Biden Corrected Trump Economic Disaster, But It’s Still Late Stage Capitalist Corporatism

 

Sure, Biden has reversed the economic calamity that was the Trump administration. Anyone competent could have. But all of us who aren’t in the 1% are still having a hard go of it. Why? It’s because Biden is merely tinkering within the guardrails of the corporatist and right wing economic consensus that has been in place since 1980; the one that has led to record upward wealth concentration and income inequality, the one that his too-conservative predecessors Clinton and Obama similarly upheld. 

What Governor DeSantis needs to learn about the Holocaust and the Bible - Rabbi Jeff Salkin

Would anyone be surprised if, at some point in the near future, there would be bonfires of banned books across Florida? If you would be surprised, then I am sad to say that you simply have not learned history.

Florida Republican Governor and 2024 presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has portrayed himself as a friend of the Jews; witness his most recent trip to Israel. But he has allowed parent groups to remove Holocaust literature they don’t like from school libraries; all under the guise of "anti-woke" legislation.

Desantis' administration is censoring Holocaust education in public schools as being part of “woke indoctrination" in a 2020 bill he signed into law. 

A chilling question: Would anyone be surprised if, at some point in the near future, there would be bonfires of banned books across Florida? If you would be surprised, then I am sad to say that you simply have not learned history.

The full article is available here

Judge Who Signed FBI’s Mar-a-Lago Warrant Facing Violent Antisemitic Threats - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

On right-wing social media platforms and message boards, users have published the judge’s name, address and personal information. Threats have been directed at his children and supposed family members as well.

Bruce Reinhart, the federal judge in Florida who signed the warrant allowing the FBI to raid former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property, has been hit with a wave of antisemitic threats online.

The outburst has appeared on right-wing social media platforms and message boards, where users have published the judge’s name, address and personal information.

Threats have been directed at his children and supposed family members as well.

The synagogue whose board he serves on has been threatened as well, with a recent synagogue’s beachside Shabbat service having been canceled…“because of the social media hate.”

The full article is available here

Republican-controlled states have higher murder rates than Democratic ones: study - Yahoo News

David Weisburd, a professor of criminology at George Mason University, said that, "The claims of Trump and other Republicans who say Democrats have caused a crime wave in the cities and states they govern are unfounded."

Republican politicians routinely claim that cities run by Democrats have been experiencing crime waves caused by failed governance, but a new study shows murder rates are actually higher in states and cities controlled by Republicans.

Those findings are consistent with a pattern that has existed for decades, in which the South has had higher rates of violent crime than the nation as a whole.

While the study divided states by presidential vote in 2020, using gubernatorial party affiliation leads to similar results because most states have recently chosen the same party for governor and for president. Based on presidential vote, eight of the 10 states with the highest murder rates lean Republican, versus seven of the top 10 if one uses the governor’s party.

David Weisburd, a professor of criminology and executive director of the Center for Evidence-Based Crime Policy at George Mason University, said that, "The claims of Trump and other Republicans who say Democrats have caused a crime wave in the cities and states they govern are unfounded."

The full article is available here

What Is Critical Race Theory? - Michael Harriot

Critical Race Theory says that white supremacy and systemic racism exist, are engrained in everyday life, and benefit white people; so pretending that they don’t exist, failing to eradicate them, or acting as if they aren’t the norm not only allows white supremacy to flourish, it further normalizes it.

First of all, you should know that critical theory, as a tool for examining social structures, has been around for more than a century.  Broadly put, no social structure is perfect, and all social structures must be examined.

Critical Race Theory was first used to examine and study the law systemically through the lens of race. But "critical theory" doesn't just examine social structures. It also works to reform and improve them.

And one of the things that Critical Race Theory says is that the idea of race-neutral "colorblindness" actually invigorates white supremacy.

Since white supremacy and systemic racism exist, are engrained in everyday life, and benefit white people; then pretending they don’t exist, failing to eradicate them, or acting as if they aren’t the norm not only allows white supremacy to flourish, it further normalizes it.

If systemic racism did not benefit white people, would many of the most powerful white men in the country fight so hard to preserve it?

 
If racism and white supremacy weren't "ordinary" then why do so many white people disagree with Critical Race Theory while most Black people think it's important?

The full article is available here

America First Caucus: Republicans Reap Their Racist and Sexist Whirlwind - Heather Cox Richardson

Emphasizing their white nationalism, the authors lay out very clearly the racial argument behind the political one.

Today, news broke that a number of pro-Trump House Republicans, including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Paul Gosar (R-AZ), are organizing the “America First Caucus.”

The seven-page document outlining their ideas, obtained by Punchbowl News, is a list of the grievances popular in right-wing media.  Emphasizing their white nationalism, the authors lay out very clearly the racial argument behind the political one.

This extraordinary document makes it clear that Republican leaders are reaping what they began to sow during the Nixon administration, when party operatives nailed together a coalition by artificially dividing the nation between hardworking white taxpayers on the one hand and, on the other, people of color and feminist women whose demand for equality, the argument went, was code for government handouts.

In the years since 1970, Republicans have called for deregulation and tax cuts that help the wealthy, arguing that such cuts advance individual liberty. All the while, they have relied on racism and sexism to rally voters with the argument that Black and Brown voters and feminist women—“feminazis,” in radio host Rush Limbaugh’s world—wanted big government so it would give them handouts.

It was a political equation that worked with a wink and a nod until former president Trump put the racism and sexism openly on the table and encouraged his supporters to turn against their opponents.

They have now embraced open white supremacy.

The full article is available here

Grammar Interpretation Error Of SCOTUS Conservative Majority In Individual Gun Rights Case - The Rapidian

The 2nd Amendment ensures that states could maintain armed militias. It did not comment on an individual’s right to keep any kind of gun in any place at any time.

“I’m just a blue-collar kid from Zeeland, Michigan,” retired Calvin English professor James Vanden Bosch said, “but I have become well-versed on the grammar of the absolute phrase in the late 18th century.”

An absolute phrase modifies the entire clause that it belongs to. The phrase typically provides additional detail to that clause.

Grammatically, the “something being necessary” absolute phrase was quite common during the period when the Constitution was written. It was often used to provide explanatory material for the main clause to which it was attached.

Taking the absolute phrase into proper account, the 2nd Amendment ensures that states could maintain armed militias. It did not comment on an individual’s right to keep any kind of gun in any place at any time.

The full article is available here

What Cancel Culture Is And Isn't - Maui Smith in Study Breaks

"Cancel culture" is really just the practice of holding people accountable for their actions. Accountability isn't a witch hunt.

No one is perfect and no one is expected to be, but the line between inherent human imperfection and being a bigot or rapist is not as thin as some people make it out to be.

The full article is available here

Congress Introduces Amendment To Overturn Citizens United - Public Citizen

 

The full article is available here

Biden Won, Now Let's Un-coarsen The Public Discourse - Jeff Wiersma

Fellow Never-Trumpers, 

Even though the way in which Trump and many of his supporters have conducted themselves would seem to reflexively justify returning their cruelty, scorn, and lack of empathy back at them ... we should avoid sinking to that level in our understandably emotionally-charged reaction to Trump losing the election. 

Though we will never forget nor excuse their toxicity, we need to remember that our objection to Trump isn’t just based on policy/ideology. 

It is also based on his coarsening of the public discourse and governance ... as well as his work, whether knowingly or not, to help enemies of liberal democracy undermine our constitutional republic.

Republican Voter Suppression and Misused Electoral College = Tyranny of the Minority - Heather Cox Richardson

These injuries to our system have saddled us with an Electoral College that permits a minority to tyrannize over the majority.

What we are seeing in this election is the result of voter suppression across the southern states, along with an Electoral College that has been corrupted from its original intent and is now artificially skewed toward rural states.

Voter Suppression
In 2018, for example, people in Florida voted overwhelmingly to restore voting rights to felons. This would have added about 1.5 million people back to the rolls, many of them African Americans. But the Republican legislature passed a law saying the former felons could not vote unless they had paid all their court fines and fees.

A federal judge said that law was essentially an unconstitutional poll tax, but an appeals court overturned that decision. Five of the six judges who upheld the law were appointed by Trump.

The Electoral College
The Framers originally designed delegates to the Electoral College to vote according to districts within states, so that states would split their electoral votes, making them roughly proportional to a candidate’s support.

That system changed in 1800, after Thomas Jefferson recognized that he would have a better chance of winning the presidency if the delegates of his own home state, Virginia, voted as a bloc rather than by district. He convinced them to do it.

Quickly, other state officials recognized that the “winner-take-all” system meant they must do the same or their own preferred candidate would never win. Thus, our non-proportional system was born.


These injuries to our system have saddled us with an Electoral College that permits a minority to tyrannize over the majority. That systemic advantage is unsustainable in a democracy.

The full piece is available here

The Pathology of Privilege: Trump as Once or Future King - Brenda Peterson in Tikkun

This election is about what we will make of ourselves - and for our children. How will growing up in this amoral universe of the pathologically privileged Trump continue to shape them?

For now, our country has a boy-king of inherited wealth who was not raised to care about others, unless they serve his needs. A pathologically privileged president who recognizes no laws or boundaries to his will or wants. A man who sees the presidency as a brand and government as a family franchise. 

Trump’s obsequious high court in the Senate continues to co-enable the ruthless, rich-kid king.

Ridicule, racism, denial, high-handed indifference to any suffering but one’s own — these are the now very visible scars of privilege.

Wealth is not health. It is a great illusion. Wealth, like power and fame, is transitory. It is a momentary buffer against the ultimate limit—mortality. 

Every day our country is recognizing this as the tragic pandemic death toll rises - and we discover that our president has long publicly denied this “plague” was upon us. Because of his denial and disbelief, we are now a privileged nation that leads the world in pandemic deaths.

This election is about what we will make of ourselves - and for our children. How will growing up in this amoral universeof the pathologically privileged Trump continue to shape them?

The full article is available here

Ethics experts see national security concern in Trump’s debt - Associated Press

Why would banks have assumed the risk on loans to Trump? Or did someone else quietly assume risk of that loan for the bank to make it happen?

Revelations that President Donald Trump is personally liable for more than $400 million in debt raises national security concerns, as ethics experts say he could be manipulated to sway U.S. policy by organizations or individuals he’s indebted to.

Though politically-damaging, the revelations about Trump’s tax avoidance are perhaps less concerning than word the president is holding hundreds of millions of dollars of soon-to-mature debt, ethics experts said.

“Americans should be concerned about the president’s debt because it’s a national security risk for our country,” said Donald Sherman, deputy director of the nonprofit government watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW).

Richard Painter, who served as chief ethics attorney in Republican George W. Bush’s White House, also noted that Trump-owned companies have declared bankruptcy six times, raising the question: Why have lenders been willing to keep risking loans of such enormous amounts?
“Why would banks assume the risk on these loans?” Painter said. “Or did someone else quietly assume risk of that loan for the bank to make it happen?”

Peter Schweizer, the president of the Government Accountability Institute, said, “The question is also one of whether the loans are tied to actual assets such as buildings, etc., or was the political figure granted special favors in getting loans. Politicians and their families can engage in commercial transactions, the question is whether the loans are unusual and unique compared to others in the marketplace.

The full article is available here

Thoughts On Trump's Idea Of How History Should Be Taught - Calvin University historian emeritus, Robert Schoone-Jongen

Honest patriots seek the truth, all of it - warts and all. That is learning. The alternative is propaganda.

In the wake of President Trump’s embrace of “patriotic history” at the National Archives on Thursday, I rise to speak in favor of the discipline I taught, studied, researched, and wrote about for decades.

I also rise to oppose, categorically the debauched definition of history he espoused in that hallowed national space within sight of the Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence.

Back in the day, before the internet, I used to regularly listen to shortwave radio to find out what was happening in the world. Back in that day one of the loudest voices on those bands was Radio Moscow. I can still hear the baritone voices giving the English language version of the Soviet Union’s story.

Part of that story was the sovereign belief that the USSR had never been wrong, had always acted honorably, and that life under the Soviet Union had been uninterrupted rise to greatness. In this telling, there were no gulags, no forced labor, no liquidation of the kulaks, no pact with the Nazis. In fact by the 1980s Stalin had largely disappeared from the narrative. It was all sanitized, rosy, varnished, and a lie.

Since the advent of the internet, and my discovery of email, my signature has included the phrase, “History-the way today got here.” My history career rested on the truth that history is real, knowable, and valuable. The past is our mirror. In it, we can see ourselves for who we are, if we take the time to wipe the fog from that mirror. Something else promotes a clearer vision.

As Reinhold Niebuhr warned about sanitized national histories, such collective, willful ignorance destroys all it touches.

To say, as President Trump suggests, that the history of the United States is nothing but the triumph of freedom, is willful ignorance. Our national story is both 1776 and 1619, both “all men are created equal” and the “peculiar institution”. Both are true, not just one or the other.

Two of the founders carved on Mount Rushmore--beneath which the President stood in July--owned, bought, and sold human beings. The Confederacy’s leaders, whose statues the President deems sacred, committed treason against the United States (as actually defined by the Constitution) to preserve slavery.

The Constitution, which the President used as a prop the other day, condoned slavery.

In fact, condoning slavery made our national government possible. Abraham Lincoln, another face on that South Dakota mountain, was killed for his opposition to slavery. And Theodore Roosevelt lunched with Booker T. Washington at the White House—just once. Then came the backlash in the press. These are hard truths; nevertheless they are true.

History happens. People propel the events we read about and study; but people are not perfect. Therefore, the people’s story—our American history--will be rife with our imperfections. Unless we anesthetize ourselves into distortion, we have no choice but to address those imperfections staring at us in history’s mirror.

My grandfathers were both immigrants from the Netherlands—draft dodgers. Their trans-Atlantic passage allowed them to voluntarily dodge the law. They came to Paterson, New Jersey, and became good citizens of the United States. That is one thread in the American story, one we enjoy celebrating, and rightfully so.

But for millions of others, the passage across the Atlantic was not voluntary. A “person held to Service or Labour in one State” (a slave), to quote the Constitution’s Article IV, produced the fibers that were woven into the cloth produced in the mills Alexander Hamilton (of recent Broadway fame) financed, and Charles L’Enfant (who gave us Washington, D.C.’s street pattern) designed below the Great Falls of the Passaic River. That cloth, that came from fibers cultivated and harvested by slave labor, made Paterson a place that, even after slavery had been abolished, attracted immigrants like my grandfathers. Paterson’s prosperity was made possible by hardworking laborers—both slave and free. That is the unvarnished American story, whether the President likes it or not.

If we are to “Proclaim Liberty Throughout the Land” -- words cast on the Liberty Bell -- we need the truth; only the truth can make us free. A history of the United States that highlights Jackie Robinson but ignores Jim Crow, is just a story, not history. It would be an American version of the Radio Moscow version of the Soviet Union—fictionalized, sanitized, a lie.

In 2008, I had the privilege to teach an unvarnished version of American history to a group of Russian college students. When the course ended, I asked the students to tell me the most interesting, or important, thing they learned. I will never forget one student’s response. “I learned that it is okay to criticize your own country.” I kept that answer on my office desk for years. A Russian student grasped a truth that eludes our President; true patriots are honest patriots. Honest patriots seek the truth, all of it—warts and all. That is learning. The alternative is propaganda.

“You shall know that truth, and the truth shall make you free.” That’s good scholarship and the foundation of good citizenship. In the United States that means we always will see the interlocking of 1776, and 1619, and 1865, and today.

Unlike reality television or old westerns, history isn’t a simplistic story with stock characters and a scripted plot line.

History, the discipline I love, is complicated when it is real. History (a record of troubles and hopes) is the way today got here. That’s the simple truth. History education does not create the troubles, it studies them.

Trump's RNC Speech: Unholy Mix of Manifest Destiny and White Supremacy - Messiah college professor John Fea

What Trump leaves out are the Native American ancestors already living on the continent when European explorers and settlers arrived. It also leaves out slavery. 

The end of Donald Trump's speech at the Republican Convention celebrated an unholy mix of Manifest Destiny and White Supremacy.

In talking about our "American Ancestors," Trump said that, “They loved their families, they loved their country, and they loved their God. When opportunity beckoned, they picked up their Bibles, packed up their belongings, climbed into their covered wagons, and set out West for the next adventure.”

What Trump’s version leaves out is the Native American ancestors already living on the continent when European explorers and settlers arrived.

It was the Doctrine of Discovery, a series of papal edicts which many Christian denominations have since ruled to be heresy, that gave Christian explorers the right to claim lands they “discovered.”

It also leaves out slavery.

Overall, the story of American progress is more complicated than Trump made it out to be. Manifest Destiny was deeply informed by the long-standing idea that white Protestant ‘civilization’ must advance Westward. This belief claimed that God gave the continent to Christians and it was their ‘destiny’ to conquer and tame it.

The full article is available here

Don't Forget That MLK Was Once Denounced as an Extremist - Jeanne Theoharris in Time Magazine

Many of the criticisms lobbed at Black Lives Matter today were also leveled against civil rights activists five decades ago.

Our pop history memory of the civil rights movement makes it seem as if most decent people were in favor of the movement, but the reality was that they were not. Many of the criticisms lobbed at Black Lives Matter today were also leveled against civil rights activists five decades ago.

Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, and scores of their fellow activists were criticized by fellow citizens and targeted as “un-American,” not just by Southern politicians but by the federal government.

Civil rights activists were reviled, red-baited, and called extremists in their own time.

On the Selma-to-Montgomery march, in 1965, White Citizens’ Councils had plastered huge billboards along the route in which King and Parks were pictured attending a “Communist training school” (actually Highlander Folk School).

The civil rights movement was deeply unpopular at the time. Most Americans thought it was going too far and movement activists were being too extreme. Most white Americans were happy with the status quo as it was. And so they criticized, monitored, demonized and at times criminalized those who challenged the way things were, making dissent very costly.

A half-century plus later, in our popular celebration of Dr. King, the relentless nationwide opposition to the civil rights movement is usually left out.

The full article is available here

2020 Campaign Rhetoric Fact-Check: Does Joe Biden Advocate Socialism and Marxism?

 

The "Walk Away" from Democrats Campaign: When Bot Misinformation Warfare Meets Viral Hashtag - The Mercury News

There’s little actual evidence to suggest that Walk Away represents a mass exodus from the Democratic Party in support of Trump. 

The pro-Trump Internet is really good at convincing its audience that virality signals popular opinion, that its movement is and always will be winning.

There’s little actual evidence to suggest that Walk Away represents a mass exodus of Democrats in support of Trump. Instead, the Walk Away hashtag is going Conservative Internet viral on the hope that the country is on the verge of a mass conversion to Trumpian conservative thought. It never actually has to happen for the idea of it to go viral.

There is also evidence that the hashtag itself is being amplified artificially by bots and Russian trolls to seem bigger than it is, as well as using stock photos to depict people who are purported to be actual Walk Away-ers. 

The full article is available here

The Upcoming Republican National Convention - Heather Cox Richardson's Substack

 

It is traditional for a candidate to put in a short appearance to acknowledge the nomination and then give a keynote acceptance speech on the last day. But the RNC’s announced line-up features Trump speaking every night in the prime-time slot.

Trump will speak live from the White House. This raises legal questions because - while the president and vice-president are not covered by the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities - the rest of the White House staff is. Further, it is against the law to coerce federal employees to conduct political activity.

The Republicans have written no platform to outline policies and goals for the future. Instead they passed a resolution saying that “the Republican Party has and will continue to enthusiastically support the President’s America-first agenda.”

The full article is available here

Common Fake News Claims About the Flu Vaccine - Dr. Melvin Sanicas

Fall is almost here, which means flu season is just around the corner.

It also means that anti-flu vaccine misinformation will go viral again.

Besides the common myths, there are posts that get shared over and over again through social media. A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences investigated how misinformation grows online. The so-called “echo chambers” allow people to expand and amplify their own biases without obstruction.

Fake News #1: A Johns Hopkins Scientist exposed dangers of the flu vaccine.  The article in question was neither a peer-reviewed study nor a research article but an opinion piece (and everyone is entitled to an opinion!). This opinion piece was authored by an anthropologist who is neither a “Johns Hopkins scientist” nor a professional in the medical or biological fields.

Fake News #2: The CDC issued a flu vaccine apology.  On Dec. 3, 2014, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a health advisory to clinicians about the 2014–2015 flu season. The CDC press release stated that the H3N2 virus (only one of the three or four strains the vaccine was designed for) had mutated slightly, and protection for that one strain was reduced.

Fake News #3: The flu shot will make you susceptible to other respiratory viruses. There was one study (published in 2012) that suggested that the flu vaccine might make people more prone to infection of other respiratory infections. After the study was published, several experts looked into this issue further and performed additional studies to see whether the findings could be replicated. However, no other studies have found this effect.

Fake News #4: A CDC-funded study confirmed that flu shot link to spontaneous abortions.  A recent study showed an association between flu vaccine and miscarriage in this small group of women. It is important to note that millions of flu vaccines have been given for decades, including to pregnant women, with a good safety record. Indeed, pregnant women are at high risk of serious flu complications ― they are recommended for influenza vaccination during any trimester of their pregnancy.

The full article is available here

Post Office Spokeman Claims "Removing Dropboxes Due To Declining Volume" - Willamette Week

The removal of mailboxes arrives amid a change in leadership at the USPS that many postal workers contend is intended to sabotage the agency during an election year.  

A spokesman for the United States Postal Service confirmed that the agency has removed four blue boxes from Portland, and 27 from Eugene this week. The USPS plans to remove a few more boxes from Portland next week.

"The reason we're doing it is because of declining mail volume," USPS spokesman Ernie Swanson said. "Ever since the pandemic came along, people are mailing less for some reason."

The removal of mailboxes arrives amid a change in leadership at the USPS that many postal workers contend is intended to sabotage the agency during an election year. 

President Donald Trump said he is intentionally undermining the USPS to make it more difficult to vote by mail during a pandemic.

The full article is available here 

Debunked Right-wing Conspiracy Theories Detract From Very Real Issue Of Child Trafficking - Upworthy

When the actual issue of child sex trafficking - which is absolutely real and serious and deserves our attention - is conflated with debunked Right-wing conspiracy theories, it causes people to put their energies in the wrong places.

You know who never mentions any of the Right-wing child sex trafficking conspiracy theories raging around the internet? The organizations that have spent years and years battling child sex trafficking.

When the actual issue of child sex trafficking - which is absolutely real and serious and deserves our attention - is conflated with debunked Right-wing conspiracy theories, it causes people to put their energies in the wrong places.

The Polaris Project, a national organization that fights human trafficking, had to release a statement asking people to stop calling about Wayfair - the home goods products store - because it was overwhelming the National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Why? Because a debunked Right-wing conspiracy theory has ricocheted around social media which claims that the company has coded listings for missing children being sold at exorbitant prices in a child sex trafficking scheme.

The other problem is that the issue of child sex trafficking is suddenly being used by Right-wingers to deflect from all sorts of other important issues.

So, please stick with the organizations that have been doing this work for decades. Get your information from them, not misinformation warfare social media posts. 

The full article is available here

CONSERVATIVE Tom Nichols: Why Trump Must Lose By A Landslide - Thread Reader

The only remedy - the only solution that can defeat Trump and Bill Barr in this plot against the election - is to elect Biden by an electoral college AND popular vote landslide. 

Trump will do everything in his power to rig this election, and, if he loses, to turn the election into a horrifying mess for as long as he can. He is directly attacking the electoral institutions of the United States, and he will welcome Russian help in this - again.

The only remedy - the only solution that can defeat Trump and Bill Barr in this plot against the election - is to elect Biden by an electoral college AND popular vote landslide. That means every vote, even in blue states, counts as a message against this electoral chicanery.

If there is any result other than a landslide, Trump and Barr are going to pull out all the stops to try to paralyze the election from the inside.

Trump made this scenario come to fruition. Don't complain to me about it - I didn't make the rules. Trump has made clear that he's inclined to not accept the outcome unless he likes it. So it must be uncontestable.

The full article is available here

Trump Calling Protesters "Terrorists" Puts Him In Company Of World's Autocrats - News Break

"It could be simple to dismiss the US President shouting ‘terrorist’ as Trump simply being Trump.

However his calls for designating Antifa as a ‘terrorist organization’ and his conflation of all protesters with Antifa exhibits his urge to quell dissenting voices.”

The full article is available

Why Are Masks During COVID Politicized in the U.S.? - Anna North in Vox

When highly-visible people like the president refused to wear masks and made wearing masks a political issue, their supporters were less likely to wear them. 

More than 5 months into the Covid-19 pandemic, the evidence for masks keeps getting stronger.

One study in Germany found that mask mandates reduced the growth of infections by about 40 percent.

Another estimated that mask rules in 15 US states and Washington, DC, may have prevented as many as 230,000 to 450,000 cases.

Wearing a mask is a simple action that almost anyone (excluding very small children and people with certain health conditions) can take, and most experts agree it can help slow the spread of the virus. Masks are a big reason why other countries, including those more densely populated than the US, have done a better job than the US at controlling the virus.

Yet even as the COVID claimed more and more American lives throughout the spring, Trump, Vice President Mike Pence, and others in the administration routinely appeared in public without masks. For Trump in particular, the longtime refusal to wear a mask became part of a larger message that ignoring the risks of the coronavirus was the tough or strong thing to do.

When highly-visible people like the president don’t wear masks and make wearing masks a political issue, their supporters are less likely to wear them.

When the president said people were wearing masks as a way of showing their disapproval of him, that’s a pretty clear signal, not just that he wasn't modeling responsible behavior, but that he viewed it as a sign of disloyalty. That does definitely further politicize the decision to wear a mask or not.

The full article is available here

John Bolton Plumbs the Depth of Trump’s Depravity - The Atlantic

Trump's former national security adviser accuses the president of putting his reelection above everything else and of endorsing the persecution of China’s Uighur minority by agreeing that they should be put into concentration camps.

According to John Bolton's book, in June 2019, Donald Trump was desperate for a win - and he was willing to endorse Chinese concentration camps to get it.

According to a forthcoming book by John Bolton, who was then serving as Trump’s national security adviser, Xi explained to Trump why China was building concentration camps for the Uighur minority in the western part of the country.

Bolton claims: “According to our interpreter, Trump said that Xi should go ahead with building the camps, which Trump thought was exactly the right thing to do.”

Trump’s willingness to prioritize his political fortunes was not limited to this one incident, but rather, Bolton writes, was part of a pattern: “Trump commingled the personal and the national not just on trade questions but across the whole field of national security. I am hard-pressed to identify any significant Trump decision during my White House tenure that wasn’t driven by reelection calculations.”

This is a stunningly blunt conclusion from the man Trump handpicked to advise him on national security—though not one that will come as a great surprise, after Trump was impeached for trying to use American aid to Ukraine to extort assistance for his reelection campaign.

Bolton’s account is notable for two reasons. The first is the messenger: Bolton had not only a front-row seat but a seat at the table for the events he recounts, and there is no question about his conservative bona fides.

Second, it shows the scale and depth of Trump’s depravity and corruption—even to the point of allegedly encouraging concentration camps for a persecuted minority.

The full article is available here

Accused Killer Of California Cops Was Part Of Far Right Movement - Forbes Magazine

The FBI announced that Carrillo chose the timing of his attacks to "take advantage of a time when this nation was mourning the killing of George Floyd."

The FBI announced Tuesday that Steven Carrillo, the U.S. Air Force sergeant who allegedly murdered law enforcement officers in California during protests earlier this month, was associated with the right-wing Boogaloo movement. 

The FBI announced that Carrillo chose the timing of his attacks to "take advantage of a time when this nation was mourning the killing of George Floyd."

According a review of court documents of 51 individuals facing federal charges related to protests, none is alleged to have links to the Antifa movement.

Among all the cases brought by the Justice Department thus far, the only extremist group mentioned in court documents is the right-wing "Boogaloo movement."

The movement has evolved from a gathering of militia enthusiasts and Second Amendment advocates into a full-fledged violent extremist group, which inspires lone wolf actors and cell-like actors alike.

The full article is available here

The "Black on Black Crime" Whataboutism - Troy L Smith

Yes, racial disparities in crime and punishment are real. However, they have been produced in large part by the systemic and structural racism against dis-empowered minorities, particularly African Americans.

A common whataboutism raised when discussing police brutality is “why aren’t we talking about black on black crime?”  (That is a specious argument since a lot of people - especially within the Black Community - have been and continue to talk about it, but let's get into why crime rates are the way that they are).

If we want to have a good faith discussion about crime, we need to talk about all of the factors that contribute to crime happening in the first place.

According to the Bureau for Justice Statistics, people in households with income below the federal poverty threshold are twice as likely to commit a violent crime than people in high-income households, regardless of race.

But, since we live in a country where the poverty rate is more than twice as high among black Americans than white. And that has as much to do with 400 years of systematic racism as it does anything else.

Yes, racial disparities in crime and punishment are real. However, they have been produced in large part by the systemic and structural racism against dis-empowered minorities, particularly African Americans.

Even though overt racial discrimination has been prohibited by law for decades, it still occurs at an alarming rate.

Additionally, the brutal structural legacy of racism, segregation, concentrated poverty, and violence remains.

The full article is available here

What "Defund" Advocates Are Calling For In Municipal Budgets - New York Times Explainer

City budgets would be restructured to shift more funding to educational, health care, and social services.

Advocates who have been saying "defund" police are not calling for the abolition of police departments.  What it actually means is no longer asking officers to do resolve family and school disputes, move homeless people into shelters and so on.

As a result, city budgets would be restructured to shift more funding to educational, health care, and social services.

Some cities have already made changes. In Austin, Texas, 911 calls are answered by operators who inquire whether the caller needs police, fire or mental health services — part of a major revamping of public safety that took place last year when the city budget added millions of dollars for mental health issues.

In Eugene, Ore., a team called CAHOOTS — Crisis Assistance Helping Out on the Streets — deploys a medic and a crisis worker with mental health training to emergency calls.

The full article is available here

Retired Generals Sound Alarm On Trump Using Military Domestically - David Knowles, Yahoo News

Retired top generals reacted with alarm to President Trump’s plan to use active-duty military to patrol cities.  They have also taken issue with Trump’s use of U.S. soldiers to counter demonstrators.

“It sickened me yesterday to see security personnel — including members of the National Guard — forcibly and violently clear a path through Lafayette Square to accommodate the president’s visit outside St. John’s Church,” retired Gen. Mike Mullen, a former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in an extraordinary op-ed in the Atlantic.

“I have to date been reticent to speak out on issues surrounding President Trump’s leadership, but we are at an inflection point, and the events of the past few weeks have made it impossible to remain silent.”

Former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Gen. Martin Dempsey, was similarly bothered by Trump’s actions, tweeting, "America is not a battleground. Our fellow citizens are not the enemy."

Retired Gen. Tony Thomas, former head of Special Operations Command, said Trump’s promise to flood the streets of cities with U.S. soldiers is “not what (the country) needs to hear.”

The full article is here

Structural Racism and Infrastructure In U.S. Cities - Johnny Miller in The Guardian

Urban infrastructure is not value-free. Government decisions made from the 1930's to the 1960's set the course for the inequality we face in U.S. cities.

To get an understanding of how infrastructure transforms communities, there’s no better place to start than the Federal Housing Authority “redlining” housing maps.

Commissioned by the federal government in the 1930's, these maps were critical to decisions of where and what type of infrastructure, lending and housing each neighborhood of each American city would be able to receive.

“The FHA promoted home ownership in new – and primarily suburban – neighborhoods so long as they were white and not ethnically or economically diverse,” writes Antero Pietila in Not in My Neighborhood: How Bigotry Shaped a Great American City.

FHA maps were created for every major city in the US. Original assessment documents unearthed by researchers at the T-Races project reveal the cold, casually racist way in which data collectors consigned vast neighborhoods to neglect and poverty.

Nowhere is infrastructure so obviously structurally racist as with the vast interstate highway system.

By the 1950's and 60's, during the Interstate Highway building boom, the process of routing roads through black communities was so common it even had a name among critics: “White roads through black bedrooms.”

The result was decay, pollution, and crime.

The full article is available here

Widower of Lori Klausutis Asks Twitter To Delete Trump Conspiracy Theory Tweets About Her Death - New York Times

President Trump tweeted to his nearly 80 million followers alluding to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that Klausutis' wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough.

Mr. Klausutis asked Mr. Dorsey, Twitter’s chief executive, to remove President Trump’s tweets that push a debunked conspiracy theory about the death of his wife, Lori Klausutis.

Twitter said it would not do so.

President Trump tweeted to his nearly 80 million followers alluding to the repeatedly debunked falsehood that Klausutis' wife was murdered by her boss, former U.S. Rep. Joe Scarborough.

The son of the president followed and more directly attacked the late Lori Klausutis by tweeting to his followers as the means of spreading this vicious lie.

The President’s tweet that suggests that Lori was murdered — without evidence (and contrary to the official autopsy) — certainly appear to be a clear violation of Twitter’s community rules and terms of service.

Mr. Klausutis wrote to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, saying, "I’m asking you to intervene in this instance because the President of the United States has taken something that does not belong to him - the memory of my dead wife - and perverted it for perceived political gain."

The full article is available here

What Is "Movement Conservatism?"

"Movement Conservatism" is a term describing conservatism in the U.S. and the New Right over the past 60-70 years. It differs from the moderate/traditional Republican Party which preceded it in being anti-regulation, anti-social web, pro-big business, and allied with the anti-Enlightenment Religious Right. 

Movement Conservatism is different from historic the moderate/traditional Republican Party in the vain of Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Nelson Rockefeller, and Dwight Eisenhower. 

In his 2009 book "Reappraising the Right: The Past and Future of Conservatism," George H Nash identifies a tension between middle-of-the-road republicans and movement conservatives.

Political scientists Doss and Roberts say that "The term movement conservatives refers to those people who argue that big government constitutes the most serious problem .... Movement conservatives blame the growth of the administrative state for destroying individual initiative."

Historian Heather Cox Richardson has articulated how the pre-Movement Conservative Republican Party believed that society worked best when people at the bottom had education and equality of opportunity - and that it was the role of government to actively distribute resources to those at the bottom to provide education and equality of opportunity.  This belief in a social web led to policies which have historically led to a rising middle class,

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman devoted a chapter of his book The Conscience of a Liberal (2007) to the movement, writing that movement conservatives gained control of the Republican Party starting in the 1970s and that Ronald Reagan was the first movement conservative elected President.

However, movement conservatives had to compete for President Reagan's attention with fiscal conservatives, businessmen, and traditionalists.

Author and magazine editor William F. Buckley Jr. was one of the founding members of the movement. His 1951 book God and Man at Yale argued against Keynesian economics, progressive taxation and the welfare state.

In 1955, he founded National Review, which provided a platform for arguing the movement conservative viewpoint. His emphasis was on pro-business, anti-union domestic policy. (However, in its early days the magazine also included sentiments of white supremacy).

The movement also gathered support from such disparate sources as libertarian Monetarists like economist Milton Friedman and neoconservatives like Irving Kristol. Friedman attacked government intervention and regulation in the 1950s and thereafter.

Supreme Court Begins Arguments In Trump Bid To Keep Finances Secret - Reuters

3 months after Trump avoided removal from office in a Senate impeachment trial, Trump’s lawyers want the Supreme Court to endorse their expansive view of presidential powers that would severely limit the ability of Congress to carry out oversight of presidents and of prosecutors to investigate them.

Trump, unlike other recent presidents, has declined to release his tax returns and other financial records that could shed light on his net worth and the activities of his family real-estate company, the Trump Organization. The content of these records remains an enduring mystery of his presidency.

The full article is available here

Vaccine Myths Debunked - PublicHealth.org

Research shows that most of the biggest fears about vaccinations are unfounded.

Fears over the safety of vaccines felt by children's caregivers are understandable.  Research, however, shows that most of the biggest fears about vaccinations are unfounded.

Public health officials and physicians have been combating misconceptions about vaccine safety for over twenty years. They've had mixed success.

Despite the fact that numerous studies have found no evidence to support the notion that vaccines cause autism and other chronic illnesses, there's a lot of disinformation out there.  That disinformation poses a public health risk. Researchers now link falling immunization rates to recent resurgences of vaccine-preventable diseases.

Here are 8 major vaccine myths that research has shown to be baseless:

Myth #1: Vaccines cause autism -- Several major studies have been conducted. None of them found a link between any vaccine and the likelihood of developing autism.

Myth #2: Infant immune systems can't handle vaccines -- Though there are more vaccinations than ever before, today's vaccines are far more efficient, exposing children to fewer immunologic components overall than in the past.

Myth #3: Natural immunity is better than vaccines -- The dangers of this approach far outweigh the relative benefits.

Myth #4: Vaccines contain unsafe toxins -- There is no scientific evidence that the low levels of this chemical, mercury or aluminum in vaccines can be harmful.

Myth #5: Better hygiene/sanitation is actually responsible for decreased infections -- Better sanitation, nutrition, and the development of antibiotics helped a lot too. But when these factors are isolated and rates of infectious disease are scrutinized, the role of vaccines cannot be denied.

Myth #6: Vaccines aren't worth the risk -- There has never been a single credible study linking vaccines to long term health conditions.

Myth #7: Vaccines infect children with disease it's trying to prevent -- Vaccines can cause mild symptoms resembling those of the disease they are protecting against, but do not signal infection.

Myth #8: We don't need vaccines when infections rates are so low -- If too many people don't vaccinate themselves or their children, they contribute to a collective danger, opening up opportunities for viruses and bacteria to establish themselves and spread.

The full article is available here

Judy Mikovits Didn't Discover Deadly Virus Delivered Through Vaccines, Wasn't Jailed For It - Snopes

Judy Mikovits - who was featured in a recently viral conspiracy theory YouTube video 'Plandemic: The Hidden Agenda Behind Covid 19' - did not discover a deadly virus delivered through vaccines and was not then jailed for it.

She was arrested for allegedly stealing equipment belonging to the Institute that fired her.

Fortunately, the video  - which had been widely shared on social media despite its obviously sensationalistic and preposterous title - has been removed from YouTube for violating guidelines.

The full article is available here

Conspiracy Theories Run Rampant When People Feel Helpless - Washington Post

The object of the conspiracy theories — the coronavirus — is, itself, the source of the undesirable psychological states that promote beliefs in conspiracy theories. Thus Coronavirus conspiracy beliefs are a self-fulling prophecy. 

Psychologists have identified a number of psychological traits that are related to conspiracy beliefs, including the predisposition to see systematic patterns where there is only random noise or to interpret coincidence as intentional cause.

But when it comes to a global pandemic — and the deaths, social isolation and collapsing economy that it has brought about — three other factors are key: uncertainty, anxiety and powerlessness.

The object of the conspiracy theories — the coronavirus — is, itself, the source of the undesirable psychological states that promote beliefs in conspiracy theories. In other words, coronavirus conspiracy beliefs are a self-fulling prophecy.

This is dangerous because belief in conspiracies undermines societal behaviors that are crucial to limiting the damage of the virus. Social distancing, hand-washing, and wearing masks in public all have the most impact at the outset of a global pandemic

Political and social leaders can combat pandemic-induced anxiety and uncertainty by visibly taking the threat seriously, including steps to promote public health and reduce the negative economic impact on people.

Even merely demonstrating that they are working hard to address the crisis and avoiding engaging in conspiratorial rhetoric themselves could limit the likelihood of the mass public turning further toward conspiracy theories for relief.

The full article is available here

There’s No Such Thing As "Judeo-Christian Values" - Charles D Dunst in The Forward

Rather than reference traditional and contemporary shared values between the 2 traditions, the term is utilized by those who wish to imply the existence of a contemporary cultural war and evoke the visceral responses that come from such war.

Sure, both Judaism and Christianity emanate from the Torah; there certainly are shared values.

These values, however, are not what the term​ “Judeo-Christian values” refers to.

Rather than reference traditional and contemporary shared values between the 2 traditions, the term is utilized by those who wish to imply the existence of a contemporary cultural war and evoke the visceral responses that come from such war.

The term, as used by the GOP, is not reflective of Jewish inclusion in Republican politics, but of an ideological strategy to unite 2 camps — the anti-immigrant nationalists and the evangelicals.

For anti-immigrant nationalists,​​“the promise of “Judeo-Christian values” implies a return to dominant whiteness.

For evangelicals, the promise of “Judeo-Christian values” implies returning Christian hegemony, privilege, and Dominionism.

Contemporary U.S. Jewish values — values which are largely liberal — are simply not reflected in the right’s usage of the term. The term is not one of Jewish inclusion and Jewish values, but of cynical Republican politics.

Using Judaism to posture to two groups – nationalists and evangelicals – whose values diverge so emphatically from those of the contemporary Jewish community is outrageous.

The full article is available here

Lockdowns Save Lives: The Evidence Is Clear From Around The World - Aria Bendix in Business Insider

Social distancing provided by the lockdowns has clearly slowed the spread of the virus.

Overwhelming evidence suggests that lockdowns help contain coronavirus outbreaks and prevent additional deaths.

China, Germany, and Spain all saw their number of daily infections drop off after lockdowns were instated.

"Social distancing provided by the lockdowns has clearly slowed the spread of the virus," Jeffrey Morris, director of the biostatistics division at the University of Pennsylvania, told Business Insider.

In Italy, towns with lockdown measures also seemed to fare better than those without.

"Clearly we need for society to practice new levels of caution in terms of social distancing, hygiene, and mask-wearing," Morris said. "Even they came at a great cost, Lockdowns achieved this."

The full article is available here

Right-Wing Pushing COVID Disinformation On Twitter Worldwide - Forbes

The U.S. right-wing has played a particularly important role in the rise and spread of various forms of COVID disinformation.

Conservative and right-wing voices play an outsized role in spreading mis- and disinformation online about the COVID pandemic worldwide.

The U.S. right-wing has played a particularly important role in the rise and spread of various forms of COVID disinformation. However, it is not just a U.S. online phenomenon, but rather a worldwide right-wing scourge.

A number of common themes and narratives are being pushed by right-wing Twitter accounts in the United States, Italy, and France in particular. These included racist and anti-immigrant themes and narratives, especially directed at China.

There is also a substantial overlap between right-wing voices promoting conspiracy theories and public health misinformation.

However, the campaign to push #FlattenTheCurve and related hashtags was successful for a time in mid-March. It was a small case study in the efficacy of science communication that attests to the positive, and likely life-saving, impact of credible information online.

The full article is available here

Eric Metaxas' Counterfeit Bonhoeffer - Richard Weikhart

Eric Metaxas simply does not have sufficient grounding in history, theology, and philosophy to properly interpret Bonhoeffer.

In the biography he wrote in 2010, Eric Metaxas presented a sanitized Bonhoeffer for evangelical audiences.

How did Metaxas get it so wrong? Part of the problem, perhaps, is that Metaxas simply got in over his head. Bonhoeffer was a sophisticated thinker immersed in early twentieth-century German philosophy and theology.

Bonhoeffer (like his mentor Barth) admitted that Kierkegaard was one of the most powerful influences on his theology, which means that Bonhoeffer was committed to an irrationalist, existentialist worldview that is quite different from the mindset of American evangelicals. Though most evangelicals probably do not know it, most Bonhoeffer scholars dismissively reject the idea that Bonhoeffer's theology is compatible with American evangelical theology.

Eric Metaxas simply does not have sufficient grounding in history, theology, and philosophy to properly interpret Bonhoeffer.

Victoria Barnett, the editor of the English-language edition of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, wrote a scathing review of Metaxas's biography. In her opinion, Metaxas "has a very shaky grasp of the political, theological, and ecumenical history of the period." She then calls Metaxas's portrayal of Bonhoeffer's theology "a terrible simplification and at times misrepresentation." [2]

Clifford Green, another bona fide Bonhoeffer scholar who has edited part of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works and has written extensively about Bonhoeffer, has also criticized Metaxas heavily, claiming that Metaxas's biography should be entitled, "Bonhoeffer Hijacked."

Metaxas presented a sanitized Bonhoeffer for evangelical audiences.

The full article is available here

Bill Gates Has Become A Right-Wing Conspiracy Target - NY Times

Misinformation about Mr. Gates is now the most widespread of all coronavirus falsehoods tracked by Zignal Labs, a media analysis company.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder turned philanthropist has been attacked with falsehoods that he created the coronavirus and wants to profit from it.

In posts on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, he is being falsely portrayed as the creator of Covid-19, as a profiteer from a virus vaccine, and as part of a dastardly plot to use the illness to cull or surveil the global population.

The wild claims have gained traction with conservative pundits like Laura Ingraham and anti-vaccinators.

Misinformation about Mr. Gates is now the most widespread of all coronavirus falsehoods tracked by Zignal Labs, a media analysis company.

The full article is available here

The U.S. Military's Hijacking Of Pat Tillman's 2004 Death in Afghanistan - The Intercept

It would take 4 years of digging, led chiefly by his mother; 7 official investigations; and 2 congressional hearings before some semblance of the truth surrounding Pat Tillman’s death was pried from the government in 2008.

From the outset, the George W. Bush administration and the U.S. military shamelessly ran with a fabricated account of Tillman’s death for their own purposes and benefit.

Within hours of his death, the military knew Tillman was killed by friendly fire, brought down by three bullets to the head let loose during spasms of wildly irresponsible but deliberate shooting.

Right away, the military lied to Tillman’s parents, initially telling the family that an enemy combatant killed their son as he stepped out of a vehicle.

The military kept the truth from them through Tillman’s memorial service, which was broadcast on national television.

And the military withheld key facts from the Tillman family even as it admitted the broad stokes of his death. It would take 4 years of digging, led chiefly by his mother; 7 official investigations; and 2 congressional hearings before some semblance of the truth surrounding Pat Tillman’s death was pried from the government in 2008.

Tillman’s mother laid much of the blame for the cover-up at the feet of Donald Rumsfeld, Bush’s secretary of defense at the time.

The full article is available here