“Democracy Dies in Darkness”

From Wikipedia:

“The Washington Post first unveiled the slogan via Snapchat on February 17, 2017, when it launched its Snapchat Discover platform intended for reaching younger readers, before adding it to its website under the newspaper title. Shani George, the newspaper's Communications Director, said that the phrase had been used internally within the company for years before being officially adopted.

"Democracy Dies in Darkness" was the first slogan to be officially adopted by The Washington Post in its 140-year history.  According to the newspaper, the phrase was popularized by investigative journalist Bob Woodward. Woodward used the phrase in a 2007 piece criticizing government secrecy, and referenced the phrase during a 2015 presentation at a conference when he talked about The Last of the President's Men, his book about the Watergate scandal. Woodward said he did not coin the phrase himself, instead attributing the phrase to a judge ruling on a First Amendment case, believed to be from Circuit Judge Damon Keith. The paper's owner Jeff Bezos, who attended Woodward's 2015 presentation, also used the phrase in a May 2016 interview. The newspaper said it decided to adopt an official slogan in early 2016. This started a process which involved a small group of newspaper employees meeting to develop ideas for slogans. The group eventually settled on "Democracy Dies in Darkness" after brainstorming over 500 options.”

Q: If someone, say your teenage kid who is beginning to take an interest in politics, asked you “Pop/Ma, what does the phrase ‘democracy dies in darkness’ mean?", what would you tell them?  How would you explain it to them?

Let’s hear it.

(by PrimalSoup)

News: Working at a big box store; Regarding the radical right propaganda Leviathan; Etc.

A NYT opinion (here not behind paywall) focuses on the plight of big box workers:

It’s Not Just Wages 

Retailers Are Mistreating Workers in a More Insidious Way

I got a job at a big-box store near the Catskills in New York, where I live. I was on the team that unloaded the truck of new merchandise each morning at 4 a.m.

We were supposed to empty the truck in under an hour. Given how little we made — I was paid $12.25 an hour, which I was told was the standard starting pay — I was surprised how much my co-workers cared about making the unload time. They took a kind of bitter pride in their efficiency, and it rubbed off on me. I dreaded making a mistake that would slow us down as we worked in tandem to get between 1,500 and 2,500 boxes off the truck and sorted onto pallets each morning. When the last box rolled out of the truck, we would spread out in groups of two or three for the rest of our four-hour shift and shelve the items from the boxes we’d just unloaded.

Most of my co-workers had been at the store for years, but almost all of them were, like me, part time. This meant that the store had no obligation to give us a stable number of hours or to adhere to a weekly minimum. Some weeks we’d be scheduled for as little as a single four-hour shift; other weeks we’d be asked to do overnights and work as many as 39 hours (never 40, presumably because the company didn’t want to come anywhere close to having to pay overtime).

The unpredictability of the hours made life difficult for my co-workers — as much as, if not more than, the low pay did. On receiving a paycheck for a good week’s work, when they’d worked 39 hours, should they use the money to pay down debt? Or should they hold on to it in case the following week they were scheduled for only four hours and didn’t have enough for food?

Many of my co-workers didn’t have cars; with such unstable pay, they couldn’t secure auto loans. Nor could they count on holding on to the health insurance that part-time workers could receive if they met a minimum threshold of hours per week. While I was at the store, one co-worker lost his health insurance because he didn’t meet the threshold — but not because the store didn’t have the work. Even as his requests for more hours were denied, the store continued to hire additional part-time and seasonal workers.

Or what.

My co-workers struggled to supplement their income elsewhere, because the unstable hours made it hard to work a second job. If we wanted more hours, we were advised to increase our availability. Problem is, it’s difficult to work a second job when you’re trying to keep yourself as free as possible for your first job.

No wonder my co-workers cared so much about the unload time: For those 60 minutes, they could set aside such worries and focus on a single goal, one that may have been arbitrary but was largely within our shared control and made life feel, briefly, like a game that was winnable.  

It’s not just Walmart. Target, TJX Companies, Kohl’s and Starbucks all describe their median employee, based primarily on salary and role, as a part-time worker. Many jobs that were once decent — they didn’t make workers rich, but they were adequate — have quietly morphed into something unsustainable.

One of the most surprising aspects of this movement toward part-time work is how few white-collar people — including economists and policy analysts — have seemed to notice or appreciate it.

The opinion continues at length like this. The situation for most workers at big box places is miserable for workers but good for most senior executives and shareholders. This is what brass knuckles capitalism looks like for some workers. Most big retail businesses seem to operate this way. Many or most other businesses treat many or most employees much better, usually because they have to for whatever reasons. But retail? It stinks.

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The WaPo reports about the authoritarian radical right media behemoth Sinclair Broadcasting:

Sinclair’s recipe for TV news: Crime, homelessness, illegal drugs

The local news powerhouse, whose chairman recently bought the Baltimore Sun, focuses on fear in broadcasts that often align with Donald Trump’s view of cities

Every year, local television news stations owned by Sinclair Broadcasting conduct short surveys among viewers to help guide the year’s coverage. A key question in each poll, according to David Smith, the company’s executive chairman: “What are you most afraid of?”

On Sinclair’s growing nationwide roster of stations, the editorial focus reflects Smith’s conservative views and plays on its audience’s fears that America’s cities are falling apart, according to media observers, Smith associates, and current and former staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal company matters.

Smith, an enthusiastic supporter of Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump who has built Sinclair into one of the largest television station operators in the country, purchased the Baltimore Sun last month. In a private meeting with the Sun’s journalists, he urged them to emulate coverage at the local Sinclair station, Fox45, which in 2021 produced a documentary titled simply “Baltimore Is Dying.”  

Sinclair’s local network of 185 stations across the country makes it an influential player in shaping the views of millions of Americans, especially at a time when local newspapers are rapidly being gutted — or closed altogether.

As Sinclair increasingly fills the void, it offers its viewers a perspective that aligns with Trump’s oft-stated opinion that America’s cities, especially those run by Democratic politicians, are dangerous and dysfunctional.

And, as is standard for radical right authoritarian elites, Sinclair routinely practices dark free speech such as lies, slanders and the KYMS (keep your mouth shut) tactic to avoid answering inconvenient questions. Regarding KYMS, WaPo writes:

Smith did not respond to requests for an interview. A spokeswoman for Sinclair said that the company’s stations “are committed to accountability reporting, exposing issues within the community, and seeking answers and solutions for viewers.” She added, “Our aim is to help create safer communities, improve public education and the overall quality of life, which are universal, nonpartisan concerns.”

Cynical lies, foment unwarranted fears and champion kleptocratic tyranny. That’s Sinclair. 

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From the FWIW, If Anything, Files (FWIWIAF!): The Hill reports:

In a recent survey conducted by a panel of experts specializing in the American presidency, President Biden was ranked the 14th-best president, while his likely 2024 presidential opponent former President Trump found himself at the very bottom of the list.

And The Hill reports again: Wisconsin ‘fake elector’ Andrew Hitt says he was tricked into signing document claiming Trump won in 2020 -- “We got specific advice from our lawyers that these documents were meaningless, unless a court said they had meaning,” he said.

I was tricked, TRICKED I tell you!

(Channeling the Tucker Carlson

stupid face look - huh? what??)

I guess the court said those documents had meaning. Who would have thunk? Certainly not Mr. Hitt. 

☹️

News bits: About Garland; Spamouflage in the election; Hate & death threats from the pulpit

The New Republic hits the nail right on the head:

Merrick Garland Is Too Weak to Be Attorney General

Over and over again, the Biden appointee has proven to be painfully naïve in the face of Republican bad faith

Hur’s report, the findings of which were released late last week, cleared Biden of criminal wrongdoing, as expected. It revealed Republican efforts to attack Biden’s handling of classified documents as what they were: A smear aimed at clouding Trump’s brazen criminality. But none of that mattered. Instead, the report has been an unmitigated disaster for Biden, all because Hur used his 388-page report as a means of pushing another of the right’s favorite attacks: That Biden is not only old and doddering, but senile. The Hur report, in gratuitous fashion, presented the president as a Mr. Magoo-like figure, unable to remember basic facts like the year of his son’s death or his own term as vice president—details that were wholly irrelevant to the investigation itself.

Garland should have seen this coming. He didn’t. Three years into Garland’s term as attorney general, it’s clear that he has failed.  

During his tenure, Garland’s noble goals have, again and again, rendered him overly passive to the threat posed by the right. Perhaps fearing backlash, the attorney general slow-walked the investigation into Donald Trump’s role in the January 6 insurrection, only appointing Jack Smith as special counsel in late-November of 2022, after Trump formally declared his bid for the presidency.  

Garland, it’s worth noting, should know better. He is arguably the poster child of the GOP’s deviation from norms and their general adherence to bad faith in all areas of politics.

Note the use of the phrase bad faith. Along with ill-will, that is the epitome of radical authoritarian TTKP politics. Pure bad faith, loaded with hate and malice.

TTKP = Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party, formerly the Republican Party

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The CCP (Chinese Communist Party) is excited about the upcoming presidential election in the US. Digital Dispatches reports:

Pro-CCP ‘Spamouflage’ network pivoting to focus on 

US Presidential Election

The long-running influence campaign suspected to be run by the CCP and often referred to as ‘Spamouflage’ is already pivoting to focus on the expected competition between President Joe Biden and Republican forerunner Donald Trump. Spamouflage has been active since at least 2017. In April 2023 the US Department of Justice charged 40 employees of the Chinese Ministry of Public Security’s 912 Special Projects Working Group for their involvement in an influence campaign which, based on details in the indictment, appears extremely likely to be Spamouflage. According to the indictment, the operation is coordinated from Beijing and implemented in offices around China. It is infamous among researchers both for its sprawling size and for its failure to generate any noteworthy engagement from real social media users.

Analyzing the narratives of the campaign is nonetheless useful as a method for understanding the likely broader strategy of the CCP going into the election year. It is also important to continue to keep an eye on Spamouflage’s tactics as they evolve. 

Key narratives include:

The election will be divisive and damaging for America: This appears to be one of the two most common election-specific narratives being promoted by Spamouflage. It portrays the election as a source of division and strife which compounds America’s existing problems.

Negative Biden narratives: Alongside painting the election as divisive, negative narratives about President Biden appear to be the other most significant focus of Spamouflage’s election-related efforts as of January 2024.

Ambiguous Trump narratives: Narratives relating to Trump are noticeably less common than those relating to Biden. Interestingly many of them are also somewhat ambiguous – while the authors may intend them to be negative, Trump supporters might read many of them differently.

This appeals to most DJT supporters?

(probably)

Well, at least it looks like spamouflage probably is not going to be a major election influencer this time around. I hope.

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 LGBQT Nation reports about a Christian nationalist hater spewing poison from his taxpayer subsidized pulpit:

Another hate preacher affiliated with the wildly anti-LGBTQ+ New Independent Fundamental Baptist Movement, or New IFB Church, has called for the public execution of gay people.

“That’s what fa**ots deserve, is the death penalty!” railed “Brother” Robert Larson in a sermon at the Bible Believers Baptist Church in Union Gap, WA last week. “And they should do it publicly for everybody to see.”

“Bring back the electric chair!” Larson encouraged to his congregation. It’s “a little more painful” than the alternatives.

Larson asked his flock in Union Gap last week, “What does God say the homos deserve? In Leviticus 20:13, a famous verse, it says, ‘If a man also lie with a man as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be upon them.’ That’s what fa**ots deserve.” 

“Every single sodomite, every single homosexual should get the electric chair,” Larson continued. He added, his voice rising, “And they should do it publicly for everybody to see, so that they know that’s what happens to these freaks! These rapists, these child molesters.” 

Us taxpayers are forced by law to subsidize this filth and moral rot. That is a fact, not an opinion. 

It would not be at all surprising if the enraged freak “Brother” Larson is projecting when he slanders his targets as rapists and child molesters. One can reasonably wonder if he has murdered some people. Of course that’s just speculation, not proven fact.

Qs: Why do actual, real Christians not stand up and openly and constantly denounce the obvious hate, bigotry and tyranny that Christian nationalism is fomenting among millions of self-professed Christians, or should that be the job on agnostics, atheists and other non-Christians? Should taxpayers be forced by tax laws to subsidize religion? 

I sure don't want one penny of my tax dollars going to any religion, especially Christian nationalist churches. 

Our weak rule of law and our morally rotted political elites

An article the Daily Beast published yesterday reports about sex, drug and alcohol parties where Matt Gaetz was having fun and sex with lots of other people:

Witness Told Feds She Was Paid for Sex Parties With Matt Gaetz

When ABC News reported on Wednesday that the House Ethics Committee had acquired text messages between a young woman involved in the sex trafficking investigation and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a Gaetz spokesperson told ABC that the congressman “does not know anything about the woman you’re referencing.”

That seems extraordinarily unlikely.

The Daily Beast can now report that this woman told prosecutors in 2021 that she had sex with Gaetz at a drug-fueled party that she was paid to attend, according to the woman’s attorney.

This attorney told The Daily Beast on Thursday that the woman, in fact, received payments in connection with multiple sex parties with people in Gaetz’s circle. Her lawyer said that, in response to a subpoena, she testified about her experiences to the U.S. Attorneys investigating Gaetz. And she turned over text messages, photos, and other evidence to the Justice Department as part of its child sex trafficking inquiry into the Florida congressman, the lawyer said.

The DB article goes on to comment that the House Ethics Committee is reviewing the evidence in its inquiry into whether Gaetz paid for sex with women and with an underage teen. The Ethics Committee inquiry is looking at allegations of public corruption, solicitation of prostitution, habitual use of hard drugs, bribes or impermissible gifts, campaign finance violations, and exhibiting nude photos of sexual partners on the House floor.

The weakness in the law arises here from heavy drug and alcohol use at the parties. According to the DB, the booze and drugs addled brains and muddled memories of events. (Was I at that party?) Or, as DB put it: “The availability of vast amounts of alcohol and controlled substances gave rise to the lack of control of the hormonal imperative,” this lawyer continued, “which inspired people to engage in intimate behavior that may or may not have been because they were financially remunerated.”

There we go, lack of control of hormonal imperative that inspired people to engage in intimate behavior, maybe being paid for it or maybe not. Who knows? The people in attendance were not fully present in view of their narcotized brains, gonads and whatnot, so what can they know about it?

This nice lady who partied with Matty-poo showed party-related Venmo transactions to investigators. Between March and July 2017, she got nearly $2,500 across multiple payments from Gaetz’s then-best friend, locally elected tax collector Joel Greenberg. The descriptions Greenberg entered for her payments included “travel,” “being cool” and “stuff.” 

Being cool? Stuff? Travel?? Nude sex partner photos in the House?? 😮

Geez, all of this has to be true because no one can make it up. 

Gaetz for DJT’s VP pick!! 

MAGA!!

Gaetz self-righteously scolding us 

about a thing or two

(Gaetz Says He’s Not Watching Super Bowl 

Because of ‘Black National Anthem’ Performance

-- So there you socialist pedos and pervs!)

Have you ever heard of Pascal’s Wager?

I first heard about that concept around 10-12 years ago.  It was back when I was blogging on BigThink.com and a blogger friend of mine, @kalqlate, said “That’s the best argument I’ve ever heard on Pascal’s Wager” (PW).  I had to look it up because I’d never heard of such a thing.

Now, I can’t exactly remember what I had said in my long explanation, but evidently, my “out of the mouths of babes” remark hit the bullseye, regarding PW.  I do, however, remember basically what I said.  It had to do with “buying religion insurance.”  I.e., just saying you believe in Jesus as your Savior in order to get into Heaven.

Yesterday I was commenting with our @larrymotuz about such “bargaining tactics.” Link: http://disq.us/p/2xq7ask

Okay, first a full Wikipedia link for Pascal’s Wager here.

Now the Questions:

1. How do you feel about this PW concept? 
2. If you are a believer (in some form/faction of Christianity), have you ever felt like you were just “taking out afterlife insurance?”

Make your cases.

(by PrimalSoup)

News bits: Unintended consequences; Faux News goes silent; Etc.

About 9 years ago, California passed a law banning single use plastic bags because they were a major pollution nuisance. Those were replaced with allegedly recyclable, multiple use heavy plastic bags. The law didn’t work. The NYT writes:

Then came the reusable, heavy-duty plastic bags, offered to shoppers for ten cents. Designed to withstand dozens of uses, and technically recyclable, many retailers treated them as exempt from the ban.

But because they didn’t look much different from the flimsy bags they replaced, lots of people didn’t actually reuse them. And though they came emblazoned with a recycling symbol, it turned out that few, if any, actually were recycled.

The unhappy result: Last year, Californians threw away more plastic bags, by weight, than when the law first passed, according to figures from CalRecycle, California’s recycling agency.

Now the legislature is just going to pass a law to ban all plastic bags at store check-outs. People can buy paper bags or bring their own. The pandemic caused fears that reusable bags would spread the virus, and that led to vastly increased use of the thick plastic bags. Basically, people were using the thicker bags just once. The average time shoppers used a plastic bag was just twelve minutes.

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New York Magazine reports about Faux News:

Frequent viewers of conservative media are well acquainted with [former FBI informant] Alexander Smirnov. Fox News hosts like Sean Hannity have said that his allegations are key to what they describe as the “Biden crime family” — the narrative that Hunter Biden accepted millions of dollars in bribes from the energy company Burisma to give to his father in exchange for then-VP Biden making a Ukrainian investigation into Burisma go away. According to the watchdog group Media Matters, Hannity alone featured 85 segments in 2023 on the allegations. (Republican politicians also trusted the source: Last July, Representative James Comer and Senator Chuck Grassley released an FBI record detailing the unsubstantiated allegations, describing Smirnov as a “trusted FBI informant implicating then-Vice President Biden in a criminal bribery scheme.”)

Fox News viewers have heard plenty about the lesser charges Hunter Biden is facing, including possession of a firearm as a drug user and tax evasion. But after prosecutors provided evidence that the corruption allegation was false, there was no mention of the story on Hannity on Thursday — or anywhere in Fox News’s prime-time programming, for that matter. (Chuck Grassley’s office has also stood by his public release of the unsubstantiated allegations.)  

In June 2020, Smirnov told his FBI handlers that he had two meetings in 2015 in which Burisma executives told him that they hired Hunter Biden as a consultant to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems.” Smirnov claimed that Burisma paid Hunter Biden $10 million for his trouble. But prosecutors state that Smirnov never provided any evidence for this explosive allegation.

Faux News is what cynical, lying kleptocratic tyranny looks like, because that is what it stands for.

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The NYT reports that operatives in the TTKP (Trump Tyranny & Kleptocracy Party, formerly the Republican Party) are planning a massive attack on what is left of abortion rights once DJT gets back in power: 

Allies of former President Donald J. Trump and officials who served in his administration are planning ways to restrict abortion rights if he returns to power that would go far beyond proposals for a national ban or the laws enacted in conservative states across the country.

Behind the scenes, specific anti-abortion plans being proposed by Mr. Trump’s allies are sweeping and legally sophisticated. Some of their proposals would rely on enforcing the Comstock Act, a long-dormant law from 1873, to criminalize the shipping of any materials used in an abortion — including abortion pills, which account for the majority of abortions in America.

“We don’t need a federal ban when we have Comstock on the books,” said Jonathan F. Mitchell, the legal force behind a 2021 Texas law that found a way to effectively ban abortion in the state before Roe v. Wade was overturned. “There’s a smorgasbord of options.”  

“I hope he doesn’t know about the existence of Comstock, because I just don’t want him to shoot off his mouth,” Mr. Mitchell said of Mr. Trump. “I think the pro-life groups should keep their mouths shut as much as possible until the election.”  

The New York Times reported on Friday that Mr. Trump had told advisers and allies that he liked the idea of a 16-week national abortion ban but that he wanted to wait until the Republican primary contest was over to publicly discuss his views.  

National abortion ban legislation would affect only a small fraction of abortions, given that nearly 94 percent happen in the first trimester, before 13 weeks of pregnancy, and would present obstacles for women who experience severe complications later in pregnancy.

Sensing that talking about abortion is a no-no before the election, DJT himself denies he supports a nationwide ban. He calls the NYT reporting fake news. TTKP anti-abortionists are acutely aware that majority public opinion supports abortion access in most cases, so they operate in as much secrecy and deceit as they can. They want to surprise us!