News Snippet: How Republicans are slowly killing democracy

We're in a period of death of democracy the rule of law and civil liberties by thousands of cuts coming over at least several decades. Attacks on government, secularism and inconvenient truth are all intensifying. Here is another example.

NBC News writes: 

Chief Justice Roberts temporarily blocks release of Trump's tax records to House Democrats

Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday [that is today folks] temporarily blocked a congressional committee from accessing former President Donald Trump’s tax records.

Trump, unlike other recent presidents, has refused to make his tax returns public amid scrutiny of his business affairs, and turned to the justices after an appeals court in Washington refused to intervene on the release of the records. The high court has recently rejected similar requests made by Trump.

Trump’s lawyers say the House Ways and Means Committee’s assertion that it needs the information to probe how the IRS conducts the auditing process for presidents does not stand up to scrutiny.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit declined Thursday to reconsider a three-judge panel’s ruling in August that the committee could obtain the tax returns.

As usual, the MSM does not get it, or if it does, it is incompetent. That's normal these days and has been for years.

What NBC fails to point out is that (i) Roberts blocked release until after the election, (ii) Trump is not running for any office so there is no reason for timing it to the election, and (iii) if the Republicans retake the House, as some polling indicates is likely, that temporary block will be permanent. Once the Repubs retake the House, that is the end of all House investigation into Trump's treason and crimes. That leaves the DoJ and Garland. There is little or no hope for justice emanating from the clueless paralyzed Garland.

Once again, a Republican judge on the Supreme Court protects a corrupt Republican elite. And by delaying as much as possible, Trump once again gets away with treason and/or crimes.

The rule of law has fallen. The rest of democracy is next. Our freedoms come right after that.

My grade for the MSM: Rock solid F (failure).

My grade for the Republican Party, the enemy of the people and democracy: F--- (triple minus F).

What the radical right rank and file thinks

New poll data by PRRI is published and it sheds light on support for Republican extremists. A WaPo opinion piece comments:

For answers, turn to the Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Survey, which provides insight into the beliefs of White evangelical Christians, who make up the core of the GOP. It reveals a lot about what they think and why they vote the way they do.

A striking 71 percent of these voters think the country has gone downhill since the 1950s (when women were excluded from most professions, Black Americans faced barriers to voting, 50 million Americans still used outhouses and only about 5 percent of Americans were college-educated). Because White Protestant evangelicals make up such a large share of the GOP, that means 66 percent of Republicans want to go back to the time of “Leave It to Beaver.”

Half of White evangelical Protestants also think God intended America to be the promised land. Nearly two-thirds say immigrants are a threat, and 61 percent say “society has become too soft and feminine.” And they are the only discrete religious group polled to support overturning Roe v. Wade.

On race, only 19 percent of the group agrees that “the legacy of slavery and discrimination have limited Black Americans’ upward mobility.” They are the least likely to accept that African Americans disproportionately receive the death penalty. And here’s the kicker: Unlike a majority of Americans, “six in ten white evangelical Protestants (61%) agree that discrimination against white Americans has become as big a problem as discrimination against racial minorities.”

Given these figures, it shouldn’t be surprising that while 58 percent of Americans think white supremacy is still a major problem, only 33 percent of White evangelical Protestants do, the lowest among religious groups. Similarly, 51 percent of the group believe that public teachers and librarians are “indoctrinating students with inappropriate curricula and books that wrongly portray America as a racist country,” compared with only 29 percent of Americans broadly.  

And on immigration, only 30 percent of Americans buy into the “great replacement theory.” But 51 percent of White evangelical Protestants agree that “immigrants are invading our country and replacing our cultural and ethnic background.”  

In a nutshell, this group’s beliefs clash with the essence of the American experiment and conflict with objective facts, demography and economics. White evangelical Protestants’ outlook is warped by right-wing media and refracted through a prism of visceral anger and resentment.

It makes little sense to debate whether the MAGA movement radicalized White evangelical Protestants or the other way around. They are essentially one and the same.  

Last year, Eastern Illinois University professor Ryan Burge wrote for the New York Times, “In essence, many Americans are coming to the understanding that to be very religiously engaged and very politically conservative means that they are evangelical, even if they don’t believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ.” In other words, Burge explained, more people are “conflating evangelicalism with Republicanism — and melding two forces to create a movement that is not entirely about politics or religion but power.” (This helps explain how evangelicals can embrace views that fly in the face of Christian theology; it’s not about the religion.)

From what I can tell, White evangelical Protestants were radicalized decades before Trump came on the scene. He just normalized bad things like Christian radicalism, bigotry, rage-mongering and acceptance of lies and slanders. For the radical right, religion has merged into politics. God's dogma is actually Republican Party dogma. The rank and file just cannot see this. Decades of toxic Republican Party propaganda has done its job quite well.

News digest

A court grows a pair? 

The Texas Tribune writes:

Two leaders of True the Vote jailed by federal judge for contempt of court

Federal marshals escorted the leaders of True the Vote out of a Houston courtroom on Monday morning and into a holding cell. Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips have been held in contempt of court for refusing to release the name of a person of interest in the defamation and computer hacking case against them, who they claim, without proof, is a confidential FBI informant.

They will remain in jail until they release the name of the man.

Election software company Konnech is suing Engelbrecht and Phillips for defamation. Konnech claims that a right-wing election denier group, True the Vote, defamed the technology company. Engelbrecht and Phillips claim the technology company’s software had security flaws and they were just innocent patriots exposing bad election-related things.

Occasionally courts will jail a journalist for refusing to disclose the names of their anonymous sources. But that is journalism protected by the Constitution’s freedom of the press clause in the First Amendment. As far as I know, courts rarely jail people for contempt, especially in politics-related cases. This is a politics-related civil lawsuit. Without evidence of the source of the defamatory information, it will be impossible to prove intent (“degree of fault” in some states).

Under Texas law, a plaintiff, Konnech in this case, must show or prove (1) the publication of a false statement of fact to a third party, (2) that was defamatory concerning the plaintiff, (3) with the requisite degree of fault, at least amounting to negligence, and (4) damages, in some cases. If Engelbrecht and Phillips really believed the information was from an FBI informant, that might get them off the hook for intent or degree of fault, and thus for liability for defamation. 

Clarence Thomas is clueless (Alito is too)

The Supreme Court is currently hearing a case about affirmative action in college admissions. Given decades of radical right animosity to affirmative action, one can reasonably expect the last vestiges of it to be obliterated. Law and Crime summarizes Thomas’ confusion in an article entitled:

Justice Thomas Says He Does Not ‘Have a Clue’ What Diversity Means at Oral Arguments in College Affirmative Action Case.

 

Apparently, it does not occur to Thomas to simply ask the parties what diversity means. Actually, he knows what it means. By making his arrogant, snarky comment, Thomas signals what is his vote is going to be. Alito made similar comments. Thomas and Alito have decided the outcome before all the evidence in the case was heard and considered. That is the opposite of how judges are supposed to judge. But it is how radical right Republican judges judge.

It will be interesting to see what the Republicans on the court come up with as their reasoning to kill affirmative action. The NYT comments on the impact of affirmative action’s death: “Such a decision would jeopardize affirmative action at colleges and universities around the nation, particularly elite institutions, decreasing the representation of Black and Latino students and bolstering the number of white and Asian ones.” That result has been a cherished long-term goal of Christian nationalists. They will very likely get their wish soon.

In the oral arguments, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson framed the issue by asking whether America’s history of racial discrimination still matters. Apparently, it does not to the Republicans. The past is past, racism is dead and no more needs to be done. That is core Christian nationalist dogma.

Musing about facts, evidence, opinions and subject matter

Arrogance

We are experiencing a rising tide of radical right (fascist IMO) political and religious crackpottery, irrational fear and rage-mongering, lies, slanders and the like. While watching this train wreck unfold, differences between religion and politics on the one hand, and other kinds of subject matter on the other come to mind. 

Subject matter like computer science and engineering are heavily grounded in facts and empirical evidence. Logic matters. If a product fails to work properly, the people who built, use or own it usually know about the failure about the time it occurs. There is usually no argument about it. Failure is failure. In that evidence-based world, facts are usually mostly accepted. 

On the other extreme, we have politics and religion. There, facts and logic usually do not matter much or at all. Despite that, most people claim their politics is based on facts and sound reasoning. Social science research indicates that such beliefs are mostly false most of the time for most people. Human biases, emotions, morals, interests, loyalties and so forth usually push aside facts, true truths and/or sound reasoning when they are inconvenient or threatening. That's just how we evolved. Human intelligence is limited by evolution.

There are some people who are exceptionally smart in dealing with science and engineering. Elon Musk is one. In his business dealings, he usually knows what works and what fails. When some product or idea he works with fails or is false, he knows. There usually is not much to bicker about, maybe other than how to fix the problem fastest and at lowest cost.

But what happens to all that intelligence when it enters the realm of politics and/or religion? It usually decreases a hell of a lot. People like Musk aren’t much or any better than the rest of us. They revert to the mean. They can arguably be worse than average people when things such as rigid ideology, arrogance, fame and/or wealth leads them to false beliefs and rejection of what is inconvenient but true. 

It just feels so good to believe what feels good that most people cannot resist, even when what feels good is false. Two researchers described the human condition in politics like this:

“. . . . the typical citizen drops down to a lower level of mental performance as soon as he enters the political field. He argues and analyzes in a way which he would readily recognize as infantile within the sphere of his real interests. . . . cherished ideas and judgments we bring to politics are stereotypes and simplifications with little room for adjustment as the facts change. . . . . the real environment is altogether too big, too complex, and too fleeting for direct acquaintance. We are not equipped to deal with so much subtlety, so much variety, so many permutations and combinations. Although we have to act in that environment, we have to reconstruct it on a simpler model before we can manage it.”

That applies to Elon Musk. Recently, Musk fell for a false crackpot conspiracy theory related to the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband. It was put out by a known source of crackpot conspiracy theories and lies. The lie was that the attack on Pelosi’s husband was a false flag operation and involved a male prostitute. Not one shred of evidence existed. No facts were involved. Just pure comforting lies. 

Musk has 100 million followers on Twitter. He tweeted that lie, but hours later deleted it. He wanted to pretend he did not make the amateur mistake he made. The damage his Tweet caused cannot be undone. He was no better than most of us. His hate of government, taxes, Democrats and love of brass knuckles capitalism made him believe lies and slanders that were obviously false but deeply comforting and satisfying.  

That is not fact or logic at work. For most people (~90% ?), that is standard human mental performance in politics. Religion is the same.[1] The other people who try to set aside the allure of deeply comforting and satisfying mirages and lies are the ones with moral courage and a solid work ethic. Politics isn’t a game or entertainment. In a democracy, it is complex, hard work. In tyrannies and theocracies, politics is a nasty game. Lazy, arrogant jackasses like Musk are clueless when they play their toxic brand of self-centered anti-democratic politics. They really think they know it all and we should listen to them. They are so wrong it is pathetic.

Footnote: 

1. To me, discussing matters of theology never made any sense. It is just not subject matter for rational discourse. It is a matter of faith, not fact or logic. Religious beliefs are mostly whatever a person, church or denomination needs them to be. What the sacred texts say to the contrary just doesn’t exist or matter for the most part. 

Conspiracy theories are a mental health crisis

No one's talking about the complex relationship between disinformation and mental health. That changes now.

(Admittedly a bit dated, 2021 article, but still relevant)


Every day, people who spend time online face a deluge of conspiracy theories, misinformation, and disinformation. Plenty of them move along, clicking past outlandish or false content that's designed to lure them in. Some, however, become ensnared for reasons experts don't fully understand. Thanks to algorithms, like the ones that drew many into QAnon, people quickly slip into dark corners of the internet and find a community of believers, or even zealots, who swear they've discovered hidden truths and forbidden knowledge.

These people might rightfully distrust government authorities, find political polarization invigorating, and search for information that confirms their own views, all of which could make them more vulnerable to falsehoods. Conventional wisdom says media literacy, fact-checking, and critical thinking skills are the best weapons against those impulses. Yet this approach rests on the dangerous assumption that people's emotional and psychological well-being has little bearing on their vulnerability to far-fetched ideas, elaborate lies, and cunning propaganda. In fact, recent research suggests that their mental health can influence what they're willing to believe.

Studies have shown that conspiracy theories appeal to people with unmet psychological needs. They crave knowledge, desire safety and security, and need to maintain positive self-esteem. Conspiracy theories, which may sometimes be true, help explain the unknown, giving people a deep sense of satisfaction. That relief, however, can be temporary. Past research shows conspiracy theories are associated with anxiety, social isolation, and negative emotions. Now a new wave of research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic suggests a plausible connection between uncertainty, anxiety, and depression and an increased likelihood of believing conspiracy theories.

Perhaps with so much beyond understanding, people looked for answers wherever such revelations might be found. Insight was plentiful on YouTube, Facebook, Telegram, Twitter, and other media platforms where grifters, hucksters, and conspiracy theorists peddled the truth as they saw it to people who wanted what few could offer: certainty. That confidence became an antidote to the misery of not knowing what might come next.

Many of those drawn into communities that trafficked in conspiracy theories also found misinformation and disinformation. The former is shared without malicious intent. The latter, according to disinformation scholar Dr. Alice Marwick, Ph.D., comprises false information, distorted stereotypes, and mischaracterizations as part of a campaign of persuasion. Disinformation can include conspiracy theories presented as fact, and those who share disinformation typically refuse to admit when they're wrong.

People who immerse themselves in this swamp of "polluted information," particularly those with a deep attachment to QAnon, have anecdotally expressed preoccupation with and distress over solving riddles and clues, waiting anxiously for predictions to come true, fractured relationships with loved ones over their beliefs, and increased isolation. If their mental health hadn't been poor prior to their involvement in these online communities, it seemed to decline the deeper they got. Their friends and family have noticed. In one subreddit dedicated to people who've lost a friend or family member to QAnon, posters frequently despair over losing their loved one to what they often describe as a cult.

MORE:

https://mashable.com/article/mental-health-disinformation-conspiracy-theories-depression

Halloween monsters! 👹☠️👻

Those pesky churches: The rule of law has fallen

ProPublica writes:

Churches Are Breaking the Law by Endorsing in Elections, Experts Say. 

The IRS Looks the Other Way.

Six days before a local runoff election last year in Frisco, a prosperous and growing suburb of Dallas, Brandon Burden paced the stage of KingdomLife Church. The pastor told congregants that demonic spirits were operating through members of the City Council.

Grasping his Bible with both hands, Burden said God was working through his North Texas congregation to take the country back to its Christian roots. He lamented that he lacked jurisdiction over the state Capitol, where he had gone during the 2021 Texas legislative session to lobby for conservative priorities like expanded gun rights and a ban on abortion.

“But you know what I got jurisdiction over this morning is an election coming up on Saturday,” Burden told parishioners. “I got a candidate that God wants to win. I got a mayor that God wants to unseat. God wants to undo. God wants to shift the balance of power in our city. And I have jurisdiction over that this morning.”

What Burden said that day in May 2021 was a violation of a long-standing federal law barring churches and nonprofits from directly or indirectly participating in political campaigns, tax law experts told ProPublica and The Texas Tribune. Although the provision was mostly uncontroversial for decades after it passed in 1954, it has become a target for both evangelical churches and former President Donald Trump, who vowed to eliminate it.

Burden’s sermon is among those at 18 churches identified by the news organizations over the past two years that appeared to violate the Johnson Amendment, a measure named after its author, former President Lyndon B. Johnson. Some pastors have gone so far as to paint candidates they oppose as demonic.

It does not take an expert to see that churches are breaking the law. There is no “appearance” of law breaking. And, it is a hell of a lot more than just 18 churches doing this. I know that and I don't even go to church. There is actual law breaking by churches with the blessing of church leadership and God himself. As usual for law breakers like this, no law enforcement effort exists and the law breaking is thus condoned by whoever is in charge of defending the rule of law. 

What, us innocent, peace-loving Republicans 

promote violence? Never!

The NYT writes:

Pelosi, Vilified by Republicans for Years, Is a Top Target of Threats

The attack on the husband of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which appeared to target her, came after more than a decade of Republican efforts to demonize and dehumanize the most powerful woman in Washington.

In 2006, as Nancy Pelosi was poised to become the first female speaker of the House, Republicans made a film spoof that portrayed an evil Democratic empire led by “Darth Nancy.”

In 2009, the Republican National Committee ran an advertisement featuring Ms. Pelosi’s face framed by the barrel of a gun — complete with the sound of a bullet firing as red bled down the screen — a takeoff on the James Bond film “Goldfinger” in which the woman second in line to the presidency was cast as Pussy Galore.

This year, a Republican running in the primary for Senate in Arizona aired an ad showing him in a spaghetti western-style duel with Democrats, in which he shoots at a knife-wielding, mask-wearing, bug-eyed woman labeled “Crazyface Pelosi.”

Darth Nancy? Gun points at her face? Arizona Republican freak runs ad shooting her? 

As thug, liar RNC Chairman Ronna McDaniel complained about Republicans being blamed for inciting violence “I think that’s unfair. .... It’s just unfair.” It’s a miracle Pelosi wasn’t murdered years ago by some enraged Republican freak.

Oh yeah, those innocent, peace-loving Republicans would never, ever foment violence against anyone. What a lie. It’s a whopper.

Musk’s Twitter Hellscape v. 2.0 is erupting --

Chief Twit spews crackpot conspiracy theory

then tries to hide it

WaPo writes: 

Elon Musk, who has more than 100 million followers, had owned Twitter for less than three full days when he shared a post containing misinformation — then hours later deleted it.

On Sunday, he posted a response to Hillary Clinton that “there is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story” behind the attack on Paul Pelosi in San Francisco, linking to an opinion article in the Santa Monica Observer, a site described by fact-checkers as a low-credibility source favoring the extreme right.

The article claimed without evidence that Pelosi was drunk at the time of the assault and “in a dispute with a male prostitute.” The article, which was amplified by several right-wing figures, cited no sources and attributes its contents to IMHO — internet shorthand for “in my humble opinion.”  

One commenter, Yael Eisenstat, a vice president of the Anti Defamation League and former Facebook executive, noted on Twitter that Musk seemed to be violating his own pledge to advertisers last week that the site would not become a “hellscape” under his ownership.

When the world’s richest man/owner of this very site himself traffics in conspiracy theories days after claiming to advertisers that he’s going to be a responsible leader, all I can say is: I’m not overreacting by expressing my concerns. Actions always speak louder than words. pic.twitter.com/00RhlJa4rh

— Yael Eisenstat (@YaelEisenstat) October 30, 2022

WaPo writes again:

Elon Musk and a wide range of right-wing personalities cobbled together misreporting, innuendo and outright falsehoods to amplify misinformation about last week’s violent assault on Paul Pelosi to their millions of online followers.

A forum devoted to former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon’s right-wing radio show alerted its 78,000 subscribers to “very strange new details on Paul Pelosi attack.” Roger Stone, a longtime political consigliere to former president Donald Trump, took to the fast-growing messaging app Telegram to call the assault on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband an “alleged attack,” telling his followers that a “stench” surrounded mainstream reporting about the Friday break-in that left Pelosi, 82, hospitalized with a skull fracture and other serious injuries.

The skepticism didn’t stay in right-wing echo chambers but seeped also into the feeds of popular online personalities, including Musk, Twitter’s new owner.

These merchants of misinformation, said Carl Cameron, a former longtime Fox News political correspondent, deceive their massive audiences using rumors and lies about everything from the integrity of elections to the details of a police report.

“They are creating a dystopia wherein lying and physical violence become part of our politics,” he said.

Dinesh D’Souza, whose recent film “2000 Mules” burnished his right-wing bona fides by pushing Trump’s debunked claims of widespread voter fraud, aired falsehoods and innuendo in a viral Twitter thread suggesting the attack on Paul Pelosi was a form of intentional misrepresentation sometimes referred to as a “false flag.”

No doubt about it, Twitter was Hellscape v. 1.0. Musk is turning it into Hellscape v. 2.0. Prepare for a tidal wave of enraged Christofascist Republican lies, slanders, crackpottery and violence the likes of which decent people have not yet experienced.

There’s the roundup of some of the Halloween monsters on the loose this time around.