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility. The shooting killed two people and injured nine others. Law enforcement initially detained one person and released him late Sunday, saying the “evidence now points in a different direction.” Conservative influencers have spread misinformation about the shooter’s identity and motives, both of which are still unknown.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has vowed to crack down on hate speech following a fatal mass shooting at an event marking the first day of Hanukkah last Sunday. The crackdown will include increased criminalization for hate speech as well as visa cancellations and refusals. Sound familiar? Lawmakers have historically used “hate” as a false synonym for pro-Palestinian speech and activism. The Jewish Council of Australia urged the government to take meaningful steps to prevent antisemitic violence like Sunday’s attack at Bondi Beach, but “to reject voices which seek to use this response to divide us and pursue anti-immigration or pro-Israel agendas.”

Days after the killings of Rob and Michele Singer Reiner, their son Nick — who was charged with his parents’ murders — appeared in court. His lawyer said he and prosecutors agreed to delay Reiner’s arraignment (where he’ll hear the charges against him and enter a plea) until January. Nick Reiner could face life without parole or the death penalty, both of which have been on the rise. Authorities haven’t said why they’re focusing on Nick Reiner as a suspect. After the killings, President Donald Trump made disparaging comments about Rob Reiner and the late director’s politics.

Like, about a lot of stuff! The hardest part is figuring out what to focus on. But I need to keep this newsletter readable, Dave already covered lots of Trump’s lies about the economy in his video, and I spent two years working in a newsroom that covers the criminal legal system and immigration. So I’m focusing on lies about those things.

The president said “our country was being invaded by an army of 25 million people, many who came from prisons and jails, mental institutions and insane asylums.” There’s no basis to his claim on where those migrants came from, and the 25 million figure is a huge exaggeration. He also said “11,888 murderers” entered the U.S., adding that “this is what the Biden administration allowed to happen to our country.” This is a statistic he’s misused before. It comes from ICE data that shows 13,000 noncitizens with homicide convictions, but those convictions span over 40 years.

He went on to say the Biden administration “flooded your cities and towns with illegal aliens.” In reality, according to the Migration Policy Institute, the Biden administration worked on multiple fronts to expand legal immigration. Trump also said we had “crime at record levels.” But multiple data sources from the federal government itself show crime during the Biden administration was absolutely not at record levels.

Trump said the Biden administration “released a level of violent felons that we had never seen.” In reality, Biden’s total number of pardons pales in comparison to Trump’s pardons of over 1,500 January 6 insurrectionists alone. (Biden did issue a record number of clemency acts, but the bulk of those were for nonviolent drug crimes.) Also, when people get arrested again after leaving prison, it’s usually for public order offenses rather than violent ones, and the severity of someone’s original conviction doesn’t indicate whether they’ll commit another crime.

Trump blamed immigrants for stealing jobs from other Americans, singling out Somali immigrants specifically. Immigrant workers largely work different jobs from native-born workers. And Somali immigrants in Minnesota were largely drawn there by jobs that nobody else was taking.

A new study warns of risks for AI toys for kids. Researchers for the U.S. PIRG Education Fund tested three AI toys. They found that the toys discussed religion, different sex positions and kinds of kink, and said where to find potentially dangerous objects in the house. (Yes, one did give instructions on how to light a match, but the study says this and Kumma’s discussions of sexually explicit topics changed after a safety audit from the manufacturer.)

Much like my middle school bullies gaslighting me, the toys used various tactics to simulate friendship. Experts say that could harm children. The same study also cautioned that kids might tell their AI toys a lot of things, and companies could collect all that data (including kids’ voices) and share it with third parties.

Two senators, Republican Marsha Blackburn (TN) and Democrat Richard Blumenthal (CT), have asked six toy companies about their safety measures and content controls. The senators also want to know whether the toys pressure kids to keep conversations going.

The introduction of this study also includes two paragraphs on the 2022 premiere of ‘M3GAN.’ I’m obsessed.

House Republicans passed a health care plan without extending Affordable Care Act tax credits. Those credits helped nearly 22 million Americans afford health insurance through ACA Marketplaces this year alone. The House is set to vote again in January on extending the credits, but chances of making it through the Senate are slim. Same with the bill that the House just passed.

House GOP lawmakers want to make it easier for small businesses to offer health insurance, impose new transparency rules for middlemen in the supply chain for prescription drugs in an effort to make those meds cheaper, and pour more money into another kind of discount that some people on ACA plans get. These topics might come back to haunt us in January, when lawmakers take up the fight over ACA subsidies again and the Ghost of Shutdown Future rears its head.

Sorry to shamelessly plug my own stuff in a newsletter about Dave’s videos, but I just wrapped up a series about all of this in collaboration with Mother Jones! Here’s what I learned.

After you turn 26 (which was this year for me and Dave both, don’t think too hard about it) you can’t stay on your parents’ health insurance and have to get your own. In addition to paying for that, you’re also paying for Medicare.

But wait, you may think if you’re under age 65. I’m not on Medicare. So true. But! You start contributing payroll taxes to Medicare when you get your first paycheck. Your taxes pay for current Medicare enrollees’ benefits. Then when you go on Medicare, younger people’s payroll taxes will pay for your benefits.

This video is part of Dave’s partnership with Free the Facts, a nonpartisan, non-profit organization that empowers young Americans to learn and lead.