NEWS AND OPINION:
A new book arrives Tuesday from A.J. Rice, a creative and indefatigable champion of conservative public relations who at one time or another has produced, promoted or represented such high-profile folks as Laura Ingraham, Donald Trump Jr., Newt Gingrich and Vivek Ramaswamy.
And the book? It’s titled “The White Privilege Album: Bringing Racial Harmony to Very Fine People … on Both Sides,” and was published by Post Hill Press.
“A.J. Rice relentlessly mocks the hell out of the Cultural Marxists who seek to drain all liberty and joy from American lives,” the publisher advises in advance notes for the book.
“The least talented people in American society have been working overtime for decades dividing citizens along any differences they think they can exploit. The laziest tactic, proven to be the most effective, is unleashing a battalion of racial grievance hustlers in the media, academia, entertainment, and politics. If we stop fighting about our differences and start unifying on what we have in common, they will lose the power to divide us permanently,” the publisher said.
The author has been inspired by two giants from the talk radio world.
“I was raised on both Howard Stern and Rush Limbaugh; in fact, the three of us share the same birthday. One mantra that Rush always repeated was that his job was to ‘use irreverent humor to illustrate truth’ and that is what I am trying to do with ’The White Privilege Album,’” Mr. Rice said in a written statement shared with Inside the Beltway.
A REPUBLICAN UPDATE
Here’s what the always busy Republican committees on Capitol Hill are up to this week, courtesy of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise — who has shared the official “Committee Cliff Notes” of the week with Inside the Beltway. This is just a small samples of the 57 hearings that GOP lawmakers will consider:
The Committee on Oversight and Accountability will hold a full committee hearing called “A Legacy of Incompetence: Consequences of the Biden-Harris Administration’s Policy Failures.”
The Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Environment, Manufacturing, and Critical Materials will hold a hearing called “Holding the Biden-Harris EPA Accountable for Radical Rush-to-Green Spending.”
The Financial Services subcommittee on National Security, Illicit Finance, and International Financial Institutions will hold a hearing called “Protecting Americans’ Savings: Examining the Economics of the Multi-Billion Dollar Romance Confidence Scam Industry.”
The Education and Workforce subcommittee on Workforce Protections will hold a hearing called “Examining the Biden-Harris Attacks on Tipped Workers.”
The Committee on Homeland Security will hold a full committee hearing called “A Country Without Borders: How Biden-Harris’ Open-Borders Policies Have Undermined Our Safety and Security.”
VIVEK AND ’TRUTHS’
Former Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy will soon host a new series for Fox Nation, according to Lauren Petterson, president of the Fox News streaming service.
Titled “Truths with Vivek Ramaswamy,” the new series premieres Sunday and will also air in a condensed version on the Fox News Channel on that night at 10 p.m ET.
“Over the course of the series, Mr. Ramaswamy lays out a positive alternative to the left’s vision for the future by presenting hard ’truths’ that the American conservative movement must embrace with topics including American national identity, the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Israel and the protests on U.S. college campuses, religion and more,” Fox News said in a statement.
“In the lead up to the premiere, Fox Nation will also release ’Just Ask: Vivek Ramaswamy’ on Friday, September 20, in which Mr. Ramaswamy answers questions from an audience, with nothing off the table. The one-hour forum, filmed in Philadelphia, will be moderated by ’Fox & Friends Weekend’ co-host and Fox Nation personality Pete Hegseth,” the network also noted.
SCIENCE CORNER
Is the Earth flat and is the planet really controlled by a secret group of powerful people?
“A group of researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cornell, and American University put that idea to the test with a custom made chatbot they are now calling ‘debunkbot.’ The researchers, who published their findings in Science, had self-described conspiracy theorists engage in a back-and-forth conversation with a chatbot, which was instructed to produce detailed counter arguments to refute their position and ultimately try to change their minds,” reports Popular Science.
”In the end, conversations with the chatbot reduced the participant’s overall confidence in their professed conspiracy theory by an average of 20%. Around a quarter of the participants disavowed their conspiracy theory entirely after speaking with the AI,” the publication noted in a report published Monday.
“We see that the AI overwhelmingly was providing non-conspiratorial explanations for these seemingly conspiratorial events and encouraging people to engage in critical thinking and providing counter evidence,” MIT professor and paper co-author David Rand said during a press briefing about the findings.
“This is really exciting, It seemed like it worked and it worked quite broadly,” Mr. Rand noted.
The experiment itself, by the way, involved 2,190 U.S. adults who openly claimed that they believed in at least one idea that meets the general description of a conspiracy theory, the publication advised.
POLL DU JOUR
• 24% of U.S. adults say that Vice President Kamala Harris has been running a “very positive campaign” in the presidential race. 2% of Republicans, 15% of independents and 57% of Democrats agree.
• 18% say that Ms. Harris is running a “somewhat positive” campaign. 9% of Republicans, 18% of independents and 29% of Democrats agree.
• 11% say Ms. Harris is running an “equally positive and negative” campaign. 9% of Republicans, 16% of independents and 8% of Democrats agree.
• 9% say Ms. harris is running a “somewhat negative” campaign. 16% of Republicans, 11% of independents and 1% of Democrats agree.
• 23% say Ms. Harris has been running a “very negative” campaign. 54% of Republicans, 19% of independents and 1% of Democrats agree.
• 15% are “not sure” about the matter. 10% of Republicans, 21% of independents and 4% of Democrats agree.
SOURCE: The Times/Say poll of 1,407 U.S. adults conducted Sept. 10-11.
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• Jennifer Harper can be reached at jharper@washingtontimes.com.