News bits: Some thoughts about bothsidesism, etc.

From the Faux Investigations Files: An article in Salon warns the mainstream media not to take the bait when Republicans in the House enters its crazy-go-nuts investigations of Joe Biden, Hunter Biden and every other thing they think they can turn into a scandal. Salon writes:

Dark Brandon strikes again! Republicans have been drooling openly for weeks now over the small House majority they will have in the new year, and not because they have plans for legislation that will improve the lives of Americans. Nah, the blueprint for 2023 is all revenge on Democrats, all the time. Republicans are still salty over House Democrats investigating Donald Trump for minor transgressions like attempting to overthrow democracy and sending a murderous mob after Congress and his own vice president. 

And, because Republicans have no limits to their pettiness, we can expect two years of taxpayer money being used to show off pictures of Hunter Biden's penis, excused with the vague pretext that it's necessary to investigate his "business dealings."

Republicans no doubt are aware that they look like a bunch of clowns when they do stuff like this, but they don't care for one reason: Traditionally, these antics work to bait the mainstream media into giving credulous coverage to fake scandals about Democrats. The gold standard, of course, is how the phony Whitewater investigation in the '90s took a winding road to the discovery that President Bill Clinton .... Even more preposterous pumped-up scandals have followed, from President Barack Obama's birth certificate to Benghazi, which became a national catchword, even though no one can really explain what was supposed to be so scandalous about it.

Republicans understand all too well the Achilles heel of the mainstream media: The cavernous longing for "balance." Journalists want desperately to be seen as objective and the cheapest way to achieve that is to present "both sides" as equally corrupt. The problem, of course, is that simply isn't true. Democrats, like all political parties, have their problems, and when they mess up or engage in corruption they should be held accountable. But their issues at the moment are a pittance compared to the endemic lying and corruption of the party of Donald Trump. One way for the press to achieve "balance" is to make mountains out of Democratic molehills — or worse, to cover flat-out fake or unimportant stories as if they were for-real scandals.  

It's probably pissing in the wind to write this, but I would implore the editors at the New York Times, CNN, and other such outlets to resist the bait. Just because Republicans cast aspersions doesn't mean they need lavish coverage for doing so. The role of the press is not to "balance" very real, bad stories about Trump and other Republicans with fictitious nonsense about Democrats. The first duty should be to the truth. And the truth is there's no equivalence between Biden and Trump, or, at this point, Republicans and Democrats, broadly speaking.

I think that Benghazi and Hillary's deleted emails should be looked into once again.

----------------------

----------------------

From the Treasonous Republicans Don't Care About Their Own Treason Files: Time writes:

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy spent the first two days of the new year trying to shore up GOP support for his bid to be Speaker by releasing a series of proposals aimed at winning over hard-right detractors who stand to torpedo his ascension.

The part of his proposed changes to House rules that drew the most attention was allowing just five House members to call for a vote at any time on ousting the Speaker; that would render McCarthy beholden to the most extreme members of his caucus, should he get on their wrong side. But buried in the text was another provision that could be highly consequential for the new Congress being sworn in on Tuesday: language that would effectively gut the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), as the independent panel faces pressure to investigate lawmakers who participated in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Most significantly, McCarthy’s proposal would require OCE to hire its staff for the 118th Congress within 30 days of the resolution’s adoption, a requirement that sources familiar with the process tell TIME would make it exceedingly difficult for the office to have the resources it needs to conduct its investigations, given how long it takes to hire candidates for roles in the federal government. The proposal would also block OCE from hiring new employees over the next two years if someone leaves their position, sources say.

“Republicans get to take control of the House, and on their first day in Congress, they are not trying to take a hammer to the OCE—they’re being a little smarter about it—but they’re taking a scalpel to it,” a Hill source familiar with the ethics process tells TIME.

So there goes any possibility of Republican traitors investigating Republican traitors in the House. Too bad the Democrats didn't do it while they had those precious two years in power. 

Fox = Republicans in congress

What a peach!

 Let's play "What's wrong with this picture?":

News bits: MAGA fascists in Arizona, etc.

MAGA fascists in Arizona: Adrian Fontes was elected to be the next Secretary of State for Arizona. He defeated a Trump-chosen election denier and enthusiastic 1/6 coup attempt participant, Mark Finchem. Fontes commented in a news article: 

“We won by about 120,000 votes – we put it away handily.” But the result is not grounds for complacency, Fontes believes. From his perspective, given the scale of the danger posed by Finchem and his ilk, the outcome should have been much clearer. “Our victory was more narrow than we would have liked. We should have won by 20 points, and sent a much stronger message. Nobody should sleep easy on the Maga fascist threat that still exists.”

“I use the words ‘Maga fascists’ because it’s the truth,” he said. “These people are not Grand Old Party Republicans; they are Maga fascists. There is no reason for me to call them by anything other than what they are. If they feel a little sensitive about that, then maybe they ought to reconsider their position vis-a-vis American democracy and stop acting like fascists.”  

“We had folks with long rifles and camouflage gear ‘guarding’ our ballot drop boxes,” Fontes said. “That was asinine. Those folks should be prosecuted as the domestic terrorists that they are.”

I agree with Fontes. They are fascists, MAGA!! or not.

------------------------------

------------------------------

Racism in the GOP: The New Abnormal column at the Daily Beast discusses how some historians are aggressively attacking the lies the Republican Party has relied heavily on to create myths that many or most of rank and file Republicans believe are truths.

Republicans co-opting Martin Luther King Jr.’s quotes while pushing policy and supporting legislation directly in opposition to the Civil Rights leader’s wishes is just one example of the party attempting to rewrite history.

In fact, there are so many examples of revisionist history happening these days, particularly among conservatives, that historian and University of Princeton professor Kevin M. Kruse felt the need to publish a book alongside fellow historians, and join this episode of The New Abnormal politics podcast, to set the record straight. 

He talks about his book Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past, which is a compilation of historian-written chapters that crush those myths, and shares proof that contrary to Republicans’ denials, the party actively engages in “Southern Strategy,” which is, as New Abnormal co-host Andy Levy explains, the “idea that as the Democratic Party moved away from being the party of slavery and segregation, the GOP sort of consciously moved to fill that void and to become the champion of white Southerners.”

From speaking in coded racial language to antagonizing white voters through fear and taking starkly pro-police stances, they’re absolutely following the knowingly racist playbook of conservatives past, says Kruse.

“This is not some wishful thinking theory that we’ve imposed in the past. The people we’re talking about in documents at the time, in interviews at the time, in books, talk about this,” says Kruse. “[Richard] Nixon talks about this in his memoirs. Harry Dent, his adviser, talks about it in his memoirs. Lee Atwater gives an interview where he talks about the old coded racism of the Nixon-era Southern Strategy. This has long been conventional wisdom. Heads of the Republican National Committee apologized for this. The thought that suddenly people are saying, ‘Oh, this never happened. This is all a myth,’ was just kind of insane and frustrating.”

------------------------------

------------------------------

Musk is killing people: Researchers report that COVID misinformation is surging once again now that Musk has dropped restrictions on lies and conspiracy theories. The NYT comments:

“It’s easy to forget that health misinformation, including about Covid, can still contribute to people not getting vaccinated or creating stigmas,” said Megan Marrelli, the editorial director of Meedan, a nonprofit focused on digital literacy and information access. “We know for a fact that health misinformation contributes to the spread of real-world disease.”

Twitter is of particular concern for researchers. The company recently gutted the teams responsible for keeping dangerous or inaccurate material in check on the platform, stopped enforcing its Covid misinformation policy and began basing some content moderation decisions on public polls posted by its new owner and chief executive, the billionaire Elon Musk.

From Nov. 1 to Dec. 5, Australian researchers collected more than half a million conspiratorial and misleading English-language tweets about Covid, using terms such as “deep state,” “hoax” and “bioweapon.” The tweets drew more than 1.6 million likes and 580,000 retweets.

Whether he likes it or not, Musk’s policies at his expensive Twitter toy is leading to people’s deaths and illness. He is a killer, plain and simple. So are the people who post lies and crackpottery that cause people to wind up ill or dead. One could say ‘shame on you’, but that would be pointless. People like Musk and Twitter cranks and crackpots have no shame. Heck, some (most?) of them probably actually enjoy seeing their ‘free speech’ poison injure and kill people.

That raises a question. How many ice-cold psychopath killers like these are there in America? According to the psychologists, about 1.2% of U.S. adult men and 0.3% to 0.7% of U.S. adult women are considered to have clinically significant levels of psychopathic traits. So, if we round it off to about 1%, that means there are up to about 3.3 million of these potential killers, mostly men, wandering maliciously among us. That raises a question. Are some men genetically defective or are the bad ones just mean and evil?

😵‍💫

5 Major Downsides of Writing and Publishing Political Opinion Pieces Online

 Writing political opinion pieces and publishing them online can be a worthwhile and enjoyable pursuit. It can also potentially generate financial rewards, depending on where the articles are published.

There can also be definite downsides to writing politics, though. This is especially true in countries like the United States, where the political divisions run deep and it can be easy to trigger anger and outrage, regardless of the tone and quality of the article.

Here are five negatives:

1. Articles can go out of date quickly 
2. Trolls and obnoxious comments
3. Politics can be a turn-off for some
4. Abrasive writers do best
5. Commenters who don't read the article

https://soapboxie.com/us-politics/Downsides-of-Writing-and-Publishing-Political-Opinion-Pieces

1. Except when they are about Fauci, Hunter Biden, and stolen elections.

2. Except when they get banned and are denied their constitutional right to "free speech". 

3. How can one be turned off on politics in the world of Trumpism? The entertainment value alone is worth the trip.

4. Hmmm, maybe I should be MORE abrasive so my threads do better??

5. BINGO. This one is VERY common, because (as the above article points out):

Some commenters can be triggered purely by the title of an article. 

A memory lane acid trip: What Christian nationalism wants for America

Lest we forget

The Christian nationalist (CN) power and wealth movement wants America to be an aggressively bigoted Christian fundamentalist theocracy. It is fascist American politics wrapped in Christianity. CN dogma demands that America suffers under bigoted Christian Sharia law. It will be run by aggressive, bigoted, wealthy, White, heterosexual men. A 2017 article in The Nation lays this out. The CN agenda is aggressively theocratic and explicit:

Leaked Draft of Trump’s Religious Freedom Order Reveals 

Sweeping Plans to Legalize Discrimination

If signed, the order would create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity.

A leaked copy of a draft executive order titled “Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom,” obtained by The Investigative Fund and The Nation, reveals sweeping plans by the Trump administration to legalize discrimination.

The four-page draft order, a copy of which is currently circulating among federal staff and advocacy organizations, construes religious organizations so broadly that it covers “any organization, including closely held for-profit corporations,” and protects “religious freedom” in every walk of life: “when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts; or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.”

The draft order seeks to create wholesale exemptions for people and organizations who claim religious or moral objections to same-sex marriage, premarital sex, abortion, and trans identity, and it seeks to curtail women’s access to contraception and abortion through the Affordable Care Act.

It is reasonable to believe that Christian nationalist elites wrote this EO. The fornicating philistine Trump could not care less about stuff like this, except as a means to get and stay in power. 

This powerful theocratic movement has moved past Trump. It is not going to go away. CN, along with brass knuckles capitalism, is one of the two dogmas that now control the Republican Party. They drive the GOP's bigoted, anti-democracy, anti-regulation, pro-Christian theocracy, and pro-pollution rhetoric and policies.

Fortunately, Trump never signed this death threat to democracy and secularism. But it does show exactly what the CN movement wants. 

Parts of the EO are shown below. The full EO is at the link to the article.

Executive Order—Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom

EXECUTIVE ORDER

Establishing a Government-Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, in order to guide the executive branch in formulating and implementing policies with implications for the religious freedom of persons and organizations in America, and to further compliance with the Constitution, applicable statutes, and other legal authorities, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Policy. The United States Constitution enshrines and protects the fundamental natural right to religious liberty. This Constitutional protection ensures that Americans and their religious organizations will not be coerced by the Federal Government into participating in activities that violate their consciences, and will remain free to express their viewpoints without suffering adverse treatment from the Federal Government. It shall be the policy of this Administration to protect religious freedom.

Sec. 3 Religious Freedom Principles and Policymaking Criteria. All executive branch departments and agencies (“agencies”) shall, to the greatest extent practicable and permitted by law, adhere to the following principles and criteria when formulating and implementing regulations, actions, or policies:

(a) Religious freedom is not confined to religious organizations or limited to religious exercise that takes place in houses of worship or the home. It is guaranteed to persons of all faiths and extends to all activities of life.

(b) Persons and organizations do not forfeit their religious freedom when providing social services, education, or healthcare; earning a living, seeking a job, or employing others; receiving government grants or contracts: or otherwise participating in the marketplace, the public square, or interfacing with Federal, State or local governments.

Sec. 4. Specific agency Responsibilities to Avoid Potential Violation of Religious Freedom.

(a) The Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Labor, and Treasury shall immediately issue an interim final rule that exempts from the preventative-care mandate set forth in 42 U.S.C. 300gg-13(a)(4) all persons and religious organizations that object to complying with the mandate for religious or moral reasons.

(b) The Secretary of Health and Human Services shall take appropriate actions, through mechanisms to ensure compliance with existing statutory and other protections, if necessary, to ensure that any individuals purchasing health insurance in the individual market (whether through a federally facilitated exchange, a state-sponsored health insurance exchange, or otherwise) has the ability to purchase health insurance that does not provide coverage for abortion and does not subsidize plans that do provide such coverage.

(c) The Secretary of Health and human Services shall take all appropriate actions to ensure that the Federal Government shall not discriminate or take any adverse action against a religious organization that provides federally-funded child-welfare services, including promoting or providing adoption, foster, or family support services for children, or similar services, on the basis that the organization declines to provide , facilitate, or refer such services due to a conflict with the organization’s religious beliefs. The Secretary of Health and human Services shall, where authorized by law, promptly propose for notice and comment new regulations consistent with this policy.

(d) All agencies shall, with respect to any person, house of worship, or religious organization that is a recipient of or offeror for a Federal Government contract, subcontract, grant, purchase order, or cooperative agreement, provide protections and exceptions consistent with sections 702(a) and 703(e) of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (42 U.S.C. 20003-I(a) and 2000e-2(e)) and section 103(d) of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (42 U.S.C. 12113(d)). The Secretary of Labor shall, where authorized by law, promptly propose for notice and comment new regulations consistent with this policy.

News bits: Starting the new year with a bang!

Let the banging commence!

From the Lying Liar Files: Those transcripts and tax returns the Democrats released are a veritable gold mine of nasty stuff. Out of curiosity, my wife, a trained tax preparation person, looked briefly at his tax returns. After just a couple of minutes she looked up from her computer and said, and I paraphrase:

  

“He cheated on his taxes! He cheated a lot!! He can’t do that.”

Welllllp, he did do that. Meanwhile, we all recall Trump proudly telling us all how rich he was and would donate his salary to charity. Welllllp, he did not do that, at least in 2020. The Independent reports:

Trump tax returns dispute White House claim that he donated salary during Covid

Despite his spokeswoman’s claim, returns show he donated nothing to charity in 2020

Donald Trump donated nothing to the Department of Health and Human Services during the height of the pandemic, despite claiming publicly to have done so, his tax returns revealed on Friday.

Trump is not pleased with any of this airing of the dirty laundry business according to The Hill:

“The Democrats should have never done it, the Supreme Court should have never approved it, and it’s going to lead to horrible things for so many people. The great USA divide will now grow far worse,” Trump said in a statement issued shortly after House Democrats released six years of his personal and business tax returns.

“The ‘Trump’ tax returns once again show how proudly successful I have been and how I have been able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs and magnificent structures and enterprises,” he continued [lying].

 His tax returns show he is a business failure and a felon tax cheat. What a colossal liar. 

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

In other news, from the Failed Rule of Law Files, the WaPo writes:

Mark Meadows, who was chief of staff to President Donald Trump, will not be charged for voter fraud related to his 2020 registration and absentee vote in North Carolina, the state’s chief law enforcement official [Attorney General Josh Stein, a Democrat] announced Friday.

Meadows is “explicitly excepted from certain residency requirements as a result of his service to the federal government,” Stein added.

“The State Bureau of Investigation conducted an extensive investigation into the fraud allegations against Mr. and Mrs. Meadows concerning their registration and voting in the 2020 elections,” Stein said in a statement. “After a thorough review, my office has concluded that there is not sufficient evidence to bring charges against either of them in this matter.”

Once again, we see out two-tiered system of law at work protecting the rich and powerful. Even Democrats support and practice the two-tiered system. It is perfectly acceptable for Republicans to vote fraudulently and eliminate fair elections as much as possible. If Hillary or Hunter Biden had done the same thing that Meadows did, the howls of sanctimonious outrage from Christofascist Republicans would be deafening. But since Meadows is a prominent Republican Christofascist, there is no blow back from his fellow Republican Christofascists. 

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

From the Lying Liar Files again, The Guardian writes: 

The conservative activist Ginni Thomas has “no memory” of what she discussed with her husband, the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, during the heat of the battle to overturn the 2020 presidential election, according to congressional testimony released on Friday.

Thomas, 65, recalled “an emotional time” in which her mood was lifted by her husband and Mark Meadows, then Donald Trump’s chief of staff, a transcript of her deposition with the congressional committee investigating the January 6 attack on the US Capitol showed.

Thomas has been a prominent backer of Trump’s lies that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

The January 6 committee spent months seeking an interview with Ginni Thomas, who was known to have texted Meadows and contacted officials in Arizona and Wisconsin in the aftermath of Trump’s election defeat by Joe Biden. She was eventually interviewed behind closed doors on 29 September.

In opening remarks, Thomas said she entered Republican politics long before meeting Clarence Thomas in 1986. She said her husband had never spoken to her about court cases – “it’s an ironclad rule in our house” – and was “uninterested in politics”.

Hm. Mrs. Thomas claims to have “no memory” of what she discussed with her husband, never discusses court cases and, while being a long-standing Republican activist, is “uninterested in politics”. Hm. I think she thinks we’re stupid.

The arrogance in those lies is about as insulting as lies can get. She and her Christofascist husband must think we are all incredibly stupid. Lies, what can one say? They’re just innocent, patriotic free speech when they come from Republican elites. 

------------------------------------------------------

------------------------------------------------------

From the Endless Abortion Wars Files the AP writes:

Cara Berg Raunick watched with bafflement as Indiana’s Republican legislators took less than two weeks to debate and pass an abortion ban that the governor signed quickly into law.

The women’s health nurse practitioner from Indianapolis was struck by just how frequently faith was cited in the arguments as reason to ban the medical practice. But Berg Raunick, who is Jewish, said those views go against her beliefs.

To her, a pregnant woman’s health and life is paramount, and she disagreed with legislators’ assertions that life begins at conception, calling that a “Christian definition.”

“That is a religious and values-based comment,” said Berg Raunick. “A fetus is potential life, and that is worthy of great respect and is not to be taken lightly, but it does not supersede the life and health of the mother, period.”

Arguments like this were central to an Indiana lawsuit filed in September against the state’s abortion ban, which is on hold amid multiple legal challenges. On Dec. 2, a judge ruled the ban violates the state’s religious freedom law, signed by then-Republican Gov. Mike Pence in 2015.

Critics of religious freedoms laws often argue they are used to discriminate against LGBTQ people and only protect a conservative Christian worldview. But following the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade in June, religious abortion-rights supporters are using these laws to protect access to abortion and defend their beliefs.

So, anti-abortion laws grounded in Christianity are now being challenged on religious grounds. Good. That is as it should be. If God can be relied on to make abortion illegal, God can also be relied on to make it legal. That is just fair and balanced. And, it is what the pro-abortion Bible says.

Some biblical Bible truths:

Hosea 9:10-16: God will punish the Israelites by destroying their unborn children, who will die at birth, or perish in the womb, or never be conceived (ooh, that perish in the womb thing sounds pro-abortion and that never be conceived thing sounds pro-contraception)

Matthew 24:19: Jesus did not express any special concern for unborn children during the anticipated end times: “Woe to pregnant women and those who are nursing” (guess little babies and fetuses are SOL in terms of getting to heaven ☹️)

Deuteronomy 28:18, 53: God stated his punishments for disobedience, including “cursed shall be the fruit of your womb” and “you will eat the fruit of your womb” (hm, that cursed fruit thing does not sound like a sanctity-of-life claim, but the eating fruit thing does sound rather pro-cannibalism 🤨)

Happy new year! 🙃