Can words cause harm?

An ABC News report makes the argument:

President Donald Trump has repeatedly distanced himself from acts of violence in communities across America, dismissing critics who point to his rhetoric as a potential source of inspiration or comfort for anyone acting on even long-held beliefs of bigotry and hate.

"I think my rhetoric brings people together," he said last year, four days after a 21-year-old allegedly posted an anti-immigrant screed online and then allegedly opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, killing 22 and injuring dozens of others.

But a nationwide review conducted by ABC News has identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault.

After a Latino gas station attendant in Gainesville, Florida, was suddenly punched in the head by a white man, the victim could be heard on surveillance camera recounting the attacker’s own words: “He said, ‘This is for Trump.'" Charges were filed but the victim stopped pursuing them.

When police questioned a Washington state man about his threats to kill a local Syrian-born man, the suspect told police he wanted the victim to "get out of my country," adding, "That’s why I like Trump."

Reviewing police reports and court records, ABC News found that in at least 12 cases perpetrators hailed Trump in the midst or immediate aftermath of physically assaulting innocent victims. In another 18 cases, perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others. And in another 10 cases, Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant's violent or threatening behavior.

When three Kansas men were on trial for plotting to bomb a largely-Muslim apartment complex in Garden City, Kansas, one of their lawyers told the jury that the men "were concerned about what now-President Trump had to say about the concept of Islamic terrorism." 

ABC News could not find a single criminal case filed in federal or state court where an act of violence or threat was made in the name of President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush.

This is why it seems reasonable to accord significant blame for bad acts on elites who foment bad behavior. Propaganda designed to provoke unwarranted emotions sometimes leads to bad behavior. The law rarely accords liability to the people who foment bad behavior. So from that perspective, all the blame is on the bad actors.  

The question is how much blame to assign to the propagandists. Ignoring the law, it feels reasonable to assign ~53% of the blame for bad politics-related behavior to elites and propagandists and the rest to the bad actor. 

Vote time: Who is the most dangerous?

Who is the most dangerous Republican candidate for president? 

1. Trump 

2. DeSantis 

3. someone else 

4. no Republican is dangerous

Vote early, and if you're a Republican, vote often!

Trump: 'I just want to find 11,780 votes'

Trump Indictment Helps Trump-- Not Democracy (Judge Luttig's Warning)

Former Judge,  Michael Luttig, is the legal thinker Pence quoted when he refused to interfere with the 2020 election. He also gave stirring testimony warning of the immanent demise of democracy in his 1/6 Committee testimony. The short video below is, imo, on target and a much needed antidote to the nonsensical hype in the media about the Trump indictment which has nothing to do with his political crimes-- the ones for which he should have been put on trial. The lesser, salacious crimes surrounding the Stormy Daniels hush money  will allow him to play the victim of a "witch hunt,"  and raise more money while evading any constraints on his ability to run. It also keeps his name in the news day in and day out-- just the way he likes it. Luttig states that,   "The perils for American democracy and the rule of law actually crested with Thursday's indictment in Manhattan, and the Republican party's continued denial of January 6th and its refusal to acknowledge that the former President lost the 2020 election. There's now no end in sight to these perils. In the months ahead, America's democracy and the rule of law-- hopefully not beyond the breaking point." Maybe Luttig is wrong, but I don't think so, and his perspective is an important and intelligent one coming from one of the few Republican lawyers with a moral compass. It is tragic that Biden's AG failed to prosecute Trump for attempting to overturn the 2020 election illegally. The evidence is there, but the courage is absent. As Luttig warns, there is "no end in sight" on the threat to democracy in the US.

News bits: How a GOP judge sees democracy; Stormy Daniels' insight

Above the Law reports on how a retired Republican federal judge sees our current political situation:

Former Republican Federal Judge Warns Of 'Civil War' 

If Donald Trump Loses 2024 Election

This is .... not great news

Before the Republican party went off the Trump deep end, Judge J. Michael Luttig was considered quite the conservative firebrand. His jurisprudence was rated “consistently conservative” by an early 2000s study conducted by political scientists, and Luttig was even bandied about as a short list contender when George W. Bush ultimately appointed John Roberts to the Supreme Court.

Luttig says Trump allies “are poised to attempt to overturn the 2024 election if he were to lose.”

Should that happen, again, Luttig is not optimistic about the impact on the country, “If he were to do that, then I believe that we would be on the verge of a civil war.”

“Factually, what we have in America today and where we are in America today, namely that our institutions of democracy and law have been under vicious attack for years now, that is from within, not from without the United States,” he said. “And these vicious attacks are unsustainable and unendurable.”  

“They’ve already taken their toll on American democracy and American law in their impact and consequence of their impact on the institutions of democracy and law,” he said. “We are at a perilous crossroads.”

This is just another warning about the radical right's anti-democratic, authoritarian intent.

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Tales from Trumplandia: Common Dreams writes about how Stormy Daniels sees the Trump indictment kerfuffle:

'This Pussy Grabbed Back': 

Stormy Daniels Speaks Out After Trump Indictment

The porn star said she is unafraid of facing the former president in court: "I've seen him naked. There's no way he could be scarier with his clothes on."

Politics can't get much better than this. 

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Tales from QAnonlandia and Social Medialandia: Sadistic anti-vaxx crackpots remain enthusiastic about spreading misery, slanders, hate and new COVID infections wherever they can. They can on social media! They are even more feisty than those feisty Satanists. Business Insider Mexico writes:

A father whose 6-year-old son died was flooded with anti-vaxxer harassment. 

When a commenter baselessly claimed he killed his son, 

Facebook said he could ‘hide’ the comment ‘if he didn’t like it.’

When Billy Ball lost his 6-year-old son in January after an accident brought on by a rare medical condition, Ball posted his son's obituary on Twitter and started a fundraiser in the child's name to raise money for an art program at his son's neighborhood school.

The responses, at first, were mostly kind. Many people donated, Ball wrote in The Atlantic. But the father's social media feeds soon devolved into a cesspool of conspiracy theorists baselessly claiming that Ball killed his son by getting him vaccinated for COVID-19. And Twitter and Facebook often offered little to no recourse, he said.

In one case, Facebook determined that a comment in which a user mocked and accused Ball of killing his son did not violate community guidelines and declined to remove the comment.

"While we've decided not to take this comment down, we understand that you don't like it," a message from Facebook support read. "We recommend that you hide the comment or unfollow, unfriend or block the person who posted it."

"It felt like you were talking to a wall," Ball told Insider, regarding his experience reporting comments that flooded his social media accounts.

It's all just good clean fun with protected free speech and "community guidelines."

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Tales from Artificial Intelligencelandia: This one is sort of creepy:

Despite OpenAI’s Promises, the Company’s New AI Tool Produces Misinformation More Frequently, and More Persuasively, than its Predecessor

Two months ago, ChatGPT-3.5 generated misinformation and hoaxes 80% of the time when prompted to do so in a NewsGuard exercise using 100 false narratives from its catalog of significant falsehoods in the news. NewsGuard found that its successor, ChatGPT-4, spread even more misinformation, advancing all 100 false narratives

 The latest version of AI is even better at generating misinformation than the previous version. This is wonderful news! I'm moving to Canada now. Bye!  (just kidding)