#washington county news journal

[eugenedebs1920]

It’s just crazy. Crazy how one guy can cause so much chaos and disruption, such hostility and hatred, break the law habitually and never face accountability.

“I just need you to find, 11,780 votes. That’s one more than we have” were the words spoken by Donald Trump to the Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. This was a pressure campaign launched by Donald Trump to bully Secretary Raffensperger into violating the Constitution, and going against the will of the people of Georgia, and the United States.

Secretary Raffensperger, in what is sadly a rarity in Republican leadership, and Republicans as a whole, stood in fealty to the United States Constitution, and did not bend to the whim of the Tangerine Tyrant.

For his allegiance to the rule of law, the Constitution, and to the United States of America, he received countless death threats from so called patriots. These cosplay patriots threaten his family, his life, and all that he held dear.

It’s sad to say that a man, doing his job as he should. deserves a deep gratitude from this nation, but he does. He could have done what so many Republicans have, and bent the knee to Dementia Don. 

Fani Willis was born in Inglewood California. Her father was founded a chapter of the Black Panthers for that section of California. He grew weary of the infighting and lack of substantive positive impact the Black Panthers were making and moved his family to Washington DC where he would practice law as a defense attorney.

Needless to say Ms. Willis grew up with a vast understanding and respect for the rule of law and a drive for justice.

She would attend Howard University studying political science and would graduate cum laude. In 1993. After graduating from Howard she attended Emory University College of Law and receive her Juris Doctorate degree.

Subsequently she would spend 16 years in Fulton County’s district attorney’s office before being elected as District Attorney. Her previous experience had led her to pursue Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) beyond just organized crime and directed at any muti faceted criminal activity.

Upon the lawlessness Trump perpetrated in trying to subvert democracy, Ms. Willis was appalled. Her admiration to the rule of law, and the binding order laid out in the United States Constitution brought her to go after this egregious act of sedition. 

The Raffensperger call was not the only act of treason Trump and others engaged in. These exploits were not only implemented in Georgia. A slate of fake electors was devised to circumvent the actual electoral count. These fake electors were to swap the official results with ones falsely claiming Trump had won that state. This occurred in Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and of course, Georgia.

The conspiracy was extensive. Not only the fake electors scheme had transgressed, but a beakin and breach of voting equipment happened as well.

There was over 30 people named as, culprits, co-conspirators or conspirators. Including the disgraced former president, 19 were indicted.

Donald Trump was charged with under the RICO Act, 4 counts of false statements, 2 being false documentation, 2 counts of forgery, 1 count of impersonating a public officer, with 5 other charges dropped.

Rudy Guliani was co-conspirator #1 and charged under the count RICO, 3 counts false statements, 2 counts false documents, 2 counts forgery, 1 count of impersonating a public officer.

Ray smith III, a lawyer for Trump was charged with RICO count, 3 counts of false statements, with 2 counts false documentation, 1 count impersonating a public officer, 2 counts forgery

Cathy Latham, one of the fake electors and Leader of the Republican Party in Coffee County, was charged with RICO, 1 false documents, I impersonating a public officer, and 1 count forgery.

Robert Cheeley, another lawyer was charged with RICO, 1 count false statements, 2 counts false documentation, 1 count impersonating a public officer, 2 counts forged, and 1 count perjury.

John Eastman, one of the leaders in the whole plot, a lawyer, was charged under the RICO Act, 1 count false statements, 2 counts false documents, 1 count impersonating a public officer, and 2 counts forgery.

David Shafer, one of the fake electors and Republican state chairman, was charged under the RICO Act, 1 count false documents, 1 count false statements to the district attorney, 1 count impersonating a public officer, and 2 counts of forgery.

Kenneth Chesebro, another architect in the national scheme, and lawyer was charged under the RICO Act, 2 counts false documentation, 1 count impersonating a public officer, and 2 of counts forgery.

Mike Roman, a devious campaign staffer and odd private investigator, was charged under the RICO Act, 2 counts false documents, 1 count impersonating a public officer, andn2 counts of forgery.

Shawn Still, another fake elector, and Republican state senator, was charged under the RICO Act, 2 counts false documents, 1 count impersonating a public officer, and 2 counts forgery.

Jenna Elis, a big player nationally with the plot to circumvent democracy, was charged under the RICO Act. Same as White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Jeffery Clark was also charged under the RICO Act, with 1 count false statements.

Then there was the Coffee County election equipment breach (which by the way they have had access to since the 2020 election to find any flaws. Just saying.) The indictments were charged to.

Cathy Latham, the Republican lead of Coffee County, under RICO, 2 counts election fraud, 3 counts computer crimes, 1 count defrauding the state of Georgia.

Scott Hall, a bail bondsman, charged under RICO, he was subsequently charged with 2 counts election fraud, 3 counts of computer crimes, and 1 count defrauding the state of Georgia.

Misty Hampton, the Coffee County elections supervisors charged under RICO act, 2 counts of election fraud, 3 counts of computer crimes, 1 count of defrauding the state of Georgia.

Sidney Powell, a massive instigator, main perpetrator and known kook, was charged under RICO, 2 counts of election fraud, 3 counts of computer crimes, and 1 count defrauding the state of Georgia.

This case was pretty cut and dry. These morons video taped some of their crimes, some were on national tv, some were recorded, and some confessed to their crimes.

Of those who confessed and plead guilty were.

Scott Hall, the bail bondsman, plead guilty to, conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties. This was 5 misdemeanor charges landing him 5 years probation, a $5,000 fine, 200 hours of community service, a public apology to the state of Georgia, and to testify truthfully in future trials.

Sidney Powell also plead to conspiracy to commit intentional interference with the performance of election duties, charges with 6 misdemeanors and sentenced to 6 years probation, a $6,000 fine, a $2,700 restitution, a public apology to the state of Georgia and to testify truthfully in future trials.

Kenneth Chesebro plead guilty to conspiracy to file false documents, a felony, a deli charge. He was ordered to serve 5 years probation, a $5,000 restitution, 100 hours of community service. A public apology to the state of Georgia, and to testify truthfully in future trials.

Jenna Elis plead guilty to aiding and abetting false statements and writings, a felony, and was ordered to 5 years probation, a $5,000 restitution payment, 100 hours of community service, a public apology to the state of Georgia, and to truthfully testify in future trials.

Like I said previously. The case was pretty much open and shut. The evidence was overwhelming, some recorded, and all the acts were easily followed. It seemed justice would be served to the United States.

Then came the sleazy actions from Mike Roman. He had served as an adviser and campaign staffer on many Republican tickets. He had also worked for the Koch brothers as an intelligence gatherer. He would get dirt on liberals opponents and conservative policies.

Through his dirtbag tactics he found out that early on in the RICO case Fanni Willis, and a fellow attorney Nathan Wade, working on the case had engaged in romantic relations.

These were 2 consenting adults, who happened to cop feelings for each other while working together. These things happen. You work with someone, day after day, they start looking good if the conditions are right.

This was brought to the attention of the court, and frankly the world. Trump and some co-conspirators claimed it was a conflict of interest. Also claiming that Wade received improper payments due to it.

The cases against Trump for the theft, illegal retention, and refusal to return classified information, as well as the election interference, January 6th 2021 insurrection case cost upwards of $50 million dollars to date. In contrast, Fanni Willis and the Fulton County DA’s case, as of mid summer was under $5 million. There are accusations that Wade was paid more than some people in the district attorney’s office. This is true as he was a special prosecutor and not paid by Fulton County directly.

Either way, two consenting adults, on the same side of the isle, having an office romance is absolutely not a conflict of interest.

Just as that slimy pig that Trump is, he found a way to delay the case indefinitely until the investigator was investigated. He has done this before. Lord f*ckin knows he’s going to do it again.

Fani Willis went from prosecuting one of the largest acts of sedition ever perpetrated upon our nation, against 30 conspirators, with mountains of evidence. To being asked how many times she had sex with Nathan Wade, in a disgusting contortion of the law.

The fact that Judge McAfee even entertained the dismissal of the case is unprecedented.

A bunch of well off, white men found out that a powerful, smart black woman was sleeping with her coworker and raised a ruckus about it. Trump being found guilty of sexual assault himself, and accused by over 20 other women of the same. The irony hurts it’s so grave.

In the stolen classified documents case out of Florida, the judge, Aileen Cannon, had been put on the bench by Trump. She dismissed the case. The Supreme Court, where Trump installed 3 of the justices, ruled for Trump in Anderson v Trump, where the Colorado Supreme Court had declared Trump was ineligible to run for office under the 14th amendment, section 3, which clearly states that anyone who has participated in “insurrection or rebellion against the United States” is barred from holding ANY federal office again. That same Supreme Court would drag its feet for 6 month, after deciding the Anderson case in under 6 weeks, in Trump v the United States, and rule that the president has absolute immunity for crimes committed while in office. With blatant disregard for what the entire premise of our nation beholds.

Now Fanni Willis is being ordered to turn over documents due to a lawsuit filed by an ultra conservative group. Again, making her out to be the person guilty of a crime.

The only crime Fanni Willis is guilty of is being a black lady, trying to take down a criminal organization. That and sleeping with a handsome, tall, mature black man.

Trump skirting accountability, as he always does, just further emboldens him to commit more crimes against our country. Now with absolute immunity to do so.

In the words of Bob Dylan, “it makes you feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is game.”

[itgetsbetter]

Some tangible Black queer history for you!

In case you needed any more proof that we've always been here - this amazing collection is courtesy of the Stonewall National Musuem and Archive!

Rafiki: The Journal of the Association of Black Gays, Vol. 1 #1 (Fall 1976)

"Rafiki was a quarterly publication from the Association of Black Gays (ABG), a Los Angeles, California gay activist group that organized through education, political engagement, and grassroots activism to improve the conditions for Los Angeles’s Black gays and lesbians.

According to the journal, the title Rafiki was chosen because it means “friend” in Swahili and “that’s what [ABG] hope to be for you.” This first issue includes an article on the history of ABG and the fact that Black gays and lesbians have been largely excluded from the political, social, and economic advances of the gay community.

Included in this issue are articles such as “Homosexuality in Tribal Africa” and “Disco Discontent” (an open letter to the owner of Studio One, Scott Forbes), as well as poetry by Steven Corbin and Frances Andrews, and book reviews. It even contains an ad for the famous Catch One Club owned by Jewel Williams, which is still operating today!"

I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities by Audre Lorde (Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, 1985; from the Freedom Organizing Series)

You can read this one here!

"This small twelve-page publication derives from a speech Audre Lorde gave at the Women’s Center of Medgar Evers College in New York City regarding the exclusion of Lesbians in the feminist movement and how Lorde’s identity as both a Black woman and lesbian are inextricably linked.

Primarily, heterosexism and homophobia are major issues Lorde states are “two grave barriers to organizing among Black women.” Lorde ends the essay with the statement: “I am a Black Lesbian, and I am your sister.”

Her emphasis on the duality of this identity stems from a 1960s poster that said “He’s not black, he’s my brother!,” which Lorde states infuriated her because “it implied that the two were mutually exclusive.”

Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press was founded by Barbara Smith—another Black Lesbian feminist—and Audre Lorde in 1980 to create a publishing apparatus for women of color who at the time did not have control over how they were published except through the white-dominated outlets."

Flawless! The Life & Times of T.B.D.J. AKA Tiffani Inc. AKA Mrs. … (Manuscript) by Tiffany Bowerman (July 2007, A&E Publishers)

This autobiographical manuscript traces the life of Tiffany Bowerman aka Tiffany B.D. Johnson (b. 1959), who states that she “was the first African-American Transsexual to have state issued birth certificate reissued [1990]… was the first to legally marry three different active duty military men… [and] first… to found their own Christian Denomination… The Agape-Ecumenical Christian Denomination.”

Further, she states “I have tried to put together something striking and original[,] a journey from childhood to self aware adult. A life that was and is with all regrets included.”

This manuscript is a preliminary copy of a rough draft, and contains various memoirs, photographs, legal documents, and ephemera.

Out in Black and White: A Directory of Publications By, About, For People of Afrikan Descent In-The-Life by the Broward County Library Outreach Services Department Exhibit/Programming Services with direction by Eric Jon Rawlins (January, 1996)

Out in Black and White is a directory of various serial publications (magazines, newsletters, journals, etc.) throughout the United States that are focused on the Black LGBTQ experience. According to the directory, “[t]his project was inspired by the atmosphere of strength, oneness and productivity created by the Million Man March [on October 16,] 1995.”

The Million Man March was a political demonstration that took place at the National Mall in Washington, D.C. with the purpose of encouraging involvement in the improvement of the conditions of African Americans. Eric Jon Rawlins was a Broward County, Florida librarian who at one time was also the second vice president of the NAACP Fort Lauderdale branch in the late 1980s.

Currently, the Eric Jon Rawlins Collection consisting of personal and professional papers, as well as his 6,000 vinyl record album collection, are housed at the African American Research Library and Cultural Center Special Collections in Broward County, FL.

[darkmaga-returns]

A major peer-reviewed study has uncovered an alarming surge in excess cardiac arrest deaths among those who received Covid mRNA “vaccines.”

The bombshell study analyzed the data of an almost universally vaccinated population to identify links between Covid injections and surges in cardiac arrests.

The researchers found a huge surge in cardiac arrests among vaccinated individuals.

The team of leading American cardiologists and researchers, led by Nicolas Hulscher, included Michael J. Cook, Raphael B. Stricker, and Dr. Peter McCullough.

The results of their peer-reviewed study, titled “Excess Cardiopulmonary Arrest and Mortality after COVID-19 Vaccination in King County, Washington,” were officially published in the prestigious Journal of Emergency Medicine.

[readingbibooks]

“Although bisexuals have always been part of lesbian and gay movements and communities, they have often not been visible as bisexuals in these groups. Consider, for instance, these little-known historical facts:

A bisexual man was one of the key organizers of the first national March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights in 1979. He also cofounder the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays and led a delegation of black gays to meet with White House staff while Carter was President.

A bisexual Washingtonian was one of the first women to write about living women in the national feminist news journal, off our backs, in 1972.

It was a bisexual man who conceived and spearheaded the successful national “gaycott” of Florida orange juice in response to Anita Bryant’s homophobic “Save Our Children” campaign in Dade County, Florida, in the late 1970s.

A lesbian-identified bisexual ex-suburban housewife ran for Vice President on a bisexual/lesbian/gay civil rights platform during the 1984 Democratic Party convention in San Francisco.

In May 1989, a bisexual veteran from New England, representing the National Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Veterans Association, was the first out-of-the-closet veteran invited to testify before Congress on behalf of all lesbian, gay, and bisexual veterans.

But even in these high-profile “out” positions, bisexuals often continued to be perceived as gays and lesbians by both the gay rights movement and the rest of society.”

- Loraine Hutchins, Bisexuality: The Psychology and Politics of an Invisible Minority

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

John Darków, Columbia Missourian

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

October 10, 2024

Heather Cox Richardson

Oct 11, 2024

Hurricane Milton made landfall yesterday evening as a Category 3 storm just south of Sarasota, Florida. Before the hurricane hit, thirty-eight tornadoes swept across thirteen counties in the state, putting about 1.26 million people under a tornado advisory. With the hurricane came high winds and water, including ten to twenty inches of rain in the Tampa area. And, although it was not the worst-case scenario people feared, eleven people are dead and about three million are without power because of the storm. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been on the ground since before the storm hit. 

In election news, today, The Atlantic endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. This is only the fifth time since its founding in 1857 that The Atlantic has endorsed a presidential candidate. It is the third time it has endorsed Trump’s opponent. It also endorsed Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964 when he ran against extremist Arizona senator Barry Goldwater. And in 1860 it endorsed Abraham Lincoln. 

The Atlantic���s endorsement of Harris echoes its earlier endorsement of Lincoln, not only in its thorough dislike of Trump as “one of the most personally malignant and politically dangerous candidates in American history”—an echo of its 1860 warning that this election “is a turning-point in our history”—but because both endorsements show a new press challenging an older system.

In Public Notice today, Noah Berlatsky listed the many articles claiming that Harris is avoiding the press, including most recently a social media post from Politico’s Playbook that read: “After avoiding the media for neigh [sic] on her whole campaign, Kamala Harris is…still largely avoiding the media.” Berlatsky pointed out that Harris has taken questions from reporters as she campaigns and has sat down with the National Association of Black Journalists, CNN, Spanish language radio station Uforia, and Action News in Pennsylvania, and did a presidential debate with ABC News. Earlier this week, she appeared on 60 Minutes.

With Trump refusing to participate in another presidential debate, Vice President Harris today accepted CNN’s invitation to a live, televised town hall on October 23 in Pennsylvania. In the announcement, Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon noted that Trump has confined his recent appearances to conservative media.

Indeed, Trump backed out of a 60 Minutes interview and has appeared only on the shows of loyalists. And yet, Berlatsky points out, he is not receiving similar criticism. Indeed, observers note that Trump has tended to get far more favorable coverage than his mental slips, open embrace of Nazi racism, fantastical lies, and criminal indictments deserve. 

In a piece today, Matt Gertz of the media watchdog Media Matters reports that five major newspapers—the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post—produced nearly four times as many articles about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s email server in 2016 in the week after then–FBI director James Comey announced new developments in the story than they did about the unsealing of a new filing in Trump’s federal criminal indictment for alleged crimes related to the January 6 insurrection earlier this month. 

“None of the papers ran even half as many Trump indictment stories as they did on Clinton’s server,” Gertz wrote. “Indeed, every paper ran more front-page stories that mentioned Clinton’s server [than] they did total stories that referenced Trump’s indictment.” “The former president continues to benefit from news outlets grading him on a massive curve,” Gertz wrote, “resulting in relatively muted coverage for his nakedly authoritarian, unfathomably racist, and allegedly criminal behavior.”

On Tuesday, October 8, Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter of the Columbia Journalism Review outlined Trump’s longstanding attack on the U.S. media as “fake news,” an attack that is ongoing and obvious. (Just today, he threatened CBS and “all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS—and maybe even WORSE!”)

Bassin and Potter note that in his attacks on the media, Trump is following the pattern of authoritarians like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who attacked media critics with audits, investigations, and harassment until he “drove independent media from the field.” They also note the observation of Timothy Snyder, a scholar of authoritarianism, that power is often freely given to an authoritarian in anticipation of punishment, what Snyder calls “anticipatory obedience.” 

And yet, in the past in the U.S., when the media has appeared to become captive to established interests, new media have begun to give a voice to the opposition. In the 1850s, when elite enslavers stopped the circulation of newspapers and books calling for abolition, they prompted an explosion of new media that expressed the sentiments of those opposed to the expansion of human enslavement. Editor Horace Greeley led the way with the New-York Tribune in the 1840s. He was keenly aware of the importance of the new press and, as an early convert to the Republican Party, led his paper to become the anchor of a string of new Republican newspapers across the North—including the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times—that spread the party’s ideology. 

The Atlantic Monthly’s endorsement of Lincoln in 1860 was part of that movement, and poet James Russell Lowell, who wrote the endorsement, mocked the idea that the press should avoid causing trouble. “We are gravely requested to have no opinion, or, having one, to suppress it, on the one topic that has occupied caucuses, newspapers, Presidents’ messages, and congress, for the last dozen years, lest we endanger the safety of the Union…. In a democracy it is the duty of every citizen to think.”

Harris has nodded to established media, but as Berlatsky points out, there is very little payoff for her in focusing on those venues, since those audiences are generally already quite attuned to politics and are looking for new developments and scandals. In contrast, winning in 2024 means turning out new voters by finding new venues that offer them a political voice. Harris has recognized that media shift by focusing her media appearances on podcasts like Call Her Daddy, radio shows like Howard Stern’s, and television shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The View. 

Campaign staffer Victor Shi noted that, based on averages, Harris’s appearance on Call Her Daddy reached 5 million people, The View, 2.45 million; Howard Stern, 10 million; and Stephen Colbert, 3.2 million—in all, 25 million or more people that traditional media do not reach. (Shi also called attention to the fact that on October 9, the campaign live streamed an Arizona rally by Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz on the World of Warcraft Twitch stream.)  

The Atlantic nodded to the free thought on which the magazine was founded in 1857 when it came out strongly for Harris today. It is endorsing Harris, it said, because she “respects the law and the Constitution. She believes in the freedom, equality, and dignity of all Americans. She’s untainted by corruption, let alone a felony record or a history of sexual assault. She doesn’t embarrass her compatriots with her language and behavior, or pit them against one another. She doesn’t curry favor with dictators. She won’t abuse the power of the highest office in order to keep it. She believes in democracy. These, and not any specific policy positions, are the reasons The Atlantic is endorsing her.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this story from Inside Climate News:

Nestled beside traffic-choked New York Avenue NE, the historically Black Ivy City neighborhood in Washington, D.C., was built in the late 19th century as a community for African American laborers who soon found themselves living amid industrial sites and a racetrack. 

Today, the neighborhood, like so many in D.C., is partially gentrified but can’t completely escape the environmental inequities of its past or the suffocating exhaust from traffic of present rush hours. 

“A lot of us are experiencing issues with breathing,” said Sebrena Rhodes, an Advisory Neighborhood Commission member and organizer with the nonprofit Empower DC. “Everybody is experiencing the exact same thing.”  

Ivy City is an archetypal “environmental justice” community in which residents have for years been disproportionately harmed by pollution, as a growing body of research makes clear. 

A study published last month in the journal Nature Medicine by Assistant Professor Pascal Geldsetzer and other researchers and collaborators at the Stanford University School of Medicine found that Black Americans have had the highest proportion of deaths from fine particulate matter air pollution, known as PM2.5, when compared to all other racial or demographic subgroups from 1990 to 2016. 

Fine particulate matter includes particles produced primarily through vehicle fuel emissions and other burning of oil, coal and wood that are less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, small enough to lodge deeply in the lungs, affect other vital organs and even enter the bloodstream. 

PM2.5, about one-thirtieth the diameter of a human hair, causes a range of harmful health effects, from aggravating asthma and other respiratory illnesses to increasing the risk of death from lung cancer, heart disease, dementia and stroke. 

“It’s very well recognized that PM2.5 is the biggest environmental killer globally,” said Tarik Benmarhnia, associate professor at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and the study’s senior author. 

Researchers found that Black Americans had the highest PM2.5-attributable mortality in 96.6 percent of U.S. counties and faced a “double jeopardy,” being more exposed to PM2.5 pollution and more susceptible to its adverse health effects due to poverty, existing medical conditions, more hazardous jobs and lack of access to housing and health care. 

“Exposures to air pollutants, broadly, are not shared equally. They fall disproportionately on racial minorities throughout the U.S.,” said Marshall Burke, an associate professor at Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability and a co-author of the study. 

[mariacallous]

In Washington DC, I measure out my life in polls and heart palpitations. The polls are relentless, nail-biting, maddeningly contradictory. There are national polls, swing state polls, polls from tiny counties that predict a whole election, partisan polls designed to demoralise the other side.

There are polls on whether a candidate inspires confidence, compassion, leadership. I’ve noticed how, after a bad poll, I start looking for another that tells me numbers I like. I’ve also noticed how, after a good one, I will look for a bad poll to bring me down, as if I’m trying to prick the balloon of self-confidence and remind myself of “reality”.

But the polls never do quite take you to reality. Instead, they shape it. It’s not just what the polls are saying, or even how they were put together, that’s the great problem here – it’s how the obsessive focus on polls is symptomatic of how we view politics.

Polls make politics feel like a race, a game, a sport of feuding personalities. Who’s up? Who’s down? What tactics have they used to get one over on each other? What does it say about their personality? Words are seen as weapons with which politicians show off their ability to subvert or scare the opposition – not as substantive statements about what they intend to do.

And what sort of politician will thrive in this world where political speech is just a game? A candidate such as Donald Trump.

It was the communications professors Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Joseph Cappella who first noticed the connection between describing politics as a series of strategies and a growing cynicism among voters.

This was back in the mid-1990s, when the media was constantly analysing the rivalry between US president Bill Clinton and speaker of the house Newt Gingrich, the early iteration of today’s identity-based partisanship. Jamieson and Cappella found the media was focusing less on the issues the two were debating – often around health reform – and more on how they were competing.

The coverage fixated on who was winning, utilised the language of games and war, emphasised the performance and perception of politicians, put a new weight on polls.

This sort of coverage activated people’s cynicism about politics – the sense that it’s just a game between self-serving schemers – and then made them more cynical about the media.

Decades later, this “spiral of cynicism” is all around us: from the exploding popcorn of polls to the headlines. After Trump’s former chief of staff John Kelly compared him to a fascist last week, the Wall Street Journal wrote: “Harris uses ex-Trump chief of staff’s remarks to paint him as unfit for office”.

The question of whether Trump is a fascist or not was reduced to highlighting a rhetorical tactic. The idea that all politics is just a cynical game, and that the “mainstream media” is not really looking out for the cares of the voter, has become so pervasive it has helped pave the way for politicians who stand on sweeping away the whole edifice of democracy as we know it.

It’s no coincidence that this turn began in the 1990s, when the cold war had finished and the big philosophical debates about policy seemed to be over. Instead, politics became about entertaining performance – the era of Blair, Clinton, Zhirinovsky, Yeltsin. And the media began overgenerating coverage that replaced ideological debate with personality and tactics.

The 1990s were also when the reality show emerged as the dominant entertainment format. It initially grew out of observational documentaries seeking to understand society better by ceaselessly filming ordinary people in their homes in such a way that they would forget about the cameras and be more themselves.

It quickly became the opposite: a circus where all behaviour was for the cameras. Contestants learned to say and do the most vile things just to engineer scandal and generate attention for themselves.

American political TV debates started to imitate the same logic. In a busy primary debate, candidates only get a little sliver of airtime. The way to get more is to attack another candidate in the meanest and most personal way possible, and thus provoke them to attack you back. If you are attacked, then you are allowed more time to respond.

So you quickly got debates where supremely clever candidates sling personal abuse at each other to get more attention. The debate stage was set for reality show host Trump.

The design of most social media has followed the same incentives: rewarding taking the most extreme and often nasty statements to generate attention. And Trump has flourished on that as well.

The 1990s is when World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) boomed, with its cabaret wrestlers pulling obviously fake fighting moves, where violence is theatre. Trump was always an aficionado of WWE, even taking part in mock fights, and a member of its hall of fame.

This year the 1990s wrestling star Hulk Hogan spoke at the Republican National Convention; Trump enters his own rallies to the theme tune of the Undertaker, who, at the height of WWE, was the “evil” foil to Hogan’s all-American “goodie”. Many of Trump’s followers apply the cultural logic of WWE to his statements. Sure, the argument goes, Trump might say some very authoritarian-sounding things – but it’s just a game.

So can we ever find a way back to reality? To issues rather than strategies? We can, and we can even use polling to do so. When pollsters recently gave voters a choice of policies, rather than personalities, to choose from in this election, the majority, including Trump supporters, preferred Kamala Harris’s.

Partisan polarisation dissolves when we change how we cover politics. We can also develop different TV political debates, which preserve the excitement of competition but repurpose them to reward collaboration instead of abuse.

Imagine a debate format where candidates had to solve a real policy problem, and show how they would work with each other and with the opposition party to achieve it. We could also scale social media platforms that algorithmically detect the commonalities in political disagreements to generate common policy solutions. Such platforms are already being used in Taiwan.

Of course, there’s appeal in fleeing from reality to the grotesque circus of politics. But if we can’t face facts, others will force us. This month, at the Wilson Center in DC, Jack Watling of the Royal United Services Institute and Sam Cranny-Evans of the Open Source Centre presented a chilling analysis of Russian weapons manufacturing and supply chains.

The slideshow featured satellite photos of munitions factories where freshly cleared tracts of land are being readied to produce more weapons. Vladimir Putin is preparing for a vast war. China’s arms production is on a wartime footing. They are not playing.

[yourreddancer]

Heather Cox Richardson 10.10

Hurricane Milton made landfall yesterday evening as a Category 3 storm just south of Sarasota, Florida. Before the hurricane hit, thirty-eight tornadoes swept across thirteen counties in the state, putting about 1.26 million people under a tornado advisory. With the hurricane came high winds and water, including ten to twenty inches of rain in the Tampa area. And, although it was not the worst-case scenario people feared, eleven people are dead and about three million are without power because of the storm. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been on the ground since before the storm hit. 

In election news, today, The Atlantic endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris for president. This is only the fifth time since its founding in 1857 that The Atlantic has endorsed a presidential candidate. It is the third time it has endorsed Trump’s opponent. It also endorsed Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1964 when he ran against extremist Arizona senator Barry Goldwater. And in 1860 it endorsed Abraham Lincoln. 

The Atlantic’s endorsement of Harris echoes its earlier endorsement of Lincoln, not only in its thorough dislike of Trump as “one of the most personally malignant and politically dangerous candidates in American history”—an echo of its 1860 warning that this election “is a turning-point in our history”—but because both endorsements show a new press challenging an older system.

In Public Notice today, Noah Berlatsky listed the many articles claiming that Harris is avoiding the press, including most recently a social media post from Politico’s Playbook that read: “After avoiding the media for neigh [sic] on her whole campaign, Kamala Harris is…still largely avoiding the media.” Berlatsky pointed out that Harris has taken questions from reporters as she campaigns and has sat down with the National Association of Black Journalists, CNN, Spanish language radio station Uforia, and Action News in Pennsylvania, and did a presidential debate with ABC News. Earlier this week, she appeared on 60 Minutes.

With Trump refusing to participate in another presidential debate, Vice President Harris today accepted CNN’s invitation to a live, televised town hall on October 23 in Pennsylvania. In the announcement, Harris-Walz campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon noted that Trump has confined his recent appearances to conservative media.

Indeed, Trump backed out of a 60 Minutes interview and has appeared only on the shows of loyalists. And yet, Berlatsky points out, he is not receiving similar criticism. Indeed, observers note that Trump has tended to get far more favorable coverage than his mental slips, open embrace of Nazi racism, fantastical lies, and criminal indictments deserve. 

In a piece today, Matt Gertz of the media watchdog Media Matters reports that five major newspapers—the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post—produced nearly four times as many articles about Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton’s email server in 2016 in the week after then–FBI director James Comey announced new developments in the story than they did about the unsealing of a new filing in Trump’s federal criminal indictment for alleged crimes related to the January 6 insurrection earlier this month. 

“None of the papers ran even half as many Trump indictment stories as they did on Clinton’s server,” Gertz wrote. “Indeed, every paper ran more front-page stories that mentioned Clinton’s server [than] they did total stories that referenced Trump’s indictment.” “The former president continues to benefit from news outlets grading him on a massive curve,” Gertz wrote, “resulting in relatively muted coverage for his nakedly authoritarian, unfathomably racist, and allegedly criminal behavior.”

On Tuesday, October 8, Ian Bassin and Maximillian Potter of the Columbia Journalism Review outlined Trump’s longstanding attack on the U.S. media as “fake news,” an attack that is ongoing and obvious. (Just today, he threatened CBS and “all other Broadcast Licenses, because they are just as corrupt as CBS—and maybe even WORSE!”)

Bassin and Potter note that in his attacks on the media, Trump is following the pattern of authoritarians like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, who attacked media critics with audits, investigations, and harassment until he “drove independent media from the field.” They also note the observation of Timothy Snyder, a scholar of authoritarianism, that power is often freely given to an authoritarian in anticipation of punishment, what Snyder calls “anticipatory obedience.” 

And yet, in the past in the U.S., when the media has appeared to become captive to established interests, new media have begun to give a voice to the opposition. In the 1850s, when elite enslavers stopped the circulation of newspapers and books calling for abolition, they prompted an explosion of new media that expressed the sentiments of those opposed to the expansion of human enslavement. Editor Horace Greeley led the way with the New-York Tribune in the 1840s. He was keenly aware of the importance of the new press and, as an early convert to the Republican Party, led his paper to become the anchor of a string of new Republican newspapers across the North—including the Chicago Tribune and the New York Times—that spread the party’s ideology. 

The Atlantic Monthly’s endorsement of Lincoln in 1860 was part of that movement, and poet James Russell Lowell, who wrote the endorsement, mocked the idea that the press should avoid causing trouble. “We are gravely requested to have no opinion, or, having one, to suppress it, on the one topic that has occupied caucuses, newspapers, Presidents’ messages, and congress, for the last dozen years, lest we endanger the safety of the Union…. In a democracy it is the duty of every citizen to think.”

Harris has nodded to established media, but as Berlatsky points out, there is very little payoff for her in focusing on those venues, since those audiences are generally already quite attuned to politics and are looking for new developments and scandals. In contrast, winning in 2024 means turning out new voters by finding new venues that offer them a political voice. Harris has recognized that media shift by focusing her media appearances on podcasts like Call Her Daddy, radio shows like Howard Stern’s, and television shows like The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and The View. 

Campaign staffer Victor Shi noted that, based on averages, Harris’s appearance on Call Her Daddy reached 5 million people, The View, 2.45 million; Howard Stern, 10 million; and Stephen Colbert, 3.2 million—in all, 25 million or more people that traditional media do not reach. (Shi also called attention to the fact that on October 9, the campaign live streamed an Arizona rally by Minnesota governor and Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz on the World of Warcraft Twitch stream.)  

The Atlantic nodded to the free thought on which the magazine was founded in 1857 when it came out strongly for Harris today. It is endorsing Harris, it said, because she “respects the law and the Constitution. She believes in the freedom, equality, and dignity of all Americans. She’s untainted by corruption, let alone a felony record or a history of sexual assault. She doesn’t embarrass her compatriots with her language and behavior, or pit them against one another. She doesn’t curry favor with dictators. She won’t abuse the power of the highest office in order to keep it. She believes in democracy. These, and not any specific policy positions, are the reasons The Atlantic is endorsing her.”

[dailyanarchistposts]

Footnotes, part 9

[741] Associated Press, December 4, 2000

[742] The New York Times, July 20, 2002

[743] Multinational Monitor

[744] Chicago Business

[745] San Francisco Chronicle, December 8, 2001

[746] PR Newswire, November, 2000

[747] Greenpeace USA

[748] The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, Aug 10, 2001

[749] The AP State & Local Wire, January 25, 2001

[750] San Francisco Gate, January 13, 2001

[751] The Boston Herald, January 26, 2001

[752] Canadian Dimension, March 1, 2001

[753] The Associated Press, January 28, 2001

[754] The Hartford Courant

[755] The New York Times, February 21, 2001

[756] The San Francisco Chronicle

[757] The Associated Press, April 5, 2001

[758] The Associated Press, February 2, 2001

[759] The Tampa Tribune

[760] The AP State & Local Wire, February 14, 2001

[761] The New York Times, February 8, 2001

[762] The Indianapolis Star

[763] UPI, March 17, 2001

[764] The Associated Press, March 14, 2001

[765] The Associated Press, April 16, 2001

[766] The Associated Press, April 11, 2001

[767] Associated Press, April 25, 2001

[768] The Boston Globe, April 12, 2001

[769] The Tampa Tribune, April 18, 2001

[770] The Michigan Daily, April 10, 2001

[771] Star Tribune

[772] The Boston Globe, May 28, 2001

[773] The Chicago Tribune, July 2, 2002

[774] The Houston Chronicle, April 12, 2001

[775] The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, April 25, 2001

[776] Bloomberg News, May 22, 2001

[777] Reuters May 31, 2001

[778] The San Francisco Chronicle, May 12, 2001

[779] Associated Press, May 24, 2001

[780] Associated Press

[781] Reuters, June 30, 2001

[782] The Charleston Gazette, June 22, 2001

[783] ChainStore.com

[784] Reuters, July 3, 2001

[785] The New York Times, June 7, 2001

[786] New York Times, June 23, 2001

[787] Chicago Tribune, June 21, 2001

[788] The San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 1, 2001

[789] CNN, June 15, 2001

[790] Associated Press, June 5, 2001

[791] The Chicago Tribune, July 4, 2001

[792] Winston-Salem Journal, July 7, 2001

[793] The Washington Post, July 2001

[794] The New York Times, July 25, 2001

[795] The Seattle Post Intelligencer, July 17, 2001

[796] Richmond County Medical Society, August,2002

[797] Associated Press, Aug. 17, 2001

[798] Associated Press, Aug. 21, 2001

[799] Knight-Ridder/Tribune, Aug 30, 2001

[800] The Associated Press, August 1, 2001

[801] O Globo via Fin.Times World Media, Sept. 12, 2001

[802] New York Times, Sept. 26, 2001

[803] The Seattle Times, Sept. 22, 2001

[804] The San Diego Union-Tribune, September 21, 2001

[805] “On Class Conflict in General,” by Gustav Schmoller, American Journal of Sociology, volume 20 (1914–15) pp. 504–531.

[806] U.S. Federal Trade Commission

[807] The Standard

[808] Multinational Monitor, July/ August 1999

[809] Multinational Monitor, May 1997

[810] Chattanooga Times, June 10, 2001

[criticalbread]

Check out this story about the protesters blocking in an oil tanker with a little dingy, and the dozens of kayakers who have gathered to support them! "Thousands of Portlanders have been trying to shut down Zenith for years. They are joined by 46 neighborhood associations, Multnomah County, 20 state legislators, 17 environmental and community organizations. At first, City officials seemed to be listening. They denied the Land Use Compatibility Statement that Zenith needed to continue operating. But then they did an about face, made a back-room deal with Zenith, and betrayed Portlanders. A major part of the deal is that Zenith will transition to renewable fuels. Of course, Zenith has made — and broken — many other promises. (And none of this, unfortunately, even touches on the City’s willful disregard of its own Climate Emergency Declaration.) Currently, Zenith brings in crude oil on mile-long trains that traverse Northern Portland, loads the oil onto ships docked on the river, and then exports fossil fuels down the river and out to the Pacific Ocean. Over the past two years, the volume of oil that has moved through Portland has soared, rising from negligible levels a few years ago to approximately 337 million gallons in 2021 and 374 million gallons in 2022. The Oregon and Washington chapters of Physicians for Social Responsibility recently analyzed 125 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and counted over 300 medical professionals who describe crude oil-by-rail buildout in the Northwest as “an unacceptable threat to human health and safety.”  Zenith Energy is one of ten companies at the Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) Hub, a 6-mile stretch of fuel-filled tanks located between Forest Park and the Willamette River. Many storage tanks at the hub are 100 years old, and none are younger than 30 years old, and could collapse in an earthquake."

Any Portlanders who feel strongly about all the new oil deals being created and old one's being upheld - get to City Hall on the 6th at 9AM! Wear red! Call your local news stations to ask that they cover this story!

[kemetic-dreams]

Rev. Dr. William J. Simmons was born a slave in Charleston, South Carolina, to Edward and Esther Simmons on June 29, 1849. While William was young, his Mother fled slavery with her three children, William and his two sisters Emeline and Anna. They initially landed in Philadelphia, PA, and was met by an uncle named Alexander Tardiff, who housed them, fed them and educated the children. Due to stemming pressures from slave traders, Tardiff relocated his extended family to Roxbury, Pennsylvania, Chester, PA, and ultimately settled down in Bordentown, New Jersey. Tardiff had received an education from the future Bishop Daniel Payne and undertook to give Simmons and his siblings an education on that basis. From 1862 to 1864 William served as an apprentice to a dentist. He served in the Union Army during the US Civil War, enlisting September 15, 1864 and serving a one-year term. He took part in the siege of Petersburg, the Battle of Hatcher's Run, and the Battle of Appomattox Court House and was present at the surrender of Confederate General Robert E. Lee. After the war, he returned to dentistry. In 1867, he converted to Baptist and joined a White Baptist church in Bordentown that was pastored by Reverend J. W. Custis. The congregation helped him through college. He attended Madison University (now Colgate University, graduated in 1868), Rochester University, and Howard University, from which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1873. As a student, he worked briefly in Washington D.C. at Hillsdale School. In Hillsdale, he boarded with Smithsonian Institution employee, Solomon G. Brown. After graduating he moved to Arkansas on the advice of Horace Greeley to become a teacher there, but returned to Hillsdale soon after where he taught until June 1874.

The following summer, he married Josephine A. Silence on August 25, 1874 and moved to Ocala, Florida. The couple had seven children, Josephine Lavinia, William Johnson, Maud Marie, Amanda Moss, Mary Beatrice, John Thomas, and Gussie Lewis. In Florida, he invested in land to grow oranges, became principal of Howard Academy's teacher training program and served as the pastor of a church, deputy county clerk and county commissioner. He campaigned for the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. He served there until 1879. He was ordained that year and moved to Lexington, Kentucky where he pastored the First Baptist Church. The following year, he became the second president of the Kentucky Normal and Theological Institute, which he worked for a decade. The school was eventually renamed the State University of Louisville and later to Simmons College of Kentucky after Simmons due to schools progression under his tenure. He was succeeded in 1894 at Simmons College by Charles L. Purce.

In Kentucky he was elected for several years the chairman of the State Convention of Colored Men. On September 29, 1882, he was elected editor of the journal, the American Baptist where he criticized the failures of both political parties to support blacks in their civil rights and progress. He was also president of the American Baptist Company. in 1886 he was elected over T. Thomas Fortune to president of the Colored Press Association, having lost to W. A. Pledger the previous year. In 1883, Simmons organized the Baptist Women's Educational Convention, and in 1884, Blanche Bruce appointed Simmons commissioner for the state of Kentucky at the 1884 World's Fair in New Orleans. In 1886, he organized and was elected president of the American National Baptist Convention. The convention was a call for African American Baptist unity and was also led by Richard DeBaptiste and featured notable presentations by Solomon T. Clanton and James T. White. In 1889 in Indianapolis, Simmons was a leader at the American National Baptist Convention and wrote a resolution to provide aid for blacks fleeing violence in the South and moving to the North.

Simmons received an honorary master's degree from Howard University in 1881 and an honorary Doctorate degree from Wilberforce University in 1885. In 1887, he published a book entitled Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive and Rising, which highlights the lives of 172 prominent African-American men, while serving as the school's president. He was working on a sister edition of the title that would highlight the lives and accomplishments of prominent pre-1900 African-American women, but unfortunately died before its completion. He died on October 30, 1890, in Louisville, Kentucky.

[finishinglinepress]

NEW FROM FINISHING LINE PRESS: Drive by Sigrun Susan Lane

On SALE now! Pre-order Price Guarantee: https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/drive-by-sigrun-susan-lane/

Sigrun Susan Lane is the author of two chapbooks, Little Bones and Salt, which won the Josephine Miles’s award in 2020 from Pen Oakland for excellence in literature. She is a graduate of the University of Washington where she studied Creative Writing, but subsequently pursued a career in business. She returned to writing after a long hiatus. Her poems have appeared in national and international journals, including Asheville Poetry Review, Crab Creek Review, Malahat Review, Sing Heavenly Muse and numerous others. She has won awards for her poetry from the King County Arts and Seattle Arts Commissions. She lives in Seattle with her husband. She serves as a docent for the Frye Art Museum. #poetry #chapbook #life

PRAISE FOR Drive by Sigrun Susan Lane

In her autobiographical chapbook Drive, Sigrun Susan Lane writes vividly and without sentimentality of her admiration for an enigmatic father always on the move, as her own mercurial spirit is revealed. With striking imagery that captures youth, yearning, and restlessness, anyone who’s clung to a parent’s companionship long after they have passed will find this collection relatable and unflinchingly tender.

–Janée J. Baugher author of, most recently, The Ekphrastic Writer: Creating Art-Influenced Poetry, Fiction and Nonfiction

Please share/repost #flpauthor #preorder #AwesomeCoverArt #read #poems #literature #poetry

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Gloria Oladipo

Published: Aug 26, 2023

A Florida elementary school has prompted outrage for singling out its Black students to attend a special assembly identifying them, as a group, as a “problem” because of standardized test performances.

Black fourth- and fifth-grade students at Bunnell elementary school in Flagler county, central Florida, were pulled from class last Friday and mandated to attend the presentation on improving test scores, the Washington Post reported.

Students were chosen to attend the presentation based on race, Jason Wheeler, the communications coordinator for Flagler school district, confirmed to the Guardian.

The nine- and 10-year-old students were shown a powerpoint entitled “AA presentation”, referring to African American, according to a copy of the presentation shared with the Guardian.

A slide labeled “The Problem” claimed that “AA”, referring to Black students, have underperformed on standardized tests for the past three years.

A subsequent slide added that students will be placed in a competition with each other to improve their test scores and could receive a meal from McDonald’s as a prize, according to the presentation.

Several parents were outraged about the assembly and noted how their children were segregated for the presentation, even if they had passed their tests.

“They segregated our kids, [in] 2023,” Jacinda Arrington, a parent, told WFTV 9, the local ABC affiliate based in Orlando.

“To me, it told my child that she’s not good enough. The color of your skin means that you’re not good enough when, in fact, she’s one of the smartest kids in her class,” Arrington said to Fox 35 Orlando.

“This was solely based off of color,” Nichole Consolazio, the parent of a fifth-grade student, said to Daytona News Journal.

Parents also said their children were reportedly told that if they did not do well in school they would end up dead or in jail.

Wheeler told the Guardian he could not confirm what was specifically said to students, but confirmed that the presentation was only given to Black students.

Wheeler added that the assembly was currently under investigation by the school district.

Flagler’s interim superintendent, LaShakia Moore, who is Black, expressed regret at a press conference two days ago.

“This should not have happened, but it did,” Moore said, offering an apology to students, their families and the community.

“We make no excuses,” Moore added.

Some families have discussed transferring students out of Bunnell, Moore said during a press conference on the incident.

Moore announced a community forum on Tuesday about the incident.

Donelle Evensen, the school’s principal, sent out an apology to parents earlier in the week, for not sharing plans of the assembly ahead of time, WFTV 9 reported.

“I want to assure you, there was no malice intended in planning this assembly,” Evensen wrote in the letter obtained by WFTV9.

“However, we failed to inform you, our parents and guardians of these plans. We realize we went against our long-held belief that this must be a team effort, with you being a key member of that team.”

Evensen had been placed on paid administrative leave, Moore confirmed at a press conference.

Evensen could not be reached by the Guardian for comment.

This latest issue comes as Florida has rejected the teaching of Black history in schools, and other topics deemed “indoctrination” by Florida’s rightwing governor and 2024 candidate for the Republican nomination for president, Ron DeSantis.

Last month, the state’s board of education approved a slew of new standards for how public schools can teach Black history.

One standard mandates that students will be taught that some Black people gained “personal benefit” from slavery – as it taught them useful skills.

Such standards have been criticized by Florida educators and the vice-president, Kamala Harris.

DeSantis also rejected a new advance placement course for African American studies in January.

The governor said the course violated state law and “lacks educational value”.

--

By: Dominic Yeatman

Published: Aug 24, 2023

• Only black students - whatever their test scores - were hauled into the special assembly at Bunnell Elementary School • Superintendent tells principal 'sometimes, when you think “outside the box”, you forget why the box is there' 

A new school principal has outraged parents at a Florida elementary after she attempted to improve grades by ordering only her black students into a special assembly where they were warned they risk jail.

The fourth and fifth-grade students at Bunnell Elementary School were pulled together, irrespective of their test scores, and told that black students were underperforming.

‘It became racial for me when they included and boxed all of the black children together no matter if they were below average, average or above average,’ the mother of one high-performing student said.

Parents said their children were warned those with lower grades have a higher chance of going to jail, getting shot or getting killed.

But they were offered the chance to win 'a meal from McDonalds' if they improved their scores.

‘Now when my daughter has to go take a test, that’s in the back of her mind,’ parent Jacinda Arrington told WOFL.

‘They segregated our kids in 2023, they segregated our nine-year-olds.’

The school in Flagler county has 227 black and 696 whites among its 1,168 students and was allocated an overall C grade by the Florida Department of Education last year.

Principal Donelle Evensen only stepped into the role at the end of July but she has already been hauled into the office of school district interim superintendent LaShakia Moore.

‘I’ve had the opportunity to sit down with Bunnell Elementary Principal Donelle Evensen following an assembly of 4th and 5th-grade students,’ Ms Moore wrote in a statement.

‘We have been able to talk about what led to this assembly and steps that were or were not taken before or after it.

‘In speaking with Mrs. Evensen, it is clear there was no malice intended in planning this student outreach.

'However, sometimes, when you try to think “outside the box”, you forget why the box is there.’

The state has been at the center of an education debate since Governor Ron DeSantis pushed through his ‘Stop Woke Act’ to limit discussion of race, and approved a curriculum claiming that slavery equipped slaves with skills they found useful.

County School Board Chair Cheryl Massaro said the latest row had nothing to do with the Republican presidential contender, but was the school’s mistake.

‘It wasn’t a great idea,’ she told the Washington Post.

‘It’s sad that it was segregated by race because that’s not fair, but that’s what happened.’

Parents said their children remained upset after attending Friday’s assembly.

‘So I’m going to die, I’m going to get shot, I’m going to go to jail if I don’t do right, so now he’s panicking,’ said Alexis Smith.

‘They’re still innocent, they still play with action figures, so now we have to overparent because of something that happened at their safe space at their school?’

==

Even if this isn't directly associated with either traditional, regressive racism or neo-racist, "progressive" "anti-racism," this is the inevitable result of the re-emergence and legitimization of collectivism.

[darkmaga-returns]

By Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

Last month, our study titled, Excess Cardiopulmonary Arrest and Mortality after COVID-19 Vaccination in King County, Washington, was officially published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine: Open Access:

Here’s a concise summary of our study (Abstract):

Introduction: Since the onset of widespread COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, there have been concerns about serious cardiovascular adverse events as a result of mass vaccination. This study aimed to estimate excess cardiopulmonary arrest mortality in King County, WA, and investigate any association with COVID-19 vaccination rates.

Methods: An exploratory data analysis was performed. Comparative analyses were performed to evaluate the changes in total EMS attendances over time. Excess deaths were calculated using the 2015-2020 cardiopulmonary arrest mortality trend line. The relationship between excess cardiopulmonary arrest mortality and vaccination rates was analyzed using polynomial regression analysis.

Results: Approximately 98% of the King County population received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine by 2023. As of August 2nd, 2024, there have been approximately 589,247 confirmed COVID-19 cases in King County. In 2021- 2022, Total EMS attendances in King County sharply increased by 35.34% from 2020 and by 11% from pre-pandemic years. Cases of 'obvious death' upon EMS arrival increased by 19.89% in 2020, 36.57% in 2021, and 53.80% in 2022 compared to the 2017-2019 average. We found a 25.7% increase in total cardiopulmonary arrests and a 25.4% increase in cardiopulmonary arrest mortality from 2020 to 2023 in King County, WA. Excess fatal cardiopulmonary arrests were estimated to have increased by 1,236% from 2020 to 2023, rising from 11 excess deaths (95% CI: -12, 34) in 2020 to 147 excess deaths (95% CI: 123, 170) in 2023. A quadratic increase in excess cardiopulmonary arrest mortality was observed with higher COVID-19 vaccination rates. The general population of King County sharply declined by 0.94% (21,300) in 2021, deviating from the expected population size. Applying our model from these data to the entire United States yielded 49,240 excess fatal cardiopulmonary arrests from 2021-2023.

Conclusions: We identified a significant ecological and temporal association between excess fatal cardiopulmonary arrests and the COVID-19 vaccination campaign. The increase in excess cardiopulmonary arrest deaths may also be attributed to COVID-19 infection and disruptions in emergency care during the pandemic. Urgent further research is needed to confirm our observations with attention to risk mitigation for incident events and improved survival with resuscitation.

Please enjoy my interview with Bill Quinn on CDM, where I answer important questions pertaining to our new study.

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Arsewell's The Welcome Project shares its name with a decades-old Massachusetts non-profit. by u/KarenDelaneyWalker

Arsewell's The Welcome Project shares its name with a decades-old Massachusetts non-profit. Hank and the Drunken Emu tried to make a splash this week by announcing the launch of their newest attempt at distracting the world from their dumpster fire brand: The Welcome Project.According to the Arsewell website, "[they] launched The Welcome Project in 2023. [It] supports women-led programming for recently resettled Afghan women to help build more inclusive and connected communities. Currently, there are 11 active Welcome Projects across the U.S. 'designed to foster a sense of belonging' through activities including sewing, art, hiking, swimming, photography, storytelling and cooking."https://ift.tt/v0nQgXT Milwaukee, WI is one of the 11 cities. An article in today's Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports that Arsewell's Welcome Project was inspired by a visit from Hank and the Drunken Emu to a joint military base in New Jersey, where they visited with displaced Afghan families. The visit was apparently two years ago."[The Drunken Emu] was reminded of how the Hubb Community Kitchen, a group near and dear to her, was created so women could gather to make meals after the Grenfell Tower fire... Inspired by their New Jersey visit, the Archewell Foundation began working with partners to help address the needs of families resettling in the U.S...""When they continuously heard of the 'intense social isolation' the women in these communities were facing, they wanted to find a way to combat that, too. Hence, The Welcome Project was born."The article lists the other 10 Welcome Project cities and the programming for the particular location: South Bend, IN (arts and crafts); Missoula, MT (swimming); Oakland, CA (arts and crafts); Orange County, CA (storytelling); San Antonio, TX (sewing); Washington D.C. (photography); Clarkston, GA (hiking); Lynn, MA (sewing); Sterling, VA (sewing); and Arlington, VA (cooking). Milwaukee's focus is sewing."By facilitating programming, the project 'also brings access to critical resources, educational opportunities, workforce development, employment, and entrepreneurship,' according to [Arsewell's impact] report."https://ift.tt/V2jyopF So far, so good, riiiight? Except... there already appears to be a non-profit organization called The Welcome Project based in Somerville, Massachusetts.https://ift.tt/yb7UVJM to its website, "Somerville's leading immigrant organization, The Welcome Project builds collective power amongst immigrants to participate and shape their community through programming that strengthens the capacity of immigrant youth, adults and families to advocate for themselves and influence schools, government, and other institutions. The Welcome Project builds immigrants' power through programming that strengthens their economic and educational capacity to participate in and shape their community for a better future.Our programming is designed to build the strength and resiliency of our students by increasing individuals confidence in speaking the English Language, engaging in community activism, and breaking down the barriers that have long plagued the immigrant community."https://ift.tt/Q7O3rCY ***************************************************************************************It doesn't appear that the two Welcome Projects have anything to do with one another.Coincidence? Bad luck? Or did the Lazy F*cking Grifters jack a non-profit's name and general idea to pass off as their own? ​ post link: https://ift.tt/ayoz5gH author: KarenDelaneyWalker submitted: December 14, 2023 at 09:46PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Steve Cousineau

* * * *

The weekend review: A tale of two speeches.

March 18, 2024

ROBERT B. HUBBELL

Democrats cannot rely on Republicans to defeat themselves in 2024, but Trump and the GOP are doing their best to set their party aflame. They stand on a burning platform and are dousing the flames with gasoline. It is a bonfire of ugliness and self-immolation that further weakens the GOP each day. Their chaos doesn’t make our job any easier, but it does make their job more difficult. Remember that fact next time you worry about the passionate but principled disagreements among Democrats.

Trump gave a speech near Dayton, Ohio over the weekend that was unhinged, dangerous, threatening, vulgar, and inflammatory. Trump's speech is drawing nearly universal condemnation from major media outlets and forced his campaign to issue “clean-up” statements that attempted defend indefensible statements by denying the plain meaning of Trump's words.

I will turn to Trump's speech in a moment, but it is important to focus on the comparison to President Biden’s speech over the weekend. Biden delivered a short address at an event for the press and White House staff at the Gridiron Club in Washington, D.C. The annual event brings the press and administration officials together for a night of pointed comedy mixed with serious talk about the state of the media in America. As expected, Biden gave a speech that was funny and self-deprecating. It was well received. See Factbase, Transcript | The President Addresses a Gridiron Club Dinner in Washington - March 16, 2024.

But Biden also addressed the serious issue of the role of the press in a free society. Biden said,

Folks, every single one of us has a role to play in making sure American democracy endures. This year, you, the free press, have a bigger role than ever. Let me state the obvious. You're not the enemy of the people. You are a pillar of any free society. And I may not always agree with your coverage or admire it, but I do admire your courage. Good journalism holds a mirror up to a country for us to reflect the good, the bad, the truth about who we are. This is not hyperbole: We need you. Democracy is at risk, and the American people need to know. In fractured times, they need context and a perspective. They need substance to match the enormity of the task. As a result, the choices you make really matter. And each story you [write] makes democracy stronger. I know it's possible because I know the American story. We're a great nation. We're good people, defined by core values of honesty, decency, dignity, light over darkness, courage over fear, and truth over lies. These are also the bedrock principles of good journalism. So, tonight, I'd like to toast the free press and toast to the American people and the enduring causes of democracy and freedom.

Biden’s comments praising and honoring the press were a class act coming from a guy who has been badly mistreated by the press for the last year. But “class act” is vintage Biden.

In contrast, in Ohio, Trump predicted that there would be a “bloodbath” if he lost the 2024 election, said that immigrants “are not people [and] in some cases they are animals,” repeatedly referred to President Biden as “that son-of-a . . . .”, said he did “not give a sh*t” about Republicans who don’t support him, referred to California Governor Gavin Newsom and “New Scum,” and made a vulgar comment about Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis. Otherwise, the 90-minute speech was disjointed and incomprehensible to those not steeped in MAGA conspiracy theories. See NYTimes, Trump Says Some Migrants Are ‘Not People’ and Predicts a ‘Blood Bath’ if He Loses. (This article is accessible to all.)

A Trump campaign staff person claimed that the “bloodbath” comment was meant to convey the effect of a Biden victory on the auto industry. (See the Times article above.) While it is true that the comment took place in the context of a discussion of the auto industry, the statement about a “bloodbath” was not qualified or limited in any way. Trump said there would be a bloodbath if he lost. Period. Full stop.

It was vintage Trump—oblique statements alluding to violence shrouded in plausible deniability. But Trump's followers are not steeped in nuance or subtlety. They hear “bloodbath”, and they think “violence.” That is why major media has not bought the Trump campaign’s attempt to twist the meaning and limit the damage from Trump's call to violence.

But for all the attention that Trump's “bloodbath” comment has received, another aspect of Trump's Dayton rally was more disturbing and unsettling. Trump began the speech by playing the desecrated version of the National Anthem that he recorded with January 6 convicted felons serving prison time.

As the bastardized song begins, a recorded voice says, “Please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6 hostages.” The recorded voice then refers to the January 6 defendants as “unbelievable patriots.” During Trump's speech, he effectively promised to grant the January 6 defendants pardons.

There is nothing subtle about Trump's messaging. By calling for a “bloodbath” and referring to the January 6 defendants as “patriots” who will be pardoned, Trump is creating a permission structure for another violent insurrection. That’s the real story—and one that deserves to be highlighted every day between now and November 5, 2024.

That truth will become clearer each time Trump gives another campaign speech. He can’t help himself. He telegraphs what he is thinking and plotting. We should believe him. And so should that portion of corporate America that continues to support Trump.

The good news is that insurrection is not in the best interests of the institutions that are currently propping up Trump in a perverted love-hate relationship. Markets thrive on stability, not violence and insurrection. Corporate America understands that better than anyone.

But it gets worse.

Within twenty-four hours of Trump's call for a “bloodbath,” he called for the imprisonment of former Rep. Liz Cheney and the other members of the January 6 Committee. See Newsweek, Donald Trump Wants His Top Republican Critic Jailed.

So—Trump is calling for a second insurrection and prosecution of the current and former congressional representatives on the January 6 Committee. It doesn’t get any less subtle than that. Even Trump's least intuitive followers understand what Trump is saying.

As Trump is becoming more explicit in his dictatorial aspirations, he is also deteriorating cognitively. Last week, I cited a New Yorker article by Susan Glasser entitled, I Listened to Trump’s Rambling, Unhinged, Vituperative Georgia Rally—and So Should You. The New Yorker article is behind a paywall, so you may not have been able to read it. But Ali Velshi interviewed Susan Glasser on MSNBC and covered the substance of the article—so you can listen to Glasser discuss her observations about Trump. The interview is here. See MSNBC, You need to see how much worse Trump is now: Glasser.

In short, we have an aspiring dictator in cognitive decline who is telling us what his strongman fantasies are. As Bill Clinton would have said, “That dog won’t hunt.” We should be able to leverage those weaknesses to our advantage. They are scary, yes. But a disciplined response should allow us to convert Trump's increasing mania to our benefit—in part, by convincing persuadable independents and disaffected Republicans that the unhinged candidate they see on the campaign trail is unfit to govern this great nation again.

This leaves only the strongman fantasies of Trump's followers. Their loyalty to Trump makes sense only if he is their strongman, as Professor Timothy Snyder explains on his Substack blog, Thinking About. . . . The Strongman Fantasy.

As Professor Snyder writes,

Strongman rule is a fantasy. Essential to it is the idea that a strongman will be your strongman. He won't. In a democracy, elected representatives listen to constituents. We take this for granted, and imagine that a dictator would owe us something.  But the vote you cast for him affirms your irrelevance. The whole point is that the strongman owes us nothing. We get abused and we get used to it. 

There is probably little we can do to convince Trump's most cultish followers that Trump sees their support only as transactional and expendable. But Trump will continue to repulse portions of his remaining constituency by calling immigrants “animals,” praising thugs who killed police officers on January 6, mocking the disabled, calling soldiers “losers and suckers,” and desecrating the Christian principles that serve as the faith foundation for a majority of his supporters.

As I said at the top, we can’t count on Trump to defeat himself. But we should recognize that he is a weak candidate stranded on a burning platform, and he is acting as the chief arsonist. Every new voter we register and turn out to the polls will help build an insurmountable margin as Trump's former supporters at the margins reevaluate their past support for Trump. That is the only advantage we need in a closely matched election. We can make that happen—we already are!

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]