Radical right lies about immigration

A major false argument that TTKP politicians and the American authoritarian radical right propaganda Leviathan, e.gf., Faux News, constantly assert is that immigrants cause crime. The messages are (1) we are not safe in our homes or on the streets, and to dehumanize the culprits, (2) filthy, savage (non-White, non-European) immigrants are to blame. This will be a major issue in the Nov. 2024 elections. If DJT wins, this will be one of the issues necessary to put him back in the White House. The WaPo writes (not behind a paywall):

Never mind that violent crime rates, especially for homicide in large cities, have fallen sharply during Biden’s presidency, after a surge during the pandemic. Trump, as he often did during his presidency, is using anecdotal evidence to make an emotional case against undocumented immigrants.

Trump is drawing on a long history of anti-immigrant rhetoric.

A 2020 study, published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed 200,000 congressional speeches and 5,000 presidential communications on immigration since 1880, when a wave of Chinese immigrants led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 that barred Chinese laborers. When lawmakers spoke about immigration, their speeches were twice as likely as their speeches on other topics to mention words related to crime.

Moreover, the study found “stark differences” in how lawmakers discussed European and non-European groups, with “more implicitly dehumanizing metaphors” used to describe Chinese, Mexicans and other non-Europeans. “There is also a striking similarity in the use of explicit frames, with a greater emphasis on ‘crime,’ ‘labor,’ and ‘legality’ for the non-Europeans and less on ‘family,’ ‘contributions,’ ‘victims,’ and ‘culture,’” the study said.

Since the late 1970s, the study found a significant shift in the way Republicans talk about immigration; it is now as negative as it was in the 1920s, an era of strict immigration quotas. As for Trump, he was the first president whose immigration language was more negative than that of the average member of his own party.

But here’s the rub: There is little evidence that immigrants — or even undocumented immigrants — cause more crime. Still, there is enough ambiguity in the data — or so little hard data — that it’s difficult to point to conclusive findings that would change opinions.

There is strong evidence that all immigrants — in the United States legally or otherwise — are more law-abiding than native-born American citizens. Most immigrants are motivated to do well in their new country, especially if they bring skills that can enhance local economies, and so there is little incentive to break the law.

So when the TTKP falsely claims immigrants cause lots of crime, rest assured they are lying and slandering as usual. We will hear this slanderous lie over and over and over before the elections. Afterwards, the volume of the lie will quiet down a lot.

TTKP: the Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party, formerly the Republican Party

A Western rationale for supporting the Ukraine war

A deeply troubling article the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft published gets right to the point: 

Ukraine’s tragedies: A ‘good deal’ for some war supporters

It’s a cynical calculus for many in the West: Keep pumping money into the conflict as long as Ukrainians are the ones dying

For a conflict discussed in starkly moralistic terms, the ways the Ukraine war is talked about by its most enthusiastic Western supporters can be remarkably cynical about the human carnage involved.

“Aiding Ukraine, giving the money to Ukraine is the cheapest possible way for the U.S. to enhance its security,” Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of the Economist, recently told the Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. “The fighting is being done by the Ukrainians, they’re the people who are being killed.”

This view is not unique to Beddoes. It’s been widely expressed by those most in favor of an open-ended, prolonged war and most against the kind of peace negotiations that would shorten it.

“Four months into this thing, I like the structural path we're on here. As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person,” said Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) early into the war, accidentally voicing what the war’s critics have often said about the war — that the U.S. will fight it “to the last Ukrainian.” Later, Graham called it the “best money we’ve ever spent.”

“It is a relatively modest amount that we are contributing without being asked to risk life and limb,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told the Associated Press last year. “The Ukrainians are willing to fight the fight for us if the West will give them the provisions. It’s a pretty good deal.”

“I call that a bargain,” North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has said about the war funding, pointing to the damage Ukrainian forces had inflicted on the Russian military.

“No Americans are getting killed in Ukraine. We’re rebuilding our industrial base. The Ukrainians are destroying the army of one of our biggest rivals. I have a hard time finding anything wrong with that,” U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) remarked.

Americans “should be satisfied that we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment,” wrote Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), because “for less than 3 percent of our nation’s military budget, we’ve enabled Ukraine to degrade Russia’s military strength by half,” and “all without a single American service woman or man injured or lost.”

But politicians aren’t the only armchair warriors who look at the enormous death and destruction suffered by Ukraine by prolonging the war as akin to a brilliant business decision. Hawkish think tanks have made similar arguments.

“When viewed from a bang-per-buck perspective, U.S. and Western support for Ukraine is an incredibly cost-effective investment,” Timothy Garten Ashe wrote for the weapons maker-funded Center for European Policy Analysis. “Support for Ukraine remains a bargain for American national security,” wrote Hudson Institute Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Europe and Eurasia Peter Rough. “For about 5 percent of total U.S. defense spending over the past 20 months, Ukraine has badly degraded Russia, one of the United States’ top adversaries, without shedding a single drop of American blood.”  

And major U.S. newspapers have likewise published similar perspectives. “We have a determined partner in Ukraine that is willing to bear the consequences of war so that we do not have to do so ourselves in the future,” former top George W. Bush officials Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates celebrated in the pages of the Washington Post.

“For all the aid we’ve given Ukraine, we are the true beneficiaries in the relationship, and they the true benefactors,” wrote Bret Stephens at the New York Times, pointing to the fact that NATO is paying in only money, while “Ukrainians are counting their costs in lives and limbs lost.”

Q: Are the assessments by elites that the war is a good deal for us because Russia weakens, Ukrainians die and we don’t the mark of responsible statecraft, brutal cynicism, or something else? 

News bits: USSC & DJT's immunity case; Powerful demagogue defends demagoguery; Gaza’s misery

Most or all major sources are reporting that the USSC has agreed to hear DJT’s ridiculous arguments that he is immune from prosecution. He is not. This is a win for DJT because it further delays his prosecutions and that further increases his chances of getting out of everything. Maddow on MSNBC commented:

“This is B.S.—you were doing this as a dilatory tactic to help your political friend,” says Rachel Maddow on the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the Trump immunity argument, delaying his coup trial. “And for you to say that this is something that the Court needs to decide because it’s something that’s unclear in the law is just flagrant, flagrant bullpucky.”

I expect the USSC to decide that DJT can be prosecuted for all crimes before (~80% confident), during and after his time in office. But the delay nonetheless significantly strengthens his legal and political positions. It gives the radical right authoritarian propagandists time to demagogue the issue into something it is not.

I interpret this move by the USSC as an intentional overt, political act made in bad faith to protect DJT as much as possible. Even if the USSC decides as I believe they should, that does not wipe away or in any way negate the deep moral rot of political partisanship that gave rise to this unjustifiable move in the first place. 

The court waited almost two weeks to issue its ruling on how it would proceed. That suggests there is some support for protecting DJT. The USSC says it will expedite the case. They do that by holding oral arguments on April 22. That fits my conception of delaying, not expediting. 

To make this clear, if the USSC had decided not to hear that case, it would have been a precedential decision that upholds the appeals court decision that DJT is not immune. Current prosecutions could then proceed without further delay. By taking up the case, the USSC could signal that there is something wrong with the appeals court holdings that needs to be corrected. Hence my 20% level of uncertainty about the outcome of this lawsuit.

But if the USSC does decide even a little in DJT’s favor, we are probably in immediate, deadly serious trouble with no way out short of a civil war or something pretty close to it. Biden is incapable of rising to the occasion here, even if he did have the power to do something meaningful. I am not sure that he has any power to do anything, alone. TTKP members in congress will defend DJT to the death, so bipartisanship on this is close to impossible and highly unlikely. We will face our corrupt Christian nationalist, plutocratic fate mostly undefended. 

TTKP: the Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party, formerly the Republican Party

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TechCrunch writes about social media platform X suing a research organization that studies online misinformation and hate speech: 

X goes to court in Elon Musk’s war against an anti-hate research org

Elon Musk’s crusade against the extremism research organization the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) will have its day in court on Thursday.

Elon Musk’s X sued the CCDH last year, accusing it of “actively working to assert false and misleading claims about X.” The nonprofit, formed in 2018, conducts research on social media platforms to track hate speech, extremism and misinformation. Its reports are regularly picked up by news organizations, TechCrunch included.

After Musk’s takeover of Twitter, the CCDH published reports about rising hate speech on X and how unbanned accounts, including neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, stood to make the company millions in ad revenue.

On Thursday, the CCDH will make a case for why X’s lawsuit is frivolous and runs afoul of the state’s anti-SLAPP law, which was created to kill litigation intended to intimidate or silence critics. X will defend the validity of its lawsuit, which also accuses the CCDH of illegally scraping data and violating its terms of service through Brandwatch, a social media monitoring tool.

This is an important case. If Musk wins, demagoguery, lies, hate and crackpottery win, while democracy, civil liberties and truth lose.

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A NYT opinion comments (not behind paywall): 

Standing over a tiny bundle wrapped in a sheet on a hospital bed, a young father drapes his hand across his face in despair. Mousa Salem, a Gaza photographer who videotaped this sad tableau and sent it to me, said the sheet swaddled 2-month-old Mohamed al-Zayegh, who died on Friday in Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza City. “Nutrition? What nutrition?” a staff member in scrubs says in the video. “The mother gave birth to him during the war.”

“The health of the mother affects the health of the baby,” he added. “This is very well known in the science of medicine and health. And all of this piled on the child and he got sick, he has a weak immune system. “

Another infant, 2-month-old Mahmoud Fattouh, died of malnutrition on Friday at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, according to Al Jazeera, which cited a news agency thought to be close to Hamas. “The baby has not been fed any milk for days,” a paramedic who took the child to the hospital said in a video verified by Al Jazeera.

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the head of the pediatric department of Kamal Adwan Hospital, said this month he was seeing a number of deaths among children, especially newborns. “Signs of weakness and paleness are apparent on newborns because the mother is malnourished,” he said.

Reports of death by starvation are difficult to verify from a distance. The hunger in Gaza is caused but also partly hidden by a pitiless war that has obliterated hospitals, flooded morgues and damaged communication networks, leaving us to cobble together what’s happening from scraps of information.

That speaks for itself. Also, the death toll in Gaza passed 30,000. That is reported to be a conservative body count. 

Sources for news

 Quick question:

My last wise and thoughtful thread

https://dispol.blogspot.com/2024/02/the-wheels-of-justice-turn-slowly.html

Linked stories to....

https://lawandcrime.com/

I also have often spoken about getting some of my news and opinions on the radio from.....

https://www.siriusxm.ca/channels/potus-politics/

AND I know some (not going to mention any names) get their news and opinions from Leftist publications like NY Times and Wapo.  

😏

That brings to mind, YOUR sources. Where do you PREFER to get your news from? WHERE out of the MSM do YOU go to get differing views? And wise and thoughtful suggestions?

Zionism

“

When we were led into the gas chamber, YOU said nothing.

When we were forcibly converted, YOU said nothing.

When we were thrown out of a country

just for being Jews, YOU said nothing.

When we now defend ourselves

all of a sudden, YOU have something to say.

How did we take our revenge

on the Germans for their Final Solution?

How did we take revenge

on the Spanish for their Inquisition?

How did we take revenge

on Islam for being Dhimmis?

How did we take revenge

on the lies of the Protocols of Zion?

We studied our Torah

We innovated in medicine

We innovated in defense systems

We innovated in technology

We innovated in agriculture

We made music

We wrote poetry

We made the desert bloom

We won Nobel prizes

We founded the movie industry

We financed democracy

We fulfilled the word of Hashem by becoming a light unto the Nations of the Earth.

So World, when you criticize us for defending our heritage and our ancestral homeland, we the Jews of the world do exactly what you did, we ignore you.

You have proven to us for the last 2,000 years that when the chips are down, you don’t care.

Now leave us alone and go sort out your own backyard whilst we continue our 5784-year-old mission, enhancing the world we share.”

- Howard Klineberg

News chunk 'n bits: Christian nationalist theology, popularity & propaganda

NPR reports about the Alabama Supreme court judge who apparently adheres to an extreme Christian theology called the Seven Mountains Mandate. Seven Mountains used to be considered extremist but has become more common in the theocratic Christian nationalist wealth and power movement. NPR writes: 

Tom Parker, a Republican who joined the court in 2005, wrote a concurring opinion that quoted at length from sources such as the Book of Genesis, the Ten Commandments and Christian thinkers of centuries ago, such as Thomas Aquinas. But comments he has made in other media have raised questions about his seeming espousal of “Seven Mountains” theology, a concept that some experts consider to be Christian extremism.

“God created government. And the fact that we have let it go into the possession of others, it's heartbreaking for those of us who understand. And we know it is for Him,” Parker said on a recent podcast hosted by Christian activist Johnny Enlow. “And that's why He is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains right now.”

Parker’s remarks on the podcast were released the same day that the Alabama Supreme Court issued its ruling on IVF embryos. His appearance on the show was first reported by Media Matters for America, a liberal media watchdog organization.

The Seven Mountains Mandate urges adherents to establish what they consider to be God’s kingdom on Earth by taking control of seven areas of society: family, religion, government, education, arts and entertainment, commerce and media. Once relegated to a fringe of the Christian conservative movement, it has gained followers in recent years as the ranks of nondenominational, neo-charismatic Christians have grown in the U.S. It also has earned greater media attention since House Speaker Mike Johnson assumed his elevated role, due to his connections with leaders in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement that espouses Seven Mountain theology.

“The Seven Mountains is a structured outline for Christian supremacy,” said Matthew Taylor, senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies in Baltimore. “The idea is that Christians are supposed to take power over society and that influence flows down from the top of each mountain.” 

“It is a real Christian Nationalist threat to our judicial system to have Supreme Court justices who understand theologically and think of themselves theologically as above precedent and the rule of law,” said Taylor. “If they think that their allegiance is to a higher power and their allegiance is to the Bible primarily before the Constitution, if they are invoking modern prophecies as the rationale for the work that they do, that should really raise questions about the separation of religion and state and the ways that Christianity and Christian nationalism is getting infused into the very structures of how our legal system is working.”

It is hard to know how many churches and congregations this movement consists of. Wikipedia suggests that many in the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement are reluctant to admit to being part of Seven Mountains theology (also known as Dominionism). That theology grew mostly out of Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. Data from Pew Research in 2011 suggests the NAR could constitute a significant minority of Christians in the Americas. 

I did not think it would ever be important to know more about Christian theology, especially fringe extremism. Talk about a false sense of security. Well, Christian nationalist elites did a fine job of scaring the bejesus out of me -- false sense of security is all gone.

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Religion News Service recently reported on support for Christian nationalism among Americans:

A new survey finds that fewer than a third of Americans, or 29%, qualify as Christian nationalists, and of those, two-thirds define themselves as white evangelicals.

The survey of 6,212 Americans by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution is the largest yet to gauge the size and scope of Christian nationalist beliefs.

It finds that 10% of Americans are avowed Christian nationalists, what the survey calls “adherents,” while an additional 19% are sympathetic to Christian nationalist ideals.  

The vast majority of Americans (70%) do not think the government should declare America a Christian nation. And nearly 60% do not think its laws should be based on Christian values.

Most Americans (73%) said they preferred a country made up of a diversity of faiths and not just Christianity.  

More than half of Republicans now identify as Christian nationalist or sympathizers, the survey concludes. Some members of Congress, notably Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, proudly endorse the label. Former President Donald Trump called himself a nationalist, and the survey finds Christian nationalists have far more favorable views of Trump than the general population.

That makes the political power of Christian nationalists far greater than their actual numbers in the population.

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Christian nationalist propaganda and slanders by faux Christian Franklin Graham: 

Graham cited Faux News. That alone undermines the credibility of what Graham and his crackpot reasoning asserts. The data is probably not real, because what Faux cited came from something the ultra-radical, Christian nationalist Family Research Council posted online. If the asserted increase in attacks on churches is real, one has to wonder how many of those attacks are by enraged Christian nationalists on churches that support the LGBQT community, immigrants and women's rights. Those attacks probably would not be attributed to radical faux Christians attacking normal, real Christians. Here is what MB | FC says about the FRC:

FRC is designated to be a hate group!

In addition to blatant lying and crackpot reasoning, DJT and radical right authoritarians perfected the dark free speech arts of falsely claiming victimhood and projecting onto critics and opponents what one does ones-self. It appears that all of those propaganda and slander tactics are being adopted by the Christian nationalist movement. The constant appeal of dark free speech to authoritarians, grifters, kleptocrats, ideological zealots and radical extremists comes from its dark power. It has great power to poison minds with lies, hate, slanders and a sense of infallible, arrogant self-righteousness. 

Book review & commentary: White Rural Rage

An interesting NYT opinion by Paul Krugman ponders the information and analysis from the 2024 book, White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy, by Tom Schaller (political science professor) and Paul Waldman (op-ed columnist). The book argues that rural white rage poses an existential threat to American democracy because those voters are increasingly inclined to embrace extremist ideologies, racist beliefs, conspiracy theories, and anti-democratic belief and behavior. Krugman writes (opinion not behind paywall): 

This process [creative destruction in rural areas] and its effects are laid out in devastating, terrifying and baffling detail in “White Rural Rage: The Threat to American Democracy,” a new book by Tom Schaller and Paul Waldman. I say “devastating” because the hardship of rural Americans is real, “terrifying” because the political backlash to this hardship poses a clear and present danger to our democracy and “baffling” because at some level I still don’t get the politics.

Technology is the main driver of rural decline, Schaller and Waldman argue. Indeed, American farms produce more than five times as much as they did 75 years ago, but the agricultural work force declined by about two-thirds over the same period, thanks to machinery, improved seeds, fertilizers and pesticides. Coal production has been falling recently, but thanks partly to technologies like mountaintop removal, coal mining as a way of life largely disappeared long ago, with the number of miners falling 80 percent even as production roughly doubled.

The decline of small-town manufacturing is a more complicated story, and imports play a role, but it’s also mainly about technological change that favors metropolitan areas with large numbers of highly educated workers.

Technology, then, has made America as a whole richer, but it has reduced economic opportunities in rural areas. So why don’t rural workers go where the jobs are? Some have. But some cities have become unaffordable, in part because of restrictive zoning — one thing blue states get wrong — and many workers are reluctant to leave their families and communities.

So shouldn’t we aid these communities? We do. Federal programs — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and more — are available to all Americans but are disproportionately financed from taxes paid by affluent urban areas. As a result, there are huge de facto transfers of money from rich, urban states like New Jersey to poor, relatively rural states like West Virginia. 

While these transfers somewhat mitigate the hardship facing rural America, they don’t restore the sense of dignity that has been lost along with rural jobs. And maybe that loss of dignity explains both white rural rage and why that rage is so misdirected — why it’s pretty clear that this November a majority of rural white Americans will again vote against Joe Biden, who as president has been trying to bring jobs to their communities, and for Donald Trump, a huckster from Queens who offers little other than validation for their resentment.

This feeling of a loss of dignity may be worsened because some rural Americans have long seen themselves as more industrious, more patriotic and maybe even morally superior to the denizens of big cities — an attitude still expressed in cultural artifacts like Jason Aldean’s hit song “Try That in a Small Town.”

In the crudest sense, rural and small-town America is supposed to be filled with hard-working people who adhere to traditional values, not like those degenerate urbanites on welfare, but the economic and social reality doesn’t match this self-image.

Prime-working-age men outside metropolitan areas are substantially less likely than their metropolitan counterparts to be employed — not because they’re lazy but because the jobs just aren’t there. (The gap is much smaller for women, perhaps because the jobs supported by federal aid tend to be female-coded, such as those in health care.)  

Quite a few rural states also have high rates of homicide, suicide and births to single mothers — again, not because rural Americans are bad people but because social disorder is, as the sociologist William Julius Wilson argued long ago about urban problems, what happens when work disappears.  

Draw attention to some of these realities, and you’ll be accused of being a snooty urban elitist. I’m sure responses to this column will be … interesting.

The result — which at some level I still find hard to understand — is that many white rural voters support politicians who tell them lies they want to hear. It helps explain why the MAGA narrative casts relatively safe cities like New York as crime-ridden hellscapes and rural America as the victim not of technology but of illegal immigrants, wokeness and the deep state.

At this point you’re probably expecting a solution to this ugly political situation. Schaller and Waldman do offer some suggestions. But the truth is that while white rural rage is arguably the single greatest threat facing American democracy, I have no good ideas about how to fight it.

If that analysis is mostly accurate, it accords with other research that indicates that rural dissatisfaction and a sense of threat from minorities and non-heterosexuals, and urban disrespect were significant factors in support for DJT in 2016 and 2020. 

 

One commenter commented: 

All those gadgets, devices, things that we have, large and small, in vast numbers, more than ever [....] still have to be manufactured! And they are ……. in factories offshored by big business in ever country in Asia, and across the border in Mexico. And aided and abetted by the US Government. Wonder where the jobs are? The jobs are there, the tradesmen, the supervisor, the manager, the services………..all there for example, on the eastern seaboard of Thailand - the Detroit of Asia. Cheaper, lower labor and environmental standards, protective barriers, low taxes…. That’s globalism. And that is the decline hollowing out of America and Japan too.

Krugman responded:

I actually did acknowledge the role of imports. But I’ve actually done the math: even if we completely eliminated our trade deficits, manufacturing would still be a much smaller employer than it used to be, and agriculture wouldn’t gain at all. We can’t recreate the economy of the 1960s, no matter how hard we try.

Another commenter commented (incoherently, IMO): 

If you need to grow up in poverty and ignorance to see the problem, then maybe I can help. The democratic party assures these people and other people that they will ameliorate their plight. Their pitch is that it could get a whole lot worse but they are here to take care of you. Trump tells them it could get a whole lot better. He's right it can be a whole lot better and it is time to for the democratic party to say the same. People want to thrive and not just survive. Communities can and should be nurturing. [what does nurturing mean, insulting and slandering urban people, while voting for DJT?]

Krugman responded:

But the reality is that Biden is making a serious effort to revitalize rural communities with his industrial policies, but gets no credit, while Trump did nothing for them and will get something like 80 percent of their votes.

Christian nationalism closes in on tolerance, secularism and democracy

The New York Post writes:

OK lawmaker calls LGBTQ people ‘filth’ following 

beating death of bullied nonbinary teen

An Oklahoma state Senator is facing criticism after he reportedly referred to LGBTQ people as “filth” following the unexpected death of a 16-year-old nonbinary student a day after being beaten up at school.

“I represent a constituency that doesn’t want that filth in Oklahoma,” Sen. Tom Woods, R-Westville, can be heard saying during a legislative forum when asked about the death of nonbinary teen Nex Benedict and legislation allegedly targeting the LGBTQ+ community, according to audio recorded by the Tahlequah Daily Press.

Oklahoma hater Tom Woods

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Joe.My.God. writes:

Megachurch Pastor: Attending Same-Sex Weddings Is 

“Celebrating Stepping Into Fury Of God’s Judgement”

“The most loving thing you could possibly do would be not to go, and to condemn the relationship; that is loving. It’s not loving to help somebody celebrate stepping into the fury of God’s judgment.  

“It is a blasphemy against God, as is transgender life and homosexuality, as well. That is the message to give in love.” – John MacArthur, when asked about the pastor fired last month from his American Family Association radio show for saying that Christians should feel free to attend same-sex weddings.

There you have it, rationality fans, properly aimed hate is an expression of love in the rage- and hate-driven minds of elite Christian nationalists.

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A psychology research article suggests that empathy can be gained or lost depending on what people are experiencing: “Observational learning processes influence the extent to which a person empathizes with the pain of another individual. In our study, female participants observed empathic or non-empathic reactions of others and later provided empathy ratings themselves. Observing empathic reactions of others resulted in an increase, whereas observing non-empathic reaction resulted in a decrease of participants’ homegrown empathy. These changes can be explained by observational reinforcement learning and are reflected by the neural processing of empathy in the anterior insula and its functional connectivity to the temporoparietal junction. Our findings show that empathy can be socially transmitted and observational learning can explain the plasticity of empathic reactions in different social environments.”

Assuming that data can be replicated and confirmed, one can envision what people are learning from hateful, bigoted, callous Christian nationalism.

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NBC News reports about what could be the signals children pick up from Christian nationalism and how they plausibly act in accord with those signals of hate and intolerance:

OWASSO, Okla. — At least 40 students at Owasso High School walked out Monday to protest what they describe as a pervasive culture of bullying with little accountability, which they believe led to a student’s death at their school.

Nex Benedict, 16, died Feb. 8, a day after a fight in a bathroom on the school’s West Campus. In body camera footage from a police officer’s interview with Nex, he described how three students “jumped” him after he threw water on them because they were bullying him and his friend over the way that they dressed. 

Nex’s mother, Sue Benedict, previously told The Independent that Nex told her he faced bullying due to his gender identity. Friends said Nex was transgender and primarily went by he/him pronouns at school but also used they/them pronouns, which Nex's family also used. Several other friends said Nex preferred he/him pronouns. In the body camera footage, when the police officer asked Nex if he ever reported the bullying to the school, Nex said, “I didn’t really see the point in it.”

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From the Self-Righteous Haters Files: 

Speaking on behalf of Trump outside the U.S. Capitol, self-proclaimed “prophetess” Kat Kerr announces that she is currently surrounded by a million angels who are preparing to “waste this place.” pic.twitter.com/gpyjXYhmVR

— Right Wing Watch (@RightWingWatch) February 26, 2024

Kat, surprisingly not institutionalized for mental disease, allegedly made these remarks about the satanic evil that pervades Washington DC and democrats:

People who stole the election will “hang on meat hooks in hell right next to Hitler. .... 150-foot angels” will kill her critics.

Why not? God talked about him all the time. No matter what you think about him, he picked him, he anointed him, and he appointed him. You know what he says about him? He’s an all-American boy who’s all for America.

So yes, there are powerful plans that are going to happen. Yes, I am his prophet. Yes, I am his revelator. I revelate heaven all over this world and will continue to do so.

They’re [God’s avenging angels?] about to waste this place. Waste every evil being, every demon, every evil principality, every power.” – Self-proclaimed prophet Kat Kerr, holding the staff she uses to ward off hurricanes.

They’re about to waste this place. Waste every evil being, every demon, every evil principality, every power.” – Self-proclaimed prophet Kat Kerr, holding the staff she uses to ward off hurricanes.

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This kind of deranged Christian nationalist hate is not new. Berkeley News reported in Sept. 2022: 

When the Conservative Political Action Conference convened in Texas last month, state Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick took the stage and surveyed the culture war issues that define today’s Republican agenda: hostility to immigration and transgender rights, and deep commitment to gun rights as a defense against government tyranny.

But in folksy, pastoral tones, he cast these intense issues as subordinate to a higher mission. America’s heritage as a Christian nation is in jeopardy, he warned, and as proof, he cited a recent Gallup Poll that found 67% of liberals believe in God, compared to 95% of conservatives.

In this crucible, “we have to be ready for battle,” Patrick admonished the audience. “We have to be ready for the fight because we are not in a fight any longer of Republicans and Democrats of the old days. We’re in a fight of lightness and darkness. We’re in a fight of powers and principalities. ”

For those fluent in the language of conservative evangelical Christians, Patrick’s message was unmistakable: The midterm elections this fall and the presidential election in 2024 comprise a battle pitting God against Satan — with liberals doing the work of Satan.  

Until recently, such apocalyptic appeals would have been seen as extreme and confined to the political fringe. But in a series of interviews, UC Berkeley scholars described the increasing power of hard-right American Christians, almost all of them white, who have been radicalized by 50 years of social change and demographic change — and by the dramatic decline of their own churches.

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Politico reports, incorrectly calling authoritarian Christian nationalist elites conservative:

Trump allies prepare to infuse ‘Christian nationalism’ 

in second administration

Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, president of The Center for Renewing America, part of a conservative consortium preparing for Trump’s return to power

Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget during his first term and has remained close to him. Vought, who is frequently cited as a potential chief of staff in a second Trump White House, is president of The Center for Renewing America think tank, a leading group in a conservative consortium preparing for a second Trump term.

Christian nationalists in America believe that the country was founded as a Christian nation and that Christian values should be prioritized throughout government and public life. As the country has become less religious and more diverse, Vought has embraced the idea that Christians are under assault and has spoken of policies he might pursue in response.

One document drafted by CRA staff and fellows includes a list of top priorities for CRA in a second Trump term. “Christian nationalism” is one of the bullet points. Others include invoking the Insurrection Act on Day One to quash protests and refusing to spend authorized congressional funds on unwanted projects, a practice banned by lawmakers in the Nixon era.

The Christian nationalist Taliban is not going to let any stinking human law stand in the way of God’s infallible Sharia Law with all the “love” (known as hate to normal people) it is anxious to unleash on the evil ones.

Western involvement in the Ukraine war

The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft analyzes US and Western foreign policy. The mission statement of the QIRS says it promotes a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy and critique ideologies that have led to counterproductive outcomes, e.g., the Ukraine war. It advocates for responsible statecraft, which serves the public interest, engages the world through peaceful cooperation, builds a peaceful world, abhors war, and is pro-democracy. A Dec. 4, 2023 QIRS article, Did the West deliberately prolong the Ukraine war?, makes a very troubling argument:

Mounting evidence proves that we cannot believe anything our officials say about the futility of negotiations

It’s becoming increasingly difficult to deny the war in Ukraine could have been ended mere months into the Russian invasion — and that the U.S. and U.K. governments worked to prevent this from happening.

The latest piece of corroboration comes courtesy David Arakhamia, the parliamentary leader of Zelensky’s “Servant of the People” party who led the Ukrainian delegation in peace talks with Moscow. Arakhamia told journalist Natalia Moseichuk in a recent televised interview that “Russia's goal was to push us to take neutrality,” meaning to commit to not joining NATO, and that “they were ready to end the war if we accept neutrality.”

There were several reasons the negotiations ultimately collapsed, he said, including the need to change the Ukrainian constitution (which had been amended in February 2019 to enshrine the country’s NATO aspirations), and the fact that Johnson had come to Kyiv to inform Ukrainian officials the West wouldn’t sign any agreement with Moscow, instead urging: “let’s just fight.”

Arakhamia also said that Kyiv’s lack of trust in the Russian side to fulfill its end of the bargain meant that the peace deal “could only be done if there were security guarantees” — suggesting, obliquely, that negotiations could have borne fruit had they received the backing and involvement of NATO states. Western governments’ provision of security guarantees for Ukraine have long been part of the discussion for how to ensure the sustainability of a post-war peace deal, and in fact, Arakhmia himself disclosed in the same interview that “the Western allies advised us not to agree to ephemeral security guarantees.”  

The interview corroborates claims first reported in May 2022 by the broadly Western-alignedUkrainska Pravda outlet — which reported that Boris Johnson told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the West wouldn’t support any peace deal regardless of what Ukraine wanted, and they preferred to keep taking the fight to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was less powerful than they had thought.  

Former U.S. national security official Fiona Hill reported the two sides had reached a tentative peace deal the same month of Johnson’s surprise visit to Kyiv, while former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, and several Turkish officials — all of whom were involved at various times in the talks — have said that NATO officials stopped or undermined negotiations.  

Finally, the effort to prevent peace talks from bearing fruit put not just more Ukrainians in danger, but the entire world. After assuring the U.S. public in February that they needn’t fear nuclear war with Russia, by September, President Joe Biden was privately warning that the world was the closest it had been to “Armageddon” in sixty years. The nineteen months that followed the failure of Russian-Ukrainian peace talks saw several near-misses that could have turned the war into one between Russia and NATO, one that would likely escalate to a nuclear confrontation.

The decision not to seriously pursue a viable diplomatic solution to the war in Ukraine has been a disaster for that country and its inhabitants. The only mild consolation is that it could offer a vital lesson for the United States and other NATO states to apply to and prevent future conflicts — if we dare learn it, that is.

This line of reasoning and supporting evidence is solid evidence that the US and NATO could have had a peace deal early in the war, but decided to prolong the war to weaken Putin and Russia. History and analysis of the war has been discussed here before (here, here and here), but this article reinforces concerns that the situation in the Ukraine is probably untenable for the US, NATO and the Ukraine.

This is information the American people should be aware of. Repeated exposure to it helps keep it in memory (something I definitely need). The US is on the verge of abandoning the Ukraine to Putin’s mercies. As we all know, Putin has no mercy. If Ukrainian defenses collapse, there will be vengeance including genocide and ethnic cleansing. The Ukraine could be annexed into Russia and disappear. That catastrophic failure probably could have been prevented if the US had a more competent foreign policy and a more competent, less pro-war president. 

The wheels of justice turn slowly....

 But it does turn.  OR so I've heard. Eventually, you are gonna be found and arrested. 

But that still raises the question: Why is it taking THIS long? 

Just the last few weeks we have had:

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/f-you-this-is-my-house-accused-jan-6-rioter-wife-accused-of-confronting-cops-at-capitol-arrested-feds-say/

https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/accused-jan-6-rioter-wore-jacket-with-his-own-company-logo-and-phone-number-at-capitol-feds/

https://lawandcrime.com/crime/wooh-we-in-this-motherf-father-who-came-to-capitol-on-jan-6-with-wife-14-year-old-son-found-guilty/

All I can think of is thank goodness that https://lawandcrime.com/ is keeping up with these arrests.

But what also concerns me, why aren't these stories plastered all over the pages of the MSM? It's an election year. People are starting to forget about Jan. 6, 2021. 

REMIND THEM!

News bits: Authoritarian law; TTKP elites & inconvenient truth; Etc.

The AP reports about what the rule of the thug authoritarian looks like: 

In October 2021, [Illinois Courts County Judge Robert] Adrian had found then 18-year-old Drew Clinton of Taylor, Michigan, guilty of sexual assaulting a 16-year-old girl during a May 2021 graduation party.

The state Judicial Inquiry Board filed a complaint against Adrian after the judge threw out Clinton’s conviction in January 2022, with the judge saying that the 148 days Clinton had spent in jail was punishment enough.

The complaint said Adrian had acknowledged he was supposed to impose the mandatory four-year sentence against Clinton, but that he would not send him to prison. “That is not just,” Adrian said at the sentencing hearing, according to court transcripts. “I will not do that.”  

But in Friday’s decision, the commission wrote that it found Adrian’s claim that “he reversed his guilty finding based on his reconsideration of the evidence and his conclusion that the State had failed to prove its case to be a subterfuge — respondent’s attempt to justify the reversal post hoc.”

Clinton cannot be tried again for the same crime under the Fifth Amendment. A motion to expunge Clinton’s record was denied in February 2023.

“I will not do that.” And the rapist gets off, free to do it again because it was so much fun the first time.

That is the epitome of the rule of the authoritarian thug over the rule of law. ‘I do what I want, not what the laws says’. 

That is precisely what the TTKP (Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party, formerly the Republican Party) wants to do but is far more subtle about it than this goon. The TTKP know that all it needs to do is gain enough power to make what the goon Adrian do legal. By legalizing what is illegal, thugs, grifters, tyrants, rapists, racists, bigoted haters and cynical liars get what they want. And, it is all perfectly legal!

Dishonorable judge Bob

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The Hill reports about insulting, cynical TTKP idiots and liars trying to deal with the Alabama court decision that says human embryos are children:

A few hours later, Haley seemed to walk back her initial comment.

“I didn’t say that I agreed with the Alabama ruling,” Haley told CNN, but she added she still believes “an embryo is an unborn baby.” [the tried and true “I didn't say what I said” defense]

Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who is being talked about as a potential running mate for former President Trump, evaded the question. “Well, I haven’t studied the issue,” Scott told reporters Thursday in South Carolina before taking a jab at Haley. 

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said he thinks an embryo is a child, but he also seemed confused as to what the decision even was. “We need more kids,” he said. “We need people to have an opportunity to have kids.” [Tuberville is completely clueless about what IVF is, but in his cynical arrogance, he blew his self-righteous smoke about it anyway]

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The Nation asks a question with an obvious answer: Clarence Thomas Broke the Law. Why Is He Not Being Prosecuted? -- The debate about whether Supreme Court justices are bound by ethics rules drew attention away from the fact that Clarence Thomas’s conduct violated federal laws

The answer: Merrick Garland is too gutless and incompetent to do his job.

TN reports that over about 20 years, multi-millionaires and billionaires Harlan Crow, Charles and David Koch, the Koch network, Wayne Huizenga, David Sokol, and Paul Novelly gave Thomas 38 vacations, 26 private jet flights, eight helicopter flights, 12 VIP passes to sporting events, attendance as a guest at the exclusive Bohemian Club, travel on a private jet to and lodging at Koch network summits at resorts in California tuition for his nephew in a private school, and a $267,000 loan used to purchase a luxury recreational vehicle. Crow also purchased the home in which Thomas’s mother lived and allowed her to live there rent-free. Thomas reported none of this. All of that violated existing federal law.

Garland ignores crimes by TTKP elites because he does not want to look “political.” Garland is an idiot and a traitor.

NYT Reveals (selectively) the role of the CIA in Ukraine since 2014

The NYT today published an article disclosing details of a long proxy war in which Ukraine has been a US client state for the past 10 years. It is, of course, selective. Probably it is timed to pressure Republicans to vote for continued funding. There is little else to be gained by admitting to the public after so many years, that covert operations were ongoing for all these years. Maybe next time they will discuss the US involvement in the Euromaidan-- a topic for another post. What they are now willing to put on the record, even in sanitized form should be enough to make NYT readers wonder how much of what they read there is factual. Following are some important quotes from the article. The link to full article can be found below. 

 ***********************************************************************************

(Excerpts fr. NYT article)

"The C.I.A. and other American intelligence agencies provide intelligence for targeted missile strikes, track Russian troop movements and help support spy networks... A secret nerve center of Ukraine’s military... is almost fully financed, and partly equipped, by the C.I.A. “One hundred and ten percent,” Gen. Serhii Dvoretskiy, a top intelligence commander, said in an interview at the base. 

The listening post in the Ukrainian forest is part of a C.I.A.-supported network of spy bases constructed in the past eight years that includes 12 secret locations along the Russian border... The Ukrainians also helped the Americans go after the Russian operatives who meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. And the C.I.A. also helped train a new generation of Ukrainian spies who operated inside Russia, across Europe, and in Cuba and other places where the Russians have a large presence. The relationship is so ingrained that C.I.A. officers remained at a remote location in western Ukraine when the Biden administration evacuated U.S. personnel in the weeks before Russia invaded in February 2022. During the invasion, the officers relayed critical intelligence, including where Russia was planning strikes and which weapons systems they would use. “Without them, there would have been no way for us to resist the Russians, or to beat them,” said Ivan Bakanov, who was then head of Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the S.B.U. 

The C.I.A.’s partnership in Ukraine can be traced back to two phone calls on the night of Feb. 24, 2014, eight years to the day before Russia’s full-scale invasion. Millions of Ukrainians had just overrun the country’s pro-Kremlin government and the president, Viktor Yanukovych, and his spy chiefs had fled to Russia. In the tumult, a fragile pro-Western government quickly took power.  [Left out is the story of just how and why the CIA was there to assist the new gov't; to fill in that gap I left a link to a transcript of Victoria Nuland's intercepted-- by Russia-- phone call from a month earlier in which she literally picks the "best" candidates for the new government. But this is BEFORE there was a Euromaidan Revolution OR a new government. This is before Yanukovych fled to Russia. How would she have known, and why would she be involved in picking an choosing Ukraine's next leaders? See BBC link below*--ed]. 

"The government’s new spy chief, Valentyn Nalyvaichenko, arrived at the headquarters of the domestic intelligence agency and found a pile of smoldering documents in the courtyard. Inside, many of the computers had been wiped or were infected with Russian malware...He went to an office and called the C.I.A. station chief and the local head of MI6. It was near midnight but he summoned them to the building, asked for help in rebuilding the agency from the ground up, and proposed a three-way partnership. “That’s how it all started,” Mr. Nalyvaichenko said." 

Full article (long): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/25/world/europe/the-spy-war-how-the-cia-secretly-helps-ukraine-fight-putin.html

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*Transcript of intercepted and leaked phone call of Victoria Nuland (now Undersecretary of State) discussing who should and should not be in the "next" Ukrainian government, which did not yet exist. This call took place before the Revolution and overthrow of Yanukovych in late Feb. of 2014. She is also pictured in meetings with Yanukovych shortly before the Euromaidan). https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957

Context: Victoria Nuland was then the top Europe-Russia official. Her boss was Joseph Biden who handled the Ukraine portfolio for the Obama Admin. Obama was skeptical of the program, and almost refused to send arms to Ukraine, while Biden championed US involvement from the start. Nuland was point-person on the ground.  Nuland is now Undersec. of State in Biden's admin. She is known as a hawkish neo-con type (her husband is the well-known neo-conservative,  Robert Kagan, who was a key architect and advocate of the Iraq  War). In 2019, he wrote a WaPo p-ed with his friend, current Sec of State,  Antony Blinken setting out a "new vision" for foreign policy.  Jake Sullivan then served as National Security Advisor to VP Biden, and is now National Security Advisor reporting directly to the president. In other words, the main foreign policy  players in the Biden admin are the same people he worked with during the period discussed in both the NYT article, and at the time of the intercepted Nuland call. These are "Liberal Interventionists" whose ideas are greatly influenced by neo-conservatism. Indeed, Nuland  Nuland served as the principal deputy foreign policy adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney from 2003-2005, and then under Bush served as the US Permanent Representative to NATO. This was during the time that Bush promised-- against the will of France, Germany and other European states-- NATO membership to Ukraine and Georgia.

 

 

 

News: Rut roh! The Christofascist dress code; Rut roh! It's gonna be RBG all over again; Etc.

Frighteningly, today's news is chock full of rut rohs! First off, we've got her imperial majesty and alleged fornicator MTG telling women how to dress and blaming them for being sexually assaulted and raped by blameless horny men, including innocent “Christian brothers”:

“Men will respect you more and think of you much more highly than just a sexual object for gratification,” she continued. “It’s also good to not tempt your Christian brothers and cause them to stumble.”

“As conservative Christian women let us always be an example to girls and young women by displaying actions that our faith believes and not conform to the patterns of this fallen world. Be the light, don’t fall into the darkness.”

Those feisty TTKP Christofascist elite scum bags. They just cannot help blatantly projecting their flaws and evil intentions onto everyone except themselves! 

TTKP = Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party, formerly the Republican Party

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This one ranks as a RUT ROH!! 😮 (largest font size)

The HuffPo reports that 69-year-old Justice Sonia Sotomayor is ill and travels with a medic:

The revelation comes from newly released U.S. Marshals Service records obtained by the nonpartisan court watchdog Fix the Court, which requested information about security for current and former Supreme Court justices. And it amplifies questions that many only whisper about the long-term fitness of the oldest Democratic-appointed justice on the court.

The RGB (Ruth Bader Ginsberg) redux scenario: Here we go again. ☹️

Sotomayor refuses to retire. Biden loses the 2024 election to the monster dictator & Fornicator-in-Chief (but approved by God and MTG) DJT. Sotomayor “unexpectedly” dies in March or Feb of 2024. McConnell, as freshly re-minted dinosaur and Senate majority leader, fast tracks the nomination of White Supremacist and racist scumbag Steve Bannon to replace her. Bannon sits on the bench by April and blithely joins in the fun of the final destruction of American democracy, civil liberties and the rule of law and their replacement with, wait for it . . . . wait . . . . TYRANNY & KLEPTOCRACY!!. 

The TTKP now controls the 7-2 majority on the Supreme Court. The shock of seeing fascist Bannon on the bench of the highest court in the land causes 63-year old Elena Kagan to palpitate and drop dead with her britches on. The shock of getting to fast track another Supreme Court justice causes McConnell to palpitate and drop dead with his britches on. McConnell is replaced with the new Senate majority leader and well-known fascist Josh Hawley. Cackling gleefully, Hawley fast tracks the nomination of the self-righteous unattractively-dressed MTG to the court, giving the Christofascists and the regular fascists a 8-1 majority. Justice Brown-Jackson, being still young enough to withstand the shock of it all, buries he head in her hands and quietly cries. 

Meanwhile, Germaine palpitates and drops dead with his britches down around his ankles as he was frantically trying to put on his armor to ward off the impending poopstorm of fascism bearing down upon his troubled countenance and his pipsqueak politics blog.

Wheee!! The fascists have an 8-1 majority!!

I was just trying to put my armor on

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This one ranks a healthy RUT ROH!! 🥺 (next to largest font size)

Tech Crunch reports about the quiet, quiet march of brass knuckles capitalism over a steaming pile of worker corpses:

Amazon and SpaceX are quietly trying to 

demolish national labor law

Amazon alleged in a legal filing published Friday morning that the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is unconstitutional. SpaceX and Trader Joe’s — companies that, like Amazon, have repeatedly faced labor law violations from the federal agency — have recently made similar attacks that threaten national worker protections.

This is just Amazon’s latest attempt to block union organizing in its fulfillment centers. But this time, these companies aren’t just limiting the rights of their own workers. If these threats against the NLRB keep moving forward, American workers could lose workplace protections that they’ve had for almost a century.

“It’s a crock of s–t,” said Seth Goldstein, the legal counsel for Trader Joe’s United and the Amazon Labor Union. “I don’t believe any of it, and I think it’s just a cover to bust unions.”  

Amazon claims that the NLRB’s structure is unconstitutional because administrative law judges are “insulated from presidential oversight,” thus violating the separation of powers. The company also argues against the structure of NLRB itself, as well as its ability to fine a company for unfair labor practices after a hearing, rather than a full jury trial.

The legal situation -- this is deadly serious and deadly dangerous (Germaine’s personal analysis, not warranted fit for any purpose, legal or not): Maybe the court will side with the companies for one or both of the reasons given in the article. But also, if the Supreme Court demolishes the Chevron deference legal doctrine in the two combined cases it is now poised to rule on, that might constitute another basis by which the TTKP-controlled USSC could sua sponte (on its own accord) find the NLRB unconstitutional. Once the NLRB falls workers will be truly screwed, sometimes literally to death. This is what the TTKP stands for. It aggressively asserts rights of human corporations over actual human humans whenever and wherever it can, as much as it can. Always keep eyes on the flow of power. 

👀

See, I told ’ja. There is a lot of serious rut roh! going on at the moment.

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Although I posted about this bit of rut roh yesterday, some other sources are picking up on it. Here is some deeply troubling commentary (The New Republic reports) by a leading Christian nationalist theocrat at the recent CPAC convention:

Conservative activist Jack Posobiec joyfully hailed the “end of democracy” at the Conservative Political Action Conference, further emphasizing Republicans’ apparent desire to completely overthrow America as we know it.

Posobiec, who helped popularize the “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory, appeared at CPAC’s opening day on Wednesday. He spoke during a panel moderated by former White House adviser and white supremacist Steve Bannon.

“Welcome to the end of democracy. We are here to overthrow it completely,” Posobiec said as the event began.

“We didn’t get all the way there on January 6, but we will endeavor to get rid of it and replace it with this, right here,” he said, gesturing to the crowd and holding up his fist.

As he spoke, Bannon laughed and said, “Amen!”  

Posobiec then said, to cheers from the audience, “All glory is not to government. All glory to God.”

Republican primary front-runner Donald Trump has repeatedly indicated he intends to embrace authoritarianism if he is reelected to the White House. Trump has paraphrased Adolf Hitler, floated horrifying and fascistic policy ideas, and joked (so he says) about being a dictator on the first day of his new term.  

Trump’s closest allies in Congress have also indicated they would be willing to throw out the rulebook for him. Senator J.D. Vance and Representative Elise Stefanik, both reportedly on the shortlist for Trump’s running mate, have said they would have carried out a coup on January 6, 2021, to keep Trump in power.

Posobiec’s comments, even delivered in a lighthearted tone, are a chilling reminder that Trump and his supporters are not speaking rhetorically. They mean everything they say. (emphasis added)

As is usual for the still too-clueless MSM, TNR calls Posobiec a conservative when it is clear he is an authoritarian theocrat, not a conservative.

The Christian nationalist monster who hates democracy; he loves 

Christian Sharia law and the White male Christian Taliban 

thugs who control the corrupt wealth & power movement

Whether he meant it or not, and whether he was a Christofascist himself or not, this Barry Goldwater commentary keeps popping back into my mind:

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know, I’ve tried to deal with them.”

Astronaut to Earth: Houston, we have a terrible damn problem on our hands.

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On a lighter note, a deep sea robot fiddling around near Easter Island off the coast of Chile has taken videos that show more than 100 new species at depths of 14,000 ft or deeper.

And on a lighter than air thought:

Finally, Jon Stewart on (i) Jon Stewart's bothsidesism, and (ii) Tucker interviewing Putin