An initial update on the coming Twitter hyper-hellscape

The AP writes:

Confusion, concern, conspiracies, celebration.

In the hours after Elon Musk took control of Twitter, reaction on the platform ranged from triumph to despair.

While no immediate policy changes had been announced by Friday afternoon, that didn’t stop users from cheering — or criticizing — what they expected to be a quick embrace of Musk’s pledges to cut back on moderation in what he has said is an effort to promote free speech.

Conservative personalities on the site began recirculating long-debunked conspiracy theories, including about COVID-19 and the 2020 election, in a tongue-in-cheek attempt to “test” whether Twitter’s policies on misinformation were still being enforced.

Popular right-wing pundits tweeted buzzwords such as “ivermectin,” and “Trump won” to see whether they’d be penalized for content they suggested would previously have been flagged. Ivermectin, a cheap drug that kills parasites in humans and animals, has been promoted by some Republican lawmakers and conservative talk show hosts as an effective way to treat COVID-19. But health experts have been pushing back, warning there’s scant evidence to support the belief that it works.

Welp, that is exactly what expert Dissident Politics analyses indicated what would happen. DP expects that next, most (~90%) of the crackpottery, lies and slanders will be allowed in the name of free speech. It's dark free speech, but free speech nonetheless.

DP will update the inquiring minds at DP whether Twitter's Chief Twat, Elon Musk, will do squat about all the lies and bullshittery that he unleashed. So far, the betting is that he won't do much about it. Maybe a fig leaf or two will be put on the gaping wounds in truth and civility, but that's probably gonna be about it.

Daily news digest

Rut rho! Conservatism kills people

A group of sociologists at the Department of Sociology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, wrote this in a recently published research paper:

The rise in working-age mortality rates in the United States in recent decades largely reflects stalled declines in cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality alongside rising mortality from alcohol-induced causes, suicide, and drug poisoning; and it has been especially severe in some U.S. states. .... More conservative marijuana policies and more liberal policies on the environment, gun safety, labor, economic taxes, and tobacco taxes in a state were associated with lower mortality in that state. Especially strong associations were observed between certain domains and specific causes of death: between the gun safety domain and suicide mortality among men, between the labor domain and alcohol-induced mortality, and between both the economic tax and tobacco tax domains and CVD mortality. Simulations indicate that changing all policy domains in all states to a fully liberal orientation might have saved 171,030 lives in 2019, while changing them to a fully conservative orientation might have cost 217,635 lives.

Factors considered in the research

(Note: All existing firearm safety laws are

likely to be held unconstitutional in view of

a recent radical right Supreme Court ruling) 

There you have it. Those darned sociologists are once again caught red-handed tossing sand in the finely honed gears of morally superior, God-endorsed conservative capitalist politics. (sarcasm)

But rest assured, America’s fire breathing radical right knows well how to respond to inconvenient truth. Radical right ideologues, Christian fundamentalists and brass knuckles capitalists will, as usual, reject the data and attack the researchers. For example, they will claim the data is based on flawed simulations, and/or is a pack of socialist lies from pedophile socialist liars. 

Or, better yet, they will just ignore it and pretend it doesn't exist. That KYMS propaganda tactic (keep your mouth shut) is 100% effective in preventing FIMPI (foot in mouth public inconvenience). In the face of inconvenient truth, KYMS is the single most effective dark free speech tool the radical right has to minimize its impact on the public. That is why it’s so incredibly common and popular with radical right elites.

Rut roh! Guns kill people

In 1993, researchers studied the question of whether gun ownership was a factor in mortality. The data they generated indicated that gun ownership was a risk factor for mortality. The risk was being shot dead in the home. They wrote in their paper, Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home:

The use of illicit drugs and a history of physical fights in the home are important risk factors for homicide in the home. Rather than confer protection, guns kept in the home are associated with an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate acquaintance. .... Our data indicate that keeping a gun in the home is independently associated with an increase in the risk of homicide in the home. The use of illicit drugs and a history of physical fights in the home are also important risk factors.

The reaction by the NRA, gun nuts, gun makers and the Republican Party was intense. In 1996, congress passed a ban of federal funding for gun violence research. That ban to this day continues to limit research on gun violence. 

The radical right reaction to that research paper exemplifies another popular propaganda tactic that radical right ideologues, Christian fundamentalists and brass knuckles capitalists enjoy using, specifically the BRBCMRIN technique (block research but claim more research is needed). By claiming more research into sources of inconvenient truth, e.g., gun violence, the radical right has discovered it can block and delay effective legislation for at least decades, maybe forever if they get full power. 

BRBCMRIN was and still effectively used by the cigarette industry to ward off second hand smoke regulations. Use of BRBCMRIN by the carbon energy sector has also been highly effective for warding off legislation to deal with climate change. Ronald Reagan was a big fan of BRBCMRIN. He used it to limit federal research into areas the radical right knew would generate inconvenient truth, e.g., climate change research.

So, when radical right flamers attack inconvenient research and data, claiming it is not enough, it is fair and reasonable to tell them they are full of crap. In view of its history of hiding and blocking inconvenient truth, the burden of proof is on the radical right, not anyone or anything else.

Aggressive Christian nationalist theocracy

Alternet writes in an opinion piece:

‘God’s gonna cut you down’: 

How Republicans conspire with churches for power

For Republicans, the purpose of religion is — as it has been for authoritarians since Old Testament days — political and social control. It’s not about spirituality: it’s all about raw, naked, taxpayer-subsidized power and the wealth associated with it.

A Michigan county Republican Party just posted a video showing picture after picture of that state’s Democratic politicians, starting with Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who right-wing terrorists have already tried to kidnap and murder.

Under each picture — including a picture of George Soros representing, presumably, the “International Jews” who Republican politicians suggest wield space lasers and secretly are trying to control the world — reads the death threat, in bold, all-caps:

“GOD’S GONNA CUT YOU DOWN!”

The wealthy pastors of at least four Republican-aligned megachurches in Georgia have invited Hershel Walker to campaign, in clear violation of their tax-exempt status.

Across the nation, white evangelical churches brazenly push their parishioners to vote for Republican candidates: they’ve been getting away with breaking the law since the 1980s and don’t show any inclination to stop now.  

Back during Trump’s second impeachment trial, Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham and heir to the multimillion-dollar Graham fortune, publicly said that the 10 Republicans voting to impeach Donald Trump in the US House of Representatives were like Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus.

“And these ten, from [Trump’s] own party, joined in the feeding frenzy,” he wrote. “It makes you wonder what the thirty pieces of silver were that Speaker Pelosi promised for this betrayal.”

Franklin Graham is a multimillionaire in large part because neither he nor his family have to pay any taxes on their family’s business’ income or even pay property taxes on the land and buildings their business owns and in which they live.

In a news article, AlterNet writes:

Former Vice President Mike Pence claimed during a Wednesday appearance on Fox Business that the First Amendment to the United States Constitution does not protect Americans from having other people's faiths forced upon them.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” it states.

In fact, there are no references to a supreme being anywhere in the Constitution, because the Founding Fathers were adamantly opposed to centralized religious power as well as requiring individuals to subscribe to any particular denomination. 

“These lefties want to scrap religion, Mike Pence, and I think it’s a terrible mistake,” Kudlow griped.

“Well, the radical left believes that the freedom of religion is the freedom from religion. But it's nothing the American founders ever thought of or generations of Americans fought to defend,” Pence said.

These are more warnings that the Christian nationalist wing of the Republican Party intends to establish Christian fundamentalism as controlling US law and society. The intent could not much be clearer. Republican Party fundamentalist Christian elites will obliterate secularism, secular education and secular law. That will be replaced with Christian Sharia law. It will be administered by an enraged, vengeful Christian Taliban right out of the Dark Ages. To get what they want, those elites are openly lying and slandering the left. Even worse, they openly break laws. 

Apparently no one in law enforcement is trying to stop this Christian illegality. Christian nationalist reasoning in defense of lawbreaking is that God’s sacred ends justify all means. That includes law breaking. Law enforcement appears to accept that as OK. Most rank and file Republicans seem to be fine with all of this. In view of their open support or silence, essentially all Republican elites accept Christian theocracy and want to replace secular law and society by force.

More news bits

The hellscape will get worse

Elon Musk has to close the deal to buy Twitter by Friday, i.e., tomorrow. That's pretty soon. He publicly stated he would lay lots of Twitter employees off, get rid of content moderation, re-open Trump's account and more or less, let free speech run free, wild and butt naked. Axios writes:

Elon Musk: Twitter won't become a "free-for-all hellscape"

Elon Musk said in a note Thursday that Twitter must be "warm and welcoming to all" and not a "free-for-all hellscape" in order for it to reach its full potential.

Why it matters: In an overture to advertisers, Musk seemed to walk back the idea of total free speech on Twitter and promoted it as a digital town square with some limitations.

What he's saying: Musk wrote in a tweeted note to advertisers that Twitter should be "a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a healthy manner, without resorting to violence."

"Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences!"

Here comes the a free-for-all hellscape, where anything can be said with no consequences. Public discourse and civility are going to get even uglier than they are now. The chart below shows how to prepare for the barbaric hell that Musk is going to unleash on all of us. If you don't already have a scimitar, Wall Mart has them on sale in anticipation of the worsening hellscape to come soon.

The Republican plan for the economy

Various sources are reporting that once the GOP takes control of congress after the upcoming elections, they will push hard for (i) geting rid of as much of the federal government as they can, e.g., the IRS, EPA and Dept. of Education, (ii) tax cuts for the wealthy and businesses, gutting domestic spending for social security, Medicare and etc., and (iii) total attacks on all future elections, especially ones that republicans do not win. Republicans have already filed dozens of lawsuits attacking all aspects of the upcoming election in various states. This is just the beginning of an endless radical right Republican Christofascist and capitalist war against elections.  

In essence, the autocrat-theocrat GOP is once again pushing hard for horse and sparrow economics, with wealth gushing up to the elites (the horses) and the masses (the sparrows) desperately looking for scraps ejected from the elites.

Election update

The Guardian writes:

‘A madness has taken hold’ ahead of US midterms: 

local election officials fear for safety

In two rural California counties, voters are showing increasing hostility and aggression toward election workers

In California, officials in small, rural and underresourced counties such as Shasta say they are encountering hostility and aggressive bullying from residents who believe there is widespread voter fraud – many are inundating local elections offices with public records requests as part of a relentless quest to try to prove their claims.  

Residents in Shasta county have tried to intimidate election workers while acting as observers, crowding around Allen during a tense election night confrontation in June, and visiting voters’ homes while claiming to be a part of an “official taskforce”. In north-eastern California’s Nevada county, the registrar-elect had to take out a restraining order against residents who harassed her and pushed their way into her office, assaulting a staffer, she said.

Our democracy is slipping quietly under relentless waves of autocratic Republican Party demagoguery, dark free speech, rage, hate and lies. The American experiment is probably going to end in a corrupt autocratic-Christian theocratic failure.