#Florida Where Democracy Goes To Die

[karen-anti-r-cml]

The Florida Abortion Law Endorsed by republican-confederate maga loyalist, Singed Into Law By fascist desantis, because They're Mor0ns

Who believe they know more than Doctors.

and

Want Total Control Over "We The People", Although They Lack The Intelligence Of A Jellyfish.

Unfortunately, because Fascist desantis's Abortion Law denies an Abortion past 15 weeks, her Florida Doctor's could do nothing.

The Dorbert’s could've gone to another State, if they had funds and weren't afraid of being arrest.

But they lacked the funds and were afraid.

The Dorbert’s Heartbreak might've been easier leaving the State, but hey shouldn't have to leave.

republican-confederate maga loyalist should be Forced Out R-CML Forced Her to carry baby Milo, a Baby the Doctor's Knew Would Not Survive After Leaving Her Womb.

So, for Deborah that meant 13 Weeks of carrying Milo, knowing his Birth was his Death Sentence

The Dorbert’s have a Son, Kaiden he was 4 and would've be waiting on a little brother. Probably excited to be a big brother, but a little worried about not being the center anymore.

How would you explain this to a Child, their is no way to explain Barbaric Law to a Child.

For Deborah going to bed knowing her Child is Dying, there must have been nightmares and waking up to realize they are real.

There's no pushing it aside and going about a normal day, you can't be who you were, so she went through Severe Anxiety and Depression

But it's not just Deborah, of course her husband has his emotions and their son, Kaiden must have know thing's weren't right, that a light had dimmed even though he wouldn't understand he would have felt bad too.

Seeing their heartache would only make hers worse.

March 3, 2023: Milo Dorbert was Born and in a Short Time He Died In His Mother's Arms, Deborah Said...

“He gasped for air a couple of times when I held him. I watched my child take his first breath, and I held him as he took his last one.”

Good People don't make Laws That Put Innocent People through Torture.

[misfitwashere]

Beware the Weak Man

Thoughts from the Munich Security Conference

TIMOTHY SNYDER

FEB 22

Who is the weak man?  You shall know him by his itinerary.  The weak man knows that Ukraine is what matters, so he goes to Texas.  The weak man of Congress buys some casual clothes, has a staffer write a speech about the border, and recites it word-for-word.  A real invasion is replaced by a pretend one.  The weak man invites us to fear phantoms rather than face issues. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson did this, as did other American legislators seeking excuses not to help Ukraine.  While I was in Munich, Elon Musk put on a cowboy hat and took his turn.  In fall 2022, when Ukraine might have won the war, Musk cut the Ukrainians off from Starlink.  Rather than going to Ukraine and learning, he made a profoundly bad decision on the basis of personal fear. 

The Munich Security Conference is a place where people get together to take action.  Unlike Johnson and Musk, Senator J.D. Vance was at least present.  But he was there to demotivate.  Invited to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelens’kyi, Vance made his excuses.  Rather than looking a courageous man in the eye, he retreated to his hotel room and searched for "dolphin" and "women" on the internet.

At a meeting I attended, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen announced that her country would donate its entire stock of artillery shells to Ukraine. Vance stood outside the building and said that we should give up.  He told the leaders of a democracy (but not to their faces) to give up territory.  If the Ukrainians followed his advice, the chain of events would be similar to what happened the last time fascism was appeased in Munich: the collapse of faith in order, and a world war.

Ukraine could win, if Americans would help; but our weak men have cut off the weapons.  Musk spreads Russian propaganda.  Vance amplifies Russian foreign policy.  Trump follows Putin’s wishes.  Johnson maneuvers for months to block a vote on aid to Ukraine.  And so the Ukrainians, fighting for their lives, run out of artillery shells, and must withdraw from losses from Avdiivka. 

The weak man kills because he lacks the energy to act and consumes the energy of others.  He scorns those who struggle with real danger, and want them to fail and die. 

The problem is not masculinity.  Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister of Poland, is a man’s man from central casting: good looks, deep voice, firm stare, bad jokes.  When not in office, he was raising money for pickup trucks and driving them to the front.  At Munich, plenty of competent men were at work: such as Czech President Petr Pavel, a former general, who has been searching the world for artillery shells to send to Ukraine.  The problem is brittle masculinity, the male form of weakness that substitutes mendacious prattle for necessary action. 

Instead of aiding Ukraine, the weak men of Congress have dedicated months to a long series of lies that have wasted the energy and good faith of others.  First Johnson said that he wanted to protect the border and would pass aid for Ukraine if it was connected to a border bill; then, when presented with exactly this solution, he rejected it.  When aid for Ukraine was then separated from the border issue in another bill, he rejected that too, on the grounds that the border was not mentioned.  The weak men of Congress want inaction both at the border and in Ukraine.  They only mention the one to explain why they are not acting on the other.

After this parade, Johnson called to House of Representatives to recess.  But Johnson himself is not on vacation.  He has to put on a tie and abase himself before Trump in Florida.  In the photograph Johnson posted, Trump lacks the strength to raise his thumb.  Trump submits to Putin, and encourages Russia to attack American allies. 

And Putin, in his turn, is all fear.  He kills opponents because he fears that a younger generation might do better.  He attacks Ukraine because he cannot stand the thought of democracy in Russia.  The submission chain that runs through Johnson and Trump to Putin ends in a vacuum. 

The danger is that this vacuum will consume our democracy.  The weak man runs from danger by running for office.  Not strong enough to believe in law or to live by it, the weak man breaks laws and then tries to break law itself.  Putin wants to die in his bed.  And so we will soon have another fake Russian presidential election.  Trump wants to pardon himself or otherwise avoid prosecution for all the crimes he seems to know he has committed.  For the weak man, fear is everything, and fear must also become everything for us.

On the first day of the Munich Security Conference, the news arrived that Alexei Navalny, the foremost Russian oppositionist, had been killed in Russian prison. Navalny was known for his courage.  He had returned to Russia after Russian authorities poisoned him. After his poisoning, but before he returned to Russia, he telephoned the Russian secret police, impersonated one of its officers, and elicited the truth about what happened.  He was also courageous enough to be a friend to his friends and a father to his children.

Weak men therefore find Navalny unbearable.  Putin cannot say his name.  Nor can Musk -- and the social media platform he owns suspended the account of Navalny’s widow.  Trump claimed that Navalny died to show how much Trump suffers.  Navalny committed no crimes, but drew attention to those of oligarchs.  Trump is a wannabe oligarch who says that, should he become president again, he will round up and imprison his political opponents.  He wants to be able to do with all Americans what Putin did to Navalny.  And, like Putin, he will claim to be the victim as he does so.  The weak man always says that he is the victim.

One way the weak man kills is by broadcasting his fears.  Putin might or might not have given a direct order to kill Navalny.  More likely it was an indirect suggestion, picked up by other weak men.  On January 6th, 2021, Trump used language other weak men understood.  He now uses the internet to encourage violence against elected representatives, prosecutors, and judges.  He prepares for a second coup attempt.

Munich is a city full of resonances for a historian.  Hitler’s first coup attempt took place here.  After his second one, the one that succeeded after an election, he let others understand what he wanted done.  Like Putin, and for that matter like Trump, he made his general wishes known, and let others turn them into fearful acts.  And so institutions changed, and society altered, and life became fear.

Americans don’t tend to learn from foreign examples or from the past.  We don’t recognize a politics of fear, which makes us vulnerable to it.  We assume that any action they take from personal fear must be justified.  And so we normalize fear, and spread it, and institutionalize it. 

The Republican Party is becoming a party of fear, in which Republicans fear other Republicans, fear their constituents, and fear Trump, which means fearing Russia.  Republicans enter the submission chain that binds them to Trump, and to Putin, and then rationalize what they have done.  From the position, actual cooperation with actual Russians no longer seems to be a problem, as we have just seen in the attempt to impeach Biden with the help of Russian lies, and for that matter in a series of events going back a decade.

Americans beyond the cult of MAGA submit in a different way.  They decide that the weak man is the strong man, and thereby make it so.  They instruct us, absurdly, that the war in Ukraine or the work of democracy makes us "fatigued."  If we think that labor and courage are bad things, we are conceding the point — and our democracy — to the weak man.  But the work itself is invigorating, and is the example of those doing the work.

American newspapers instruct us that Biden is old.  If he’s old (goes the thinking), he must be weak; and if he is weak, then we are permitted to give up.  But Biden is not weak.  He is not running away from prison, or from anything else.  He does not act from fear.  He gets work done.  His record is one of the strongest in the history of the American presidency.  And he went to Ukraine with zero military protection.  That was courageous.  No other president has ever done that. 

In Munich I thought of the Ukrainian writer Stanislav Aseyev, whom I last saw in Kyiv.  He survived a Russian torture camp, tracked down his own persecutor, and wrote a book about it.  Aseyev is now at the front in the Ukrainian army.  He doesn’t like being in a bunker, because it reminds him of his cell.  I saw another Ukrainian soldier I know at the conference.  The last time I talked to him he had his right pants leg tied below the amputation.  This time he had a prosthesis.  He stood and spoke of the “spirit of freedom.” 

It is absurd, in such a world, where so much is at stake, where so much is to be won, to speak of our “fatigue” either with the struggle in Ukraine or the struggle for our own democracy.  Doing so is the prologue to a story of weakness, which ends with the victory of the weak man.  When we fall in line behind the fearful, when we forget the “spirit of freedom,” we help the weak men create a politics of fear.  When we obey in advance, we invite the weak man to take power over our souls, which then means power over our politics.

In 2024, a year of war and a year of elections, a year that will test decency and democracy, the weak man wants to see his fear in our eyes.  We will need the courage to admire the courageous, and to say something that might feel risky.  For example: we believe in our values, and we believe in our strength.  Ukraine can win this war, Biden can win this election, and democracy can thrive.

[johnnyrobish]

Republican Lawmakers Make Plans to Override Ohio Abortion Vote

Republican state lawmakers on Thursday decided they were not going to allow Ohio voters, who had just passed a ballot measure (Issue 1) enshrining the right to abortion in the state constitution by a 56.6 to 43.4 margin, to implement that measure.  Claiming without any evidence that “Foreign Billionaires Don't Get to Make Ohio Laws,” Ohio GOP lawmakers announced plans to introduce several bills to override this ballot measure in the coming weeks.  Then, to seal the deal, Republicans declared, “To prevent mischief by ‘pro-abortion courts’ with Issue 1,” the Ohio Republican legislature “will make modifications to existing laws,” which would include removing jurisdiction on this issue from the judiciary and give it to the Republican legislature, basically removing voters and the courts from having any say on the issue whatsoever.

Why, if I didn’t know better, I’d almost think Republicans are justifying canceling Ohio voters’ choices by simply making some bogus claim about “foreign billionaires being behind Ohio’s pro-abortion vote.”  Of course, as we all know, when Republicans say “foreign billionaire,” they actually mean “George Soros.”  And when they say “George Soros,” they really mean “The Jews.”  That’s because “foreign billionaires” is what they have to say - when they really want to say “The Jews,” but they know they can’t say - “The Jews.”

The thing is, you can forget the foreign billionaires.  If Ohio Republicans get their way, “it’ll be the Ohio voters who won’t get to make Ohio laws.”  The fact is, Republicans see elections as nothing more than a “ceremonial activity.”  Oh sure, they’re OK with you deciding if an intersection should get a stop sign, but other than that, they believe only “Republican billionaires" should have a say in those laws that really count.  Not ordinary citizens, and especially not women or people of color.  We might get selfish and put our own and our families' interests before those of the corporations and their stockholders.

And while we’re on the topic of foreign billionaires, funny how Republicans seem to have somehow forgotten how much influence their favorite “foreign billionaires and oligarchs,” such as Vladimir Putin and Rupert Murdoch, have had on GOP policymaking.  Not to mention how dependent their “Orange Master” and his crime family have been on foreign money, just to keep afloat financially.

Despite all their attacks on America’s institutions and democracy itself, Republicans still swear they are the party of “Law and Order.”  Sure they are, just as long as its THEIR LAWS and THEIR ORDERS.  Otherwise, as Tony Soprano might have put it, “Forget about it!?  Of course, Ohio Republicans will claim they “listen to voters.”  Sure, they do.  But if they don’t like what they hear, they’ll pull any shenanigan necessary to undermine what they “heard.”

What’s important to remember here is how big Republicans are on “state’s rights.”  That is until a state passes a bill of which Republicans don’t approve.  Then, not so much!  Their state slogans should be something like, “Ohio, Florida, and Texas - where democracy goes to die.”  Its pretty obvious Republicans see elections as nothing more than “ceremonial activities.”  It all boils down to this, “Republican politicians don't want to govern - they want to rule,” and - there is a difference.

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve just read, please consider joining me at:

[scottiestoybox]

MOTHER JONES: Ron DeSantis Is All In—on Creating an American Autocracy

Ron DeSantis Is All In—on Creating an American Autocracy Ron DeSantis’ Florida is where democracy goes to die. Read in Mother Jones: https://apple.news/AbyUd_kvMTJ2X-55-Mst_fA Shared from Apple News Best Wishes and Hugs,Scottie

[theyoungturks]

Marjorie Taylor Greene Personally Attacks Eric Swalwell During Hearing | Ron DeSantis: "Florida Is Where Woke Goes To Die" | The Story Perfectly Illustrates How Democracy Is Bought In The United States | The World's Worst CEO BLASTS Nearly Everyone In His Company 230420__TB by The Young Turks

[the-official-account]

Edil's Long Ass Liveblog! s2e3 edition!

Okay so I have a lot of feelings about this episode, but I’ve gotta say it might be my favorite episode of desperado so far? Like I’m a MASSIVE fan of someone to dance with and the ending of s2e1 is a scene that will echo in my brain until I fucking die, but this one just had so much in it...like so much. Multiple things that i was like “wow I hope this shows up in desperado eventually!” happened this episode, and I feel just elated. Anyways enough pre liveblog rambles, here’s the tea.

also you know how it takes me like forever to finish an ep every Monday because I keep doing dumb shit and pausing to rant? Experienced today’s ep over a span of FIVE HOURS and let me tell ya I regret nothing I would do it again.

Also included: A running calculation of how much blood elio has vs. his usual amount. Ill put all that in red in cast that’s all you want this post for.

Okay the beginning of the ep is very rough. I was trying to make food and coffee and liveblog and listen at the same time and it did NOT work, so i paused to cook for a bit. A little sparse to start but I go back

minute one

Joan joining the girlboss covered in blood gang welcome. SEVEN MEN though? and they'll shoot you on site? sorry just how many guns do Americans have here?

IS THIS WHY THEY'RE IN FLORIDA????

more crown lore i find out & the more info i get about england the more fucked up this is

minute four

oh yeah that teleportation whit would fuck Shinji up huh? Didn't think about that 

tempest is here?? Oh I thought she had them on priority shipping 

[not edited afterthefact:] Minutes 1-3 had a lot of intersting stuff in it, but the cogs to analysis that haven't started turning in my brain yet. However, I was gonna say who's Coleman?/so the academy and the royal colleges are a DIFFERENT interesting/were they bad?/he's dead??/cece my love!! You are profound and unsettling.

Joan's whole dawn witch thing probably means she can heal up her tongue though, right? If she just learned to sign it

minute five

“you're the locals” no??? 

oh there she goes lol 

Catrina was like fuck mortality I don't need mortality also hello but please do away I'm scared for elio  [i cannot decipher this either]

I've gotta instance [???] maam I really don't think you'll survive that

minute six (okay here’s where the dozzy starts)

get his ass Shinji you are the only person with sense here

I mean Talia and elio are more powerful by proximity to home and Catrina killed an inquisitor no problem when she first awoke and that was before elio got training, so there's some precedent to say maybe theyre powerful enough to take on inquisitors but ??? I don't know they really don't have enough Intel to make that plan like it's nothing. Like, as soon as they wage the first battle they're gonna be TARGETS so they need to sit down with a map and research what places are in closet proximity that they can hit before they get discovered that yield the most net gain in allies but that's super underground information and these gods lost power like half a fucking century before the internet was invented???? I mean mind you maybe I'm just concerned about info going outdated because of a personal research endeavor. Maybe that's not something to worry about! But sorry the United States is a country with an INCREDIBLY diverse landscape (because it's FUCKIG MASSIVE) and idk! Maybe they have enough ancestral knowledge that it's not a worry but unfamiliar geopoliticial situations will FUCK. YOU. UP. I'm scared for them??? I don't know how warranted that is though there's just so many factors

and sorry not to wave around my general concern for democracy but England has been having king's for fucking ever. How is a centralized earth-connected power going to fare in the US which is much larger and I THINK made up of 3 countries depending  on how far this is going I still think this might have something to do with plate tectonics but I don't remember jackshit about American plates those are BORING. There are tons of ethnic groups native and nonnative vying for sovereignty? How big of a concern will that be? How can we guarantee that whoever gets a right to this new crown will have the interests of religious people in mind because tempest is still a witch and she clearly has no great love for them. Tempest mentioned something about the people wanting a wartime leader so the position of queen is probably at least somewhat elected but that's also a life position and is that enough? How do we know this host won't just become TOMITS to the left?

Many thoughts. Many questions. I'm definitely over thinking things at least a bit. But ??? War is not something you bumble into you are three people. THREE!!! What do you know about the suppressed religions of America's?? Their priorities and their values and morals?? How are you gonna do diplomacy without that knowledge?? War is like...a big deal lmao

"Just gonna find some food" ass you would be the first to perish in a Russian winter

go OFF king. You right 

oh.

OH???

interesting

besties I don't think geopolitics applies here

this is...this makes sense. Push a big enough house of cards over and a few of em will land where you want, right? Huh. 

minute seven

Shinji's proof that anxiety is a superpower when it's fucking warranted. That recoveries gonna be ROUGH taking notes but god they really need someone without godly hubris rn

Shinji??? Stop that??? Why are you in the air like fucking Rudolph can they not see you????

WHITE MIDDLE AGED STEVE JAMES CHRIS ——HELP it is too early in the morning to be laughing this loud. I know this is like an intense thing but also [Wheeze emoji] SORRY. As someone who also goes by one of those names. Yeah.

right, angel shit, I forgot. 

WAIT SO SHINJIS WINGS CAN GLOW ENOUGH TO BE I DESTINGUISHABKE FROM BIRDS WINGS?????? SO I DONT HAVE TO FUCKINF PAINT THEM????? HELLO????? or can angels have various wings...idk but they're so hard to paint man

minute eight

[re: shinji @ SJC] ominous ass what is wrong with him? This poor man

BITCH the FUCK

HELLO???? WHY THE FUCK??? CAN YOU NOT BE FUCKING NORMAL FOR ONCE IN YOUR GODDAMN IMMORTALITY SAMEDI WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU????

OOPS????

oh god why do I love [samedi] so much he sucks so bad.

minute nine

the old man loves cars. Yeeeeah that's why they're in Florida.

ope.

Hrunkgougkl?

[ID: the blinking whited guy meme.]

my brains buffering while I process the idea that a show can just be overt about racism in a way where POC have power but don't go unaffected by what's happening. Like LMAO get fucked it also WHEW.

OH I just realized what he was about to say. Yeah get FUCKED Shinji may I present ally of the year award. I don't think they're come up with any new slurs, so first of all, raw line. Not like in a way that it's cool? But, like, raw. Descriptors fail me. Also yeah that just went way over my head the first time. Too caught up in the high of Shinji murderous efficiency that I forgot the n word exists.

minute ten

OH YOU CHECKED HIM. YOU CHECK HIM FOR SURE If one is my friends desecrated the corpse of a violent racist I simply would not be disturbed. Rip to Shinji but I'm different.

“Now you're gonna make the kid cry?” No honey he told you there are two options and one of them is leaving your ass stranded and the other one is Steve James Chris.  Good for him.

The Baron and la Catrina are so goddamn annoying but I also like them a lot.

GET. HIS. ASS. GODTAMER!

what's wrong with elio tho. Nothing, right? Haha ....he's fine right?

deja Vu, god...fucking Florida. If Shinji feels one more SUD of pain I am going to collapse an die actually.

minute eleven

"like a garrison" that's really funny

minute twelve

oh this one has architecture, that's rare.

"yeah we hate to see it" THANK you talia.

minute thirteen

"a church is a church" thank you elio for this insight (joking, it was all very helpful) Please do arson? If I say pretty please can they do a dramatic arson? Please?

you know how you could creat chaos? Arson.

sorry but you don't edit explosions that good and make me not wanna pack as many as possible into an episode.

"we were three gods in a Prius" okay danger here I get that, that sucks, but this is really funny.

SO MANY SOUNDS AT ONCE, GOD.

minute fourteen

I really wish they discussed details on how The barons bone manipulation powers work and to what extent. Like I know they expected this to be easy but I'm still in the camp of Mr. 1 hit KO should know how he can feed Mr. And Ms.  "a Corpse is a power source if you know what your doing," yk, for situations like this

the Baron is playing GTA.

"weaknesses let's say" Jesus Christ. Shinji in one of the most triggering fucking situations on earth with all his friends fucking gone...god, ow. Sure Shinji might be a fictional entity that doesn't actually expirience emotions but I'M not

I'm gonna project into Shinji so hard actually I'm gonna write something that caters to me and like 2 other people it's gonna be wonderful

Not now ofc [I edit out all the timestamps of these for formatting but I need you to know this was sent at 10:11 and the first message was sent at about eight am. My brain needs to SIMMER on shit so...addressing a valid concern]

I am just over ¼ of the way through this episode holy fuck

episode fifteen

everything Shinji does this eintire episode has me going YES YES YES YES YES!!!!!!!!!  thank you tibet for this fucking delivery thank you Samy for the content holy FUCK.

HELP LMAO

minute sixteen

"surely that's not gonna work"  you're honor they're so fucking stupid like yes, she's essentially an incredibly adaptive immortal general who emphasizes protecting the weak and the prosecuted, stan-able behavior. Digital maps, though? Preposterous. One thing I love about desperado is it doesn't ask you to maintain a high level of emotional tension for an extended period of time outside of the really big climatic moments, there's enough not depressing shit to latch onto that it feels like sure I can't swim but I'm wearing a life jacket, which, for how the topic of race effects the target audience, is very useful and appreciated! The whiplash still gets me though I will NEVER get used to it and I don't think I want to

minute seventeen

I know we're only getting Joan in flickers and moments but I like her so much more in this season than the last. Fucking hated Joan before.

minute eighteen

”it was much more difficult without bassim” WHERE THE FUCK IS HE IM GONNA CRY WHERE IS MY GEM MY BELOVED RUBY MY LITTLE TINKERER HELLO?????

minute nineteen

I wonder exactly why the calisar affects and yes I'm sleeping that wrong for sure. Like Asher could handle it and he's a witch of like medium strength? (Placing Joan at medium high and tempest and Caleb at High, it's tuff competition I'm not trying to put him down) but he was a witch? How does it affect crusaders? How about other religious people, the Baron seemed to refer to it like a drug so he'll probably be okay. Hm. I guess we'll see.

Catrina clearly isn't as young as I thought but her manifestation is definitely new. Hm. Ruled an empire for hundreds of years...

minute twenty one

OOOOH JOAN PLEASE INTRODUCE SIGNING SPELLS TO THE AMERICAN WITCHES PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE THAT'S SUCH AN EDGE. Asl is hard but it's not THAT hard and signed exact English isn't, yk, culturally ideal but it should for for translating spells into silence so you only really need to learn the words...

minute twenty two

Shinji smart as fuck evaluating exactly where he can push the God's buttons. That's useful info (edited)

minute twenty four

holy shit this crown lore what the fuck

minute twenty five

LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE BRITISH CHARACTER MADE ME FALL ON LOVE WITH THEM BY FORCE I HAD NO FUCKING CHOICE IN RHE MATTER THAT THE FUCK

minute twenty six

this fucking wierdo doesn't know hot to breathe I love her

joans pulls an all nighter then is like "GOTTA GO FEED THE BLOOD CELLS" and passes the fuck out what an oddball I love her.

minute twenty seven

she's gonna stab this old man

I'm sorry but I need to dissect Joan like a frog in a middle school biology lab actually

minute twenty nine

for reference, two eintire bodies worth of blood is something like 6 times the usual amount elio is able to carry from himself

if she takes from the three guards that increases to about 16 times the amount of blood, adding some for roughly ten percent blood mass I've been dropping for estimations and assuming all of these people are roughly elio's size, and seeing as they're prison guards and worshippers of mr.holy steriods I'll give myself that

Shinji deserves this nap but oh boy wow

THEIR BODIES MOVE AGAIN WHEN I SAY I CHOKED AND FUCKING GASPED IS THIS WHAT I THINK IT IS?????

SWOON

GONNA ADD MECROMANCING DANCIN TO MY TALIA PLAYLIST THIS IS GEEAT THIS IS EVERYTHING TO ME

minute thirty

AND WHAT DID I FUCKING SAY ABOUT THE JDGKDHOSHSKS T RHEBFIFGCIDBTA IN SHD FUCKING THIS BRANCHING INTO A WAR OF MEDIA AND PERCEOTION????? SCREMAINING AMD L9OK9NG MY SHIT GEREVSKSHSKS IM SO 3XICTDJDIFNRJDKSH

minute thirty one

THE FUCKINF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH OF BATTLE DID I NOT MENTION THIS????? oh my god being wrong is a blast but being right is a blast in a different direction knashing my fucking teeth kicking screaming hooting hollering and generally boogieing down this is SO COOL

 I was gonna say I recognized the pattern of that speech but did not at all click translation appreciated

WHAT THE FUCK

WHAT THE FUCK DID SHE JUST DO TO HIM?? SOME SORT OF RED PLAGUE EQUIVALENT TRANSFORMATION?????

title spotted but in fucking wait

[translation Inaccute please see notes. Would you believe this was the first time I looked up what desperado means? kinda slow upstairs]

minute thirty two

Shinji Calls them stone demons so yeah, right? La catrina's using the crystal elio swallowed in episode 14 (what was is called again???) And that la Catrina is subpresding from taking over him to spread the red plague to whoever she wants to make more soldiers is actually deeply disturbing in some sense but really really cool in others I love how that episode tied back into the plot holy fuck

minute thirty three (another analysis heavy one, this time the baron and black masculinity)

the fact that Shinji keeps calling them their names also, god. IS SAMEDI GIVES TALI A FUCKINF NICOTINE ADDITION FOR HIS BULLSHIT I AM GOING TO STRANGLE HIM WITH MY OWN TWO HANDS WHAT A BITCH ASS USELESS FUCKING CLOWN SHE CLEARLY WOULDNT WANT THAT

I need to do more research on the nitty gritty of Haitian culture but i suspect it also falls into the overlap of American/carribean black culture in how black men feel a particular sense of entitlement to the bodies and labor of black woman like I adore the Baron as a character and I don't know if this was on accident, probably? but some of the shit he says and does so directly reflects black misogynior it makes me want to hurt him. I'm gonna say now though that nonblack people do not fucking critique him from that perspective. The line between valid criticisms of black men and racism with some white feminist glitter on top is fucking blurry, and even from black men and women the conversation too quickly descents into generalizations that stem from trauma and create a false sexual dichotomy that drives internalized race and colorism deeper into our community so when I say it's touchy, stay the fuck away, I mean that. Black men are still black and they're beautiful and they're allies and father's and uplifters, organizers and caregivers, and individuals who's value is not at all correlated to the labor they can offer others and their community but the Baron can go FUCK himself also. I'm gonna kill him

 I'm sorry but at the circus Talia directly expressed a dislike for the concept of coping with substance and that's such a fucked up choice to take away from somebody.

Oh God it's been an hour lmao [I got into a DIFFERENT conversation about themes of race in podcasting because im fucking asdklfasdfhaf edil only wants ONE THING and it’s FUCKING DISGUSTING]

My attention span is healthy and my executives love to function!

minute thirty four

"it was rage...and it latched onto me" LET HIM GO I WILL KILL YOU.

what. What. What what what I have so many things to ...look into? What. Shinji. Alarm

I don't think the massacre of Dojima (doshima?) Was a real event. Theres a violent event that does relate to that name but it's not called that...huh! Shinji is like a magician doing a scarves trick but instead of scarves it's an infinite string of lore and trauma

I need to study Shinji like a cool bug

is "crusaders after Asher" meaning after as in time or after as in chase? Idk

God, if the Baron wasnt in talia's body is give Shinji full rights to tear him to pieces with his bare hands.

get his ass.

minute thirty five

GET. HIS. ASS. GODTAMER. THATS A NAME THATS GONNA STICK NOW.

 "what do you need" is a small line to freak out about but !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Frenship :]....love and care, even.

scared for Talia rn but if I don't think about it enough It can't hurt me!

not friendship. Fear. Crying. hate it.

minute thirty six analysis here on catrina's relationship with violence

Again for reference, a 10 litre water cooler of blood is about 1.5 completely drained elio-sized people and 4.95 times the amount of blood he usually has on hand

I'm SO conflicted because on one hand Catrina can go FUCK herself right now but on the other hand I think I recognize the pattern of behavior as like, She knows Talia and the Baron will be fine, or at least things she knows, and she know she and Shinji aren't friends and therefore can't offer comfort because like fuck he's gonna accept that. So she's got priorities and it's a situation that means no way you spin it can Shinji get his needs met without derailing something major but of course HE doesn't know that he has no way of knowing he just has to endure the bullshit and it's not fair but they're fair from reaching the kind of world where fairness can be a concern. HOWEVER, I find it very very interesting that elio know Catrina as a very matronly goddess, someone who took care of her people first. However, and this makes me think towards what Samy said about Catrina not being the goddess elio think she is in that one Tumblr post that made me loose my shit because HELLO? She seems much more overtly war focused as if taking care of people is secondary. Now, there's a high chance she switches additudes with the environment, as most people do, but it's interesting to me how her constant ignoring of Shinji's expressions of emotion, though she is NOT invulnerable —and I think I might spy the pattern of having one character be largely unphased by another's expressions of power so that when that person, in this case Shinji, really well and truly blows up towards the climax, the observing character (catrina's) reaction of open fear and shock is a queue to the audience that shit is well and truly really spiralling outa control now — stands in direct contrast with Elio's perception, also curious about how this might reflect Mexican femininity if that's a part of this

minute 36

omg haha are you ignoring the inherent immorality of utilitarian revenge for the instinctual satasfaction of bringing a sense of justice for the grievances and atrocities committed against you and yours to the horror of possible allies and with an amount of collateral damage that will eventually be your victorious downfall in that the soil of the kingdom you now rule is rich with the blood of everyone who could have hurt your but still too desolate to plant the seeds of a new world ? Haha that's so cool...

[ID: the debby ryan hair tuck meme]

and I think elio's gonna balance the violence back out to it's some murder some sincere caring and that is chefs kiss

I hope lmao

I actually love disgusting wet and repulsive sounds design portraying biological slights against God rip to Shinji but I'm different.

FROGGIE? [i have priorities, clearly]

minute thirty eight

Samar would fucking hate this btw

like yes war of perception, perception is fear which creates demons but I think with her approach to fighting demons she'd be morally repulsed by the idea of breeding fear in the people you're trying to free. Sexy sexy conflict

minute thirty nine

no yeah "there are no innocents in these lands" places ya squarely in you can do fuck yourself territory. I hope Shinji fucking decks her.

minute fourty

dreamy sigh Shinji's such a fucking badass I think he should wreck shit more often I think he might enjoy arson he should do arson!

minute fourty

"perpendicular to the ground" ANIME SHIT—RAD.

Out of my chair

SHINJI MAKES HIS FAITH SHINJI MAKES HIS CONVICTION DID HE JUST FUCKING MAKE IT HEREDITARY?? OBSESSED WITH THE IMPLICATIONS OF THAT THREAT AND ALSO AAAAAAA HES SO COOOOOOOOL

minute fourty one

[re:samar] Ah he said it.

End of EP

yk, I'm happy with that

Fucking heaping serving of everything I could've wanted. 10/10.

in conclusion

after mellowing on it I mean...I have SO many thoughts. But my head is also super fucking empty at the same time. All of it was perfect, like, what? What do I even do about it? i just gush I guess.

[rainbowandstardust]

Death, a reappearing event in the Gandhi family

The Nehru-Gandhi family governed India for almost 50 years out of the total 74 years since our independence. As we approach our 75th Independence day, we should learn about the period of deaths the history of our politics saw in the early years. All of this started with the assassination of the father of India-"Mahatma Gandhi" who was not in politics but his death was the beginning of a series of deaths. First, let's rewind a little bit.

While there are various theories revolving around how the Gandhi name was acquired. The first story that I was told as a kid which has now been proven to be wrong by the internet goes as follows, Feroze Jehangir Ghandy was a Muslim and Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India did not approve of an inter-religion marriage of his daughter Indira Gandhi, the first and only woman prime minister of India. Mahatma Gandhi decided to adopt Feroze and then convince Jawaharlal Nehru to marry him with Indira. His name changed to Feroze Gandhi and Indira Nehru became Indira Gandhi. Thus, started the legacy of The Gandhi Family.

On further research from different articles on google, a different story was discovered. Feroze Ghandy was a Parsi and a politician along with being an activist who was inspired by the works of Mahatma Gandhi and hence changed the spelling of his surname. He married Indira Nehru who then became Indira Gandhi.

The first death the Gandhi family saw was Mahatma Gandhi's assassination which occurred on 30th January 1948 when Nathuram Godse shot 3 bullets for what he thought would lead him to be celebrated across the whole nation. Instead, he was hanged.

Indira Gandhi one the day of her death. She was wearing a beautiful saffron saree.

Then followed Indira Gandhi. While some people celebrate Indira Gandhi's era some believe it to be the darkest period of Indian democracy. She was shot 33 bullets on 31 October 1984 by her two Sikh bodyguards Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. Operation Blue Star was ordered by Indira Gandhi and was carried between 1 June to 8 June 1984. It was to remove leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex in Amritsar, Punjab. This operation led to many casualties from both sides and the reason many people turned against Indira Gandhi-The Iron Woman of India. Allegedly Indira Gandhi had predicted her own death a day before in her speech given at Bhubaneswar. She said, "I am here today, I may not be here tomorrow. Nobody knows how many attempts have been made to shoot me I do not care whether I live or die. I have lived a long life and I am proud that I spend the whole of my life in the service of my people." The Sikh bodyguards were to be removed after the blue star operation but Indira believed this would create her image as anti-Sikh, a life-threatening mistake she did. Following her death, riots broke out across the whole country.

Rajiv Gandhi was in Contai, 150 km away from Calcutta when Indira Gandhi was shot. He was asked to be the next prime minister following his mother's demise.

Rajiv Gandhi on the day of his death.

This was not the end of the circle of death looming over the Gandhi family. The successive prime minister Rajiv Gandhi took the office in 1984. He was the youngest prime minister of India at the age of 40 and governed from 1984-1989. Like Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi also anticipated his own death a few moments before the bombing. Neena Gopal asked Rajiv whether he felt his life was at risk, to which Rajiv Gandhi said, "Have you noticed how every time any South Asian leader of any import rises to a position of power or is about to achieve something for himself or his country, he is cut down, attacked, killed look at Mrs. Indira Gandhi, Sheikh Mujib, look at Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, at Zia-ul-Haq, Bandaranaike."

Gopal says within minutes of making the statement that hinted he was aware that he was a likely target of dark forces at play, Rajiv himself would be gone (Statement from India today). Following the Civil war in Sri Lanka, Rajiv Gandhi sent the military to end the uprising. Many soldiers lost their lives and LTTE could not be stopped. India then stopped its involvement in the Sri Lankan civil war, but LTTE became the enemy of Rajiv Gandhi.

He was campaigning in Madras on 21 May 1991. When he was on his way to deliver his speech, Thenmozhi Rajaratnam bent down to touch his feet and took out RDX explosive-laden belt from underneath her dress. Rajiv Gandhi, his assassin, along with 14 others died in the suicide bombing orchestrated by LTTE.

The LTTE leveraged genuine issues of linguistic discrimination, political disenfranchisement, and anti-Tamil riots in the island nation where Sinhalese-Buddhists are a majority — but adopted the politics of violence and terror as the method to attain their objective. And it was this terror that cost India’s former PM his life. (Hindustan Times)

LTTE then lost its support from Tamil. “Rajiv Gandhi was expected to come to power in the 1991 general elections. The results showed that in his death, he was stronger than in his life,” says Thiyagu.

Sanjay Gandhi in his plane

This was not all. Prior to these assassinations occurred the death of Sanjay Gandhi, the youngest son of Indira Gandhi. During the emergency period in India, Sanjay Gandhi is believed to have a really strong hold on what was happening around the country. He had a liking for adventures and did acrobats in planes. One day prior to his death he was travelling in the same plane with Maneka Gandhi who then came home and informed Indira about the plane ride, telling her to stop Sanjay from flying in that plane again. Indira talked to Sanjay about the safety of the plane. To which he replied that it would be fixed in 2-3 days. The very next day i.e 23 June 1980 Sanjay died in a plane crash. One more person who was flying the plane along with him died. He was supposed to be his mother's successor in politics.

There are many conspiracy theories regarding some of which state that Indira had her son killed. I don't think a mother and one like Indira Gandhi can do such a thing. After his death she said. "It feels like my right arm has been taken away." No one can understand the love of a mother. Moreover, there are no strong arguments backing up this conspiracy theory. One must keep in mind that Sanjay had a liking for adventures and he had been doing such acrobats in the planes for a long time. But, he was still not so experienced. It is most likely that it was an accidental death.

Rahul and Priyanka Gandhi

Flashforward to 2021 when Sonia Gandhi is the leader of the Indian National Congress, Rahul Gandhi is often portrayed as a person who is dumb in front of the public. One cannot neglect the fact that he and his sister, Priyanka Gandhi, and his brother, Varun Gandhi had a very traumatic childhood. At the mere age of 10, Rahul Gandhi saw his uncle's death followed by his grandmother who was killed by people he thought were his friends. In one of his interviews, he said he thought they were his friends. They once taught him to play badminton and out of anger, they killed his grandmother. Following Indira's death, Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi were homeschooled for security reasons. This led to their seclusion from society. After this when he was studying at Harvard he heard the news of his father's death. He shifted to Rollins College in Florida again for security reasons. The amount of trauma this family faced is a lot. Their childhood had been full of deaths and social seclusion. No one can even imagine the trauma surrounding the Gandhi family. Sonia had pleaded with Rahul not to take up politics, "I begged him not to let them do this. I pleaded with him, with others around him, too. He would be killed as well. He held my hands, hugged me, tried to soothe my desperation. He had no choice, he said, he would be killed anyway." What has politics ever given Rahul? It has taken away everything from him.

-Vrinda Kwatra

[creepingsharia]

Most if not all leftists who fought in Syria have Marxist, Socialist, Communist & antifa Ideology

And now they have jihadi, combat training.

A fascinating thread on a topic we’ve touched on in the past regarding blm and antifa training with jihadis.

Daniel Baker, included in the final DHS report and referenced in the screen shot below, is the antifa terrorist arrested days ago for plotting to kill Trump supporters in Florida.

Source: https://  twitter.com/We_Have_Risen

So, DHS tracked these left wing militants who aligned with Islamic terrorists but continued to publicly say that right-wing, white Americans were the greatest threat to America. Report below.

The Syrian conflict and US based Antifa Nexus…

Earlier this year parts of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) memo in conjunction with US Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) National Targeting Center (NTC) Counter Network Division (CND) report was released. It goes into detail on individuals encountered upon return from Syria that actively fought alongside the Yekîneyên Parastina Gel (YPG) which translates to the People’s Protection Units.

These individuals were members of the International Freedom Battalion (IFB), an armed group consisting of leftist foreign freedom fighters fighting for the YPG in the Syrian civil war support of the Rojava Revolution against ISIS. Open source research shows that most if not all have connections to Marxist, Socialist, Communist and Anti-Fascist ideology.

We were able to identify the recruiting website that is no longer up. In most cases the question of “how does one even join a Syrian rebel group” was answered. The website was call rojavaplan.com (archive).

Now the majority of recruiting is done through the Lions of Rojava Facebook page. All of this is very real despite what you might hear on from Mainstream Media. There have been a multitude of advisories by State Department and other agencies warning US citizens against traveling to Syria to engage in armed conflict.

US STATE DEPARTMENT ON AMERICAN VOLUNTEER FIGHTERS IN SYRIA

“The U.S. government particularly warns private U.S. citizens against traveling to Syria to engage in armed conflict. U.S. citizens who undertake such activity face extreme personal risks, including kidnapping, injury, or death. The U.S. government does not support this activity, and our ability to provide consular assistance to individuals who are injured or kidnapped, or to the families of individuals who die in the conflict, is extremely limited. Individuals who demonstrate an interest in groups opposing ISIS, including on social media, could open themselves to being targeted by ISIS itself if those individuals travel to Syria.”

“Fighting on behalf of or providing other forms of support to designated terrorist organizations, including ISIS and al-Nusrah Front, can constitute the provision of material support for terrorism, which is a crime under U.S. law that can result in penalties including prison time and large fines.”

Source: The State Department’s Syria travel warning

Despite all that, there have been many who have traveled to take part in the civil war. One of the main members of the IFB is Brace Robert Belden from San Francisco.

He is a self-identified Marxist, member of the Democrat Socialists of America, specifically the local Marxist caucus Red Star, and was responsible for unionizing Anchor Brewing Company.

Belden spent 6 months in Raqqa to fight alongside the YPG under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Belden was assigned as a machine gunner on a makeshift tank for the Raqqa campaign.

Belden served alongside another American named Lucas Chapman.

Chapman decided to volunteer for the Kurdish YPG Militia in 2016. According to Chapman, really it was the YPG's ideology that pulled him in:

"It's part Anarchism, part Communism, part Socialism," he explains. "Everyone gets a voice. That's what appealed to me so much about it."

Today, he works for the North American Kurdish Alliance (NAKA), a 501(c)4 nonprofit that lobbies for Kurdish rights in the US. They also hold rallies and help the families of Americans who’ve died in Syria fighting ISIS.

Another person included in the DHS report is Caleb David Stevens from Michigan. He first came to the attention of US authorities after stumbling into Chicago area emergency room with a gunshot wound sustained in Syria.

"I was in a unit of other Westerners. We had a Western commander, and then, eventually during my time there, I was leading half of the unit. Sometimes our days were training, studying Kurdish, talking. There were a lot of militant anarchists. There were some people who were there specifically because of their feminist beliefs. So, yeah, sort of people coming from all angles." Caleb Stevens – March 13, 2018

Steven’s joined through the Lions of Rojava Facebook after seeing an article in Rolling Stone highlighting Belden’s time in Raqqa. The front man for the Lions of Raqqa is an American named Jordan Matson from Sturtevant, Wisconsin.

From the Lions of Rojava Facebook “Fight for an emerging model of Equality, Freedom, Democracy and Social Justice in Syria and the middle east!”

Another Lions of Rojava recruit named in the DHS report is Ian Paul Broadhead from Wilmington, North Carolina. Since returning he has been arrested multiple times during riots and protests. A known Antifa/381 Movement member, he was arrested as recently as August 17, 2020, trying to pull down the Silent Sam statue.

Broadhead has a Podcast named “The Final Straw Program” where, like others, the full Anti-Fascist/Marxist ideology is on full display.

Serving in the YGP with Broadhead was Christopher Joseph Helali originally from Worcester, Massachusetts.

Christopher Helali is an American ethnic Kurd and Kurdish activist who has worked for the past few years with the Kurdish Liberation Movement. Christopher spent 2016 in Greece, working with Kurdish refugees from Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran in Anarchist squats as well as in the historic Lavrio camp outside of Athens. In January of 2017, Christopher traveled to Southern Kurdistan (KRG) in Northern Iraq where he spent time with the guerrillas of the PKK in the mountains and then crossed over into Rojava (Western Kurdistan), now known as the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria. Christopher was a member of the YPG for 9 months and returned from the region in September of 2017.

Now living in Vershire, Helali a member of the The Party of Communists USA (PCUSA), is a candidate for Vermont's at-large congressional district in 2020. This is the first time in 36 years since Marxist activists Gus Hall and Angela Davis ran for U.S. President and Vice President respectively.

Christopher Helali of Vershire announced on Aug. 3 that he will run for Vermont U.S. Representative as a Communist.

We are continuing to compile and track these Mercenaries. There are many Westerners who have joined the YGP with numbers that range from 300 to 1,000. Not all have made it back home, and just like ISIS and other Jihadi’s, they are considered Martyrs of the Lions of Rojava Resistance.

[ruanbaijie]

I'm an Asian immigrant living in Florida, and someone told me they hope everyone in my state dies in a hurricane bc my state voted red :)) I mean, political differences aside, wishing death upon someone is hands down awful (and I didn't even vote red smh) Like god, how awful do you need to be to wish for someone to die just bc they have the nerve to think differently from you (sorry, just wanted to rant bc I'm pissed and kinda hurt)

ahhh that really sucks and I hope you’re feeling better! (＞△＜Uu I do hope that was just the election fever talking because you’re right... to sincerely wish for someone to die is really hateful and to me kinda ironic in a democracy where the freedom of speech is valued. what I find a little worthy of indignation is also the line of thought that red won in that state = everyone there deserves to die whether they voted red or not (´･_･`) and it’s also ironic because this is the kind of hateful thought I’d expect from someone who would call themselves “pro-life” and then value an unborn foetus’ “life” more than its mother’s actual life, or someone who would say queer folks should not have rights, ... (the list goes on). it’s been a busy few days and it’s taken me a while to reply, but I really hope you’re feeling better by now! o(^-^)o

[nancypullen]

Whatcha’ Doing?

Biting your nails? Drinking to numb yourself? Crying into your pillow?  It’s November 4th in America and in true 2020 fashion, everything is insane.  Biden  has officially received more votes for president of the United States than any candidate in history, but because of our electoral college we still don’t have a winner.  Votes are still being counted in Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, and Nevada - all while Trump screams that he won and will take this to the Supreme Court (ya’ know, the one he stacked with unqualified but loyal judges).  HIs newest installment, Amy Coney Barrett, was one of three lawyers sent to Florida to stop vote counting in 2000 and hand the election to George W. Bush.  The other two were John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh.  Feel like you’re being played?  And while we’re on the subject of Amy Coney Barrett - let’s discuss her lack of qualifications to sit on the highest court in our nation.

She has 2 years in private practice.

She has never tried a case.

She has never argued an appeal.

She has never argued before the Supreme Court.

Most of her private work involved civil cases, not criminal.

She has 15 years teaching experience. She did not serve as a judge until 2017. Folks, this is not a great legal mind who has earned the right to a seat on SCOTUS,  this is a minion being rewarded.  Just like the unqualified Kavanaugh who was recently blasted by attorneys and politicians because his written opinion on the court’s decision not to extend Wisconsin’s mail-in voting deadline  contained misinformation and was so poorly written and cited that it had kids in law school shaking their heads.  The only thing he needed on his resume was his loyalty to Trump and the seat was his.  Kavanaugh worked inside the George W. Bush White House and has been accused of a lot of dirty dealings.  That must have thrilled Trump.  So if this election is so close that it goes to the Supreme Court, we’re in the hands of idiots.  I’m appalled that it’s even close.  It shouldn’t be.  This was the easiest vote of my lifetime - decency or destruction.  I wanted to say decency or dumbass, but I’m a lady. Having said all of that, and freely admitting that I’m on edge, I understand that it is out of my hands.  Do I feel like rioting in the streets and demanding the return of my country’s democracy? Yep.  But I have to wait. I have to believe that as the votes are counted, goodness will prevail.  If not...well, I hear that Portugal is a lovely spot for ex-pats.  Good climate, great quality of life, low cost of living, and of course, universal healthcare.  I’ve started practicing a bit of Portuguese. Just the really important stuff, like...Onde fica a Sephora?  Where is Sephora?   I may end up a woman without a country but I’m still going to need lipstick. All kidding aside, the waiting is difficult but I’m hoping it’s worth it.  I’m hoping that votes aren’t stolen or buried, I’m hoping that the country I believed in is still there.  I envy the folks who shrug and trot on with their lives as if it doesn’t matter who is in the people’s house.  I mean, my life won’t change much either - I’m not a gay person who wants protection at work,  I’m not an immigrant, brought here as a child, hoping to contribute and become part of the beautiful American tapestry,  I’m not a young woman who wants the right to control my own body and make my own healthcare decisions,  I don’t need birth control.  I’m not a Native American who wants to protect the small pieces of sacred land that have been left to me.  I’m not a scientist who has been working around the clock for the better part of 2020 trying to save lives only to be called a fraud.  I’m not a black American who heard the president say that torch carrying white supremacists were “very fine people”.  I’m just a middle-class, middle-aged, white woman who thinks that every one of those Americans deserves to feel safe and be heard.  I’m just a citizen who thinks that every vote should count and that we should not be ruled by a loud minority.  I’m an American who thinks that children don’t belong in cages and people shouldn’t die because they don’t have insurance.  I know that I’m not wrong.

It truly is just that simple. How dare anyone claim otherwise?  I also happen to think that our leaders should be expected to tell the truth and defer to experts rather than lie and contribute to the deaths of over 230,000 Americans. The pandemic should never have reached this point.   So we wait...and wait...( a friend compared it to waiting for biopsy results) and hope that the corrupt, behind-the-scenes manipulations weren’t enough to rob us of our democracy.  We’re living through an era in American history that will be discussed for decades to come.  I will always have the comfort of knowing that I fell on the right side, the side that chose the good of the many over the bank accounts of the few.  Decency over destruction.  Kindness over selfishness.  Biden over Trump.  Maybe we’ll have a result tomorrow. Maybe we won’t know for a month.  Like everything else this year, it won’t be easy. Hang in there, keep the faith, stay safe and well. XOXO, Nancy

[deargodsno]

The inaugural hearing of the congressional investigation into Jan. 6 kicked off with a palpable display of anguish from four officers who worked to hold the line that day as pro-Trump supporters sought to storm the Capitol and overthrow the U.S. government. "Terrorists" was the word several officers invoked to describe the perpetrators of the Jan. 6 insurrection, and the four officers left no doubt about who incited them to action: Donald Trump. "All of them—all of them were telling us Trump sent us," testified Sgt. Aquilino Gonell of the U.S. Capitol Police. "Nobody else—there was nobody else. It was not antifa, it was not Black Lives Matter, it was not the FBI. It was his supporters that he sent them over to the Capitol that day."

The vivid testimony left no doubt about the violence the pro-Trump terrorists unleashed on the U.S. Capitol Police and D.C. Metropolitan Police forces laboring to defend the Capitol complex that day. "What we were subjected to that day was like something from a medieval battle. We fought hand to hand, inch by inch, to prevent an invasion of the Capitol," recounted Sgt. Gonell. "I vividly heard officers screaming in agony, in pain, just an arm's length from me," Gonell said, noting that some of those cries were coming from MPD officer Daniel Hodges, who was wedged in a doorway by attackers in video that later went viral. "I too was being crushed by the rioters," Gonell continued, "I could feel myself losing oxygen and recall thinking to myself, 'This is how I'm gonna die.' "Officer Hodges recalled wrestling with a rioter for control of his baton. "I retained my weapon," he said. "After I pushed him back, he yelled at me, 'You're on the wrong team!'... Another [shouted], 'You will die on your knees!'"

The harrowing testimony also made crystal clear that none of what unfolded on Jan. 6 is over for these officers. The weight of hearing each others' testimony appeared to bear down on the officers as they listened to their colleagues’ dramatic accounts. But they not only bear the scars of the violence itself, they also continue to be traumatized by the efforts of GOP lawmakers to gaslight the horrific event out of the nation's conscience. "What makes the struggle harder and more painful is to know so many of my fellow citizens, including so many of the people I put my life at risk to defend, are downplaying or outright denying what happened," explained MPD Officer Michael Fanone, a self-identified Republican who has become an outspoken critic of those trying to whitewash the actions of the mob. "I feel like I went to hell and back to protect them and the people in this room, but too many are now telling me that hell doesn't exist or that hell actually wasn't that bad." "The indifference shown to my colleagues is disgraceful!" Fanone continued, angrily slamming his fist to the desk in one of the most powerful passages during the opening statements. Fanone said his law enforcement training had prepared him to deal with some aspects of the siege and its aftermath. "But nothing—truly nothing—has prepared me to address those elected members of our government who continue to deny the events of that day, and in doing so, betray their oath of office," he added.

Fanone later, without explicitly identifying parties, called the members of government who helped incite the riot and then later tried to whitewash the events "representative of the worst that America has to offer." Capitol Police Pfc. Harry Dunn told the committee he has sought therapy and continues to struggle with emotional scars left by the assault, which became racially charged for him as a Black member of law enforcement. "January 6 isn't over for me," he said bluntly.

At one point, Dunn described the terrorists turning on him after they asserted that "nobody" had voted for Joe Biden. Despite the fact that Dunn said he usually tries to keep politics out of his job, he challenged the assertion. "Well, I voted for Joe Biden," he offered. "Does my vote not count, am I 'nobody?' "That triggered what Dunn described as a "torrent" of racially offensive epithets. "You hear that guys, this n***** voted for Joe Biden," one rioter said. "Boooo! Fucking n****!" they screamed, recalled Dunn. "No one had ever, ever, called me a n***** while wearing the uniform of a Capitol Police Officer," Dunn added. Dunn joined the other officers in urging the panel to "get to the bottom" of what happened on Jan. 6. "If a hitman is hired, and he kills somebody, the hitman goes to the jail," he told the committee. "But not only does the hitman go to jail, but the person who hired them does. There was an attack carried out on January 6 and a hit man sent them. I want you to get to the bottom of that."

While the officers' gripping personal accounts figured most prominently on the day, another notable feature of the hearing was the two Republican members of the committee performing their congressional duties like duty-bound, reality-based individuals. "If those responsible are not held accountable, and if Congress does not act responsibly, this will remain a cancer on our constitutional republic, undermining the peaceful transfer of power at the heart of our democracy system," GOP Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming offered during her opening statement as the hearing began. The other Republican member of the panel, Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, expressed his deep gratitude to the officers in a rare show of emotion. While they may “individually feel a little broken," Kinzinger said, choking up, "You guys won, you guys held. Democracies are not defined by our bad days," he continued, "We're defined by how we come back from bad days—how we take accountability for that."

Democratic Rep. Stephanie Murphy of Florida also extended her deep gratitude to the officers. She recounted being trapped in a small basement office with another Democratic member, Rep. Kathleen Rice of New York, only 40 feet away from where Gonell and Hodges were working with other officers to hold back the mob. They could hear it all. "I listened to you struggle. I listened to you yelling out to one another. I listened to you care for one another," Murphy said. "I'm telling you, you were our last line of defense," she added. Murphy said their efforts afforded both congresswomen the chance to escape to safety down another hallway. "I think it's important for everybody, though, to remember that the main reason rioters didn't harm any members of Congress was because they didn't encounter any members of Congress," Murphy said. "I have a ten-year-old son and a seven-year-old daughter, and they're the light of my life," she offered on a more personal note. "And the reason I was able to hug them again was because of the courage that you and your fellow officers showed that day, and so just a really heartfelt thank you."

The first hearing of the select committee to investigate Jan. 6 provided a compelling, sometimes excruciating window into the events of that day and its aftermath as experienced by some of the heroic officers who managed to keep lawmakers safe at great cost to themselves. The notable absence of any delusional GOP flamethrowers was a welcome reprieve from the way House Republicans have disgraced nearly every other proceeding over at least the last handful of years. The nation owes these women and men in uniform a profound debt of gratitude for protecting our democracy against the fascist insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol. Four of those officers were able to speak for themselves today—to tell their stories—without the insulting distractions of GOP lawmakers seeking to score political points with Donald Trump. That uninterrupted testimony was made possible by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who blocked GOP attempts to inject the hearing with their usual brand of delusional insolence. Pelosi undoubtedly made the right call by the officers, the congressional members they solemnly worked to defend, and the nation as a whole.

[gordonwilliamsweb]

Lie of the Year: The Downplay and Denial of the Coronavirus

This story was produced in partnership with PolitiFact. It can be republished for free.

A Florida taxi driver and his wife had seen enough conspiracy theories online to believe the virus was overblown, maybe even a hoax. So no masks for them. Then they got sick. She died. A college lecturer had trouble refilling her lupus drug after the president promoted it as a treatment for the new disease. A hospital nurse broke down when an ICU patient insisted his illness was nothing worse than the flu, oblivious to the silence in beds next door.   

Lies infected America in 2020. The very worst were not just damaging, but deadly. 

President Donald Trump fueled confusion and conspiracies from the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. He embraced theories that COVID-19 accounted for only a small fraction of the thousands upon thousands of deaths. He undermined public health guidance for wearing masks and cast Dr. Anthony Fauci as an unreliable flip-flopper. 

But the infodemic was not the work of a single person. 

Anonymous bad actors offered up junk science. Online skeptics made bogus accusations that hospitals padded their coronavirus case numbers to generate bonus payments. Influential TV and radio opinion hosts told millions of viewers that physical distancing was a joke and that states had all of the personal protective equipment they needed (when they didn’t).

It was a symphony of counter-narrative, and Trump was the conductor, if not the composer. The message: The threat to your health was overhyped to hurt the political fortunes of the president. 

Every year, PolitiFact editors review the year’s most inaccurate statements to elevate one as the Lie of the Year. The “award” goes to a statement, or a collection of claims, that prove to be of substantive consequence in undermining reality. 

It has become harder and harder to choose when cynical pundits and politicians don’t pay much of a price for saying things that aren’t true. For the past month, unproven claims of massive election fraud have tested democratic institutions and certainly qualify as historic and dangerously baldfaced. Fortunately, the constitutional foundations that undergird American democracy are holding. 

Meanwhile, the coronavirus has killed more than 300,000 in the United States, a crisis exacerbated by the reckless spread of falsehoods.

PolitiFact’s 2020 Lie of the Year: claims that deny, downplay or disinform about COVID-19. 

‘I Wanted to Always Play It Down’

On Feb. 7, Trump leveled with book author Bob Woodward about the dangers of the new virus that was spreading across the world, originating in central China. He told the legendary reporter that the virus was airborne, tricky and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

Trump told the public something else. On Feb. 26, the president appeared with his coronavirus task force in the crowded White House briefing room. A reporter asked if he was telling healthy Americans not to change their behavior.

“Wash your hands, stay clean. You don’t have to necessarily grab every handrail unless you have to,” he said, the room chuckling. “I mean, view this the same as the flu.”

Three weeks later, March 19, he acknowledged to Woodward: “To be honest with you, I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down. Because I don’t want to create a panic.”

His acolytes in politics and the media were on the same page. Rush Limbaugh told his audience of about 15 million on Feb. 24 that the coronavirus was being weaponized against Trump when it was just “the common cold, folks.” That’s wrong — even in the early weeks, it was clear the virus had a higher fatality rate than the common cold, with worse potential side effects, too.

As the virus was spreading, so was the message to downplay it. 

“There are lots of sources of misinformation, and there are lots of elected officials besides Trump that have not taken the virus seriously or promoted misinformation,” said Brendan Nyhan, a government professor at Dartmouth College. “It’s not solely a Trump story — and it’s important to not take everyone else’s role out of the narrative.” 

Hijacking the Numbers 

In August, there was a growing movement on Twitter to question the disproportionately high U.S. COVID-19 death toll.  

The skeptics cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data to claim that only 6% of COVID-19 deaths could actually be attributed to the virus. On Aug. 24, BlazeTV host Steve Deace amplified it on Facebook.

“Here’s the percentage of people who died OF or FROM Covid with no underlying comorbidity,” he said to his 120,000 followers. “According to CDC, that is just 6% of the deaths WITH Covid so far.”

That misrepresented the reality of coronavirus deaths. The CDC had always said people with underlying health problems — comorbidities — were most vulnerable if they caught COVID-19. The report was noting that 6% died even without being at obvious risk. 

But for those skeptical of COVID-19, the narrative confirmed their beliefs. Facebook users copied and pasted language from influencers like Amiri King, who had 2.2 million Facebook followers before he was banned. The Gateway Pundit called it a “SHOCK REPORT.”

“I saw a statistic come out the other day, talking about only 6% of the people actually died from COVID, which is very interesting — that they died from other reasons,” Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Sept. 1.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addressed the claim on “Good Morning America” the same day. 

“The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of them had nothing else but just COVID,” he said. “That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn’t die of COVID-19 — they did.”

Trump retweeted the message from an account that sported the slogans and symbols of QAnon, a conspiracy movement that claims Democrats and Hollywood elites are members of an underground pedophilia ring. 

False information moved between social media, Trump and TV, creating its own feedback loop.

“It’s an echo effect of sorts, where Donald Trump is certainly looking for information that resonates with his audiences and that supports his political objectives. And his audiences are looking to be amplified, so they’re incentivized to get him their information,” said Kate Starbird, an associate professor and misinformation expert at the University of Washington.

Weakening the Armor: Misleading on Masks

At the start of the pandemic, the CDC told healthy people not to wear masks, saying they were needed for health care providers on the front lines. But on April 3 the agency changed its guidelines, saying every American should wear non-medical cloth masks in public.

Trump announced the CDC’s guidance, then gutted it.

“So it’s voluntary. You don’t have to do it. They suggested for a period of time, but this is voluntary,” Trump said at a press briefing. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.”

Rather than an advance in best practices on coronavirus prevention, face masks turned into a dividing line between Trump’s political calculations and his decision-making as president. Americans didn’t see Trump wearing a mask until a July visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Meanwhile, disinformers flooded the internet with wild claims: Masks reduced oxygen. Masks trapped fungus. Masks trapped coronavirus. Masks just didn’t work.

In September, the CDC reported a correlation between people who went to bars and restaurants, where masks can’t consistently be worn, and positive COVID-19 test results. Bloggers and skeptical news outlets countered with a misleading report about masks.

On Oct. 13, the story landed on Fox News’ flagship show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” During the show, Carlson claimed “almost everyone — 85% — who got the coronavirus in July was wearing a mask.”

“So clearly [wearing a mask] doesn’t work the way they tell us it works,” Carlson said.

That’s wrong, and it misrepresented a small sample of people who tested positive. Public health officials and infectious disease experts have been consistent since April in saying that face masks are among the best ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

But two days later, Trump repeated the 85% stat during a rally and at a town hall with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. 

“I tell people, wear masks,” he said at the town hall. “But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it.”

The Assault on Hospitals 

On March 24, registered nurse Melissa Steiner worked her first shift in the new COVID-19 ICU of her southeastern Michigan hospital. After her 13-hour workday caring for two critically ill patients on ventilators, she posted a tearful video.

“Honestly, guys, it felt like I was working in a war zone,” Steiner said. “[I was] completely isolated from my team members, limited resources, limited supplies, limited responses from physicians because they’re just as overwhelmed.” 

“I’m already breaking, so for f—’s sake, people, please take this seriously. This is so bad.”

Steiner’s post was one of many emotional pleas offered by overwhelmed hospital workers last spring urging people to take the threat seriously. The denialists mounted a counteroffensive.

On March 28, Todd Starnes, a conservative radio host and commentator, tweeted a video from outside Brooklyn Hospital Center. There were few people or cars in sight.

“This is the ‘war zone’ outside the hospital in my Brooklyn neighborhood,” Starnes said sarcastically. The video racked up more than 1.5 million views.

Starnes’ video was one of the first examples of #FilmYourHospital, a conspiratorial social media trend that pushed back on the idea that hospitals had been strained by a rapid influx of coronavirus patients. 

Several internet personalities asked people to go out and shoot their own videos. The result: a series of user-generated clips taken outside hospitals, where the response to the pandemic was not easily seen. Over the course of a week, #FilmYourHospital videos were uploaded to YouTube and posted tens of thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook.

Nearly two weeks and more than 10,000 deaths later, Fox News featured a guest who opened a new misinformation assault on hospitals.

Dr. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota physician and Republican state senator, told Ingraham that, because hospitals were receiving more money for COVID-19 patients on Medicare — a result of a coronavirus stimulus bill — they were overcounting COVID-19 cases. He had no proof of fraud, but the cynical story took off. 

Trump used the false report on the campaign trail to continue to minimize the death toll. 

“Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Waterford, Michigan, on Oct. 30. “You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, ‘I’m sorry, but, you know, everybody dies of COVID.’”  

The Real Fake News: The Plandemic

The most viral disinformation of the pandemic was styled to look as if it had the blessing of people Americans trust: scientists and doctors.

In a 26-minute video called “Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind COVID-19,” a former scientist at the National Cancer Institute claimed the virus was manipulated in a lab, hydroxychloroquine is effective against coronaviruses, and face masks make people sick. 

Judy Mikovits’ conspiracies received more than 8 million views, partly credited to the online outrage machine — anti-vaccine activists, anti-lockdown groups and QAnon supporters — that push disinformation into the mainstream. The video was circulated in a coordinated effort to promote Mikovits’ book release.

Around the same time, a similar effort propelled another video of fact-averse doctors to millions of people in only a few hours. 

On July 27, Breitbart published a clip of a press conference hosted by a group called America’s Frontline Doctors in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Looking authoritative in white lab coats, these doctors discouraged mask-wearing and falsely said there was already a cure in hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

Trump, who had been talking up the drug since March and claimed to be taking it himself as a preventive measure in May, retweeted clips of the event before Twitter removed them as misinformation about COVID-19. He defended the “very respected doctors” in a July 28 press conference. 

When Olga Lucia Torres, a lecturer at Columbia University, heard Trump touting the drug in March, she knew it didn’t bode well for her own prescription. Sure enough, the misinformation led to a run on hydroxychloroquine, creating a shortage for Americans like her who needed the drug for chronic conditions. 

A lupus patient, she went to her local pharmacy to request a 90-day supply of the medication. But she was told they were granting only partial refills. It took her three weeks to get her medication through the mail. 

“What about all the people who were silenced and just lost access to their staple medication because people ran to their doctors and begged to take it?” Torres said.

No Sickbed Conversion

On Sept. 26, Trump hosted a Rose Garden ceremony to announce his nominee to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court. More than 150 people attended the event introducing Amy Coney Barrett. Few wore masks, and the chairs weren’t spaced out.

In the weeks afterward, more than two dozen people close to Trump and the White House became infected with COVID-19. Early on Oct. 2, Trump announced his positive test.

Those hoping the experience and Trump’s successful treatment at Walter Reed might inform his view of the coronavirus were disappointed. Trump snapped back into minimizing the threat during his first moments back at the White House. He yanked off his mask and recorded a video.

“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it,” he said, describing experimental and mostly out-of-reach therapies he received. “You’re going to beat it.” 

In Trump’s telling, his hospitalization was not the product of poor judgment about large gatherings like the Rose Garden event, but the consequence of leading with bravery. Plus, now, he claimed, he had immunity to the virus.

On the morning after he returned from Walter Reed, Trump tweeted a seasonal flu death count of 100,000 lives and added that COVID-19 was “far less lethal” for most populations. More false claims at odds with data — the U.S. average for flu deaths over the past decade is 36,000, and experts said COVID-19 is more deadly for each age group over 30.

When Trump left the hospital, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 was more than 200,000. Today it is more than 300,000. Meanwhile, this month the president has gone ahead with a series of indoor holiday parties. 

The Vaccine War 

The vaccine disinformation campaign started in the spring but is still underway.

In April, blogs and social media users falsely claimed Democrats and powerful figures like Bill Gates wanted to use microchips to track which Americans had been vaccinated for the coronavirus. Now, false claims are taking aim at vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech and other companies.

A blogger claimed Pfizer’s head of research said the coronavirus vaccine could cause female infertility. That’s false.

An alternative health website wrote that the vaccine could cause an array of life-threatening side effects, and that the FDA knew about it. The list included all possible — not confirmed— side effects.

Social media users speculated that the federal government would force Americans to receive the vaccine. Neither Trump nor President-elect Joe Biden has advocated for that, and the federal government doesn’t have the power to mandate vaccines, anyway.

As is often the case with disinformation, the strategy is to deliver it with a charade of certainty. 

“People are anxious and scared right now,” said Dr. Seema Yasmin, director of research and education programs at the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. “They’re looking for a whole picture.” 

Most polls have shown far from universal acceptance of vaccines, with only 50% to 70% of respondents willing to take the vaccine. Black and Hispanic Americans are even less likely to take it so far.

Meanwhile, the future course of the coronavirus in the U.S. depends on whether Americans take public health guidance to heart. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projected that, without mask mandates or a rapid vaccine rollout, the death toll could rise to more than 500,000 by April 2021.

“How can we come to terms with all that when people are living in separate informational realities?” Starbird said.

PolitiFact staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

Note: Readers can find the detailed source list for this story, as well as PolitiFact’s related coverage, or vote in the Lie of the Year Readers’ Choice Poll at PolitiFact.com.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

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Lie of the Year: The Downplay and Denial of the Coronavirus published first on https://nootropicspowdersupplier.tumblr.com/

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Lie of the Year: The Downplay and Denial of the Coronavirus

This story was produced in partnership with PolitiFact. It can be republished for free.

A Florida taxi driver and his wife had seen enough conspiracy theories online to believe the virus was overblown, maybe even a hoax. So no masks for them. Then they got sick. She died. A college lecturer had trouble refilling her lupus drug after the president promoted it as a treatment for the new disease. A hospital nurse broke down when an ICU patient insisted his illness was nothing worse than the flu, oblivious to the silence in beds next door.   

Lies infected America in 2020. The very worst were not just damaging, but deadly. 

President Donald Trump fueled confusion and conspiracies from the earliest days of the coronavirus pandemic. He embraced theories that COVID-19 accounted for only a small fraction of the thousands upon thousands of deaths. He undermined public health guidance for wearing masks and cast Dr. Anthony Fauci as an unreliable flip-flopper. 

But the infodemic was not the work of a single person. 

Anonymous bad actors offered up junk science. Online skeptics made bogus accusations that hospitals padded their coronavirus case numbers to generate bonus payments. Influential TV and radio opinion hosts told millions of viewers that physical distancing was a joke and that states had all of the personal protective equipment they needed (when they didn’t).

It was a symphony of counter-narrative, and Trump was the conductor, if not the composer. The message: The threat to your health was overhyped to hurt the political fortunes of the president. 

Every year, PolitiFact editors review the year’s most inaccurate statements to elevate one as the Lie of the Year. The “award” goes to a statement, or a collection of claims, that prove to be of substantive consequence in undermining reality. 

It has become harder and harder to choose when cynical pundits and politicians don’t pay much of a price for saying things that aren’t true. For the past month, unproven claims of massive election fraud have tested democratic institutions and certainly qualify as historic and dangerously baldfaced. Fortunately, the constitutional foundations that undergird American democracy are holding. 

Meanwhile, the coronavirus has killed more than 300,000 in the United States, a crisis exacerbated by the reckless spread of falsehoods.

PolitiFact’s 2020 Lie of the Year: claims that deny, downplay or disinform about COVID-19. 

‘I Wanted to Always Play It Down’

On Feb. 7, Trump leveled with book author Bob Woodward about the dangers of the new virus that was spreading across the world, originating in central China. He told the legendary reporter that the virus was airborne, tricky and “more deadly than even your strenuous flus.”

Trump told the public something else. On Feb. 26, the president appeared with his coronavirus task force in the crowded White House briefing room. A reporter asked if he was telling healthy Americans not to change their behavior.

“Wash your hands, stay clean. You don’t have to necessarily grab every handrail unless you have to,” he said, the room chuckling. “I mean, view this the same as the flu.”

Three weeks later, March 19, he acknowledged to Woodward: “To be honest with you, I wanted to always play it down. I still like playing it down. Because I don’t want to create a panic.”

His acolytes in politics and the media were on the same page. Rush Limbaugh told his audience of about 15 million on Feb. 24 that the coronavirus was being weaponized against Trump when it was just “the common cold, folks.” That’s wrong — even in the early weeks, it was clear the virus had a higher fatality rate than the common cold, with worse potential side effects, too.

As the virus was spreading, so was the message to downplay it. 

“There are lots of sources of misinformation, and there are lots of elected officials besides Trump that have not taken the virus seriously or promoted misinformation,” said Brendan Nyhan, a government professor at Dartmouth College. “It’s not solely a Trump story — and it’s important to not take everyone else’s role out of the narrative.” 

Hijacking the Numbers 

In August, there was a growing movement on Twitter to question the disproportionately high U.S. COVID-19 death toll.  

The skeptics cited Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data to claim that only 6% of COVID-19 deaths could actually be attributed to the virus. On Aug. 24, BlazeTV host Steve Deace amplified it on Facebook.

“Here’s the percentage of people who died OF or FROM Covid with no underlying comorbidity,” he said to his 120,000 followers. “According to CDC, that is just 6% of the deaths WITH Covid so far.”

That misrepresented the reality of coronavirus deaths. The CDC had always said people with underlying health problems — comorbidities — were most vulnerable if they caught COVID-19. The report was noting that 6% died even without being at obvious risk. 

But for those skeptical of COVID-19, the narrative confirmed their beliefs. Facebook users copied and pasted language from influencers like Amiri King, who had 2.2 million Facebook followers before he was banned. The Gateway Pundit called it a “SHOCK REPORT.”

“I saw a statistic come out the other day, talking about only 6% of the people actually died from COVID, which is very interesting — that they died from other reasons,” Trump told Fox News host Laura Ingraham on Sept. 1.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, addressed the claim on “Good Morning America” the same day. 

“The point that the CDC was trying to make was that a certain percentage of them had nothing else but just COVID,” he said. “That does not mean that someone who has hypertension or diabetes who dies of COVID didn’t die of COVID-19 — they did.”

Trump retweeted the message from an account that sported the slogans and symbols of QAnon, a conspiracy movement that claims Democrats and Hollywood elites are members of an underground pedophilia ring. 

False information moved between social media, Trump and TV, creating its own feedback loop.

“It’s an echo effect of sorts, where Donald Trump is certainly looking for information that resonates with his audiences and that supports his political objectives. And his audiences are looking to be amplified, so they’re incentivized to get him their information,” said Kate Starbird, an associate professor and misinformation expert at the University of Washington.

Weakening the Armor: Misleading on Masks

At the start of the pandemic, the CDC told healthy people not to wear masks, saying they were needed for health care providers on the front lines. But on April 3 the agency changed its guidelines, saying every American should wear non-medical cloth masks in public.

Trump announced the CDC’s guidance, then gutted it.

“So it’s voluntary. You don’t have to do it. They suggested for a period of time, but this is voluntary,” Trump said at a press briefing. “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it.”

Rather than an advance in best practices on coronavirus prevention, face masks turned into a dividing line between Trump’s political calculations and his decision-making as president. Americans didn’t see Trump wearing a mask until a July visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Meanwhile, disinformers flooded the internet with wild claims: Masks reduced oxygen. Masks trapped fungus. Masks trapped coronavirus. Masks just didn’t work.

In September, the CDC reported a correlation between people who went to bars and restaurants, where masks can’t consistently be worn, and positive COVID-19 test results. Bloggers and skeptical news outlets countered with a misleading report about masks.

On Oct. 13, the story landed on Fox News’ flagship show, “Tucker Carlson Tonight.” During the show, Carlson claimed “almost everyone — 85% — who got the coronavirus in July was wearing a mask.”

“So clearly [wearing a mask] doesn’t work the way they tell us it works,” Carlson said.

That’s wrong, and it misrepresented a small sample of people who tested positive. Public health officials and infectious disease experts have been consistent since April in saying that face masks are among the best ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

But two days later, Trump repeated the 85% stat during a rally and at a town hall with NBC’s Savannah Guthrie. 

“I tell people, wear masks,” he said at the town hall. “But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85% of the people that wear masks catch it.”

The Assault on Hospitals 

On March 24, registered nurse Melissa Steiner worked her first shift in the new COVID-19 ICU of her southeastern Michigan hospital. After her 13-hour workday caring for two critically ill patients on ventilators, she posted a tearful video.

“Honestly, guys, it felt like I was working in a war zone,” Steiner said. “[I was] completely isolated from my team members, limited resources, limited supplies, limited responses from physicians because they’re just as overwhelmed.” 

“I’m already breaking, so for f—’s sake, people, please take this seriously. This is so bad.”

Steiner’s post was one of many emotional pleas offered by overwhelmed hospital workers last spring urging people to take the threat seriously. The denialists mounted a counteroffensive.

On March 28, Todd Starnes, a conservative radio host and commentator, tweeted a video from outside Brooklyn Hospital Center. There were few people or cars in sight.

“This is the ‘war zone’ outside the hospital in my Brooklyn neighborhood,” Starnes said sarcastically. The video racked up more than 1.5 million views.

Starnes’ video was one of the first examples of #FilmYourHospital, a conspiratorial social media trend that pushed back on the idea that hospitals had been strained by a rapid influx of coronavirus patients. 

Several internet personalities asked people to go out and shoot their own videos. The result: a series of user-generated clips taken outside hospitals, where the response to the pandemic was not easily seen. Over the course of a week, #FilmYourHospital videos were uploaded to YouTube and posted tens of thousands of times on Twitter and Facebook.

Nearly two weeks and more than 10,000 deaths later, Fox News featured a guest who opened a new misinformation assault on hospitals.

Dr. Scott Jensen, a Minnesota physician and Republican state senator, told Ingraham that, because hospitals were receiving more money for COVID-19 patients on Medicare — a result of a coronavirus stimulus bill — they were overcounting COVID-19 cases. He had no proof of fraud, but the cynical story took off. 

Trump used the false report on the campaign trail to continue to minimize the death toll. 

“Our doctors get more money if somebody dies from COVID,” Trump told supporters at a rally in Waterford, Michigan, on Oct. 30. “You know that, right? I mean, our doctors are very smart people. So what they do is they say, ‘I’m sorry, but, you know, everybody dies of COVID.’”  

The Real Fake News: The Plandemic

The most viral disinformation of the pandemic was styled to look as if it had the blessing of people Americans trust: scientists and doctors.

In a 26-minute video called “Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind COVID-19,” a former scientist at the National Cancer Institute claimed the virus was manipulated in a lab, hydroxychloroquine is effective against coronaviruses, and face masks make people sick. 

Judy Mikovits’ conspiracies received more than 8 million views, partly credited to the online outrage machine — anti-vaccine activists, anti-lockdown groups and QAnon supporters — that push disinformation into the mainstream. The video was circulated in a coordinated effort to promote Mikovits’ book release.

Around the same time, a similar effort propelled another video of fact-averse doctors to millions of people in only a few hours. 

On July 27, Breitbart published a clip of a press conference hosted by a group called America’s Frontline Doctors in front of the U.S. Supreme Court. Looking authoritative in white lab coats, these doctors discouraged mask-wearing and falsely said there was already a cure in hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and lupus.

Trump, who had been talking up the drug since March and claimed to be taking it himself as a preventive measure in May, retweeted clips of the event before Twitter removed them as misinformation about COVID-19. He defended the “very respected doctors” in a July 28 press conference. 

When Olga Lucia Torres, a lecturer at Columbia University, heard Trump touting the drug in March, she knew it didn’t bode well for her own prescription. Sure enough, the misinformation led to a run on hydroxychloroquine, creating a shortage for Americans like her who needed the drug for chronic conditions. 

A lupus patient, she went to her local pharmacy to request a 90-day supply of the medication. But she was told they were granting only partial refills. It took her three weeks to get her medication through the mail. 

“What about all the people who were silenced and just lost access to their staple medication because people ran to their doctors and begged to take it?” Torres said.

No Sickbed Conversion

On Sept. 26, Trump hosted a Rose Garden ceremony to announce his nominee to replace the late Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the U.S. Supreme Court. More than 150 people attended the event introducing Amy Coney Barrett. Few wore masks, and the chairs weren’t spaced out.

In the weeks afterward, more than two dozen people close to Trump and the White House became infected with COVID-19. Early on Oct. 2, Trump announced his positive test.

Those hoping the experience and Trump’s successful treatment at Walter Reed might inform his view of the coronavirus were disappointed. Trump snapped back into minimizing the threat during his first moments back at the White House. He yanked off his mask and recorded a video.

“Don’t let it dominate you. Don’t be afraid of it,” he said, describing experimental and mostly out-of-reach therapies he received. “You’re going to beat it.” 

In Trump’s telling, his hospitalization was not the product of poor judgment about large gatherings like the Rose Garden event, but the consequence of leading with bravery. Plus, now, he claimed, he had immunity to the virus.

On the morning after he returned from Walter Reed, Trump tweeted a seasonal flu death count of 100,000 lives and added that COVID-19 was “far less lethal” for most populations. More false claims at odds with data — the U.S. average for flu deaths over the past decade is 36,000, and experts said COVID-19 is more deadly for each age group over 30.

When Trump left the hospital, the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 was more than 200,000. Today it is more than 300,000. Meanwhile, this month the president has gone ahead with a series of indoor holiday parties. 

The Vaccine War 

The vaccine disinformation campaign started in the spring but is still underway.

In April, blogs and social media users falsely claimed Democrats and powerful figures like Bill Gates wanted to use microchips to track which Americans had been vaccinated for the coronavirus. Now, false claims are taking aim at vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech and other companies.

A blogger claimed Pfizer’s head of research said the coronavirus vaccine could cause female infertility. That’s false.

An alternative health website wrote that the vaccine could cause an array of life-threatening side effects, and that the FDA knew about it. The list included all possible — not confirmed— side effects.

Social media users speculated that the federal government would force Americans to receive the vaccine. Neither Trump nor President-elect Joe Biden has advocated for that, and the federal government doesn’t have the power to mandate vaccines, anyway.

As is often the case with disinformation, the strategy is to deliver it with a charade of certainty. 

“People are anxious and scared right now,” said Dr. Seema Yasmin, director of research and education programs at the Stanford Health Communication Initiative. “They’re looking for a whole picture.” 

Most polls have shown far from universal acceptance of vaccines, with only 50% to 70% of respondents willing to take the vaccine. Black and Hispanic Americans are even less likely to take it so far.

Meanwhile, the future course of the coronavirus in the U.S. depends on whether Americans take public health guidance to heart. The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation projected that, without mask mandates or a rapid vaccine rollout, the death toll could rise to more than 500,000 by April 2021.

“How can we come to terms with all that when people are living in separate informational realities?” Starbird said.

PolitiFact staff researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.

Note: Readers can find the detailed source list for this story, as well as PolitiFact’s related coverage, or vote in the Lie of the Year Readers’ Choice Poll at PolitiFact.com.

Kaiser Health News (KHN) is a national health policy news service. It is an editorially independent program of the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation which is not affiliated with Kaiser Permanente.

USE OUR CONTENT

This story can be republished for free (details).

Lie of the Year: The Downplay and Denial of the Coronavirus published first on https://smartdrinkingweb.weebly.com/

[ppdoddy]

Michael Moore

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOE BIDEN Dear President-Elect Biden:

First of all, congratulations! YOU did it. WE did it! You stopped the madness. A grateful nation - and myself - are in a state of joy, hope and relief. Thank you for that! We are all eager to join with you to repair the damage done to our country — and to eliminate that about our society and our politics which gave us Donald Trump in the first place.

Mr. President-Elect, I first met you at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. It was clear to me from our talk that day that you were not the politician I remembered from the 1990s. On that day in Boston, we were by then over a year into the Iraq War, a war you voted for. My “Fahrenheit 9/11“ had just come out and you wanted to let me know that you were aware of the folly you had been sucked into. It seemed to me that you were doing a lot of soul searching and you wanted to hear my thoughts. To be honest, I was distracted by how perfect your teeth were, and I wondered, could you really be from the working class? By the end of our talk I was convinced there was something that was quite real and very good about you, though perhaps somewhat buried inside. Would it ever come out so the public could see it? As I reflect today on it - and you - I am sincerely hoping that you will indeed govern as a president who’s from the working class. You - one of us - in the White House. That’s how it should feel. Your actions, if bold, and brave, will make that true.

You are also our second Catholic president. I believe you are a person of faith. You and I were taught the same lessons in Catholic school: to love our neighbor, even our enemy; to create a world where everyone regardless of status or station has a seat at the table, and everyone gets a slice of the pie; a world where “the rich man will have a harder time getting into heaven than a camel will have getting through the eye of the needle.” We were taught that we will be judged by how we treat the least amongst us. Do I have that right? Are these not the moral, foundational principles of the coming Biden presidency?

I was so moved by your victory speech Saturday night when you told the immigrants and the children of immigrants that the Dreamers no longer had to live in fear. That Muslims were once again welcomed into our country. That the world could breathe a sigh of relief because we were going to let the planet Earth itself breathe and have some relief. And you told the teachers of America that starting January 20th, “one of your own will be living in the White House.” That just felt instantly good.

So if I may, I’d like to suggest a few things that might make your presidency one of the best this country has ever had. You and I may have our political differences (you like Amtrak trains, I’d like to ride a bullet train from New York to LA in 10 hours!😎), but I know that you and I - and tens of millions of others - all want and believe in the same basic things: • Health Care is a human right and every American must be covered; • Everyone must be paid a living wage and all of us must work to eliminate poverty and rebuild our broken middle class; • The massive and growing gulf between the ultra rich and everyone else must be narrowed — and the wealthy must go back to paying the taxes they should pay; • Women must be paid the same as men, and no man or government has the right to tell them what they can do or not do with their bodies.

So here’s my two cents:

1. You are right to make containing Covid-19 Job #1. Had Trump won, I’m guessing up to a million people in the next year or so would have died from him ignoring this virus. Yesterday you named your Covid task force of doctors and scientists and you are putting them to work. We don’t have a second to lose. Thank you for this.

2. As soon as you can, please provide much more unemployment relief for the jobless, stimulus checks for all, help for small businesses, and the creation of jobs we desperately need.

3. Millions have lost their health insurance because our system ties one’s health coverage to their employer. What happens when the employer, like now, is suddenly gone, or the boss wakes up one morning and decides these employees’ health benefits are too costly and must be cut? BOOM! Millions of families suddenly have no health insurance. This is nuts.

You MUST create a health system like every other industrial democracy — one backed by the government, not by the whims of the boss where you work or the pandemic that has shut him or her down. This is just plain common sense.

4. I see various people trying to take credit for your victory — and using their personal agendas to push you away from the progressive Left and toward the cowardly center which believes that the best way to beat Republicans is to just be a more easily-digestible version of Republicans. They think because Trump got 70 million votes the Democrats should reject Black Lives Matter, AOC, and anything that vaguely sounds like socialism — at a time when the majority of our citizens under the age of 35, according to most polls, prefer the idea of democratic socialism over the greed of modern-day capitalism. Why risk losing them? We need to listen to and understand why they feel this way. They’ve been saddled with crushing student debt and we’ve handed them a planet In the middle of its 6th extinction event as their future. You and Barack introduced them to the benefits of democratic socialism by letting them stay on their parents health insurance until they’re 26! The result: They just set a record by coming out and voting for you in the largest youth numbers ever.

But you know all this. And you also know how you won these razor-thin victories in the final five states as we nervously watched the final ballots come in from Black Philly, Black Detroit, Black Atlanta, Black Flint. Out west, it was Latinx and Navajo voters who delivered Nevada and Arizona to you. In your speech on Saturday you acknowledged it. And never in our history have I heard a President-elect single out the Black community and thank them “for having my back. And I promise you, I will have your back!” Black and brown and indigenous peoples, plus a landslide of women and young adult voters made this happen. Wow. I absolutely know you’ll keep that promise.

5. Please do not make the same mistake an otherwise well-meaning President Obama made in his first two years. He wanted everyone to get along. He was willing to compromise on anything. Kumbaya. The Republicans had already decided they were going to block EVERYTHING Obama proposed and that’s exactly what they did for eight long years with a discipline and a ruthlessness we should probably envy.

Don’t let this happen to you. Charge in on January 20th like FDR on steroids. You have no choice. People are dying! You need to sign executive orders and cajole, demand and shame Congress into action. And GO BIG! Eliminate the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Act! DONE! Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women! Just one more state needed! DONE! Send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to replace the poisoned water pipes! DONE!!

And none of the above needs a single vote of the United States Senate! In fact, this past summer, your “Biden-Bernie” unity joint task force identified a whopping 277 policies and decisions of Trump’s that you have the legal authority to immediately reverse by executive order or presidential policy decision https://prospect.org/…/277-policies-biden-need-not-ask-per…/. Find that big fat black marker of his and do it!

But, yes, we also desperately need those two Georgia Senate seats to get the Biden/Harris years off to a blazing start. So let’s make that happen! All hands on deck between now and January 5th!! We will all do whatever is needed.

Friends of mine on the Left who are more cynical than I am are probably wondering why I’m sending you this letter. Haha! Well, because I saw you kiss the head of that young grieving man at the Parkland, Florida memorial for the shooting victims of Stoneman Douglas High School. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyMa96yOel0

And because I saw you in New Hampshire this year while we were there working for Bernie, and you were doing a campaign stop and there was a restless five-year boy in the front row. His parents were trying to get him to settle down. You stopped and spoke to the boy. “Hey buddy,” you said in a kind but parental way, “if you can hang on and be a good boy for just a little bit, I’ll buy ya an ice cream!” The boy quieted down, you wrapped up and afterward you went over to the boy and his parents and you gave the kid five bucks so his mom and dad could go get him an ice cream cone. And I thought to myself, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen — and then I started to cry because I wanted so much for that piece of America to come back — goofy, kind, and focusing on what’s truly important: a goddamned ice cream cone!

I think that’s why you won. People saw what I saw with you there in New Hampshire and back in Boston on that day 16 years ago — they knew that maybe, just maybe, their lives might just get a bit better - hopefully a LOT better - with you in the White House. Maybe less of them will die from the virus, this preventable horror. Trump, of whom we knew many despicable things and thought we’d already seen how low the bar could possibly go for one human being — but we never considered him under the moniker of mass killer, terrorist or superspreader. Then you, Joe, came along and offered us a respite, a break from the insanity — “Mr. Biden, we’ll be happy if you just give us four years of ‘Not Trump!’”

But I think you can give us much more than that. What could our lives be like in four years or eight years (with a Democratic Senate to boot)? How ‘bout no one ever goes bankrupt again because they got sick? How ‘bout no one is sitting in a prison cell for possessing marijuana or actual drugs? How ‘bout every child gets to go to a great school and every neighborhood has an expanded free library open seven days a week? How ‘bout paid family medical leave so you can take care of your elderly parents and not lose your job? How ‘bout my bullet train! You and we can make all this happen. It’s not rocket science. 30+ other countries already do it. (https://www.amazon.com/Where-Invade-Next-Micha…/…/B01EGW9EOU) They’re happier. Why not us? Our founders promised it to us in their second sentence: “the pursuit of Happiness.“ They said that’s what America would be — and it’s been a rare day when we’ve actually had a glimpse of it.

Joe, you’re the guy to fulfill the promise. I’ll help. So will my neighbors on the floor where I live. As will the woman who delivers my mail, the workers who stock the shelves of my neighborhood market, the nurse who just wrote me in tears because yesterday she watched her 22nd patient die, alone, no family allowed, from Covid. Not to mention the millions upon millions of Americans who are ready to be foot soldiers in your army of justice, equality and love. We’re all in! We don’t want to go back to the old “normal.” We want a new normal!

We want ice cream.

All my best, Michael Moore

P.S. You know why I think you can and will do this? You picked Kamala Harris to run with you! Ranked as the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate. A woman. A Black woman! I saw the first debate, the one where she challenged you and threw shade on your younger self. Most people (including me), if that had happened to us, we probably wouldn’t have gotten over it. You did. I’m guessing your conscience whispered to you, “well, dang, maybe she has a point.” You hold no grudges. You are a forgiving soul. But then you didn’t just forgive her — you put her on the Big Ticket! Who would do that? You did! That’s why my cautious, hopeful bet is on the good hands we’re now in — both your hands, Kamala’s hands, and the hands of the mass millions who voted for you and will continue to rise up and fight for this new, better, post-Trump, post-pandemic America.

[megacircuit9universe]

Pokemon Go to the Polls!

THU MAR 05 2020

The big news today was that Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the race.

She didn’t endorse either Bernie, or Biden, but she did at least get out of Bernie’s way.

As I wrote yesterday, when Pete and Klobi dropped out the day before Super Tuesday, the iron was hot, and their unexpected departures and endorsements of Biden made it hotter.

Warren’s departure isn’t like that... dropping out two days after Super Tuesday, when that iron is cooling off... but four days before the next round of states: Idaho, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, and Washington... which are all stone cold right now.

There is no fun name for these six states on March 10th. Consequential Tuesday is what it should be called, but I’d settle for Cool Tuesday, or even Casual Tuesday... anything.  But no.

There will be no debate between Biden and Sanders before these states vote.  And Warren isn’t going to endorse anybody beforehand.

Nevertheless, Washington and Michigan are two biggies, with Washington seemingly safe for Bernie Sanders, and Michigan a toss up.  The other four are now presumed to be going to Joe Biden.

I think Warren’s exit will solidify Washington for Bernie, but he really needs to kill it in Michigan, if he’s gonna break the Super Tuesday spell and claim to be making a comeback.  

And it would not hurt if Bernie stole one of the other four out from Under Biden.

The 18 to 38 vote here would make a huge difference, but will they turn out in force, like the cavalry, on Tuesday the 10th to save his ass?

Based on the primary season so far... no, they won’t.

Because they have not turned out in any numbers at all in Iowa, New Hampshire, and all the rest.  And nobody in the media... not even in the alternative media, like TYT and the like on  YouTube, are reaching out to this demographic in any meaningful way.

It’s a huge disappointment!

On TikTok, I am finally seeing this week, some peer pressure from fellow youngsters to get up off their asses and act, but not nearly enough.  

When I think back to last summer, with the, Raid Area 51 Memes that everybody was doing... and to this past January with the WW3 memes that were just as viral... these few isolated videos I see where somebody is begging their fellow teens or twenty-somethings to vote in the primaries... it’s just sad how weak the signal is by comparison.

There is a meme that’s pretty viral called, “don’t make me vote for Joe Biden” that’s been going around all primary season, but... it got it’s start with jaded millennials on Twitter, and, was picked up by younger TikTockers who... are buying into the apathy of their 30-something counterparts without questioning it.

The central conceit of this meme is that they’re not going to vote at all until the general election in the fall... so please... old people... don’t nominate Joe Biden.  Please, old people... nominate Bernie Sanders, who is our hands down fave!

Now, clearly, they all know they are allowed to vote in state primaries... but they’re all acting like... that level of involvement is a bit too much to ask of they, themselves... the hip and jaded youth.  Going to the polls two times in one year?  Come on!  We have lives!

Never mind that for all these young adults, either on Twitter or TikTok, who are overwhelmingly white and/or affluent, their polling place is probably within easy walking distance of home... and that voting will take only about five minutes... is free... and is painless (it’s not like you have to get a shot or something)... it’s still a hell of a lot to ask them to do twice in the same year.

I put this mainly down to ignorance of the big picture.  That big picture being: voting is the most important thing you can do to improve your life.  It’s more important than school, work, dating, chasing your dreams, or even eating and using your toilet, because it’s fundamental to all of them.  

Story time here...

When I was turning 18, in 1987, my home state of Illinois was still considered a red state.  Reagan could rely on us both times around, and we regularly voted for Republican Governors. 

This, of course was long before the internet, but there was a definite underground movement going on at the time, to get young voters registered and involved in the political process. 

This is why I voted for Mike Dukakis right after I turned 18... and why I continued to vote in every single election, primary or general, local, state, and federal, for the rest of my life.  It was instilled in my whole generation, here, that this was a fundamental civic duty that paid off.

So... I do not think it’s a coincidence that thirty years later, Illinois is considered as reliably blue as California and New York, and that in 2020, when so much of the Midwest, and the rest of the country are withering under far right oppression... we have a democratic Governor, Senate, and House, enjoy legal weed, are leading the Midwest on climate change and green energy,  are a sanctuary for undocumented migrants, a haven for the LGBT rights, and doing better than most states with racial and gender equality.

This is what happens when you get a generation of young people to prioritize voting early and often, from the age of 18 onward.  

It’s what should happen to every state, but what could happen in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Texas and Florida very soon, if anybody gave enough of a fuck to mobilize the young voters.

It seems ridiculous to me that here in 2020, when we have such a sophisticated internet, with hand held devices in every pocket... and with this ideal Presidential candidate... Bernie Sanders... champing at the bit to bring, not just the states mentioned above, but the entire country... into the 21st century in terms of universal health care, climate change, legal weed, etc... that the 18 to 38 demographic is sitting on their hands, pretending nobody under 60 is even allowed to vote for anything.

In normal times, I’d say... you’re gonna wait 30 more years for the stars to line up again like this with a national candidate who is anywhere near as progressive as Bernie.  But these are not normal times, so... if you (they, we) do not take this opportunity... it may well never come again.

Climate change, pandemics, authoritarianism... economic depression... famine and war... 

...all things which have been bearing down constantly on humanity since the dawn of civilization, and which only modern democracy has managed to hold back, the last 70 or 80 years... 

...are right on the doorstep now, waiting to devour us... this time on a global scale.

Is that fear mongering?  No.  That’s reality.  This is an emergency.  All hands on deck, goddammit!

Generations of people dedicated their lives... or gave their lives... to defend this democratic system we have in the free world where intellect wins over ignorance, innovation over hardship, and enlightenment over brutality... and that system goes away tomorrow... if you don’t vote.

Elderly voters don’t give a shit about the future. They care about the past... and protecting themselves in their old age.  Is that callous?  Yes!  Old people have no problem sending young people off to war to die... and no problem handing their own grandchildren a flaming pile of shit world... because they are selfish, brain damaged bastards, the whole lot of them.

That’s why a whole generation had to fight to lower the voting age to 18... because they were being fucking slaughtered in Korea and VietNam.

They won’t just make you vote for Joe Biden, if you let them... they will make you watch Trump destroy him, before he destroys you.  Why the fuck would you sit back and let this happen?

Millenials and GenZ... and all the yet to be born generations to follow are crippled with debt out of college, have no hope of owning homes, are facing a planet that is slowly turning into a hellscape, and watching right wing fascists dismantle the constitution in front of their faces in real time... and doing nothing to stop it, by using the most powerful tool they have... the one that was won for them by blood sacrifices.

Why?

Just fucking go to your goddamn polling place and spend five minutes of your shitty life checking some boxes for fuck sake!  Jesus, fucking Christ!

Okay, that seems like a good place to leave it tonight.

I’m going to bed.

[gravitascivics]

THE OLD ONE-TWO

This blog has commented both on the effects that foreign trade has had on job availability and of the debilitating effects opioid drugs have had on too many citizens.  In both cases one can detect that the resulting conditions of these dysfunctional developments have eroded the ability of many Americans to fulfill their responsibilities as citizens and, more from their perspectives, their ability to enjoy the benefits of that citizenship. Each topic was treated as separate issues suitable for students to study in civics classrooms.  

Further, those postings focused on these topics’ respective relationships to federalist values.  That is, they described how these issues affect citizens meeting their roles as partners in the grand federalist union the Constitution establishes.  But upon further consideration, these two topics are highly related to each other.  

One of them has caused the fertile conditions that has promoted the other.  Specifically, the loss of jobs to cheaper, foreign labor not only resulted in a loss of jobs in the US, but also, through high unemployment, “greased” the way for a deadly, addictive drug to capture a population prone to first experiment and then become hooked and eventually for many to overdose and die.  

From California to Florida, the parents behind Relatives Against Purdue Pharma already knew that OxyContin stood out more in rural America’s distressed hollows and towns, where reps could easily target the lowest-hanging fruit – the injured jobless and people on disability, with Medicaid cards.  But OxyContin was everywhere, of course, and it had been almost since the beginning, even if the crimes associated with it hadn’t dominated the urban news.[1]

This history has many turns and some of those turns are global in nature, but local in effect.

This posting will briefly describe one of those turns.  It does not take many words to describe it, but this should not mislead the reader to believe it had limited effect.  No, the consequences have not only been extensive in its numbers, but qualitatively profound in its social, economic, and medical consequences.

As previous postings pointed out, after World War II, US foreign policy aimed at reestablishing the viability of the world’s manufacturing capabilities. That war did an effective job at destroying the manufacturing centers of most industrial nations.  The one exception, due to the protection of two oceans, the US’ capacity was not only not destroyed, but enhanced as this nation became “the arsenal of democracy.”

It was decided, given the experiences after World War I, that post World War II policies should favor liberal trade policies.  The post conditions of that earlier conflict taught policy makers in the 1940s that relying on restrictive trade policies led to the rise of totalitarian regimes and, in turn, another global war.  

Liberal policies promised to rehabilitate those bombed-out manufacturing centers in Britain, France, Germany, and other nations.  By so doing, a US led effort could and did make the world’s economy viable and offset those highly nationalistic forces that were, in part, responsible for World War II.  In addition, it promised a more efficient world economy benefiting all.

One of the polices the Western world initiated was the establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO).  This organization was meaningfully expanded by extending membership to China in 2001. The move was accomplished through the work done during the Bill Clinton administration.  That administration was also responsible for the institution of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).  Both policies exemplified the liberal trade bias set in motion back in 1944 with the Bretton Woods Conference.[2]

The Clinton administration touted these moves as opening American markets to cheaper products, – produced abroad – markets for American produced, consumer products, and the introduction of immediate incentives to expand appropriate educational programs to train American workers for advanced jobs that would prove to be more engaging and satisfying for American workers.

This last element – the one involving training – has proven essential to this plan, not in its implementation, but in its absence.  

But with ill-designed training for displaced Americans based on a lumbering federal program created in the 1960s, the second part of that equation very rarely came to pass.  Only a third of workers who qualified for Trade Adjustment Assistance even went back to school, and the majority of those who did found themselves with new certifications and associate’s degrees yet earning much less than they had in the factories, if they were working at all.[3]

Even with this training, many today hold low paying jobs at Walmarts, rely on food stamps, and have to tend small gardens to able to feed themselves.  These results were particularly seen in rural counties.  

Globalization, in effect, killed opportunity in many rural areas.  It added to the effects of automation and the decline in the demand for coal – a lot of the Appalachian areas relied on coal for the bulk of their economies.  For example, in one county, Henry County, experienced soaring crime, insecurity in terms of access to food (food stamp claims up more than 300%), an upshot of disability claims, unemployment shooting up to 20%, and disability claims also rising to 60.4%.[4]

And many of those people suffering from these drastic changes began consuming opioids in the ensuing years.  To prove a cause and effect relationship, one needs to look at the individual cases in which addiction took hold.  But the general social environments of many Appalachian communities were highly affected, as their financial situations became dire.  

And yes, one can reasonably believe that such a downturn set the stage for a people to be disposed to drug abuse.  Not all newer drug takers were affected by these economic maladies; many came/come from middle class families.  Of course, there were other factors; chief among them was the role pharmaceutical and medical players played.  In total, the nation has had a significant tragedy befall it.

This blog will continue to share information concerning these two areas of concern in future posting as it reports related factoids and insights over either the opioid crisis or the loss of jobs due to foreign trade.  As this posting indicates, at times, these two issues serve up a one-two punch.

[1] Beth Macy, Dopesick:  Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 2018), 131.

[2] See “Setting the Stage,” Gravitas:  A Voice for Civics, a blog, August 1, 2017, accessed July 29, 2019, https://gravitascivics.blogspot.com/2017/08/setting-stage.html .

[3] Beth Macy, Dopesick:  Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company that Addicted America, 123.

[4] Ibid.  Macy goes on to explain how these claims were further used to extend medical treatment to get access to more opioid drugs.