Etiquette



DP Etiquette

First rule: Don't be a jackass.

Other rules: Do not attack or insult people you disagree with. Engage with facts, logic and beliefs. Out of respect for others, please provide some sources for the facts and truths you rely on if you are asked for that. If emotion is getting out of hand, get it back in hand. To limit dehumanizing people, don't call people or whole groups of people disrespectful names, e.g., stupid, dumb or liar. Insulting people is counterproductive to rational discussion. Insult makes people angry and defensive. All points of view are welcome, right, center, left and elsewhere. Just disagree, but don't be belligerent or reject inconvenient facts, truths or defensible reasoning.

Tuesday, March 11, 2025

InfoWars & the FOIA; maga's anti-science crackpottery; The death of facts & truth

The FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) will probably come under maga attack pretty soon, assuming it isn't already under attack. The FOIA is intended to force transparency into government operations. Politico writes about Musk and DOGE trying to hide what they are doing while resisting responding to FOIA requests:

Judge orders urgent release of DOGE records, 
citing ‘unprecedented’ power and ‘unusual secrecy’

A federal judge has ruled that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is wielding so much power that its records will likely have to be opened to the public under federal law.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper said the vast and “unprecedented” authority of DOGE, formally known as the U.S. Digital Service, combined with its “unusual secrecy” warrant the urgent release of its internal documents under the Freedom of Information Act.

It’s the first significant ruling in a growing legal push to pierce DOGE’s secretive veil, a decision that undercuts Musk’s repeated insistence about the operation’s transparency — and the White House’s refrain that Musk is simply a run-of-the-mill presidential adviser with limited decision-making authority.

The article asserts that DOGE’s speed and leadership fluidity is opacity by design. Musk and by his authority djt, are lying about DOGE operations being transparent. As is usual for maga operations, Musk is trying to hide the truth about what he is doing, presumably so that he and djt have plausible deniability for blowback in public opinion.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

The contempt that maga has for established science and vaccines cannot be much clearer. The NYT reports

Kennedy Links Measles Outbreak to Poor Diet 
and Health, Citing Fringe (crackpot) Theories
In a sweeping interview, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, outlined a strategy for containing the measles outbreak in West Texas that strayed far from mainstream science, relying heavily on fringe theories about prevention and treatments.

He issued a muffled call for vaccinations in the affected community, but said the choice was a personal one. He suggested that measles vaccine injuries were more common than known, contrary to extensive research.

He asserted that natural immunity to measles, gained through infection, somehow also protected against cancer and heart disease, a claim not supported by research.

He cheered on questionable treatments like cod liver oil, and said that local doctors had achieved “almost miraculous and instantaneous” recoveries with steroids or antibiotics.
“We already are dealing with people that think measles is not a big deal,” said Dr. Leila Myrick, a family medicine doctor in Seminole, Texas, who has been caring for patients with measles for several weeks.

“Now they’re going to think they can get this miracle treatment and that they definitely don’t need to get vaccinated. It’s a 100 percent going to make it harder.”


As far as I am concerned, RFK Jr. is a malicious crackpot monster who is intentionally trying to kill people. He should be arrested for attempted manslaughter or murder. He claims dangers from vaccination while ignoring the benefits. Worse, he falsely claims that natural measles infection protects against cancer and heart disease. 

The malicious crackpot does not mention that a natural infection can cause a major bad side-effect. Natural infection leads to immune suppression, known as "immune amnesia," where the body loses pre-existing immunity to other pathogens, increasing susceptibility to infections for months to years after recovery. One study reported that serious adverse events with a possible causal link to the MMR vaccine occurred at a rate of about 5.3 per 100,000 vaccinations, ~0.0053%. By contrast, immune amnesia after a measles infection manifests is seen after all or nearly all measles infections as a loss of between ~11% to 73% of their antibodies against other bacterial and virus pathogens.  

So, not only does maga have contempt for science, it doesn't care if that contempt poisons minds with stupid, false beliefs and that vicious demagoguery winds up killing people.
______________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________

A WaPo opinion discusses how maga creates false realities (not paywalled):


The Trump administration is deleting taxpayer-funded data — information that Americans use to make sense of the world. In its absence, the president can paint the world as he pleases.

We don’t know the full universe of statistics that has gone missing, but the U.S. DOGE Service’s wrecking ball has already left behind a wasteland of 404 pages. All sorts of useful information has disappeared, including data on:




Some of this censorship has been challenged (and at least temporarily reversed) through litigation. Even so, DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, has continued its digital book-burning and is now blocking new data collection.


The WaPo opinion goes on to report about other data deleting and fudging tactics. For example, DOGE put out bogus statistics on its supposed government savings. Some fake savings were based on canceled contracts that had already been paid in full, i.e., no savings at all. Some were created out of nothing, such as $50 million that DOGE falsely claims was spent on sending condoms to Gaza. No savings there either.

What is beyond galling here is that us taxpayers paid to collect data that is now deleted. If it has been permanently deleted, that amounts to grand theft. To maga, there is major wealth and power value in getting rid of inconvenient facts and truths. This really is theft. All maga elites involved in directing others to take our data from us should be arrested, prosecuted and tossed in jail for many years.

We are being screwed by corrupt djt and his corrupt maga wealth and power movement.

A taxpayer robbed by the
thief called maga