aha3

aha3bak --> aha 4 12 23

here bad format ital bold 12 21

field miss err msg on both 2? 621

html haymarket

bak 12 21 CAPT 3 26 FOUR326

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OFFENSIVE --> = FASCISM

aha 12 23

was powell level playing field ever legit true? when why was line crossed? see crypto

suppression is often about reputational damage, deprive actor of agency/voice

evil b/c it is often about using/twisting the rules of a domain or laws to reduce power of opponents

do we need a new category = DEFENSIVE? NOTE RIGHT JIU JISTSU CANCEL CULTURE AND CO-OPT DEFANG “FAKE NEWS” NOTE ATTACK ON ALL DISINFO AGY/ORGS preemptive? defense from defense?

ACADEMIC/ STUDENT SUPPRESSION BUILT ON PINKO PROF FOUNDATIONAL MYTH AND STRICK fR. desantis takes lead/furthest takeover of college, threaten teachers/librarians refuse to clarify rules b/c can’t be done legitimately because the bnogeyman is not real, plus it takes work, plus vague generates useful fear?

ACTIVIST SUPPRESSION: INGREDIENTS: LIBERAL MEDIA MYTH; PAID PROTESTORS LOWEST MOTIVE greenpeace and scientists make & on climate? kids so strict fr again; foundational myth Commies eg Green New Deal

voter suppression of kids so strict fr again , ppl of color NOT REAL AMERICANS gaining demographically, boosted by Dem import Great Replacement.

Legal suppression just about power imbalance (and maybe ctr attack as CRM and greens used law to good effect (indeed for Big Green FOUR so successsful it became primary strategy?). // bribery converts $ into laws, legal suppression stops activists from going/filming animal agriculture but fear of bankrupty RICO greenpeace CBS tobacco Corps; SLAPP contaminated eggs? tort reform liberal ambulance chasers collective lawduit (climate , class action lawsuit good for racism/ sexism and bad products when did that stop, Walmart beat women time ran out?)

Union suppression: right to work, collective esp worker organize = commie (contract is sacred, real men stand up alone individually atomistic thatcher no society); greedy lazy workers need strict FR CEO to tell them what to do and make them productive.

Judicial suppression: new/ provisional) Horner NotEPA has no wins? significant delay? of?

Foundational myths: liberal media and profs brainwash (both commies?) which explains why our ideas are not popular/accepted/law

strict father is also foundational/baked in? we old white men who have power deserve to have it, and crucial that we maintain our power (by any means necessary) because the alternative is catastrope: commie takeover...welfare state where lazy young POC will not work...regulation will strangle economy nanny state green police

AHA democracy is slow, fascism is fast; biden quickly moved to fix supply chain in covid, re-booted chips mfgr, kamala did deal to slow central am immigration = systemic, but voters blamed biden for inflation tho best in world, thot unemployment was record HIGH?!; trump prevented no carrier AC factory from moving, and his foxcomm plant never built; infra week literally a joke, vs biden infro act bipartisan rebuilt bridge hit by ship in record time; gop mitch showed up to cut ribbons on bills they voted against; only notice pothole, not roads; gas price daily in our face, but loss of democ invisible or desirable if it means hurting THEM

AN 12 24

During the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump relentlessly attacked President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the economy — blaming both of them for post-pandemic inflation in the United States. And the message resonated with enough voters for Trump to pull off a narrow victory over Harris.

According to the Cook Political Report, Trump defeated Harris by roughly 1.5 or 1.6 percent in the popular vote and picked up 312 electoral votes compared to 226 for the vice president.

A victory of 1.5 or 1.6 percent is hardly a "landslide," as Trump's allies have been claiming. But it's a victory nonetheless, and Trump will be sworn in for a nonconsecutive second term on January 20, 2025.

Some of Biden's supporters have argued that history will be kind to the outgoing president — not unlike the kind words for the late President George H.W. Bush after he lost the 1992 election to President Bill Clinton. And history, they argue, will remember Biden's job-creation record and the low unemployment of his presidency.

In October, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), U.S. unemployment was 4.1 percent.

In a December 2 post on X, formerly Twitter, Alex Armlovich — a senior housing analyst for the Niskanen Center — praised Biden's record on creating manufacturing jobs. And he made his point by tweeting a chart from Joey Politano, who publishes a financial newsletter.

Armlovich tweeted, "This rise in US manufacturing construction spend via @JosephPolitano is absolutely mindblowing. So many CHIPS & IRA-fueled factories are about to start opening in January you're not gonna believe it."

READ MORE:[Bombshell report details 'dangerous' new allegations against Trump Cabinet nominee

In a separate tweet, Armlovich laments that Trump, in 2025, will get the credit for Biden's economic achievements.

Armlovich predicts, "Trump's name will be on every IIJA, CHIPS, & IRA ribbon cut b/c key Dem factions thought NEPA red tape was more important than permitting reform to finish projects in <4 yrs FDR didn't respond to the 1930s by saying 'Mussolini is too fast we need NEPA.' He just started building."

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11 24

aha: tax dodge = amplifying feedback --> inequality/ polarization --> instability --> crisis

aha2 // billionaires hide $ in fam fdn, attack gubmint, degrade ability to work, trash more rinse repeat downward death spiral, deconstruct admin state burn it down alt rt nihilism? bannon trump clown car cabinet

an 11 24

A study published Tuesday estimates that tax dodging enabled by the United States, the United Kingdom, and other wealthy nations is costing countries around the world nearly half a trillion dollars in revenue each year, underscoring the urgent need for global reforms to prevent rich individuals and large corporations from shirking their obligations.

The new study, conducted by the Tax Justice Network (TJN), finds that "the combined costs of cross-border tax abuse by multinational companies and by individuals with undeclared assets offshore stands at an estimated $492 billion." Of that total in lost revenue, corporate tax dodging is responsible for more than $347 billion, according to TJN's calculations.

"For people everywhere, the losses translate into foregone public services, and weakened states at greater risk of falling prey to political extremism," the study reads. "And in the same way, there is scope for all to benefit from moving tax rule-setting out of the OECD and into a globally inclusive and fully transparent process at the United Nations."

The analysis estimates that just eight countries—the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Japan, Israel, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand—are enabling large-scale tax avoidance by opposing popular global reform efforts. Late last year, those same eight countries were the lonely opponents of the United Nations General Assembly's vote to set in motion the process of establishing a U.N. tax convention.

According to the new TJN study, those eight countries are responsible for roughly half of the $492 billion lost per year globally to tax avoidance by the rich and large multinational corporations, despite being home to just 8% of the world's population.

"The hurtful eight voted for a world where we all keep losing half a trillion a year to tax-cheating multinational corporations and the super-rich," Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, said in a statement Tuesday. "The U.K. and the U.S. are both among the biggest enablers and the biggest losers of this lose-lose tax system, and their people consistently demand an end to tax abuse, so it's absurd that the U.S. and U.K. are seeking to preserve it."

"It's perhaps harder to understand why the other handful of blockers, like Australia, Canada, and Japan, who don't play anything like such a damaging role, would be willing to go along with this," Cobham added.

TJN released its study as G20 nations—a group that includes most of the "hurtful eight"—issued a communiqué pledging to "engage cooperatively to ensure that ultra-high-net-worth individuals are effectively taxed." Brazil, which hosted the G20 summit, led the push for language calling for taxation of the global super-rich.

The document drew praise from advocacy groups including the Fight Inequality Alliance, which stressed the need to "transform the rhetoric on taxing the rich into global reality."

The communiqué was released amid concerns that the election of far-right billionaire Donald Trump in the U.S. could derail progress toward a global solution to pervasive and costly tax avoidance.

The new TJN study cites Trump's pledge to cut the statutory U.S. corporate tax rate from 21% to 15% and warns such a move would accelerate the global "race to the bottom" on corporate taxation.

"People in countries around the world are calling in large majorities on their governments to tax multinational corporations properly," Liz Nelson, TJN's director of advocacy and research, said Tuesday. "But governments continue to exercise a policy of appeasement on corporate tax."

"We now have data from these governments showing that when they asked multinational corporations to pay less tax, the corporations cheated even more," Nelson added. "It's time governments found the spines their people deserve from their leaders."

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see claim no evid

aha

he gets away b/c of 1 demonization 2 tammany daly machine holdover BS 3 everybody does it, all politics is corrupt/crooks 4 endless rep of lie Big Lie is tribal signifier

an 12 23

Wisconsin Secretary of State Sarah Godlewski is calling for Republican Bob Spindell to be removed from the Wisconsin Election Commission for being one of the fake electors who, in 2020, tried to help former President Donald Trump overturn the election results in that state. When Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisconsin) appeared on CNN on Monday night, December 11, host Kaitlan Collins asked if he favored removing Spindell from the Commission in light of his role in the "fake electors scheme."

Johnson, in response, accused Democrats of using fake electors and told Collins, "These folks did nothing different than what many Democrats have done in many states. It has happened repeatedly."

Collins asked Johnson to back up his claim, and The New Republic's Ella Sherman notes that he was "left flabbergasted" when he couldn't offer any evidence.

POLL:Should Trump be allowed to hold office again?

Johnson told Collins to "just check the books" for examples of Democratic fake electors, but when she asked, "Which books?," the Wisconsin senator had no specific examples to offer.

Sherman notes, "Johnson is right that fake elector schemes have been found across the country — but they were all backing Trump. In addition to Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, and Georgia have all charged fake electors in their states. There is yet another investigation into a similar scheme in Arizona. Meanwhile, Trump faces separate charges in Georgia for the whole plot."

*Watch the video below or at this link.

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aha alarmist is rubber glue reverse (fear is unmanly, women are hysterical/emotion irrational) it is rational to fear gubmint and commies

mma 12 23

SEAN HANNITY (HOST): It really has nothing to do with the environment when you hear "Green New Deal," does it?

MARC MORANO (GUEST): No, absolutely nothing. And as you mentioned, they freely admit that, whether it's AOC's architect or even the UN. They've actually said, they said, "You thought climate treaties had something to do with environmental policy? This is about redistribution of wealth. This is about empowering the bureaucrats." What they're trying to do, it's all about power. It's about making fewer and fewer decisions by fewer and fewer individuals -- more decisions by fewer individuals.

...

All of this is happening so that you can have a regulatory state that we've never experienced in America -- in our American history -- as they take over more and more swaths. This is the intentional collapse of energy, food, transportation, and as a bonus, our free speech, because remember, the UN last year announced, "We own the science on climate change, and that's why we partnered with Google to make sure only UN-approved results on climate science are returned."

This is a frightening world in which we're entering now. And, you know, we really need to push back hard because they are crushing the middle class, and they are literally doing everything they can with 15 minute cities to keep us locked in, the banning of gas-powered cars -- which, by the way, no one's ever voted to ban.

Fox News platforms climate denial and the Great Reset conspiracy theory during COP2711/14/22

### Fox brings on climate denier to downplay landmark IPCC climate report

:{:{08/09/21}:

### Merchant Of Doubt Marc Morano Concerned Google Won't Promote His Website's Climate Change Denial03/06/15 }:}:

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brexit and trump WOULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED BUT FOR GT RECSSION, JUST AS WEIMER COLLAPSE --> HITLER WW2 the men who stole the world prime/11 23

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aha note reductionism

what passes for analysis is pop psychology cliches, reduce complete situation [hard to understand] to simple base motives greed for power money etc; added bonus no way to disprove what is in someone’s head plus get to put down the ppl you think are putting you down: eg

https://www.thefirsttv.com/watch/destroying-the-worlds-energy-supply-in-dubai/}:

Marc Morano finds himself in Dubai, keeping tabs on the COP28 and the global elite attending. One of the biggest topics of the event is the goal reduction of coal-power and the limiting of human energy sources. Morano says many of these elites truly believe they’re the saviors of humanity, and that if they don’t react to “climate change”, billions will die. The problem is, the opposite appears to be true.

how much rely on coal? 40 percent then frack in book show predictions co2 emissions thru roof; coal down to 20 percent; 100 yrs ago 80 percent, // world now; they want to take over grid, coal is most strategic when ukraine war stick it putin smile pay 2x gas, nat'l secuity, portable; coming after gas, coal, make us rely on ME venez china global cabal UN plastic treaty will make everything more expensive, climate lockdn gt reset summit, drunk on own power

jesse: what does kerry get from wreck grid; married $ old as hu hist global ruling class finds a way for rest of us not to be free find threat to protect us from; mass genocide unless we turn over our fdm to them, avoid crisis for own good like pvt in army they think smarter more creative went to finest univ; they think they prevented covid disaster, terror ~ privacy... ppl want power and money, all 3 motives come together midlevel bureau and delgates truly believe they are saving humanity.

Wed, Dec 6, 2023

Length 4:54

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aha big lie, vaxx, agw denial are proof of bona fides, legit member of tribe

see

an 10 23

a British journalist and academic is warning that because the Republican Party and its members are cementing belief in Trump's big lie about the 2020 election in its national identity, democracy is at risk.

In an essay for the Guardian, Peter Pomerantsev — a senior fellow at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University — opined that the recent election of Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) as the next Speaker of the House is a sign that the GOP is embracing election denialism as part of its core identity. Pomerantsev added that adherence to lies is a typical tactic of some of the world's most authoritarian governments.

"Agreeing to Trump’s claims about the rigged election is the absurdity you have to pledge allegiance to in order to show you belong to the tribe. It ensures your fealty by making you complicit," Pomeratnsev wrote. "For anyone who has lived in authoritarian regimes, it’s a familiar sight."

To illustrate this point, Pomerantsev noted that even though Johnson had unanimous support from his caucus in the speaker's race, many Republicans "have admitted both publicly and privately that the elections were, in fact, not falsified."

"Yet when journalists faced a gaggle of Republican congressmen and questioned Johnson’s record on this blatant lie, his colleagues jeered and he mockingly said: “Next question” – as if the facts were irrelevant here," Pomerantsev wrote. "And in a sense, they are."

Pomerantsev's essay elaborated that because Republicans have to believe in a claim they privately know is false in order to maintain power, right-wing media must follow suit in order to sate the tribalist nature of their audience. Because of this, he argues, "it will be hard to fact check our way out of this situation."

"The issue can’t simply be resolved by “trusted” sources, even those on the far right, who can communicate the truth about the election to Trump supporters. Instead, sources only become trusted if they agree to the lie," he wrote. "Pledging loyalty to the 'big lie' is more about identity than knowledge – and to fight it entails understanding the need for belonging and meaning it fulfills."

"Authoritarian propaganda can give the illusion of status and at its extremes a sense of supremacy to compensate for the lack of real agency," he added.

Click here to read Pomerantsev's essay in full.

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aha we once had 3 tv networks and school textbks for shared set of facts? no silo/bubble tribes 2 am

https://www.alternet.org/florida-permits-prageru-materials-classrooms/

https://www.alternet.org/desantis-slave-trade-trade-school/

https://www.alternet.org/education/florida-crt-2659613380/

florida textbook publisher under fire for editing Rosa Parks’ story to omit race

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thom 8 23 polarization // inequality Right to Work for Less $

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aha pix bypass think brain eg nazi Leni R

i am YOUR retribution, you have no power to strike down your enemies (demonization, polar) bit i do // retaliation/ transaction

strict fr fascist angry old man Jehovah; make AM white YOURS again [thom not 1950 beaver but 1870 reconstruction]

aha

women allowed to express some emotions in some ways /time & place; man can express anger, often via violence

strict fr righteous anger retribution for bad weak immoral out of control behavior disobedience

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jehovah Old test

aha/hmmn 8 23 expansion of punish : trump says i am your retribution [// the storm qanon] demonization of enemy evil commie enemy, they must be taken from power and punished

see treason traitor execution

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/extreme-accountability-stew-peters-delivers-a-bloodthirsty-rant-at-the-latest-reawaken-america-event/

no vid rww 8 23

stew Peters is a far-right virulently anti-LGBTQ bigot who regularly uses his nightly “The Stew Peters Show” program, speeches, and social media accounts to promote white nationalists and antisemites and to spread wild conspiracy theories, bigotry, and calls for violence.

:{:{}:

Lately, those calls for violence have become increasingly explicit, as just last week Peters used his program to urge Americans to begin exploring “extra-legal options” to remove “enemy combatants” like Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs from office.

Over the weekend, Peters joined members of former President Donald Trump’s family and inner circle and a cavalcade of far-right conspiracy theorists for a ReAwaken America event in Las Vegas, where he delivered a bloodthirsty rant that was alarming even by Peters’ already unhinged standards.

Speaking on the same stage as the likes of Donald Trump Jr., Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, and Michael Flynn, Peters repeatedly called for his perceived political enemies to be executed.

Peters vowed to arrest former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Anthony Fauci and prosecute him for the COVID-19 pandemic, after which Peters said Fauci “will hang from a length of thick rope until he is dead.”

Hunter Biden, Peters then pledged, will be tried fortreason and “when he is convicted of those crimes, he will get the punishment that traitors like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg received before him: Death!”

Peters proceeded to declare that Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is “atreasonous traitor, and in the world that we are going to build, traitors will hang.”

On top of that, Peters warned that any medical professional who provides treatment to transgender youth will be charged with “child mutilation.”

“Child mutilation will be a capital offense,” Peters proclaimed. “And those who commit it will receive the death penalty without exception.”

“We are going to see extreme accountability,” Peters asserted. “Maximum accountability. We are going to have permanent accountability, with extreme prejudice!”

Every one of Peters’ violent threats was met by wild cheers from the audience[vid]

despite Peters well-documented history of using extremely bigoted and increasingly dangerous rhetoric, he nevertheless regularly manages to get Republican leaders, elected officials, and candidates for office to appear on his program.

The ReAwaken America touris the brainchild of right-wing conspiracy theorist Clay Clark, who has openly bragged that the participation by Michael Flynn and members of the Trump family in these events is “legitimizing what we are doing in the minds of many people” and allowing him to get various conspiracy theorists and self-proclaimed “prophets” directly into “Trump’s inner circle.”

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an 8 23 no lnx

The fascist who doesn’t want America to think

['A harasser and an abuser': Donald Trump seethes at special counsel Jack Smith]

Robert ReichAugust 27, 2023

I want to talk about symbols, images, and fascism.

Here is Trump’s mug shot from his arraignment yesterday in Georgia. It’s a look of defiance — which I’m sure he practiced repeatedly beforehand — intended to make his supporters and his Republican base feel defiant, too.

:{:{}:

If a picture is worth a thousand words, this is Trump’s thousand-word response to Wednesday night’s Republican debate, which he declined to attend.

He timed his arraignment in Georgia for yesterday so that it — and this photo — would dominate Thursday’s and Friday’s news, rather than anything or anyone emerging from the debate.

:{:{}:

But a defiant photograph isn’t “news.” It’s a symbol, an image. Which is exactly what Donald Trump is. He has no political platform, no specific policy agenda, no new ideas, and no plan for what he’ll do if he gets a second term.

:{:{}:

He exists as a symbol for the anger, discontent, bigotry, and vindictiveness he has unleashed in America.

:{:{}:

He is as close as America has come to a fascist leader, who doesn’t want his followers to think or analyze. He wants them only to feel.

:{:{}:

Trump’s lackeys fell in line, expressing the defiance Trump projected in his mug shot.

On Newsmax, Sarah Palin called for civil war.

Fox’s Laura Ingraham told viewers that Trump’s arrest was proof that government officials are trying to “take them out.”

Fox’s Sean Hannity said the Department of Justice will target Republicans “until there’s nothing left of the party.”

All brainless bile.

Last Thursday, Trump complained that Fox News “purposely show the absolutely worst pictures of me, especially the big ‘orange’ one with my chin pulled way back. They think they are getting away with something, they’re not. Just like 2016 all over again … And then they want me to debate!”

Of course he’s angry. For the man who’s all symbol and image and without substance, a photo like the following conveys a brainless buffoon. It must drive him crazy.

But Trump is not a brainless buffoon. He’s a cunning marketer, adiabolic manipulator of the public, a sly producer of his own daily reality show. His lead in the GOP’s presidential sweepstakes has grown. He will almost certainly be the Republican candidate for president next year — even if he’s in jail.

How to debate a symbol? How to take on an image? How should Biden and the Democrats, and everyone who cares deeply about this country, respond to a demagogue who obsesses over what he projects rather than what he stands for? How to deal with a fascist who doesn’t want followers to think but only to feel rage?

Expose him for who he is.

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epitome/outcome?

aha you cannot talk to crazy but you can ignore; evil MUST be physically fought. or it will spread/get worse

Satan created a “woke mind virus.”

it's ok to kill sub-human (diseased, possessed, infected) but req to kill evil (or it will kill you and your kids)

if we continue to self segregate from Them, less chance to human interaction is dispel lies.

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/right-wing-media-figures-prepare-spiritual-war-2024-claiming-their-opponents-are-demonic

no lnx many vid

right-wing media figures prepare for “spiritual war” in 2024 by claiming their opponents are demonic entities

Figures have invoked “demonic portals” and the occult to dehumanize LGBTQ people, perceived political enemies, and others

WRITTEN BY PAYTON ARMSTRONG & NOAH DOWE

PUBLISHED 07/05/23

Right-wing media figures are ramping up apocalyptic political rhetoric that literally demonizes LGBTQ people, perceived political enemies, and progressive causes, with some absurdly suggesting that demons are using portals to enter Earth and wage “spiritual war” against humanity.

Rhetoric about “demonic” influence and an existential, “spiritual” war has become a hallmark of right-wing punditry and Republican politics ahead of the 2024 elections, as Christian nationalism grows in popularity among Republican voters.Language that demonizes and dehumanizes political opponents has been a staple of right-wing commentary for years, but these recent accusations are not simple rhetorical flourishes; a number of media figures have begun to warn their audiences about occult rituals from the left and supposed portals to hell from which demons would enter the Earth. Last year, Trump ally and provocateur Roger Stone even claimed that a “Satanic portal” had opened over the White House after President Joe Biden took office.

This sort of framing, which posits that political enemies are literal “demons” waging a “spiritual war,” stems largely from a right-wing Christian movement known as the New Apostolic Reformation. For years, the NAR movement has reportedly sought “to take dominion over politics, business and culture in preparation for the end times and the return of Jesus.” Rolling Stone described the core NAR belief in spiritual war in a profile of one of the movement’s leading figures, commentator and self-proclaimed prophet Lance Wallnau:

NAR followers like Wallnau believe that America is specially anointed by God to project Christianity across the globe. And the NAR movement’s followers view foes of their quest as satanic. This is not metaphorical. They hold that the physical world is enveloped by a supernatural dimension, featuring warring angels and demons, and are convinced that demons afflict their enemies on behalf of the devil. The movement holds that these spiritual battles are reflected in earthly politics. As the late NAR founder C. Peter Wagner explained in a striking NPR interview in 2011: “I believe there’s a lot of demonic control over Congress … that needs to be dispersed.”

Fiery rhetoric of a spiritual war coupled with demonization of opponents has created an atmosphere in which violence appears permissible and justifiable to followers. For instance, the violence at the Capitol on January 6 was largely undergirded and inspired by boisterous cries of spiritual warfare from prominent figures on the religious right — including Wallnau — who have conditioned their audiences to consider political violence a legitimate tactic.

Over the last two years, right-wing media figures have increasingly adopted the scorched-earth rhetoric of movements like the NAR, setting the stage for a potentially dangerous political atmosphere in 2024. Here are a number of examples:

Right-wing media figures have suggested that demons are entering Earth, with some claiming they are using actual “portals” to hell

On several occasions, prominent right-wing media figures have claimed that demons are using “portals” to attack conservative causes or even fearmongered that Satan created a “woke mind virus.”

Right-wing media gadfly Roger Stone — who observers have noted has increasingly adopted rhetoric around “spiritual war” — claimed on Eric Metaxas’ Salem radio show that “a demonic portal” had been visible above the White House since Biden’s inauguration. Stone suggested that through the “portal,”demons began to “populate the Biden administration,” arguing “you can’t tell whether they are men or women.”

Video

Citation From a December 11, 2022, video posted to Eric Metaxas' Rumble page:

Salem media host Charlie Kirk said that “we’re in the midst of the most consequential spiritual war” in millennia because “there is no other way to explain the campaign of arson and destruction against our country other than diabolical, spiritually dark influences that are fighting for dominion over this nation.” He also argued that “witchcraft and the occult is a real thing, and there are portals to darkness and you have to be vigilant about this.” Kirk also alleged that Satan had created “the woke mind virus” to destroy America and called on religious leaders to “excommunicate … the demons of the woke.”

Video an episode of Real Life with Jack Hibbs, aired on Fox Business Network on May 6, 2023

Conspiracy theorist and Infowars host Alex Jones warned that the European Council for Nuclear Research had used the Large Hadron Collider for “satanic rituals” which he claimed “definitely has opened up a gate” to hell and let demons into the Earth “like paratroopers.” Jones has also claimed that an “alien offworld force” with demons as its agents is “working against us around the clock because they know we are about to go from our embryonic level to birthing into the next level.” What’s more, in his trial for defamation of the families of the Sandy Hook massacre, Jones attacked the judge and plaintiffs’ lawyers as “committed to occult ideology of the new world order” and implied they were “demonically possessed.”

Video

CitationFrom the April 11, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said of reports of interactions with aliens: “Aliens are just demons for liberals who don't want to admit metaphysical reality."

Right-wing media figures have labeled LGBTQ people, gender-affirming care, and abortion “demonic”

Conservative media figures have also revved up their attacks on trans people, LGBTQ Pride month, and abortion by claiming they are inspired by “demons in our society.”

Knowles — who demanded this year that so-called “transgenderism” be “eradicated from public life entirely” — claimed that trans people are “demonic” and that demons are “always trans.”

Video

CitationFrom the March 14, 2023, edition of The Daily Wire's The Michael Knowles Show

On her prime-time Fox News show, Laura Ingraham referred to gender-affirming care as “a demonic campaign to destroy the natural biological order.”

Daily Wire host Candace Owens called trans people “demons in our society” and smeared “any actor, actress, individual that supports this” as “demonic.” Owens has also argued that surrogacy is “deeply demonic.”

Video

CitationFrom the February 7, 2023, edition of The Daily Wire's Candace Owens

On Fox, now-former host Tucker Carlson used the Covenant School shooting in Tennessee to falsely claim that “the trans movement is targeting Christians, including with violence,” and denounced the trans community as part of “a deranged and demonic ideology.”

On YouTube, BlazeTV’s Liz Wheeler said that “if you took the three most disgusting, demonic ideologies that you could possibly think of and put them all in one flag you would get the trans flag.”

Doomsday prophet and repeat Trinity Broadcast Network guest Jonathan Cahn recently declared that Biden had put the United States under “demonic possession” at the hands of an ancient goddess of “sexual immorality” by lighting up the White House in the colors of the rainbow for LGBTQ Pride.

Two days after a shooter killed five people in a Colorado Springs LGBTQ club,Infowars host Owen Shroyer ran footage of drag queens and questioned whether “these people are even human,” ranting: “Demon possession is real. Satanic agendas are real. I don’t know how else to describe any of this.”

Video

CitationFrom the November 22, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show

BlazeTV host Steve Deace partnered with far-right Christian filmmakers Chuck Konzelman and Cary Solomon to produce a right-wing movie that argued humanity is engaged in a spiritual war against demonic forces such as abortion and LGBTQ equality. On his podcast, in an episode titled “Hot Take: Demonic or Democrats?” Deace said that people who advertise drag story hours are “literally inhabited by a demon” and are “a manifestation of a demonic presence.”

Salem Radio host Eric Metaxas and his guest John Zmirak proclaimed that Satan himself was behind the LGBTQ rights movement, with Zmirak decrying “blasphemous drag queen rituals, in your church, mocking Christ” and comparing the Pride flag to an inverted pentagram, claiming Satan “wants you to use the pronoun they.” Metaxas then warned his audience that if they did not boycott companies that celebrate Pride Month, they would be comparable to Germans who failed to stop the Holocaust, saying, “The death camps were the result of good people saying, ‘I don’t want to deal with this. Just let me live my life.’”

Christian nationalist pastor Jack Hibbs, whose sermons air on Fox Business Network, declared that transgender people are “satanic,” saying that in “the last days there’s going to be doctrines of demons and deceiving spirits. Wonder what that’s going to be like? You’re in it.” Per Right Wing Watch, Hibbs has also claimed that "demonism” has caused public support for trans rights.

Christian nationalist influencer and repeat Fox guest Sean Feucht has described abortion and the movement for trans rights as demonic, ascribing public support to “demons” and “the demonic spirit.” Feucht is closely associated with prominent NAR movement leaders and “apostles.”

Right-wing radio host Jesse Kelly said that “we have a society so full of demons that baby murder is now popular” and also referred to the LGBTQ community as “the LGTBQ demon mob.”

Lance Wallnau, a contributor for The Victory Channel’s Christian nationalist show FlashPoint, has repeatedly invoked demons while discussing LGBTQ people. In an April show, Wallnau said that transgender people represent “a fundamental deception” and that accepting them has made society “sympathetic with evil.” Wallnau said that demons target people to make them trans, saying, “I believe a demon comes along that enters into that confusion that affirms that they are the opposite gender.” Per Right Wing Watch, Wallnau also claimed that people become trans because "Satan has taken 'em over with crazy talk about them being in the wrong bodies.”

Video

CitationFrom the April 13, 2023, edition of The Victory Channel's Flashpoint

Right-wing media personalities have also warned that Democrats and other perceived enemies are “demonic” and “satanic”

Far-right Christian media figures and prominent right-wing commentators have told their audiences that the left is engaged with “satanic worship” and “demonic forces,” rationalizing ideological opposition as a product of the “demon-possessed.”

Fox prime-time host Jesse Watters claimed that viewers should be afraid of “demonic teachers” interested in “turning their classroom into a drag show.”

Carlson warned on Glenn Beck’s show that there are “spiritual forces surrounding” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), calling him “a force of darkness.”

On a FlashPoint broadcast, contributor and pastor Hank Kunneman told viewers that “we don't wrestle against flesh and blood, but principalities, powers, spiritual wickedness in high places — you know, demonic entities.” Earlier in the episode, Wallnau said that tragedies in society such as mass shootings should be understood through a lens where “you don’t deal with current events, you deal with a demonic spin cycle.”

BlazeTV founder and longtime conspiracy theorist Glenn Beckproclaimed that the 2020 election was not contested against Democrats, but against “Satan himself,” which he claimed was prophesied to him in a dream. Beck has an extensive history of linking progressives to “the devil” and warning of “demonic” influence.

Disgraced Trump ally-turned-podcast-host Steve Bannon suggested that Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is “satanic” because he “exudes … pure evil” and “hangs with Satanic Groomers.”

During his Christian nationalist ReAwaken America Tour, former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn has frequently asserted that there is a “spiritual war” in America. He has also called former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) a “demon.”

Right-wing podcast host Benny Johnson attacked the grand jury forewoman investigating Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference in Georgia, calling her “borderline demonic” and “demon-possessed.” He has also claimed that “you can see demonic forces at work" in Schiff's district, claiming that the congressman is “on the side of the demons.” Johnson has previously embraced the rhetoric of spiritual warfare, saying, “This rabbit hole goes down so far into the occult … This is a spiritual battle. This is a battle of possession, and there are stages of demonic possession, and we are in the oppression stage right now.”

Far-right pundit Stew Peters fearmongered about “SatanCon,” an event that is hosted by “a progressive church that doesn't worship the devil but instead uses the word to get attention,” claiming it was evidence of “full-blown satanic worship” in America. His guest, Sean Feucht, insisted that we are witnessing “the total unveiling of this demonic realm, this demonic spirit.” Feucht then warned that these alleged forces of Satan were “agitated and upset and trying everything they can do to intimidate Christians.”

On his BlazeTV podcast, Deace called the Democratic Party “a demonic construct, a satanically influenced entity, and a death cult.”

---

aha this is a conspiracy theory, single cause one simple motive eg greed (projection); plus sci/reality is inconvenient to gop; also ~ sino CCP, shield djt incompetence/fail?

Column: House Republicans give a crash course in how to concoct a conspiracy theory about COVID’s origin

covid origins

Virologists Robert Garry, left, and Kristian Andersen listen patiently at a Congressional hearing Tuesday as a gang of politicians tell them their scientific method was flawed. (House Oversight Committee)

BY MICHAEL HILTZIK

BUSINESS COLUMNIST

JULY 11, 2023

Opening Tuesday’s House subcommittee hearing on the origin of the COVID virus, the panel’schairman, Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), promised an impartial inquiry.

“This is not an attack on science,” he said. “And it’s not an attack on an individual.”

He and his GOP colleagues proceeded over nearly three hours to accuse Dr. Anthony Fauci, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — one of the most respected such scientists in the world — of having masterminded the creation of the virus, with the connivance of Dr. Francis Collins, then the director of the National Institutes of Health.

Misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories...have resulted in significant harassment and threats....Online there are so-called kill lists and I have found myself on those lists.

— Virological expert Kristian G. Andersen

The Republicans’ main “evidence,” such as it is, involves a seminal paper in the scientific study of the virus.

Published as a letter in the journal Nature Medicine on March 17, 2020, under the title “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” the paper weighed the two major theories of COVID’s origin: that it reached the human population from infected wildlife (known as zoonosis) or that it leaked from a government lab in Wuhan, China, the teeming metropolis where the first COVID outbreak occurred in late 2019.

Get the latest from Michael Hiltzik

Commentary on economics and more from a Pulitzer Prize winner.

The paper’s authors noted that all the features of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID, are observable in nature, coinciding with the zoonosis hypothesis. They added, “we do not believe that any type of laboratory-based scenario is plausible.”

For years, Republicans have asserted without a scintilla of evidence that Fauci and Collins manipulated the scientific consensus away from the lab-leak hypothesis.

Why have they seized on this theory? Its provenance may offer a clue: It flowered during the Trump administration among political appointees in the State Department, who saw it as a cudgel with which to beat the Chinese government, which they viewed as an economic threat to the U.S. It was also useful to undermine the authority of Fauci, whose skepticism about Trump’s COVID policies was manifest.

Security personnel stand guard outside the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan as members of the World Health Organization (WHO) team investigating the origins of the COVID-19 coronavirus make a visit to the institute in Wuhan in China's central Hubei province on February 3, 2021. (Photo by Hector RETAMAL / AFP) (Photo by HECTOR RETAMAL/AFP via

Column: U.S. government debunks COVID lab-leak conspiracy theory, enraging conspiracy theorists

June 26, 2023

Soon enough, it became Republican orthodoxy.

Lab leak proponents in government and Congress have smeared and vilified Fauci and Collins, among other scientists, in the service of purely partisan claims, ignoring the utter absence of any scientific evidence for a lab leak and the mounting evidence that it first reached humans through interactions with susceptible animals being sold illegally at a wildlife market in Wuhan.

The foils for this phase of the GOP effort to construct an evidence-free narrative of COVID’s origin were two of the five authors of the “Proximal Origin” paper, Robert F. Garry of Tulane and Kristian G. Andersen of Scripps Research in La Jolla.

Garry and Andersen sat patiently at the witness table in the committee room as the Republican members used cherry-picked quotes from their emails, misrepresented their research findings and ignored their painstaking explanations of how science is done in the real world. They listened stoically to committee members — some of whom have medical degrees but none any evident expertise in scientific research — harangue them about supposed flaws in their scientific methods.

“We do know something for certain,” Westrup said: “that the drafting, coordination and publication of ‘Proximal Origin’ and downplaying the lab leak was antithetical to science.”

One low note among many others during the hearing came fromRep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas), who charged that “Dr. Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins realized that they had been implicated in the creation of production or the creation of this virus and they were doing everything they could including both of you to come on board as tools or vehicles to undermine that theory.”

Truth to tell, however, the committee majority’s purpose was no secret from the start. The hearing was titled, after all, “Investigating the Proximal Origin of a Cover Up.”

It may be useful to examine the path the subcommittee’s GOP majority traveled to come to its assertions that the Proximal Origin paper was a sham.

[Dr. Scott Atlas speaks as President Donald Trump looks on

BUSINESS

Column: These ‘experts’ sold the U.S. on a disastrous COVID plan, and never paid a professional price

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As laid out in written testimony submitted to the subcommittee by Garry and Andersen, it started in January 2020, when almost nothing was known about the virus and not much about its genomic family.

The first examinations of its structure revealed several features unfamiliar to virologists. At first glance, they looked like nothing occurring in nature. Many thought this pointed to some sort of laboratory engineering.

When Andersen brought this concern to Fauci during a call on Jan. 31, Fauci urged him to write a scientific paper about the issue, and suggested that if confirmed, the matter should be referred to the FBI and the British intelligence service MI5.

Jeremy Farrar, an infectious disease expert who is currently the chief scientist of the World Health Organization, convened a conference call on Feb. 1 among nine scientists, including Andersen and Garry. Fauci and Collins joined the call, but by all accounts merely listened in without contributing any opinions.

New data came to the scientific community in a torrent over the next few days and weeks. The unfamiliar features turned out to be more common in nature than many virologists had known, and the process by which they might become incorporated in SARS-CoV-2 progressively better understood.

By the end of February, when the authors of the Proximal Origin paper submitted an initial draft to Nature Medicine, they still did not have enough data to rule out either major theory but had become more certain that a laboratory role was plausible.

The subcommittee Republicans profess to be thunderstruck that a theory about COVID’s origin could be posed and discarded in the space of a few days, but Andersen and Garry tried to explain that they’re wrong.

The scientists started with no data, and incorporated new information into their viewpoints as it arrived. In any event, Andersen testified, the period between the conference and the publication of the paper wasn’t three days, as the Republicans kept insisting, but 45 days. Neither Fauci nor Collins played any role in guiding the authors’ conclusions, the witnesses said.

The published paper, moreover, made clear that the state of SARS-CoV-2 research was in its infancy. “More scientific data could swing the balance of evidence to favor one hypothesis over another,” the authors wrote.

[Column: How Trump’s anti-science meddling erased 3 years of crucial COVID research

May 12, 2023]

But its general conclusion that a lab leak is implausible and the virus probably emerged by natural spillover from animals “has only been further supported by additional evidence and studies,” Andersen told the subcommittee. He and Garry said that if evidence emerged supporting a lab leak, they would examine it objectively and be guided by their findings. As of this moment, there is none.

Under prompting by subcommittee Democrats, the witnesses pointed to the long-term consequences of the Republican efforts to foment mistrust of science by mainstreaming conspiracies.

“Misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories around the paper have resulted in significant harassment and threats,” Andersen said. “Including everything from typical targets on social media to emails, to telephone calls to my office ... to death threats.... Online there are so-called kill lists and I have found myself on those lists together with my co-authors.”

The thrust of the subcommittee’s claims, he said, “is that the virus was created and that American scientists played a role in that and have been covering that up.... All of which, as the record clearly shows, is false.... The focus has been that there’s a need to blame someone.”

What has been going on here has been nothing less than a partisan witch hunt. Westrup made clear that the Republican narrative was predetermined: “We’re examining any conflicts of interest, biases or suppression of scientific discourse regarding the origins of COVID-19,” he said. The record shows, however, that what occurred was the scientific method in action.

If the subcommittee members are truly devoted to protect Americans from a future pandemic, they couldn’t find a worse way to reach that goal. “If I was a future scientist, looking at the attacks directed at us, for example, maybe I wouldn’t go into infectious disease research.... It’s incredibly damaging,” Anderson said.

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---

root of polarysis

(( note gingrich gop memo, trump parrots bannon, memo on steroids --> SOP demonization

:{:{}:

term was sorta fading for WHILE? 3 23 common w/o"cultural " prefix , dropped when/why?

cpac once has legit policy presented?

https://www.alternet.org/**2022/08**/cpac-speakers/

According to a report from Rolling Stone, the speeches thus far at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas have been larded with "dark" threats of coming violence as the speakers brushed aside any discussion about the Jan 6 Capitol riot.

With Donald Trump --who instigated the Capitol insurrection -- taking the stage on Saturday, Tim Dickinson wrote that in many cases the speeches, "...menaced America with what seemed to be thinly veiled calls for violence."

Case in point, he notes, was a speech given by recently convicted former Donald Trump advisor Steve Bannon who proclaimed to the crowd, "We are at war."

"Repeating the Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump,Bannoninsisted that Joe Biden is an 'illegitimate imposter.' Calling on Republicans to send 'shock troops' to Washington, Bannon promised the crowd they had an opportunity to 'shatter the Democratic party as a national political institution'." he wrote. "He alleged that the party has been overrun by 'radical, cultural Marxists' and 'groomers' who 'want to destroy the Republic.' Bannon insisted the GOP must pursue absolute victory over 'power-mad and lawless' Democrats, asserting: 'There can be no half measures anymore'."

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) doubled down on Bannon's heated rhetoric, exhorting the crowd with the claim, "It’s like the old Roman Colosseum where you slam on a breastplate and you grab a battle axe and you go fight the barbarians. As they say in the military world, it is a target-rich environment.”

"The rhetoric of revolution and frontline confrontation went hand-in-hand with other speakers and presenters who cast the American left as demonic, evil, and destructive — in other words the kind of enemies who deserve to be dealt with harshly," the report states before adding, "CPAC has long been a political circus, a relatively harmless sideshow. But its latest incarnation has become manifestly dangerous — more fascist than farce. It is holding up alleged perpetrators of political violence as martyrs. It is demonizing its domestic political opponents as diabolical 'enemies within.' And it is giving MAGA supporters a militaristic frame for their charge to the 'front lines' of America’s culture wars."

"In short it is playing with fire. But it’s the rest of us who may get burned." Rolling Stones' Dickinson concluded.

note gingrich gop memo, parrot bannon

an 7 23

from June 29-July 2, the far-right MAGA group Moms for Liberty held its annual summit in a city so Democratic that it hasn't had a Republican mayor since Bernard Samuel left office in January 1952: Philadelphia. The four-day event, held at the Philadelphia Marriott near Reading Terminal Market and the Pennsylvania Convention Center, was greeted by angry protesters who slammed the group for its campaign to exclude books by gay, lesbian and African-American authors from public schools.

Moms for Liberty (M4L) touts itself a "parental rights" group, but to critics, their real mission is to purge schools of as many Black and gay authors as possible.

In an article published by the Daily Beast on July 5, journalist Kate Briquelet offers an in-depth account of what she observed at the M4L gathering in Philly — where the speakers included Republican presidential hopefuls such as former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. Far-right radio host Dennis Prager was also there.

Briquelet notes that while attending the summit, she didn't go out of her way to broadcast the fact that she was a Daily Beast reporter.

"My mission was to blend in and get the full experience of this ideological sisterhood, one that came with a swag bag holding a Trump air freshener, comic book on the Pilgrims' journey aboard the Mayflower, and 'awake not woke' sticker with a passage of scripture," Briquelet explains. "Throughout the summit, once people asked where I was from and whether I was with a M4L chapter, they didn't dig much further. Only one person, a fellow infiltrator, asked about my profession."

Briquelet reports that DeSantis railed against "wokeness" during his speech, while Trump promised to "liberate our children from the Marxist lunatics and pervertswho have infested our educational system" if elected president in 2024.

Trump told the crowd, "On Day 1, I will sign a new executive order tocut federal fundingfor any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children…. For any public schools that are engaged in these militant and country-destroying practices, I will instruct the DOJ to pursue them as violators of the establishment clause, of the free exercise clause, of our constitution.:...

===))

===

aha OMG did this BS campaign win? after musk bought twit, horrible deal/error so he had to dump employees, and safety is most $? and he is least amenable --> edgelord; gave cover for all to sell out:

musk gets credit?

mma 6 23

youTube’s decision to permit content promoting election conspiracy theories and misinformation is being heralded by right-wing media and figures as a win for “free speech.”

The platform confirmed to Axios on June 2 that it would allow users to upload content claiming that “fraud, errors or glitches occurred in the 2020 presidential election and other U.S. elections.” The decision reverses a December 2020 election integrity policy, which the company reportedly felt could have the effect of “curtailing political speech without meaningfully reducing the risk of violence or other real-world harm."

On Friday, Media Matters’ Julie Millican released a statement condemning the decision: “YouTube and the other platforms that preceded it in weakening their election misinformation policies, like Facebook, have made it clear that one attempted insurrection wasn’t enough. They’re setting the stage for an encore.”

In March, YouTube reinstated former President Donald Trump’s account– which was suspended following the January 6 attack on the Capitol – despite his continued attempts to push the election misinformation that resulted in real-world violence. The decision to allow election conspiracy theories to circulate on the platform recklessly ignores social media as a major factor in the deadly insurrection.

Some right-wing media outlets and figures are celebrating the policy change, claiming that it’s a win for conservatives, who falsely claim that social media platforms are censoring them. Others have also linked the decision to Elon Musk rolling back content moderation policies on Twitter,with some saying Musk paved the way for YouTube’s decision.

Right-wing outlets and figures celebrated that election conspiracy theories will be allowed on the platform again

Reacting to the news, “Stop the Steal” organizer Ali Alexanderdeclared on Telegram that “Stop the Steal prevails.”
Right Side Broadcasting reporter Liz Willistweeted: “HUGE - YouTube reverses ‘election misinformation policy,’ allows people to discuss the fraudulent 2020 election.”
Former Epoch Times columnist-turned-QAnon influencerBrian Catescelebrated the news on Telegram, saying, “First they mock and ridicule you. Then they angrily call you a bigot and a liar. Then they ban you. Then they admit you were right and THEN YOU WIN.”
Notorious election deniers and founders of True the Vote Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillipstweeted about the news, saying of YouTube: “Just figured out they committed billions of federal crimes? …nope just figured out they lost 1/2 of Americas eyeballs and the money that comes with them.”
Following the policy reversal, the QAnon account Badlands Mediasuggested the account would post election misinformation on YouTube, saying, “Let's see if YouTube is actually going to backtrack on censorship. If you're on there, be sure to subscribe to Badlands Media! We'll be putting it to the test.”
Gateway Pundit writer and Badlands Media host Brian Lupo, who is known online as “CannCon” and was allegedly banned from YouTube in June 2021 for posting election misinformation, celebrated YouTube’s policy reversal. Lupo declared on Twitter, “YouTube back in play!!!!”

Right-wing media figures and outlets praised Musk for “moving the needle” and implied his actions influenced YouTube’s decision

On Twitter, right-wing influencer ALXcredited Musk for YouTube’s decision, saying, “Last week, YouTube reversed their policy on talking about election fraud just as Twitter has been focusing on long form content. … Twitter is moving the needle and forcing other platforms to swing toward Free Speech.”
Cheering on YouTube’s move, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton tweeted that the decision was a sign “of the impact of @ElonMusk's free speech reforms.”
On Twitter, former Fox Business host Trish Regan asked if YouTube made the decision because the platform is “worried about Twitter competition.”
The right-wing outlet Epoch Timesemphasized Musk in coverage of YouTube’s policy reversal and parroted Musk’s framing that he is a free speech “‘absolutist’ … who took over Twitter last year with a pledge to remove political bias from the platform and make it more balanced.”

---

aha cognitive dissanance prolly neglected

maga pseudo-populism

also conspiracy = radical simplification/ reductionism: all problems the fault on single enemy jew, commie drag, dems

https://twitter.com/RightWingWatch/status/1673383652409876482

call for prayer ### river

carbon credit party 2 yrs, sign contract to die, watch movie, woman breasts 7 yo dick cut off heroes, already cda woman killed herself good for earth 23 states hu compost for food we eat bugs

June 26, 2023

If you missed the right-wing Road To Majority conference last week, we can pretty much sum it all up for you in just one word: Woke.
Tim Barton says that critics have to use ad hominem attacks on him and his father, Christian nationalist pseudo-historian David Barton, for not having any academic credentials as historians because they know they can’t attack the history they present “because what we’re promoting is actually true.”
The fact that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is hosting a “health policy roundtable” featuring unhinged anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Sherri Tenpenny should tell you all you need to know.
Jarrin Jackson is angry that GOP figures talk generically about God: “Be specific. Jesus Christ. The One of Scripture. The One Who rose (bodily) from the grave for the remission of sins. It is a deception to not be specific when He so clearly changed the course of history on the cross. Don’t let Muslims smuggle in Allah. Or Buddhists Buddha. Or Jews ‘not Christ’. Or pagans Thor. Or atheists science & reason. Christ is King.”
Sean Feucht brags that members of Congress helped him sneak into the U.S Capitol so that he could take communion in the Rotunda: “We laid hands all over that place. We brought oil. We brought shofars. We’re crazy.”
Finally, if you arrive at church to find Alex Jones up on stage with your pastor, ranting about how they’ll require you “to cut your children’s genitals off to get ESG money” as they mandate “government-forced suicide” perhaps it is time to find another church?

Tags: Alex Jones Jarrin Jackson Rodney Howard-Browne Sean Feucht Tim Barton Leftovers Road to Majority Conference Faith and Freedom Coalition

===

aha before any gop dirty trick ok rationalized b/c THEY dems are baby murderers; now secession --> dog whistle for violent civil war [also (white) xian nat'lism?:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/tucker-carlson-guest-says-secession-necessary-because-democrats-are-so-unclean-and-are mutilating kids

===

ESG

see mkt based solutions: recall montreal protocol bush reagan success half time and cost; Romneycare--> Obamacare

invisible hand of miracle free mkt only works if ppl have access to accurate info; ratings agencies do the analysis

but post trump earth2 we no longer believe in experts/facts

---

rogan tiktok escalator boost amplify conspiracy clickbait

see david sacks VC new rep natcon musk twit BS well suited for edgelords

https://www.mediamatters.org/tiktok/climate-change-conspiracy-theory-about-cataclysmic-changes-earths-magnetic-field-goes-viral

mma 5 23 no vid

joe Rogan’s podcast is fueling a bizarre TikTok conspiracy theory that falsely attributes climate change impacts to cyclical changes in Earth’s magnetic field, seemingly violating the app’s new climate misinformation policy.

The conspiracy theory’s viral spread on the platform highlights TikTok’s persistent climate misinformation problem, even as it has begun implementing a new policy banning content that “undermines well-established scientific consensus, such as denying the existence of climate change or the factors that contribute to it.”

Inspired by the January 18 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, content creators have latched onto claims made in a pseudoscientific book called The Adam and Eve Story: The History of Cataclysms. (Along with pushing the cataclysmic pole hypothesis, the book claims that Jesus Christ lived in India for nearly 18 years and was abducted by aliens in a “space vehicle” after his crucifixion.)

Between January and April, Media Matters identified seven viral clips from the Joe Rogan Experience episode discussing the conspiracy theory, which garnered over 20 million cumulative views on TikTok. The videos feature clips of Rogan discussing the book with “independent researcher” Jimmy Corsetti, who runs the YouTube channel Bright Insight, and Ben van Kerkwyk, who runs the channel UnchartedX.

Joe Rogan keeps platforming conspiracy theorists and skeptics of human-caused climate change, driving misinformation

In the January 18 episode of The Joe Rogan Experience, the host brought up “the Adam and Eve” theory and asked Corsetti, “How much of that is agreed upon, that there could be a time where the magnetic poles actually shift?”

Corsetti replied that “This is science,” explaining, “The Adam and Eve Story", the theory on that is that it happens in cycles of 6,500 years and that it’s a 90-degree flip, but six days later, around the seventh day, it corrects itself.” He continued to describe “a planet flip, 90 degrees, and that because of it the Earth essentially does a standstill, the sun will be direct — will basically stay in the same spot, causing heating like we’ve never experienced — and that the wind and the waters continue with their momentum, because essentially the wind travels at approximately 1,000 miles an hour at the equator, so the theory is that when that event happens it’s going to be cataclysmic.:

[vid]

corsetti’s nonsensical explanation was widely shared on TikTok, with one viral clip receiving nearly 11 million views.

In reality, NASA reports that pole reversals, when Earth’s North and South Poles swap locations — which “take place over hundreds to thousands of years,” not a mere seven days— have occurred “183 times in the last 83 million years, and at least several hundred times in the past 160 million years.” Notably:

Plant and animal fossils from the period of the last major pole reversal don’t show any big changes. Deep ocean sediment samples indicate glacial activity was stable. In fact, geologic and fossil records from previous reversals show nothing remarkable, such as doomsday events or major extinctions.

Additionally, there's “no evidence” that any magnetic excursion event (periods of “shorter-lived but significant changes in the magnetic field’s intensity”) has impacted the Earth’s climate within the last 2.8 million years. Scientists aren’t sure when the next pole reversal will occur, but a recent study suggests that won’t be anytime soon. And if it is, a doomsday scenario is unlikely.

Corsetti acknowledged this but claimed that scientists “don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Rogan has previously drawn criticism for leveraging his massive reach and influence to amplify climate denial, and his podcast has catered to guests such as Michael Shellenberger and Bjorn Lomborg, who use cherry-picked and decontextualized talking points to downplay the devastating impacts of climate change and to attack climate solutions.He has also hosted figures who downright deny the fact that fossil fuel consumption is driving climate change, such as Steve Koonin, Jordan Peterson, and Randall Carlson, who has appeared on the podcast at least six times and said that and that actions.

In their discussion of The Adam and Eve Story, Rogan and his guests also downplayed the impacts of climate change that millions of people are experiencing and praised Donald Trump for suggesting that the Earth is actually cooling.

“Right now we should be grateful that it’s nice and cozy because we can live when it’s warm,” Corsetti said.

Rogan then cited r Carlson, saying, “Global warming’s not scary. It’s global cooling, that’s what’s really scary.” The host further suggested that climate change is “ this narrative that just gets repeated over and over and over and this fearmongering and everyone gets freaked out. It’s not to say that we aren’t polluting, we certainly are, and it’s not to say that we shouldn’t improve, we certainly should, but if the fucking magnetic poles might shift and we might get hit by a giant rock from space, we might have bigger problems. If we’re going to be concentrating on nonsense, which is really par for the course with human beings, we’re going to be concentrating on these things we’re really not going to fix over the short-term, when something might happen that makes all of it a moot point.”

Media Matters also identified two viral clips of this exchange on TikTok with 2 million and 2.6 million views, respectively.

What is The Adam and Eve Story?

The book was written in 1965 by Chan Thomas, who worked in the aerospace industry and claimed to be a psychic. The book was not available to the public until 2013, however, when 57 pages were released by the CIA, and this censorship has captured the imaginations of conspiracy theorists. Since its declassification, The Adam and Eve Story has worked its way into the broader conspiracy theory ecosystem.

Thomas argued that the Earth’s magnetic poles shift every several thousand years, causing cataclysmic events such as tsunamis that destroy civilizations and drastically alter Earth’s geology — one example he used was the flood in the Noah’s Ark narrative in the Bible’s Book of Genesis. Chan predicted that such an event would occur in the near future, and some are now framing increasingly extreme weather events such as hurricanes, floods, and droughts as evidence that the next cataclysm is approaching.

A TikTok account for a podcast called No Regulars posted a March 1 video that has been viewed nearly 18 million times in which host Darris Watkins says that the book’s explanation of cataclysmic magnetic pole shifts actually “makes sense” in describing climate change and “explains a lot” because “the Sahara desert used to be green and like Antarctica used to have forests … So now like some places turn cold, some places turn hot.[pix?]

the popularity of these conspiracy theories among TikTok users may indicate one way that climate misinformation is evolving to reach young people.

Climate misinformation disguised as ancient civilization conspiracy theories

At the time Thomas wrote The Adam and Eve Story, the public at large was not informed of the consequences of anthropogenic climate change. Despite fossil fuel companies being aware of the potential for human-caused global warming as early as the 1950s, people weren’t yet experiencing the ecological effects of increasing temperatures. But when the book was declassified in 2013, it was released into a world grappling with the dire effects of climate change.

While it was not written to provide an alternative explanation for climate change, The Adam and Eve Story provides a framework for interpreting its effects outside of an anthropogenic explanation. This narrative, which shifts blame away from our fossil fuel economy onto planetary forces beyond human control, can serve as climate misinformation.

Rogan’s guests and other proponents of this conspiracy theory purport to be interested in its ramifications for scientific understanding of ancient civilizations, but climate misinformation often serves as a backdrop for their discussions. At one point in their interview, Rogan suggested “that there was incredibly sophisticated technology that existed and … was wiped out. And that we’re talking about a really advanced civilization that lived a long time ago that’s more advanced than we are today but moved in a different direction, like we moved in the direction of combustion engines and electronics and they moved in some other direction but achieved maybe many thousands of years more sophistication in that direction than we have with our internal combustion engines.”

While climate change may not take center stage in these speculations, the implications that humans are not having any influence over our warming planet and that near-apocalyptic events are always inevitable as a result of natural cycles in the Earth’s magnetic field are nonetheless harmful misinformation that lets politicians and fossil fuel companies off the hook for their role in the climate crisis. (Meanwhile, the world’s biggest oil and gas companies just raked in record first-quarter profits.)

Cataclysm narratives as climate sedatives

Narratives that frame climate change as an inevitable disaster caused by forces beyond our control are a key argument of climate denial: If climate change is caused by changes in the Earth’s magnetic field, then there is no point in implementing sweeping action to curtail fossil fuel emissions. In the past, the Earth’s orbit, the sun, and cosmic rays have all similarly been used to provide alternative explanations for climate change.

There is overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels. The only way to avert increasing social, political, and ecological effects of climate change is by transitioning away from a fossil fuel economy.

Despite its appearance as a conspiracy theory about ancient civilizations,The Adam and Eve Story is being used to undermine the scientific consensus regarding the cause of climate change. As TikTok ramps up the enforcement of its new climate misinformation policy, the platform should account for the ways climate denial is often incorporated into seemingly harmless conspiracy theories.

Finally, Spotify still has no clear policy regarding the promotion of climate misinformation on its platform. Spotify reportedly paid $200 million for exclusive rights to Rogan’s show, which was the top podcaston its platform in 2022. As Rogan’s contract is expected to expire in 2023, Spotify will have to decide whether platforming his misinformation and hate speech is worth the profit.

---

aha social media thus amp ?! , but trump rally is call and response? dream logic // magical thinking?

https://www.alternet.org/gop-voters-2659695517/

an 3 23

no lnx

author Jeff Sharlet has spent years interviewing conservatives and found many unassuming Americans are ready and eager for violence against their political enemies.

Sharlet's latest book, The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War, is the result of more than a dozen years of reporting on the religious right, compiling numerous interviews conducted throughout the Midwest and Great Plains, and he's more worried than ever about the possibility of civil war, reported The Guardian.

"I’ve been writing about the right for a long time," he told the newspaper. "I’m always interested in the margins of things that tell us about what’s happening at the center. An undertow is a metaphor for that, for the force that’s been pulling us to this place for a long time. If you’d asked me 10 years ago if I ever thought another civil war would be possible in the United States, I would have said no. But to think so [now] is to not understand that the right in America is as dangerous as it is."

He cited a "nice-looking" family he met near Eau Claire, Wisconsin, who seemed like "ordinary" conservatives, as the newspaper described them, but harbored bloodthirsty fantasies rooted in extreme conservative politics.

"[The father said] he had a 'Let’s go Brandon' sticker because he didn’t want to swear around his son," Sharlet said. "They’re a middle-class dad and mom. They were always gun people, but not a lot of guns. Now they’re up to 36, now they are arming up. The father had always been anti-abortion. But now it was like a dream had moved into his and his wife’s mind. He described, in incredibly violent detail, the process of abortion. Then he described, in incredibly violent detail, the punishment he thought he and others were going to give to abortion doctors. They were ready for executions."

The current political moment was rooted in a decades-old struggle against fascism, and Sharlet said Donald Trump, intentionally or instinctively, used its "dream logic" to spellbind his followers, who fill in the unfinished thoughts in his pronouncements with their own beliefs -- and that creates the illusion that he's speaking their truth into existence.

"The free association that happens at Trump’s rallies, the ways people make connections that make no sense – it has dream logic," Sharlet said. "One minute, a scary man is crawling into the window to rape your wife, and then the next minute we’re laughing at windmills, and then the next minute we’re sad for the birds that were killed by windmills. And then, in the next minute, we’re yelling, 'Lock her up.'"

"This is dream logic, and there’s vanity in it, right?" Sharlet added. “'I will interpret what they’re saying and I will bend it.'It’s the vanity of the base, the vanity of the mob, the aggregate grotesque imagination of power. It becomes a spinning whirlpool that pulls more and more people in. These are people for whom reality is not enough."

:{:{}:

The illusion that's created for Trump and his followers feels interactive and very real to them, Sharlet said, and that's where the twice-impeached former president gains his power.

"This is why the right feels they are more democratic than the left," he said. "The intellectual rightwingers are like, 'F*ck democracy, we don’t need it.' But the everyday people, they’re like, 'This is the most democratic I’ve ever felt. I am not only receiving – I receive, I interpret and then I transmit back.'"}:

:{:{Sharlet sees a similar dynamic at work within the anti-abortion movement, which the left sees as an effort to control women's bodies, but the right sees as a cause so righteous that violence is necessary.}:

"Yes, the project is misogynist to the core," he said. "But it is not experienced as such by many on the right. Once you make that move, that we’re talking about children, what kind of person are you if you don’t want to save that child?"}:

"It’s astonishing there hasn’t been more violence," Sharlet added. "I think we’ve had a shield from that violence for a long time and now that shield … I sound like Jerry Falwell saying the hand of God is being removed from America."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

Ron DeSantis sending 'very dangerous sign' to GOP voters — and Trump’s worried: religious scholar ›

NY Post's editorial board delivers scorching op-ed urging GOP voters to move on from 'unhinged' Trump ›

GOP voters have bought into an 'apocalyptic, grotesquely distorted' view of 'Blue America': Paul Krugman ›

This is not stopping Fox from promulgating claims that offshore wind is killing these whales

On the January 30 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Tucker Carlson sarcastically mocked a Politico article which stated that “there is no evidence the wind work and whale deaths are linked.”

“We have no idea why a dozen whales just turned up dead on the beaches of New Jersey,” Carlson said. “Does it have anything to do with the construction of wind turbines off the coast? ‘That's speculation,’ Politico reported. ‘Probably climate change.’ So the story was ridiculous, but what we didn’t get at first was that Politico was paid to run it.”

Carlson took issue with the fact that the article was featured in a newsletter sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council, later calling Politico “prostitutes” for publishing another article sponsored by offshore wind turbine manufacturers. In reality, Politico’s energy newsletters are typically sponsored by energy companies, not environmental groups — with the vast majority of these sponsorships coming from fossil fuel companies.

The next night, Carlson stated that “so-called green NGOs, supported of course by the people they give money to in the Biden administration, are backing the construction of massive offshore wind turbines that appear to bekilling large numbers of whales.” Carlson then hosted a local Republican politician from Nassau County, New York, who called “going all-electric” a “danger to our America,” and stated that “there will always be fossil fuels, at least in my lifetime.”

Carlson’s two recent segments follow a January 13 segment detailing “The Biden whale extinction.” (Another chyron during that episode read “Green New Deal wind farms are killing whales.”)

Questions about offshore wind development were also raised on Fox during the January 31 editions of both America’s Newsroom, with reporter Alexis McAdams stating, “As the whale deaths continue, some lawmakers and activists are calling for a hold on the preparations for offshore wind projects,” and The Story, with guest anchor Trace Gallagher stating, “It's the eighth whale to die along the shore of New Jersey and New York in the last two months, fueling the debate about whether the deaths are natural or maybe related to nearby offshore wind projects and the push to go green.”

Several more such segments covering the whale deaths ran on February 1. On Fox Business’ Varney & Co., correspondent Madison Alworth discussed the costs of offshore wind development without noting the massive economic benefits to local and state communities before stating, “All of this is the cost of this clean energy, but as you heard these conservationists saying it's costing our environment even more, and we're already seeing that expense.”

“Not in my backyard,” concluded host Stuart Varney.

Another segment on The Story began with Gallagher stating that, “The mayors of a dozen New Jersey towns [are] now calling for an immediate halt on plans to build thousands of offshore wind turbines as coastal communities raise concerns about the number of whales washing up dead on nearby beaches and soaring financial costs threaten the push to go green.”

Later, Alworth began a segment on Special Report with Bret Baier by claiming “conservationists say that offshore wind turbines are far from clean and may be doing more harm than good for the environment.” She ended the report by again mentioning the economic costs associated with wind turbines and none of the financial benefits.

Finally, Jesse Watters Primetime ran two segments linking offshore wind development to the whale deaths. In one, Alworth cited “conservationists” concerned with whale deaths saying “this clean energy might not be clean at all,” and she again brought up the economic costs of wind turbines without mentioning their benefits. In the second, host Jesse Watters interviewed ex-Greenpeace Canada member Patrick Moore to rail against renewable energy and complain that Greenpeace has been compromised by wind companies. Watters ended the segment by stating that wind turbines are “not good for the Jersey shore, for the Atlantic Ocean, and, as you said, it's not great for consumers either.”

Fox’s guests are not scientists — they have fossil fuel connections and an interest in blocking renewable energy development

Moore is a climate science denier who has consulted for polluting companies. He also (falsely) claims that he is a founder of Greenpeace, which allows Fox to paint him as a credible guest on climate, energy, and environmental issues.

Watters also tried this trick — obfuscating the credibility of an environmental advocate — in an earlier segment on offshore wind and whale deaths. On January 11, Mike Dean of Protect Our Coast NJ was labeled as an “ocean advocate,” and Dean went on to baselessly blame wind development for whale deaths, declaring, “The harms with these projects and the costs are limitless, and it’s really hard to find any benefits at all.” Fox did not note that Dean’s group appears to be backed by the Caesar Rodney Institute, a libertarian think tank with a history of hostility toward climate and environmental policies. The institute has also received funding from the fossil fuel industry, which has a long history of blocking renewable energy projects.

On the January 13 edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight, Carlson hostedMeghan Lapp, a fisheries liaison for the fishing company Seafreeze. Lapp claimed, without evidence, thatoffshore wind development means “essentially carpet bombing the ocean floor with intense sound.” In fact, Lapp has been appearing on Fox News since at least 2019 insinuating that offshore wind development is killing whales. She even appeared in Carlson’s 2021 anti-wind documentary which was chock full of misinformation and debunked talking points.

What has not been mentioned on Fox, and what has been excellently reported on by climate writer Michael Thomas, is that Lapp is a fossil fuel industry ally. Her campaign to stop offshore wind development has beenbankrolled by T:(style="background-color:#ff9900ff"):}::{exas Public Policy Foundatio**n, a fossil fuel-funded think tank that has fought climate policies tooth and nail. TPPF, of course, has spent decades advocating for offshore oil drilling — choosing to downplay the horrific environmental impacts of that practice while embellishing the impacts of offshore wind development.

Finally, Bonnie Brady of the Long Island Commercial Fishing Association appeared on the aforementioned Varney & Co., The Story, and Special Report segments on February 1. Brady, like Lapp, is being backed by TPPFin her campaign to stop offshore wind development. Last year, both Lapp and Brady appeared in a TPPF film entitled “A Heavy Wind: The Threat to an American Heritage,” which detailed commercial fishermen fighting offshore wind projects.

One recent Fox segment interspersed with their offshore wind coverage illustrates the complete hypocrisy of Fox’s climate-related programming

During Fox’s fearmongering about offshore wind development on February 1, America Reports ran a segment with Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) that sang the praises of the Willow Project, a major oil and gas drilling project in Alaska’s national petroleum reserve. Sullivan called the project “actually really good for our environment,” while Fox anchor John Roberts noted some benefits of the project, including billions in revenue and hundreds of jobs created.

While Roberts did ask a question about climate advocates not wanting to lock the U.S. into more fossil fuel extraction, this segment did not mention the massive environmental costs associated with the project. Environmental advocate and journalist Bill McKibben noted in a recent article on the project that Alaska is “already warming faster than almost any place on the planet.Warming so fast that taxpayers are already having to pony up huge sums of money to relocate coastal villages inland. Emissions from the Willow project’s oil would cause $19.8 billion in climate damages; it would generate $3.4 billion in federal tax revenue, which is…a lot less.”

McKibben also cited a Center for American Progress analysis of the project which found that “allowing the Willow project to proceed would result in double the carbon pollution that all renewable progress on public lands and waters would save by 2030.”

Contrast Fox’s fawning coverage of an oil drilling project with its dismissive, conspiracy theory-laden, and climate denial-infused coverage of offshore wind, and you get a perfect sense of why Fox cannot be trusted on climate and environmental issues. While it’s true that there are valid concerns with offshore wind’s impacts on the environment and local marine life — something that has been taken into consideration by government authorities in reviewing previous offshore wind projects —the reality is that fossil fuel projects are significantly more detrimental to the environment and climate than renewable projects.

You will rarely if ever hear these facts reported on Fox, as the network has time and again proved to be nothing more than a mouthpiece for the fossil fuel industry, and its offshore wind coverage cannot be taken seriously.

---

toxic knowledge:

aha yikes nexus: algo amp alt fact earth2 polarization socmed echo escalator qanon covid conspiracy

mma 1 23

CHRIS HAYES (HOST): There's also another thing that I've been watching happening on the right, and I think this is because of the sort of polarization around low trust, high trust. But the InfoWars-ization of right-wing media, and I say this even in the like, even when you move it outside the bounds of polarizing, like did aliens build the pyramids? This is like a hoary conspiratorial cliché for decades, right? That’s the kind of thing you’re seeing right-wing media people talk about now. It doesn’t even score a political point. It's just this view that, like, everything they tell you is a lie, that is more and more taking over that entire universe.

ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): Yes, and I think that what's concerning about that, and sort of the fact that has led into it is that, one, obviouslysocial media and, in particular, the metastasizing of the QAnon conspiracy in the spring of 2020 coupled with all of the COVID stuff really helped that sort of, just that toxicity spill over.

But the other factor is that, it's worth keeping in mind that a very large segment of Republican leaders started to organize power on what used to be considered the fringes. And as they started to increasingly organize power on what used to be considered the fringes, using the right-wing media as a conduit for accessing that, they brought all that stuff that, you know, used to be on the fringes more toward the center. That's why something like groomers and pedophilia would be sort of far out there stuff years ago. And that is mainstream Republican orthodoxy now, it's not even controversial to say that, you know, Democrats are sexualizing children. Everyone is saying that in Republican politics. You don't have to be an extremist to make that point.

HAYES: There is a final point here, which I didn't note in the monologue, which is Elon Musk's particular role in this, who purchased Twitter and one of the first, most notable things he did in Twitter. And it was the first time I ever encountered this ludicrous, gross conspiracy theory that the two men had some relationship and that this was, like, a lovers' quarrel or something like that, was Elon Musk tweeting about it in a response to Hillary Clinton. That really put rocket fuel. He has since said he's apologized, but, like, Elon Musk owns a huge share of this entire thing.

CARUSONE: He does, because -- and this is exactly the danger for him being in charge. I mean, he supercharged that conspiracy theory. And it's worth noting that that is sort of the function of Twitter now after Elon Musk, is that it's kind of become a red pill PEZ dispenser, where these conspiracies, these really far out things are increasingly getting supercharged because they're gettingalgorithmic boosts.So even things that Elon Musk doesn't promote, we're actually seeing get supercharged all the time now.

===

aha note how anti-commie gubmint BS been used to thwart death panel ark pjt crooked hillary:

https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-protection-the-deciding-moment/

https://www.youtube.com/ 404

https://truthout.org/articles/unequal-influence-there-are-politicians-who-work-on-behalf-of-corporations-and-those-who-work-on-behalf-of-humans/

...How Public Opinion Is Influenced by Concentrated Money

Poll after poll has shown that Americans overwhelmingly support reform of our health-care system. People are concerned about costs and quality of care. Yet in 1993, when President Bill Clinton proposed that the government offer some form of health-care protection to the nation’s 40-plus-million uninsured, the insurance industry spent an estimated $100 million on lobbying and $60 million on advertising and provided members of Congress with about 350 free trips.

What actually happened as a result of all this spending is extraordinarily ironic. Industry polls showed that people cared more about being able to choose their own doctor than most other medical issues. Taking advantage of this, an infamous series of ads featuring “Harry and Louise” warned Americans that under a government-run health insurance program they would lose their ability to select the doctor of their choice.

The advertising worked. People panicked, and American public opinion swung from strong support for Clinton’s proposals to overwhelming fear of them. The Internet became flooded with insulting e-mails about the evils of “Hillary’s” insurance proposal.

Even more ironically, those fears have been realized today—without the Clinton proposal. Back in 1993 you could pretty much go to any doctor you wanted (assuming you were insured), and your insurance would almost always pay for it. Overtly restricting that ability was never part of the Clinton proposal, but because of the power of the Harry and Louise ads people came to believe that it was.

And within a few years, insurance companies and HMOs (health maintenance organizations) began to crack down on consumers who wanted to select their own doctors. Today fewer Americans have that privilege than in 1993, even though it’s fully available to citizens of virtually every country that has a national health-care program…which is every developed country in the world except the United States.

It turns out there is a strong reason why the insurance industry was eager to invest so much cash in advertising and lobbying to keep the government from competing with it in the realm of health care: profits. For every $100 that passes through the hands of the government-administered Medicare programs, between $2 and $3 is spent by Medicare on administration, leaving $97 to $98 to pay for medical services and drugs. But of every $100 that flows through corporate insurance programs and HMOs, $10 to $45 sticks to corporate fingers along the way. As Yale University Professor of Public Policy Theodore R. Marmor, author of The Politics of Medicare, said, “The costs of administering private insurance are somewhere between 5 and 10 times the costs of administering Medicare.”5

After all, Medicare doesn’t have lavish corporate headquarters and corporate jets, nor does it pay expensive lobbying firms in Washington to work on its behalf. It doesn’t pay out profits in the form of dividends to its shareholders. And it doesn’t compensate its top executives with more than $1 million a year, as does each of the largest of the American insurance companies. The result, as Professor Marmor points out, is that Canadians—who receive health care at one-half the cost of comparable services in the United States because no insurance companies are in the middle—“are somewhat healthier than citizens of the United States, use more hospital days per thousand, and visit their physicians more often” because services are freely available.6

Yet most citizens of the United States have no idea what it’s like to live in a country with national health care. When our family lived in Germany for a year in the late 1980s, we were amazed at how smoothly its health-care system worked: we could make any appointment with any physician, and they were excellent at what they did. But even describing the reality of that experience draws uncomprehending stares from Americans, who have been fed a steady corporate diet of very one-sided information.

This is why when President Obama decided he wanted one of the main legacies of his presidency to be a solution to America’s health-care mess, he first met privately and secretly with the pharmaceutical, hospital, and health insurance industries. He cut a deal with them, if news reports are to be believed (and they were not denied by the Obama administration), that he would protect their interests and give them tens of millions of new customers if they would hold back and not spend hundreds of millions of dollars to destroy his attempts the way they had with Clinton.

Something really rotten has taken hold of the American political system when the president of the United States must go to big corporations on bended knee and get their approval before suggesting legislation.

Polluters Pass “Go”

...

===

===

aha one reason to declare victimhood is to show your importance by how evil/ important your enemies are 9or in santos case, you are important enough to warrant police protection for mugging/assasination

an 1 23

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) recently took aim at the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection on the U.S. Capitol.

The Republican governor insists her personal cell phone “has been hacked and used to make hoax calls.” According to The Hill, she also claims "her phone was hacked following the release of her and her family’s personal information, including her social security number, by the House Jan. 6 committee."

In a statement released on Monday, January 23, Noem expounded on the situation which she insists stems from the investigation.

READ MORE: Kristi Noem mocked after admitting she's 'shocked' Biden's infrastructure plan includes money for 'housing and pipes'

“Callous mishandling of personal information has real world consequences,” Noem said in a statement. “If you get such a phone call from my number, know that I had no involvement.”

Noem also indicated that she has requested that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland and Congress further investigate what transpired.

The South Dakota governor's statement comes just weeks after a report revealed "nearly 2,000 Social Security numbers of former President Trump’s closest allies, including Cabinet members and Republican governors, were inadvertently disclosed in a spreadsheet that the committee posted along with a number of other records," per The Hill.

Since the leak, the document was removed. However, lawmakers are still hoping for a resolution to prevent similar incidents from occurring in the future.

READ MORE: 'Carrying water for DeSantis': Noem spox accuses conservative National Review of being insufficiently pro-life

Now, Noem and other Republican lawmakers are pushing for a widespread ban of the Chinese-owned social media app, TikTok, across all U.S. government-registered devices.

READ MORE: 'Pushing the limit': Kristi Noem investigated for spending taxpayer funds on plane to see her son go to prom

===

===

aha: gt replacement mainstreams licenses racism/xenophobia "you won't have a country anymore"

strict fr, cruel is the pt /state of exception/margin makes persecution ok [esp of foreign brown ppl]; desantis and abbott have duelling deport stunts (even after martha v blowback); own the libs: you say u are compassionate and there's plenty of room, prove it/ YOU deal w/ it. the coastal blue state elite have no idea how tough/dangerous it is down here on the border, so we will educate them give reality check

https://www.alternet.org/greg-abbott-migrants-christmas-dc/

===

aha note echo escal amplify tucker, jnx, sucks from vdare swamp Gt replacement booster // tucker

caravan invasion hype fear key to escaltor cf algorithm

no lnx twt

https://www.mediamatters.org/vdare/white-nationalists-embrace-fox-news-bill-melugin

White nationalists embrace Fox News’ Bill Melugin

The network’s top reporter at the US southern border has been promoted and celebrated by anti-immigrant racists

WRITTEN BY JOHN KNEFEL

PUBLISHED 12/20/22

White nationalists and other far-right extremists have embraced and celebrated Fox News’ Bill Melugin, the network’s primary correspondent at the US southern border. His reporting is regularly mentioned and praised on racist, anti-immigrant websites including VDARE, Infowars, and other extremist outlets, highlighting the ideological overlap between so-called mainstream conservatism and its more openly racist fringes.

Melugin is a fixture on Fox News, regularly appearing both in supposed straight news programming and during primetime opinion shows. He has been on Fox at least 427 times in 2022, including at least 30 segments on the network’s flagship program, Tucker Carlson Tonight. (Data on Melugin's appearances is current through December 19, 2022, at 12:40pm.)

Drawing clear distinctions between mainstream conservatism and white nationalist extremism is not easy. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, for example, has fully embraced the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, once a fringe position only pushed by overt racists. Melugin has played a key role in much of Carlson’s mainstreaming of that xenophobic idea, so it is not a surprise that his coverage would also appear in far-right media venues.

Bill Melugin / Tucker Carlson / caravan

CitationFox News

One of the racist sites that has embraced Melugin is VDare, a white nationalist outlet founded by Peter Brimelow, a reclusive conservative publisher who straddles the line between the conservative establishment and overt white supremacy. Brimelow endorsed “racial nationalism” at CPAC in 2018, and one year later argued that when it came to immigration policy, “Western elites” were only interested in “repressing the white host nations,” according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. In a column for VDare in 2012, white nationalist John Derbyshire argued that, “White supremacy, in the sense of a society in which key decisions are made by white Europeans, is one of the better arrangements History has come up with,” also as reported by the SPLC.

Brimelow recently attended the New York Young Republican Club’s annual gala in Manhattan. He was photographed next to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, host of the War Room podcast, further illustrating the porous boundaries between supposedly respectable conservatism and its explicitly racist fellow travelers.

Over the last year and a half, VDare has used Melugin’s reporting as the basis for at least 31 blogs or videos on their site. While it’s true that an individual reporter can’t control what happens to their journalism once it’s out in the world, the pattern that emerges from VDare’s commentary on, and aggregation of, Melugin’s work is clear. The stories Melugin tells, and the way he frames them, fully align with VDare’s white nationalist agenda.

VDare celebrates Melugin’s reporting

On December 12, conservativeedgelordand Twitter owner Elon Musk approvingly responded to a typically sensationalistic tweet from Melugin. “Wow,” Musk replied to a video purporting to show over 1,000 migrants crossing the Rio Grande river without authorization. Musk’s interaction with Melugin’s post amplified its reach significantly. Later that morning, VDare’s official twitter account retweeted Melugin’s original tweet, again signaling the close proximity between conservative provocateurs like Musk and more overtly racist outlets.

BREAKING: A huge migrant caravan of over 1,000 people crossed illegally into El Paso, TX last night, making it the largest single group we have ever seen. The city of El Paso reports Border Patrol now has over 5,000 in custody & has released hundreds to city streets.

CitationFrom the Twitter account of VDare, posted December 12.

VDare’s account promoted Melugin two other times that morning as well, in both cases by retweeting comments added by white nationalist and Infowars contributor Dan Lyman. The account also retweeted Melugin or amplified his work at least nine other times in December, including one instance in which white nationalist and former Trump advisor Stephen Miller used his footage to argue against a spending bill Congress was debating. And in August, VDare celebrated after Musk had responded positively to another Melguin tweet.

Looks like a scene out of World War Z or Elysium The US as we’ve known it is finished. Just a matter of how / when it dies and what comes next.

CitationFrom the Twitter account of VDare.

Not a serious country anymore

CitationFrom the Twitter account of VDare

He's noticed!-- @elonmusk on @BillFOXLA 's daily reports on the Biden Rush at the southern border. #IMPEACHBIDENHARRIS

CitationFrom the Twitter account of VDare

VDare amplifies Melugin’s work even more frequently on their website. In October, VDare published a story based on a tweet of Melugin’s that incorrectly reported a Border Patrol agent had shot and killed a detained migrant after he had gone for the agent’s gun. In fact, as an FBI investigation found just days later, the man, Manuel Gonzalez-Moran, had apparently grabbed an unspecified “edged weapon” off an office desk, after which point a Border Patrol agent shot and killed him.

In July, VDare published a story under the same byline praising Melugin as an “intrepid” reporter “who documents The Great Replacement almost daily on his Twitter feed.” The same credited writer used similar language in February, again referencing “Fox News’s intrepid Bill Melugin, who keeps an eagle eye of Biden’s planned invasion of replacement citizens.” Also in February, a post under a pseudonymous byline said Melugin “has been doing excellent coverage along the border.”

Both Melugin and VDare have repeatedly covered the controversy over a photo that initially appeared to show Border Patrol agents whipping a Haitian migrant named Mirard Joseph in September 2021. Melugin has consistently claimed that Border Patrol didn’t do anything wrong. In October, he revisited the allegations, tweeting out an email obtained by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation sent to Department of Homeland Security head Alejandro Mayorkas that quoted the photojournalist who took the shot. The email appeared to undercut the whipping allegations, and cast Mayorkas in an unfavorable light. VDare embedded Melugin's tweet in a blog that also included criticism of Mayorkas from the Border Patrol Union and Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

The stories Melugin tells, and the way he frames them, fully align with VDare’s white nationalist agenda.

The reality of the story is far more nuanced than either Melugin or VDare want to admit. Melugin’s supposed smoking gun email included a write-up of an interview of Paul Ratje, the photographer, in which said he hadn't witnessed agents whipping any migrants, but later said his comments had been misconstrued as giving Border Patrol “a pass.” Joseph and other migrants mistreated by Border Patrol agents that day filed a lawsuit against the government, claiming agents had “lashed” him. Joseph described his treatment while in U.S. custody as “the worst humiliation I have endured in my life.” An official investigation by Customs and Border Protection didn’t find evidence that whipping took place, but did uncover “unprofessional and dangerous behavior by several individual Agents.” But both Melugin and VDare saw an opportunity to demonize migrants and took it.

Conspiracy theorists at Infowars rely on Melugin's work

Melugin’s support from Infowars extends beyond the recent tweets from Lyman, the white nationalist who VDare retweeted. In September, Alex Jones’ co-host Owen Shroyer repeatedly praised Melugin after Politico reported that the Biden White House had “become increasingly irritated” with the Fox News correspondent. Shroyer claimed, without evidence, that the story was an attempt to “get Melugin shut down and banned and censored from the Internet” to punish him for his journalism.

Video CitationFrom the September 21, 2022, edition of Infowars' The Alex Jones Show, streamed on Rumble

“Now, who’s down there reporting at the border, probably more-so and better than anyone else, that’s Bill Melugin,” Shroyer said to introduce the topic. (Shroyer, never one to sweat the details, pronounced Melugin’s name wrong until a producer appeared to correct him midway through the segment.)

“And so why are they mad at Bill Melugin?” Shroyer asked. “Because he’s down at the border every day with a Fox News crew, with cameras, and they’re showing the tens of thousands of illegal immigrants that come across the border every day. And talking to Border Patrol about the terrorists, and the child rapists that they arrest.”

Like VDare, the Infowars website regularly writes articles based on Melugin’s work. A review of Infowars’ archives show at least 37 posts that include his reporting, typically as the piece’s primary or exclusive source. These stories adopt his anti-migrant framing, treating irregular border crossings as a rolling catastrophe – the frontline in a war zone – that must be addressed with militarized responses.

In many cases, Melugin is mentioned without additional comment, but there are several instances in which Infowars bloggers express their admiration for him. Writer Steve Watson recently celebrated Melugin as a reporter “who has been at the front lines on the border crisis for years now.” Last month, on the day of the 2022 midterms, Lyman characterized Melugin as “documenting the invasion of Maverick County,” in Texas. One month earlier, writer Kelen McBreen praised a tweet of Melugin’s that supposedly “accurately pointed out” the hypocrisy of New York city’s immigration policy compared with Texas’. Watson, weeks earlier, again cheered on Melugin for being “ever present at the border.”

Racists, other far-right extremists praise Melugin’s Del Rio bridge story

Arguably Melugin’s breakthrough story came in August and September, 2021, when he covered an influx of mostly Haitian migrants who had sought refuge under the Del Rio bridge in Texas. Infowars covered the issue by cross-posting a blog from far-right conspiracy site ZeroHedge, written by pseudonymous blogger Tyler Durden. “Melugin has been reporting from the bridge for more than a month,” Durden wrote approvingly that September, also referring to the “stunning drone footage” Melugin had captured.

When the FAA issued a two-week flight restriction over the bridge, Durden accused the Biden administration of trying to kill the story, and praised Melugin for persevering. “The Biden administration’s attempt to cover up the border disaster by blocking drones didn’t stop Melugin and his team who hitched a ride on a Texas Department of Public Safety’s helicopter to capture an aerial view of the migrant crisis,” Durden gushed. In fact, shortly after issuing the restriction, the FAA provided clearance for Melugin about a day later.

The Del Rio bridge story became a national sensation, with Melugin’s implicitly xenophobic coverage leading the way. The story spread to some of the worst parts of the Internet, where the implicit bigotry was abandoned for explicit racism. Neo-Nazi site The Daily Stormer referred to the migrants as “invaders,” claiming the United States’ refugee policy was “about making America nonwhite. There’s no other goal.”

The racist site Occidental Dissent also covered the story. It was “another scene of imperial decline,” according to the site’s founder, Brad Griffin, who uses the pen name Hunter Wallace. “This has been going on ever since Joe Biden was inaugurated in January,” he added. “The only difference now is seeing so many black faces joining the flood.”

What’s most notable about this explicitly racist commentary is how closely it matched Fox News’ own coverage at the time. As Media Matters and others noted, Tucker Carlson – using Melugin’s reporting – fully embraced the racist great replacement conspiracy theory while discussing the Del Rio bridge story. Biden’s immigration policy was designed "to change the racial mix of the country,” Carlson said. “In political terms, this policy is called ‘the great replacement,’ the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far-away countries.”

Melugin frames himself as a straightforward reporter, just covering the facts as he sees them. But his body of work has been wholeheartedly embraced by far-right extremists and conspiracy theorists, Carlson very much among them. That’s not intrepid reporting – it’s laying the foundation for racist propaganda.

===

aha-let best defense from fascism, note henry is systemic

an ah 12 22

The MAGA movement suffered a long list of disappointments in the 2022 midterms, which found Donald Trump-backed candidates losing statewide gubernatorial or U.S. Senate races in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and other swing states. But one MAGA candidate who performed extremely well in the midterms was Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and he did it without Trump campaigning for him.

DeSantis ran a far-right reelection campaign, defeating Democratic nominee Charlie Crist (a former Republican and ex-Florida governor) by 19 percent. Florida, in fact, is the one place where Republicans really did enjoy a major red wave in the 2022 midterms. And some right-wing pundits, including author Ann Coulter, are urging the GOP to nominate DeSantis, not Trump, in the 2024 presidential election — assuming that DeSantis decides to run.

DeSantis doesn’t pretend to be moderate; being a far-right culture warrior is his brand. Journalist/author and scholar Henry A. Giroux analyzes DeSantis’ appeal in a scathing article published by Truthout on December 16, and he doesn’t sugarcoat anything. DeSantis, Giroux warns, is “fueling the emergence of fascist politics in the United States.”

“While some pundits have connected DeSantis’ politics to an emerging authoritarianism,” Giroux explains, “they still fail both to name the ongoing development of fascism in the U.S. and to recognize that it takes different forms in different societies and historical formations. They dismiss any talk of fascism by suggesting that its unique historical attributes, such as the genocidal use of concentration camps, have to be repeated precisely in order to assign the term fascism to present events. Fascism is never entirely interred in the past; it is a dangerous ideology that may go into remission but never disappears.”

Giroux continues, “Fascism is a recurrent and infinitely translatable phenomenon and often takes on the cultural and political attributes of the societies in which it appears. The refusal to acknowledge that fascism can appear in many forms, often lying dormant in a society until the emergence of certain forces unleash it, reinforces the willingness of many to retreat into silence or ignore the seriousness of the emerging fascist threat. Expressing ourselves in words, learning from history and making connections among disparate events all matter in the age of fascism.”

Giroux stresses that when one is analyzing fascism, it’s important to recognize patterns and understand how individual events fit into the big picture — events like DeSantis sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts or Trump having dinner with white nationalist and Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes at Mar-a-Lago.

“Fascist politics saturate U.S. society,” Giroux warns. “Ultranationalism, the calls for racial purity, voter suppression, hyper-militarism, required loyalty oaths from higher education faculty, rampant censorship, a ubiquitous anti-intellectualism, and a full-fledged attack on social provisions and public goods make clear that democracy is in crisis. Yet, in too many cases, the larger significance of these incendiary calamities is missed because they are treated as separate from each other…. DeSantis’ publicity stunt of using migrants as political pawns was also disconnected in the mainstream and liberal media from his attempt to erase the history of the Jim Crow era as part of his larger project of a politics of disposability.”

Giroux continues, “For instance, little was said connecting this racist policy to DeSantis’ passing laws banning books about Black history and racial narratives from schools and libraries, along with limiting what teachers can teach about racism — a policy that clearly indicates how DeSantis is following in the footsteps of the Nazification of education in Hitler’s Germany.”

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a far-right authoritarian, has drawn a great deal of admiration among MAGA Republicans — including Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.And Giroux outlines some parallels between DeSantis and Orbán.

“Following in the footsteps of Viktor Orbán, the authoritarian leader who has turned Hungary into a fascist country, DeSantis has waged a war on immigrants, targeted gay and transgender youth, purged voters, banned books in Florida schools, limited what teachers can say about racism and other critical elements of American history, and used state power to punish businesses, evident in his ruthless and vindictive attack on Disney,” Giroux observes. “He has also used policing to punish Black voters who disagree with his policies, courted Christian nationalists, supported a white nationalist agenda and waged a war on higher education. There is little doubt that DeSantis has turned Florida into a laboratory of fascist politics.”

===

aha myth of pinko prof and liberal media // coastal elite, pseudo-populism, enemy of the ppl thus musk targets, tho free sp absolutists

// gop now party of work class [// kindr gentler compassionate conserv 1k pts of light b41]

https://www.mediamatters.org/ben-shapiro/ben-shapiro-elon-musk-suspending-journalists-you-will-get-no-sympathy-me

https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmaxs-benny-johnson-people-suspended-twitter-claim-be-reporters-they-are-not

===

{{ aha yikes correction in soc media no longer POSSIBLE?!

escalator is amplifing but no blancing corrective feedback moderation --> polarization Earth2 no consequences for bad actors/bad failth

an ah 12 22

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top White House medical adviser to President Joe Biden and long-time director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has been serving in the United States’ federal government since the late 1960s. Fauci, who will be celebrating his 82nd birthday on December 24, 2022, has been in the United States’ federal government since the late 1960s. And he has never had a problem serving under conservative Republican presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

The younger President Bush, in fact, had nothing but praise for Fauci when he presented him with the 2008 Presidential Medal of Freedom.

But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Fauci became a major target of the MAGA movement. Countless MAGA culture warriors, consumed with identity politics, have turned hating Fauci into a popular pastime. Tesla CEO and new Twitter own Elon Musk, who supported President Joe Biden in 2020 but often sounds very MAGA in his rhetoric, bashed the retiring NIAID director when, on December 11, he tweeted, “My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci.” [// desantis BS]

Many Twitter users have been calling Musk out for that tweet. But liberal Washington Post opinion columnist Greg Sargent, in his December 13 column, stresses that Musk is unfazed by such critics because his motivation is appealing to the “right-wing information ecosystem.”

“By now, it should be obvious that for large swaths of the right-wing media ecosystem, the Triggering of the Libs has become an end in itself,” Sargent explains. “In the brutal competition of the so-called attention economy, provoking large-scale outrage and loathing is not an incidental feature of making controversial arguments. It has become a key marker of success.”

Sargent continues, “Over the weekend, Elon Musk called for the prosecution of Anthony S. Fauci, the leading infectious-disease expert in the Biden Administration. 'My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci,' Musk tweeted, mocking transgender people for good measure. Musk then endorsed a complicated right-wing conspiracy theory about Fauci’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic. Democrats and other Musk critics reacted with an explosion of outrage.”

Twitter users who vigorously defended Fauci against Musk ranged from Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota to former CIA Director John O. Brennan. The latter told Musk, “Dr. Fauci is a national hero who will be remembered for generations to come for his innate goodness & many contributions to public health. Despite your business success, you will be remembered most for fueling public hate & divisions. You may have money, but you have no class.”

Sargent stresses, however, that while Brennan and Klobuchar’s defenses of Fauci are “reasonable,” they also “seem fundamentally out of touch with basic realities of how right-wing information warfare really works.”

“This sort of info-warring, at bottom, is what characterizes Musk’s transformation into the world’s richest right-wing troll,” Sargent explains. “Tons of pixels have been wasted on efforts to pin down Musk’s true beliefs, but whatever they are, we can say right now that he’s consciously exploiting fundamental features of the right-wing information ecosystem.”

Sargent adds that offending liberals is the whole point of an “info-warring” tweet like Musk’s December 11 attack on Fauci.

“It’s understandable that Musk’s critics are trying shaming and outrage, in that this could further drive advertisers away from Twitter,” Sargent writes. “But paradoxically, it might also help Musk…. In much of the right-wing info-ecosystem, liberal outrage is a sign of an attack’s effectiveness. It can be only confirmation that the Libs Were Owned. Shaming is useless in such an environment, and in some ways can backfire.”

----

mma 12 22

wonder why no longer richest bastard

Supporters of the QAnon conspiracy theory have celebrated Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeting a phrase that has been regularly invoked in the community, taking it as evidence that he supposedly supports the conspiracy theory in some manner.

On December 12, Musk tweeted, “Follow” next to a rabbit emoji. The wording with the emoji would seem to be referring to the phrase “follow the white rabbit,” a reference to the classic fantasy novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which was repopularized by The Matrix film franchise and subsequently adopted as an online rallying cry in the early days of the QAnon movement. The conspiracy theory’s central figure, “Q”, repeatedly referenced the “white rabbit” and the story directly in posts.

QAnon figures, who were already primed to believe that Musk was an ally, hyped Musk’s “clear Q reference” as some kind of green light, along with a follow-up tweet from Musk in response to a scene in The Matrix about choosing between taking a blue pill and a red pill (which has been embraced in the far-right as so-called “red-pilling,” referring to a process by with individuals come to support far-right ideas). Adherents to the QAnon conspiracy theory claimed Musk has been “keeping with the Q Comms” and was “on pace to start posting Q drops to millions of normies,” with some believing the tweet may already be referring to a Q post

[twts]

the QAnon community’s excitement for Musk’s tweet comes asMusk has pushed claims of child traffickingon Twitter and blamed Twitter’s leadership, including targeting Twitter’s former head of trust and safety, who was forced to flee his home due to threats. It also comes as more QAnon accounts have come back or at least attempted to come back to Twitter in the midst of Musk taking over the platform. }}:

===

aha: algo Big tech Facebook (ggl?) amplify and monetize [meld info/ attn, money economy, // boosts political stokes rage machine and eg MTG fundraising --> comm chair?!

thugswarm is troll immune system kicking in, but also opportunity for clicks/prestige/$ eg ye [fuentes large marge vs mtg?] peer pressure to vice signal with the team, which gives permission for more to pile on, but you also have to p the ante to remain relevant and boost hype restoring the commons means restoring info space // social media, which has no filters/ corrective [twitter sorta was?]; facebook [google]massive corp w/ big lobby

roger says demon portal over WH Biden and

https://www.alternet.org/meadows-2658957827/

an raw 12 22

The massive trove of text messages turned over by Mark Meadows to the House select committee show Republican elected officials were willing to violate the U.S. Constitution on "bizarre" and obviously phony evidence.

Talking Points Memo reporter Hunter Walker obtained the messages, which show the former White House chief of staff communicating with GOP officials at all levels of government about far-fetched conspiracy theories to justify overturning Donald Trump's election loss, and he told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that their lack of sophistication was genuinely shocking.

"We're touching on something that is really a central thing here," Walker said. "I covered the Trump White House, and a big question is how many people are in on the joke and how many people are true believers. I first, you know, became familiar with the text log when i was working on my book, The Breach, which is about the Jan. 6 investigation. I co-wrote it with [former GOP lawmaker] Denver Riggleman. He knows a lot of these people, and he was shocked when he opened the text log. He led the [select committee's] phone team, it was like looking into the mouth of madness, and even with that introduction, I had a similar reaction."

"Adults in government, not only engaging in frighteningly undemocratic language, but their base intelligence is called into question," Walker continued. "You're talking about the wild Italian theory, people were taking it seriously. We see another instance where someone has a bizarre theory from a Romanian YouTube video that any of us would know not to tweet, based on stuff from 2005 that they somehow thought carried over to 2022.The information literacy of our members of Congress is called into question here, and that's part of why we thought it was more important to present more of the totality of the these texts you have seen anywhere before, and our text team made sure you can see them in a phone as they were received, because the typos, the wild links, all of this is really important."

"One last point, and this is something that shouldn't be lost in this discussion," he added. "We see the pressure, we see it in real time in these texts on people like Doug Ducey, that was on people like Brad Raffensperger, that was on people like the Arizona attorney general. Scott Perry, the same guy sending this Italian theory, is talking about lobbying to have Trump pressure the Italian government and Pennsylvania legislatures, and you know, I think one of the things we see is if these people had given into the pressure, all of this plotting just might have worked."

Watch belowor at the link

===

aha-let: // conspiracy theory all gop BS commentary/ "analysis" reduces human actions/motivations to desire for greed [rubber-glue inverse kochs] or fame (or now power/control pop psych truism] // gubmint /commies/ soros

morano control BS?

Fox News is returning to its pro-COVID-19 stance by attacking Los Angeles, California, for considering an indoor mask mandate as infections in the county skyrocket. The right-wing propaganda channel, which has long spewed pandemic-related misinformation, is again lying about the efficacy of masks for slowing the spread of the disease.

The Los Angeles Times reported that LA County’s case rate “has been increasing since late October and is now triple what it was in the autumn low,” and is currently 188 weekly cases per 100,000 residents, with a case rate of 100 or more being considered high. The LA Times also reported that the county is suffering about 60 deaths from COVID-19 each week. According to City News Service, the county’s COVID-19 hospitalization rate already exceeds one of the two thresholds that County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer said would trigger a universal indoor masking mandate.

Fox’s response to this news is to return to its history of killing its viewers by spreading medical misinformation that has contributed to the staggering national COVID-19 death toll exceeding 1 million people. In particular, Fox has spread lies about the usefulness of face masks in slowing the spread of COVID-19. Some Fox personalities have bizarrely claimed that wearing masks makes people crazy, while others simply told lies about their effectiveness. Fox as a whole worked very hard to incorporate masking into their deranged culture war, even though at least one Fox prime time host early in the pandemic repeatedly gushed about their potential in keeping people safe. (Fox also for a time required staffers to wear masks at the workplace.) Besides attacking face masks during a respiratory disease pandemic, Fox has also urged its viewers to distrust public health officials.

And with the possibility of a mask mandate coming back to LA, Fox personalities reacted with incredulity, pretending that masking is ineffective and attacking the county public health director as “power hungry.”

Fox & Friends First co-host Todd Piro asked, “Have we learned no lessons from the … failure of masks?” He added, “These people, Barbara Ferrer, that you saw there, the entire establishment that is pushing more masking, more lockdowns, they are power hungry. And they refuse to acknowledge that COVID is something we cannot prevent at this point, but something we have to deal with.”
Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade said: “Masks don’t work. … What is wrong with these people?”
Later in the program, Kilmeade portrayed a masking mandate as intentional sabotage on people’s lives and children’s schooling, saying: “The problem is too many people enjoying their lives going back to normal. Let's try to screw them up again.”
Fox’s America’s Newsroom interviewed Fox contributor Caitlyn Jenner for her inexpert opinion on the efficacy of face masks. During the interview, Jenner said: “I don’t think they work very well.” She later added: “I think our public health director is kind of like a little mini [NIAID Director Dr. Anthony] Fauci, wanting the controlthat they have.”
Fox Business host Steve Hilton claimed that masks “make practically no difference in the preventing of the transmission of this virus,” then ranted: “Can you believe we're back here again, yet again? You have these lunatics, these bureaucrats, totally unaccountable – Barbara Ferrer, the half a million dollar a year woman who runs public health in Los Angeles – not a medical doctor, parading these totally bogus metrics, right, about cases and whatever. How does she know what the cases are? People are testing on their own at home privately. It's not reported. It's complete BS. The whole thing is total BS, and I hope nobody pays any attention to it at all.”
On Twitter, Hilton also urged LA residents to “rise up and say enough is enough.”

===

aha: agw religion is subset of alarmist (fem hysteria snowflake) vs rational libtard economist hard nosed bizMAN empirical; also mirror evang wackos; hannity has cult variant mirror trumpistas

note tipping pt:

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/despite-fox-news-claims-contrary-voters-are-concerned-about-climate-change

no lnx many no vid

Despite Fox News' claims to the contrary, voters are concerned about climate change

Special PROGRAMS

CLIMATE & ENERGY

WRITTEN BY EVLONDO COOPER

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM ALLISON FISHER & ILANA BERGER

PUBLISHED 11/17/22

Despite Fox News’ claims to the contrary, climate change was among top voter concerns during the recent 2022 midterm elections.

:{:{}:

The issue of climate change took center stage during the general election for the first time in 2020. Since then, poll after poll has found that climate change is top of mind for many voters, and exit polls found that it was a key issue for 2022 midterm voters. Even Fox had to briefly acknowledge this reality, though it won’t likely have any material impact on the network’s climate coverage.

:{:{}:

CNN’s exit poll found that 71% of voters stated that climate change is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem, while 61% of voters in Fox News’ voter analysis survey were “very/somewhat concerned” about climate change. Regarding whether climate has become a viable election issue, InsideClimateNews suggested that “the political dynamics around climate in the 2022 midterms could stand out as a milestone.” Or as The New Republic summarized:

This year, more “climate voters,” people whose top issue is the climate crisis, showed up to cast ballots than in any other election in U.S. history. Exit polls show that, contrary to conventional Democratic consultant-class wisdom, climate was the top issue for 8 percent of voters, a share surpassed only by “inflation/economy,” immigration, and abortion (the latter two are tied at second place). You’d never guess it from media coverage, but climate and crime were tied for third place. The percentage of voters prioritizing climate had jumped by four points from 2020, the first year that voters were even asked at the polls about “climate” as opposed to “environment.” There are probably several factors behind this impressive showing.

Climate could play an important role in the Georgia Senate runoff election, especially among socially marginalized communities that have been bearing the brunt of climate-driven extreme weather events and environmental pollution. In addition to grassroots organizing efforts, Climate Monitor noted that “LCV [League of Conservation Voters] has already launched a new video ad supporting Sen. Raphael Warnock in his runoff election on December 6th. Environmental Voter Project is also already spending in Georgia’s Senate runoff.”

This belies Fox News’ attempts to downplay climate change as a concern for voters. This summer, the network, among other right-wing media outlets, cherry-picked data from a Siena College and New York Times pollto claim that Americans did not care about climate change. For example, the July 20 episode of America's Newsroom featured Kellyanne Conway, former White House counselor under President Donald Trump, claiming that President Joe Biden is focusing on climate and the poll shows voters “don't think that he's connected to them in a way that he is listening to them and hearing their concerns.”

Video file

Video CitationFrom the July 20, 2022, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom

During the July 24 episode of Fox & Friends Weekend, co-host Pete Hegseth claimed, “They're using the blue checkmark woke brigade to attempt to cudgel the White House to declare a crisis based on 1% of Americans who believe it’s their religion, which could change all of our lives, and change it rapidly, if he caves to groups like this.”

VideoCitationFrom the July 24, 2022, edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Weekend

In the months and weeks leading up to the November 8 midterm elections, Fox News continued to downplay voter concerns about climate change. For example, during the September 14 episode of The Story With Martha MacCallum, Fox News correspondent Jacqui Heinrich led off a segment that attacked the climate provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act by using a Gallup poll to claim that “voters are far more concerned with the economy than they are with climate.” Fox News hosted commentator Angela Morabito on the September 27 episode of Fox News at Night, where she claimed that climate change was a “luxury problem” above a chyron that read “Midterm Motivators.”

VideoCitationFrom the September 27, 2022, episode of Fox News at Night

During the September 30 episode of Hannity, Fox News host Sean Hannity claimed that if the midterms are a “referendum onJoe Biden, the failed climate cult, and their failed policies, and how they’ve wrecked all the progress that we made in the four years under Donald Trump,then they lose.”

Video Citation From the September 30, 2022, episode of Fox News' Hannity

After rattling off key provisions of the Inflation Reduction Act, Fox News host Sandra Smith asked her guests during the October 6 episode of America Reports if “Democrats may live to regret the day they pushed clean energy so hard in this moment when we’re not ready for the transition.”

Video Citation From the October 6, 2022, episode of Fox News' America Reports

However, after the midterm elections, Fox News had to acknowledge that climate was an important issue for voters. During the November 9 episode of America Reports, Smith briefly bowed to reality when confronted with the results of Fox News’ own survey: “When asked how concerned about climate change voters were, 61% said very or somewhat concerned, 39% not too concerned or not at all concerned,” she said. “Climate change was up there, and it was on the mind of voters when they head to the ballot box. So, is this a missed opportunity for Republicans to have some sort of messaging there for voters who care about this issue?”

Video CitationFrom the November 9, 2022, episode of Fox News' America Reports

Despite years of climate science denial and obfuscation, Fox News had to face the fact that voters care about climate change. The network will likely continue running interference for the fossil fuel industry, denying or downplaying how climate is driving extreme weather, and undermining the Biden administration's climate and energy policies, because it is less a news outlet and more a key cog in the fossil fuel industry’sdisinformation network. Even though the veil of reality may slip on Fox News occasionally, it never stays down for long.

===

aha2: once cost $ to spread hate and ppl feard being outed, but interwebs/soc media make it frictionless, hidden and MAKES $ [vs h ford protocols of zion]

matt is carnival barker, sez shit ben can't?!

aha: hype/fear (esca / echo algo amplify) --> clicks / names email contact --> cash

aha rw media = grift info extraction

mma 11 22

As he gears up for a potential 2024 showdown with former President Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has enlisted a leading right-wing outlet for advertising: Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire. The Republican governor paid over $100,000 since last year in fundraising expenses to the site, which has aired commentary supporting DeSantis over Trump.

DeSantis and his associated PAC Friends of Ron DeSantis have paid $110,429.01 for fundraising expenses and list rental to the site since July 2021, according to a search of campaign data with the Florida Department of State. The Miami Herald noted some of DeSantis’ payments to the Daily Wire and other right-wing outlets in April.

Shapiro co-founded The Daily Wire, which publishes podcasts, videos, and commentary pieces. The site frequently pushes anti-LGBTQ, racist, and bigoted content.

The Daily Wire and its personnel have recently been friendly voices for DeSantis, who won his 2022 reelection bid.

Shapiro, as summarized by the website he co-founded, has “faulted Trump” and “made no secret of his support for DeSantis.” He also said in September that DeSantis is a “very effective governor” and a better potential president than Trump.

After Trump tried out the nickname “Ron DeSanctimonious,” Daily Wire host Matt Walsh tweeted: “DeSantis is an extremely effective conservative governor who has had real policy wins and real cultural wins. Trump isn't going to be able to take this one down with a dumb nickname. He better have more than that up his sleeve.”

And the Daily Wire has featured pieces such as “Trump Launches Unprovoked Attack On Ron DeSantis For His Handling Of COVID Pandemic”; “With Trump The Big Loser In ’22 Midterms, DeSantis Now Frontrunner For ’24”; and “‘Original’ Trump Backer Michael Savage: ‘DeSantis Is The Future … This Is About A Nation, Not About Any Man.’”

The National Republican Congressional Committee,which is the House Republicans’ official campaign arm, has also heavily advertised in the Daily Wire, paying $321,100.18 from 2021 to 2022 so far for list rentals.

===

aha yikes: the trump gift that keeps giving; morano is using pent-up up rage to gin up anti-commie far of grn action on climate:

aha 2: fox tucker all about compassion/empathy?! eg w steve king rehab?

revive energy pov is LOMBORGIAN misdirection: famine cause by putin war, floods, droughts, other wars that they ignore or cheer for

[https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/fox-news-platforms-climate-denial-and-great-reset-conspiracy-theory-during-cop27](https://webbrain.com/brainpage/brain/=https://www.mediamatters.org/climate-deniers/fox-news-platforms-climate-denial-and-great-reset-conspiracy-theory-during-cop27ted%20macdDuring%20the%20final%20weekend%20of%20the%202022%20United%20Nations%20Climate%20Change%20Conference,%20known%20as%20COP27,%20two%20Fox%20News%20programs%20invited%20longtime%20climate%20denier%20Marc%20Morano%20to%20discuss%20the%20conference%20and%20link%20it%20to%20a%20conspiracy%20theory%20about%20the%20Great%20Reset.As%20Media%20Matters%20wrote%20last%20week,%20adherents%20to%20the%20Great%20Reset%20conspiracy%20theory%20absurdly%20believe%20that%20global%20elites%20are%20using%20climate%20change%20policies%20in%20order%20to%20crush%20individual%20freedoms%20and%20install%20a%20global%20dictatorial%20government.%20Morano%20is%20a%20key%20driver%20of%20the%20climate%20denial%20components%20of%20this%20conspiracy%20theory.%20We%20also%20noted%20that%20given%20the%20high-profile%20nature%20of%20COP27%20and%20the%20presence%20of%20numerous%20world%20leaders%20there,%20this%20conspiracy%20theory%20would%20proliferate%20within%20right-wing%20discussions%20of%20the%20conference.And%20now,%20the%20most-watched%20cable%20news%20network%20in%20the%20U.S.%20has%20prominently%20featured%20the%20false%20claims%20in%20its%20discussions%20around%20COP27.On%20the%20November%2012%20edition%20of%20Unfiltered%20with%20Dan%20Bongino,%20Morano%20stated%20that%20world%20leaders%20want%20to%20%E2%80%9Cuse%20the%20COVID%20template%20to%20fight%20climate,%20i.e.%20authoritarianism,%20you%20don%E2%80%99t%20have%20a%20say,%20democracy%20goes%20to%20die.%E2%80%9D%20He%20also%20falsely%20downplayed%20the%20health%20threats%20associated%20with%20climate%20change,%20wrongly%20dismissed%20the%20need%20for%20climate%20action%20as%20too%20expensive,%20and%20directly%20referred%20to%20COP27%20as%20%E2%80%9Cthe%20Great%20Reset%20summit.%E2%80%9D%20Host%20Dan%20Bongino%20also%20brought%20up%20a%20key%20tenet%20of%20the%20Great%20Reset%20conspiracy%20theory,%20which%20is%20that%20climate%20change%20is%20all%20about%20control.%20He%20stated%20that%20the%20conference%20is%20%E2%80%9Ca%20totalitarian%20way%20to%20control%20things.%20This%20has%20nothing%20to%20do%20with%20climate%20science.%22[vid]11/12MORANO%20%28FOUNDER,%20CLIMATEDEPOT.COM%29:%20I'm%20here%20in%20Sharm%20El-Sheikh,%20Egypt,%20at%20this%20conference.%20And%20not%20only%20is%20the%20World%20Economic%20Forum%20here,%20the%20home%20of%20the%20Great%20Reset%20%E2%80%94%20they%20were%20on%20the%20panel%20with%20John%20Kerry%20when%20he%20went%20to%20use%20the%20COVID%20template%20to%20fight%20climate,%20i.e.%20authoritarianism,%20you%20don%E2%80%99t%20have%20a%20say,%20democracy%20goes%20to%20die%20when%20they%20talk%20like%20that.%20But%20the%20World%20Health%20Organization%20was%20also%20here%20to%20morph%20COVID%20and%20climate%20together%20by%20declaring%20climate%20a%20massive%20public%20health%20threat.%20Despite%20the%20fact,%20Dan,%20that%20climate-related%20deaths%20have%20dropped%2099%%20in%20the%20last%20hundred%20years%20and%20they%E2%80%99ve%20declined%20due%20to%20wealth%20creation,%20and%20development,%20infrastructure,%20and%20fossil%20fuels.%20So,%20this%20is%20very%20scary.%20This%20is%20John%20Kerry.%20Al%20Gore%20also%20is%20here.%20Along%20with%20John%20Kerry%20he's%20pushing%20his%20climate%20trace%20app%20that%E2%80%99s%20going%20to%20be%20tracing%20all%20individual%20CO2%20contributors%20globally.%20Remember,%20humans%20inhale%20oxygen;%20we%20exhale%20CO2.%20So%20they%E2%80%99re%20modeling%20a%20track%20and%20trace%20app%20for%20CO2%20to%20go%20after%20businesses%20and%20agriculture.%20This%20is%20the%20Great%20Reset%20summit%20here%20in%20Sharm%20El-Sheikh,%20Egypt.DAN%20BONGINO%20%28FOX%20HOST%29:%20Marc,%20and%20you%E2%80%99ve%20been%20sounding%20the%20alarm%20about%20this%20forever.%20This%20is%20all%20about%20control.%20This%20has%20nothing%20to%20do%20with%20science.%20When%20the%20vax%20started%20to%20lose%20effectiveness%20against%20transmission,%20they%20almost%20doubled%20down%20on%20mandates.%20Their%20push%20for%20digital%20ID,%20digital%20currencies,%20you%20know,%20CO2%20monitors%20%E2%80%94%20this%20is%20just%20a%20totalitarian%20way%20to%20control%20people.%20This%20has%20nothing%20to%20do%20with%20climate%20science.%20MORANO:%20It%20has%20nothing%20to%20do.%20Here%E2%80%99s%20how%20absurd%20it%20is.%20Goldman%20Sachs%20economist%20two%20weeks%20ago%20said%20on%20CNBC%20that%20we%E2%80%99ve%20spent%20almost%20$4%20trillion%20to%20reduce%20fossil%20fuels%201%.%20And%20so,%20and%20you%E2%80%99d%20would%20think%20they%E2%80%99d%20look%20at%20that%20and%20say%20solar%20and%20wind%20are%20failing,%20you%20cannot%20replace%20fossil%20fuels%20at%20any%20scale%20they%E2%80%99re%20talking.%20Al%20Gore%20comes%20this%20week%20along%20with%20John%20Kerry%20and%20wants%20private%20industry%20to%20spent%20$4%20trillion%20per%20year%20to%20fight%20climate%20change.%20That%E2%80%99s%20how%20insane%20this%20is.%20It's%20almost%20like%20the%20old,%20you%20know,%20socialism%20never%20failed,%20it%20wasn't%20done%20correctly%20in%20the%20Soviet%20Union,%20it%20wasn%E2%80%99t%20done%20correctly%20in%20Venezuela,%20it%20wasn%E2%80%99t%20done%20correctly%20in%20Eastern%20Europe,%20it%20wasn%E2%80%99t%20done%20correctly%20in%20Cuba.%20They%20are%20now%20literally%20looking%20at%20this%20and%20saying%20all%20the%20failure%20we%20see%20everywhere%20is%20more%20of%20a%20reason%20to%20double%20down.%20And%20this%20is%20what%E2%80%99s%20scary,%20Dan:%20You%20have%20every%20major%20corporation%20listed%20as%20quote%20%E2%80%9Cmain%20partners%E2%80%9D%20at%20this%20U.N.%20climate%20Great%20Reset%20summit%20including%20IBM,%20Google,%20Coca-Cola,%20Bank%20of%20America.The%20next%20morning,%20on%20Fox%20&%20Friends%20Sunday,%20Morano%20again%20fearmongered%20about%20the%20Great%20Reset%20at%20COP27.%20In%20addition%20to%20claiming%20that%20climate%20change%20is%20all%20about%20control,%20he%20also%20invoked%20the%20idea%20of%20lockdowns%20and%20the%20idea%20that%20global%20elites%20want%20to%20disrupt%20agriculture%20%E2%80%94%20also%20key%20tenets%20of%20the%20Great%20Reset%20conspiracy%20theory.%20He%20closed%20the%20interview%20by%20insinuating,%20again,%20that%20COP27%20is%20all%20about%20the%20Great%20Reset,%20and%20that%20these%20global%20elites%20want%20to%20increase%20their%20power%20at%20the%20expense%20of%20human%20liberties.[vid]%20CAMPOS-DUFFY%20%28FOX%20HOST%29:%20President%20Joe%20Biden%20pledging%20$150%20million%20to%20advance%20Africa's%20resilience%20to%20climate%20change.%20This%20despite%20146%20million%20people%20across%20the%20country%20going%20hungry.%20ClimateDepot.com%20publisher,%20and%20author%20of%20The%20Great%20Reset:%20Global%20Elites%20and%20The%20Permanent%20Lockdown,%20Marc%20Morano%20joins%20us%20now.%20Marc,%20always%20great%20to%20have%20you%20on%20the%20show.%20So%2034%20million%20Africans%20are%20actually%20in%20danger%20of%20famine%20right%20now.%20So,%20why%20are%20they%20offering%20them%20money%20for%20climate%20policies%20and%20initiatives%20and%20not%20food?%20MARC%20MORANO%20%28FOUNDER,%20CLIMATEDEPOT.COM%29:%20This%20is%20an%20incredible%20situation.%20They%20have%20it%20completely%20backwards.%20Instead%20of%20looking%20at%20all%20the%20problems%20in%20the%20world,%20and%20saying%20we%20need%20more%20food%20production,%20we%20need%20high-yield%20agriculture,%20they%20look%20at%20it%20and%20say%20we%20need%20to%20stop%20climate%20change.%20And%20this%20whole%20agenda,%20they%20have%20harmed%20Africa,%20first%20of%20all%20through%20COVID%20policy%20%E2%80%94%20CAMPOS-DUFFY:%20Yes.%20MORANO:%20%E2%80%94%20and%20this%20is%20chiefly%20occurring%20through%20COVID%20lockdowns,%20which,%20by%20the%20way,%20the%20World%20Health%20Organization%20was%20there,%20the%20World%20Economic%20Forum%20was%20at%20this%20U.N.%20Climate%20summit%20where%20Biden%20was.%20And%20they%27re%20pushing%20more%20response%20to%20climate%20as%20the%20same%20template%20as%20COVID,%20which%20means%20essentially%20bypassing%20democracy.%20But%20what%20the%20Biden%20administration%E2%80%99s%20done,%20they%E2%80%99re%20allowing%20this%20to%20happen%20in%20Africa.%20We%27ve%20seen%20it%20in%20the%20Netherlands.%20They%27re%20collapsing%20modern%20high-yield%20agriculture.%20They%E2%80%99re%20doing%20it%20in%20Australia,%20in%20Canada.%20They%E2%80%99re%20making%20food%20more%20expensive,%20creating%20shortages.%20They%E2%80%99re%20doing%20the%20same%20thing%20in%20transportation%20and%20doing%20the%20same%20thing%20in%20energy,%20all%20in%20the%20name%20of%20climate%20change.%20%E2%80%A6CAMPOS-DUFFY:%20Marc,%20really%20quickly,%20yes%20or%20no.%20Is%20this%20summit,%20and%20all%20of%20the%20initiatives%20that%20they%27re%20pushing,%20even%20this%20tracking%20app%20%E2%80%94%20is%20it%20about%20the%20environment,%20or%20is%20it%20about%20the%20Great%20Reset%20and%20population%20control?%20MORANO:%20This%20is%20all%20about%20increasing%20their%20power,%20imposing%20their%20vision,%20and%20their%20vision%20is%20population%20control,%20economic%20control,%20and%20basically%20civil%20liberties%20control%20of%20every%20human%20on%20the%20earth.%20That%20is%20really%20what%20this%20conference%20is%20about.%20That%20is%20what%20the%20United%20Nations%20teaming%20up%20with%20the%20World%20Economic%20Forum%20is%20all%20about.Later%20in%20the%20program,%20host%20Rachel%20Campos-Duffy%20again%20brought%20up%20the%20Great%20Reset.%20After%20a%20discussion%20about%20Biden%20meeting%20Chinese%20President%20Xi%20Jinping,%20Campos-Duffy%20stated%20that%20Morano%20%E2%80%9Cwrote%20a%20book%20about%20climate%20change%20and%20how%20it%20is%20part%20of%20the%20Great%20Reset.%20It%20is%20really%20fantastic,%20being%20very%20clear%20what%20this%20is%20about.%20Climate%20change%20is%20not%20about%20the%20climate.%20He%20actually%20proves%20it%20is%20not%20really%20affecting%20the%20climate%20and%20certainly%20not%20worth%20the%20trillions%20of%20investment%20that%20the%20world%20and%20especially%20America%20have%20made%20in%20that.%20But%20he%20says%20it%E2%80%99s%20about%20the%20Great%20Reset,%20it%E2%80%99s%20about%20control,%20and%20it%E2%80%99s%20ultimately%20about%20population%20control.%E2%80%9D=)

ted macd no lnx

During the final weekend of the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP27, two Fox News programs invited longtime climate denier Marc Morano to discuss the conference and link it to a conspiracy theory about the Great Reset.

As Media Matters wrote last week, adherents to the Great Reset conspiracy theory absurdly believe that global elites are using climate change policies in order to crush individual freedoms and install a global dictatorial government. Morano is a key driver of the climate denial components of this conspiracy theory. We also noted that given the high-profile nature of COP27 and the presence of numerous world leaders there, this conspiracy theory would proliferate within right-wing discussions of the conference.

And now, the most-watched cable news network in the U.S. has prominently featured the false claims in its discussions around COP27.

On the November 12 edition of Unfiltered with Dan Bongino, Morano stated that world leaders want to “use the COVID template to fight climate, i.e. authoritarianism, you don’t have a say, democracy goes to die.” He also falsely downplayed the health threats associated with climate change, wrongly dismissed the need for climate action as too expensive, and directly referred to COP27 as “the Great Reset summit.”

Host Dan Bongino also brought up a key tenet of the Great Reset conspiracy theory, which is that climate change is all about control. He stated that the conference is “a totalitarian way to control things. This has nothing to do with climate science."

[vid]11/12

MORANO (FOUNDER, CLIMATEDEPOT.COM): I'm here in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, at this conference. And not only is the World Economic Forum here, the home of the Great Reset — they were on the panel with John Kerry when he went to use the COVID template to fight climate, i.e. authoritarianism, you don’t have a say, democracy goes to die when they talk like that. But the World Health Organization was also here to morph COVID and climate together by declaring climate a massive public health threat. Despite the fact, Dan, that climate-related deaths have dropped 99% in the last hundred years and they’ve declined due to wealth creation, and development, infrastructure, and fossil fuels. So, this is very scary. This is John Kerry. Al Gore also is here. Along with John Kerry he's pushing his climate trace app that’s going to be tracing all individual CO2 contributors globally. Remember, humans inhale oxygen; we exhale CO2. So they’re modeling a track and trace app for CO2 to go after businesses and agriculture. This is the Great Reset summit here in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

DAN BONGINO (FOX HOST): Marc, and you’ve been sounding the alarm about this forever. This is all about control. This has nothing to do with science. When the vax started to lose effectiveness against transmission, they almost doubled down on mandates. Their push for digital ID, digital currencies, you know, CO2 monitors — this is just a totalitarian way to control people. This has nothing to do with climate science.

MORANO: It has nothing to do. Here’s how absurd it is. Goldman Sachs economist two weeks ago said on CNBC that we’ve spent almost $4 trillion to reduce fossil fuels 1%. And so, and you’d would think they’d look at that and say solar and wind are failing, you cannot replace fossil fuels at any scale they’re talking. Al Gore comes this week along with John Kerry and wants private industry to spent $4 trillion per year to fight climate change.

That’s how insane this is. It's almost like the old, you know, socialism never failed, it wasn't done correctly in the Soviet Union, it wasn’t done correctly in Venezuela, it wasn’t done correctly in Eastern Europe, it wasn’t done correctly in Cuba. They are now literally looking at this and saying all the failure we see everywhere is more of a reason to double down. And this is what’s scary, Dan: You have every major corporation listed as quote “main partners” at this U.N. climate Great Reset summit including IBM, Google, Coca-Cola, Bank of America.

The next morning, on Fox & Friends Sunday, Morano again fearmongered about the Great Reset at COP27. In addition to claiming that climate change is all about control, he also invoked the idea of lockdowns and the idea that global elites want to disrupt agriculture — also key tenets of the Great Reset conspiracy theory. He closed the interview by insinuating, again, that COP27 is all about the Great Reset, and that these global elites want to increase their power at the expense of human liberties.

[vid]

CAMPOS-DUFFY (FOX HOST): President Joe Biden pledging $150 million to advance Africa's resilience to climate change. This despite 146 million people across the country going hungry. ClimateDepot.com publisher, and author of The Great Reset: Global Elites and The Permanent Lockdown, Marc Morano joins us now. Marc, always great to have you on the show. So 34 million Africans are actually in danger of famine right now. So, why are they offering them money for climate policies and initiatives and not food?

MARC MORANO (FOUNDER, CLIMATEDEPOT.COM): This is an incredible situation. They have it completely backwards. Instead of looking at all the problems in the world, and saying we need more food production, we need high-yield agriculture, they look at it and say we need to stop climate change. And this whole agenda, they have harmed Africa, first of all through COVID policy —

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Yes.

MORANO: — and this is chiefly occurring through COVID lockdowns, which, by the way, the World Health Organization was there, the World Economic Forum was at this U.N. Climate summit where Biden was. And they're pushing more response to climate as the same template as COVID, which means essentially bypassing democracy. But what the Biden administration’s done, they’re allowing this to happen in Africa. We've seen it in the Netherlands. They're collapsing modern high-yield agriculture. They’re doing it in Australia, in Canada. They’re making food more expensive, creating shortages. They’re doing the same thing in transportation and doing the same thing in energy, all in the name of climate change.

…

CAMPOS-DUFFY: Marc, really quickly, yes or no. Is this summit, and all of the initiatives that they're pushing, even this tracking app — is it about the environment, or is it about the Great Reset and population control?

MORANO: This is all about increasing their power, imposing their vision, and their vision is population control, economic control, and basically civil liberties control of every human on the earth. That is really what this conference is about. That is what the United Nations teaming up with the World Economic Forum is all about.

Later in the program, host Rachel Campos-Duffy again brought up the Great Reset. After a discussion about Biden meeting Chinese President Xi Jinping, Campos-Duffy stated that Morano “wrote a book about climate change and how it is part of the Great Reset. It is really fantastic, being very clear what this is about. Climate change is not about the climate. He actually proves it is not really affecting the climate and certainly not worth the trillions of investment that the world and especially America have made in that. But he says it’s about the Great Reset, it’s about control, and it’s ultimately about population control.”

===

[[recall Jan 6 trump coup impossible w/o BS alt facts/ conspiracy

aha see deny deflect ctr-attack accusation

related to mirror and crypto, possibly evil

CRT is racism disguised as free speech? anti-racism? whole lotta quoting of MLK by right wingers lately? "color-blind" reverse discrim?

in some way probably just taking standard and correct critiques of right and trying to claim the left does it too(thus ok for right to defend themselves) or everyone does it so ok if we do and you're hypocrites if you call us right out on it in the future.

or most extreme we don't do it only YOU left do.

recall gang of 5 new right we are the true radicals/revolutionaries, but that was trying to steal/co-opt a positive (tho somewhat badass) term.

we're not the racist/oppressors/censors, you the left are: AA is reverse discrimination, you are trying to cancel/ silence us, white ppl xiansare the true victims.

this req alt fact earth2 lack of history/context/critical thinking? echo escalator = lack of filter/rebuttal

mma 9 22

mehdi h: one word, projection

GUTFELD (HOST): This is hilarious. You can't be like the media, you can't be like the Democrats when every time Donald Trump spoke or was at a rally or the inauguration, their hair was on fire. Right? And Trump supporters would be attacked.This is what the media wants you to do right now. This is what Joe Biden wants you to do right now. They're trying to goad you into an emotional state for violence. That is what they actually want.

GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): I am pro-disinformation because one man's disinformation is another person's fact, right? A censor never says they're a censor, they just say they're concerned about your health. And so, they use medical information now as kind of the -- as the weaponry to start curtailing information. So, disinformation has now become the new hate speech, right?

THE LATEST

On MSNBC's American Voices, Angelo Carusone explains how right-wing media “started using the language of QAnon” following Biden's speech

09/04/22 8:24

On MSNBC's The Cross Connection, Angelo Carusone explains how mainstream cable networks are embracing a “shift towards authoritarianism”

09/03/22

Fox News host Greg Gutfeld: “I am pro-disinformation”

09/02/22 6:00

Greg Gutfeld says Biden’s speech warning of extremism is an attempt “to goad you into an emotional state for violence”

09/02/22

---

9 22

msnbc MH host says only need 1 word, projection = rubber glue? ~ j6

https://www.mediamatters.org/dan-bongino/dan-bongino-says-joe-bidens-speech-independence-hall-was-incredibly-hostile-incitement]]

===

aha: tax dodge = amplifying feedback --> inequality/ polarization --> instability --> crisis

===

note mccarthy has joined the trolls gubmint

aha recall conservatives hard-wired to be sensitive to threat/fear, amplified by soc media bubble, boost by troll caucus [all built on libtard/ koch fdn pro corp pvt dereg]

conserv all want to get rid of income tax/also trumpistas? b/c they think they will be rich someday?

recall the gubmint is evil, so starve the beast' tax reduce inequality, but also provides resources to gov't to do collective work improve life

self-ish me vs we; if gubmint corrupt if not evil or even just inept no pt in wasting $ on it

8 22

https://www.alternet.org/2022/08/gop-rumors-irs/

An official from the U.S. Treasury Department confirmed Friday that, contrary to the unrelenting barrage of lies repeated by GOP operatives for over a week, the Internal Revenue Service is not going to hire 87,000 new agents to harass working people at their homes.

Not a single Republican in the House or Senate voted for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) that was passed through the filibuster-proof budget reconciliation process last week and signed into law by President Joe Biden on Tuesday, choosing instead to condemn the package's relatively modest but popular tax reforms.

Despite analysts' predictions that the 98.2% of U.S. households with annual incomes of $400,000 or less will receive the same tax bill or a slight cut as a result of the IRA, [plus study for free file] far-right lawmakers have sown disinformation about how the law's provision of roughly $80 billion in new IRS funding over 10 years—money intended to help the agency crack down on rich tax cheats—poses a threat to every American.

:{:{Last week, Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) went so far as to claim that Democrats are "using the power of the federal government for armed robbery!" Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has made similar allegation:(style="background-color:#ff9900ff"):}:s.}:

It's not just fringe members of the GOP who are spreading such falsehoods. One day before Boebert's tirade, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), the highest-ranking Republican in the lower chamber, tweeted, "Democrats in Washington plan to hire an army of 87,000 IRS agents so they can audit more Americans like you."

On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis—currently a top contender, along with former President Donald Trump, to be the Republican Party's 2024 nominee for the White House—called hiring 87,000 IRS agents "a middle finger to the American public," making clear that he would prefer more "might at the border."

Where does this oft-repeated number of IRS agents come from?

"The 87,000 figure does exist, buried within a May 2021 Treasury Department report when the Biden administration was pushing a bigger spending bill with the same $80 billion IRS funding," Reuters noted Friday. "The report estimated the money could fund 86,852 full-time hires through 2031."

But the actual net increase in staff would be much lower, as the IRS expects more than 50,000 aging Baby Boomer employees to retire over the next half-decade.

In addition to an unspecified number of new revenue agents—there were 8,321 in fiscal year 2021—the agency is looking to hire tens of thousands of new information technology specialists and customer service personnel who can create a user experience more akin to online banking, Natasha Sarin, Treasury counselor for tax policy and administration, told Reuters.

There are 2,100 special agents in the IRS Criminal Investigation branch who are authorized to carry firearms, but right-wing assertions that all 87,000 new hires would be auditors, criminal enforcement agents, or armed are "deeply dangerous nonsense—and false," said Sarin.

"The speed and voracity with which [Republicans] are coming at this is really a testament to how important these resources are going to be—because there are many wealthy tax evaders that stand to lose a lot," Sarin continued.

The GOP's intentionally misleading attacks come after a decade of budget cuts approved by congressional Republicans left the IRS with 16,000 fewer employees in 2021 than it had in 2010.

As ProPublica has documented, the IRS now audits low-income taxpayers at the same rate as the top 1%, but that is a direct result of years of austerity, which have undermined the agency's ability to audit the rich.

The IRA's boost in IRS funding aims to rectify this injustice and to begin closing an estimated $600 billion annual "tax gap"—the difference between taxes paid and owed—by strengthening enforcement against the complex avoidance strategies used by the wealthy, especially those with murky sources of income.

New information technology hires will develop "tools to identify more high-end audit targets," Reuters reported. "To target wealthy taxpayers and handle sophisticated audits, Sarin said the IRS needs mid-career individuals with accounting and often tax law experience."

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the increase in IRS funding will raise $204 billion in additional revenue over 10 years, while the Treasury projects that the real revenue impact will likely be $400 billion over a decade—a substantial portion of the IRA's climate and healthcare spending.

Earlier this week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen instructed IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig—a scandal-plagued Trump appointee who spent decades battling the agency—to submit an $80 billion spending and hiring plan within six months. Yellen previously directed the agency not to use any new resources to increase audits of people making less than $400,000 per year.

===

aha note gubmint so demonized by gop and libtards/kochs that any accusation instantly believed by trumpistas? esp when pedo commie dems in control

an 8 22

no lnx twt

Donald Trump peddles conspiracy theory about FBI 'planting' evidence

Igor Derysh and Salon August 10, 2022

President Donald Trump and his lawyers pushed a conspiracy theory that FBI agents may have "planted" incriminating evidence while executing a search warrant at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

FBI agents on Monday executed a warrant at Trump's Palm Beach home, meaning that a judge found enough probable cause to approve the search. Agents investigating presidential documents that Trump took with him to Mar-a-Lago, including classified materials, removed 12 boxes of items from Mar-a-Lago after Trump turned over 15 boxes of materials to the National Archives earlier this year, according to the Washington Post.Trump attorney Christina Bobb told the outlet that the search warrant indicated that the FBI is investigating possible violations of the Presidential Records Act and laws related to the handling of classified material. Trump has thus far refused to release his copy of the search warrant even though it could provide transparency on what agents were searching for.

Bobb said that she was not allowed to observe the search, as is common during such FBI operations. But Trump and his lawyers have seized on that fact to push a conspiracy theory that the FBI may have "planted" something without providing any evidence to support their claims.

"The FBI and others from the Federal Government would not let anyone, including my lawyers, be anywhere near the areas that were rummaged and otherwise looked at during the raid on Mar-a-Lago," Trump said on his Twitter knockoff Truth Social. "Everyone was asked to leave the premises, they wanted to be left alone, without any witnesses to see what they were doing[CCTV?] , taking or, hopefully not, 'planting.' Why did they STRONGLY insist on having nobody watching them, everybody out? Obama and Clinton were never 'raided,' despite big disputes!"

Bobb, a former TV host at the right-wing outlet OAN who joined Trump's legal team, made a similar claim on Monday, citing only the fact that she was not allowed to observe the search.

"There is no security that something wasn't planted," Bobb said in an interview, adding, "I'm not saying that's what they did."

"At this point, I don't necessarily think that they would even go to the extent of trying to plant information, I think they just make stuff up and come up with whatever they wantand that's the way that they will have to proceed in order to actually try to indict the president because they don't have anything," she said.

Fellow Trump attorney Alina Habba told Fox News that she was also "concerned that they may have planted something. You know, at this point, who knows? I don't trust the government and that's a very frightening thing as an American."

Trump's right-wing allies have parroted this evidence-free claim to their followers.

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., cited his distrust of the government to suggest that the FBI "may put something" in the boxes they removed from Mar-a-Lago to "entrap" Trump.

"I think there is an extremely high probability that the FBI planted 'evidence' against President Trump," tweeted Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. "Otherwise WHY would they NOT allow his attorneys or anyone watch them while they conducted their unprecedented raid? They know the consequences of an empty handed power move."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and Trump ally Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, both discussed their belief that the FBI may have "planted evidence" on Kirk's show Monday.

Trump's defenders on Fox News have also echoed the claim.

"They could have easily negotiated the return of documents like that without guns and warrants. What the FBI is probably doing is planting evidence," Fox News host Jesse Watters said without any evidence. "We also have a hunch they doctored evidence to get the warrant."

Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt suggested that FBI agents may have dumped "backpacks" full of incriminating evidence at Mar-a-Lago.

:{:{}:

"His lawyer said they brought in backpacks, what was in those backpacks?" Earhardt said. "Did they bring those in to fill them up or did they have something in there?"

Agents raided Mar-a-Lago because they believed Trump did not turn over all classified information he had taken to his home, according to The Wall Street Journal. Trump's lawyers had been in discussions with federal officials about the records for months. Trump attorneys in June showed investigators a basement room where boxes of materials were being stored. The Justice Department directed Trump's team to secure the room, prompting them to add a padlock to the door. It's unclear what triggered Monday's raid.

Legal experts pushed back on the claims. Former federal prosecutor Elie Honig called the idea that FBI agents "may" have planted evidence "ridiculous."

"How would anybody even know at this point?" he questioned. "If you're going to fabricate some accusation, at least wait until you might plausibly have a basis for it."

Former federal prosecutor Richard Signorelli condemned Trump's attorneys for pushing the claim.

"These are baseless lies but unfortunately will be believed by deranged, ignorant MAGA cult members," he tweeted.

Defense attorney Ken White noted that forbidding anyone from observing their searches is standard practice.

"Law enforcement does not let anyone, including lawyers, observe what they're doing during searches," he wrote. "They typically remove everyone from the searched area. This has always been the case. This is the latest 'it's an outrage when the typical happens to me.'"

Former federal prosecutor Michael Stern suggested that TrumpWorld is trotting out the claim because the FBI may have found damaging evidence at his home.

"I have written hundreds of search warrants. Lawyers and people whose homes are being search[ed] are routinely not present during the search," he wrote. "That Trump is now talking about 'planted' evidence means he knows there is something damning they found."

===

aha yikes:images/soc med bad combo: amplify reptilian brain emotions anger/fear, but also ups reductionistic/tribal thinking // polarization

as world gets more complex (and polluted by misinfo) increases desire/desperation for single , clear (satanic) cause --> conspiracy [also libtard simplification]

will // hedges on literacy

an 8 22

On Wednesday, August 3, the U.S. Senate voted, 95-1, in favor of Sweden and Finland joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). President Joe Biden applauded the vote, declaring, “This historic vote sends an important signal of the sustained, bipartisan U.S. commitment to NATO, and to ensuring our Alliance is prepared to meet the challenges of today and tomorrow. I look forward to signing the accession protocols and welcoming Sweden and Finland, two strong democracies with highly capable militaries, into the greatest defensive alliance in history.”

The vote was a rare example of everyone from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont to Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer being on the same page. The lone “no” vote came from far-right Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who used the vote to boast about how MAGA he is on foreign policy and how devoted he is to former President Donald Trump’s “America first” agenda — and Hawley defended the vote during an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

Never Trump conservative and veteran Washington Post opinion writer George Will examines Hawley’s “no” vote in his August 10 column, arguing that these events underscore the “degradation” of both journalism and politics in the United States.

“Like an infant feeling ignored and seeking attention by banging his spoon on his highchair tray, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) last week cast the only vote against admitting Finland and Sweden to NATO,” Will explains. “He said adding the two militarily proficient Russian neighbors to NATO would somehow weaken U.S. deterrence of China…. That evening, Hawley appeared on Fox News to receive Tucker Carlson’s benediction. This umpteenth episode of a senator using the Senate as a stepping stone to a cable television green room illustrates what Chris Stirewalt deplores in his new book, ‘Broken News.’”

Stirewalt served as Fox News’ political editor before being fired for, ironically, doing his job well. And he discusses that controversy in his new book, “Broken News: Why the Media Rage Machine Divides America and How to Fight Back,” which has an August 23 release date on Amazon.

Will says of Stirewalt, “He was washed out of Fox News by a tsunami of viewer rage because on Election Night 2020, he correctly said Donald Trump had lost Arizona. Now, he says today’s journalism has a supply-side problem — that is, supplying synthetic controversies.”

Stirewalt, in his book, describes the state of U.S. journalism in 2022 as, “What did Trump say? What did Nancy Pelosi say about what Trump said? What did Kevin McCarthy say about what Pelosi said about what Trump said? What did Sean Hannity say about what Rachel Maddow said about what McCarthy said about what Pelosi said about what Trump said?”

Will shares Stirewalt’s complaints, writing, “But journalism also has a demand-side problem: Time was, journalists assumed that news consumers demanded ‘more information, faster and better.’ Now, instantaneous communication via passive media — video and television — supplies what indolent consumers demand. More than half of Americans between ages 16 and 74 read below the Sixth-Grade level. Video, however, requires only eyes on screens. But such passive media cannot communicate a civilization defined by ideas.”

Will continues, “Our creedal nation, Stirewalt says, ‘requires written words and a common culture in which to understand them’…. Technology — radio, television, the internet — turned journalism from reporting what had happened to reporting what was happening, and now to giving passive news consumers the emotional experience of having their political beliefs ratified.”

Now 81, Will has seen a lot of technological changes over the years. And he shares Stirewalt’s view that technology has made some political journalism a form of lowbrow entertainment.

“Technology has produced a melding of journalism and politics, to the degradation of both, as illustrated by the seamlessness of Hawley’s Senate floor grandstanding and his cable news self-congratulation,” Will observes. “Small wonder, says Stirewalt, that ‘the news business treats politics like sports’ — entertaining, but with no meaning deeper than the score. The fans, consumers of emotional-impact journalism, wear, figuratively speaking, their teams’ colors: red shirts against blue shirts.”

Will continues, “This journalism’s constant attention to politics instead of government — to gaining power instead of its exercise — makes the players on the field, Stirewalt says, ‘want to show off to the fans in the stands instead of trying to win the game.’ Hence Hawley, the quintessential example of the politics that the new journalism encourages. And hence his absurd vote against NATO expansion — spoon clenched in infant fist, banging the highchair tray to say: ‘Pay attention to me!’…. Define news down, and this is the kind of newsmaker you get.”

===

aha 7 22

debate a subvariant of? : BIG you-name-it sliences /gags the right and punishes brave truth tellers

recall ur- proto myth that conservatives cannot win elections or even compete in the mktplace [heh] of ideas b/c liberal mainstream media hollywood limosine [jewish] liberals and prof pinkos brainwash ppl in general and kids in particular; as media shifts to soc media, Big Tech [Gates // soros] are bag guys. the left then pressures WOKE corps (including tech but even NFL and even beloved military. now trickled down to public schools kid indoctrinate CRT and even groomer.

https://censortrack.org/case/citizens-renewing-america

INSANE! Twitter Censors Anti-Critical Race Theory Account

Kayla Sargent

June 11th, 2021

Twitter’s rampage against conservatives has not stopped with the platform now seemingly taking its orders from the left.

Rachel Bovard, Senior Director of Policy for the Conservative Partnership Institute, said that Twitter suspended the conservative think tank Citizens for Renewing America (CRA) after the group posted resources combating Critical Race Theory (CRT). She tweeted: “So @amrenewctr issues a toolkit for parents to help stop CRT in schools, Media Matters issues a baseless and wildly untrue hit on the Center, and mere hours later, Twitter suspends their account. Big Tech working very hard to protect racist ideologies from criticism.” Her tweet included a screenshot of what appears to be a message from Twitter that said, “We’ve temporarily limited some of your account features.” Bovard is a MRC Free Speech America board advisor.

CRA President Russ Vought provided more insight as to why the organization’s content may have been suspended. “Twitter is now saying that our Renewing America accounts were suspended by ‘enforcement bots’ but wouldn't tell us what was flagged. This occurred soon after we launched an important anti-CRT tool kit and a radical left outlet put forward wild conspiracy theories about it,” he tweeted.

CRA recently published a toolkit for “Combatting Critical Race Theory in Your Community.” The toolkit said: “This guide is meant for anyone of any knowledge and experience level who is concerned about what children are being taught and how they are being treated, with an emphasis on making the banning of Critical Race Theory (CRT) the central theme by which you reclaim your schools.”

Leftist group, Media Matters for America, however, called the toolkit “a conspiracy theory about the overthrow of America’s constitutional system.” It also somehow drew an arbitrary connection between the toolkit’s language and what the organization called the “infamous white nationalist march in Charlottesville, Virginia.”

Media Matters for America received more than $1.5 million from liberal billionaire George Soros between 2010 and 2014.

Twitter has long silenced conservative voices on its platform. Its massive push to censor conservative voices resulted in the platform receiving a “F” grade from the Media Research Center in its first Big Tech Report Card. Twitter removed former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol after he called for “peace.” The platform also slapped a “sensitive content” label on a graphic from the MRC. The graphic described the results of a recent poll in which fifty-three percent of respondents answered “no” to the question: “Should biological men be allowed to compete in women's sports?”

Twitter did not respond to a request from MRC Free Speech America to confirm whether it had suspended CRA.

===

7 22

neo-con is // neo-libtard Bush 43

aha GULF WAR 2 POSTER CHILD FOR CASCADE OF FAILS:

JRNLISM FAIL

set off refugee surge --> brexit [CAMBRIDGE anal ] , alt rt, authoritarian [eu la penn] ; wolfie neo-cons wanted it for decades , cooked the intel, hunted the whistleblowers Plame

SEE WMD BS YELLOWCAKE CHENEY

de-Bathification --? al queda, CNP fail ministry of oil

pvtization blackwater halliburton? tigerswan

===

aha: recall heartland rev engr if AGW is real, req gobal action thus not real

aha2 note that action esp climate /enviro by ANY branch, even the agency in charge of it is being called overreach = tyranny/loss of FFFRrrreeeeeedumb!

aha 3: jeez they call US alarmists, but purpose of fox / infowars is hype /attack Dems

london protests 7 22 break glass in emergency so they did

wow omg ingraham? 1100 dead

an 7 22

with thousands dying from extreme global heat in recent days, and as President Joe Biden announced new executive actions to address the climate crisis, right-wing media figures and climate deniers are downplaying the heat wave and the threat from human-caused climate change.

In Europe, extreme “red” heat warnings were issued in the United Kingdom for the first time, and Wales recorded its highest-ever temperature. Railroad lines, major highways, and airport runways in the U.K. buckled under the extreme heat. Multiple regions of Germany also set all-time highs, as did at least part of Denmark. Over 2,000people have died in Spain and Portugal due to the extreme heat, which has fueled wildfires there and in parts of France. These record-setting events are not contained to Europe. Parts of the U.S. and Central Asia are suffering from extreme heat as well.

Even though the extreme heat event in Europe is truly exceptional, and its connections to the climate crisis are unquestionable, multiple right-wing media figures used the extreme heat event to downplay and criticize any possible action to address the climate crisis.

Right-wing media also attacked Biden for considering declaring a climate emergency during this deadly heat wave. Instead Biden unveiled much more modest steps to address climate impacts, such as putting $2.3 billion toward community resilience and infrastructure and bolstering offshore wind development. The Federalist falsely declared that “Biden has no right to declare a ‘national climate emergency,’' though The Washington Post explained that such a move would “tap a variety of long-standing emergency authorities under the National Emergencies Act and other laws.” LifeSiteNews fearmongered thatthe emergency powers would result in “climate lockdowns.” And other right-wing media suggested that there is no crisis at all.

Right-wing media denied the existence of the climate emergency

Fox News host Dan Bongino questioned whether the planet is getting warmer and whether humanity played a role in it, asking: “What kind of a dunce believes that? Come on. Is it [the planet] getting warmer? The answer is maybe. … The question isn’t is it getting warmer; the question is what’s human beings' role in it.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [7/19/22]

Judicial Watch president Tom Fitton wrote on Twitter: “There is obviously no ‘climate emergency'.” Twitter, [7/19/22]

Fox host Tucker Carlson devoted a monologue to undermining the existence of climate change, reducing climate predictions to: “It’s gonna be hot and then it’s gonna rain hard.” “No one really believes in global warming,” he continued, “and that’s why all of the liberals in the United States live on the coasts – because they don’t believe it… The entire theory is absurd and they know it. … The whole thing is a joke.” Fox News, *Tucker Carlson Tonight*, [7/20/22]

On Fox, conservative British political commentator Douglas Murray dismissed the urgency of the climate crisis, saying, “Whenever there is not an absolutely vital recent emergency, we can always fall back on – oh and the climate emergency.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [7/20/22]

Fox anchor Dana Perino asked: “What has changed with the science that would lead a president to need to declare an emergency?” Fox News, *America’s Newsroom*[, 7/20/22]

Fox host Todd Piro said that climate impacts, particularly the ones affecting the most vulnerable communities, did not meet his criteria for an emergency: “While we all love clean air and clean water — I, in fact, use both … this is not an emergency that we need to focus on today. We got a lot of other problems in the world.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [7/20/22]

Fox host Sean Hannity responded to new actions by the Biden administration to address climate change by dismissing the role of human influence over global warming saying, “I think these might be acts of nature, and God, and way out of the realm of something that human beings can prevent.” Fox News, *Hannity*, [7/20/22]

Conservatives also downplayed the deadly extreme heat

Climate change denying author Bjorn Lomborg dismissed the dangerous extreme heat event, writing on Twitter: “Standard climate scare.” Twitter, [7/17/22]

Climate denier Steven Milloy on Twitter dismissed a Washington Post article linking the Europe heat wave to climate change, writing: “Hot in some places. Cool in others. Just weather. Not climate.” Twitter, [7/19/22]

Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade dismissed the dangers extreme heat poses to human health, saying: “Don’t panic. It is summer. If it was December and this was happening, then I would say, this is a little weird. But it's just a little bit hotter than usual.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*, [7/20/22]

Daily Wire founder Ben Shapiro said on his radio show that the heat wave and wildfires were being reported so fervently because “you always know that it’s the slow season newswise when you start getting weather reports from Europe. … The thing that they will never tell you, the media, is that more people die of cold every year than die of heat every year, but the cold narrative doesn’t tend to play into the climate change narrative that they wish to progmulate.” The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*,[7/19/22]

Fox host Jesse Watters dismissed the extreme heat event as regular seasonal weather, saying: “Joe Biden has seen more seasons than a lot of us. He knows that it gets cold in January and hot in July.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/20/22

Watters followed this up with an interview during which an on-screen graphic read: “Dems worried about weather, not real problems.” Fox News, *Jesse Watters Primetime*, [7/20/22]

Fox host Greg Gutfeld said: “We are in a full-blown heat wave hysteria.” He said that while he does believe “it’s getting warmer,” climate advocates should “think about the opportunity cost of all the zealotry. You know? Panic didn’t work.” Fox News, *The Five*, [7/20/22]

Right-wing media also attacked the Biden administration for considering a climate emergency declaration

Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones claimed on his Infowars show that a climate emergency would be orchestrated by a “scientific global dictatorship whose aim is 90% world depopulation,” and that it would lead to a “dystopia”: “You’re gonna live in a 200-square-foot coffin apartment, you’re gonna be given forced inoculations five, six times a year, you’re gonna be sterilized, you’re gonna be killed.” Infowars, *The Alex Jones Show*,[7/20/22]

The Wall Street Journal editorial board called a possible emergency declaration “a serious abuse of power.” The Wall Street Journal, [7/19/22]

Kilmeade called Biden’s executive orders tone-deaf and “agenda-driven,” insisting that they “will do nothing but hurt the price of oil and gas.” Fox News, *Fox & Friends*,[7/19/22]

Hannity quoted climate denier Joe Bastardi, saying on his radio show that Democrats’ response to climate change is the “systemic dismantling of the American way of life. It’s not a rational response to a climate crisis.” Premiere Radio Networks, *The Sean Hannity Show*, [7/19/22]

Hosts of Fox’s Outnumbered claimed a possible climate emergency declaration from Biden “could cause a global depression,” is “suicide,” and is “going to kill the economy.” Fox News, *Outnumbered*, [7/19/22]

related: Tucker Carlson tells idiotic lie that “no one really believes in global warming”

07/20/22

Fox contributor calls for more coal plants as a solution to extreme heat

07/20/22

National TV networks mention climate change in 32% of segments on global extreme heat

07/19/22

===

aha: cable tv $ show (santelli rant); [social] media hypes fear then charges to allay it: investor advice

economist manly rational truth teller, hard nosed empirical #'s guy vs eg ben stein pundit always wrong, (provably) but never in doubt/ out of demand

reductionism

cheerleaders for capitalism, social darwinism (if you're ppor, you are dumb, lazy, immoral

cable TV $ show: 1/20 brainfart, spark by kudlow, mnu on cnbc

networks have too

jrnlism free zone? libtard vulnerable?

7 22 aha remember newltr end of world grift hype fear

sage/savvy savior will warn you before so protect/profit

gold std --> constitutional currency?

bitcoin grift? libtard?

----

reboot cold war paranoia?

7 22

Kevin Freeman talks with Frank Gaffney about the landmark court victory known as Jarkesy v. SEC and the Chinese economic warfare in the U.S. Patent and...

We are in an Economic War.

By Kevin Freeman

economic weapons deployed media coverage patriotic investing May 21, 2022

Kevin Freeman talks with Frank Gaffney about the impact of the Economic War we are facing from both domestic and foreign forces.

The Economic War Room

The Economic War Room monitors critical pressure points on an ongoing basis. We report who, what, when, where, and why they will impact you. More importantly, we bring in top experts to help you understand and respond to the threats they pose and how you can respond!

What People Are Saying About Kevin Freeman:

“Kevin Freeman understands the threat of financial terrorism as well as anyone. You’d have to be negligent to ignore his timely advice about protecting your family from the economic attacks that are clearly on the horizon.”

—FRANK KEATING,

Retired President and CEO, American Bankers Association, former governor of Oklahoma

“Along with the Internet our markets, banks, and other financial systems are vital institutions that are far more vulnerable to complete disruption than we would hope, especially to carefully-planned intervenors with the opportunity, motive, and means to, say, bring down the dollar. Freeman explains persuasively and clearly why we may be beginning the third act of a monetary and fiscal tragedy. You don’t care about dark pools, huge Middle-Eastern sovereign wealth funds, naked short selling, and bear runs? I’m afraid you will, and rather soon.”

—R JAMES WOOLSEY

Chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former Director of Central Intelligence

Become an Economic Patriot

Get access to top National Security, Cyber, and Investment talent.

Watch Economic War Room and other great BlazeTV content.

===

aha/hhmn: essence of conspir is that there is ONE evil cause of all our problems, a secret group with a plan/agenda to enslave the world, and mark is invited in/to the expose;

since the Jews hollywood CA coastal elite control media Tech titans except elon] , the truth has been hidden from us, so they admit there's an Earth2, they just claim THEIRS is real.

soc med allows wackos to find each other, bolster and remix hybridize [and monetized click and Old Scool direct mail grift] algo delivers endless carefully incremental higher doses --> radicalized. increases polarization, ups demonization, and we know THOSE PPL are irrational, evil will cheat and use violence, so we gotta be ready to defend ourselves MAGA end times 2nd civil war.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/soverign-citizen/

yikes militia have guns, xians want Armageddon

remix?

no lnx

Sovereign-citizen members bolster their audiences by adding QAnon beliefs to their mix

Image via Screengrab.

David Neiwert and Daily Kos June 26, 2022

The “sovereign citizen” movement—comprising scam artists and their gullible followers who claim that, by filling reams of documents full of pseudo-legal babble, ordinary citizens can declare themselves free of government rule at any level, thus becoming the law unto themselves—seems to have figured out how, after a couple of decades of mostly lurking on the fringes of the extreme right, to expand its reach and revive (if not entirely rebrand) itself: Go full QAnon.

Last weekend, onetime Pennsylvania Republican candidate Bobby Lawrence boasted that he and his “American State Nationals” operation filled a room in Keene, Texas, with 650 people who paid $120 each to take their special “training”—which teaches that birth certificates are satanic documents that enslave people by subsuming them under a corporation, but they can free themselves by filing their prescribed “redemption” documents. They also ardently promote Qanon conspiracy theories, including the claim that John F. Kennedy Jr. was secretly Trump’s real vice president.

The Anti-Defamation League has been warning about this coalescence since January, with Lawrence and his cohort David Straight, who have been holding these seminars around the country and, thanks to the fresh appeal of absorbing QAnon beliefs into the similarly conspiracy-fueled worldview of sovereign citizens, have increasingly been packing them in.

As their backgrounder explained:

Lawrence teaches sovereignty with a QAnon bent, urging his followers to become “American State Nationals” before Trump is reinstated as president. “American State National” is one of many terms that sovereign citizens use to distinguish themselves from citizens under the jurisdiction of the illegitimate, de facto government. “Trump is working on the ‘Fall of the Cabal’ which will allow our Constitutional Republic to Rise again, however the newly partially restored Constitutional Republic will need We The People of restored status via ‘The Great Awakening’ to fill and function in the newly partially restored Constitutional Republic,” Lawrence posted to Telegram in October 2021. “This will only be accomplished via We The People reclaiming our Birthright by becoming American State Nationals... As the number of American State Nationals and one of the People increases, so will the Function of the [sic] our Constitutional Republic. It will start at the absolute local level (you and your neighbors) and then grow and grow and grow.”

Sovereign-citizen and QAnon beliefs meld together almost seamlessly, as the ADL explains, because their fundamental worldviews involving a massive global cabal nefariously conspiring to enslave mankind are so similar. The sovereign movement’s belief that the current U.S. government is illegitimate serves to support their view of the Biden presidency as fraudulent, as well as the means for “freeing” themselves from such “tyranny.”

Lawrence primarily promotes a version of sovereign-citizen beliefs called “Redemption Theory,” which deals with the core concept that everyone who is an American citizen is designated a “strawman” corporate entity at birth, making them subsidiary properties of America Inc. “Redemption” is the process by which they split the strawman from the flesh-and-blood human, and its purpose is two-fold. As the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) explains:

Once separated from the corporate shell, the newly freed man is now outside of the jurisdiction of all admiralty laws. [Arrrrh me hearties] More importantly, by filing a series of complex, legal-sounding documents, the sovereign can tap into that secret Treasury account for his own purposes. Over the last 30 years, there have been hundreds of sovereign promoters packaging different combinations of forms and paperwork, attempting to perfect the process. While no one has ever succeeded, of course, they know with the religious certainty of a true cult believer that they’re close. All it will take is the right combination of words, say the promoters of the redemption scam.

Lawrence regularly regales his audiences with his version of the “redemption” scam, but with a powerful QAnon flavor. At an April 21 “Patriots Arise” event in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania—where he shared the stage with Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano—Lawrence launched to into a rant that manifested that commingling two conspiracist universes produces twice the crackpottery.

He explained how modern births and the birth-certificate process are actually satanic rituals:

Fred read a quote from [Woodrow Wilson adviser] Edward Mandell House where they talk about this construct, where they’re gonna make slaves of us all, through a system of pledging, where we pledge our children as surety through something called a birth certificate, and a satanic ritual that takes place. …

So I’m gonna walk you through a satanic ritual that takes place, and it started with the birth certificate, which was actually chartered under the Department of Transportation. And everything is Admiralty. We all live under the water, and what is law, and where does law come from? Where does the word “law” come from? Land, air, and water. And where the founders of this nation thought about what law was, was the Bible, the Geneva Bible, the King James Version 1611 edition, where we got the word law from. And land, air, and water was in Genesis Chapter 1, verse 24 through 28, “and God created the heaven and the earth.” And God giveth man dominion over the earth, and God giveth man dominion over the land, and all the creatures that walk and creepeth. And God giveth man dominion over the air, and all the birds that fly, and God giveth man dominion over the water, and all the fish that swimmeth. And this is law.

Lawrence then repeated stock sovereign-citizen beliefs (all every bit as risibly false as his etymology for the word “law”) that there are three tiers of law: Canon law, common law, and Admiralty law, each reflecting rule over air, land, and water respectively. Then he went on:

So how do they get you to pledge your child, and how did our parents and our grandparents pledge us as property[slavery?] , as surety, in our personification, all capital names? It was through an evil, satanic ritual called the birth of a child.

You see, a mother goes into a foundling center, and she goes to see the doc—tor; a tor is a bill of lading when a ship arrives at the dock—and the mother puts her feet up on the stirrups and the mother’s water breaks, and the child comes out of the water through the birth canal, like you berth a ship, into the air, into the hands of the dock—tor. And then, historically speaking, a satanic ritual would take place—a child was smacked on the butt, turned upside down, cried out in fear and pain. And then before the child could put their feet on the land and take the breath of God as a free creation of God, a legal bond document came out. It’s on bond paper because it’s a banking instrument, it’s a surety bond.

And the child’s soul was taken on the back of that document. It was called the soul print. And then the umbilical cord and the afterbirth was thereby dead and abandoned by the mother, because that was part of your birth, part of your being born. The construct, the evil says that now that is dead, a part of you died and now you are a dead vessel, you are an all-capital legal fiction. They called you a person. If you look at your driver’s license, if you look at every document that government or any business sends you, it’s in your all-capital name. Your personification. Now the Bible tells us not to take on the persona, not to take on the person.

Lawrence also harkened to the stock radicalization belief in “red-pilling”: “We are living in Babylon right now,” he said. “It’s a corporate construct. It’s a Matrix. Keanu Reeves has said publicly that The Matrix is a documentary of how we are living our lives. Your money’s not real, you don’t own anything.”

And near the end, he wrapped it all up with a classic QAnon-style claim that Donald Trump is secretly One Of Them:

Yes, President Trump has done many things for us. And I won’t go into a lot of them, because quite frankly a lot of folks aren’t ready for it. And it’s hard to verify. But Donald Trump has told you all, if you go back to his speeches, he’s told you that when he comes back, he’s gonna be little letters, lower case. Look to his speech in 2021 at CPAC in Texas. He said when we go back to the White House this time it’s going to be in little letters. He told you at another rally that people are sovereign. He told you at another rally that you’re all millionaires. He told you in another rally that you’re the elite. And they’re the scoundrels. He told you at another rally that the Bar Association is corrupt. He tells you on and on—he might talk for two hours, but only four sentences are for those who are awake. And there’s a huge difference between being woke and awake, is it not?

Lawrence has formed close associations with leading QAnon influencers such as Ann Vandersteel, Allen and Francine Fosdick, the Pennsylvania-based hosts of the QAnon show Up Front in the Prophetic, and David Straight.

Vandersteel posted proudly announced on Gab that she was “officially an American State National,” meaning she no longer was beholden to the U.S. government. She touted the supposed benefits of becoming an “American state national,” such as freedom from paying federal taxes to getting to “vote as a delegate, which has the power of four votes,” in an appearance on “The Conservative Daily Podcast,” hosted by Joe Oltmann and Max McGuire.

She said she had been introduced to these ideas by Lawrence, who ran for the U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania in 2018. Vandersteel indicated that Lawrence was radicalized afterward through his contacts with David Straight, a sovereign citizen activist who also promoted QAnon theories. Vandersteel claimed that Straight was a “commissioner on President Trump’s child sex-trafficking commission.”

ADL analyst Mark Pitcavage explained Lawrence’s rant on Twitter, noting that “redemption theory” originated with a sovereign-citizen guru named Roger Elvick back in 1999, and it became widespread within the movement.

“Basic redemption theory is something like this: In 1933, the US went off the gold standard and could therefore no longer pay its debts to the international bankers. To get around this, the government turned humans into collateral by converting birth certificates into stock,” he wrote. “They did this in part by creating fictional duplicates of every person (dubbed ‘strawmen’). You can tell when a document refers to the straw man instead of the flesh and blood person because the name will be in all caps, not upper and lower case.”

He also noted that much of the talk is devoted to explaining the sovereign-citizen belief that the conspiracy which infiltrated and subverted and replaced the original, legitimate government with a de facto tyrannical government had done so by replacing constitutional law with inferior “maritime” or “admiralty” law.

“Finally,” he noted, “the Satanic references thrown in there are derived from QAnon and presumably designed to make these theories more palatable to QAnoners.”

Given the size of Lawrence’s audiences now, and the regularity and breadth of “American State Nationalist” training sessions, the ADL’s January warning—“Given the flexibility of the sovereign citizen movement and its pseudo-legal tactics, it is quite possible that increasing numbers of QAnon adherents will find sovereign citizen ideas attractive in the future”—seems more than prescient. It may, in fact, prove to be understated.

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===

aha GOP cognitive dissonance: believe they say in democracy, but realize they cannot win in mktplace of ideas, demographic shift, and they are inherently winners (b/c blessed by god?); thus if # say they lost election, it must be b/c dems cheated [tammany hall machine pol hillary corrupt]; or like eastman/rudy will pretend to believe voter fraud if enable hold on to power // auth fascist disable norms, institutions and shared sense of reality/ empirical fact

---

testified day 4 praise RR on election day transfer miracle; dtr term ill, big pathos; xian // VP staff/lawyer in basement 1/6?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/donald-trump-rusty-bowers/ attack cohen ctr-punch BS?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/arizona-gop-lawmaker/

An Arizona Republican lawmaker is speaking out about the pressures he faced from former President Donald Trump, his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and the former president's allies amid Republicans' attempts to overturn the presidential election.

According to NPR.org, Arizona House Speaker Rusty Bowers (R) recently testified and shared details about his conversations with Giuliani where he claimed undocumented voters were responsible for casting illegal ballots. He also claimed votes had been cast on behalf of a substantial number of deceased individuals.

But instead of just running with Giuliani's claims, Bowers and other Republican legislators requested he provide solid evidence to back the tall accusations. "In my recollection," Bowers said of Giuliani, "he said, We have lots of theories we just don't have the evidence.'"

Bowers also recalled how Giuliani also "pressured him to call the Arizona legislature back into session — a unilateral move Bowers said he cannot do — to recall the electors that would be going to President Biden after Biden beat Trump in the state."

"It is a tenet of my faith that theConstitution is divinely inspired," he said, growing visibly emotional. "I would not do it."

He noted that the former president also echoed similar sentiments but he didn't believe the evidence they provided to back their claims "merited a hearing."

"You are asking me to do something against my oath, andI will not break my oath," he said he told Trump and Giuliani, to which the former New York mayor said: "Aren't we all Republicans here? I would think we'd get a better reception."

Trump-supporting lawyer John Eastman also contacted Bowers by phone as he echoed Trump and Giuliani's demands. "His suggestion was that we would do it, and I said I can't," Bowers said, adding that Eastman pressured him by telling him to "just do it and let the courts sort it out."

In addition to pressure from Trump's allies, Bowers also noted that the former president's supporters also expressed concern about the outcome of the election. He revealed, per NPR.org, that "his office was subject to over 20,000 emails, thousands of voicemails and texts from those who believed he was wrong to not recall the electors."

"Up until recently, it is a new pattern in our lives to worry what will happen on Saturdays," he said of his family. "Because we have various groups come by."

Bowers has also faced a litany of accusations including being called "a pedophile and corrupt politician" as video trucks drive through his neighborhood and threaten his neighbors."It was disturbing," he said emotionally as he recalled what transpired.

3% gun on hip verbally threat neighbor "I knew I had to get close" to WHAT?!

---

aha 6 22

i had not fully connected financialization and extraction

funny how milton provides holy rationale for greedy theft

i had sorta hoped pandemic trump had forever banished libtard BS

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/billionaire-tax/

Series: The Secret IRS Files

Inside the Tax Records of the .001%

One day in July 1985, three young men from Philadelphia, their lawyer and a burly Pinkerton guard arrived at a horse track outside Chicago carrying a briefcase with $250,000 in cash.

Running the numbers on a Compaq computer the size of a small refrigerator, Jeffrey Yass and his friends had found a way to outwit the track’s bookies, according to interviews, records and news accounts. A few months earlier, they’d wagered $160,000, gambling that, with tens of thousands of bets, they could nail the exact order of seven horses in three different races. It was a sophisticated theory of the racing odds, honed with help from a Ph.D. statistician who’d worked for NASA on the moon landing, and it proved right. They bagged $760,000, then the richest payoff in American racing history.

But that summer day, when they presented their strikingly long list of bets at the track window, they were turned away. Their appeal to the track owner got them ejected. Yass, just 27, then sued for the right to place the bets. The track’s lawyer fumed to a federal judge that the men were trying to corner the betting market “through the use of their statistics and numbers.”

Yass lost, but that year he and his friends repeated variations of the strategy at horse and greyhound tracks around the country. Then they decided to turn their focus from a world of hundreds of thousands of dollars to a world of billions: Wall Street.

Four decades later, the firm he and his friends founded, Susquehanna International Group, is a sprawling global company that makes billions of dollars. Yass and his team used their numerical expertise to make rapid-fire computer-driven trades in options and other securities, eventually becoming a giant middleman in the markets for stocks and other securities. If you have bought stock or options on an app like Robinhood or E-Trade, there’s a good chance you traded with Susquehanna without knowing it. Today, Yass, 63, is one of the richest and most powerful financiers in the country.

But one crucial aspect of his ascent to stratospheric wealth has transpired out of public view. Using the same prowess that he’s applied to race tracks and options markets, Yass has taken aim at another target: his tax bill.

There, too, the winnings have been immense: at least $1 billion in tax savings over six recent years, according to ProPublica’s analysis of a trove of IRS data. During that time, Yass paid an average federal income tax rate of just 19%, far below that of comparable Wall Street traders.

Yass has devised trading strategies that reduce his tax burden but push legal boundaries. He has repeatedly drawn IRS audits, yet has continued to test the limits. Susquehanna has often gone to court to fight the government, with one multiyear audit battle ending in a costly defeat. The firm has maintained in court filings that it complied with the law.

Yass’ low rate is particularly notable because Susquehanna, by its own description, specializes in short-term trading. Money made from such rapid trades is typically taxed at rates around 40%.

In recent years, however, Yass’ annual income has, with uncanny consistency, been made up almost entirely of income taxed at the roughly 20% rate reserved for longer-term investments.

Congress long ago tried to stamp out widely used techniques that seek to transform profits taxed at the high rate into profits taxed at the low rate. But Yass and his colleagues have managed to avoid higher taxes anyway.

The tax savings have contributed to an explosion in wealth for Yass, who has increasingly poured that fortune into candidates and causes on the political right. He has spent more than $100 million on election campaigns in recent years. The money has gone to everything from anti-tax advocacy and charter schools to campaigns against so-called critical race theory and for candidates who falsely say the 2020 election was stolen and seek to ban abortion.

ProPublica has pieced together the details of Yass’ tax avoidance using tax returns, securities filings and court records, as well as by talking to former traders and executives. (The former employees spoke on condition of anonymity, with many citing a desire to avoid angering Yass.)

Through a spokesperson, Yass declined to be interviewed for this article. The spokesperson declined to comment in response to a long list of questions for Susquehanna and the firm’s founding partners.

Gregg Polsky, a University of Georgia law professor and former corporate tax lawyer who was retained by ProPublica to review Susquehanna’s tax records, said the tax agency may have more to scrutinize. The strategies revealed in Yass’ records, he said, were “very suspicious and suggestive of potential abuse that should be examined by the IRS.”

More than 35 years after he was booted from the racetrack outside Chicago, Yass still lives to gamble. Not just on horses, but on poker and on the market. He sheepishly admitted, in a podcast discussion, that he has even placed wagers on his children’s sports games.

Asked to describe his approach to trading at Susquehanna, Yass once reached for a poker analogy. “If you’re the sixth-best poker player in the world and you play with the five best players, you’re going to lose,” he said. “If your skills are only average, but you play against weak opponents, you’re going to win.”

That philosophy along with, Yass freely admits, a lot of luck, has made him a billionaire many times over.

Compared to many of his fellow billionaires — he’s richer than Hollywood mogul David Geffen, retail brokerage king Charles Schwab and “Star Wars” creator George Lucas — Yass doesn't seem particularly interested in the trappings of extreme wealth.

Yass and his wife, Janine, raised four children in the leafy college town of Haverford, on the Main Line outside of Philadelphia. Their large but unremarkable house could easily be the home of a successful doctor rather than one of the richest men in the country. In his quarter-zip pullover sweater, Nikes and no-nonsense rimless glasses, he’d be impossible to pick out of a crowd at the suburban country club where he plays golf.

If Yass collects expensive art or maintains a megayacht, he has managed to do so in complete secrecy. What comes closest to an identifiable trophy asset is a house in the ultra-exclusive Georgica Association beach neighborhood of East Hampton on New York’s Long Island. Even that property, purchased for $12.5 million in 2005 and held through an LLC, is in an area known as “bucolic and understated.”

Those who have worked with Yass say he lives less for spending money than for the competition of the market and the thrill of taking calculated risk. Yass softens any impression of ruthlessness by deploying a practiced humility and comedic timing. “Some people like art history,” he once explained, “I like probabilistic analysis.”

Yet when it comes to his philosophical outlook, he eschews the jokes. He speaks of capitalism in religious terms. Making new markets, he likes to say, is a “mission from God.”

Like many religious stories, his begins with a conversion experience. Born in 1958 to two Queens CPAs, Yass said reading the economist Milton Friedman’s “Capitalism and Freedom” as a young man delivered him from an early flirtation with socialism.

By the time Yass graduated from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1979, he was already captivated by trading. (His father had also helped nurture Yass’ love of horse racing by taking him to local tracks to see harness racing, according to Forbes.) Yass’ college thesis weighed whether the budding market in stock options could be justified as socially useful. “I concluded that it should exist,” Yass later cracked. “I got a B.”

After college, he moved to Las Vegas for a year and a half to play poker professionally. Then he returned to the East Coast and settled in Philadelphia, where he began trading options. The previous decade had seen aburst of academic interest in the financial instruments, including a pioneering model of how to more accurately price them.Yass later called the model, and its broader implications for how to make mathematically sound decisions, “the most revolutionary idea in a long, long time.”

A share of stock is a relatively simple concept: It’s a small ownership stake in a company. An option, by contrast, is a contract that confers the right to buy or sell a given stock at a particular price and time in the future.

Options attract mathematically minded traders since a complex set of variables, including the underlying stock price, volatility, time and interest rates, determine how much one of the contracts is worth.

Options are a versatile tool. They can appeal to the risk-averse: Traders can use them as insurance to guarantee they will be paid at least today’s price when they sell in the future. They are also useful to the risk-embracing — gamblers who want to place outsized bets on how a stock will perform. (Here’s how a speculator would use an option: In early June, shares of Netflix were trading at below $200. If the speculator thinks the company’s fortunes will improve dramatically this summer, they could pay just $4.50 each for options to buy the stock at $250 in mid-August. If the stock soars over that figure, they could make a mint.)

In options Yass found more than a finan...

===

aha systemic reductionism fail; biden approval # low, esp on economy (mid 20's?)

but prez has little control of gas price or inflation; even opening public land has a lag built in, longer than US short term memory; as w conspiracy, ppl want to think do X/silver bullet will get Y result. oil is worldwide commodity, so no guar it will stay in US; other countries have similar inflation, and it started before biden [set up by bad trump policies?)

edit b 6 22 longish

...These polls are a picture of systemic displeasure with a president who isn’t doing enough to bring down the price of gas, food, housing and more. Evidently, Joe Biden should have considered inflation before going off half-cocked in allied defense of Ukraine’s national sovereignty.

Democracy is great and all, but seriously.

Is it more important than cheap gas?

No, said Ohio Congressman Jim Jordan: “Real America [white people] doesn’t care about the January 6 committee. Gas is over $5 per gallon!”

To which we liberals say: no. Real Americans are all Americans, because all Americans have a stake in the continuation of this democratic republic.

===

long term systemic plan went off rails?

aha: koch dad JBS --> libtard movement --> anti-gubmint --> trump --> coup

CDV note sys

https://www.alternet.org/2022/06/donald-trump-an-american-monster/

quite long]

...Dowd surmises that it never occurred to Donald Trump that a president openly plotting a seditious coup "would be a debilitating, corrosive thing for the country. It was just another way for the Emperor of Chaos to burnish his title." The House Jan. 6 committee's first prime-time hearing, she writes, played out as "a horror story with predatory Proud Boys and a monster at its center that even Mary Shelley could have appreciated":

In his dystopian Inaugural speech, Trump promised to end 'American carnage. 'Instead, he delivered it. Now he needs to be held accountable for his attempted coup — and not just in the court of public opinion.

...But who created this American monster? Donald Trump was not built by a deranged scientist in a secret lab. He is not an orphan, and did not emerge out of nowhere. He was the almost inevitable result of a decades-long assault by the "conservative" movement aimed at ending American democracy (especially multiracial democracy) and replacing it with a pseudo-democratic authoritarian state, perhaps organized under the system political theorist Sheldon Wolin described as "inverted totalitarianism."

As part of that long-term assault, most or all the historic victories of the civil rights movement, the women's rights movement, the gay rights movement, the labor and environmental movements and other struggles for human dignity and a more just society are being rolled back. If this project succeeds, America's already threadbare social safety net will be virtually eliminated. White Christian fascists and corporate plutocrats will forge a ruling coalition with near-total dominion over American life and society. The separation of church and state, along with the guarantee of free speech and most of the Bill of Rights, will disappear.

There is no longer a "normal" or "traditional" version of the Republican Party for so-called conservatives to return to. Even those conservatives who have disavowed or denounced the Trump movement are implicated in his rise. They are like political Dr. Frankensteins, horrified by what they have created but unable to kill it. Over the course of decades, they painstakingly built the monster and created the blueprint for American fascism.

As Wajahat Ali wrote this week in the Daily Beast, some of Trump's "most prominent enablers" are now trying to distance themselves from the "ongoing, concentrated, right-wing effort to overturn the 2020 election":

Even though most of these ex-Trumpers will fail up in their careers—as is often the case in Washington, D.C. — it's important for the rest of us to recognize them as utterly complicit actors who deserve to wear that MAGA hat on their heads until the end of time….

If you believe that there is a 'team normal' in the modern GOP, then you'll also probably believe that fewer doors and arming teachers will reduce mass gun shootings, banning books will save your child from being transgender, and climate change is a hoax created by China.

Either way, you're not acknowledging that the GOP is now a weaponized cult that no longer produces 'rational' Republicans, but instead caters to the festering, fevered paranoid swamp of dangerous conspiracy theories and white supremacist ideologies. This persistent right-wing disinformation has now radicalized its base, in which many membersbelieve violence is necessary to 'take back' their country. The reality is that Team Normal and Team Crazy both play for the GOP, wear the same uniforms, and, for now, worship the golden calf known as Trump.

Ultimately, Donald Trump is not some type of monstrous Other or outsider. He was not conjured up in some other dimension ruled by Lovecraftian demons, only to descend on America out of the ether to sow destruction, chaos, misery and death.

In reality, Donald Trump — as a man, a symbol and a political leader — and everything he embodies is the product of our society, driven by extreme social inequality, consumerism and greed, unfulfilled dreams, widespread alienation and loneliness, anti-intellectualism, racism and white supremacy, the cult of the spectacle, our fetish for violence and a range of related antisocial and anti-human values and tendencies.

In a recent essay for ScheerPost republished at Salon, Chris Hedges offers a powerful diagnosis of our corrupt and failing American political system, arguing that the House Jan. 6 committee will do nothing to correct it:

The two established wings of the oligarchy, the old Republican Party represented by politicians such as Liz Cheney, one of two Republicans on the committee, and the Bush family, are now united with the Democratic Party elite into one ruling political entity. The ruling parties were already in lockstep for decades on the major issues, including: war, trade deals, austerity, the militarization of police, prisons, government surveillance and assaults on civil liberties. They worked in tandem to pervert and destroy democratic institutions on behalf of the rich and corporations. They desperately work together now to stave off the revolt by enraged and betrayed white working men and women who support Donald Trump and the far right.

There are other systemic failures as well. America's mainstream news media, through both habit and laziness, have approached Donald Trump, and American politics more generally, as a running narrative of "great men" (and, more recently, "great women"), singular figures who are the main characters in an unfolding drama largely independent of history, culture or economic reality.

This partly explains the media's obsession with polling and public opinion, the addiction to horserace coverage and the drive to identify "winners" and "losers" on a daily basis. Of course the mainstream media is also driven by profit, and compelled to shape the news so as not to offend advertisers or alienate the political establishment and other social and cultural elites.

Media practitioners are also trained to avoid moral language when describing domestic politics, although they routinely use such language when discussing foreign affairs, and especially Americans' official enemies. The result is that most mainstream American political journalism remains an exercise in stenography and superficial commentary, almost always bending the knee to such totems as "moderation," "normal politics," "fairness" and "balance," concepts that were likely never helpful or transparent and are now totally inadequate to the task of confronting America's democracy crisis.

Many in the media still refuse to see the Trump movement and the modern Republican Party as destructive revolutionary forces, rather than as traditional political movements with an investment in the existing system. At this point, the media's willful or compulsive refusal to comprehend the nature of the threat has become a pathology. Journalists at mainstream outlets would benefit greatly from reading "The Authoritarian Playbook: A Media Guide," a new report from the nonpartisan nonprofit group Protect Democracy. It offers the following advice:

To the extent that the authoritarian playbook has a central theme, it is that democratic erosion is a process of power concentration and consolidation. While all political actors seek to accumulate power, authoritarians, uniquely, seek to entrench that power and protect it from external checks. Experts generally agree that democracies don't tend to die at the hands of individuals alone. Rather, contemporary attacks on democracy only succeed when they are coordinated, systemic, and undertaken by broad parties or movements.

If Donald Trump the American monster is somehow banished from American political life — through criminal prosecution, advancing age or some other force — another such monster will rapidly appear. In fact, Ron DeSantis and other leading Republican-fascists are eagerly waiting for Trump to leave the stage, and could well turn out to be more competent and more effective than him. Trumpism is a hydra-headed movement, no longer dependent on Trump as an individual: Chop off one of its heads and another will grow. The only long-term solution is to drain the swamp that birthed the monster.

===

aha-let: note we have empir evidence that more guns does not work, but xian BS gives false humility and get out of jail free card from having to deal with empir facts:

gohmert plays old televangist BS that bad events are punishment for our sins, making god mad; ~AGW god promised not to flood the world again; humans too puny to ~ his power/will.

also corp $ NRA lobby gop anti-gubmint ideology ~ gun control; plus bonus paralysis help gop in 2022 elections?

an 6 22

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said recently that he would tell parents of young children killed in the Uvalde school shooting that "God has a plan."

Paxton, who took the leading role in a failed Supreme Court case aimed at overturning the results of the 2020 election, went on a media blitz to fight calls for gun restrictions shortly after an 18-year-old shooter killed 19 children and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in the West Texas town of Uvalde.

In an interview with right-wing radio host Trey Graham, Paxton acknowledged that it is "difficult to give comfort" to families who lost their kids. "If I lost one of my children I'd be pretty devastated, especially in a way that is so senseless and seemingly has no purpose," he continued. "I think ... I would just have to say, if I had the opportunity to talk to the people I'd have to say, look, there's always a plan. I believe God always has a plan. Life is short no matter what it is. And certainly, we're not going to make sense of, you know, a young child being shot and killed way before their life expectancy."

Paxton's comments last week came ahead of emotional testimony by parents of Uvalde victims in the House last week. Kimberly Rubio, whose 10-year-old daughter Lexi was killed in the attack, pleaded for Congress to take action on gun safety in response to the massacre.

"We understand that for some reason, to some people — to people with money, to people who fund political campaigns — that guns are more important than children," while testifying with her husband, Felix. "Somewhere out there, there is a mom listening to our testimony thinking, 'I can't even imagine their pain,' not knowing that our reality will someday be hers. Unless we act now."

Dr. Roy Guerrero, a Uvalde pediatrician who treated some of the victims, made a similar plea as he described how children's bodies were "pulverized" and "decapitated" by the bullets from the AR-15-style rifle used by the gunman, to the point that "the only clue as to their identities were the blood-spattered cartoon clothes still clinging to them."

"Making sure our children are safe from guns, that's the job of our politicians and leaders," Guerrero said. "In this case, you are the doctors and our country is the patient. We are lying on the operating table, riddled with bullets like the children of Robb Elementary and so many other schools. We are bleeding out, and you are not there. My oath as a doctor means that I signed up to save lives. I do my job, and I guess it turns out that I am here to plead, to beg, to please, please do yours."

But after the heart-wrenching testimony, all but five Republicans in the House voted against a package that would raise the age to buy an AR-15 from 18 to 21 and toughen existing gun laws. Senate Republicans have already ruled out any new gun restrictions, as have Republican state leaders in Texas.

Paxton's immediate response to the shooting was to call for arming teachers, which some schools in Texas already do despite strong pushback from teachers.

"We can't stop bad people from doing bad things. We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly. That, in my opinion, is the best answer," Paxton said following the shooting.

Other Texas Republicans have also tried to blame anything but widespread easy access to guns. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called for "door control" in schools and Gov. Greg Abbott pushed an emphasis on mental health — despite slashing funds for mental health treatment.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, after Wednesday's hearing suggested that the answer is more "prayer."

"Look, maybe if we heard more prayers from leaders of this country instead of taking God's name in vain, we wouldn't have the mass killings like we didn't have before prayer was eliminated from school," he said.

Paxton in particular has a long history of opposing gun restrictions in response to mass shootings in Uvalde, El Paso and Sutherland Springs, arguing that mass shooters are "not going to follow a single gun law" even though gun laws prevented the shooter from getting a gun until he turned 18 — the legal age to purchase an AR-15, but not a handgun — just days before the attack.

Paxton has a close relationship with the gun lobby. The NRA, the Texas State Rifle Association and the Gun Owners of America Political Victory Fund have all contributed heavily to his campaigns. Paxton also signed an amicus brief backing the NRA's petition asking the Supreme Court to strike down California's ban on high-capacity magazines. He even "welcomed" the NRA to Texas after the group tried and failed to file for bankruptcy to dodge a corruption investigation by New York's attorney general.

After a gunman killed 26 people in the 2017 Sutherland Springs church shooting, Paxton argued that the only answer to gun violence was more guns.

"In Texas at least we have the opportunity to have concealed carry," he told Fox News. "And so if it's a place where somebody has the ability to carry, there's always the opportunity that gunman will be taken out before he has the opportunity to kill very many."

After another gunman killed 23 people at an El Paso Walmart, Paxton again argued that more guns were the answer rather than fewer guns.

"The best way is to be prepared to defend yourself," he told CBS News.

Ironically, Paxton himself cannot buy a gun under federal law, because he has been under indictment since 2015 for breaking state securities law.

Researchers have found no evidence that arming teachers or other school personnel has any effect on school shootings. A review of 89 journal publications and media reports by researchers at the University of Toledo and Ball State University similarly found that armed school resource officers, restrictions on the number of school exits and active-shooter drills do not help either.

The "ideal method for eliminating school firearm violence by youths is to prevent them from ever gaining access to firearms," the researchers concluded, adding that "unfortunately, studies have found an alarming rate of firearms accessible to youths."

===

aha abortion key to polarization; kava home attack (pray harder and get a better dr]

attempt to grab moral high ground ( -phobes), obligates them to nothing aside from attack other tribe (at min vote?), vs adopt a kid or even pay taxes for decent schools

az gop mtg kegger big fat guy claimed ex cop started rant w/ baby killer, mantra, BLM guy knocked down, blake masters defend womanhood

===

see hype fear: THEY are coming for your kids, want to destroy all you hold dear: america, farmers, mfg, freedumb

aha: conspiracy: supply chain is complex mult factors vs dem arsonists; plus supply chain problem made worse by trump fail and their refusal to vax

// wildfires not AGW but space lasers or antifa arson (those BLM rioters set cities ablaze too)

Marjorie Taylor Greene and conspiracy theorists are now suggesting Dems are torching facilities to cause food shortages

no lnx twt

Meaghan Ellis May 14, 2022

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) is pushing a new conspiracy theory centered around the food and baby formula shortage currently plaguing the United States.

During a recent appearance on the far-right broadcast, InfoWars, the Republican lawmaker echoed the bizarre claims of conspiracy theorists as she suggested that Democratic lawmakers are responsible for torching food facilities to create shortages. According to Rolling Stone, the latest theories appear to be based on the fires that actually do occur.

Greene suggested that: "Democrats are starting the fires on purpose in order to deprive the nation of food, which would be advantageous for them because they’re playing some sort of globalist long gameand don’t want anything to be manufactured in America … or something like that. It’s not totally clear."

Citing a report from the National Fire Protection Association, Rolling Stone noted: "Nearly two dozen food processing plants have gone up in flames this year. This isn’t out of the ordinary — there are thousands of fires at manufacturing facilities every year." But in true conspiracy fashion, Greene and other far-right extremists have misconstrued facts to fit into a disturbing narrative they appear to have created.

When Greene appeared on InfoWars, she ranted about the current issue with host Alex Jones.

"The Biden administration and the Democrats … are destroying the very important, most critical part of the fabric of America, and that is our farmers,” Greene ranted. “They’re doing it on purpose. They want to be the global economy. They want to be completely involved. And here we have these ‘random,’ supposedly accidental fires at food processing plants.”

Jones also signaled in agreement with Greene. Claiming to have spoken with "mathematicians," Jones said, it seems “'mathematically impossible' for processing plants to be catching fire like they have been so far this year."

He added, “Everything the globalists are doing is about destroying real sustainability and making things collapse to bring in their new world order."

Greene's latest conspiracy theory follows criticism for a multitude of previously debunked claims.

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[[aha: 5/7/22 see alarmist devil term = fem = elite plot tyranny slave take control /freedumb agenda 21 anti-commie

see wrong predictions

corps and sellout shill have to/want to prevent action (regulation that hurts profits) so have to deny danger/costs are real;

heartland reverse engineer: anti-commie (then take corp $ to lie/front]

this is // am exceptionalism, 2 stories

alarm: used to be hysteria explanation was just wrong/ honest error? --> anti-left psycho-babble [ anti-fem vs manly] but Morano (now) uses propose UN one world global elite takeover ploy/plot

ggl alert 5 22

https://thenewamerican.com/report-links-climate-change-to-a-future-increase-in-pandemics/

james murphy new am may 4

study published on April 28 in the scientific journal Nature makes the claim that so-called climate change may greatly increase the odds that species-jumping viruses such as Covid-19, which may have moved from bats to humans, could become pandemics.

The study, Climate change increases cross-species viral transmission risk, makes the highly speculative point that space competition driven by climate change will cause humans to interact with different species, thus increasing the risk of another coronavirus-type pandemic in the near future. The abstract of the study states:

At least 10,000 virus species have the capacity to infect humans, but at present, the vast majority are circulating silently in wild mammals. However, climate and land use change will produce novel opportunities for viral sharing among previously geographically-isolated species of wildlife. In some cases, this will facilitate zoonotic spillover—a mechanistic link between global environmental change and disease emergence.

The study speculates that new incidents of “viral sharing” between humans and animals will increase due to climate change, particularly in “biodiversity hotspots” and in areas of high human population density, such as Africa and Asia.

Climate change-driven geography shifts may promote “more than 300,000 first encounters” between humans and possible carrier species, the study claims.

“We are probably well into those changes. We are not keeping a close eye on them and they make pandemic risk everyone’s problem,” said the study’s lead author, Colin Carlson of Georgetown University.

“Our study shows that unequivocally, in every simulation we do, climate change is creating innumerable hotspots of future and present-day zoonotic risk right in our backyard,” he said.

According to Carlson, wet markets such as the one in Wuhan, China, are especially ripe for this type of risk, as unhealthy animals are often distributed in such places.

“We worry about markets because bringing unhealthy animals together in unnatural combinations creates opportunities for this stepwise process of emergence — like how SARS jumped from bats to civets, then civets to people. But markets aren’t special anymore; in a changing climate, that kind of process will be the reality in nature just about everywhere,” he said.

As Carlson pointed out, researchers believe that the process is already underway, even though the planet has not yet reached the 1.5° Celsius global temperature increase that the United Nations Paris climate agreement calls for the world’s nations to stay under by switching from fossil fuels to so-called renewable energy sources.

“Even now, this process has likely been taking place, mostly unobserved and below the surface,” said co-author of the study Gregory Albery, a postdoctoral fellow in biology at Georgetown.

Great, yet another “unobserved” consequence of climate change that we just need to take on faith is occurring.

“This is happening. It is not preventable, even in the best-case climate change scenarios. And we need to put measures in place to build health infrastructure to protect animal and human populations,” Albery claimed.

It’s yet more bad news driven by climate change: “This mechanism adds yet another layer to how climate change will threaten human and animal health,” he noted.

But according to Climate Depot’s Marc Morano, it’s just another way to sell climate fear to the masses.

“The climate movement is now merging their focus on linking viruses to ‘climate change’ and thus making fighting climate change a part of fighting deadly viruses. Global warming promoters know that they should never let a crisis go to waste. They are pouncing on any opportunity to inject climate change into the COVID-19 issue,” Morano said. He explained:

They want to keep both climate and COVID fears humming along to push their so-called solutions, so what better way than to merge the two issues? Worried about COVID-19, then support the UN Paris climate pact, the Green New Deal, carbon taxes, etc., or else you are a gramma killer!

The same globalist political entities have spent decades warning us of overpopulation, global cooling, the supposed hole in the ozone layer, and global warming and its rebranding, climate change. To date, their success in generating fear has yielded sparse results.

As Morano points out: “The climate establishment spent decades trying toscare us about overpopulation, global cooling,the amazon [sic] rainforest (allegedly disappearing), and finally, climate change and they utterly failed. A virus came along in 2020 and they realized that this cut across ideologies, cut across political affiliation and they were able to declare an emergency and suspend normal democracy. They were able to achieve their one-party state with an unelected bureaucracy.”

Climatistas have long envied the terrorizing effect that the Covid-19 pandemic had on the planet’s population, with millions of people ready and willing to give up their freedom for the illusory safety of masks, social distancing, and risky, under-tested vaccines. Now it seems that theclimate hystericswish to join the virus-scare bandwagon and make it their own.[do not mention 1m dead US, new study 15m in world?]

:{:{}:

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yahoo may 5

the end of last year was nearly 15 million—triple the amount previously thought, according to new estimates by the World Health Organization.

The new 14.9 million figure is calculated based on the number of excess deaths, or the difference between the average death rate recorded before the pandemic and the number of deaths that occurred during.

Excess mortality includes deaths directly linked to COVID-19 through infection of the disease and indirectly from the pandemic’s impact on health care systems and society.

Previous estimations by the WHO reported only 5.4 million people deaths.]]

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aha its rubber glue inverse defense/deflect from border baby jails, the original sin of trump admin?

note ali alex xian nat'l all suddenly? 4/22 they are coming to tear your kids away, cut off genitals?! // //rev ken copeland OK

4 22 rww

Christian Nationalists Gather in Oklahoma to Spread the Big Lie

By Kyle Mantyla | April 22, 2022

Televangelist Kenneth Copeland’s Victory Channel held a special broadcast of its weekly “Flashpoint” program Thursday night on the campus of Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, where the Christian nationalist host and speakers railed against the outcome of the 2020 presidential election and spread the Big Lie that it had been stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Host Gene Bailey opened by acknowledging the various elected officials who were in attendance, such as Rep. Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Attorney General John O’Connor, multiple state senators and representatives, as well as various members of law enforcement and local elected leaders. Following the introductions, Bailey led the audience in praying that these leaders “cannot escape” God: “No matter what they do, they’re gonna run right into you.”

Bailey then began the program by declaring that “there’s one thing that I know for sure, and this is the raw truth: The raw truth was on Nov. 3, 2020, President Donald J. Trump won the election.”

“We’re still waiting on the election to be corrected, and we’re not going anywhere,” Bailey. “That election was rigged. It was stolen. But I got news for you, and I got news for you watching on television: There’s thousands of people in this room that say, ‘We’re taking our nation back!'”

“There is an agenda that’s not Democrat versus Republican,” Bailey proclaimed. “The agenda that’s in our nation right now is good versus evil—and I’m not calling any party evil although you can figure out probably where I’m coming from. … If you’re not willing to give up your nation to a woke agenda that’s not left, it’s liberal—it’s so far liberal, it’s out to destroy the very fabric of this nation, rip your children away from your families. … They want to educate your children. They want to take your kids from you. They don’t want you to do anything that resembles Christianity or stand up for what’s right or stand up for what’s truth.”

After leading the audience in a round of cheers and applause for Trump, Bailey was joined on stage by self-proclaimed “prophet” Hank Kunneman, who declared that President Joe Biden belongs in prison for treason.

“The thief is being found,” Kunneman said. “They’re being exposed by the hand of God.”

“There is a payback coming,” he bellowed. “They’re talking about Biden’s poll numbers, what they really need to be talking about is cell numbers—not phone, prison cell numbers. These guys have committed a crime! They have committed treason against the United States of America and its Constitution. They did not care about you, your pocketbook, or your children, and they want everything inside of their demonic agendato bring you down and this nation. But I’m here to tell you that they are standing against something greater than all of us: It is Almighty God who loves the United States of America, and he loves his church, and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it.”

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rww 4 22

Ali Alexander, an organizer with the so-called Stop the Steal campaign, told radical conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Wednesday that “there is a time for legitimate violence when there is legitimate tyranny.” The two agreed that now is not the time but began to discuss what would constitute “legitimate tyranny.”

Alexander and Jones are people of interest to the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Alexander organized the rallies and strategy of the Stop the Steal campaign, which perpetuated the Big Lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from former President Donald Trump and worked desperately to keep him in power, while Jones and his InfoWars’ crew spoke at the rallies and advertised the campaign on their networks.

In December, Alexander sat for eight hours of testimony in front of the House select committee and threw fellow rally organizers, Amy and Kylie Kremer and Katrina Pierson, under the bus;Jones says he pled the Fifth when he met with the committee. Last Friday, Alexander told the New York Times through a lawyer that he would cooperate with the Department of Justice in its investigation of the attack. But by Tuesday, Alexander joined Jones on “InfoWars” to suggest he would never do so.

On the Wednesday edition of “InfoWars,” Alexander repeated part of his conspiracy theory that he shared with Jones the day prior: that the Jan. 6 investigations were part of a “deep state” plot to get rid of elections, the Republican Party, and Christians, with the goal to usher in a “stateless New World Order.” A civil war orchestrated by the deep state would be central to this effort, according to Alexander. In response to Jones asking how to avoid such a civil war, Alexander suggested viewers pray, before discussing “legitimate violence.”

“The second byproduct of prayer is that it makes us sane,” Alexander said. “So when we’re getting this deluge of persecution, we’re not saying, in our gut primal level, ‘We need to go bomb something, we need to go shoot something’; it’s ‘I will not give them an inch or become the monster they want us to become.’”

“Now, folks, I’m going to say something really crazy,” Alexander continued. “I’m not going to deny that the people have the right of revolution. I’m not going to deny 1776. I’m not going to deny there is a time for legitimate violence when there is legitimate tyranny. And by the way, the Declaration of Independence even outlines—”

“Says it’s your right and duty,” Jones interrupted. “But they are just losing right now, we’re winning politically. We don’t want to do it yet, but you’re not denying we have the right.”

“Right,” Alexander replied. “I’m not denying the—I’m saying it’s not the time now, that’s for sure.”

“But it’s definitely a card we have in our hand we’re allowed to play,” Jones said.

“Right! Right,” Alexander said.

“When all else is lost you gotta do it,” Jones said.

“If they start ripping your children from your home and doing reassignment surgeries—” Alexander began.

“Everyone knows when the time is,” Jones interrupted. “The point is,anybody trying to lure you into plots to kidnap governors, anybody who wants you tooffensively attack, that’s not what we do.”

“Frankly, a discerning mind and a mind in prayer, frankly, would not punch cops at the Capitol, would not kidnap governors,” Alexander said.

“You know it makes us look bad!” Jones said

“And it won’t be successful,” Alexander said.

“Not only do I not want to randomly punch cops, it’s dumb!” Jones exclaimed.

“It’s very dumb,” Alexander agreed. “It’s dumb, and it displeases God I think. But you know, these cops need to stop complying with COVID orders and lockdowns and stealing.”

“Yeah, no, they’re putting themselves in that position,” Jones said.

Alexander regularlyuses violent rhetoric and has called for civil war and rebellion. On the eve of the insurrection, Alexander led a Stop the Steal crowd in chants of “Victory or death!” and declared “1776 is always an option.”

As Luke O’Brien reported in HuffPost, Alexander considers violence a “natural right”:

On Twitter, Alexander had called violence a “natural right.” He was a prominent influencer on the platform, with almost 200,000 followers. “I am a sincere advocate for violence and war, when justified,” he tweeted in 2019. “I recognize no law above what is natural and good.” A militant Christianity has permeated his extremism; he has spoken often about being an agent of God.

Tags: Alex Jones Ali Alexander Capitol Insurrection conspiracy theories Jan. 6 violent rhetoric InfoWars

===

mtg NWO remix of anti-commie one world commie gubmit [agenda21], satanic XIAN , conspiracies

rubber glue no insurrection = their big lie

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/marjorie-taylor-greene-says-legal-challenge-to-take-her-off-the-ballot-is-a-globalist-ploy-for-a-one-world-government/

rww

rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene testifies in a Georgia courtroom today in a hearing to determine whether the far-right congresswoman can be barred from running for reelection for her role in the Jan. 6 insurrection. In preparation, she spent the day prior with Alex Jones—the radical conspiracy theorist who is underinvestigation for his role in the Jan. 6 insurrection—insisting that the legal challenge to disqualify her candidacy is all part of the “globalist” ploy for a “One World Government.”

Georgia voters and a supporting legal group, Free Speech For People, filed the challenge against Greene, winning a victory last week when a federal judge ruled that the case could proceed. At the heart of the case is a provision in the 14th Amendment that forbids any member of Congress who has “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof” from serving in office. The provision was passed years after the Civil War to prevent former Confederates from returning to their seats in Congress.

In making their case, lawyers for Free Speech For People point to evidence like a Jan. 5 tweet by Greene calling Jan. 6 a “1776 moment.”The judge on the case will make a recommendation to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who will then decide whether Greene remains on the ballot.

On Jones’ “InfoWars” Thursday, Greene insisted that the hearing was a “show trial” that has “nothing to do with Jan. 6,” and that she did nothing wrong. “They know there was no insurrection,” she told Jones. “That is their big lie.”

Jones agreed that the challenge was “so villainous,” declaring, “this is next level tyranny.”

“Clearly the globalists want to implode the country, Cloward and Pivento make us dependent and take control. And all the polls show a total collapse and realignment of Republicans,” Jones said. “How do you think the Democrats and the deep stateare going to try to stop this populist peaceful uprising?”

“They don’t want me in there,” Greene said. “So theseglobaliststhat are completely trying to destroy our country and move us into their global economy and theirOne World Government to where NATO is telling us what, who they should go to war with, and the UN is running the entire world. This is what Democrats want. They know to achieve these goals they have to get the strongest fighters out. That’s why they’re coming after me, and they’re coming after Andy Biggs, Paul Gosar, they went after Madison [Cawthorn].”

And who does Greene believe is behind it? Greene claimed that the attorney group lodging the challenge “is totally funded by George Soros dark-money groups.”

“They hope that we have a civil war,” Jones said, adding that it was the “devil system.”

Earlier in the show, Jones also compared Greene’s hearing to his own legal troubles stemming from comments he made about the 2012 Sandy Hook mass shooting.

“Well, I’m dealing with the same thing where I was found in default in a case of not giving them documents, but they have all the documents, and then I’m supposed to have a jury trial about how guilty I am but were not even allowed to speak at that trial,” Jones protested.

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aha blends light and dark metaphor, god/good light in conflict w/ satan end times armageddon

you act for god, and he will protect you from harm from evil one(s)

jan 6 trump called his troops to fight like hell for him/dark dems who stole power

spiritual battle gets us that bit closer to real violence

https://www.alternet.org/2022/04/gird-your-loins-for-battle-put-on-the-full-armor-of-god-desantis-running-as-a-biblical-anti-lgbtq-warrior/

Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis appears to be using the “Don’t Say Gay“ legislation he signed into law with barely any notice Monday as the new flag of his bible-based anti-LGBTQ re-election campaign.

“Gird your loins for battle. We are going to fight. You put on the full armor of God,” the Florida Republican running for re-election says in a video posted to social media this week, with the state flag behind him and a poster reading, “Keep FloridaFree.”

“You take a stand against the Left’s schemes. Yeah, you’re gonna face flaming arrows, but if you stand for truth, you and we will prevail.”

Former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski weighed in, saying: “Desantis gets sexual and biblical on the campaign trail.”

The full biblical reference makes DeSantis’ remarks even more disturbing. They come from Ephesians 6:11-18, which mentions the devil and the spiritual forces of evil, It reads in part:

“Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be ableto stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.… In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of theevil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is thewordof God.”

Watch:

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aha: post 2015 Paris money better hidden dark DAF donors trust; plus trade groups have to step up as buffer as corps FF hide, but CFACT heartland are FRONT lines? ron arnold hit man on ppl and orgs;

3/22 theory 2nd buffer trade ass

see 4th phase fallback delay-ism

when corp FF denial exposed, fallback to trade groups main API NAM (NMA), but as those exposed less safety/cover/buffer, fallback to 2ndary trade assoc

which provide deniability [also $ gets hidden laundered thru DAF and these 2ndary orgs eg CFACT, EID IPAA

bOMBSHELL: ROCKEFELLER FAMILY FUND BEHIND THE “PAY UP CLIMATE POLLUTERS” CAMPAIGN

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FORK 5

3 22 aha analysis: ukraine watershed: GOP/Rt has always used national security (strict ft/macho) to beat up of Dems (soft on communism, crime etc) [tho gubmint waste fraud and abuse is never committed by pentagon or military no bid contractor corps that are huge dark $ donors], and national debt bogeyman never a problem with military spending, 2021 gave $20B more than they asked FOR?]]

gop likes to conflate national security with oil supply [tho heaven forbid we would ever go to war in Gulf twice for oil; cheney secret energy task force of FF ceos requested maps of Iranian oilfields]; US military is greatest user of oil/polluter in world aviva chomsky 3 22];

Occupy network morphed into DAPL etc Water Protectors pipeline resistance, which was effective {Fusion/Feds backed off when veterans started to show up to have their backs after the battle of Backwater Bridge] so early and major Trump donor ETP kelcy needed better tool to beat up/suppress activist, so eco-terror gets resurrected and amped up as Critical Infrastructure = nat'l security [so non-violent hippies and native Am now domestic terrorists]; also good for Press Suppression [and activist suppression thru LEGAL like make DAPL folks come back to appear in ct [mult times ?] a year later just to be postponed?]; initial try to make it OK to run over protestors stymied for a while by HH in Charlottesville [PBUH] but eventually passed in mult states?

Putin is the biggest FF CEO of all, and a fascist [originally "corporatism" under Il Dulce // Il Donald]]; ukraine invasion blamed on Greta and Biden green policy BBB; GOP EPW BS Sea Change [CRC] resurrected 3rd time that Greens took Putin $, tho debunked years ago [NottheEPA is Berman Dr Evil, also Legal/Legislative Suppression]

the old mantra was "energy independence" from unstable or even hostile oil states, but morphed into "energy dominance" during frack fight/trump era? now morphing again to energy security at least in concept with Ukraine invasion, lead to a watershed: do we recognize that war gives us one more good reason, as it we needed one, to phase out FF or do we double down/drill baby drill? API is pushing hard for latter, FOX repeating endlessly [bonus gives them cover from Putin boosting?]

china hoax is trump conspiracy theory: also related to chicom putin dirty money dark funnelled to green orgs Sea Change in an attempt to undermine our American oil corps/industry/economy

Sir Chris Hohn "foreign billionaire" [Soros vs Koch?]

===

aha: war is both a cause and effect of crises [and/or amplifier of chaos]; MIC and PIC are both FORCE we use to cope with disruption/instability

IPCC 6 Guterres ups metaphors, warn ukraine war watershed extraction; putin invasion drives refugees [xian blonde into poland that remembers nazi wwII but still, source of instability --> alt Rt EU; also disrupts grain prices --> famine/instability worldwide/africa:

add to that weather disruption/unforseen events like nitrate dump:

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/climate-change-surge-uncharted-territory/

j little tom dispatch

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[[ AHA: CLICKS --> CLOUT

rt qanon loses mind b/c last bastion of binary thinking B/W rt/wrong good/evil ~ sec hum moral relativism postmod? can cruz usetwitteras effectively as trump? more so b/c he will stay below de-plat level? note he w/ spc media algo gets amplify/boost from algo; twitter has better record on de-plat not cranking up rage algorithm to max profit?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/marjorie-taylor-greene-2657046068/

tells mayor pete and boyfriend to stay out of girls bathroom

===

aha yikes they are monetizing victimization, polarization, demonization see crensharrrrh vs mtg

===

note rubber glue (how much of that is " See they do it too" so not only are they corrupt, they are hypocrites, not to be trusted , morally deficient; how dare they [global coastal elitist) accuse real patriotic americans of wrongdoing; putin disinfo is to tear down trust in system/gov't/civil society/ pols, a pox on both houses leads to apathy if not polarysis; soc med gives instant quantitative feedback (it's an instant poll of your constituents/maga base?

an 3 22

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), like many other Republican lawmakers, has made this week’s U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearings for justice nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson into more of a political circus than a professional inquisition.

From subtly misogynistic insinuations the blatantly racist remarks, Republican lawmakers have been deeply criticized for their treatment of Jackson.

Now, The Daily Beast's Matthew Fuller is offering an unfiltered breakdown of all that has transpired this week. At one point during the 200th episode of The Daily Beast podcast, "The New Abnormal," Fuller joined the panel to speak with the show's co-host Andy Levy as they rehashed the Republican senator's bizarre behavior.

Fuller, who bluntly describes Republican lawmakers' actions as "the full-flavored version" of “straight racism," weighed in with his reaction to the grotesque displays during the confirmation hearings.

"I think I expected it to be maybe a little bit more coded, a little bit more dog whistle-y," Fuller said. "'Certainly, I knew that they were gonna bring up stupid things like critical race theory. I didn’t expect the line of attack to be just so overtly racist, with false suggestions that 'Jackson is soft on crime, she’s soft on child pornographers' even though her sentencing practices were well in line with the average sentences people were getting.'”

Fuller went on to express concern about the bigger problem as he noted the real reason for Republican lawmakers' antics during the confirmation hearings.

“But the broader issue,” Fuller explains, “is Republicans know Democrats have all the votes. At the end of the day, I'd be very surprised if Jackson is not confirmed, and confirmed with probably a couple Republican votes. They know that, and the hearing is just aboutscoring points, which is why you see Cruz giving his speech and then checking his Twitter mentions. This isn’t about actually moving people. This is about raising money. This is about adding to their own clout. And it’s been frankly a pretty disgusting confirmation.” ]]

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aha: added binary to zero sum (// reductionistic, hierarchy) // phobic ~ PC multicultural --> polarization us/them

lose mind on transgender

an 3 22

no lnx

United States is experiencing an existential democracy crisis, with leading Republicans and millions of their voters and supporters either tacitly or explicitly embracing authoritarianism or fascism. Democrats, for the most part, have not responded with the urgency required to save America's democracy from the rising neofascist tide.

American society was founded on white settler colonialism, genocide and slavery. This unresolved "birth defect" at the foundation of the American democratic experiment meant that the country was racially exclusionary by design, from the founding well into the 20th century. At present, American politics is contoured by asymmetrical political polarization, in which Republicans have moved so far to the right that the party's most "moderate" members are far more extreme than the most "conservative" Democrats. This makes substantive compromise and bipartisanship in the interests of the common good and the American people almost impossible.

Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, Trump supporters and Trump-loathers, increasingly do not live in the same neighborhoods or communities. In all, they largely do not socialize with each other, or have other forms of meaningful interpersonal relationships in day-to-day life.

To the degree that "race" is a proxy for political values and beliefs, the color line functions as a practical dividing line of partisan identity and voting. Religion is also a societal space that is divided by politics. For example, public opinion research shows that white right-wing evangelical Christians have increasingly embraced authoritarian views, conspiracy theories and other anti-democratic and antisocial values.

As the new Faith in America survey by Deseret News & Marist College highlights, the basic understanding of the role of religion in a secular democracy has become so polarized that 70% of Republicans believe that religion should influence a person's political values, where as only 28% of Democrats and 45% of independents share that view.

Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, also do not consume the same sources of information about news and politics. Conservatives now inhabit their own self-created media echo chamber, which functions as a type of lie-filled and toxic closed episteme and sealed-off universe. The creation of such an alternate reality is an important attribute of fascism, in which truth itself must be destroyed and replaced with fantasies and fictions in support of the leader and his movement.

America's struggle for democracy and freedom against authoritarianism is taking place on a biological level as well. Social psychologists and other researchers have shown that the brain structures of conservative-authoritarians are different than those of more liberal and progressive thinkers. The former are more fear-centered,emphasizing threats and dangers (negativity bias), intolerant of ambiguity and inclined to simple, binary solutions. Conservative-authoritarians are also strongly attracted to moral hierarchy and social dominance behavior.

Recent research by Darren Sherkat, a professor of sociology at Southern Illinois University, demonstrates that America's democracy crisis may be even more intractable than the above evidence suggests. In his recent article "Cognitive Sophistication, Religion, and the Trump Vote," which appeared in the January 2021 edition of Social Science Quarterly, Sherkat examined data from the 2018 General Social Survey and concluded that there are substantial negative differences between the thinking processes and cognition of white Trump voters, as shown in the 2016 presidential election, as compared to other voters who supported Hillary Clinton or another candidate, or who did not vote at all.

Sherkat observes that Trump support has been linked to religion and level of education, but until now not to "cognitive sophistication," which was found "to have a positive effect on voting, but a negative effect on choosing Trump."He notes that "philosophers and political elites have debated the potential effects of mass political participation" for generations, concerned "about the unsophisticated masses coming under the sway of a demagogue." In effect, this debate was always about the quality he calls cognitive sophistication, since citizens who lack it "may not be able to understand and access reliable and valid information about political issues and may be vulnerable to political propaganda":

Low levels of cognitive sophistication may lead people to embrace simple cognitive shortcuts, like stereotypes and prejudices that were amplified by the Trump campaign. Additionally, the simple linguistic style presented by Trump may have appealed to voters with limited education and cognitive sophistication. Beginning with [T.W.] Adorno's classic study of the authoritarian personality, empirical works have linked low levels of cognitive sophistication with right-wing orientations....

Trump's campaign may also have been more attractive to people with low cognitive sophistication and a preference for low-effort information processing because compared to other candidates Trump's speeches were given at a much lower reading level…. While much of the Trump campaign's rhetoric and orientation may have resonated with the poorly educated and cognitively unsophisticated, those overlapping groups are less likely to register to vote or to turn out in an election.

As part of his research, Sherkat evaluated the political decision-making and cognition of Trump's voters, using a10-point vocabulary exam. In a guest essay at the website Down with Tyranny, he explains what this vocabulary test revealed about white Trump voters:

Overall, the model predicts that almost 73% of respondents who missed all 10 questions would vote for Trump (remember, that is controlling for education and the other factors), while about 51% who were average on the exam are expected to vote for Trump. Only 35% of people who had a perfect score on the exam are predicted to be Trump supporters.

Notably, this very strong, significant effect of verbal ability can be identified within educational groups. While non-college whites certainly turned out more heavily for Trump, the smart ones did not — only 38% of those with perfect scores are expected to go for Trump, and only 46% of non-college graduates who scored a standard deviation above the mean. The same is true for college graduates — low cognition college graduates were more likely to vote for Trump. ...

What is really depressing isn't just the poles of the vocabulary exam, it's the average. The mean and median of the scale is 6 — so half of white Americans missed 4 of the easy vocabulary questions.

Sherkat's research also explored how religion impacted support for Donald Trump among white voters: "This study confirms that white Americans with fundamentalist views of the Bible and those who embrace identifications with sectarian Protestant denominations tended to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 election."

Belief that the Bible is the literal "word of God" also impacted Trump voting: "Viewing the Bible as a book of fables is also significantly predictive of vote choice, with secular beliefs reducing the odds of a Trump vote by 80 percent when compared to literalists, and reducing the odds of a Trump vote by 52 percent when compared to respondents who view the Bible as inspired by God."

In an email to Salon, Sherkat offered additional context and implication on the relationship between white Christianity, American neofascism and cognition:

The problem of the contemporary American fascist right is rooted in education and information. And this problem is not simply about attainment of some quantity of education, but of the quality and content of education, how that leads generations of white Christian Americans to process information about a wide range of issues. The segregation academies that proliferated in the mid-1960s and accelerated in the 1970s have taught millions of Americans a radically skewed version of American and world history and encouraged a continued segregated society. The homeschooling movement augmented this division, and further denigrated the value of knowledge.

White fundamentalist Christians have always segmented their communities from the rest of America, and even exert considerable control over public educational institutions, particularly in rural areas and in the states which embraced slavery. White fundamentalist Christians distrust mainstream social institutions like education and print media, and they actively seek to eliminate public education and to provide alternative sources of information. As a result, people who identify with and participate in white Christian denominations and who subscribe to fundamentalist beliefs have substantial intellectual deficits that make them easy marks for a wide variety of schemes — from financial fraud to conspiracy theories.

If you can't read the New York Times, you're going to believe whatever you hear on talk radio or on television. It's simply impossible for people with limited vocabularies and low levels of cognitive functioning to make sense of the complex realities of the political world. And we now have a population where for 55 years substantial fractions of white people have gone to private fundamentalist Christian schools that leave them both indoctrinated in Christian nationalism and ill-prepared to process any additional information. Worse, we now have over a million children in a given year who are homeschooled by parents who are uneducated white fundamentalists — and that total has been pretty constant for three decades since the homeschooling movement blossomed.

What does this mean for the present and future of American democracy in this time of crisis? Sherkat cited the "disturbing ... influence of anti-intellectualism on American public life," which lends "performative power to ignorant elites":

Spouting off obvious untruths is no longer a mark of shame, because even basic historical and contemporary truths are not recognized. We seem to have a stable set of about 30% of Americans, 35% of white Americans, who are oblivious to political realities and incapable and unwilling to come to terms with any of our key social problems. The increasing control over public education by right-wing fanatics is entrenching ignorance and intellectual laziness in future generations. It does not bode well for the future of American democracy.

Donald Trump and his movement did not create all these American authoritarians and aspiring fascists. Such people have long been a feature of American society. What Trump and have accomplished in recent years is to empower and normalize a dangerous set of antisocial, anti-human, retrograde and anti-democratic values and beliefs.

Saving America's democracy will require a moral and political reckoning and acts of critical self-reflection on a nationwide scale about the American people's character and values, and about how their leaders and governing institutions have failed them.

Changes in laws and institutions are necessary. But on their own, such interventions will not stop the spread of fascism. A lasting remedy will demand that the country's political, cultural, and educational institutions be renewed, re-energized, and reimagined. The questions Americans must ask themselves are simple yet enormous: Who are we? What are we to become? How can we unite in defense of democracy, the common good and the general welfare? Without real answers to those questions, there will be no democratic renewal in the 21st century -- and fascism wins.

===

yikes

aha: // heartland reverse engr: we will be destroyed by evil dems, so therefore they did not win/will not rule? = earth2 ; thus voter suppression is unfair (unAmerican in trad sense) but necessary ; mypillow guy sent gunmen to polls?

an 3 22

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/far-right-biden-presidency/

a Georgetown University history professor is shedding light on the real reason why far-right Republicans still believe the unfounded claim that President Joe Biden's presidential win was illegitimate.

While its no secret that election conspiracy theories and false claims of widespread voter fraud have run rampant since former President Donald Trump lost his bid for re-election, there is a reason why Republicans "are convinced the outcome of the election was illegitimate regardless of whether or not there were specific procedural irregularities."

In an analysis published via The Guardian, Thomas Zimmer, a Georgetown University history professor with a concentration on the United States' democracy, referenced a controversial essay written from the perspective of a far-right conservative.

The essay, titled “ ‘Conservatism’ is No Longer Enough,” was penned by conservative writer Glenn Ellmers for The Claremont Institute's right-wing publication, American Mind.Zimmer notes:

"It is notable that Ellmers makes no claim that the 2020 election was 'stolen' – he doesn’t allege manipulation, voter fraud, or conspiracy, and in fact explicitly acknowledges that more people voted for Biden than for Trump. He does not peddle conspiracy theories. Yet Ellmers maintains that the outcome of the 2020 election is illegitimate and must not be accepted."

Zimmer then highlighted another key takeaway from Ellmer's piece:

"Ellmers is outraged precisely because he accepts the fact that a majority voted for Biden, that 'authentic Americans' have become the minority in a country which they are supposedly entitled to dominate. Here we have a striking glimpse of the depth of despair underlying the pervasive siege mentality on the right. What’s scandalous about the 2020 election, in this interpretation, is not that it was “stolen”, but that “un-American” forces straightforwardly won."

Zimmer's analysis also delved into the disturbing ideology behind the majority of Republican voters' thinking in regard to Biden being an illegitimate president.

"What is most alarming is the underlying ideology that leads so many on the right to consider Democratic victories invalid – even if they concede there was nothing technically wrong with how the election was conducted," Zimmer wrote. "It has become a core tenet of the Republican worldview to consider the Democratic party as not simply a political opponent, but an enemy pursuing an 'un-American' project of turning what is supposed to be a white Christian patriarchal nation into a land of godless multiracial pluralism."

Zimmer added, "Conversely, Republicans see themselves as the sole proponents of 'real' America, defending the country from the forces of radical leftism, liberalism, and wokeism."

He went on to explain Republicans' beliefs of the Democratic Party. "Even if they don’t subscribe to the more outlandish conspiracies propagated by Trumpists, many Republicans agree that the Democratic party is a fundamentally illegitimate political faction — and that any election outcome that would lead to Democratic governance must be rejected as illegitimate as well."

---

===

aha-let: i started gubmint for sovereignty wackos, but // koch libtard gang of 5 BS

ORIGIN OF GUBMINT?: KOCH, FOX, NORQUIST?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/koch/

no lnx

Koch keeps doing business in Russia as top journalist says family fortune came from Hitler: report

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement March 14, 2022

Award-winning journalist Jane Mayer, who literally wrote the book on the Koch Brothers and Koch Industries, pointed to a report published Monday stating, “Koch Industries continues doing business in Russia.” Despite major U.S. corporations shutting down operations after Putin’s illegal war on Ukraine, major U.S.-based multinational corporations, from Apple to Disney to McDonald’s, have responded by pulling out of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Mayer’s 2016 book “Dark Money” focuses on Charles Koch and (the now late) David Koch, the powerful conservative billionaire Koch Brothers.

Monday morning is his widely-read newsletter Popular Information Judd Legum reported Koch Industries doesn’t seem to be joining the American movement to isolate Putin and Russia – even after his forces have slaughtered thousands of innocent civilians in Ukraine.

“Guardian Industries,” writes Legum, “is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries, acquired in 2017. Guardian, a manufacturer of industrial glass and other products, is based in Auburn Hills, Michigan but has production facilities around the world.”

Guardian has two glass production plants that operate in Russia. One facility is in Ryazan, Russia, about 120 miles southeast of Moscow. The company added “a new jumbo laminated glass production line” to that facility in August 2021. Another facility is located in Rostov, Russia, near the border with Ukraine. The Rostov plant, which began operations about a decade ago, cost $220 million to build and produces “Guardian’s high-performance, energy-efficient ClimaGuard(R) (residential) and SunGuard(R) (commercial) glass products for construction of homes, offices, retail, health-care and other facilities.” It is capable of producing “900 tons of glass per day.”

Mayer, an investigative journalist who is a staff writer for The New Yorker, also wrote an article about the Koch Brothers, in 2010: “The billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama.”

Mayer’s piece suggests the Koch Brothers had funded and fueled the Tea Party almost since its inception.

A Republican campaign consultant who has done research on behalf of Charles and David Koch said of the Tea Party, “The Koch brothers gave the money that founded it. It’s like they put the seeds in the ground. Then the rainstorm comes, and the frogs come out of the mud—and they’re our candidates!”

And it paid off.

:{:{}:

“The anti-government fervor infusing the 2010 elections represents a political triumph for the Kochs. By giving money to ‘educate,’ fund, and organize Tea Party protesters, they have helped turn their private agenda into a mass movement.”

So where did the Koch money originally come from?

Mayer on Monday reminded America:

For those who would like more information, here’s The New York Times on Mayer’s 2016 book:

The father of the billionaires Charles G. and David H. Koch helped construct a major oil refinery in Nazi Germany that was personally approved by Adolf Hitler, according to a new history of the Kochs and other wealthy families.

Mayer’s “book is largely focused on the Koch family, stretching back to its involvement in the far-right John Birch Society and the political and business activities of the father, Fred C. Koch, who found some of his earliest business success overseas in the years leading up to World War II. One venture was a partnership with the American Nazi sympathizer William Rhodes Davis, who, according to Ms. Mayer, hired Mr. Koch to help build the third-largest oil refinery in the Third Reich, a critical industrial cog in Hitler’s war machine.”

===

aha: a couple COPS have broken down on 1st vs 3rd climate justice/debt/reparations?

//?

BS myth china india 3rd w must go 1st:

standard BS excuse for US action is that more polluting, developing world puts out more ghg and will not cut back, thus it's pointless b/c emissions will go up whatever we do PLUS it will give them an economic advantage over US; reductionistic b/c it ignore the 100 year headstart we had (in both development and pollution, and they don't have the money to act agressively b/c their ppl are poor/hungry; US largely abandoned green R&D that could save them (and we could still lead/sell to the world]

sparked by

Statements of Support

Heather Reams, Citizens for Responsible Energy Solutions (CRES) Executive Director: “CRES applauds US Rep. John Curtis (R-UT) and the 51 other House Republicans who today announced the creation of the Conservative Climate Caucus and looks forward to working with Members and staff on its agenda. The climate is changing and to address it, our country needs a commonsense approach that works by reducing energy prices, not energy choices;

shrinking our emissions, not our economy; and,

exporting American innovation, not American jobs. Despite what fringe activists and their Capitol Hill champions say, overregulatingAmerica will not lower emissions globally.This caucus understands that climate change is a global issue.Today, 85 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions occur outside of the United States – a share that will increase to 90 percent by the end of the next decade. This means that U.S. climate and energy policy must foster innovation and commercialization pathways that work forIndiana as well as for India. Achieving emissions-reduction solutions are possible with the leadership demonstrated by the creation this caucus today.”

Rich Powell, ClearPath Executive Director: “Republicans have real solutions for climate change – ones that are technologically realistic, economically feasible, and politically sustainable. Over the past decade, conservatives have institutionalized big, bold goals anchored by clean energy breakthroughs as the best approach to solving the climate challenge. Higher taxes and more regulations won’t solve it – and this Conservative Climate Caucus will continue advancing solutions that strengthen the American economy, and reduce global carbon emissions.”

===

aha: doh press suppression (and presumably all the OFFENSIVE suppressions) damage quality and quantity of info flow, thus impedes democracy (vs corruption and fascism) ~ MODERATION THUS REQUIRED IN RESTORING THE COMMONS

aha: wapo and NYT are papers of record, nat'l institutional memory? ~ memory hole revisionist alt fact Earth2?

apparently not Joe and Greta's fault?!:

no lnx twt

These 5 ‘deeply malevolent’ things that Trump did to hurt Ukraine must not be forgotten: journalist

Alex Henderson March 01, 2022

With Ukraine now being invaded by Russian troops on orders from President Vladimir Putin, MAGA messaging on the crisis has ranged from praising Putin to blaming President Joe Biden for the crisis. One of the most ludicrous MAGA talking points is that Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Trump were still president.But liberal Washington Post opinion writer Greg Sargent, in a scathing column/listicle published on March 1, stresses that the things Trump did to hurt Ukraine and President Volodymyr Zelensky when he was president must not be forgotten.

“With the Russian invasion of Ukraine getting more horrific,” Sargent writes, “Donald Trump and his allies are frantically erasing the truth about Trump’s relations with Ukraine. Trump absurdly claims that as president, he stood strong behind Ukraine and NATO, even as his spinners comically downplay his corrupt and deeply malevolent betrayal of our ally.”

Sargent continues, “The obvious rejoinder to this spin is that Trump got impeached for withholding military aid to strong-arm Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into manufacturing propaganda to help Trump’s reelection. This came even as Zelensky pleaded for help against Russian aggression, which the world is now witnessing unfold in all its horror.”

The columnist notes that when Trump was president, he repeatedly “aligned our interests with those of Russian President Vladimir Putin and against those of Ukraine, NATO and the West.” And Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman agrees. Vindman, who testified during House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry against Trump in November 2019, told Sargent, “Trump acted against U.S. interests with the consequence of aiding Russian interests.”

Sargent goes on to list and describe five examples of Trump doing things to hurt Ukraine. Trump, Sargent recalls: (1) “spread propaganda about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election,” (2) “ousted the well-regarded U.S. ambassador to Ukraine,” Marie Yovanovitch, (3) “froze military assistance to Ukraine,” (4) “withheld a White House meeting from Zelensky,” and (5) “turned Ukraine policy over to (Rudy) Giuliani.”

“All this has important forward-looking implications, now that Trump may run for president again,” Sargent explains. “As president in 2025, he’d be stewarding relations with Russia, Ukraine and NATO, but after this war has unfolded. Right now, we’re seeing extraordinary unity among the United States and its allies as it imposes harsh sanctions on Russia and otherwise tries to dissuade Putin’s invasion. Trump would almost surely rupture that.”

Vindman, during his interview with Sargent, warned that it will be great for Putin if Trump becomes president again.

“With Trump as president in 2025,” Vindman told Sargent, “we’re quite likely looking at a world in which Russia may have achieved its objectives and folded Ukraine back into its sphere of influence.”

===

aha yikes 2nd a = 2nd civil war

monetization of hate/violence algo amplify

an 222

U.S. Congressman is calling on Americans to own “sufficient” weaponry to overthrow the government, suggesting they should do so “if 30 to 40 percent agree” the nation is living under “tyranny.”

“If 30 to 40 percent could agree that this was legitimate tyranny and it needed to be thrown off they need to have sufficient power without asking for extra permission – it should be right there and completely available to them in their living room in order to effect the change,”U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) said in a video (below) posted by Right Wing Watch.

Congressman Massie, who recently came under fire for tweeting a quote by a pedophile-pornography possessing neo-Nazi and falsely attributing it to French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, appeared on far-right Youtuber Tim Pool’s show.

Pool’s videos get “millions” of views each day, according to The Daily Beast, which adds he “has racked up more than a billion views and millions in earnings while dangerously whitewashing the far right.”

Massie, known for his assault-weapons brandishing Christmas family photo this week was widely mocked for arguing against Medicare for All, because “Over 70% of Americans who died with COVID, died on Medicare.”

During Pool’s show, according to Right Wing Watch, the YouTuber added that he believes the Second Amendment entitles Americans to own nuclear and biological weapons.

===

aha3: the pandemic was a social problem we absolutely could have dealt with, we have before, but me vs we gop knee jerk shut down Obama office/capability: trump alt fact Earth2 sociopath denied/ignored; healthcare Obamacare under relentless attack by GOP socialized medicine; covid crisis eg lack of ventilators at least temporarily utterly discredited libtard BS

gop governors resisted/outlawed mask vax requirements b/c mandate = tyranny and way to beat up Biden = gov't who was succeeding (ramped up vax even beyond goals in utter contrast to trump utter fail; canadian trucker BS not 1st convoy try/fal and bunch of anti-gubmint conspir BS on signs

irony/paradox:

freedumb lovers fear left biden green tyranny which does not exist, but boost RW authoritarian tyranny which absolutely does and i rising/winning eg orban/trump/bolsonaro putin:

in so doing they amplify division/ polarizatin, alienation chaos which degrades trust our resilience to deal with chaos/crisis which further fuels distrust /desperation chaos --> fascism death spiral

see civil virtue/ responsibility

aha2 bowling alone (globalization/ outsourcing, corporatization walmarting of rural rust belt] led to kids leaving, all sorts of other problems, rw talk radio proposed enemy/scapegoat solution ol time religion --> echo/escalator polarization that just made problems worse which called for trump i lone can fix it --> nazis on florida overpass /cda truckers....

aha: echo is isolation from Earth1, legit press info (ie ideas/info you do not want b/c does not fit your POV) and escalator= AMPLIFY/ BOOST/ PROPAGATE TO MORE PPL AND MORE INFLUENTIAL/INFECTIOUS PPL/ SOURCES; boost is boosted by algorithm and hype hate anger fear is monetized which is both an incentive and an extra further boost --> runaway mode

an 2 22 edit bd

On February 15, Bloomberg ran a story about the “freedom convoy” that seemed to illustrate Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity.

Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran minister who was part of the German resistance to the Nazi Party and to Adolf Hitler’s rise. His book, The Cost of Discipleship, is a meditation on “The Sermon on the Mount” in which Bonhoeffer splits the Christian concept of grace in two.

On the one hand is “cheap grace,” which is “without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.”

On the other hand, Bonhoeffer said, is “costly grace.” It “confronts us as a gracious call to follow Jesus, it comes as a word of forgiveness to the broken spirit and the contrite heart. It is costly because it compels a man to submit to the yoke of Christ and follow him.”

Indeed, resisting fascism by submitting “to the yoke of Christ” and following him cost him dearly. At age 39, the Nazis hanged him.

His theory of stupidity is featured in a letter written to friends a few years earlier. The letter, which is now known as “After Ten Years,” argues that evil like the Nazis isn’t the worst thing. Stupidity is.

“One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force,” he wrote. “Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless.”

Neither protests nor the use of force accomplish anything here; reasons fall on deaf ears; facts that contradict one’s prejudgment simply need not be believed – in such moments the stupid person even becomes critical – and when facts are irrefutable they are just pushed aside as inconsequential, as incidental. In all this the stupid person, in contrast to the malicious one, is utterly self satisfied and, being easily irritated, becomes dangerous by going on the attack.

Bloomberg reporters Jen Skerritt and Robert Tuttle were covering protests of the Canadian government’s requirement that truck drivers delivering freight across the US-Canadian border must be vaccinated.

Protests in Alberta and Manitoba, dubbed the “freedom convoy,” took the form of blockades of bridges and trucking routes, at odds with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s declaration of emergency powers.

Skerritt and Tuttle interviewed one trucker. His name is Jake Klassen. His two campers and semi were in the blockade. He said Trudeau’s emergency powers were an attempt to “take everything from us.”

Then there is this part:

Klassen said he hasn’t been able to visit his nine-year-old daughter in months. She is receiving palliative care at St. Amant, a care residence in Winnipeg, but due to restrictions that require visitors to be fully vaccinated, Klassen and his wife can’t see her.

“Yes, that's absolutely stunning and sad,” said Victoria Barnett.

Barnett was director of programs on ethics, religion and the Holocaust at the National Holocaust Museum. She’s the author of many books on interfaith history. She edited a 2017 translation of “After Ten Years.” I asked if Jake Klassen exemplifies Bonhoeffer’s theory of stupidity.

Maybe, but as part of a bigger phenomenon. “After Ten Years” was his attempt to understand the first 10 years of National Socialism and what had happened to his compatriots, his church, his country.

He's trying to figure out why most Germans caved to Nazi ideology and why they became integral to what happened. The historian Klemens von Klemperer (himself a refugee) called the Third Reich a "consensual dictatorship" -- which is a pretty good description.

Go into that a bit more please. How was it consensual?

His main point is that stupidity is a moral failure, not an intellectual one. He's reflecting on the process by which people willfully become part of a larger movement or political group, etc. As they become increasingly involved, two things tend to happen:

They become isolated (or they isolate themselves) from those who disagree with them or challenge them (and I would say also from news sources that would challenge their worldview) and
They get a lot of reinforcement. One of the things that happened in 1933 after Hitler came to power was that Nazi Party organizations were founded for every demographic group – teachers, housewives, kids, etc. Everyone suddenly had a badge, a uniform, meetings to go to, new friends to meet etc. — and that was a big factor in creating a new sense of a larger German community serving a "grander" purpose (in the Nazi mindset).

A big part of that, of course, was identifying enemies and those who needed to be excluded -- Jewish citizens, political opponents, critical journalists, etc. But that early formation of consensus made life much harder, even by the end of 1933, for people who didn't agree with it.

What you're describing is collectivism, no?

The self-understanding of the German Volk was a collective concept personified by the "Fuhrer.” That's a big part of authoritarian or fascist regimes. Authoritarian leaders can do things without parliamentary approval, because they represent the "true" will of "the people."

But that also created a dynamic in Nazi Germany in which there was this mass adoration – almost a mass hysteria – for the person of Adolf Hitler. There are paintings portraying him as a messianic figure.

Bonhoeffer said there is no defense against stupidity. But if it's a moral failing, wouldn't a defense be private and public morality?

Ideally, yes.

Bonhoeffer's essay is an exploration of why that didn't happen. (Elsewhere, he explores the lack of civil courage) But Nazi Germany is a disturbing case study in the failure of leaders, institutions (such as the church), etc., to stand up in an effective way to National Socialism.

The best and bravest people were either arrested early on or got out. But he's pondering (and I think this is autobiographical) the failure of good decent people critical of the regime to be more effective.

That didn't happen. (Along the way, one must acknowledge that many of them became complicit). But by staying in and working from inside the regime, they also failed to offer a clearer example of resistance.

That's why by 1942 Bonhoeffer believes (as he writes here) that "only an act of liberation, not instruction, can overcome stupidity."

The trucker above says he's seeking liberation, too. Liberation from responsibility. How would Bonhoeffer persuade a man that he has agency and can visit his dying daughter by making the right choice?

One thing DB ignores is the psychology of all this. (He describes stupidity as a sociological problem). In Nazi Germany, we're also looking at the pressures and dynamics within a fascist police state.

In other circumstances, however (eg, the truckers' protests), this gets back to the peer pressures within a group that’s getting its information only from certain sources, in which there is a lot of pressure to conform to the will of the group (and a reward for doing so).

I've studied this in terms of the psychology of group behavior in Nazi Germany, but the literature on personality cults, mob behavior, etc., shows that the longer and more deeply a person gets involved in something like this, the less individual agency they perceive they have.

For Bonhoeffer personally -- he wrote as a theologian and person of deep faith -- that faith has the capacity to make someone see more clearly. But “After Ten Years” is a rather bleak assessment.

I'm reminded of something Michael Josephson said in 1989:

Success can be defined so many different ways but right now it is defined in a kind of how high is your position, how many people work for you, how high is your salary. When you get into that kind of yuppie version of success,you’re going to sacrifice things along the way.There’s not enough commitment to the ground rules of civil virtue.

A society focused on "success" (greed, selfishness) is a society in which a man won't do the right thing to see his dying daughter and as a consequence, will make sacrifices he can’t reverse along the way.

He's making an important point about what we value publicly and how that affects the individual's ethics and sense of responsibility.

I've been very disturbed by some of the very callous reactions during the pandemic – eg, the minimization of the deaths in nursing homes, the rush to get back to normal when thousands of people are still getting sick and dying (and when large sectors of the population -- children under the age of 6 -- can't yet be vaccinated).

But as I saw somewhere, the scale of the callousness has been on display for some time now in how we've dealt with school shootings, the high level of violence in our society and the much higher levels of violence experienced by people of color and the poor.

A society is measured in part by what we are willing to live with and by whether we are willing to change to make life better. Bonhoeffer, in his text, addresses this when he writes about the responsibility we are willing to take upon ourselves for the sake of a different future.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau seems to be doing what Bonhoeffer wished more Germans had done. He called out conservatives in the Parliament for standing with the Swastika and the Confederate flag.

I interviewed a number of Germans back in the 1980s when I was working on my first book (a collection of oral histories from people who had been in the Confessing Church) and I recall Kurt Scharf (a very brave pastor, who would later became a bishop) saying that if Germans had held mass demonstrations and marched in 1933 in solidarity with German Jews, they might have changed things.

Impossible to know in retrospect, that’s what’s important here (and for understanding Bonhoeffer as well) -- taking a public position not only draws a line for what can be tolerated, but it also serves as a model to others that it is possible to speak out. That's what he was writing about in the section on the lack of civil courage among Germans.

===

yikes financialization combined with weather chaos?! amplifying feedback?

CFTC act

Food prices[

Institutions such as hedge funds, pension funds and investment banks^[93] have been instrumental in pushing up world food prices in the last five years, with investment in food solely as a commodity rising from $65bn to $126bn (£41bn to £79bn) between 2007 and 2012, contributing to 30-year highs. Financial institutions now make up 61% of all investment in wheat futures.

According to Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on food, there was a rush by institutions to enter the food market following the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.^[93] De Schutter told the Independent in March 2012: "What we are seeing now is that these financial markets have developed massively with the arrival of these new financial investors, who are purely interested in the short-term monetary gain and are not really interested in the physical thing – they never actually buy the ton of wheat or maize; they only buy a promise to buy or to sell.

The result of this financialisation of the commodities market is that the prices of the products respond increasingly to a purely speculative logic. This explains why in very short periods of time we see prices spiking or bubbles exploding, because prices are less and less determined by the real match between supply and demand."^[93]In 2011, 450 economists from around the world called on the G20 to regulate the commodities market more.^[93] Rising food prices over recent years have been linked with social unrest around the world, including rioting in Bangladesh and Mexico,^[93] and theArab Spring.

===

aha: important part of tribal US them enemy is having someone to BLAME for YOUR problems (and magical/macho tough guy who alone can fix it); recall conspir is to reduce all to one target eg jewish/ globalist/ antifa, commies...

2 22 an nath

During my time as a boy attending an evangelical church and then later, when I attended an evangelical seminary, it was hard not to notice an underlying misogyny that seemed consistently present. As a man, I would be the head of the household. I was like Christ to my future wife. In fact, I once heard a sermon by prominent evangelical minister Tony Evans where he declared that wives must refer to their husbands as "Lord." In my church youth groups, we were separated by sex and the boys had bizarre discussions on the type of men we should become. There was a strong emphasis on being what they considered to be manly and tough, whereas young girls, of course, were encouraged to be nurturing, submissive and, most important, sexually pure.

When contemporary evangelical leaders push a message around Christian nationalism, I can promise you it always refers back to a time when the "traditional" roles of American households held fast. Making America "great again" is truly about bringing back a time when women were subject to their husbands' wills and whims, and the husbands were lords of the house.

Someone recently wrote to me, in response to one of my previous articles, wondering why so many evangelicals chose Donald Trump, a vulgar misogynist who shows no understanding of any element of the Christian faith, over other candidates who were much closer to the evangelical movement. The difficult answer is that most evangelical men long for the days when misogyny was cool, when women were under the thumb of their husbands and sexual harassment was almost universally accepted. Trump exemplified that approach — and a great many evangelicals loved him for it. Trump remains the favorite of the evangelicals not because any commitment to Christ or the Christian way of life — since he has none — but because of the widespread desire among evangelicals to take back control over their lives, and their wives. One of the major ways this has been expressed lately is through the ideology known as Christian nationalism.

As I understand it, Christian nationalism is an idea now widely accepted within the evangelical church that the U.S. is a Christian nation founded upon Christian principles — no matter what it may say in the Constitution. This commitment to the Christian faith, as a nation, is the reason God blessed the U.S. as the greatest nation that ever existed. God will only continue to bless this nation, however, as long as it remains a Christian nation. As America becomes more progressive and increasingly secular in terms of politics, culture and faith, then in this view God will remove his blessing and protection and great evils will befall our nation.

This remarkable theory has no connection to any of the teachings of Jesus Christ or his followers, and is completely irrelevant to the Christian faith. I will certainly admit that I have a heart for American idealism. I have officiated at numerous Veterans Day and Memorial Day services, and I have felt the love of country enormously, on those days and all the days in between. None of that, however, has anything to do with Christianity. God does not play favorites when it comes to nations, people or cultures. That entire idea is morally and theologically absurd.

In truth, Christian nationalism is based not in the Bible or the teachings of Jesus Christ, but on the idea of the traditional American family. As roles for women have changed, as divorce becomes more common, as same-sex marriage gains a firmer footing, and now with the movement for transgender rights and visibility becoming more public, the panic of the Christian nationalists becomes ever more desperate. This is where all that rage among evangelicals is coming from. Understand, most people are motivated politically based on how they perceive policy decisions affecting their day-to-day life. Nothing affects our lives more than what is happening to our families. When things fall apart at home, it can feel helpful — even if it's not healthy — to blame someone or something besides ourselves. For myself, I know that all my personal failures are mine alone. I can't blame MTV or Eminem or the LGBTQI population, the evangelical church, Trump, Biden, Obama, my mom, my dad or anyone else. The problem is in the mirror, as it is for everyone. Any effort to pass that blame along to others is quite human, and quite wrong.

My final point on Christian nationalism is around all the macho tough-guy stuff that seems to be on the lips of every right-wing leader. Being "tough" seems to be the only thing conservative commentators and evangelical leaders care about. Trump is supposedly the epitome of that and his little posse loves him for it. I won't pretend to understand it. After I graduated middle school, being tough just didn't seem that important. But for people like Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Jerry Falwell Jr. (before his fall) and of course Trump himself, it's important to keep pretending that they are a bunch of tough guys, even though they also claim to stand with Jesus Christ, a humble, meek and homeless teacher.

I'm no tough guy but I am happy to offer a challenge to any of these fake tough guys. Debate me anywhere, anytime. I am truly blue-collar, a member of the American working class. I am a Bible-believing minister and a flaming liberal. I believe that the Christian nationalist message comes from the devil himself. I am trying to save the name of the Christian faith and to stand up for American idealism. I oppose every part of the hypocritical, fake-populist agenda of the Christian nationalists and their enablers. I double-dog dare any of them, here and now, to stand up and take me on in public debate. Odds are they never will.

===

aha yikes they are monetizing victimization, grievance, polarization, demonization see crensharrrrh vs mtg

mtg huge fundraiser 7m 2/22? demon is flipside of victim: tyranny gazpacho pelosi; likes/donation is a cheap fast hit way to feel you are taking action/sticking it to the woMAN who is oppressing you, stealing US and ruining Am dr = commie socialist; fear anger amplified by soc med algo

===

left says trump is mafia boss psychopath and trumpistas gullible/ not bright ppl who fell into cult; nazi? but some proudly publically are?

qanon says pedos who drink blood adenochrome, so asymmetry? if satan is real then these attrocities are possible/plausible?

----

ECHO/ESCALATOR // SOCMED ALGO HYPE --> POLARIZATION

raw story 2 22 https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/trump-cult/**

The statement by the Republican National Committee arguing that the Jan. 6 insurrection was " legitimate political discourse" has sparked a renewed conversation on whether Donald Trump's MAGA movement is a cult.

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell began his examination of the issue with quotes from two Democratic Party leaders.

"You know, the 'C' in RNC doesn't stand for 'committee,' it stands for 'cult.' It's not the Republican National Committee, it's the Republican National Cult," Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said.

"They seem to have reached rock-bottom with their statement that happened on January 6th was normal political discourse," Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said. "I say to Republicans all the time, take back your party from this cult."

Those quotes raised questions for O'Donnell, who wondered, "Is it a cult or is it stupidity? And what's the difference?"

For analysis, O'Donnell interviewed Dr. Lance Dodes, a retired clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard.

Dodes said, "I think the word cult is probably correct.

"What a cult is — especially a charismatic cult, which is the kind we're talking about here where you have the all-powerful leader, Trump, who is seen as a god-like figure — those cults are self-contained, intentionally," he explained. "If you are in one, you are required to believe the belief system of the group. And a part of that, which is important to understand, is that you are also required to deny or ignore or attack those people who challenge the belief system, which is exactly what we see from many of these Trump followers, who simply act as they cannot hear and they attack those people who challenge it, which is what happened to [Liz] Cheney." [MARXIST CRT]

"The advantage of being ins such a group is that you have an echo chamber of people who are admiring you and affirming you. It is a self-affirming system, everyone agrees on the same things and they all follow and worship the leader," he continued. "On the other hand, to stand up against that, therefore, means that you aren't an outcast, you are a pariah." [BUT AMPLIFY INCREASE DOSE TRUMPIER THAN THOU?]

O'Donnell wondered about the role intelligence plays in susceptibility to joining a cult.

"Doctor, it seems that one defense against cultism, one personal defense that we might all possess — many of us might possess — is intelligence, you're simply too smart to fall for the stupidity of what's the cult is selling," O'Donnell said. "What is the difference between adherence to a cult and stupidity?"

"It helps to be stupid, but I think that they're different because there are intelligent people who are members of cult, you know? As much as some of these people who are republicans that don't seem to care about either democracy or morality are odious to us, they may be intelligent. Unfortunately, intelligence doesn't help you when you've got these enormous internal and external pressures to stay in line with the leader.

"I think it has, certainly, a moral quality. People who have high moral qualities and values do stand up, we sometimes consider them heroic. They finally say this is not right, as Liz Cheney did. I think we have to question the morality of the Trump followers because their morality is not strong enough to overcome their self-interest of staying in the cult," Dodes concluded.

Watch:

===

How Trump’s rallies help keep MAGA Republicans in a politically segregated 'bubble': journalist

Alex Henderson January 20, 2022

---

aha: note trumpista reptile brain sensitive plus soc med algo amp

HYPE FEAR

origin of xian nat'l trumpism? recall his BS about ppl dancing in streets in NJ? birther obama other foreigner secret muslim; muslim travel ban

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/christians-are-right-wing-radical/

k j salon

earlier this week, a new Pew survey found that the share of Americans who believe Donald Trump was largely responsible for the violence of Jan. 6, 2021, has declined by nearly 10 percent over the past year, while the percentage of people who think he bears no responsibility has increased by almost as much. On Wednesday, the Freedom from Religion Foundation and the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty released a new report that helps explain that shift: The same Christian nationalism that served as the unifying principle behind the Jan. 6 insurrection is also driving efforts among the faithful to rewrite the history of that day.

As two of the report's contributors, scholars Andrew Whitehead and Samuel Perry, co-authors of "Taking America Back for God," noted in a launch event on Wednesday, Christian nationalist support for Jan. 6 rioters has doubled in the past year, while support for prosecuting those rioters has declined by 20 percent. That suggests, said Perry, "that this ideology is powerfully connected to a reinterpretation of these events" in a way that could become "a powerful motivator for future potential violence."

At more than 60 pages and drawing on the work of a number of academics, journalists and researchers, "Christian Nationalism and the January 6 Insurrection" is the most comprehensive account to date of the role of the movement in the attack. Within the political and cultural universe of Christian nationalism, America is a special place: It was created as a Christian nation and its founding documents were divinely inspired. Christianity should and must have a privileged position in public life, and "true Americans" are understood to be "white, culturally conservative, natural-born citizens."

That ideology, argues the report, served both as the unifying theme for the various factions that joined in the assault on the Capitol as well as the "permission structure" that allowed participants to justify their violence. To call those fringe ideas is misleading: Surveys repeatedly find that close to half of the country supports the idea of fusing Christianity and civic life.

Christian nationalism also lends itself to a number of other convictions, notes the report. Surveys in early 2021 found strong associations between Christian nationalist views, such as the proposition that the federal government should declare America a Christian nation, and a whole range of far-right beliefs not directly connected to faith. Those include the disproved claim that Antifa or Black Lives Matter caused the violence on Jan. 6, while Donald Trump was blameless; support for various white supremacist and antisemitic beliefs; and even a willingness to accept the outlandish premises of QAnon.

Two-thirds of white Americans who strongly support Christian nationalist ideology believe that the 2020 election was rigged; 40 percent of them think that violence from patriotic Americans might be necessary to save the country; and more than 40 percent are convinced that Democrats are engaged in "elite child trafficking," said Whitehead.

The report includes some meditations on the movement's origins as well. Penn religion scholar Anthea Butler, the author of "White Evangelical Racism," writes that white Christian nationalism began moving more firmly into the mainstream after9/11, as the "Holy War" coding of the "War on Terror" helped popularize its ideology, laying the groundwork for Trump's rise. The seemingly contradictory beliefs of Christian nationalism — that America is the greatest nation on earth thanks to its foundation in Christianity, and also that America has been overtaken by alien and even demonic enemies — only serves to keep the movement in a state of tense mobilization, observed journalist Katherine Stewart, author of "The Power Worshippers."

"It's astonishing to so many of us that the leaders of the Jan. 6 attack styled themselves as patriots," Stewart added at Wednesday's event. "But it makes a glimmer of sense once we start to understand that their allegiance is to a belief in blood, earth and religion, rather than to the mere idea of a government of the people, by the people and for the people."

Most of the report was written by Andrew Seidel, a constitutional attorney at the Freedom from Religion Foundation and author of "The Founding Myth." It consists of a meticulous accounting, drawing on hundreds of hours of video footage, of Christian nationalism's ubiquitous role in the lead-up to Jan. 6 and its execution. There are the flags, the signs, the cross and gallows that we've all seen.

There are also some less familiar pieces of evidence, such as the 50-person Christian choir singing about swords and taking possession of the land while the attack was underway. Multiple rioters recounted how God's hand or voice had urged them to enter the capital. One avowed white supremacist had convinced his parole officer to let him travel to Washington that week to hand out Bibles. And then there's the man who broke down Nancy Pelosi's office door, believing that "the crowd would tear her 'into little pieces,'" and later testified in court that God had been on Trump's side: "And if patriots have to kill 60 million of these communists, it's God's will."...

===

aha ultimate ineq is lack of access to feed shelter and medicine

driver profit maximization:

pharma CORPS claim need massive profits for innovation but trump voodoo windfall went to stock buyback ceo bonus?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/02/pfizer/

public R&D

profiteer, someone's mrna vacc reverse engr from open records? but still need license?!

===

aha socialism is all-purpose attack on anything dems want and auto defense of corporations/capitalism, libtard neo-liberalism?

trump thot would be key to 2020 victory

AHA note // direct mail dark posts neg ads

ref

no lnx

Pharmaceutical industry likely to shatter its lobbying record as it works to shape Democrats’ spending bill

A years-long battle over prescription drug prices reaches its apex as the industry spends tens of millions to alter the plan.

===

alluded to my mandy g 2017 testimony?

aha hmmn fake outrage? useful cudgel in that 99% of threat are to actual climate sci, egged on by climmategate, morano dox etc etc; also demonize irrational opponents who can't win w/ words thus violence, plus just make christy important when he's really pretty irrelevant, esp since trump gone and fallbk 4 does not need hacks

roy sp

shots Fired into the Christy/Spencer Building at UAH

April 24th, 2017 by Roy W. Spencer, Ph. D.

A total of seven shots were fired into our National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) building here at UAH over the weekend.

All [nope] bullets hit the 4th floor, which is where John Christy’s office is (my office is in another part of the building).

Given that this was Earth Day weekend, with a March for Science passing right past our building on Saturday afternoon, I think this is more than coincidence. When some people cannot argue facts, they resort to violence to get their way. It doesn’t matter that we don’t “deny global warming”; the fact we disagree with its seriousness and the level of human involvment in warming is enough to send some radicals into a tizzy.

===

aha omg yikes none of these ppl have been pro-democracy, at least when it conflicts w/ profits; zuck says pro regulation as deflection of blame? or // exxon on carbo tax, knowsit will not happen so lip service?

https://www.alternet.org/2022/01/billionaires-2656489510/

me truthout

Billionaire election spending has drastically increased over the last 12 years as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court's Citizens United ruling, according to TruthOut.

Americans For Fair Taxation (AFFT) recently analyzed data that breaks down election campaign contributions. Their assessment suggests that there is an upward trend in billionaire donations to political campaigns. Per the assessment, "billionaires have increased their donations from $31 million total during the 2010 election cycle to a whopping $1.2 billion in the 2020 election cycle, or about 39 times more."

In short, the amount spent in just 2020 accounts for almost 40% of all billionaire political campaign donations since 1990. In fact, spending in the four-year span between 2012 and 2016 is an indication of how trends have changed dramatically.

In 2016, billionaires spent approximately $682 million in campaign donations as opposed to just $233 million back in 2012. So how did the Citizens Unitedruling open this door?

Per Truthout:

"In January of 2010, conservative Supreme Court justices ruled in their Citizens United decision that restricting corporate donations was a violation of corporations’ First Amendment rights – a decision that granted individual rights to corporations and enabled them to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaign contributions. As a result of this decision, vast amounts of money from corporate and deep-pocketed interests have been funneled into elections."

Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness released a statement criticizing the court's decision describing it as "weak taxation of the wealthy" and "anemic regulation."

“On this anniversary of the disastrous Citizens United decision, the escalating campaign donations of billionaires offer the clearest argument possible for why we have to get big money out of politics,” said Clemente. “Weak taxation of the wealthy combined with anemic regulation of campaign fundraising have handed America’s billionaires outsized political influence to go along with their huge economic clout.”

AFFT also released a statement criticizing the ruling.

“Corporations are not people, and billionaires shouldn’t get to use their enormous wealth to pick and choose who they want in office,” Americans for Tax Fairness wrote. “It’s well beyond time for Citizens United to go, and to put real action towards getting big money out of politics. Our democracy depends on it.”

aha: world is complex. chaotic (made more so by bannon trump disruptor) so ppl seek one simple cause --> soros jewish conspiracy, or ag 21 global elites Commie UN. magical thinking, end time race war boogaloo cleanse.

5/21 someone said democracy depend on empathy (trust, rebuild commons vs rather fill in public pool good than let those undeserving POC use it; rather cut social safety net that i poor rural not well educated ppl need to stay in middle class to make sure brn/blk ppl don't use it b/c lazy. not easy b/c I don't want to ID w/ those sinful lazy losers.

===

sparked by 11 21 kyle BS parasite --> maker/taker --> job creator double god term?

god literally made something from nothing // entrepreneur ayn rand hero iron man musk

aha the bizMAN is rationale and clear-eyed vs hysterical alarmists; relies on numbers and reason; a biz is inefficient, and our ceo/prez will balance out budget/checkbook, eliminate waste fraud and abuse so the taxcuts will pay for themselves by magic, provide only minimal important service like billion$ jet fighters and cut those lazy POC from food stanps so they can be independent/ producers not takers.

ayn rand agenda 21 BS biggest damage?

ayn /maggie say no society--> djt no community of nations:

tisch maine timeline:

2017 (June)

President Trump announces that the United States will withdraw from the Paris Climate

Agreement

Stephen Bannon and the anti-globalist, climate denying contingent of White House advisors

trump the personal entreaties of Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, Pope Francis, Ivanka Trump, Rex

Tillerson, European Union heads of state and many others. Oblivious to the fact that the

emissions standards under the Agreement are voluntary, subject to revision, and entail no

penalties for noncompliance, the President calls the deal “draconian,” imposing unfair standards

on American companies and employees. “At what point does America get demeaned? At what

point do they start laughing at us as a country?” Trump says. “We don’t want other leaders and

other countries laughing at us anymore. And they won’t be.”

The New York Times observes that

“Mr. Trump’s decision to abandon the agreement for environmental action signed by 195 nations

is a remarkable rebuke to heads of state, climate activists, corporate executives and members of

the president’s own staff, who all failed to change his mind with an intense, last-minute lobbying

blitz. The Paris agreement was intended to bind the world community into battling rising

temperatures in concert, and the departure of the Earth’s second-largest polluter is a major

blow,”* and its editorial board calls the withdrawal “disgraceful.”**Wall Street Journal

headlines declare: “U.S. Climate Pivot Puts a Reluctant China in Driver’s Seat: Trump’s

withdrawal from Paris accord gives China a new opening to exert sway on a big global issue” ***

Some find a May 30 op/ed in the Wall Street Journal by presidential advisors H. R. McMaster

and Gary Cohn as illuminating on the withdrawal decision in: “The president embarked on his

first foreign trip with a cleareyed outlook that theworld is not a ‘global community’ but an arena

where nations, nongovernmental actors and businesses engage and compete for advantage.”

:{:{}:

Writes David Brooks in The New York Times: “That sentence is the epitome of the Trump project.

It asserts that selfishness is the sole driver of human affairs.”****

Al Gore’s statement on the

withdrawal declares that “Removing the United States from the Paris Agreement is a reckless and

indefensible action. It undermines America’s standing in the world and threatens to damage

humanity’s ability to solve the climate crisis in time. But make no mistake: if President Trump

won’t lead, the American people will. Civic leaders, mayors, governors, CEOs, investors and the

majority of the business community will take up this challenge. We are in the middle of a clean

energy revolution that no single person or group can stop. President Trump’s decision is

profoundly in conflict with what the majority of Americans want from our president; but no

matter what he does, we will ensure that our inevitable transition to a clean energy economy

continues.”*****

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers states that “We may have our

first post-rational president,” and that “It is possible that last week will be remembered as a

hinge in history — a moment when the United States and the world started moving on a

path away from the peace, prosperity and stability that have defined the past 75

years.”****** The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication reports that US voters favor

staying in the Paris Agreement by a margin of 5 to 1, and that half of Trump voters support staying

in, with fewer than 3 in 10 saying we should not stay in.******* The formal process of

withdrawal will likely take four years, and not be final until after the 2020 presidential election.

[see 2015 (December)]

*Michael Shear, “Trump Will Withdraw U.S. From Paris Climate Agreement,” New York Times, June 1, 2017,

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/climate/trump-paris-climate-agreement.html

**Editorial Board, “Our Disgraceful Exit From the Paris Accord,” New York Times, June 1, 2017,

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/opinion/trump-paris-climate-change-agreement.html

***Brian Spegele and Te-Ping Chen, “U.S. Climate Pivot Puts a Reluctant China in Driver’s Seat,” Wall Street Journal, June 2, 2017,

https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-climate-pivot-puts-a-reluctant-china-in-drivers-seat-1496380249

****David Brooks, “Donald Trump Poisons the World,” New York Times, June 2, 2017,

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/opinion/donald-trump-poisons-the-world.html

*****The Climate Reality Project, “Statement by Former Vice President Al Gore on Today’s Decision by the Trump Administration

to Withdraw from the Paris Agreement,” June 1, 2017, https://www.climaterealityproject.org/press/statement-al-gore-us-commitmentparis-agreement

******Lawrence Summers, “After 75 years of progress, was last week a hinge in history?” Washington Post, June 4, 2017,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/after-75-years-of-progress-was-last-week-a-hinge-in-history/2017/06/04/2085b91e-47cf11e7-bcde-624ad94170ab_story.html?utm_term=.7ccf9ee984ec

*******Jennifer Marlon, Eric Fine, and Anthony Keiserowtiz, “Majorities of Americans in Every State Support Participation in the

Paris Agreement,” Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, May 8, 2017,

http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/paris_agreement_by_state/

---

===

aha see hierarchy, black and white thus ~ transgender; putting things/ppl in their rightful place (plus follow leader means don't have to think, plus if feel indiv powerless, join the other cos play militia we the ppl gets corrupted/perverted to doing HIS will, trust the plan, the storm will punish the wicked who have confused/mislead cheated us

BUT rust bible/ poverty belt has watched world unravel, opiod diseases of despair, ghost dance trump, mex workers

an 1 22 corrob

https://www.alternet.org/2019/12/scientists-establish-ink-between-religious-fundamentalism-and-brain-damage/

A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.

Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge. On the other hand, religious beliefs are not usually updated in response to new evidence or scientific explanations, and are therefore strongly associated with conservatism. They are fixed and rigid, which helps promote predictability and coherence to the rules of society among individuals within the group.

Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview.

Since religious beliefs play a massive role in driving and influencing human behavior throughout the world, it is important to understand the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism from a psychological and neurological perspective.

To investigate the cognitive and neural systems involved in religious fundamentalism, a team of researchers—led by Jordan Grafman of Northwestern University—conducted a study that utilized data from Vietnam War veterans that had been gathered previously. The vets were specifically chosen because a large number of them had damage to brain areas suspected of playing a critical role in functions related to religious fundamentalism. CT scans were analyzed comparing 119 vets with brain trauma to 30 healthy vets with no damage, and a survey that assessed religious fundamentalism was administered. While the majority of participants were Christians of some kind, 32.5% did not specify a particular religion.

Based on previous research, the experimenters predicted that the prefrontal cortex would play a role in religious fundamentalism, since this region is known to be associated with something called ‘cognitive flexibility’. This term refers to the brain’s ability to easily switch from thinking about one concept to another, and to think about multiple things simultaneously. Cognitive flexibility allows organisms to update beliefs in light of new evidence, and this trait likely emerged because of the obvious survival advantage such a skill provides. It is a crucial mental characteristic for adapting to new environments because it allows individuals to make more accurate predictions about the world under new and changing conditions.

Brain imaging research has shown that a major neural region associated with cognitive flexibility is the prefrontal cortex—specifically two areas known as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) and the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Additionally, the vmPFC was of interest to the researchers because past studies have revealed its connection to fundamentalist-type beliefs. For example, one study showed individuals with vmPFC lesions rated radical political statements as more moderate than people with normal brains, while another showed a direct connection between vmPFC damage and religious fundamentalism. For these reasons, in the present study, researchers looked at patients with lesions in both the vmPFC and the dlPFC, and searched for correlations between damage in these areas and responses to religious fundamentalism questionnaires.

According to Dr. Grafman and his team, since religious fundamentalism involves a strict adherence to a rigid set of beliefs, cognitive flexibility and open-mindedness present a challenge for fundamentalists. As such, they predicted that participants with lesions to either the vmPFC or the dlPFC would score low on measures of cognitive flexibility and trait openness and high on measures of religious fundamentalism.

The results showed that, as expected, damage to the vmPFC and dlPFC was associated with religious fundamentalism. Further tests revealed that this increase in religious fundamentalism was caused by a reduction in cognitive flexibility and openness resulting from the prefrontal cortex impairment. Cognitive flexibility was assessed using a standard psychological card sorting test that involved categorizing cards with words and images according to rules. Openness was measured using a widely-used personality survey known as the NEO Personality Inventory. The data suggests that damage to the vmPFC indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by suppressing both cognitive flexibility and openness.

These findings are important because they suggest that impaired functioning in the prefrontal cortex—whether from brain trauma, a psychological disorder, a drug or alcohol addiction, or simply a particular genetic profile—can make an individual susceptible to religious fundamentalism. And perhaps in other cases, extreme religious indoctrination harms the development or proper functioning of the prefrontal regions in a way that hinders cognitive flexibility and openness.

The authors emphasize that cognitive flexibility and openness aren’t the only things that make brains vulnerable to religious fundamentalism. In fact, their analyses showed that these factors only accounted for a fifth of the variation in fundamentalism scores. Uncovering those additional causes, which could be anything from genetic predispositions to social influences, is a future research project that the researchers believe will occupy investigators for many decades to come, given how complex and widespread religious fundamentalism is and will likely continue to be for some time.

By investigating the cognitive and neural underpinnings of religious fundamentalism, we can better understand how the phenomenon is represented in the connectivity of the brain, which could allow us to someday inoculate against rigid or radical belief systems through various kinds of mental and cognitive exercises.

===

aha? rooted i RR road to serfdom BS death panels

an 1 22

Watch: Tucker Carlson compares COVID-19 vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan experiments

Meaghan Ellis January 22, 2022

Fox News' Tucker Carlson recently compared COVID vaccine mandates to medical experiments that were conducted during the times of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan.

The conservative primetime host made the controversial remarks on Friday, January 21 during his discussion with Dr. Robert Malone, an anti-vaccination virologist and immunologist known for spreading misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine. Their discussion came just hours after a Texas federal judge struck down President Joe Biden's vaccine mandate.

While discussing the ruling, Carlson criticized the president's vaccine mandate and compared it to the Nazi experiments that were performed on captives held in concentration camps in Germany and the human procedures that were conducted during the period of Imperial Japan.

“After watching what the imperial Japanese army and the Nazis did in their medical experiments, I thought that American physicians agreed that compulsory medical care was unethical, it was immoral, and it could never be imposed on anyone. When did we forget that?”

Malone responded in agreement with Carlson saying, “Apparently, about a year ago was when we must have forgotten that… Thank you for bringing up the Nuremberg Trials, Tucker.”

Carlson's latest remarks align with a history of similar remarks made by Fox News hosts. Back in November, Fox Nation hostLara Logan compared the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, to Josef Mengele, the Nazi “Angel of Death” who used human beings in Auschwitz for grotesque experiments. Shortly after Logan made the remarks, the network decided to sever ties with her.

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WWF ritual re-enactment of good triumph over evil [tho we like rooting for outlaw/underdog ubermensch who does not play by the rules, rebels]; thus we don't care its fake any more than broadway play or mass?

populist trump promised to restore prosperity, drain the swamp corruption by which the elite continue to win the rigged game/system; of course those in the corrupt gubmint would oppsed him (deep state) so he will need the power of patriots to fight them, so 1/6

aha alt right event [scientology? "back to parents basements"] was about manifesting indiv grievance // 1/6? reality TV taken to next level/step?

cdv alludes to amuse self death; reality TV prepared us for post truth world? ruthless darwinian winners and losers?

1 22 cdv

...Consider the fascinating and, at times, undeniably entertaining characters of TrumpWorld. Donald Trump himself is a reality TV star and pro wrestling "heel" who somehow became president. He has surrounded himself with other characters straight from central casting, including corrupt consigliere Roger Stone and "America's mayor" Rudy Giuliani, now a grossly incompetent go-between and a legal adviser of dubious skill and wisdom.

It's easy to laugh, but we cannot overlook those smart and very dangerous foes of democracy such as Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn, Stephen Miller, John Eastman, Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and numerous others. There are also the lesser-known true believers and ideologues who lurk in the shadows of think tanks, interest groups, academia, business and finance, the news media, right-wing evangelical churches, paramilitaries and "tactical culture," military and veterans groups, and elsewhere in the private sector and the world of public policy and consulting.

===

aha: as trms and i think hayes note goal not to govern b/c gubmint inherently corrupt/incompetent and regulation evil; plus they would have to understand how system works and do work and even compromise, and the latter is evil and former unappealing, so do standup like boebert; troll own the libs tickled up from alt rt swamp:

presumably he's looking for adulation like bannon or anyone would get on gab or talk radio, a brave act of speak truth to power, ok to insult an illegitimate prez who stole election?

a bit like 2nd freedumb rightwingers see as absolute with no acctability eg

an 12 21

...Bombarded with criticism for his childish stunt, the 35-year-old Schmeck told the Oregonian, “Now, I am being attacked for utilizing my freedom of speech.” And Obeidallah slams Schmeck for painting himself as a victim.

“Schmeck is now doing the cliché conservative move of saying he's being unfairly criticized because people have slammed his ‘joke’…. Aww, poor ‘victim’ Schmeck,” Obeidallah argues. “Apparently, he thinks he should be able to tell Biden to basically go f**k himself while on a family-friendly holiday call, but no one should be able to take issue with his actions. Sorry, that's not how freedom of speech works.”

Obeidallah continues, “If you want to troll a president to apparently make others on the right happy, you can expect criticism. If you don't want criticism because you are painfully thin-skinned, then don't say ‘Let's go, Brandon’ on a live Christmas Eve special. It's as simple as that.”...

===

12/21 many //

fear hype2

but made me realize it's fox's biz model?!

also facebook algo amplify

see bad faith/ faux fox outrage

phobia fear scam started with entine

vs scam grift ideological entre?

do xians fear or anticipate end of world armageddon?

// outrage? social media only good at a couple emotions

see emotion anger fear

see rhet god devil term, anti-commie

see us vs them enemy, polarization

note trumpista reptile brain sensitive

should direct mail this be sorta generic for hype fear grift online fundraising ? eg

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/freedomworks-hopes-anti-critical-race-theory-organizing-will-bring-massive-right-wing-gains-in-2022/

freedomWorks, one of the many right-wing groups taking part in the dishonest campaign against critical race theory, is fomenting opposition to teaching about systemic racism in an effort to mobilize conservative voters to turn out in 2022 midterms and take over school boards.

The day after Thanksgiving, FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon wrote in a fundraising email that opposition to critical race theory “could be the key to making MASSIVE political gain in 2022.” He claimed that “the Left” is out to “indoctrinate children with CRT – so our kids will start hating our country and our God-given freedoms as much as the Left does.”

FreedomWorks’ Noah Wall followed up with an email a couple days later claiming that “The radical Left has proven that they are willing to do whatever it takes to brainwash future generations to transform America into a socialist nation.”

Brandon’s email touted FreedomWorks’ efforts to recruit and train school board candidates. He claimed that since the group had launched its BEST (Building Education for Students Together) initiative, it had hosted grassroots events reaching 3,700 activists, trained more than 300 activists to run for the school board, encouraged 150 of its Candidate Academy graduates to commit to filing paperwork to run for school board seats, and created partnerships with many of the other right-wing groups rallying activists to take over school boards.

Just a few days later, Sen. Mike Lee of Utah lent his name to a Dec. 1 FreedomWorks fundraising email that focused on other supposed threats from “the Left’s socialist wish list” such as a $15 minimum wage and statehood for the District of Columbia. Lee’s brief note introduced a longer message from Brandon, who asked for money to fight “the swamp” and elect right-wing candidates in 2022. “Whether it’s AOC’s so called ‘Green New Deal,’ Washington D.C. Statehood, Supreme Court packing—or the Democrats’ schemes to seize TOTAL control of our election system—America is facing a GRAVE THREAT.”

FreedomWorks is associated with the State Policy Network, a collection of think tanks and advocacy groups that promote right-wing policies at the state level. Brandon is a member of Council for National Policy, a secretive and influential network of right-wing and far-right activists.

Tags: Adam Brandon, Mike Lee. Noah Wall, Critical Race Theory, Election 2022 School Boards Council for National Policy Freedom Works FreedomWorks State Policy Network

---

aha: slavery is am original sin, thus thugs on a plane antifa is the real threat/promoters of violence/ looing/rioting George Floyd BLM, we white ppl kyle are merely protecting ourselves/sacred property

12 21 see all https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/conservative/

Some of you will be familiar with DARVO, an acronym for deny, attack and reverse victim and offender. DARVO describes the behavior of psychological abusers when they are being held accountable for their behavior. Donald Trump and his supporters clearly exhibit DARVO habits. Rather than accept blame for anything they do, they turn around and accuse those blaming them of creating the problem. Victimized Bully Syndrome (VBS), as I'm describing it, though, is slightly different from DARVO. With DARVO the abusive behavior comes first and DARVO only emerges if the attacker is asked to take responsibility.But with VBS the cries of being victims come first and are used to justify the underlying bullying behaviors.The bully under VBS is always already acting in self-defense.[// kyle pleads self defense from danger he created, btw claimed to go as 1st aid medic?!]

---

aha: bannon is just latest extension of rove's dismissal of reality-based journalism?

alt rt trolls win by owning the libs, often by making outrageous claim they know to be false to provoke an emotional reaction in weak woman-y snowflakes.

recall early graphic of blogs red/blue but red more insular/echo

flood the zone bannon/ troll it is a deliberate strategy to overwhelm correction [by lamestream media, fake news?!] and thus moderation; you cannot trust news nor gubmint thus civil society erodes and --> authoritartian/fascism strong MAN/strict FATHER to fix, maga

soc media co attempt to tamp down BS evaved by misspell or vol/forved migrsation to gab etc that prides self on lack of moderation [censorship]

flood the zone with shit/disinfo might originally been troll tactic to deflect accurate critiques/blame and rubber glue inverse crypto bizarro mirror world --> Earth2; but always hype fear about THEM enemy threat to all that's good, grift for $ to fight the evil

amplify/accelerate --> radicalization; enemy // target // tyrant

aha echo is the opposite of correction,[WELL THERE'S A SORT OF CORRECTION BUT IN THE WRONG DIRECTION BY A SMALLER AND SMALLER SUBSET OF WACKOS THAT IS IRONICALLY GETTING LARGER AND LARGER AND FINDING/MAKING EACH OTHER [[CRAZIER]]; and algo gives incremental DOSE of crazy that builds on previous slightly less crazy:--> earth2 delusional break from reality is phase shift/level up/ tip pt? doom spiral?

12 21 an salon https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/tucker-carlson/

the TV was talking to me. I was in the midst of a delusion that the news anchors on CNN were operatives of a shadow government run by the Clintons. Every time I crossed the living room of my father's dingy basement apartment, their heads followed me and the news anchors interrogated me about my role in the Russia investigation. I believed "Russia investigation" was really code for a global conspiracy to enslave humanity through mind control. President Donald Trump and the Republicans were secretly working to overturn this shadow government and end the deep state programs. Targets of torture like me would be set free.

I turned the channel to FOX News. They repeated over and over that Hilary Clinton was a criminal. Even though I was a Democrat and had voted for Bill Clinton twice, I mailed in the form to join the Republican Party. Then I faxed evidence to the Russian consulate and sent a letter to the CIA offering to cooperate in the investigation.

What I didn't know I was that I was in the advanced stages of untreated paranoid schizophrenia. I was experiencing a psychotic break from reality.

It all seemed so real.

When I was eventually treated, my psychiatrist explained to me, "With paranoid schizophrenia it's just like "The Bourne Identity" — there are people for you, people against you, and somebody always has to be the villain."

I know what you're thinking — thank God they have medication for these people.Now, I wonder, is the average American so different from me? Are we all susceptible to paranoid thoughts, conspiratorial thinking and bias when executive function in the frontal lobes and our ability to reason are disabled by fear?

Terrified by a global pandemic, there are people who believe Bill Gates is an evil mastermind who engineered the coronavirus, with plans to depopulate and microchip the world's population, while profiting in the process. Antivaxxers refuse to take a vaccine they think will alter the structure of human DNA. Our brains seek to impose order. Conspiracy theories can provide answers to people who feel overwhelmed. But ideally the frontal lobes should step in to challenge strange thoughts by asking the question: Is what I am perceiving based in reality?

Dr. Oliver Freudenreich, Co-Director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Psychosis Program, states that there is no generally agreed-upon definition on what constitutes a delusion. From a psychiatric or biological perspective, delusions are driven by excessive amounts of the neurotransmitter dopamine. There is a biological basis to them, and treatment can correct this abnormality. A person with such delusions (e.g., somebody with schizophrenia) is expected to respond to being treated with an antipsychotic medication which blocks dopamine. In other words, one can take a pill and think rationally.

However, many people can't do that if their delusional thinking is part of a worldview that is more an ideology. According to Dr. Freudenreich, when people create their own insular groups — where delusional ideas are never corrected, but simply bounce around in an echo chamber — it is much harder to fight those types of delusions.

Policy divides are now often framed as a battle between good and evil.The most obvious consequence of overheated partisan rhetoric is that someone with an untreated psychiatric illness can go on to commit an act of violence against a person or group that they believe is a perpetrator of their suffering. This is rare. More common is the normal person who goes down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and finds a world that makes sense to them.

On January 6th, 2021, incited by President Trump and believing the election had been stolen, a mob attacked the Capital building. Some in the crowd showed up for the "Storm," which is a QAnon conspiracy theory that posits that Trump was planning mass arrests of a secret cabal of satanic pedophiles and coup plotters, headed by Hilary Clinton and George Soros. Capitol police described the scene as being like fighting a medieval battle.

Social dynamics can propagate conspiracy-based thinking that mimics biologically triggered delusions. But there is no medication that will stop mass violence fueled by conspiracies.

I was a forty-six-year-old filmmaker when I suddenly began to have paranoid thoughts that people were following me. When I lost my day job due to bizarre behavior, I lost my excellent health insurance. I was dumped into America's broken mental health care system that offers substandard psychiatric care to patients on Medicaid, while spending vast amounts of taxpayer money. Misdiagnosed and neglected at the county hospital, I got sicker and sicker … until the TV started talking to me.

Years of my life are now gone. I try not to be bitter that I ended up unemployed, bankrupt and almost homeless, when all I needed was proper medical care. Every day I am grateful that I didn't wind up living on the streets or locked up in prison, like so many people with schizophrenia.

It's easy to mock people who think Bill Gates wants to put a microchip in them with the coronavirus vaccine. But it's much harder to separate conspiracy theorists' larger existential fears from our own. We're approaching the second year of a global pandemic, which is causing mass anxiety and depression. The internet routinely displays images of future roads in major cities as gushing rivers due to climate change. Billions of fish were boiled in the American Northwest and Canada during an unprecedented heatwave this summer. If someone's mind starts spinning with their wildest fears and finds solace in a conspiracy theory, can you really blame them?

Television is a powerful medium. CNN and FOX News repeat the same headlines, the same phrases, over and over in the same news day. Back then, these read to my unhinged mind as coded speech; to the unsuspecting public, it is more akin to propaganda. When I was psychotic, I thought a shadow government had a ministry of propaganda and they colluded across networks. I worry about living in a country where the two major political parties are always at war, unable to get anything done, and the public is fed a delusional world by networks and social media companies competing for viewers.

People with paranoid schizophrenia see patterns that don't actually exist. Just like conspiracy theorists, they are constantly scanning the news for pieces of information to connect the dots about unseen forces controlling events. Both groups believe they are being persecuted by others. I had grandiose beliefs that I was at the center of every news story on TV. My mind was looking to cast a villain to account for the symptoms of a brain disease. The media handed me a culprit to blame. [q or trump sent me]

Dr. Anthony Fauci has complained about the extraordinary divisiveness surrounding the public health crisis created by the pandemic. The current battle is over masks and vaccines. FOX News paints the Democratic Party as a threat to democracy that has invented domestic enemies, such as the unvaccinated, to desperately cling to power. News anchors across CNN repeat the phrase "viral blizzard" to warn the public and scare the unvaccinated about the new variant. Fear mongering is psychologically destabilizing to the most normal person. But this media environment can be toxic to someone with an untreated psychiatric illness. I wish politicians and their media allies would stop contributing to the collective unraveling of the American mind.

---

aha:

SEE NEW MAIN NODE MAGA TAKE BACK:

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

gubmint tyrant thus violence justified, the job /duty of a man/real patriot; B/C ELECTION STOLEN BY THEM FROM US, WE HAVE NO CHOICE BUT TO USE VIOLENCE TO MAKE IT RIGHT

aha a real man merkin fights to the death rather than surrender (loss of freedom) and become someone's bitch, but the good xian woman knows her place and happily submits to husband, he has dominion over her; in wrestling winner pins defeated down, not unlike rape? winner comes out on top, "you're going down" is taunt/challenge/prediction

12 21 see all https://www.alternet.org/2021/12/conservative/

Some of you will be familiar with DARVO, an acronym for deny, attack and reverse victim and offender. DARVO describes the behavior of psychological abusers when they are being held accountable for their behavior.Donald Trump and his supporters clearly exhibit DARVO habits. Rather than accept blame for anything they do, they turn around and accuse those blaming them of creating the problem. Victimized Bully Syndrome (VBS), as I'm describing it, though, is slightly different from DARVO. With DARVO the abusive behavior comes first and DARVO only emerges if the attacker is asked to take responsibility. But with VBS the cries of being victims come first and are used to justify the underlying bullying behaviors. The bully under VBS is always already acting in self-defense.

Take this example: In a recent interview with Fox News, Dr. Mehmet Oz, candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania suggested that Americans had been victimized by President Biden's "one-size-fits-all" COVID-19 "rules that limit our freedom." According to Oz, U.S. citizens "want government to get out of their way to stop scaring them into submission."

If we set aside the sheer stupidity of a doctor suggesting that we need "as many different approaches as possible" to the pandemic, the critical takeaway is Oz's claim that Biden's policy is designed to victimize the public by scaring them, taking away their freedoms, and destroying their dignity. According to this logic, refusing to wear a mask, get vaccinated, or support public health policy is a valid defense, rather than bullying behavior that puts everyone in peril.

---

===

aha: erosion of trust 60's viet nam lies pentagon papers, secret plan to end war, nixon lies ---> apollo landing hoax, Area 51 ...koch propaganda libtard Fox --> soc med/ OANN, Newsmax is a blog with video?

// = interlocking isms?

21 21 an 1/6 was practice

Barton Gellman, a staff writer for The Atlantic, has an excellent track record when it comes to predicting the ways in which former President Donald Trump and his allies would assault U.S. democracy. Before the United States’ 2020 presidential election, Gellman predicted that Trump would attempt a coup d’état if he lost to now-President Joe Biden —which is exactly what happened. And Gellman is now warning that Trumpistas will be better equipped to pull off a coup in the 2024 election; the journalist discussed that warning during a December 7 appearance on Rachel Maddow’s MSNBC show.

Maddow and Gellman’s appearance on Maddow’s show followed the December 6 publication of an article headlined “Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun” on The Atlantic’s website. That article is also available as a cover story in the January/February 2022 issue of The Atlantic’s print edition.

Describing Gellman’s reporting as “terrifying,” Maddow asked Gellman to discuss the possibility of Republicans “throwing out thousands, if not millions, of votes in the 2024 election.”

Gellman told Maddow, “I think it’s very real. I’m personally, just as a citizen, very worried about it. I think you have people who are bound and determined not to allow Republicans to lose another national election — and not to allow Trump to lose another election. And they are giving themselves permission to do it.”

The journalist went on to say, “They are characterizing the Democrats as tyrants, as thieves of an election who actually stole the presidency, as communists, as people who hate America — and they couldn’t discuss it with any more extremity than they’re doing. When you do that, you give yourself permission to take all kinds of steps in opposition. I mean, if you have an existential threat to the United States of America — which is what Republicans are saying about Biden — then what remedy would not be allowed to you?”

Maddow asked Gellman why the “openness to violence” among “Trump supporters” has been “growing worse,” and he responded, “I think there’s a strong ongoing message that is amplified thousands of times by the whole ecosystem on the right that is a propaganda ecosystem, and it is telling people that someone stole the election from them — that the Democrats are destroying the country, that more and more so-called evidence proves these things. And yeah, I think there’s this very large mass of Trump supporters who believe both that Biden is an illegitimate president who stole the office, and that violence is justified.”

===

aha oann fox dems are coming for you // kyle, bannon jok

dr fauci

venom hard to fathom? st'd war on sci by gop grounded in climate denial and just anti-green regs in general?

a really familiar and thus reassuring? face on TV; he was one of 2 actually experts on podium w/ djt

kept correcting nonsense, thus predictably disappeared from press confs, now wm barr, vp

once demonized, anything can be charged?

random 12 21

Right Wing Round-Up: Pelosi’s Fake Mansion

Kyle MantylaBy Kyle Mantyla | November 30, 2021 5:32 pm

Leia Idliby @ Mediaite: Marjorie Taylor Greene and Nancy Mace Throw Down in Brutal Twitter Feud Over Boebert’s Racist Comments.

Cristina Cabrera @ Talking Points Memo: Another Video Shows Boebert Hurling Islamophobic Slurs At Omar Back In September.

Justin Baragona @ The Daily Beast: Fox Nation Host Compares Fauci to Nazi ‘Angel of Death’: ‘People All Across the World Are Saying This.’

Media Matters: Tucker Carlson calls Dr. Fauci “an even shorter version of Benito Mussolini.”

Jim Swift @ The Bulwark: Conservative Media Makes Up a Fake Florida Mansion for Nancy Pelosi.

Hemant Mehta @ Friendly Atheist: Evangelist: Your Circumcised Tithes Will Protect Your Family.

Tags: Lara LoganLauren BoebertMarjorie Taylor GreeneRobin BullockTucker CarlsonRound-Up

---

===

see lone wolf leaderless resistance mass shooters

in countries with gun control, told to use knife or vehicle (france? cda?)

aha: (thom traces slavery roots to RR to now]

if gov't is tryrant we need guns terroorism to defend oureselves and our freedumb; if gov't merely inept handcuffed by PC we need guns to defend ourselves from antifa thugs commie dems; car kill protester is not that far from PI duetertes death squads to kill dealers and junkies?! note this turns over gov't monopoly on force and hands over to lone wack jobs radicalized by fox and soc med

thom h kyle

...A right-wing militia group in New York celebrated in the streets and then put a punctuation mark on their disdain for the law and simple rules of a civil society by entering the NY subway system through the emergency exit, bypassing the toll booths. "Rules don't apply to us!" they seemed to be shouting, along with, "You can't stop us!"

Trump wannabees in public office who are still trying to capture the white supremacist and white nationhood vote have doubled down on his strategy of fear, hate, and vigilantism.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, for example, recently signed into law legislation that gives legal protections to people who drive their cars into protesters in the street and defines everybody in any protest as a criminal felon if anybody in that protest breaks a window or engages in other illegal activity.

With DeSantis and other Republican governors pre-exonerating people like the driver who viciously killed Heather Heyer and vigilante protest shooters like Rittenhouse, many are worried that we're entering a new era where vigilante shooters and drivers-into-crowds will become as normalized and accepted as Amy Vanderpool documents how normalized daily mass shootings have become in America.

Laws similar to Florida's have been passed or are pending in numerous Republican-controlled states, presumably in anticipation of citizen protests when those states use their newly passed laws to overturn the will of voters in the 2022 and 2024 elections. Object to your politicians handing an election they lost to themselves? You go straight from the streets to the jail, just like in tinhorn dictatorships.

There's always been a fringe movement of violent white supremacist vigilantes in America, particularly since the end of the Civil War, but they've never before been embraced by or succeeded in capturing a political party. Today, astonishingly, that's the case in our country.

So, what's motivating today's vigilantes and the police who often aid and support them, as in the Rittenhouse case?...

===

minor aha that buids on prev:

// me vs we, macho, freedumb, anger, victim

11 21

...Another one of her cartoons, called "Avatar: The Last Airbender," speaks to our current social and political crisis, which I think of as a crisis of humility.

Meaning, there's not enough of it on account of there being not enough demand. That might be a consequence of history. When I was my daughter's age, in 1984, American culture was very worried about children and their feelings of shame. (To a degree, it still is.) The culture asked parents to encourage in their kids a pride of self. Healthy self-directing egos were thought to mean healthy self-directing children, which meant a society of healthy self-directing individuals.

But Uncle Iroh, one of the characters in "Avatar," knows better. For reasons I won't go into, Iroh is something of a pariah by the time we meet him. He has fallen from a great height. As such, he's come to understand the real link between pride and shame. As he tells his young nephew, who insists on being proud: "Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the only antidote to shame."

READ: Former Trump aide who was 'Anonymous': Why he stayed, why he left and how the GOP became more dangerous than ISIS]

Our culture still seems to think the answer to feelings of shame and insecurity is feelings of pride and self-confidence. You often see this after some kind of disaster, like a shooting massacre. We are frequently told suspects felt shame so they lashed out violently. If they had a more robust inner life, a more secure sense of self, perhaps the violence could have been averted. But as Uncle Iroh understood, high self-esteem is not the answer to low self-esteem. The ego is the source of rage, hate and violence. Humility is where one finds peace.

This has some empirical basis. In the 1990s, social psychologist Roy Baumeister led a team of researchers in finding that threats to the ego can disrupt a person's ability to self-regulate emotions. This can and does result in hate, which, in turn, can and does lead to violence. Baumeister does not address humility specifically, but he does imply it as he points to the problem of being proud instead of being humble.

"The new cultural demands on selfhood make it into a burdensome concern that can produce frequent stress," he wrote in The Self and Society in 1997. "People feel they must maintain a highly positive image of self that requires constant vigilance against dangers and threats. Even if they do not experience major experiences of humiliation or disgrace, the ongoing threat and resulting demand for vigilance may become tiresome and draining. Awareness of self may often be tinged with worry or stress and hence may take on an aversive aspect."

You can imagine how this plays out politically. Since 2008, the political right has stood against democracy on account of democracy electing a Black president. To these bigots and ghouls, America is a white man's country given to them by God to rule with impunity. Every time the outgroup wins a little freedom, the ingroup feels less free. Democracy, moreover, leads to equality. The political right hates that. Equality means bigots and ghouls aren't as super-duper as they believe they are. Equality means they just might have to go out and kill somebody.

You could say the election of Donald Trump, the anti-democratic turn we have seen from the GOP and all the shooting massacres we've seen since the reelection of a Black president altogether constitute one giant wounded ego. The result has been one giant lashing out against democracy the way mass shooters lash out against schools. As Baumeister said, in a different but relevant context: "Cultural prescriptions can exert considerable influence by telling people at what point it is appropriate to turn violent, ranging from 'only when someone is attacking you in a life-threatening fashion' to 'when the person implies disrespect toward you by making eye contact.'"

Ego, pride, shame, hate, rage, violence, fascism. These all have a common source in the human mind. The irony is our culture believes the antidote is more of the same. USA Today's Marco della Cava wrote today that the path toward national political healing this Thanksgiving holiday might be "practicing gratitude." As one of his sources told him: "We learn to appreciate things when we lose them, unfortunately."

How about we appreciate losing them? To be sure, you should have what you need. If that's not enough, rethink your needs. Desire, said Epicurus centuries ago, is what causes so much pain. To minimize pain, and maximize pleasure, you should minimize desire. "Practicing gratitude" can easily slip back to the original problem -- to an ego that can't be satisfied no matter how much self-confidence it has, an ego that can't tolerate the "disrespect of eye contact," and an ego that manifests itself politically as a Republican Party turned fascist.

===

see hierarchy, strict fr property (edit bd and I tie] control, power rape domestic violence, political violence is about keeping THEM in their rightful lower place vs Real Am

11 21

Political violence is on people's minds now that Kyle Rittenhouse has been acquitted. According to USA Today, far-right groups celebrated last week's unsurprising verdict. "Kyle Rittenhouse is the hero we've been waiting for" was posted on the Gab profile for VDare, a self-consciously fascist organization headquartered in the foothills of Washington, Conn. The takeaway appears to be that it's now OK to shoot anti-racists as long as the shooting can be credibly characterized as "self-defense."

Protests broke out in Kenosha, Wis., where Rittenhouse traveled two summers ago to "protect" property while demonstrators, including some violent looters, protested the police murder of George Floyd. These newest protests were accompanied by a father-daughter duo carrying the same long gun Rittenhouse did. Instead of being white, though, they were Black. Instead of protecting property, they were protecting "anti-Rittenhouse protesters," said the New York Post.

Political violence is on people's minds. The right to petition the government for redress of grievances enshrined in the First Amendment seems to be running against the grain of the right to bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment. After Rittenhouse's acquittal, anti-racists may feel it's too dangerous to petition. (The fascists are taking it to mean they can shoot first and often.) But some won't let the Second Amendment nullify the First. They'll arm up.

When racists with guns meet anti-racists with guns, it's likely the results will be bad, bad, very bad. USA Today, citing a study by Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, said "armed protests are six times more likely to turn violent compared to protests where no guns are present." That study examined more than 30,000 public demonstrations over 18 months between January 2020 to June 2021.

READ: [The dark Trumptopia we inhabit is the world science fiction warned us about]

Lead researcher Roudabeh Kishi told USA Today: "Oftentimes guns can kind of play a role with just increasing tensions. They're used as intimidation and kind of makes a tense environment even more tense. And so sometimes we'll see other types of violence breakout, not necessarily always a shooting," she said. "So it's like an indirect way arms can actually contribute to violence and destruction."

Political violence is on people's minds. Lee Drutman, a political scientist and New America fellow, said today that "violence is the alternative to politics. By normalizing violence, we undermine politics."

But what if political violence is normal? What if it should always be on people's mind. And what if our democratic politics is always already being undermined in some way by political violence. I suggest Rittenhouse's acquittal will not be the cause of future political violence. It is the effect of past political violence always already at work. We don't see it, though. Political violence is so normal it's practically invisible.

Political violence is the predictable consequence of democratic politics seeking to advance the cause of liberty, equality and justice for all coming into conflict with conservative politics seeking to maintain a social order in which white men rule American society with impunity....>Charlottesville defendants found liable for civil conspiracy and ordered to pay millions in damages...Because democracy won't stop, and conservative politics won't stop, that means political violence is always already there. It's better to see Rittenhouse's acquittal not as a cause of future violence but, I think, as an inflection point after which private political violence goes public.

Private political violence? What we are seeing now, in the potential for armed racists to silence free speech through intimidation or murder, didn't come from no where. It started at home, in the family, especially between husband and wife. When women challenge "authority," when children challenge "authority," conservative politics does not turn to democracy as a means of resolving conflict. It turns to violence.

It also covers it up. When a husband hits his wife, when a father hits his kids, our discourse almost never calls it political violence though the maintenance of the man's authority over his wife and children is almost always the reason he hits his wife and children. We call it "domestic violence." We call it "child abuse." These terms are accurate but incomplete. Suffering is a political problem in democratic politics. Suffering is a political goal in conservative politics. Without suffering — without punishment for those people who deserve to feel their pain — anything can happen. Even liberty, equality and justice for all.

Political violence has been growing acutely since we elected a Black president. The violence was enabled by Republicans loosening gun laws after Barack Obama's reelection. The Supreme Court is considering whether to make carrying a firearm openly a constitutional right. The NRA never gloried in mass murders. It did after Rittenhouse's acquittal. The private political violence that inspired the nation's worst shooting massacres is inspiring the institutionalization of public political violence. Where that leaves democratic politics, God only knows.

===

rubber glue reverse (pager ID victim reverse reverse)

fav of trump?

hillary, you're corrupt!

triggered [heh] by shapiro kyle BS

related to mirror and crypto, possibly evil

CRT is racism disguised as free speech? anti-racism? whole lotta quoting of MLK by right wingers lately? "color-blind"

in some way probably just taking standard and correct critiques of right and trying to claim the left does it too (thus ok for right to defend themselves) or everyone does it so ok if we do and you're hypocrits if you call us right out on it in the future.

or most extreme we don't do it only YOU left do.

recall gang of 5 new right we are the true radicals/revolutionaries, but that was trying to steal/co-opt a positive (tho somewhat badass) term.

we're not the racist/oppressors/censors, you the left are: AA is reverse discrimination, you are trying to cancel/ silence us, white ppl xians are the true victims.

---

===

kyle verdict is alt rt boogaloo renaissance?! the power of [biden/feds/ gubmint / courts/law cannot stop us from doing whatever the fuck we want

see pepe

see nihilism happy smiley face "nothing matters" = threat warning: you evil Un-Am scum (or just other tribe enemy) pose such a threat (to our having power) that we will commit genocide.

---

note neo-nazi militia mask/balaclava indistinguishable from SS death grin?

---

aha: like hulk irrational but sorta smart like stark? ingenious sadist?

// trump boost half-crazy: i am a powerful opponent b/c i will hyper-escalate w/o warning b/c i don't care about diplomacy/ rep/the rules

joker can't beat batman in strength or tech (intelligence?) so he uses what instead? the dark knight at darkest is no different? thus no such thing as moral / superiority?

see rhet god/devil terms

guns of course muy macho, kyle said he picked the AR15 b/c it looked cool = manly, warrior, lethal = power

note pedo-commie and bitch (co-opts black thug rap?]

pudgey white suburban so gets invite/summons on facebook to man up and go help the good guy cops who are besiged by black thugs [dylann r radicalized by blk on wht crime]

aha anti commie, fag and semite:

omfg parasite = cockroaches = exterminate vermin carry disease dirty

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/rittenhouse-2655770737/

no lnx pix req

Rittenhouse verdict championed on right-wing social media as green light for killing protesters

[Charlottesville "Unite the Right" Rally. Far-right Oath Keepers patrol Emancipation Park. Credit: Anthony Crider]

David Neiwertand Daily Kos November 21, 2021

The exultation on right-wing social media following Kyle Rittenhouse's acquittal has been sickeningly predictable: Mainstream conservatives loudly valorize Rittenhouse as a "hero," while more extremist voices, applying the same logic, demand that more Americans follow his footsteps—urging the likeminded to take to the street now to begin using guns to "be like Kyle." They have even appropriated his name for their future plans, voiced in numerous celebratory threads: Any leftist protester shot by a right-wing "patriot" henceforth will have been "Rittenhoused."

As we forecasted, the acquittal is now a beacon-like green light granting permission to violent right-wing extremists to openly wage the kind of "civil war" against "the left"—which ranges from liberal Democrats like Joe Biden to the "antifa" bogeyman they have concocted—that they have been fantasizing about for the past decade. In the words of Charlie Kirk's interlocutor, it's the signal that now they "get to use the guns."

The bloodlust has been palpable. Online trolls celebrated that "it's Open Season on pedo-commies" and boasted that the verdict means "there's nothing you can do about it." A neo-Nazi channel on Twitter urged readers to "let this win fuel your rage." A fan of pseudo-journalist Andy Ngo commented in a retweet: "Every one of these anarchist criminal thugs should be shot in the street like the worthless dogs they are."

Far-right maven Ann Coulter posted a meme showing a gantlet of [marvel nazi nerd wet dr] comic-book superheroes bowing to Rittenhouse. On Facebook, Ben Shapiro framed any future violence as being left-wing: "The Left accepting the verdict in a peaceable manner remains the sizable elephant in the room."

The white-nationalist site VDare also extolled Rittenhouse's heroism:

This much is true: Kyle Rittenhouse is the hero we've been waiting for throughout the turbulent summer of 2020, where a Black Lives Matter/Antifa/Bolshevik revolution has our country on the brink of total chaos.

[Coulter-RittenhouseMeme.jpeg]

Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire blamed the media for there even having been a trial:

The verdict is right and just but Kyle Rittenhouse never should have been on trial at all. Now themedia will go to work, like the demonsthey are, to ensure that Kenosha burns because they did not get their blood sacrifice.

Walsh then added:

I hope Rittenhouse bankrupts all of you dirtbags in media who smeared him as a white supremacist. [sue for libel based on verdict? // charlottesville ~ KKK case finished ] I hope he ruins your life. I want you to suffer. It's what you deserve. It's justice.

Idaho legislator Tammy Nichols, a Republican, posted a meme featuring the Gadsden-flag "Don't Tread On Me" design, but with a graphic of Rittenhouse firing from a seated position as he did in Kenosha.

The Gun Owners of America (GOA)—a gun-rights extremist group headed by far-right militia figure Larry Pratt—joined in the celebration by announcing it was giving Rittenhouse a new gun.

Alert: GOA will be awarding Kyle Rittenhouse with an AR-15 for his defense of gun rights in America. Join us in saying THANK YOU to Kyle Rittenhouse for being awarrior for gun rights and self defense rights across the country!

Other "Patriot" Movement extremists saw the verdict as vindication for vigilantism and militia organizing. The "Washougal Moms," a militia-friendly group from eastern Washington state, opined:

Today the jury and legal system has reaffirmed our rights as citizens. The second amendmentin all aspects, to form a well regulated militia, the right to bear arms in self defense, and against enemiesboth foreign and domestic!

Kurt Schlichter, the right-wing troll with over 380,000 followers, taunted MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan, who had expressed concern about the double racial standard that the verdict reflects, on Twitter.

Your pain delights me. Kyle Rittenhouse killed two leftistcatspawsand bisected the bicep of another and there's nothing you can do about it.

A white-nationalist Twitter account called "Based Teutonic" celebrated the verdict by posting a fantasy that Rittenhouse would now embark on an action-hero-like mission—with the help of Judge Bruce Schroeder, who oversaw the trial in markedly biased fashion.

About to exit court room

Judge yells from behind:

Rittenhouse turns around

You forgot this

Tosses him his AR15

Credits roll, Eye of the Tiger plays

"Based Teutonic" wasn't alone in celebrating Schroeder's role in the verdict. On Telegram, a commenter in a Proud Boys channel observed:

Kyle's case shows how important is to have your guys in power on a local level. One vaguely conservative boomer judge made all of the difference in a monumental trial.

Other Proud Boys were more focused on their long-anticipated civil war. "There's still a chance for this country," wrote one. Another wrote: "The left wont stop until their bodies get stacked up like cord wood."

The Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights monitored a number of far-right chat forums (particularly Telegram) following the verdict, and found an outpouring of extremist bile, much of it anticipating the ability to inflict lethal violence on "leftists," as well as Black "parasites" and, of course, Jewish people. A user called The Western Chauvinist commented: "The parasites are planning multiple 'protests' across the United States."

One user calling himself "Proud Boy To Fascist Pipeline" replied to one of these comments mocking Black leaders protesting the verdict as "parasites": "Your 17 year olds are already armed and terrorizing our neighborhoods, n----er."

Fittingly, Charlie Kirk fans—following the example of his Idaho audience member—were focused on the violence: "Arm up and tell them f**cking bring it!" one replied to predictions of leftist protests after the verdict. "Shoot these phukers," commented another.

Nick Fuentes' "Groypers" were also unbridled in their anticipation of gunning down their opponents. "The most American thing you can do is Killing Commies," opined one on the white-nationalist forum Gab.

Another Gab user exulted with a meme showing Joaquin Phoenix as The Joker, dancing: "When you find out it's officially Open Season on pedo-commies." Mocking "wannabe street thugs upset with the verdict," another Gab user replied, "you're gonna get Rittenhouse'd. Bitch."

Gab-OpenSeason.png

"Getting Rittenhoused" became a popular way of threatening leftists. After Ngo posted a handful of tweets from leftists angry about the verdict, hundreds of his fans piled on, making threats of violence against them. "Someone will Rittenhouse them too," one responded. Another replied: "I came here to say that!"

Antisemitism also was a common theme. Right-wing troll Keith Woods, who has 23,500 followers on Twitter, declared after the verdict: "Huge L for the Jews." His followers piled on; one responded with a GIF meme of Gollum and the text, "Curse you goyim." Another replied, "hopefully they take an L in Charlottsville trial too. WHITE BOY WINTER!"

White nationalist Eric Striker was more explicitly antisemitic, as well as strategic, in his commentary:

Beating the Jews to the narrative as incidents unfold is more important than anything that happens in court.

Once you frame a story with the facts (and the facts have to be 100% accurate) and disseminate it with an effective propaganda network, Jews will struggle to challenge it once it's cemented.

Notorious white nationalist and antisemite Mike "Enoch" Peinovich put out a statement through his National Justice Party: "This victory for Kyle Rittenhouse over the cosmopolitan elite forces that plague the nation isn't only a victory for the young man himself, it's a victory for justice and for all White people who take a stand," Peinovich said.

On Telegram, a white nationalist commented: "The victory of Kyle Rittenhouse over thejewish forces that plague the nation isn't just a victory for the man himself, it's a victory for justice, and for the masses of disenfranchised White people which populate the globe.

The neo-Nazi group White Lives Matter had this advice for its white-supremacist followers:

Don't let this one victory lull you back to sleep. That's what they want. They know small "victories" can placate the angry masses more than anything else. Instead let this win fuel your rage.Never forget the simple fact that this clear-cut self-defense should never have gone to trial in the first place. Muslim, Hispanic, and African invaders have raped millions of our women, WHITE women.Their time ofterrorizing our People with 0 consequences is coming to an end. The Rittenhouse verdict is a single tick in the scoreboard on our side. Our enemy doesn't have a scoreboard big enough for their victories. Fight harder, stronger, fiercer, and with the same remorse they have shown us. None. Get going, White man.

"This might be interpreted across the far right as a type of permission slip to do this kind of thing or to seek out altercations in this way, believing that there is a potential that they won't face serious consequences for it," Jared Holt of the Digital Forensic Research Lab at the Atlantic Council told NPR. "I worry that that might end up being interpreted by some people as a proof of concept of this idea that you can actually go out and seek a 'self-defense situation,' and you'll be cheered as a hero for it."

---

===

to apologize is unmanly, admitting defeat, esp to trump/istas for whom loyal tribal solidarity litmus is all; played inevitable victim card? gop minority in both houses explicit aim is obstructionist, gerry maintain minority power yet he bemoan/threatens this will be weapon in future?

aha: polarization --> demonization--> death threat --> death squad pinochet helo rides did nothing wrong Kyle

mantra of demonization can make name eg pelosi into a devil term; she was actively hunted 1/6 shoot bitch in the brain? AOC = commie?

landed here pol cartoon accidentally but interesting analogy? pirate creshaw action here, gosar flies? defeats evil? scott perry chr freedom cocks we must destroy dems/nazis

https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/ocasio-cortez-gosar/

put in context of huge surge in death threats and 1/6 attack; gabby scalise shot; how signif is that this is pix? cartoon? anime genre? trump WWF vs CNN?

gosar censored for aoc kill anime, also biden; tired to blame staff? alt rt ploy just kidding? shooting bills in ads cliche so he just escalated to claiming that he was killing a rep/symbol of their policies [that are destroying am // scott perry freedom cock?]; prev border patrol agent vid rape aoc? threw burritos?

pretty good speech:

Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, a far-right MAGA Republican and conspiracy theorist who has never been shy about making inflammatory remarks, has been drawing vehement criticism from Democrats for posting a cartoon that depicts him murdering Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City and inflicting harm on President Joe Biden. He has previously been criticized for appearing at a conference organized by white supremacists.

Many House Republicans, however, have been silent about the controversies. And Ocasio-Cortez, during a speech on the House floor this week, called them out them out for it.

The congresswoman, during her speech, made it clear that a much more vehement response from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other GOP leaders is needed.

AOC: "It's a sad day in which a member who leads a political party in the United States of America cannot bring themselves to say that issuing a depiction of murdering a member of Congress is wrong, and instead decides to venture off into a tangent about gas prices and inflation"pic.twitter.com/fi13Jb396s

— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona)1637178021

AOC: "Does anyone in this chamber find this behavior acceptable? Would you allow depictions of violence against women, against colleagues? Would you allow that in your home? ... And if it\u2019s not acceptable there, why should it be accepted here?!"pic.twitter.com/Bas9dS5dfo

— Justin Baragona (@Justin Baragona)1637178312

Ocasio-Cortez told fellow House members, "What I believe is unprecedented is for a member of House leadership of either party to be unable to condemn incitement of violence against a member of this body. It is sad, it is a sad day in which a member who leads a political party in the United States of America cannot bring themselves to say that issuing a depiction of murdering a member of Congress is wrong…. What is so hard, what is so hard about saying that this is wrong?"

READ: A growing threat is emerging from the theocratic wing of the GOP — but many liberals are missing it

The Democratic congresswoman added, "This is not about me. This is not about Rep. Gosar. But this is about what we are willing to accept."

Gosar has maintained that the anti-AOC cartoon was meant to be a joke, but Ocasio-Cortez stressed that depictions of murder should never be taken lightly.

"This nihilism runs deep," Ocasio-Cortez explained. "It conveys and betrays a certain contempt for the meaning and importance of our work here — that what we do, so long as we claim it is a joke, doesn't matter."

jihad squad: https://www.alternet.org/2021/11/rep-ilhan-omar-torches-lauren-boebert-following-bizarre-rant-on-house-floor/**

===

...// liberal media BS

see hackademics

see koch-ademia

see moral panic for kids bird bird vaxx

aha of course goes back to powell memo but right constant cries of victimhood, oppressed by big tech, big gubmint etc etc etc etc

but recall they have to explain why they fail to win the the much vaunted marketplace of idea / polls

sinecure?

11 21 no lnx

'Thought criminals': Aggrieved conservative elites announce new university dedicated to 'truth' — but who’s funding Ii?

David Badash and The New Civil Rights Movement November 08, 2021

Bari Weiss. Andrew Sullivan. Jonathan Rauch. Larry Summers.

Those are some of the more recognizable names a new university launched Monday lists on the front page of its website.

Its founder says some of them have been "treated like thought criminals."

The University of Austin (which sounds remarkably like The University of Texas at Austin, founded in 1883,) in an announcement says it is "dedicated to the fearless pursuit of truth." It is not currently accredited and offers no degrees.

But some of the people it is attracting have highly-controversial backgrounds. Indeed, some, like Weiss and Sullivan, seem to thrive on creating controversy.

It's clear, from its founder's message, that this is an enterprise dedicated to protect those who use their huge platforms to decry being "canceled."

"Nearly a quarter of American academics in the social sciences or humanities endorse ousting a colleague for having a wrong opinion about hot-button issues such as immigration or gender differences,"Pano Kanelos, the former president of St. John's University and apparently the founder of The University of Austin, writes Monday at Bari Weiss' Substack. "Over a third of conservative academics and PhD students say they had been threatened with disciplinary action for their views. Four out of five American PhD students are willing to discriminate against right-leaning scholars, according to a report by the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology."

Kanelos discusses some of the University's founding faculty – a prerequisite appears to be having been subjected to criticism.

"On our quads, faculty are being treated like thought criminals. Dorian Abbot, a University of Chicago scientist who has objected to aspects of affirmative action, was recently disinvited from delivering a prominent public lecture on planetary climate at MIT. Peter Boghossian, a philosophy professor at Portland State University, finally quit in September after years of harassment by faculty and administrators. Kathleen Stock, a professor at University of Sussex, just resigned after mobs threatened her over her research on sex and gender."

Its FAQ answers the question "Why Austin?" by jokingly replying: "If it's good enough for Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, it's good enough for us."

The big question of course is who is funding this endeavor? The "University" says it will have a physical campus.

That's expensive, as is paying top names.

"We have secured the seed money necessary to launch the university. But we are in the process of securing $250 million, which will enable us to grow into a comprehensive university," it says.

"UATX has requested and is awaiting a tax-exempt determination from the IRS. At present, UATX is fiscally sponsored by Cicero Research, a tax-exempt entity organized under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code."

An online search for "Cicero Research" nets almost nothing, except a one page listing on Cause IQ, a company to help nonprofits grow.

According to that filing for the year ending December 2020, Cicero Research has no full-time employees, no assets, but under "characteristics" is tagged "political advocacy."

Who's actually funding this is currently unknown.

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

The Christian right is behind the GOP's new attack on public education ›

Far-right social conservatives are attacking sex education material ... ›

The critical race theory panic is a new weapon in the right-wing war ... ›

From lions on the savanna to likes on Facebook

The concept of the wisdom of crowds assumes that using signals from others’ actions, opinions and preferences as a guide will lead to sound decisions. For example, collective predictions are normally more accurate than individual ones. Collective intelligence is used to predict financial markets, sports, elections and even disease outbreaks.

Throughout millions of years of evolution, these principles have been coded into the human brain in the form of cognitive biases that come with names like familiarity, mere exposure and bandwagon effect. If everyone starts running, you should also start running; maybe someone saw a lion coming and running could save your life. You may not know why, but it’s wiser to ask questions later.

Your brain picks up clues from the environment – including your peers – and uses simple rules to quickly translate those signals into decisions: Go with the winner, follow the majority, copy your neighbor. These rules work remarkably well in typical situations because they are based on sound assumptions. For example, they assume that people often act rationally, it is unlikely that many are wrong, the past predicts the future, and so on.

Technology allows people to access signals from much larger numbers of other people, most of whom they do not know. Artificial intelligence applications make heavy use of these popularity or “engagement” signals, from selecting search engine results to recommending music and videos, and from suggesting friends to ranking posts on news feeds.

Not everything viral deserves to be

Our research shows that virtually all web technology platforms, such as social media and news recommendation systems, have a strong popularity bias. When applications are driven by cues like engagement rather than explicit search engine queries, popularity bias can lead to harmful unintended consequences.

Social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube and TikTok rely heavily on AI algorithms to rank and recommend content. These algorithms take as input what you like, comment on and share – in other words, content you engage with. The goal of the algorithms is to maximize engagement by finding out what people like and ranking it at the top of their feeds.

A primer on the Facebook algorithm.[vid?]

On the surface this seems reasonable. If people like credible news, expert opinions and fun videos, these algorithms should identify such high-quality content. But the wisdom of the crowds makes a key assumption here: that recommending what is popular will help high-quality content “bubble up.”

We tested this assumption by studying an algorithm that ranks items using a mix of quality and popularity. We found that in general, popularity bias is more likely to lower the overall quality of content. The reason is that engagement is not a reliable indicator of quality when few people have been exposed to an item. In these cases, engagement generates a noisy signal, and the algorithm is likely to amplify this initial noise. Once the popularity of a low-quality item is large enough, it will keep getting amplified.

Algorithms aren’t the only thing affected by engagement bias – it can affect people too. Evidence shows that information is transmitted via “complex contagion,” meaning the more times people are exposed to an idea online, the more likely they are to adopt and reshare it. When social media tells people an item is going viral, their cognitive biases kick in and translate into the irresistible urge to pay attention to it and share it.

Not-so-wise crowds

We recently ran an experiment using a news literacy app called Fakey. It is a game developed by our lab that simulates a news feed like those of Facebook and Twitter. Players see a mix of current articles from fake news, junk science, hyperpartisan and conspiratorial sources, as well as mainstream sources. They get points for sharing or liking news from reliable sources and for flagging low-credibility articles for fact-checking.

We found that players are more likely to like or share and less likely to flag articles from low-credibility sources when players can see that many other users have engaged with those articles. Exposure to the engagement metrics thus creates a vulnerability.

The wisdom of the crowds fails because it is built on the false assumption that the crowd is made up of diverse, independent sources. There may be several reasons this is not the case.

First, because of people’s tendency to associate with similar people, their online neighborhoods are not very diverse. The ease with which social media users can unfriend those with whom they disagree pushes people into homogeneous communities, often referred to as echo chambers.

Second, because many people’s friends are friends of one another, they influence one another. A famous experiment demonstrated that knowing what music your friends like affects your own stated preferences. Your social desire to conform distorts your independent judgment.

Third, popularity signals can be gamed. Over the years, search engines have developed sophisticated techniques to counter so-called “link farms” and other schemes to manipulate search algorithms. Social media platforms, on the other hand, are just beginning to learn about their own vulnerabilities.

People aiming to manipulate the information market have created fake accounts, like trolls and social bots, and organized fake networks. They have flooded the network to create the appearance that a conspiracy theory or a political candidate is popular, tricking both platform algorithms and people’s cognitive biases at once. They have even altered the structure of social networks to create illusions about majority opinions.

Dialing down engagement

What to do? Technology platforms are currently on the defensive. They are becoming more aggressive during elections in taking down fake accounts and harmful misinformation. But these efforts can be akin to a game of whack-a-mole.

A different, preventive approach would be to add friction. In other words, to slow down the process of spreading information. High-frequency behaviors such as automated liking and sharing could be inhibited by CAPTCHA tests, which require a human to respond, or fees. Not only would this decrease opportunities for manipulation, but with less information people would be able to pay more attention to what they see. It would leave less room for engagement bias to affect people’s decisions.

It would also help if social media companies adjusted their algorithms to rely less on engagement signals and more on quality signals to determine the content they serve you. Perhaps the whistleblower revelations will provide the necessary impetus.

===

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/gop-mitch-mcconnell/

corp tax hike?!

salon

After being closely aligned for decades, it appears that Republicans and top business lobbying groups are having a very public falling-out over conservative lawmakers' lack of support for a bipartisan infrastructure deal currently languishing in Congress.

According to digital politics site The Hill, every major business group in Washington, D.C. — including Business Roundtable and the National Association of Manufacturers, among others — has expressed some measure of support for the bill, which was crafted by a group of lawmakers in both parties alongside the White House.

Business groups have long been a key constituency for Republicans, who worked closely with K Street lobbyists to craft a 2017 tax cut that offered hefty benefits to both corporations and the wealthiest Americans. Yet no more than a small handful of Republican members of Congress have agreed to vote for the legislation favored by these groups this time around.

In a conference call with reporters last month Michael Johnson, CEO of the National Stone, Sand and Gravel Association, a longtime conservative-leaning lobby that stands to gain heavily if the bill passes, seemed flabbergasted by Republicans' refusal to vote for such a popular piece of popular piece of legislation, which polls well across most demographics, including conservatives.

"That's why it boggles the mind that the progressives in the House have decided to take a very popular hostage and Republican leadership has decided to not rescue that very popular hostage when they easily could," Johnson said.

So what's behind this right-wing change-of-heart?

Neil Bradley, the executive VP and chief policy officer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, blamed "misinformation" surrounding the bill during an interview with CQ Roll Call last month — adding that some House GOP members have privately told him that they'd like to vote for the infrastructure deal but feared angering Trump and the new constellation of ultra-conservative groups that were empowered during his tenure.

"I think there are some unfortunate things going on, and I'm being generous with the term unfortunate," Bradley said.

"If this vote today was occurring on the merits of the bill, the outcome wouldn't be in doubt and we'd have a supermajority," he added. "It's not the substance that people are disagreeing with here."

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce in particular has become a flashpoint of conservative ire after endorsing a small number of Democratic candidates in Congressional races last year. The group, along with a number of other influential pro-business organizations, also stopped PAC donations to hundreds of Republican lawmakers who voted to overturn the 2020 election results on the evening of Jan. 6.

Following that news, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has taken to saying the U.S. Chamber "sold out" and that he no longer considers it an ally.

"I didn't even know the Chamber was around anymore," McCarthy told the political newsletter Punchbowl News.

The feud reached a head this week when Republican leaders kicked representatives for the U.S. Chamber off its conference calls.

Brett Horton, the chief of staff for House Minority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., didn't hold back when asked about Republicans shunning the pro-business group.

"People care what their local Chambers of Commerce and business owners have to say, not the U.S. Chamber," Horton told The Hill. "If the U.S. Chamber sent me a meeting request right now, I wouldn't even staff that meeting out to an intern, and I don't see that changing."

In response to being iced out of the Republican inner circle, Axios reported this week, the group abruptly reversed its support for the bill. The Chamber disputed the report by arguing that it still supports the bill "as a stand-alone bill unlinked to the proposed tax and spend reconciliation bill" that it has been linked to from its inception — which makes its support for the infrastructure package merely theoretical.

In addition to the Republicans' beef with business groups over the pending infrastructure legislation, the two sides also clashed over their differing opinions on raising the U.S. debt ceiling this past week. Business groups saw the writing on the wall if Congress decided to default on the country's sizeable debts, and feared catastrophic consequences if the limit was not raised.

But most Republican lawmakers, especially Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, instead concluded that their responsibilities to their constitutents lay in obstructing the Democratic agenda — no matter what.

"Democrats have the full ability to raise the debt ceiling as a part of reconciliation," Cruz told POLITICO on Thursday. "They want political cover."

After a last-minute deal brokered by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the debt ceiling was ultimately raised Thursday night — though only for a few months. McConnell said Saturday that he does not intend to make another deal come December, when the deal will likely expire — regardless of what business groups say.

McConnell's justification for the obstruction appeared to be rooted in a statement Sen. Chuck Schumer made after the Thursday vote, blasting Republican efforts to stymie any change to the debt ceiling.

"I am writing to make it clear that in light of Senator Schumer's hysterics and my grave concerns about the ways that another vast, reckless, partisan spending bill would hurt Americans and help China, I will not be a party to any future effort to mitigate the consequences of Democratic mismanagement," McConnell said in a statement.

===

capitalism is a powerful story, and econ adds math to do tests all the time, but externalities/ biz plan exxon is fry planet; incentive structure all wrong short , term "efficiency"

doh human health depends on enviro/planet health

1021 an comm dr

Just ahead of a major United Nations summits on biodiversity and the climate—and amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic—a global consortium has launched a planetary health declaration in which they "raise an alarm that the ongoing degradation of our planet's natural systems is a clear and present danger to the health of all people everywhere" that must be countered with a fundamental paradigm shift transforming nearly every aspect of society.

"The planetary health science is clear," the São Paulo Declaration on Planetary Health, published Tuesday at The Lancet, states. "We can no longer safeguard human health unless we change course."

Authored by the Planetary Health Alliance, a global coalition hosted within the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, the declaration is endorsed by over 250 organizations representing 47 countries.

"The urgency of this moment is hard to overstate," said declaration lead author Sam Myers, director of the Planetary Health Alliance and research scientist at Harvard, in a statement ahead of the launch.

The document centers on what various stakeholders—from urban planners to governments to artists—must urgently do as part of the "Great Transition," what the declaration authors frame as the necessary "fundamental shift in how we live on Earth."

To the agricultural sector, the document recommends utilizing "all ways of knowing, including the latest science and millennia of traditional and Indigenous knowledges, to implement agricultural systems that meet demand and reduce pressure on natural systems."

Economists, meanwhile, are urged to reject a focus on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in favor of "metrics and investments that support preservation and regeneration of Nature, human well-being, equity, and happiness—the things we truly value."

Numerous recommendations are laid out for governments with "an urgent first step" being promoting "public access to health services as a human right." Covid-19 recovery plans must also focus on decarbonizing the energy sector and ensuring equity for the most disenfranchised and marginalized communities.

The general public is also called to action.

"We invite you to consider yourself a partner in planetary healing," states the declaration. "We all live together in an interconnected world and the actions of each of us inspire others. Therefore, together, we pledge to dedicate our lives to the service of humanity, and to the protection and restoration of the natural systems on which humans and all other species who share our home depend."

Put together, the document says its recommendations should serve as "a compass guiding us towards the most promising pathways to support a more just and resilient post-pandemic world."

Courtney Howard, an emergency physician in Canada and a contributor to the declaration, put the document in the context of global vaccine inequity.

"In the midst of Covid, disparities in vaccine accessibility must be part of the same conversation as addressing planetary emergencies," Howard said in a statement.

"On an interconnected planet, no one is safe until everyone is safe," she added. "We need vaccine equity, and in the long run, protecting nature will be the true vaccine against future pandemics and other planetary emergencies."

===

aha: when real story/reality not acceptable, does not fit Story 1, rw must manufacture alternative fact/story = conspiracy eg (many )

antifa -->

https://www.mediamatters.org/newsmax/newsmax-host-suggests-democrats-may-have-set-january-6-insurrection

===

aha stories are tribal // echo boost ampl by soc med: chicken-egg ID --> story? vv? both?

scientists are global elite, eggheads who look down on us yokels/ppl of faith?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/here-s-why-anti-vaxxers-appear-more-likely-to-embrace-unproven-drugs-report/

Anti-vaxxers, often motivated by baseless conspiracy theories, have a long history of questioning the work of the scientific community while discrediting medical breakthroughs. However, there is also a bizarre phenomenon of these same people having no qualms about embracing unproven drugs.

In fact, reports began circulating in September when anti-vax residents in Mississippi began using the anti-parasital drug Ivermectin as an alternative treatment for COVID. Since the drug is typically used to treat animals, it is strongly opposed to human consumption. So why would people who are deeply critical of medicine and the scientific community be open to trying unproven drugs?

Vox reporter Dylan Scott explores the mind-boggling hypocrisy behind it. Speaking to the publication, a number of psychological experts offered their take on the situation. Jay Van Bavel, director of New York University's Social Identity and Morality Lab, explained the psychology behind how people convince themselves to believe things that are known to be false.

"When you really want to believe something — like 'you can't trust the vaccines' — you'll come up with any number of rationalizations," Van Bavel said. "It's like whack-a-mole. You falsify one premise and they just create a new one."

Van Bavel also highlighted the irony of anti-vaxxers' stance and how it doesn't add up.

"On the face of it, it doesn't make sense that you don't trust doctors and science, but then the next moment, you're sharing news about some other medical cure and taking that and putting it in your body," said Van Bavel. "These are not trivial beliefs. These are some of the most significant decisions you can make in a once-in-a-century pandemic."

Scott also explained how difficult it is for new information to be presented in areas where people are predominantly skeptical about vaccinations.

"New information isn't necessarily treated as an opportunity to reassess their beliefs," Scott wrote. "Instead, new facts are seen either as affirmation of what this community already believes or as a distraction that should be dismissed because it doesn't neatly sort into their anti-vaccine narrative."

David Dunning, a psychology professor at the University of Michigan also offered a similar opinion. "People listen to people 'from their group' and whom they think they can trust," Dunning said. "People really don't know what science is, and so do you feel you can trust the person giving you advice, rather than appraising their expertise, becomes the thing."

===

qanon house wackos calling for biden impeach from git, but treason now so common all purpose like turrets tic?

"logic": i am a patriot, i love and know what is best for US, if anyone does anything i like THEY/THEM OTHER ENEMY are traitors and should be righteously executed[plus re blinken/biden, US superpower cannot be defeated by primitive muslim towelheads unless betrayal //VN? nazi WWI jews versailles treaty?

right-wing commissioner snaps after reporter points out her anti-vaccine resolution is toothless: 'That is treasonous'

Matthew Chapman Raw Story

This week, an anti-mask county commissioner in western Michigan suggested President Joe Biden would be committing treason if he implemented vaccine mandates, when...

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aha-ish biden basically runs/appeal based on competent mgmt/govt so gop must degrade image, plus war is their turf?

A far right wing U.S. Congressman hijacked the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Afghanistan on live TV Monday, accusing the President of the United States of treason then trying to block the Secretary of State from responding to his attacks.

After accusing President Joe Biden of manipulating intelligence coming out of Afghanistan, U.S. Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) declared, "in my opinion that's absolutely aid and comfort to the enemy," which is the definition of treason.

"I absolutely wonder if you were complicit in this as well. I find it hard to believe that President Biden would do that without you being aware of this and these are things that we deserve to know, better answers, have better hearings on this, I do not believe a word that you're saying on this. Simply put, I do not wish to hear from you," Congressman Mast told U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

As Blinken tried to respond, Mast took over the hearing, talking over Blinken and repeatedly telling him he did not want to hear him, calling him a liar, and announcing he would not listen to him.

"I do not believe a word that you're saying on this," he interjected. "I do not wish to hear from you. I'm not yielding you a moment of time. I don't wish to hear your lies."

Mast's time had already expired, and Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks (D-NY) tried to get it back under control.

"What the Congressman said is simply wrong," Blinken replied. "Period."

"I think every member of this committee has been apprised of or had access to the intelligence assessments throughout the year – and you know what they were, and you know what they are," Blinken charged.

The Florida congressman did manage to introduce lies into the record, including the common GOP-told falsehood that the U.S. forfeited tens of billions of dollars of military equipment to the Taliban.

===

systemic: privatization, financialization, militarization, and criminalization, which together are producing a steadily creeping authoritarianism [max boot says anarchy to law/inst rt does not control [masks?] , then total obed/force when they do = authorit. eg abortion TX

*aha // above: financialization leads to loss of mfg jobs, workers force into gig ecnomoy fast food, meat cutter etc; also prison guards (cops?); some desprate poor ppl turn to crime (and payday loans); join the military b/c only secre job w/o college or a way to pay for college;

921

aha PIC MIC

Labor Day, we speak with journalist and sociologist Eyal Press about his new book, "Dirty Work: Essential Jobs and the Hidden Toll of Inequality in America." Press profiles workers like prison guards and oil workers — people who make their livelihoods by doing "unethical activity that society depends on and tacitly condones but doesn't want to hear too much" about, he says. "This work is largely hidden, and we rarely hear from the people on the frontlines who are delegated to do it," Press tells Democracy Now! "The powerful and the privileged really don't do the dirty work in America — they not only don't do it, they don't see it"*

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aha: trms? says fox reason to exist is attack left, not good on trump defense? also gop esp rising stars no intent or ability to legislate [b/c RR sez govt is the problem so regulation inherently bad(plus corp dark $ and 1percent do not wants taxes, regs/equity]; plus mcconn strat again is deny biden/dems any wins, and so prove govt does not work [then get elected again, trash sell out sysyem and prove yet again it does not work, then dems have to clean us mess/crisis [2 santas?]

---

The leaders of the Republican Party—Rep. Matt Gaetz and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—have been touring the nation. Whether this is part of Gaetz's plans for expanding his sex trafficking ring, Greene's recruiting drive for terrorists, or simply a cash grab by both, isn't clear (except for the part where it definitely is a cash grab). What is clear is that it's a keen demonstration of the GOP is making a "star" out of anyone who is merely willing to be disgusting on a regular basis.

As a quick reminder, Greene was taken off her House committee assignments for continually promoting the Big Lie in a way that encouraged violence, and downplaying the events of Jan. 6. Meanwhile, Gaetz is under investigation for his involvement in a multi-state scheme to recruit young women, provide them with fake IDs, and jet them around the country for sex in exchange for cash and prizes—a scheme that is complicated by the fact that at least one of these women was underage. Both these things together, and you have the makings of a modern Republican dream team.

The two have been touring the country making appearances that allow their followers to *own the libs by showing that they don't care about details like rape or insurrection, so long as they get to hear jokes about Nancy Pelosi and watch Gaetz sputter on in his obsession with AOC. They also have been talking up a proposed political caucus to defend "Anglo-Saxon" culture by strictly limiting immigration.*

But a funny thing has happened when it comes to the West Coast edition of the Gaetz and Greene show. Funny in the "ha ha" sense. Because nobody wants them. For the third time in a week, venues have put out the Not Welcome mat, leaving the pair looking for somewhere to gestate their hate supposedly right on the eve of their next appearance.

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note raffensberger caved 180:

AHA ? : did talk radio supplant local news? radio and podcast blend, and often has video now; snn radio amplifies fake paper website [trump picks up boost/escalate, feedback back into eyeballs/ratings [then RNC/GOP $]

https://www.alternet.org/2021/07/trump-election-claims/

Since the 2020 presidential election, conservative news outlets have been popping up in droves to continue circulating former President Donald Trump's big lie about the election.

So how are outlets continuing to do this? According to NPR, it is more of a trick of the eye. The publication https://www.npr.org/2021/07/02/1011916687/how-pro-trump-local-news-sites-keep-pushing-2020-election-misinformation.

While the publication appears to be just a local news outlet, NPR reports that it is actually flagship of a news syndicate, known as The Star News Network, which consists of several pro-Trump sites. Like The Georgia Star News, the network has created similar sites for states like Arizona, Ohio, and Florida.

Per NPR:

"Its part of the Star News Network - an expanding network of pro-Trump sites seeking to influence local politics with conservative opinion by mimicking the look and feel of local newspaper sites. The group operates eight state-focused news sites, including in* key Electoral College states such as Michigan, Arizona, Ohio and Florida."*

By focusing on states where Trump is still heavily favored among voters, the network can continue to circulate misinformation since the audience is still focused on what transpired during and after the election.

During a rally in Ohio Las weekend, Trump also added more fuel to the fire with more dangerous claims of voter fraud.

"The biggest tragedy of all is millions of Americans have lost confidence in their vote," Trump said." We can't let that happen. And that's why I say you have to know what took place in 2020 before you can vote in 2022 or 2024."

To name mafter worse, conservative publisher John Fredericks defended defended sites and the information they share.

"We work very hard to fund our operation through legitimate advertising of all kinds, people that want to reach our expanding audience," he said. "And if somebody needs to reach informed, motivated readers that want the truth, advertising is a great opportunity for them, is a great [return on investment] potential."

FROM YOUR SITE ARTICLES

RELATED ARTICLES AROUND THE WEB

AHA: correction is a journalistic norm, not a law thus no real penalty for lying or just sloppiness (recall jrnl biz values the scoop 1st, thus speed vs accuracy, and clickbait values hype/eyeballs/ fear hate algo boost]

https://www.npr.org/2021/07/02/1011916687/how-pro-trump-local-news-sites-keep-pushing-2020-election-misinformation.

no lnx

How Pro-Trump Local News Sites Keep Pushing 2020 Election Misinformation

July 2, 20215:00 AM ET

STEPHEN FOWLER

FROM

Georgia Public Broadcasting

Georgia election workers begin their recount of ballots after the November election. Despite three recounts of the tally, former President Donald Trump and his allies falsely claim electoral fraud cost him the state.

If you don't follow politics in Georgia closely — or even if you do — you might be forgiven for not knowing much about The Georgia Star News.

Founded just after the November election when President Biden narrowly flipped the state by about 12,000 votes, it looks like a regular news website with a lifestyle section, a widget for the weather and stories about local and national goings-on.

But the site is more than just a local news outlet. It's part of the Star News Network — an expanding network of pro-Trump sites seeking to influence local politics with conservative opinion by mimicking the look and feel of local newspaper sites. The group operates eight state-focused news sites, including in key Electoral College states such as Michigan, Arizona, Ohio and Florida.

Steve Bannon, a former strategist for former President Donald Trump, described The Georgia Star News in a radio interview as content "you can't get anywhere else."

"We're not Conservative Inc.," he said. "It's very populist, it's very nationalist, it's very MAGA, it's very American First."

Pro-Trump media ecosystem

The Star News sites are part of a larger pro-Trump media ecosystem that emerged over the course of his four years in office. Since last year's election, some of those sites have spent months churning out false content suggesting Trump won the election and claiming that massive electoral fraud will be uncovered.

Many of the Star News sites have been around for a while, but the 2020 election — and an intense focus on swing states like Georgia — has helped the sites' stories reach a much a larger audience.

Georgia's fledgling website gets a boost from publisher John Fredericks' talk radio show that has featured numerous figures from Trump's orbit, including Bannon and former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski. His show also regularly features Georgia Republican politicians who have pushed false claims of election fraud or are challenging those who did not work to overturn the election.

Fredericks, who most recently hosted his talk show from Virginia, came to Georgia ahead of last January's dual Senate runoffs as part of an effort by conservatives (and conservative media) to support then-Sens. Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue's reelection campaign. He also hosts a *TV show on the Real America's Voice networkthat also features Bannon's "War Room: Pandemic" podcast popular with many election skeptics.*

So there was a ready-made audience when the Georgia Star published a misleading story mid-June questioning the legitimacy of nearly 20,000 absentee ballots placed in Georgia drop boxes — slightly more than the margin of Biden's victory there.

The story said that Fulton County, which includes Atlanta, could not produce crucial chain of custody documentation for ballots returned in drop boxes, suggesting that the ballots may not have been legitimate.

Days later, county officials were able to find all but eight of those forms, said all the ballots were accounted for — and noted that Georgia's votes were counted three different times in November.

"The most explosive thing" ESCA ECHO

But in the conservative alternate media sphere, the story began to pick up steam. On Fredericks' radio show, Bannon called it "the most explosive thing that I think has happened in the entire process."

From there it ricocheted across the pro-Trump mediasphere to TV networks like One America News and conspiracy sites such as The Gateway Pundit.

But the story was not limited to the fringe of Republican politics: several pro-Trump lawmakers and primary challengers in Georgia demanded an investigation. Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — himself a frequent target of misinformation, attacks and death threats because of these sites — did too. That led mainstream outlets to run with Raffensperger's response, pushing the story further into the spotlight.

Just a few days after the original Georgia Star story, Trump issued several statements linking to a One America News segment about the misleading story and praising the Georgia Star writer by name for "the incredible reporting you have done."

The Georgia Star hasn't updated its original story, or several follow-up pieces, with Fulton County's release of the data.

In an interview, the story's author, Laura Baigert, blamed the county for providing incomplete documents and information.

"Not our problem to solve" ~ CORRECTION

"If they can't tell us how many forms they have and how many ballots they have, that's an issue for people who are administering an election," she said. "That's not our problem to solve that for them."

At the time, a Fulton County spokeswoman said that the county followed proper procedures in collecting the drop box ballots and the county was continuing to research the few remaining missing chain of custody forms. The county elections director said that staff spent more than 200 hours that week locating the "missing" forms before they were provided to Georgia Public Broadcasting.

But the story breathed new life into Trump's false claims, which he repeated at length during a rally last Saturday in Ohio.

"The biggest tragedy of all is millions of Americans have lost confidence in their vote," he said. "We can't let that happen. And that's why I say you have to know what took place in 2020 before you can vote in 2022 or 2024."

After the rally, Baigert snagged an exclusive half-hour interview with the former president as he rode back to the airport. The next day, an all-caps headline appeared on The Ohio Star, Georgia Star and sister sites in battlegrounds like Michigan and Arizona, touting the conversation and its key takeaway.

"There's no more important issue than the 2020 election," Trump said.

Fredericks defended the outlet's coverage in an interview and said that the Georgia Star is a credible news service for Georgians that acts as an alternative to "fake news" mainstream media. "Our goal is to speak truth to power in the world of fake news, and that's really what we're dealing with, that's why we're here," he said. "That's why we have an audience."

Less than seven months into existence, Fredericks said that the website was profitable, thanks to a crush of advertising from local Republican candidates and conservative groups.

===

trad DTricks is used in election to get pwr, now used to hold onto power, using tools of state = fascism [tho nixon]

aha: // mlk on switch out modifier: good trouble, gang of 5 we are the new/true radicals; appropriation/inversion/perversion of lefty god term [at the same time attacking woke, new PC]; for left/reality racial diversity does being intellecti\ial diversity dofferent POV; builds on Lichter? Horo BS of how lefty commie profs discriminate ~ conservatives; gop is in death spiral, at least demographically so must cheat to preserve minority power[states rights BS ~ HR1 ~ voter suppress, gerry, dark corp $); GOP can't win in mktplace of ideas[libtard bankrunpted by covid fail; must explain away fail by saying media, soc media and univ ~ them

msnbc moral panic: you raise kids w/ right values/american and univ makes them into liberals[and/or gay?]

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/ron-desantis-2653505905/

Florida goes full fascist': Ron DeSantis sparks furious backlash with ‘authoritarian’ campus political surveys

Raw Story June 23, 2021

Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation requiring Florida students, faculty, and staff to register their political views in surveys in an effort to promote "intellectual diversity" at colleges and universities, and the measure set off backlash across social media.

Critics decried the law, which DeSantis claims will promote freedom of speech, as a "thoroughly Orwellian" attempt to gain control over academic debate at institutions of higher learning.

*Well, this is thoroughly Orwellian. ?? Faculty and students of Florida, you know what to do! Freep Mini-Trump's stup… https://t.co/N2nEE5UzuM***

— Betty Cracker ?? (@Betty Cracker ??)1624454881.0

*Well that's got to be unconstitutional: Florida students required to register political views with the state to pro… https://t.co/b1Bh8p98uN***

— David Rothkopf (@David Rothkopf)1624455537.0

*DeSantis wants to survey university students and staff, with the threat of budget cuts if he doesn't get his way???… https://t.co/IWfcM8nGhI***

— Witty Librarian In a Mask (@Witty Librarian In a Mask)1624455089.0

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aha // qanon storm that will kill/sweep away satanic pedo ring;

an 621 mirroring? justifies violence by ppl in the name of/lieu of gov't? 1/6 called cops traitors and attacked/killed them. trumpistas think lib/gubmint has taken away their country (status) and they want revenge/to regain pwer/status.

Believers in the QAnon conspiracy theory are enthusiastically circulating a video of a contributor at the Trump-loving One America News calling for the mass execution of the former president's enemies.

Via The Daily Beast's Will Sommer, an OAN contributor this week went off on a rant in which he falsely claimed that "voter fraud" cost former President Donald Trump the 2020 election, and said it was time to think about how to deal with the purported perpetrators.

"Exactly how many people were involved in these efforts to undermine the election?" he asked. "Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands? How many people does it take to carry out a coup against the presidency?"

He then pivoted to the consequences that the purported coup plotters will face once their treachery is exposed.

"In the past, America had a very good solution for dealing with such traitors: Execution," he said.

According to Sommer, the clip has gone viral in QAnon chat rooms.

"I came across the clip because QAnon people are see it as proof that the mass executions are right around the corner," Sommer explains. "Lots of glee in the Q chat rooms, demands for how exactly their imagined executions will be carried out and complaints they had to wait too long."

===

aha strict fr; conspir is simple story to explain away complexity with a simple single cause; cast self as hero/victims see de-industrialize/ globalize outsource --> trump pseudo-populist

angry white man w/ rush; al franken sez expert on rightwing megalomaniacs; trump, bill and rush?

===

aha: DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT PLUS GLOBALIZATION (RELATED) CORP MFG OUTSOURCING --> EXISTENTIAL epistemic crisis THREAT/CRISIS [--> conspiracy, story 1 cling

also surprise $ donor for his BD?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/06/peter-popoff/

Conning' their 'vulnerable' followers: Here's what Trump and a discredited televangelist have in common

When the Christian right invaded the Republican Party during the 1980s, Peter Popoff was among the televangelists who made millions of dollars. Popoff, a faith healer, was exposed as a major fraud — he wasn't really curing cancer patients as he claimed. Journalist Michael Siegel, in a lengthy article published by Ordinary Times on June 8, lays out the things that Popoff has in common with another con man: former President Donald Trump, explaining why their deluded followers have such a hard time accepting the truth.

Popoff and Trump are the same age: 74. Popoff was born on July 2, 1946, and Trump was born the previous month on June 14, 1946. Siegel's article is really about Trump more than Popoff, although he offers plenty of details about Popoff's embarrassing history — and Siegel stresses that when people have been conned, they are often in denial about it. Popoff still had his unwavering followers even after he was exposed as a fraud during the 1980s.

As anti-Trump and anti-Popoff as Siegel's piece is, he does more than slam them and makes a point of explaining their appeal.

Siegel observes, "One of the things that con men rely upon is a certain vulnerability…. Many are afraid of their nest eggs disappearing, which ironically, makes them vulnerable to the very people who want to rob their nests."

//CRISIS/ GHOST DANCE : According to Siegel, "Con men — whether they prey on the rich or the poor, the powerful or the powerless — look for those who are at a crossroads.Those who want a chance to get ahead. Those who fear falling further behind. Those who have lost their status and want it back. A person comfortable in their life and their finances will realize the Nigerian Prince is too good to be true. A person nervous about their finances or desperate to move up in life may think this is the chance they've been waiting for." [vid] Popoff exposed - Part 1 <br

Trump is much more dangerous than Popoff ever was, as Popoff never became president of the United States — although the Christian right movement that Popoff helped bring to the forefront of the GOP during the 1980s (along with the Moral Majority's Rev. Jerry Falwell, Sr., Jimmy Swaggart, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson and others) has been very damaging to the country. And Trump still has millions of devotees seven months after being voted out of office and four months into Joe Biden's presidency.

Many Trump devotees, according to polls, still believe the Big Lie: Trump's false claim that he was a victim of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. And Siegel explains why they are so "vulnerable," not unlike Popoff's followers.

"The Trump election fraud claim is something far more insidious than the standard-issue 'they stole our votes'cry of the defeated," Siegel warns. "It did, after all, culminate in an open attack on the Capitol to try to overturn the election. It is a claim that is not fading but being amplified by an increasing number of Republicans, becoming a litmus test in primaries. The Republicans just ousted their third most powerful Congress-critter because she had the temerity to say that Donald Trump was full of it."

Siegel continues, "I can certainly see why grifters like Rudy Giuliani and Sydney Powell are making this claim. There's money to be made by promoting these claims— the Trump campaign itself pulled in a quarter of a billion dollars with this scam. But why do rank-and-file Republicans believe this. Is it because they're stupid? They're no more stupid than anyone else. Is it because they're deluded by Fox News? Most of them don't watch it. No, I think it's something more basic, something that goes back to Peter Popoff and every other con artist that slithered down the pike. It's because they don't want to believe they were fooled."