#vulgar republican propaganda

[socialjusticeinamerica]

These people are shit and are never held accountable.

🤬

[dumbestthingiveeverheard]

Dumbest Thing I've Ever Heard: 7/17/2023

Before we begin, I just want to say that, no, I'm not going to be talking about the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. comments--primarily because everybody else in the media already tore him to shreds over them and I have quite literally nothing to add.

Third Place: E.W. Jackson

Yes, the deranged right-wing pastor is running for President, as Right Wing Watch reported today. Among his proposals are a repeal on same-sex marriage and a Constitutional Amendment which states that “for purposes of law and rights, there are only two genders; that’s male and female, that’s it.” His website includes the text of this proposed Constitutional Amendment, which would also ban the legal recognition of transgender identities on government documents and a banning of transgender people from the public restroom that aligns with their gender identity.

Of course, the President can't just declare the Constitution to be amended, it needs the support of both two thirds of Congress and three fourths of the states. George W. Bush tried to do something similar regarding same-sex marriage--which Jackson also pushes for on his website--and given he was unable to do so at the height of the power of the religious right in the 2000s, the odds of this happening under a President Jackson is about the same as--well, the odds of a President Jackson.

Seriously, the polls have said from the start that this race was going to be between Trump and DeSantis--and it looks like many political commentators, myself includes, were being too nice to DeSantis through considering him a possible rival to Trump. His campaign is failing, and given he is the one with the best chance besides Trump, it doesn't look well for anybody else.

Second Place: Rupert Murdoch

Media Matters released a report today regarding who Murdoch is currently trying to push for President: Glenn Youngkin! Yeah, the Governor of Virginia who barley won his race despite having everything in his favor. He was running as a Republican during a time where a Republican was almost certainly going to win, and against a former Governor in a state known for its hatred of career politicians. Even then, only sixty thousand votes kept him from losing--and Murdoch wants that man to be President, and he's going to push that message with every right-wing propaganda mill he owns.

Winner: Jared Moskowitz

This is a blink and you miss it kind of stupidity, but it's still worth pointing out. While on MSNBC today, Moskowitz compared the recent comment from Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal about Israel being a racist state to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s claim that COVID-19 was scientifically engineered to not kill Jews, because both are examples of antisemitism.

Of course, nothing Jayapal said was antisemitic--there is a difference between criticizing the state of Israel and criticizing the religious of Judaism and its followers just as there's a difference between criticizing the nation of Saudi Arabia and the religion of Islam and its followers. And this attempt to conflate the two, although not uncommon among those who dishonestly argue for Zionism, is disgusting--regardless of what you think of Jayapal's comments, every decent person should be condemning these comparisons and calling them nothing short of vulgar smears.

Jared Moskowitz, you've said the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[jarateblog]

Mase and I took the kids to the fair the other night... Guess who's joined the family

I scored him and a couple other plushies for them with my excellent aim in darts 😎😎 The lady running the booth was really nice with us too.

We got to try some rides but I admittedly felt weak after one of the really spinny ones 😵. I don't know how well I can handle that stuff anymore. The kids spent a lot of time doing one of the coin pusher games, something Mase feared after his experience last year. They're on the path to an early gambling addiction!! (I'm jk, though those games definitely don't require much skill compared to something you aim at).

However... I've got some concerns about the fair, below the cut, if anyone's curious...

So, there were numerous (at least 3, probably 5 or more) Republican stands promoted throughout the fair, not including the typical military recruitment shit you see everywhere in this fucking country. Many seemed to be selling/giving away t-shirts, stickers, and buttons promoting you know who. Some of them were openly vulgar in their designs. Like, 18+. Middle fingers with the text "YOU MISSED" (regarding the other week, that didn't take long 🙄), or, just unrelated misogynistic shirts calling wives bitches or whatever (the "women. amiright, fellas" types of shirts). Others, that were related to trump, were selling the idea of 'fake news,' acknowledging or downplaying his crimes, etc., all in the styles of 'memey' propaganda you can picture from this decade.

Now, I know I'm fucking biased. But.

This is a place where KIDS are encouraged to go to have fun. There are often more kids than there are adults, especially if you're considering teenagers - none of whom are in any position to vote. Yet, this blatant political propaganda is thrown into their face immediately upon entry (because the rides are in the back). I saw kids appearing like 12-15 wearing these shirts and buttons and I'm thinking wtf??

And yes, I'd be saying the same thing if they were Democratic booths. I am particularly focused on the lenience given on the type of merch they were allowed to sell, or the fact these booths were so highly politicized.

It's not that I'm necessarily concerned about kids seeing pictures with middle fingers and the possibility of them copying it (I wasn't a saint at that age), it's just... we have the term "family-friendly" for a reason. We shouldn't have such openly vulgar content available for their eyes within reading distance. For as much as conservatives can claim that queer people are innately predatory, sexual, or vulgar, this is an extremely hypocritical showcase for their message.

Of course, I'm only wearing shorts that end just above my knees and mascara and got looks from those people. I'm more than "tame" enough for the occasion but still pose a threat to their comfort and ideology. Thankfully, I saw many other openly queer people throughout my day. I've been seeing other queer folks more obviously presenting themselves in public, which I think is quite evocative of the rising tensions within our country. This upcoming election stresses me out.

But, why can they do this? Because they threw some money in a fund for the fair or something? I wonder if it's even legal and no one's said anything, or if I'm just missing something. Like, is not the use of 18+ material troublesome enough? Or even just the blatant, neo-fascistic propaganda?

I'm done ranting. But, I'm just so disgusted. Thankfully our group was too young to be concerned of it, but Mase and I were sharing our frustrations a lot throughout the day.

[grandhotelabyss]

What do you make of Leo Strauss and Straussianism? I know you’ve discussed Alan Bloom, but what (if anything) do you make of the master himself?

I've barely read Strauss, just Persecution and the Art of Writing back in the years when liberals darkly whispered the philosopher's name as the menacing and mysterious Svengali of the neocons. Nothing I've read of this material impressed me much, though; it seems, no less than much current Marxism, like an intellectual's compensatory fantasy of impossible political power. The Platonic philosopher-kings will come, again or for the first time, and lay low the vulgar moderns! Except that when the Straussians had power, in various Republican administrations, they only abetted by providing grandiloquent rhetorical cover for intensifications of modern vulgarity, as with Reagan's neoliberal policies or W.'s warfare-state propaganda. But, again, I can't say much about Strauss himself and know the philosophy mainly through Bloom.

[canichangemyblogname]

The woman in question is one of the other tenants in the building we rent out of. She calls herself a "pro-life" feminist and hosts Christian-based counseling services. And she has previously told me that she thinks Republicans and Fox News have lost their mind, mainly because they're very negative and vulgar.

She was already conservative, so it did not surprise me that she eventually turned to watching Fox News. What did surprise me was her claim that Fox News and The National Catholic Register (I got the name wrong previously) were sources of pro-Semitic news.

PLEASE, I beg you all to think critically about the media you're consuming. Please ask yourself why a right-wing news source makes you feel more comfortable than literally every other media outlet on the market. Ask yourself why you feel attacked by literally every other network on the market besides a right-wing network. Ask yourself why a network well-known for platforming literal fascists and allying with fascist ideologies suddenly makes sense to you. Ask yourself why the network that praises Donald Trump's rhetoric (a man well known for its antisemitism) and defends Russia tooth-n-nail is so willing to turn a blind eye to the devastation of Gaza to laud the Israeli government.

If your answer is "antisemitism," I would like you to read my first post through again.

If you have to turn to right-wing media to hear the things you want to hear, you are looking for confirmation of existing bigotries. This is a network well-known for platforming conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, and alt-right propaganda. It is listed as a questionable source of credible information. They are not a trustworthy site for coverage of any topic.

You can see analysis of Fox News' questionable reporting and bias with recent examples below:

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Why would they be incendiary and propagandistic on everything *but* their coverage of Israel? Like... you don't honestly believe you'll get unbiased, factual reporting.

Please consider why you feel compelled to turn to an outlet that I know that you know has low credibility and fact reporting. Please ask yourself why you feel that every other media outlet outside of right-wing media is anti-Israel when there is a well-documented bias toward Israel in "Western" or US media.

I hope it's not because Fox News provides you headlines like this:

^^^ This is genuinely what most US headlines look like. But this story is also unsubstantiated. Networks that run unverified claims-- like Fox News-- should have their journalistic integrity highly questioned.

Or are you looking for headlines and coverage that look like the below:

^^^ Fascinating way to portray America's youth, a generation of people who are more likely to be skeptical of Israeli governmental policy toward Palestinians than older generations. Especially when older Americans are more likely to hold antisemitic views. I'm sure "far-left" isn't an intentionally incendiary description of young people meant to elicit fear, especially fear for the future. And I'm sure "brainwashing" isn't an intentionally provocative description of support for progressive causes among America's youth. And I'm sure that headlines claiming that Gen Z lauds Bin Laden aren't meant to portray this group of people-- who are known to be incredibly progressive-- as uneducated and misinformed. I'm sure headlines like these don't have the double effect of dismissing Gen Z's political views and critiques of the Military Industrial Complex and religious nationalism as unserious and flawed.

^^^ This sort of coverage surely isn't racist or inaccurate or inflammatory, right? Fox News doesn't have a history of stochastic terrorism, right? It didn't inspire a man to kill a 6-year-old Palestinian boy in Chicago, did it?

If FOX NEWS is who you go to for coverage of antisemitism and Israel, not only will you expose yourself to antisemitism, but you'll expose yourself to anti-Arabism that masquerades itself as support for "Jewish nationalism."

^^^ The majority of Americans actually support a ceasefire. Only 32% of Americans polled say the U.S. should support Israel, down from 41% around October 12th.

^^^ Ironically, most of the people criticizing him for "speaking over Jews" at a Jewish-led event supporting a ceasefire and peace in Israel-Palestine are themselves Gentiles.

^^^ Notice the photos they use in this article about rising antisemitism on college campuses. Critical question: is it pro-Jewish to support bombing civilians and razing Gaza? If so, how?

Like... you could easily turn to NPR. They interviewed a Jewish Genocide Scholar on the bombing of Gaza. They interviewed Palestinians who have lost generations of family members in Gaza. They interviewed local Rabbis on Jewish generational trauma and how different Jewish groups have addressed the Oct. 7th attack emotionally. They interviewed local Arab and Muslim community leaders on rising Islamophobia. They interviewed a trauma therapist who is treating Israeli children who witnessed and survived the Oct. 7th Hamas attack, highlighting how 60,000 Israelis are currently displaced and living in hotels. And they interviewed a refugee psychologist in a report on the high rates of TSD (traumatic stress disorder) among the children in Gaza, a population of children who have never known life without the threat of violence, war, and bombs (one in three children in Gaza need care for conflict-related trauma).

It's not hard to find empathetic reporting; you just have to be willing to hear things that'll make you uncomfy.

Heard a woman unironically say that she has turned to reading the National Review, a site called (I think) The Christian Monitor or something, and watching Fox News because, “No one else cares about antisemitism” in regards to the violence in Israel-Palestine.

And I was like… you did not turn to a Conservative Christian news site for a nuanced understanding of antisemitism. You turned to these outlets for confirmation of your Islamophobia. You could have easily turned to NPR, who just today interviewed two Rabbis to discuss how Jewish communities process and handle grief.

The National Review recently claimed that standing for Israel is standing for “western values.” I want to ask you: since when have the people who scream about the degradation of such things as “Judaeo-Christian values” or cry about attacks on “Western values” ever been *not* antisemitic and racist?

Fox News employs Greg Gutfeld, the man who said that Jewish people “had to be useful” to the Nazis to survive the Holocaust. The network frequently platforms men like Joe diGenova, who on Nov. 13, 2019 got onto the “Lou Dobbs Tonight” on the Fox Business Network, and maligned progressive activist George Soros, a Jewish man. DiGenova claimed that Soros controls the Foreign Service and State Department, and that he is a corrupting influence on the U.S. government. Col. Douglas MacGregor got onto the same show and claimed “Soros in particular has funded or helped fund these massive migrations out of Central America.” He described Soros as having tentacles. Plus, former host Tucker Carlson also frequently accused Soros of using his wealth to change American society and also lionized Henry Ford, the man who inspired Adolf Hitler and published the anti-Semitic screed, The International Jew.

Fox News is WELL KNOWN for being one of the many reasons for rises in antisemitism in the United States. They are a contributing factor. Why would you go to a well known antisemitic network for “unbiased” reporting on Israel? You’re only going to be exposed to vile antisemitic propaganda. Like, if this is where you’re going for non-antisemitic news, you’re going to be sorely disappointed.

The reason you’ve found yourself drawn to these media networks for their coverage of Israel is because they confirm for you that which you want to hear about Arab people and Palestinian Liberation as these same networks are also well known for their Islamophobia and for contributing to Islamophobic violence in the US, most recently with the stabbing of a 6 y/o boy in the Chicagoland.

Let’s be real here. No one legitimately turns to notorious antisemites for non-antisemitic news. You’re looking for the religious bigotry and racism they peddle.

[meret118]

On Wednesday, without a word of explanation, the nation’s most radical appeals court reinstated a Texas law that imposes sweeping censorship on social media companies. The statute—which Republicans passed in retaliation against the perceived liberal bias of “Big Tech”—forces these companies to disseminate hateful expression, dangerous misinformation, and foreign propaganda, among other objectionable speech.

It empowers aggrieved users to file an unending stream of lawsuits to combat content moderation while creating a slew of onerous regulations that are literally impossible to comply with.

…

The law also bars social media companies from labeling posts on their own websites—with, for instance, a warning that they contain violence, vulgarity, or disinformation. It obligates companies to turn over a massive amount of information to the state about their algorithms, curation, and account suspension.

And one baffling provision sharply restricts email service providers’ ability to block spam, allowing users to collect $25,000 for each day that their provider impedes “the transmission of an unsolicited or commercial electronic mail message.”

———

How fast do you think they would undo this law if big tech decided to block all TX IP addresses from accessing their sites, assuming that’s even possible. Just say, due to the new law we are no longer operating in TX. Because of this law stands, other red states will absolutely adopt it too.

Stochastic terrorism is “the public demonization of a person or group resulting in the incitement of a violent act, which is statistically probable but whose specifics cannot be predicted.”

[noctqrnxl]

Books That Have Been Banned Recently

CREDIT: https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/2019/sep/surprising-books-that-have-been-recently-banned-2019.html

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher (2007)

Ever since its publication in 2007, Asher’s bestselling book has divided opinion. The young adult novel tells the story of a high-school student’s suicide through a series of cassette tapes which she leaves behind for 13 of her fellow students. As the mystery untangles, each must work out how they fit into the puzzle of her death.

Despite being hailed as a "valuable tool in igniting conversations about suicide, bullying, and consent", schools in Canada and Colorado hauled the book from their library shelves after concerned parents complained. The controversy was reignited in 2017 with the release of a controversial Netflix adaptation, and by 2018 it had become one of the most banned, challenged and restricted books in America.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (2009)

This bestseller, which tells the story of a 14-year-old boy who leaves his Spokane Indian Reservation to attend an all-white high school, upset a lot of people for a lot of reasons. The multiple award-winning coming-of-age novel was lauded upon its 2008 publication for tackling such touchpoint issues as racial identity, bullying, poverty, disability and more and as a result, many schools across America incorporated it into their curriculums.

Then came the complaints. They ranged from its use of "filthy words" to "reference to masturbation" to themes viewed by many as "anti-Christian". At least 17 schools across the US crossed it off their reading lists sparking student protests and petitions. Most were in vain.

Soon, free speech organisations jumped in to defend the book before the author himself slammed education authorities for wanting to "control debate and limit the imagination." It remains one of the most banned books in circulation.

China Dream by Ma Jian (2018)

All seven of Ma Jian’s novels are banned in China, and so is he. The political exile is now a British citizen, but the 5,000 miles between him and his homeland have not blunted the ire he has for the regime that shut him out.

The title of his latest novel, China Dream, is a phrase lifted directly from president Xi Jinping, who uses it to describe China’s “great rejuvenation” into the world’s sovereign superpower. It’s set in real-world China and follows a pompous and corrupt government official charged with replacing people’s dreams with government propaganda via brain implants.

It is a fearless critique of a regime that condemned his first book (about the impact of the nation’s one-child policy) as ‘spiritual pollution’. But then, in Jian’s words, "I have never allowed myself to not write something for fear of consequences; that would be the death of literature in my mind".

Beartown by Fredrik Backman (2016)

Last October, a cold gust of fear swept through North Carolina’s Rockingham County School District. A book, parents said, was having a terrifying effect on their 16-year-old children.

The outcry erupted after it was discovered that Beartown, by Swedish author Fredrik Backman, had inveigled itself into the McMichael High School’s curriculum without pre-approval.

Published in 2017, it tells the story of a rusting forest community that pins its hopes of glory and economic revival on its junior hockey team as it competes in the national championships. But the expectation on the young boys’ shoulders weighs heavy, culminating in a violent act that will leave one girl traumatised and the town in disarray.

Parents complained about its "vulgar", "graphic" and "just unnecessary" subject matter and the school board leapt into action, voting swiftly to pull the book from the honours class’ required reading list. One pastor reportedly fumed: “Whose job is it to make sure the books that are being taught are on an approved list? How many other books are being taught that are not on an approved list?” The imbroglio was put down to the inexperience of a teacher unfamiliar with the school’s book approval process.

Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (2002)

When US State Representative Amy Arata picked up her 17-year-old son’s school copy of Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore, she did not like what greeted her eyes. The Republican lawmaker, of New Gloucester, MA, was so shocked by what she read that she felt compelled to introduce a bill to criminalise educators who teach it.

"It's really sending the wrong message to kids about what's appropriate." Arata told a local news station in January 2019, citing the book’s "obscene" and "very vivid descriptions" of sex." "I opened up to a page that made me go 'Wow, this isn't normal.'"

The novel is a surreal and hallucinatory tale of a young runaway on an Oedipal quest to find his mother and an ageing simpleton who searches for lost cats. There’s also a murder and mackerel that fall from the sky, intrigue and sex with a ghost and everything else you’d expect from Murakami’s magical realist style. American novelist John Updike called it a "real page-turner, as well as an insistently metaphysical mind-bender." In the end, for Arata, the bill was rejected by Maine’s legislative committee.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (1885)

Ever since it was published in 1885, people have tried to ban Twain’s classic tale of two runaways — one escaping an abusive father, and the other escaping slavery. Racism has been the main criticism, while others would say Huck Finn simply "conflicted with the values of the community".

In 2019, Two New Jersey lawmakers introduced a non-binding resolution calling on school districts in the state to remove novel – considered to be one of the greatest in American literature – from their curricula.

“The novel’s use of a racial slur and its depictions of racist attitudes can cause students to feel upset, marginalized or humiliated and can create an uncomfortable atmosphere in the classroom,’ reads the resolution by Verlina Reynolds-Jackson and Jamel Holley. It also notes that school districts in Pennsylvania, Virginia, Minnesota and Mississippi have removed the book from their curricula. The debate over whether new publishers should sanitise future editions by replacing the n-word with "slave" continues.

[sciencespies]

This 17th-Century Cookbook Contained a Vicious Attack on Oliver Cromwell's Wife

https://sciencespies.com/history/this-17th-century-cookbook-contained-a-vicious-attack-on-oliver-cromwells-wife/

This 17th-Century Cookbook Contained a Vicious Attack on Oliver Cromwell's Wife

The death of Oliver Cromwell, the embattled Lord Protector of 1650s England, didn’t stop his enemies from doing everything they could to tarnish his reputation. And these efforts included one very odd line of attack: namely, publishing a cookbook that claimed to offer recipes collected by the Parliamentarian’s wife, Elizabeth.

Titled The Court & Kitchen of Elizabeth, commonly called Joan Cromwell, The Wife of the Late Usurper, the text clearly isn’t a cheery celebrity cookbook. Aside from the obvious attack represented by the word “usurper,” the name “Joan” is a reference to sex workers, not a nickname actually used by Elizabeth, writes scholar Stuart Orme for the Moment magazine.

The cookbook, newly republished by the Cromwell Museum in Huntingdon, contains 102 recipes, including barley broth, venison pasty and a rare Dutch pudding. Some ingredients listed, like eels from Cromwell’s native region of Fenland, may have been intended to paint the family as unsophisticated.

“There was a lot of snobbery going on,” Orme, the museum’s curator, tells ITV Anglia’s Matthew Hudson. “A lot of the recipes were very ordinary by the standards of the time, … [the] sort of dishes that would have been eaten by middle class people across England in the 17th century. Part of the argument that the Royalists were making was the Cromwells weren’t suited to rule because, quite frankly, they were a bit common.”

In the book, Elizabeth’s recipes are described as “the most usual Meat and Diet observed at her Table, most of them ordinary and vulgar, except some few Rarities.” An introductory essay filled with insults aimed at the Cromwells adopts a similar tone.

“It would be a bit like today, if you were to go out and buy a cookery book [supposedly] written by Michelle Obama and the first third of it was an essay by Donald Trump saying how awful Barack Obama was,” Orme tells Atlas Obscura’s Anne Ewbank.

Oliver and Elizabeth Cromwell

(Public domain via Wikimedia Commons)

Oliver Cromwell was the first person who was not a member of the royal family to serve as Great Britain’s head of state. He helped lead the Parliamentarian side in the English Civil Wars of 1642–1651, contributing to the downfall of Stuart king Charles I and the temporary abolition of the monarchy itself.

Cromwell was a radical Puritan known for the brutal reconquest of Ireland in 1649. But after taking power as Lord Protector in 1954, he advocated against severe punishments for minor crimes, readmitted Jews to England and worked to improve education at all levels. Most modern scholars, wrote John Morrill for History Extra in 2014, view him as “a man of towering personal integrity [who] … believed in broad terms in social justice, equality before the law and the accountability of governors to the people.”

In the years directly following his 1658 death, however, Cromwell had a decidedly different reputation. Charles II reclaimed the crown in 1660, restoring the monarchy and ending the nation’s brief tenure as a republican commonwealth. He then ordered Cromwell’s body exhumed and, after a posthumous trial for high treason, “executed.”

Elizabeth, who was still alive at the time, bore some of the brunt of continuing anti-Cromwell propaganda designed to support the monarchy. She was targeted partly because of her class background: Though her husband had come from a somewhat prominent family—he was indirectly descended from Thomas Cromwell, chief minister to Henry VIII, and his grandfather was a knight who sometimes entertained royal hunting parties—Elizabeth (born Elizabeth Bourchier) was “a genuine commoner,” albeit one from a prosperous merchant family, according to BBC News. She died in 1665, seven years after Oliver.

As former Cromwell Museum curator John Goldsmith told BBC News in 2014, “The whole point of the curious [cookbook] is that she’s this ordinary Fen housewife and how ridiculous [it is] that she’s elevated to this position.”

Still, Orme tells Atlas Obscura, the recipes themselves aren’t bad. He recommends the carbonnade of beef, which, he says, is “really nice, actually.”

The newly published edition of the cookbook includes a glossary and introduction by Orme. The full text of the original book is also available online through the University of Michigan Library’s Early English Books Online program.

#History

[ct913]

Marshall Kamena is a registered Democrat and was elected mayor of Livermore, CA.. He ran on the democratic ticket as he knew a Bay Area city would never vote for a Republican. He is as conservative as they come. He wrote the following from an article, originally written by Evan Sayet and his opinion he expressed as a columnists for Townhall.com were his own and did not represent the views of Townhall.com, were mistakenly attributed to Marshall Kamena by me.

Trump’s 'lack of decorum, dignity, and statesmanship' By Evan Sayet in his article "He Fights

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.”

Here’s my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.

We tried statesmanship.

Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.

I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.

I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.

Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60's. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale.. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America ’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.

Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today.

Lincoln rightly recognized that, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking.. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.

Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!”

That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis.

It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after “the fake media” — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.

Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”... Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. ... They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery. The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church.

Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.

So, to my friends on the Left — and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do.

These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president - I get it - he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!

[quakerjoe]

This is a long read, but it’s the best damned thing I’ve read in a long time... ~Joe

I stopped watching Chernobyl after the first episode because a lifetime ago, I was a serious physics nerd and everything they were saying was absurd about the levels of radiation. Last night we watched the other 4 episodes and I thought maybe I might try and push the rock up the hill again and maybe open some eyes about where we are right now in this truly dystopic Orwellian nightmare. J. Robert Oppenheimer was a particular hero to me as a teen because he was so brilliant and accomplished the impossible in just 18 months. If you have not read American Prometheus, I highly recommend it because it details a time when we had a government of imbeciles running around with their hair on fire about communists who threw people in jail who wouldn't admit to that old drunk McCarthy that they were communists. Like all demagogues, McCarthy thought he was the lone arbiter of who was and who wasn't a patriot and he rose to such prominence because he was willing to lie about anything to make his baseless allegations. But Joe McCarthy was no patriot nor was his principle henchman Roy Cohn. They used the collective paranoias of stupid people to manufacture a crisis that did not exist. They destroyed lives and relished doing it to what would be referred now as the 'elitist liberals' like Dalton Trumbo and Oppy. Oppy was an extremely educated liberal who spoke to other people like him. Some of whom were communists. This made him a threat in the minds of the men who put Julius and Ethel Rosenberg to death. Ethel was entirely innocent but that didn't matter to a public brought to full froth by the hysteria of the day. Those men beating the drums of patriotism could not conceive of a man like Oppy talking to a communist and not be a communist himself, the same was said of Trumbo. Guilt by association was just enough for the likes of Cohn and McCarthy. "For each lie, a debt to the truth is incurred." Chernobyl Historians have written heroic books about the great generals of WWII, MacArthur and Patton being the most famous and they do deserve their notoriety but they ignored to a large extent who actually won the war for the allies and that comes down to two men: Alan Turing and J. Robert Oppenheimer. By any measure, Alan was the greatest man of the 20th century. Oppy is a bit harder to fit into that calculus and he said so himself because he knew atomic weapons would change the world and not in a good way. It's true the Japanese were whipped and that Doolittle could have continued to firebomb Japanese cities until the Japanese came to heel but that is still speculation. After Nagasaki, the war was over right or wrong, Oppy did that and saved hundreds of thousands of American troops. After the war, McCarthy went after Oppy. He wasn't treated like the hero he was and didn't want to be. He was treated like a Soviet agent and stripped of all of his security clearances because he would not name names. He was threatened with prison, his jobs were taken from him and he was exiled from the community of scientists that *he* built because of the lies of scum like McCarthy and Cohn. Alan Turing didn't fair much better from his government either. The McCarthys of that time didn't really believe in America at all, he wasn't a patriot no matter how loudly his supporters screamed it. McCarthy didn't think the idea of America could survive 'communist infiltration'. He had no grasp of why communism spread in Russia like wildfire because to his primitive and ignorant mind, he didn't know what it was like to live under a Tsar. 'If it spread there then it can spread here' was the thinking because McCarthy didn't understand or believe in the ideals that founded America. To him, they were so weak and feeble that communism would be preferable than what we had in America. That lie destroyed lives, destroyed families and stands as a black stain on our nation's history. The thing about liars is that they have to tell bigger and bigger lies to cover for all the small ones and then that debt to the truth comes due. It came to McCarthy when Joseph Welch lanced the festering boil that was McCarthyism with the truth. Before Welch delivered his fatal blow, he reacted to McCarthy's slander with this: "And so, Senator, I asked him to go back to Boston. Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad. It is true he is still with Hale & Dorr. It is true that he will continue to be with Hale & Dorr. It is, I regret to say, equally true that I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think I'm a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me." Then a moment later, he drew the blade that ended the national nightmare when he murdered McCarthy with the indelible truth: Mr. Welch: You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency? McCarthy and Cohn of course had no decency. Cohn delighted in going after homosexuals and destroying their lives while being a homosexual himself. They were the most vile hypocrites the world had ever known. McCarthy incapable of feeling shame, drank himself to death after he was humiliated as the coward he was. I sat there thinking about this as the full horror of what happened at Chernobyl unfolded. The entirety of the Russian government played out exactly like Trump having all of his cabinet praising his greatness, it was vulgar, it was disgusting. Then I remembered all the other dictators I've read about in history who surrounded themselves with sycophants. Martin Bormann being the reference example who served Hitler so faithfully. Bormann was a slack-jowled imbecile who was barely qualified to lick stamps but nobody in the Reich dare cross the thug because he was Hitler's favorite yes man. I remember that day Trump's cabinet took turns telling Trump how honored they were to serve under his super terrifically awesomeness and that they were but boot-licking sycophants. Pence really had to lather up Trump's ass before he could muster a vulgar enough kiss to satisfy that insidious git. I sat thinking that this was the lowest moment in the history of the Republic. What separated them from the Soviet Central Committee under Gorbechev? Not a damn thing. They *all* lie for a living and kiss the dear leader's ass. It was the most unAmerican thing ever done in the White House. It was sheer cowardice by each and every single one of them. Any man who had a lick of honor would have walked out in disgust to save what's left of their honor. The *only* one who got out of this administration with any was General Mattis. And you can see this cult in all of its terrible glory if you just glance at any of the stories coming in from visitors to the concentration camps now open on United States' soil. There are zero testimonials from any objective visitor who says conditions are fine. Last Thursday a government Lawyer argued to 3 appellate judges that giving toothbrushes and toothpaste were luxury items not to be afforded for the $700-$800 a day American tax payers are paying private prison companies to house these thousands of misdemeanor offenders. Republicans have strenuously objected to calling these 'detention centers' 'concentration camps' because nothing offends cult members like the truth about what they are really do. Ask any Scientologist if you're not positive of this undeniable fact. Children are living outside, locked up and fully exposed to the elements without food and running water because the man who concocted this policy is a 32-year-old psychopath named Stephen Miller who has devised schemes to strip parents of their children as a 'deterrent' from coming to the US. I remember wondering as I read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich how so many people were duped into voting Hitler into office and here I am now witnessing it. I see right wing lunatics actually calling people 'Antifa' as if it is some slur. "Antifa'' meaning 'anti-fascist.' They seem wholly unaware that Americans won a war against fascism because we were all against what the Axis was doing. What the nazis knew was that they needed to control the press. What modern fascists like Rupert Murdoch have learned is that it is easier to control the masses with propaganda and to do that is to obey Goebbels' edict to 'accuse the other side for what you are guilty of.' This is where Republicans are now. There is no Republican party anymore. It is a cult of personality except it isn't Hitler being exalted by the hoards of half-literate morons, it's Trump. Trump lies to them and they breath in his lies and they repeat them with a religious fervor because none of them are aware that for each lie they tell, they incur a debt to the truth. In Germany and in Chernobyl, those lies always caused death on a mass scale either through incompetence or outright evildoing. Here we are at a crossroads in American history with an ignorant electorate chanting 'lock her up' as if that's something that's going to happen. The Secretary of the Treasury is openly breaking federal law in full few of all these miscreants and the cult doesn't care. The Attorney General of the United States, the highest law enforcement official in the land openly committed perjury before the US Congress. The President has committed election fraud, violated the emoluments clause and committed more acts of obstruction of justice than can be counted in full view of the American people and the sad fact of the matter is nothing is being done about it. The Republican cult doesn't even want to pretend like they don't want the Russians involved in the next election. They've done exactly nothing to safeguard our elections from Russian interference because they are so easily bought by Putin that they aren't going to do a damn thing to stop someone who is trying to help them win elections. I don't know what it takes before the people take to the streets but if opening up concentration camps isn't appalling enough to put the spurs in then nothing will. This is how it was done, the chipping away of normalcy with outrage after outrage until insanity became the new normal because as Voltaire so presciently said, 'anyone who can make you believe absurdity can make you commit atrocities.' Little children are locked up outside in the elements without so much as a blanket to protect them. They have no rights to anything because the courts are so overwhelmed with cases now that it will take many years before any of these refugees get a hearing. They're standing children up in front of a judge without a lawyer to defend themselves against imaginary crimes of crossing a line on a rock turning 35,000 mph in a small solar system. Republicans stole a supreme court seat and they will continue to lie, cheat and steal to remain in power. That's why Mitch has delivered over 100 carefully selected members of the Heritage Society to fill vacant judicial posts because he does not care about our democracy, he cares about power. As many Republicans have said, they only need someone to sign stuff, they don't care who. Trump is perfect for their agenda and democracy has never been on their agenda, usurping it is. 20 years of Murdoch's brainwashing has gotten us to this point and if anyone really believed in justice in this country, the heads of everyone at Fox would be rolling down main street as a lesson to future ambitious propagandists who mean to undermine our nation as that rogue Australian has done more than any other. To rid ourselves of this seditious scourge is going to take all of us who agree to speak with one voice at the ballot box. It's going to take protests on a scale not seen in the US. Blood is already being spilled in these concentration camps. Edmund Burke's warning that all it takes for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing is coming to pass *yet again* and here we are at tyranny's doorstep. How much is enough? What atrocity must be committed on American soil before we get off our sorry asses and start doing something about it? If you don't think we aren't at war with a very determined enemy bent on destroying our country then you need to wake up to reality before we wake up that one morning like Martin Niemöller did when he said, "First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me." Every single Republican in office right now is an enemy of the United States who are conspiring with our foreign enemies to keep themselves in power. So are the people who vote for them because they are no different than the people who voted Hitler into office. I sincerely hope if you agree with what I have said here that you spread this message with any like-minded people because as of yet, I haven't seen any presidential candidates calling these concentration camps what they are. If we don't start preparing for next November today, we could wake up to another 4 years of Trump. Our nation cannot survive such a reckless criminal administration the likes of this one for another four years. The nation will be bankrupt and in its death rattle. We can start speaking in unison this Independence Day by squelching this Trump celebration in DC by turning the real patriots out on a scale he can't imagine. It's time to start fighting and dirty at that while there's still something worth fighting for. #Resist Your very life depends on it as does our future.

- Thomas Clay

[flatheadsforever]

The mayor of Livermore, California...

...explains Trump's popularity and success. This is perhaps the best explanation for Trump's popularity.

Marshall Kamena is a registered Democrat and was elected mayor of Livermore, CA. He ran on the democratic ticket as he knew a Bay Area city would never vote for a Republican. He is as conservative as they come. He wrote the following:

Trump's 'Lack of Decorum, Dignity and Statesmanship' By Marshall Kamena, Mayor of Livermore, CA.

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I'm not bothered by Donald Trump's lack of decorum. They ask if I don't think his tweets are "beneath the dignity of the office."

Here's my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his Presidency.

We tried statesmanship.

Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized "congenial" as John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, congeniality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don't find anything "dignified," "congenial" or "proper" about Barack Obama's lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.

I don't see anything "dignified" in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.

I don't see anything "statesman-like" in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.

Yes, Obama was "articulate" and "polished" but in no way was he in the least bit "dignified," "congenial" or "proper."

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the '60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale.. It has been a war they've fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – until today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, congeniality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America 's first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like "dignity" and "congeniality" simply aren't the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.

Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today. Lincoln rightly recognized that, "I cannot spare this man. He fights."

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking... In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.

Trump is fighting. And what's particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel's, he's shouting, "You magnificent bastards, I read your book!"

That is just the icing on the cake, but it's wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he's defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals' war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton's senior thesis.

It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump's tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after "the fake media" — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.

Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as "the most powerful weapon of all."... Most importantly, Trump's tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either "go high" (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery.

The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama's close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright's church.

Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration's weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration's cover-up.

So, to my friends on the Left — and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our President could be "congenial" and "dignified" and "proper"? Of course I do.

These aren't those times. This is war. And it's a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this President - I get it - he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don't care. I can't spare this man. He fights for America!

[msclaritea]

AOC and “Justice Democrats” are closely aligned with the Working Families Party.

The Working Families Party is a parasite feeding on the Democratic Party while trying to take it over. Too many to remember, but here are their organizations:

Justice Democrats

Sunrise Movement

Brand New Congress

Working Families Party

Our Revolution

DSA

Many more...

Bernie Sanders (BS) – Figurehead of the socialist-populist “progressive” movement and lifelong Marxist.

Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) – Not a party, but a 501c4 nonprofit “dark money” political org, this is is conceptually the center of the movement. Their emoji is 🌹.

Justice Democrats (JD) – A hybrid PAC (a Carey Committee that is both a PAC and a super PAC) founded by Zack Exley, Saikat Chakrabarti, Kyle Kulinski, Cenk Uygur. Run by Alexandra Rojas.

The Squad (🔗) – A devil’s half-dozen of prominent JD’s in the House: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush.

Non-Squad members of Congress: Ro Khanna, Raúl Grijalva, Pramila Jayapal, Jamaal Bowman, Marie Newman. Bernie himself likely counts as their sole Senator.

Warrenites – Members of Congress strongly or loosely associated with Elizabeth Warren, including Katie Porter, Ted Lieu, Jamie Raskin, Julian Castro. Some of these are Warren-adjacent as opposed to true disciples, but none are real D’s.

Brand New Congress (BNC) – A super PAC founded by Zack Exley, Alexandra Rojas, Corbin Trent. Essentially the JD’s, only stealthier and less DNC-focused. Associated with Malcolm Kenyatta, Letitia (Tish) James, and Lindsey Boylan.

Sunrise Movement (🔗) – This super PAC and 501c4 “dark money” org is an arm of the JD; note how even their logo matches.

Working Families Party (WFP) – Unlike most of the others, this is a party, not a PAC. Dangerous.

Green Party (GPUS) – The spoiler party that brought us Ralph Nader, Jill Stein, Howie Hawkins. Republican-funded and not really associated with European Greens.

Our Revolution (OR) – Another 501c4 nonprofit “dark money” org formed as a remnant of Bernie 2016 and using a Trotskyist slogan.

The Young Turks (TYT) – Aided by faux-stupid sidekick Ana Kasparian, Cenk Uygur‘s goal is to form a red-brown alliance by getting the far left to join the far right in a populist gang.

Secular Talk (🔗) – Kyle Kulinski‘s home turf. Aggressive atheism as a gateway to populism.

Chapo Trap House (🔗) – Home of the dirtbag left, including Virgil Texas.

The Gravel Institute (🔗) – Some stupid, vulgar kids who took a dead man’s name.

Indivisible (🔗) – Pushes a voting guide that endorses only socialist populists.

IfNotNow (🔗)- Socialist Jewish antisemites, such as Max Berger, hiding behind antizionism.

The Intercept (🔗) – Propaganda outlet. Everyone who touches this is toxic.

Jacobin (🔗) – Extremist propaganda outlet. Everyone who touches this is even more toxic.

Russia Today (RT) – Literally Russian propaganda. Everyone who touches this is tainted with treason.

MintPress News (🔗) – RT in drag.

MSNBC – Not all socialist-populist operatives, but many are, including Chris Hayes, Chuck Todd, Mehdi Hasan, Chris Cillizza, David Weigel.

Wikileaks (🔗) – Julian Assange is mentioned in more detail below, but the org itself is a blatant Russian cutout.

Operatives: Briahna (BrieBrie) Joy Gray, Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, Nina Turner, Cornel West, Marianne Williamson, Andrew Yang, Tulsi Gabbard, Katie Halper, Tara Reade, John Fetterman, Jimmy Dore, Aaron Maté, Anthony Zenkus, and many, many more.

There is a lot more in the article. This is a serious situation, that Russia's action might have inadvertently helped bring into sharper focus, because almost to a person, every individual within the above organizations spent years downplaying the dangers of Russia while accusing every Democrat in office as 'the enemy.' It never made sense to go after Centrists Dems in red or red & purple states when they were simply a reflection of that district. Progress takes time. By taking a sledge hammer to Democracy, you get...well, what and where we are now. We're in the middle of serious situations and they keep sounding off on one note: Student Loans, when Biden has already forgiven more than any president in recent history without a bill, WHICH NONE OF THEM WILL WRITE. Why is that?

[meret118]

On Wednesday, without a word of explanation, the nation’s most radical appeals court reinstated a Texas law that imposes sweeping censorship on social media companies. The statute—which Republicans passed in retaliation against the perceived liberal bias of “Big Tech”—forces these companies to disseminate hateful expression, dangerous misinformation, and foreign propaganda, among other objectionable speech. It empowers aggrieved users to file an unending stream of lawsuits to combat content moderation while creating a slew of onerous regulations that are literally impossible to comply with.

. . .

The law also bars social media companies from labeling posts on their own websites—with, for instance, a warning that they contain violence, vulgarity, or disinformation. It obligates companies to turn over a massive amount of information to the state about their algorithms, curation, and account suspension. And one baffling provision sharply restricts email service providers’ ability to block spam, allowing users to collect $25,000 for each day that their provider impedes “the transmission of an unsolicited or commercial electronic mail message.”

---------

How fast do you think they would undo this law if big tech decided to block all TX IP addresses from accessing their sites, assuming that's even possible. Just say, due to the new law we are no longer operating in TX. Because of this law stands, other red states will absolutely adopt it too.

[secular-jew]

America’s first wartime president in the culture wars.

The mayor of Livermore California explains Trump’s popularity and success. This is perhaps the best explanation for Trump's popularity ....

Marshall Kamena is a registered Democrat and was elected mayor of Livermore, CA.. He ran on the democratic ticket as he knew a Bay Area city would never vote for a Republican. He is as conservative as they come. He wrote the following:

Trump’s 'lack of decorum, dignity, and statesmanship' By Marshall Kamena, Mayor of Livermore, CA.

My Leftist friends (as well as many ardent #NeverTrumpers) constantly ask me if I’m not bothered by Donald Trump’s lack of decorum. They ask if I don’t think his tweets are “beneath the dignity of the office.”

Here’s my answer: We Right-thinking people have tried dignity. There could not have been a man of more quiet dignity than George W. Bush as he suffered the outrageous lies and politically motivated hatreds that undermined his presidency.

We tried statesmanship.

Could there be another human being on this earth who so desperately prized “collegiality” as John McCain?

We tried propriety – has there been a nicer human being ever than Mitt Romney?

And the results were always the same. This is because, while we were playing by the rules of dignity, collegiality and propriety, the Left has been, for the past 60 years, engaged in a knife fight where the only rules are those of Saul Alinsky and the Chicago mob.

I don’t find anything “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper” about Barack Obama’s lying about what went down on the streets of Ferguson in order to ramp up racial hatreds because racial hatreds serve the Democratic Party.

I don’t see anything “dignified” in lying about the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi and imprisoning an innocent filmmaker to cover your tracks.

I don’t see anything “statesman-like” in weaponizing the IRS to be used to destroy your political opponents and any dissent.

Yes, Obama was “articulate” and “polished” but in no way was he in the least bit “dignified,” “collegial” or “proper.”

The Left has been engaged in a war against America since the rise of the Children of the ‘60s. To them, it has been an all-out war where nothing is held sacred and nothing is seen as beyond the pale.. It has been a war they’ve fought with violence, the threat of violence, demagoguery and lies from day one – the violent take-over of the universities – till today.

The problem is that, through these years, the Left has been the only side fighting this war. While the Left has been taking a knife to anyone who stands in their way, the Right has continued to act with dignity, collegiality and propriety.

With Donald Trump, this all has come to an end. Donald Trump is America ’s first wartime president in the Culture War.

During wartime, things like “dignity” and “collegiality” simply aren’t the most essential qualities one looks for in their warriors. Ulysses Grant was a drunk whose behavior in peacetime might well have seen him drummed out of the Army for conduct unbecoming.

Had Abraham Lincoln applied the peacetime rules of propriety and booted Grant, the Democrats might well still be holding their slaves today.

Lincoln rightly recognized that, “I cannot spare this man. He fights.”

General George Patton was a vulgar-talking.. In peacetime, this might have seen him stripped of rank. But, had Franklin Roosevelt applied the normal rules of decorum then, Hitler and the Socialists would barely be five decades into their thousand-year Reich.

Trump is fighting. And what’s particularly delicious is that, like Patton standing over the battlefield as his tanks obliterated Rommel’s, he’s shouting, “You magnificent bastards, I read your book!”

That is just the icing on the cake, but it’s wonderful to see that not only is Trump fighting, he’s defeating the Left using their own tactics. That book is Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals – a book so essential to the Liberals’ war against America that it is and was the playbook for the entire Obama administration and the subject of Hillary Clinton’s senior thesis.

It is a book of such pure evil, that, just as the rest of us would dedicate our book to those we most love or those to whom we are most indebted, Alinsky dedicated his book to Lucifer.

Trump’s tweets may seem rash and unconsidered but, in reality, he is doing exactly what Alinsky suggested his followers do. First, instead of going after “the fake media” — and they are so fake that they have literally gotten every single significant story of the past 60 years not just wrong, but diametrically opposed to the truth, from the Tet Offensive to Benghazi, to what really happened on the streets of Ferguson, Missouri — Trump isolated CNN.. He made it personal.

Then, just as Alinsky suggests, he employs ridicule which Alinsky described as “the most powerful weapon of all.”... Most importantly, Trump’s tweets have put CNN in an untenable and unwinnable position. ... They need to respond.

This leaves them with only two choices. They can either “go high” (as Hillary would disingenuously declare of herself and the fake news would disingenuously report as the truth) and begin to honestly and accurately report the news or they can double-down on their usual tactics and hope to defeat Trump with twice their usual hysteria and demagoguery. The problem for CNN (et al.) with the former is that, if they were to start honestly reporting the news, that would be the end of the Democratic Party they serve. It is nothing but the incessant use of fake news (read: propaganda) that keeps the Left alive.

Imagine, for example, if CNN had honestly and accurately reported then-candidate Barack Obama’s close ties to foreign terrorists (Rashid Khalidi), domestic terrorists (William Ayers & Bernardine Dohrn), the mafia (Tony Rezko) or the true evils of his spiritual mentor, Jeremiah Wright’s church.

Imagine if they had honestly and accurately conveyed the evils of the Obama administration’s weaponizing of the IRS to be used against their political opponents or his running of guns to the Mexican cartels or the truth about the murder of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and the Obama administration’s cover-up.

So, to my friends on the Left — and the #NeverTrumpers as well — do I wish we lived in a time when our president could be “collegial” and “dignified” and “proper”? Of course I do.

These aren’t those times. This is war. And it’s a war that the Left has been fighting without opposition for the past 50 years.

So, say anything you want about this president - I get it - he can be vulgar, he can be crude, he can be undignified at times. I don’t care. I can’t spare this man. He fights for America!

[thinkveganworld]

This is long, but I thought I’d post on the outside chance anybody might find it worth reading.  It’s part two of a three-part series of articles I wrote years ago, and it includes information on modern day U. S politicians’ use of political propaganda.   

Goebbels and mass mind control: Part Two How PR opinion-shapers undermine environmental protection

In part one, we examined the fact that Hitler's propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, admired Edward Bernays, a self-proclaimed founder of the public relations industry. Goebbels used Bernays' book "Crystallizing Public Opinion" in his campaign against Germany's Jewish population.  Now we'll look at specific propaganda techniques shared by Goebbels and today's corporate PR teams, and at how those techniques undermine today's environmental movement.

Public relations can be used for good or ill. When PR spin is used to convince people that harmful things are good for them, or to turn people against their own best interests, it is used for ill. Goebbels practiced propaganda as a black art.

He helped organize Hitler's "brown shirts," and incited them to violence. He instigated the events leading to "Kristallknacht," the infamous nights of widespread brutal attacks against the Jews, November 8-9, 1938. He helped create the "fuhrer cult," spinning Hitler as Germany's great redeemer and convincing millions that the Nazi state was vital to their well-being.

Goebbels believed in using stealth tactics, or "institutional lying," and in using "fronts" to promote anti-Semitism and Nazi policies. For example, Goebbels set up a film office in July 1933, made it part of a branch of the Reich Cultural Chamber, and then used films to influence mass audiences. Klaus P. Fischer writes in "Nazi Germany: A New History" that most of the entertainment films "presented a sanitized image of carefree life under the protective umbrella of the Nazi regime."

When pro-Nazi or anti-Semitic propaganda came from the mouth of a popular German movie star on the screen, instead of directly from Goebbels, the public perceived it differently. In the same way, today's PR firms use front groups (fake grassroots, or "astroturf " groups) or specific so-called "third parties" to speak for corporations.

In "Global Spin," (Chelsea Green Publishing, 1997) science lecturer Sharon Beder writes that Merrill Rose, executive vice-president of the PR firm Porter/Novelli, said: "Put your words in someone else's mouth . . . There will be times when the position you advocate, no matter how well framed and supported, will not be accepted by the public simply because you are who you are. Any institution with a vested commercial interest in the outcome of an issue has a natural credibility barrier to overcome with the public, and often with the media."

John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton point out in "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You," that on behalf of tobacco company Philip Morris, the PR company, Burson-Marsteller, "created the [front group] 'National Smokers Alliance' to mobilize smokers into a grassroots lobby for smoker's rights . . . To defeat environmentalists, PR firms have created green-sounding front groups such as "The Global Climate Coalition" and the "British Columbia Forest Alliance."

Both Goebbels and today's PR firms have used euphemisms and Orwellian newspeak and doublespeak to influence the public mind. For example, corporate PR spinners have told the public that polluting-corporations are friends of nature; that weapons-manufacturer General Electric does no harm but merely "brings good things to life;" that spreading sludge on farm fields is "beneficial use;" that human beings killed in war-for-profit are "collateral damage."

American corporations have at times managed to circumvent the U.S. Constitution and ignore laws designed to protect our own workers and the environment by moving their companies offshore, in the name of "freedom." In Hitler's Germany, the euphemistically named "Law for Terminating the Suffering of People and Nation" (or, the "Enabling Law") gave governments such "freedoms" as the right to deviate from the constitution, ultimately helping Hitler undermine democracy and gain political power.

Goebbels presided over a communications monopoly in Germany by denouncing intellectualism and urging book burning. Today, U. S. corporations have a Goebbels-like communications monopoly, because virtually all television networks and the vast majority of other media outlets in the country are owned by a handful of corporations.

Klaus Fischer writes, "On May 10, 1933, an appalling event in the history of German culture took place-the burning of the books . . . This particular 'cleansing action' (Sauberung) was carried out by the German Student Union."

Of the book burning, Goebbels said, "The age of extreme Jewish intellectualism has now ended, and the success of the German revolution has again given the German spirit the right of way." (J. M. Ritchie, "German Literature Under National Socialism," 1983.) Today corporations discourage Americans from educating themselves about corporate wrongdoing by, as Stauber and Rampton say, "burning books before they're printed."

For example, science writer David Steinman obtained obscure government research from the Freedom of Information Act and used the information in his book, "Diet For A Poisoned Planet." Steinman wrote that many U.S. foods contained contaminants and gave readers a chance to make safer food choices by comparing the amounts of toxins contained in various foods.

Right away, corporate PR firms, including a "pesticide industry front group with deep Republican connections" went to work attacking the book. The Ketchum PR agency (representative of Dole Foods, the Beef Industry Council, Miller Brewing and many other corporate food clients) markets itself as a specialist in "crisis management," according to Stauber and Rampton. A Ketchum memo to the CALRAB food safety team read: "The [Ketchum] agency is currently attempting to get a tour schedule so that we can 'shadow' Steinman's [book promotional] appearances; best scenario, we will have our spokesman in town prior to or in conjunction with Steinman's appearances."

Stauber and Rampton's source inside Ketchum said the PR firm called every talk show where Steinman was booked, saying the shows shouldn't allow Steinman to appear without also presenting "the other side of the issue." The firm also tried to portray Steinman as an "extremist" without credibility.

According to Sharon Beder ("Global Spin") corporate front groups are a fairly recent phenomenon in America . . . a response to the rise of genuine citizen public interest organizations. One front group, the American Council on Science and Health, receives funds from Burger King, Coca-Cola, NutraSweet, Monsanto, Dow, Exxon and other corporations.

Dr. Beder, author of numerous books, and a professional engineer and senior lecturer in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Wollongong, Australia, writes that "the American Council on Science and Health is one of many corporate front groups which allow industry-funded experts to pose as independent scientists to promote corporate causes. Chemical and nuclear industry front groups with scientific sounding names publish pamphlets that are 'peer reviewed' by industry scientists rather than papers in established academic journals."

On the subject of corporate front groups, Beder quotes Mark Megalli and Andy Friedman ("Masks of Deception: Corporate Front Groups in America,"1991): "Contrary to their names, these groups often disregard compelling scientific evidence to further their viewpoints, arguing that pesticides are not harmful, saccharin is not carcinogenic, or that global warming is a myth. By sounding scientific, they seek to manipulate the public's trust."

The goal of pseudo-scientific corporate front groups, says Beder, is to cast doubt on the legitimacy of authentic environmental problems. For example, the Global Climate Coalition is a front group for various gas, oil, coal, automobile and chemical corporations; and it has battled restrictions on greenhouse gas emissions.

Global Climate Coalition has sent journalists videos claiming increased carbon dioxide levels will help feed the world's hungry by increasing crop production. The coalition has lobbied against mandatory emissions controls and asked the Clinton administration to avoid agreements that would reduce greenhouse emissions, claiming they "would damage the U. S. economy."

Corporations have worked to shape the next generation's environmental perceptions "through the development and distribution of 'educational' material to schools," writes Beder. Of course, the "educational" materials promote a corporate slant on environmental problems.

Conservative think-tanks have also opposed environmental legislation, working to cast doubt on greenhouse warming, industrial pollution and ozone depletion. These think-tanks mingle with lobbyists, consultants, interest groups and others and, as Beder says, "seek to provide advice directly to the government officials in policy networks and to government agencies and committees."

The think-tank employees ultimately "become policy makers themselves," and act more as pressure groups or interest groups than as academic institutions. Even so, says Beder, think-tank employees are treated by the media as "independent experts" and sources of expert opinion. Most conservative think-tanks promote free-market ideas, including corporate deregulation and lower taxes for the wealthy.

Corporate and think-tank PR spin doctors typically show little respect for the targets of their propaganda, and little regard for democracy. In another book by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber, ("Trust Us, We're Experts!" - Tarcher/Putnam, 2001) the authors write, "If you ask the managers of these ever-more-expensive propaganda campaigns why they have vulgarized the democratic process [with, for example, fake grassroots campaigns], they will frequently tell you that the problem is not with them but with the voters who are too "irrational," "ignorant," or "apathetic" to respond to any other kind of appeal."

Stauber and Rampton quote Bill Greider's "Who Will Tell The People:" "On issue after issue, the public is belittled as self-indulgent or misinformed, incapable of grasping the larger complexities known to the policymakers and the circles of experts surrounding them. The public's side of the argument is said to be 'emotional' whereas those who govern are said to be making 'rational' or 'responsible' choices . . . The reality, of course, is that the ability to define what is or isn't 'rational' is itself loaded with political self-interest."

Hitler's spin doctor, Joseph Goebbels, also expressed contempt for the people and democracy. Klaus Fischer quotes the propagandist: "We go into the Reichstag in order to acquire the weapons of democracy from its arsenal. We become Reichstag deputies in order to paralyze the Weimar mentality with its own assistance. If democracy is stupid enough to give us free travel privileges and per diem allowances for this service, that is its affair. We do not worry our heads about this."

Fischer also points out that the Nazis were beneficiaries of popular anti-democratic theories of their time, and of a "totalitarian mood," which included "a wish to dismantle the egalitarian welfare state." Again, Goebbels' techniques and attitudes and the fruits of his propaganda were different in degree from those of today's corporate propagandists, but they were clearly of the same basic nature.

Goebbels and today's corporate PR firms often practice public relations as a black art, however some citizens inform people in helpful ways that produce the fruits of increased public health, safety and well-being.

For example, registered nurse and environmental activist Terri Swearingen worked to prevent the building of one of the world's largest toxic waste incinerators.  When accepting the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, Swearingen said, "There are experts who are working in the corporate interest, who often serve to obscure the obvious and challenge common sense; and there are experts and non-experts who are working in the public interest."

Swearingen added, "Citizens who are working in this arena-people who are battling to stop new dump sites or incinerator proposals, people who are risking their lives to prevent the destruction of rain forests or working to ban the industrial uses of chlorine and PVC plastics-are often labeled obstructionists and anti-progress. But we actually represent progress-not technological progress but social progress. We have become the real experts, not because of our title or the university we attended, but because we have been threatened and we have a different way of seeing the world."

In part three, we'll take a closer look at propaganda and politics.

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Social media technology and the rise of Trump

Trump has a title in China called ‘Twitter ruler’, which comes from his frequent statements on Twitter, a social media outlet. Not only is it usual, but his 2016 election victory was inextricably linked to his use of social media. In an interview with CBS's ‘60 Minutes’ on 13 November of the same year, Trump admitted that social media was a key element in helping him win the election.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/16/11603854/donald-trump-twitter

Unlike traditional media such as television and newspapers, social media breaks the one-to-many communication method, allowing candidates to talk directly to the public, increasing interactivity, making the public feel more engaged, and spreading more quickly and widely. Instead of simply receiving information, as traditional media do, social media users actively create and retweet. For politicians, social media has disrupted the previous model of campaigning (Lapowsky, 2016). Whereas in the past candidates had to use traditional media channels such as television, newspapers, and radio to make their executive campaigns to the public, social media now breaks this one-way model. Through social media, candidates post their political views, share their daily routines, and express their opinions and attitudes on a certain issue, which is a self-image building process, thus bringing them closer to the public and giving them a pro-people feel. At the same time, the candidate can interact with the public and thus can be informed of the public's attitude more quickly.

It is no coincidence that Trump is not the first person to use the internet for political propaganda. As early as 1996, the US Republican candidate Buchanan started using his personal website to a campaign, and in 2008 Obama's use of social media in the election increased its influence. Since then, four companies - Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, and Google - have created organisational structures that match the partisan nature of their campaign staffing and consulting (Kreiss and Mcgregor, 2017). It is with the existence of these organisations that a very significant problem is that the public has no way of knowing whether the tweets they see are from the organisations or from the campaigners themselves. (Adams and McCorkindale, 2013)

Trump is smart in that he knows that creating a pro-people image will not make him stand out among the contenders; it is enough to have traffic that generates conversation and attention. While presidential campaigns typically use traditional media, speaking tours, and social media to gain attention and votes, Trump has gone the other way and maximised the role of social media. Social media is being used by Trump as a platform to control the message and traditional media is being agenda-set. It is clear that political communication has demonstrated the attributes of marketing. The difference between Trump and other campaigners can also be seen in his texts on social media platforms, Crockett (Pain and Chen, 2019) notes that Trump's tweets are most often ‘great’ ‘bad’ ‘amazing’ as well as exclamation marks, which are very noticeable. Such colloquial expressions occur almost exclusively when interacting with people face-to-face, and his use of words is often easy to understand, which invariably increases the number of readers again.

On social media platforms, highly controversial topics and fragmented text are more appealing to the eye. So, from the start of the primaries, Trump has used social media such as Twitter to post vulgar, provocative, racist, or unsubstantiated speculation.

A new survey by the Pew Research Center shows that about 70% of American adults say they get their news through social media (Sshearer and Matsa, 2018). Perhaps the era of new media politics has been here since Barack Obama was dubbed the ‘Internet President’, and social media has won over politicians from traditional media. The future of presidential campaigning is inevitably going to be a social media campaign.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/16/11603854/donald-trump-twitter

https://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2018/

References：

Adams, A., and McCorkindale, T. (2013). Dialogue and transparency: A content analysis of how the 2012 presidential candidates used Twitter. Public Relations Review, pp. 357–359.

 Crockett, Z. (2016). What I learned analyzing 7 months of Donald Trump’s tweets. Vox.com. Retrieved 12 December, 2020 from http://www.vox.om/2016/5/16/11603854/donald-trump-Twitter

 Kreiss, D., and Mcgregor, S. C. (2017). Technology firms shape political communication: The work of Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, and Google with campaigns during the 2016 U.S. presidential cycle. Political Communication. DOI:10.1080/10 584609.2017.1364814

 Lapowsky, I. (2016). Here’s how Facebook actually won Trump the presidency. wired.com. Retrieved 12 December, 2020 from from https://www.wired.com/2016/11/facebook-won-trump-election-not-just-fake-news/ [Google Scholar]

Pain, P., Chen, G. M., (2019) The President Is in: Public Opinion and

the Presidential Use of Twitter. Social Media + Society. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051198551

 Sshearer, E., and Matsa, K. E., (2018) News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2018. Retrieved 12 December, 2020 from https://www.journalism.org/2018/09/10/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2018/