From the new trends files: Liars are getting better and richer

So far, the Alex Jones lawsuit for lies and defamation regarding the 2012 Sandy Hook school massacre looks set to cost him about $49 million. He worth is estimated at ~$135-270 million by the New York Times. Fortunately there's another Sandy Hook defamation lawsuit on tap. Maybe he will lose another ~$50 million. We can only hope.

What liars have learned from the Jones lawsuits is two simple things: First, do not defame people. You can lie all you want, even tell blatant whoppers, but just stay on the good side of the law. That strategy allows plenty of room for lying and lying and lying a hell of a lot more. That can inflict massive damage on American democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties as we are witnessing right now.

Second, if you are a good enough liar, you too can be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. 

The floodgates are open to blatant lying for fun and profit. It is a freaking goldrush! The NYT writes:

Don’t Expect Alex Jones’s Comeuppance to Stop Lies

His success has inspired a new generation of conspiracy theorists, who have learned how to stay away from legal trouble.

The jury’s verdict came after Mr. Jones was found liable for defaming Mr. Heslin and Ms. Lewis, whom for years he falsely accused of being crisis actors in a “false flag” operation plotted by the government.

Court records showed that Mr. Jones’s Infowars store, which sells dubious performance-enhancing supplements and survival gear, made more than $165 million from 2015 to 2018. Despite his deplatforming, Mr. Jones still appears as a guest on popular podcasts and YouTube shows, and millions of Americans still look to him as, if not a reliable chronicler of current events, at least a wacky diversion. (And a wealthy one — an expert witness in the trial estimated the net worth of Mr. Jones and Free Speech Systems, his holding company, at somewhere between $135 million and $270 million.)

In the coming weeks, Mr. Jones — a maestro of martyrdom — will no doubt spin his court defeat into hours of entertaining content, all of which will generate more attention, more subscribers, more money.

But a bigger reason for caution is that, whether or not Mr. Jones remains personally enriched by his lies, his shtick is everywhere these days.

You can see and hear Mr. Jones’s influence on Capitol Hill, where attention-seeking Republican politicians often sound like they’re auditioning for slots on Infowars. When Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, suggests that a mass shooting could have been orchestrated to persuade Republicans to support gun-control measures, as she did in a Facebook post about the July 4 shooting in Highland Park, Ill., she’s playing hits from Mr. Jones’s back catalog.

You can also see Mr. Jones’s influence in right-wing media. When Tucker Carlson stokes nativist fears on his Fox News show, or when a Newsmax host spins a bizarre conspiracy theory about an effort by Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, to have Justice Brett Kavanaugh of the Supreme Court killed, it’s proof that Infowars’ DNA has entered the conservative bloodstream.

Even outside politics, Mr. Jones’s choleric, wide-eyed style has influenced the way in which a new generation of conspiracy theorists looks for fame online.

These creators don’t all rant about goblins and gay frogs, as Mr. Jones has. But they’re pulling from the same fact-free playbook. Some of them focus on softer subject matter — like the kooky wellness influencers who recently went viral for suggesting that Lyme disease is a “gift” caused by intergalactic space matter, or like Shane Dawson, a popular YouTube creator who has racked up hundreds of millions of views with conspiracy theory documentaries in which he credulously examines claims such as “Chuck E. Cheese reuses uneaten pizza” and “Wildfires are caused by directed energy weapons.”  

It would be too simple to blame (or credit) Mr. Jones for inspiring the entire modern cranksphere. But it’s safe to say that many of today’s leading conspiracy theorists have found the same profitable sweet spot of lies and entertainment value.  

Other conspiracy theorists are less likely than Mr. Jones to end up in court, in part because they’ve learned from his mistakes. Instead of straightforwardly accusing the families of mass-shooting victims of making it all up, they adopt a [faux] naïve, “just asking questions” posture while poking holes in the official narrative.

Sadly, adopting a fake “just asking questions” facade is just how easy it is to dance away from defamation lawsuits. Any idiot can do it. Does that make Jones an idiot? 

That's not an accusation, I’m just asking questions. Inquiring minds want to know. 🤨

A rhetorical question bubbles up from the toxic cauldron of poisonous dark free speech. Can American democracy and society withstand the now undeniably staggering power of divisive lies social media, online bullshittery, podcasts, and etc. in the crankshpere? That’s a topic of a blog post coming here soon.

This** will soon be recycled into a 

tasty new Chuck E. Cheese pizza!

Yum!

** “This” includes the plastic plate and fork

Old home, new home, striking similarities

 Now that I am firmly replanted back in Canada, I thought I would drop this little nugget on Germaine and friends.

Leaving "home", small-town Minnesota for the 2nd time, was not easy. Leaving behind the country I was born in. But I have been struck with how similar the two countries have become.

Let me explain:

I moved back to Minnesota in 2009, thrilled that my home country had finally grown up and elected a black President. Then 2016 happened.

As for my home town, not much had changed, and still hasn't changed, despite the change in mood in the country. We have been and continue to be a progressive town, but the demographics have changed slightly since my childhood.

Now most of the convenience stores, gas stations, and some restaurants are owned and run by East Asian and South Asian people. I have seen no animosity towards this group. The town had, in my original absence of living in Canada, become a bit more upscale. Fancier boutiques, coffee shops, gift shops. But all in all, the town has retained it's charm, and it's progressive views.

The shame is, the country around it has changed, and not for the better. I feel like a father abandoning a struggling child. Makes me sad.

Now contrast THAT to my new home. The town I am moving back to has always had it's problems but also it's charms. Not much has changed. Like my home town in Minny, there are now a few more fancier shops and upscale restaurants. BUT what the residents of this northern Ontario town love is the big city amenities but the small town "feel." People here are general kind, generous, willing to help a neighbor and lack the standoffishness you find in some big cities.

BUT...as with the U.S, the country has changed. Canada has now it's fair share of anti-vaxxers, anti-maskers, anti-mandates. NOT as bad as the U.S, but still.....

We had the truckers protest, Conservative politicians are starting to sound more like American conservatives than Canadian ones.

Have far-right radicals infiltrated Canada’s conservative parties?

https://www.nationalobserver.com/2022/04/29/opinion/far-right-radicals-infiltrated-canada-conservative-parties-commission

Is this the shape of the world to come? Where a socialist paradise like Canada is starting to slide into some of the same political wonkiness that is infecting the U.S.?

In my case, I have been fortunate to leave both a progressive small town in Minny, and move into a larger town but with still a very calm and generous population here in Ontario. I know we can't all be that lucky.

Future elections in both countries will be ever the more important because of the changes we are seeing. At least - SO FAR - Canadian conservatives haven't embraced the stolen election mantra - SO FAR!

Here is hoping that this one bit of sanity will still prevail here in Canada, and will eventually return to American politics.

Republicans punish companies trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

A coal fired plant in staunchly 

pro-pollution West Virginia

The Republican Party is serious about maintaining high levels of pollution. It is only in that sense that Republican elites take climate change seriously. The GOP is dead serious about ignoring climate change and continuing to pollute as much as possible, as fast as possible, as long as possible. The New York Times writes:

How Republicans Are ‘Weaponizing’ Public Office Against Climate Action

A Times investigation revealed a coordinated effort by state treasurers to use government muscle and public funds to punish companies trying to reduce greenhouse gases.

Nearly two dozen Republican state treasurers around the country are working to thwart climate action on state and federal levels, fighting regulations that would make clear the economic risks posed by a warming world, lobbying against climate-minded nominees to key federal posts and using the tax dollars they control to punish companies that want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Over the past year, treasurers in nearly half the United States have been coordinating tactics and talking points, meeting in private and cheering each other in public as part of a well-funded campaign to protect the fossil fuel companies that bolster their local economies.

Last week, Riley Moore, the treasurer of West Virginia, announced that several major banks — including Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan and Wells Fargo — would be barred from government contracts with his state because they are reducing their investments in coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel.  

Mr. Moore and the treasurers of Louisiana and Arkansas have pulled more than $700 million out of BlackRock, the world’s largest investment manager, over objections that the firm is too focused on environmental issues. At the same time, the treasurers of Utah and Idaho are pressuring the private sector to drop climate action and other causes they label as “woke.”

And treasurers from Pennsylvania, Arizona and Oklahoma joined a larger campaign to thwart the nominations of federal regulators who wanted to require that banks, funds and companies disclose the financial risks posed by a warming planet.

At the nexus of these efforts is the State Financial Officers Foundation, a little-known nonprofit organization based in Shawnee, Kan., that once focused on cybersecurity, borrowing costs and managing debt loads, among other routine issues. 

Mr. Moore went on to offer a classic denial of the overwhelming scientific consensus that the continued burning of oil, gas and coal will lead to planetary catastrophe.

“The climate has been changing in the world since Earth was created,” Mr. Moore said. “Whether these greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to the warming of the globe, I’m not sure I necessarily agree with that.”

The Republican Party’s one and only statement of concern about climate change in Rick Scott’s 11 point plan to make America fascist and kleptocratic again, with rivers occasionally spontaneously erupting into flames:

“The weather is always changing. We take climate change seriously, but not hysterically. We will not adopt nutty policies that harm our economy or our jobs.”

So in addition to chronically rejecting and lying about inconvenient truth and constantly attacking and subverting democracy, the rule of law and civil liberties, the Republican Party is hell bent on turning the environment into hell on Earth. The reasons are the usual for the Republicans, power and wealth. According to Republican and polluter propaganda, concern for climate change and the environment is just socialist wokeness. The morally corrupt, fascist, pro-pollution Republican Party will have none of that nonsense.

The GOP, the go-to party for polluters like Exxon-Mobile and coal companies to exercise their free speech rights (campaign contributions). There will be no nutty policies while the Republicans are in charge. But there will be gigatons of pollution and trillions in environmental damage.

What nature should look like according

to the Republican Party

From the not surprising things files: The FBI non-investigation of Brett Kavanaugh

 Vanity Fair writes:

THE FBI CONFIRMS ITS BRETT KAVANAUGH 

INVESTIGATION WAS A TOTAL SHAM

Oh, well, it’s not like he received a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court or anything.

That sense of outrage only deepened last year, when we learned that the FBI had received 4,500—4,500!—tips about Kavanaugh, which were referred to the White House, i.e. the organization trying to get the guy confirmed to the Court. And now, the FBI has confirmed that, yeah, it didn’t really feel the need to look into any of those tips, and when it did follow up on some, the White House was making sure it didn’t dig too far.

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse uncovered the Republican cover-up while questioning FBI director Christ Wray.

Whitehouse: And I’d like to try to get that matter wrapped up. First, is it true that after Kavanaugh-related tips were separated from regular tip-line traffic, they were forwarded to White House counsel without investigation?

Wray: I apologize in advance that it has been frustrating for you. We have tried to be clear about our process. So when it comes to the tip line, we wanted to make sure that the White House had all the information we have, so when the hundreds of calls started coming in, we gathered those up, reviewed them, and provided them to the White House—

Whitehouse: Without investigation?

Wray [long pause]: We reviewed them and then provided them to—

Whitehouse: You reviewed them for purposes of separating them from tip-line traffic, but did not further investigate the ones that related to Kavanaugh, correct?

Wray: Correct.

Whitehouse: Is it also true that, in that supplemental B.I. [background investigation], the FBI took direction from the White House as to whom the FBI would question, and even what questions the FBI could ask?

Wray: So, it is true that, consistent with the longstanding process that we have had going all the way back to at least the Bush administration, the Obama administration, the Trump administration, and continue to follow currently under the Biden administration, that in a limited supplemental B.I., we take direction from the requesting entity, which in this case was the White House, as to what follow-up they want.

.... the “requesting entity” is the Donald Trump White House, which had a vested interest in not probing allegations of sexual misconduct, given who was running the joint.

Anyway, now Justice Beer Bong has helped take away the rights of half the country—and who knows what’s coming next!

And sadly, that is just how easy it is for a corrupt White House to subvert the rule of law, while deceiving and insulting the American people. 

One can reasonably argue that the morally rotted, beer boofing liar, Justice Beer Bong is illegitimate and a sexual predator. Impeach that toad. And fire whoever is left in government who was complicit. And, get rid of that asinine the longstanding process going all the way back to at least the Bush administration that allows a White House to subvert the rule of law.

Yeah right. That will happen when pigs fly. 

“The lives of the richest [and most powerful] people in the world are so different from those of the rest of us, it's almost literally unimaginable. National borders are nothing to them. They might as well not exist. The laws are nothing to them. They might as well not exist.” -- Sociologist Brooke Harrington [and Germaine] 

 

China’s digital dictatorship update: When propaganda backfires -- it could kill us all

The New York Times writes on a Chinese public backlash against the dictators for not invading Taiwan in the wake of Pelosi’s recent trip to Taiwan. The Chinese people were really angry that the People’s Liberation Army (actually the People’s Oppression Army) did not invade to avenge the terrible insult and severe threat that they were told by Chinese propaganda Pelosi’s visit constituted. Many Chinese were fixin’ to go to war, and instead they got blithering rhetoric and a few missiles lobbed around in the ocean. 

The NYT writes:

It doesn’t often happen that ordinary Chinese say publicly that they’re disappointed with their government. That they’re ashamed of their government. That they want to renounce their Communist Party memberships. And that they think the People’s Liberation Army is a waste of taxpayers’ money.

No military action in the Taiwan Strait, as they felt they had been led to expect. No shoot-down, no missile attack, no fighter jet flying next to Ms. Pelosi’s plane. Just some denunciations and announcements of military exercises.

Many people complained that they felt let down and lied to by the government. “Don’t put on a show of power if you don’t have the power,” wrote a Weibo user with the handle @shanshanmeiyoulaichi2hao shortly after the flight’s landing. “What a loss of face!”

Some users compared the People’s Liberation Army to the Chinese men’s soccer team, a laughingstock in the country because it has qualified for the World Cup only once. They sneered at the announcement that the P.L.A. would conduct military exercises near Taiwan. “Save some gas,” said one WeChat user. “It’s very expensive now,” responded another.

On WeChat, the comments section for a short video about a military exercise became a board for dissatisfied people to whine. Among thousands of comments, a few Communist Party members said they would like to quit out of shame. A military veteran said he would probably never mention his army experience again. “Too angry to fall asleep,” commented a user with the handle @xiongai.

Many users seemed especially disappointed with the foreign ministry. “When China said ‘strongly condemn’ and ‘solemnly declare,’ it was only for the purpose of amusing ordinary folks like us,” wrote a Weibo user with the handle @shizhendemaolulu, referring to the language that foreign ministry spokespeople used about Ms. Pelosi’s visit.

“So tough when it comes to domestic governance and so cowardly in foreign affairs,” the user wrote. “Utterly disappointed!”  

“Nationalism is becoming a core pillar of both the party’s and Xi’s personal political legitimacy,” Kevin Rudd, the chief executive of the Asia Society and a former prime minister of Australia, wrote in his book “The Avoidable War: The Dangers of a Catastrophic Conflict Between the U.S. and Xi Jinping’s China.”

The broader point: Propaganda can be lethal and catastrophic

So there you have it propaganda fans. Aggressive, jingoistic Chinese Government propaganda leads some, maybe tens of millions of Chinese citizens, to be enthusiastic about starting World War 3 over a visit by a US politician to a disputed territory. Those people probably have no idea of what the aftermath of a nuclear war with the US would look like. They are clueless in their propaganda fantasy.

Recall the American Committee on Public Information? It was a massive US government propaganda effort to whip up public support for entering into World War 1. It worked. Americans flipped from ambivalence and opposition to support. Americans who opposed US entry into WW1 were vilified as traitors. So, they went to war and got slaughtered, but in the end the world was not safe for democracy. And its still isn’t in 2022, even in America.

Wikipedia writes:

The Committee on Public Information (1917–1919), also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States under the Wilson administration created to influence public opinion to support the US in World War I, in particular, the US home front.

In just over 26 months (from April 14, 1917, to June 30, 1919) it used every medium available to create enthusiasm for the war effort and to enlist public support against the foreign and perceived domestic attempts to stop America's participation in the war. It is a notable example of propaganda in the United States.

Wilson established the first modern propaganda office, the Committee on Public Information (CPI), headed by George Creel. Creel set out to systematically reach every person in the United States multiple times with patriotic information about how the individual could contribute to the war effort. It also worked with the post office to censor seditious counter-propaganda. Creel set up divisions in his new agency to produce and distribute innumerable copies of pamphlets, newspaper releases, magazine advertisements, films, school campaigns, and the speeches of the Four Minute Men. CPI created colorful posters that appeared in every store window, catching the attention of the passersby for a few seconds. Movie theaters were widely attended, and the CPI trained thousands of volunteer speakers to make patriotic appeals during the four-minute breaks needed to change reels. They also spoke at churches, lodges, fraternal organizations, labor unions, and even logging camps. .... Creel boasted that in 18 months his 75,000 volunteers delivered over 7.5 million four minute orations to over 300 million listeners, in a nation of 103 million people. 

Propaganda’s intent:

Is a mushroom a vegetable?

How states would vote on abortion

The New York Times published a map that estimates how voters would vote on abortion if they had the chance to do so in a referendum like the one Kansas just had. Voters in seven states (in tan below) are estimated to be willing to vote against abortion rights in margins that range from 52% to 56%. The NYT estimated that at least 40 states would vote to retain abortion rights.

The upshot? Where Republicans control the legislature but public sentiment favors keeping abortion rights, voters will not be given a chance to vote on it. To pretend that the Republican Party is democratic and not authoritarian Christofascist, it might risk a vote in the three most anti-abortion states, LA, MS and AL. The Republicans would not dare to risk a vote in close states like UT, TX, SC, WV, ID or TN. 

That is how radical right Republicans play political and propaganda hardball. They play for keeps, no matter how many lives they destroy or kill. Republican Party cynical callousness and mendacity in politics and propaganda is no different than that used by the the carbon energy sector or the cigarette industry.