MYTHS

originally denier bs talking pts,

wow, big overlap with conspiracy? (cf below an 11119 wa mo)

eg see myths agw

but expanded here to

liberal media bias liberal prof univ brainwash pinko

note that the right has to explain why its ideas are not more accepted (ppl will voye for eg pvt soc sec) so it must be the pinko profs brainwashing kids and the liberal media

aha 2 25 war on xian // founding fr xian // xian nat’l // white grievance // story 1?

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an 212 23

in recent years, more college graduates — especially college-educated women — have been favoring Democrats over Republicans.

Far-right House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) discussed this trend during a conversation with Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas), claiming that college students are being "indoctrinated" by liberals and progressives. But social media users have been pushing back against Johnson's argument, many of them responding that the GOP's extreme policies — not indoctrination — are driving college-educated voters away.

Johnson told Crenshaw, "The reasons that…. the Republican Party is attracting, less and less, more highly educated voters is because they spent so much time in the academy. And the universities are run…. usually by liberals almost entirely. And sometimes, by radical liberals, socialists and others. And so, these students are being indoctrinated instead of educated."

After The Intellectualist retweeted a video of the conversation on X, formerly Twitter, on Christmas Day 2023, many users shot down Johnson's argument.

Former CIA analyst Gail Helt tweeted, "So people who have voted Republican in multiple elections, who finished college decades ago, are just now falling prey to alleged brainwashing? I don't think so."

Deborah Kay, a former Republican, posted, "Wrong.. I'm college educated but that has absolutely nothing to do with me leaving the Republican Party. I left mentally in 2015 when Trump came down that escalator, then the October 2016 recording with Billy Bush pushed me further away, then J6 is what made me leave completely."

Kay also tweeted, "I refused to vote for anyone in the Tea Party but I definitely felt I was seeing the future of the Republican Party, even then. And it's turned out much worse. I was always more middle of the road and voted both sides of the aisle but I've voted straight Democrat since 2016."

Journalist Bette Dangerous posted, "I'm sure this Putinist with the loud closet bones failed to mention Turning Point is the fastest growing group on college campuses — that truth would get in the way of his Russian propaganda."

Pundit Jeri Walker wrote, "My experience in college was one of discovery. I chose my required subjects carefully & based on my personal curiosity. I chose my electives based on my personal curiosity. I chose to expand my knowledge so I could understand my world more. NO ONE ever tried to indoctrinate me."

Another X user, Gayle Dourn Plantz, tweeted, "There's a positive correlation between education levels & being a Democrat or independent. There's a negative correlation between education levels & religion So yeah, more educated folks tend to be less into religion and more into actually improving the lives of average citizens."

Activist Kitty Ann Swink told Johnson, "Actually Mike, they educate them.

*Watch the video below or at this link.

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an 4 25 6 EJECTED, 3 AT LEAST ARRESTED, 2 TAZED

QUESTIONS SCREENED?

Greene gives 'word of warning' to constituents: 'Behave' or be 'thrown out' of town hall

Greene has declared her Tuesday night town hall is for constituents only, who must submit questions only in advance, must sign up, and then “sit and listen.” The Georgia Republican declared protesters, whom she alleged would only be “paid” Democrats, will be ejected.

In a social media video, Congresswoman Greene stated, “this is a town hall that’s strictly for constituents. That means you have to live in my district, and you had to sign up on the sign up link. That’s important. Make sure you bring your ID, as we will be verifying that you actually live in the district and have signed up to be in the town hall.”

Greene, under scrutiny over recent stock purchases she allegedly made, is holding the town hall in a county Vice President Kamala Harris carried in November by 15 percentage points, according to Fox News. The GOP Congresswoman established additional rules, namely, no protesting—despite First Amendment protections.

“Also, this is important for everyone attending the town hall,” she said. “You need to understand this is not a place to protest. This isn’t a place to stand up and scream and yell. This is a place to sit and listen, and we have your questions if you signed up.”

IFrame Content

Then she served up “one word of warning for you: If you’re planning to act up scream and protest, you’re going to be thrown out. And that’s the way it goes. We know how the Democrat Party is organizing and funding these protests for Republican town halls, all across America. And I’m just going to tell you, I don’t tolerate it.”

“America voted for President Trump, they voted for Republicans to be in charge of Congress and the Senate, and they voted to put America first, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” she concluded

Speaking to Fox News, Greene added she expects her constituents to “behave well. And we expect them to be, you know, respectful.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

XIT

I’m so excited for my Town Hall in Cobb County tonight! To my constituents who have registered and are planning to attend this evening, regardless of your political party, I’m excited to see you and answer your questions. To the paid Democrat protestors planning to show up from across the country tonight, stay outside. This is not your event. And Donald Trump is still your president.

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3 25

2 25 NOT QUITE SURE I SEE MYTHIC STATUS, BUT DOMINATED ELECTION 2024 AND IN EUR] THE COURTS ARE ASSAYING THE METAPHOR/REALITY

PLUS GONE FROM FRINGE TO GOP ORTHODOXY

AHA DOH INVASION IS A MYTH // GRT VIOL RHET, HYPE FEAR --> MASS SHOOT

AN 2 25

When it comes to talking about immigrants, the word “invasion” is both explosive and inaccurate, experts and human rights advocates say. Yet with Donald Trump back in the White House, it’s showing up on official orders and other communications — and it’s being echoed by Ohio politicians.

Just in the waning weeks of January, Trump issued two executive orders using the language — “Guaranteeing the States Protection Against Invasion” and “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.”

On Thursday, more than 80 civil and human rights organizations sent a letter to congressional leaders calling on them to reject what the groups said was a “false and bigoted conspiracy theory.”

As at times past, numbers of migrants spiked at the U.S.-Mexico border at the end of the COVID-19 pandemic and severely strained resources. That led certain politicians on the right — including Trump, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and now-Ohio U.S. Sen.Bernie Moreno — to claim it was an invasion even though migrants weren’t driving tanks, carrying machine guns, or even functioning as an organized group. They don’t even committed crime at rates as high as native-born Americans

“Immigration policy is an important topic that demands congressional discussion and debate,” the groups’ letter to Republican and Democratic congressional leaders said. “We implore Senate and House leadership not to support or fund efforts that are led by a fictional and dangerous conspiracy theory purporting an ‘invasion.’ Congress should not provide the justification for continued attacks on our democracy.”

In Texas, Abbott has tried to portray what has happened at the border as a military invasion as he seeks to take border-security responsibilities into his own hands. Such powers have traditionally been reserved for the federal government because it would create chaos if each of the 50 states was in charge of its own policy and security when it came to dealing with foreign countries.

Also, the places along the border that Abbott claimed were the site of a military invasion are among the safest communities in the country. So, even when immigrants showed up in large numbers, that didn’t amount to the military invasion Abbott claimed in an attempt to get around federal primacy, a judge ruled last year.

“Contemporary definitions of ‘invasion’ and ‘actually invaded’ as well as common usage of the term in the late Eighteenth Century predominantly referred to an ‘invasion’ as a hostile and organized military force, too powerful to be dealt with by ordinary judicial proceedings,” U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra wrote last year as he blocked Abbott. “This Court could not locate a single contemporaneous use of the term to refer to surges in unauthorized foreign immigration.”

After briefly lifting it, the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals last year upheld Ezra’s stay and is scheduled to hear Texas’s appeal in July.

Meanwhile, many experts have said false claims of invasion have prompted murderous rampages against vulnerable communities. For example, Patrick Crusius in 2019 drove from Dallas to El Paso, posted a manifesto saying he was stopping an “invasion” at the border and went to a Walmart. There he used an AK-47 to murder 23 and injured 22 more.

Some experts say the fact that such false, incendiary rhetoric can be deadly isn’t just incidental, it’s part of the point. It scares immigrants and others from standing up to those who use it, and that serves the political ends of those who use such rhetoric, those experts say.

Not to fight false claims that we’re being invaded undermines democracy, a program director at one of the groups that signed the letter to congressional leaders said in a statement.

“Depicting migrants and refugees as an ‘invasion’ is not only a dangerous and bigoted attempt to fearmonger, it is now the basis of an authoritarian power grab,” said Liz Yates of the Western States Center.

In their letter, all the groups said the harm will only spread unless those in power stand against claims of an “invasion.”

“This bigoted narrative has already been leveraged to promote policies that have and will continue to have a devastating impact on immigrant communities,” the letter said. “It has also inspired a pattern of white nationalist and antisemitic deadly attacks across the nation. Use of this bigoted conspiracy theory as justification for a policy agenda poses a public safety risk not only to the immigrant communities who are targeted for policy enforcement, but also to Jewish, Black, Brown, Muslim, LGBTQ+, AANHPI, Latinx and many other communities who are implicated in this conspiratorial rhetoric. It also constitutes a direct threat to our democracy.” Congress must refuse to further legitimize this bigotry by sanctioning or funding policies in its name.”

Ohio Capital Journal is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Ohio Capital Journal maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor David Dewitt for questions: info@ohiocapitaljournal.com.

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https://theconversation.com/a-conservative-activists-quest-to-preserve-all-network-news-broadcasts-92009

Fifty years ago, in the middle of a typically hot and humid Nashville summer, a Metropolitan Life insurance manager named Paul Simpson sat with Frank Grisham, the director of the Vanderbilt University Library, in the rare books room of the main library building.

Using three Ampex video recording machines, three television sets and $4,000 of Simpson’s own money, they began what they thought would be a 90-day experiment: From then until election night in November, they would record the ABC, NBC and CBS evening news broadcasts, which usually aired at the same time.

The day Simpson and Grisham started taping, August 5, 1968, was an eventful one. The Republican Convention began, and Ronald Reagan officially announced his candidacy for the presidential nomination, joining with liberal Republican Nelson Rockefeller in an attempt to stop Richard Nixon’s hopes of a first ballot nomination.

The news broadcasts also included the era’s biggest stories: fighting in Vietnam, communist leaders meeting in Eastern Europe and the civil war in Nigeria. Other reports from that day sound hauntingly familiar: an Israeli strike into Jordan and a violent incident at the Korean Demilitarized Zone, in which an American and North Korean soldier were killed.

Such was the modest beginning of what Rutgers University historian David Greenberg has called the “preeminent video resource for scholars of TV news.”

Although legal and copyright issues continue to hinder access, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive – a repository of television news recordings from the past 50 years – is a national archival treasure.

But the archive’s beginnings are rooted in the political and cultural conflicts of the late 1960s. Simpson, the archive’s founder, first financial backer and chief fundraiser, was deeply conservative. And he was convinced that the network news broadcasts, with their executive producers living in New York’s “liberal atmosphere,” were contributing to social turmoil and unrest throughout the country.

For this reason, he sought to save the recordings for posterity – to be able to show, years later, that CBS, NBC and ABC were as much a part of the problem as the anti-war movement, drug culture and free love.

The most trusted men?

Although he later downplayed political motivations in a 1985 C-SPAN interview, Simpson had long been passionate in his concern about television’s malign influence over “the American mind.”

In 1964, he wrote to CBS to complain about Walter Cronkite’s coverage of the Goldwater campaign. He wasn’t necessarily wrong: Cronkite, who enjoyed his reputation as the “most trusted man” in America, did detest Goldwater and was liberal in his politics.

Simpson also believed that television news unfairly blamed President John F. Kennedy’s assassination on the “conservative atmosphere” in Dallas, and he recalled with particular disgust a 1967 network interview with psychologist Timothy Leary, who was encouraging young people to try LSD.

Simpson was deeply suspicious of Walter Cronkite’s motives and beliefs.Charles Kremenak, CC BY

On a business trip to New York in March 1968, Simpson toured each of the three networks. At each stop, he asked to see a broadcast from the previous month. They all told him that they weren’t available – they only saved their broadcasts for about two weeks because it was too expensive to preserve them.

Simpson was shocked. He viewed nightly newscasts as the equivalent of America’s national newspaper. How could they be held accountable if no record existed of their stories, segments and analysis?

When he returned to Nashville, Simpson found an ally in Vanderbilt librarian Frank Grisham.

Grisham didn’t share Simpson’s politics but did believe that the broadcasts should be preserved. The two took the idea to Vanderbilt’s chancellor, Alexander Heard, a political scientist whom historian Paul Conkin described as a true believer in “an open society, one in which divergent views could find expression” and compete for public acceptance. Heard got the board of trustees to approve a short-term experiment, hoping that the Library of Congress might eventually take it over.

Preserving bias for posterity

The expensive project may have ended after its three-month test run were it not for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, held a few weeks after the Republican gathering.

On August 28, 1968, the night Hubert Humphrey was nominated, the news networks aired footage of the swelling crowds of protesters, the outbreak of violence in the streets and the demonstrators shouting, “The whole world is watching” as the police attacked them. It was dramatic stuff – and Simpson and Grisham preserved it all.

The dramatic images that emerged from the 1968 Democratic National Convention horrified a huge swath of the electorate.

Although the protesters believed media coverage would create sympathy for their cause, a substantial majority of Americans – including Paul Simpson – sided with the police. When editing the tapes, Simpson realized that NBC had shown the same arrest of one violent protester from three different angles without acknowledging that it was the same person. In Simpson’s view, this exaggerated the scale of violence and discredited the police.

In the heated atmosphere of 1968, it was enough to fuel suspicions of media bias. Simpson now had his smoking gun – and a potent fundraising tool.

Over the next two years, the tape of the Chicago violence played a critical role in the survival of the archive. Simpson argued that the only way to be able to study the media’s impact was to ensure copies existed for critics, researchers and academics to review. Two conservative Nashville business executives, one of whom sat on the Vanderbilt board of trustees, made substantial donations to keep the archive functioning.

Nixon’s election made the White House receptive to the project. Simpson sent the tape to Patrick Buchanan, a Nixon speechwriter who shared the president’s deep distaste for the media. Buchanan even included a reference to the protest footage in Vice President Spiro Agnew’s](https://youtu.be/SQpQyJQm2Mk).

vid 404

Vice President Spiro Agnew laid into the press, citing the same footage from the 1968 DNC protests that infuriated Paul Simpson.AP Photo

“Another network,” Agnew announced, “showed virtually the same scene of violence from three separate angles without making clear it was the same scene.”

The networks fight back

The networks had never been singled out by elected officials in this way, and they weren’t happy about the scrutiny. Operating as they did with government licenses, they saw Agnew’s speech as intimidation.

With a hubris that, in retrospect, was certain to invite further scrutiny, the three networks pushed back, arguing that they were objective and impartial watchdogs looking out for the public interest. They saw themselves as above politics. As media historian Charles L. Ponce De Leon wrote in 2015, “It was news from Olympus, presented in a tone that suggested the voice of God.”

NBC’s Reuven Frank sarcastically dismissed Simpson’s claim that he was acting in the “spirit of free inquiry,” remarking that “I have never known a self-proclaimed objective student who sought to evaluate my performance because he thought I was doing great.”

The networks also worried that if Vanderbilt continued recording their broadcasts, they would lose the ability to repackage and resell their footage. People could just go to Vanderbilt for it.

CBS accused the Vanderbilt Television News Archive of violating its copyright and sued in December 1973. Amazingly, CBS stated it would destroy the Vanderbilt tapes if it won in court.

Thankfully, Tennessee Sen. Howard Baker helped insert a clause in the revision of the copyright law that protected the right of libraries to record the news. CBS dropped its lawsuit, but some of the restrictions it insisted upon were put in place.

While the entire collection was digitalized in the early 2000s, the Vanderbilt Television News Archive is only allowed to stream NBC and CNN to researchers. Examining ABC, CBS or Fox segments requires a trip to Nashville.

The recording of the evening newscasts of the big three networks – ABC, CBS and NBC – continues to this day. In 1995, the archive began recording an one hour a day of CNN, and in 2004, an hour of FOX. Over the years it’s been used by researchers to study topics as diffuse as political bias, gender stereotyping and even the evolution of television advertising, since the commercials during the news broadcasts are also recorded.

In recent times, the archive was used in the 2015 documentary “Best of Enemies” because it contained lost footage of the debate between conservative commentator William F. Buckley and liberal writer Gore Vidal. More poignantly, it was used by the mother of an American soldier who died in Vietnam; after someone told her that her wounded son had been photographed lying on the ground during a network news segment, she traveled to the archives to review footage and confirm the account.

Even if one thinks Simpson’s perception of deliberate political bias was misguided, his insistence on preserving the evening news in order to study and analyze its presentation was an extraordinarily important contribution.

The British writer Christopher Hitchens once remarked that political partisanship makes us stupid.

But in the case of the Vanderbilt Television News Archive, partisanship led to unintended, historically enriching results.

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aha: 1776 appropriated by big lie trump insurrectionists

FOUNDING MYTH: innocent colonists oppressed by tyrant so no choice but to minuteman pick up rifle to response to attempt to deprive them of guns; they would not submit/surrender, be the bitch of geo III. nanny state cannot force me vaxxer to wear a diaper b/c goes beyond emmaculation to infantilization: helpless, no control, freedumb; after WIN WASP XIAN founding fathers wrote CONSTITUTION

aha a military victory surest proof of god's favor, superiority

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aha: this (noam libtard sys fail) mixes with perennial run gov't like a biz MYTH put a rational old white guy with biz sense to use numbers to make decisions

failson is the notion that the prince will inherit the smarts and moxy of dad, and or (nature/nurture) will be trained from birth to exercise power aka make rational dicisions for the benefit of all (or keep those peasants/poc in their place); not exactly magical thinking in trumpian dale carnegie form that thinking/wishing makes it so? older more achetypal/mythical king arthur pulls sword to prove divine right? but only a signal to world, the virtue /strength/wisdom is in him inherently

cf moyers cox So won civil war; pluto olig: only rich white men deserve are qualified to govern, thus kush gets covid and ME peace:

a 720

Here’s why Jared Kushner’s plan for widespread COVID-19 testing ‘just went poof into thin air’

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no lnx

Here’s how a conspiracy theorist banned from Twitter made the journey from the ‘alt-right fringe’ to a GOP congressional candidate

Written by Alex Henderson February 28, 2020

Far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, known for her anti-Muslim posts on social media and claims that mass shootings are false flag operations, is so extreme that she has even been banned from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). But that isn’t preventing the 26-year-old Loomer from seeking the Republican nomination in South Florida’s 21st Congressional District, where she is hoping to run against incumbent Democratic Rep. Lois Frankel in 2020’s general election. And Amanda Carpenter takes a look at Loomer’s journey from the “alt-right” fringe to congressional candidate in a February 28 article for The Bulwark.

Carpenter, who is a CNN contributor in addition to her work for The Bulwark, is no liberal: she formerly served as communications director for Sen. Ted Cruz and a speechwriter for Sen. Jim DeMint. But Loomer, as Carpenter explains, is not a run-of-the-mill conservative — other Republicans shunned her in the past, and she has been banned from social media platforms ranging from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram.

As a candidate, Carpenter notes, Loomer’s “plan” is “to present herself as a politically incorrect social media martyr” — and she has reached out to President Donald Trump for help, declaring herself to be a staunch Trumpista.

“Whereas Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Lyft, Venmo, GoFundMe, Medium, Uber and UberEats have standards of behavior for members, the United States Congress does not,” Carpenter asserts. “‘Member of Congress’ is one of the few jobs where Loomer’s anti-Muslim tweets, musings that mass shootings are false flag operations and outlandish protests aren’t automatic disqualifications. In fact, those positions will probably help her attract a committed, albeit nutty, base of support.”

In May 2019, Carpenter recalls, Loomer appeared on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show — where she “sounded like a woman on the brink” and “wailed like a teenager” after her inflammatory posts got her banned from Instagram and Facebook. But now that she’s running for Congress, Carpenter laments, Loomer’s claim that she is a political martyr “seems to be working. Loomer has transformed from a fringe member of the alt-right internet to someone embraced by people in the highest levels of GOP leadership.”

Carpenter goes on to list some of the Republicans who are now supporting Loomer’s campaign — including Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago resort is in her district.

“President Trump has tweeted supportively of her race, his presidential campaign is renting out her e-mail list — and Trump’s 2016 Florida director, Karen Giorno, is managing her campaign,” Carpenter reports. “Republican Rep. Jim Jordan appears to have rented out her list too. And Loomer claims endorsements from high-profile personalities and friends of Trump, including Roger Stone, Jeanine Pirro, Bo Snerdly and Michelle Malkin.”

Moreover, Carpenter adds, Republican Joe Gruters (a Florida state senator and chairman of the Florida Republican Party) “held a press conference with her (in January) to promote legislation that he said was inspired by Loomer. The bill, Stop Social Media Censorship Act, would allow people such as Loomer to sue Twitter for damages if their speech is censored or deleted. It’s commonly known as ‘Loomer’s Law.’”

According to Carpenter, Loomer’s campaign “has raised more than $350,000 and had $115,000 cash on hand.”

“Take Laura Loomer’s name out of the picture here,” Carpenter laments, “and you have what appears to be a well-connected, establishment campaign designed for a rising party star.”

The good news is that if Loomer does win the GOP nomination, her chances of defeating Frankel in the general election are slim: Florida’s 21st Congressional District, Carpenter points out, “is safely Democratic” — and in 2016’s presidential election, Hillary Clinton carried that district by 19%. Had the entire state of Florida voted like the 21st Congressional District in 2016, Clinton would have won Florida’s electoral votes hands down.

But Loomer’s “longshot” campaign, Carpenter stresses, is a publicity stunt — and her chances of actually defeating Frankel should she win the nomination are “almost beside the point.” Plus, Trump now claims Florida, not New York City, as his primary residence and can vote in Florida elections.

“If the president of the United States votes for her in 2020,” Carpenter asks, “what further validation does she need?”

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npr mktwatch trump guy kudlow claims tax cut paid for itself, BS goes back to RR, deficit always goes up

https://www.marketplace.org/2019/07/11/how-tax-cuts-get-paid-for/

a year and a half ago, Congress passed one of the biggest tax cuts in history. Speaking at a CNBC event this week, Larry Kudlow, President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, said this:

“I would argue strongly that the corporate tax cut has already been paid for and roughly two-thirds of the overall tax cut has been paid for.”

Back when the Republican tax plan was moving through Congress, proponents said it would “pay for itself.” We know it takes time for changes in the tax code to work their way through the economy, but we wanted to dig into that phrase “paid for.”

“So the thing about ‘paid for’ is that you’ve taken a verb ‘pay’ and you’ve gotten rid of all of the arguments,” said Jessica Rett, an associate professor of linguistics from UCLA. “We’re used to it in a sentence like, ‘Kai paid Jessica $10 for the beer.’ … When you say, ‘Kai paid Jessica $10 for the beer,’ you know exactly how much, and who is doing the paying, and who is receiving the paying. But if I just say, “The beer was paid for,” you just interpret the sentence as meaning, ‘OK, well, the beer was the thing that was paid for, and I’m just gonna have to assume that someone paid someone some amount,” she said.

Let’s take another look at what Larry Kudlow said:

“I would argue strongly that the corporate tax cut has already been paid for and roughly two-thirds of the overall tax cut has been paid for.”

In this case, “because there’s so many arguments missing, you’re not giving me any information about who’s paying for what. We tend to interpret it as meaning something like it’s self-funded,” Rett said.

So are these tax cuts being “paid for” like someone paying for a beer?

“These tax cuts are not being — I’m afraid to use the words now after this linguist — but they’re not being ‘paid for,'” said Howard Gleckman, senior fellow at the Tax Policy Center in Washington, D.C. “There’s simply no evidence that the tax cut paid for itself or even paid for two-thirds of itself.”

The broader question though, is who pays for tax cuts?

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act included some provisions that lowered taxes and some that raised taxes. Gleckman said if you look at the net effect, you find that it reduced taxes by around $1.5 trillion. That means to “pay for” the tax cuts, someone has to pay the government $1.5 trillion.

“The only way you’re going to get this money, the only way you’re going to, if you will, ‘pay for’ this bill is through economic growth, which hasn’t happened, or through borrowing,” Gleckman said. “And if you borrow the money, you’ll eventually have to pay it back. And the people who are going to pay it back are going to be future generations who are going to pay higher taxes or receive fewer government benefits. That’s all there is.”

There is still a lot we do not know about the long-term impact of this tax law, but there is some historical context that’s helpful here. President Ronald Reagan cut taxes in 1981, and President George W. Bush cut taxes in 2001.

“Every time, the proponents of those tax cuts argued that they would pay for themselves, and every time, the deficit went up after the tax cuts were enacted and in fact went up a lot,” Gleckman said.

So the next time you hear someone say a tax cut will “pay for itself” or that a tax cut has been “paid for,” come on back to marketplace.org and read this again.

wow, big overlap just b/c of format? do structural analysis al la 4 interlock dovetail stories?

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an wash mo 1119

no lnx

Here are 11 absurd conspiracy theories conservatives must believe in the Trump era

Written by Washington Monthly November 10, 2019

As Donald Trump and his conservative defenders begin to construct a conspiracy theory that Adam Schiff personally orchestrated a massive conspiracy to entrap Trump in Ukraine, it’s worth noting just how many conspiracy theories you have to believe in just to be a standard Republican these days. Political parties in all eras have a number of questionable orthodoxies, but the sheer number of conspiracy theories that make up mainstream Republican ideology is remarkable. A quick rundown would include but not be limited to;

1. The belief that 10,000 climate scientists all around the world are either stupid, or engaged in a massive criminal conspiracy to concoct bad science in order to receive…more government grant funding. And that no other scientists are exposing it.

The belief that there is a giant conspiracy across all of news media to make Republicans look badand elect Democrats–in spite of continually unfair press coverage of candidates like both Bernie Sanders *and* Hillary Clinton–in exchange for…what? It’s never really clear.

The belief without evidence that there is a giant conspiracy across local, state and federal elections officials all across the country to engage in mass wide-scale voter impersonation fraud. Needless to say, this would be insanely complicated, incredibly risky and hugely inefficient.

The belief that that there is a giant conspiracy topush migrants to the border in order to change the demographics of the U.S., in order to…increase taxes and gain “control”? This is a pretty nonsensical conspiracy, but it’s among the most common. It’s no surprise that this sort of rhetoric echoes fascist antisemitic tropes, which is why George Soros is so commonly included.

The belief that there was a deep conspiracy to elect a man named “Barack Hussein Obama” to the presidency in order toimplement socialism in America…and that the shadowy socialist cabal picked a guy named “BarackHusseinObama” for the job. Or made up his birth certificate from scratch and decided on one of the most unlikely presidential names imaginable in his birth year.

6. The belief that the “Deep State” entrapped Trump with Russia entanglements before the 2016 in order to derail his presidency if he won, but didn’t use it to stop him from winning, but were blindsided when he won, but have stymied his every move afterward.

7. The belief that there is a giant unexposed conspiracy of 100,000s of teachers/faculty across PreK and higher education to indoctrinate young people. Rather than, you know, people not buying into garbage and bigotry once they learn something.

8. The belief that atiny group of obscenely rich industrialists are the only truthtellers, the only ones looking out for the “forgotten man”, while millions of middle class professionals and civil servants are corrupt liars. This one is particularly ironic, as it represents a twisted funhouse version of Marxist theory.

9. The belief that millions of people want to disarm them to leave them defenseless against looters, burglars and Liberal Fascism ™, rather than just want their kids not to get shot at school again and again by trigger-happy Rambo cosplayers.

10. The belief that Green Energy is a scam to give connected companies money and make coal miners homeless,rather than an effort to save millions of lives from climate change, pollution and black lung.

11. The belief that social services are an intentionally corrupt scam to keep minority groups on the “Democrat Plantation” ™, rather than a good-faith effort to make up for the predations of a brutal market in a society riddled with horrific structural racism.

It goes on and on. And that’s just the standard stuff you hear from most GOP politicians on any given day. It doesn’t even get into the really weird conspiracies that millions of Republican voters actively believe, likeQAnon, secret 5th column communists, pedophile illuminati,etc. It also doesn’t touch the dangerously errant shibboleths like “tax cuts pay for themselves” or “anyone can escape poverty if they really want to” which, while not conspiracy theories, are false articles of faith with destructive consequences.

Again, it would be one thing if these beliefs were limited to the GOP base. But it’s not just the rubes. It’s the Senators and the Representatives. It’s the President and his lawyers. They all feed from the paranoid conservative infotainment trough, which has to up the ante every year in order to make the world as it really is match up somehow with false conservative ideological orthodoxy.

It’s conspiracy theory turtles all the way down. And needless to say, in a two-party system, it’s incredibly dangerous for one party to be this far gone from reality.

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new variantsocial media bias

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/trumps-social-media-summit-was-a-complete-embarrassment-that-did-just-what-trump-wanted/

kos

On Thursday, Donald Trump unexpectedly folded on the question of adding a citizenship question to the census. After warning that he could absolutely put the issue in place with an executive order, Trump hauled out his attorney general and secretary of commerce, set up a podium in the Rose Garden, and did what he always does when not throwing insults—he whined. But Trump had the perfect audience for his “We tried to slip this in at the last minute, then ran out of time, so it’s all everyone else’s fault” complaint. Because on Thursday afternoon, Trump filled the Rose Garden with a collection of villainy and scum that would embarrass any Mos Eisley cantina.

The event was labeled as a “press conference,” but it was a very Trumpian press conference: one at which Trump took no questions, and one where the actual press was made to stand at a distance on the other side of ropes. That’s because all the chairs at this press conference were reserved for the internet’s most hateful: the alt-right pundits that were scraped up to attend Trump’s “social media summit.” That group didn’t try to ask Trump any questions. That’s not their role. Instead, they used this moment of access and historic location to join Trump in attacking the free press.

There was badge-wearing Nazi, and former Trump adviser, Sebastian Gorka threatening reporters. And there was professional 9/11 truther Mark Dice yelling at CNN. There was pundit, songwriter, and congressional candidate Joy Villa—a candidate in California, or New York, or possibly Florida, she hasn’t made up her mind yet—smirking at the media and informing them that their day, the day where people asked questions, expected answers, and checked those responses for truthfulness, is over.

These are the voices that Trump is trying to elevate. Voices that scream racism. Voices that scream hate. And,in the case of Dice, voices that scream that both Hollywood and the music industry are run by a combination of Illuminati and Satanists who hide spells in Super Bowl halftime rituals designed to blind the public to the existence of a worldwide gay conspiracy. And the Starbucks logo features a mermaid prostitute. And Katy Perry is a witch.

But the real purpose of Trump’s “social media summit” wasn’t to promote conspiracy theorists. It was to promote two of his own conspiracy theories.

The primary focus of Trump’s summit on social media was … how awful all the social media platforms are.Despite not just a lack of real evidence, but mountains of genuine counterevidence , Trump continues to push the conspiracy theory that “conservative voices” are being banned from Twitter, Facebook, and other platforms for nothing more than supporting Trump. As The Washington Postreported, Trump spent much of his time focused on telling the alt-right that they were the real victims of one of those conspiracies they love to write about.

“We have terrible bias. We have censorship like nobody has any understanding,” said Trump. This is the reason Trump believes his tweets get much less support than those of Barack Obama, who, three years out of office, continues to have far more followers than Trump. And, in fact, Trump did go on at length about ways in which he believes Twitter has suppressed his followers. But the actual fact is more likely that Trump doesn’t believe it anymore than Mark Dice believes that “monkey bars are racist.” It’s just a handy claim.

It’s handy to Trump in reinforcing his even bigger conspiracy theory. His “They’re all out to get me” theory. That’s the theory in which every honest investigator looking into his actions is part of the “deep state”; any honest reporter showing that Trump’s words aren’t true is spreading “fake news”; any judge following the law is part of the “swamp”; and every torch-carrying white supremacist is “good people.” Anyone, even someone who organized a boycott of a Star Wars movie because it was “feminist propaganda” (and yes, that’s Mark Dice again), is good people, so long as they support Trump.

This is the America that Donald Trump champions, and for a very good reason. Because when there is no authority for truth, the loudest voice wins. It really doesn’t matter if those voices are screaming hate. It doesn’t matter if they’re networks of screaming bots run by the Russian military. All that matters is that they’re screaming loud enough to drown out the press … which has to stand way back there, behind the ropes.

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https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/a-political-scientist-explains-how-a-bunch-of-dangerous-myths-brought-us-the-president-for-white-people

post aoc squad attacks

In an effort to answer these questions I recently spoke with Ashley Jardina, a professor of political science at Duke University and author of the new book “White Identity Politics.”

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