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

The Small Business Administration PPP Debacle - Jeff Wiersma

The federal Small Business Administration's Paycheck Protection Program ran out of funding for their small business loans this week. This has left many business owners scrambling.

There are 3 major problems at play in this debacle.

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Problem #1: Big businesses getting loans meant for small businesses.

A federal crisis fund of $350 billion established to keep small businesses afloat during the coronavirus pandemic ran out this week, leaving thousands of companies waiting desperately for help.

But several giant companies with hundreds of stores, thousands of employees, and whose executives make millions announced they'd received the maximum possible payouts under the small business program. 

"Unfortunately, they were in line as soon as the window opened for this program and took a lot of resources away from those small business owners where this was their only option," said Holly Wade, director of research with the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) lobby group.

Big business already holds an extremely privileged position in our nation's economy.  To see them gobble up relief meant for small businesses which are the lifeblood of local economies is flabbergasting.

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Problem #2: The crisis fund is out of resources and Congress still has not been able to reach a deal that would appropriate more funds.

Negotiations to refill the PPP purse are set to continue over the weekend. Republican have pushed for a straightforward bill to add $251 billion to the program.

Democrats have pushed to set aside a portion of the additional PPP funds for lenders that work with underserved communities, and also provide $150 billion for states, $100 billion for hospitals and an increase to food stamp allocations.

Yes, those things that the Democrats are pushing for to be included in the bill are all worthwhile and important, but why hold up an agreement to replace crisis funds if Republicans wouldn't agree to include those things? Small businesses need that money right away! It's so exasperating!

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Problem #3:  Our warped budgetary priorities as a nation mean that we will spend $718 BILLION on the military this year.

According to the Congressional Budget Office’s projections, if the plans described in the 2020 FYDP were implemented, DoD’s costs would increase from the $718 billion requested for 2020 to $776 billion (in 2020 dollars) by 2034.

Endless wars and empire (800 bases in 70 nations) do not come cheap.  How in the world can we justify that type of expenditures in the first place, let alone when we are in a public health and economic crisis.  War profiteering corporations have always had far too much influence in Washington D.C.  The 2010 Citizens United decision has only made the situation worse.

The "Government Tyranny" Boogeyman vs Social Darwinist Tyranny - Jeff Wiersma

If public servants failed to act in the interest of the public good, all of us would be left on our own against the tyranny of Social Darwinism.

Those who believe that various levels of government acting in the interest of public health is "tyranny" have an inadequate and misguided understanding of what tyranny is.

In a constitutional republic, various levels of government acting within their constitutionally-mandated roles to stop the spread of a deadly pandemic are not malevolently taking away citizen's liberty or trampling on their civil rights.

Though we should always be wary of authoritarianism, which desires totalitarianism over constitutionalism (especially with a would-be authoritarian in the Oval Office), it is inaccurate to label public servants acting in the interest of the public good as such.

More accurately, if those public servants failed to act in the interest of the public good, all of us would be left on our own against the tyranny of Social Darwinism.  The Social Darwinism would take on several forms, including the survival of those least-immunocompromised, the merciless and cynical forces of the financialized market, and potentially mob rule.

Of course, it should come as no surprise that those protesting social distancing are stirred up and organized by corporate interests like the Devos family's Michigan Freedom Fund, who see potentially diminished bottom lines as a higher priority than human life. 

Health Experts: Americans Underestimate How Long COVID-19 Disruptions Will Last - STAT News

By the end of April shouldn’t be anyone’s consideration at this point. We have to assume at the very least this is going through May.

"The Trump administration has consistently shown a desire to underplay the severity of whatever is coming. And they’re constantly adjusting that — as it becomes harder to deny the reality will be worse than what they’ve conditioned people for," said Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior policy fellow at the Center for Global Development."

A former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Frieden, said this week that it’s understandable that people want to know when businesses can reopen and some facets of life can resume.

But he said the focus of public discourse now needs to be on the public health response, not the question of when restrictions can be lifted.

“Decisions to reopen society should not be about a date, but about the data,” said Frieden.

By the end of April shouldn’t be anyone’s consideration at this point. We have to assume at the very least this is going through May.

Experts are worried that if the current measures work, success could have a paradoxical downside: People who are still vulnerable to the virus will see the risk as over, leaving open the possibility of resurgent spread.

The full article is available here

How To Fight COVID-19 With All We've Got - Pro Publica

In an absence of an abundant supply of masks, both the WHO and CDC stressed how important social distancing was.

Since symptoms-based policies alone cannot be perfect, we need to turn to other strategies to catch the people who slip through the gaps presented by a broad “If you’re feeling unwell, stay home”-type recommendation.

After months of saying that healthy individuals should not wear masks, administration officials are now considering guidance for much broader, community-wide use of masks, Fauci told CNN on Tuesday.

In an absence of an abundant supply of masks — which, by the way, also need to be worn properly to provide protection — both the WHO and CDC stressed how important social distancing was.

Not only can social distancing protect you as an individual, but the better the general public is at adhering to these guidelines and staying at home, the less virus will be circulating in the public to potentially infect paramedics, grocery store workers and public works employees and other essential staff.

Increasing the chance that the virus will be “diluted” is important.

That means workplaces like factories and warehouses should do whatever they can to space out their workers, and not have meetings en masse in indoor spaces, where droplets are likely to persist and don’t have a chance to be carried away by wind.

Testing is critical, because it can let people know if they’re sick before symptoms emerge and prompt them to self isolate.

At a big picture level, testing helps public health officials know where the disease is spreading and better allow them to direct resources and responses efforts.

The full article is available here

Documented vs Undocumented COVID-19 Infection - Pro Publica

Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of COVID-19.

The W.H.O. so far has found few truly asymptomatic cases, in which a patient tests positive and has zero symptoms for the entire course of the disease.

However, there are many cases where people are “pre-symptomatic,” where they have no symptoms at the time when they test positive but go on to develop symptoms later.

“In some sense, symptomatic versus asymptomatic isn’t really the appropriate dividing line” for us to be focusing on, said Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health. “The appropriate dividing line is documented versus undocumented infection.”

What he means by “documented” is people who are identified as being infected, either because they were sick enough to go seek care or were tested through contact tracing, which is when public health officials track down all the contacts of someone who tested positive.

The “undocumented” could be people who have symptoms but didn’t get tested, or worse, people who had no symptoms or such mild symptoms that they decided to just carry on with their daily lives.

“Maybe they pop some ibuprofen, but still go to work, still get on public transportation, still do all the things we normally do, and the consequence of that is those people with mild infections — as well as if they’re truly asymptomatic — are taking the virus out into the community, and they’re spreading it far and wide,” Shaman said.

Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of COVID-19.

The full article is available here

You're Most Likely Most Infectious With COVID-19 Right After Contracting Virus - Pro Publica

Studies are now finding that people are shedding more virus during early stages of the disease rather than the later stages.

A virus that spreads in the way that COVID-19 does already a recipe for a bad outbreak, but this coronavirus has another aspect that’s helping to amp up its contagion factor.

You’re likely most infectious right after you contract the virus, possibly before you know you’re sick.

Studies are now finding that people are shedding more virus during early stages of the disease rather than the later stages.

"Shedding" is a term used by researchers measuring the amount of viral RNA from someone who is infected, from a sample gathered via a method like a throat swab.

The high viral load early on in the course of disease for COVID-19 patients suggests that the virus can be transmitted easily, even when symptoms are relatively mild.  This finding could account for the fast-spreading nature of this epidemic.

The full article is available here

What COVID-19 Spreading Through "Droplets" Means - Pro Publica

Sneezing and coughing aren’t the only ways droplets get transmitted.

W.H.O. research shows that liquid droplets are necessary to transmit the virus, and they need to go from the infected person’s mouth or nose into someone else’s eyes, nose or mouth.

People can also get infected if they touch a contaminated surface where a droplet has fallen onto and then touch their eyes, nose or mouth.

But sneezing and coughing aren’t the only ways droplets get transmitted.

Droplets are not necessarily huge, like globs.  We release respiratory droplets when we speak. People clear their throat. Some people spit when they talk.

This doesn’t mean that the coronavirus is being transmitted as an “aerosol.”

It does mean that if you’re standing right next to someone who is infected and they’re talking to you, or if you’re in a room full of singers who are projecting their voices in an enclosed space, there are going to be droplets in the air, and yes, you could inhale them.

Experts say that if you have to leave home, staying outdoors is the safest bet, since open air can help to “dilute” any potential microbes that reach you.

Of course, this isn’t free of risk, so maintain a 6 foot distance, at least.

The full article is available here

What does a shelter-in-place order actually look like? - Boston.com

As already implemented in the Bay Area, the order generally requires residents to stay home and businesses to close, but includes a number of exceptions for what’s considered “essential” needs and services. Those at “high risk of severe illness from COVID-19” are “urged” to only leave their homes for medical care.

For most individuals, that means you can still leave the house to get food, whether it be from a supermarket, a corner store, or a restaurant or cafe for takeout (they also are allowed to deliver).

Residents can also leave to go to the doctor (CALL FIRST TO SEE WHAT SCREENING PROCESS THEY HAVE IN PLACE) or pick up medicine to go outside to walk, run, bike, or hike — as long as they stay at least six feet away from other people.

The full article is available here

Man Dead From Taking Chloroquine Product After Trump Touts Drug For Coronavirus - Forbes

When President Trump incorrectly announced that the FDA had fast-tracked approval of the drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine for treatment of COVID-19, he added, “The nice part is, it's been around for a long time, so we know that if it - if things don't go as planned, it's not going to kill anybody.”

The full article is available here

U.S. axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak - Reuters

“Quick left China when she learned her federally funded post, officially known as resident adviser to the U.S. Field Epidemiology Training Program in China, would be discontinued as of September 2019, the sources said.”

The full article is available here

Fed law enforcement doc reveals white supremacists discussed using coronavirus as bioweapon - Yahoo News

“White supremacists discussed plans about using coronavirus as a biological weapon via saliva, a spray bottle or laced items according to a weekly intelligence brief distributed by a federal law enforcement division.”

The full article is available here

Was ‘Coronavirus’ Replaced with ‘Chinese Virus’ in Trump’s Notes? - Snopes

“The images are authentic and were taken by the Washington Reporter who tweeted them and published by the Getty Images agency on March 19.”

The full article is available here

Report Projecting Millions Of Deaths Changed US/UK COVID-19 Policy - NY Times

"Imperial is treated as a sort of gold standard, its mathematical models feeding directly into government policy."

U.S. officials said the report, which projected up to 2.2 million deaths in the nation, influenced the White House to strengthen its measures to isolate members of the public.

The report reached new alarming conclusions because of the latest data from Italy, which has seen a spiraling rate of infections, swamping hospitals and forcing doctors to make agonizing decisions about who to treat.

It wasn’t so much the numbers themselves, frightening though they were, as who reported them: Imperial College London.

With ties to the World Health Organization and a team of 50 scientists, led by a prominent epidemiologist, Neil Ferguson, Imperial is treated as a sort of gold standard, its mathematical models feeding directly into government policy.

The full article is available here

Fact Check: World Health Organization Test Kits and U.S. - Politifact

"No discussions occurred between WHO and CDC about WHO providing COVID-19 tests to the United States," said WHO spokeswoman Margaret Harris.

"This is consistent with experience since the United States does not ordinarily rely on WHO for reagents or diagnostic tests because of sufficient domestic capacity."

The full piece is available here

Trump’s COVID-19 Leadership Failure Stems From Massive Character Defect - Republican Peter Wehner

The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been.

Trump’s massive failure in leadership on COVID-19 stems from a massive defect in character. Trump is such a habitual liar that he is incapable of being honest, even when being honest would serve his interests.

He is so impulsive, shortsighted, and undisciplined that he is unable to plan or even think beyond the moment. He is such a divisive and polarizing figure that he long ago lost the ability to unite the nation under any circumstances and for any cause.

And he is so narcissistic and unreflective that he is completely incapable of learning from his mistakes.

The president’s disordered personality makes him as ill-equipped to deal with a crisis as any president has ever been.

The full article is available here

Bethel Church Warns Faith Healers Not To Visit Hospitals, Citing Coronavirus - Sacramento Bee

“Bethel Church, which teaches that its prayers heal the sick and raise the dead, is advising its faith healers to stay away from local hospitals, citing coronavirus.”

The full article is available here

Who pays Trump's tariffs, the nation they are imposed on or U.S. customers and companies? - Reuters

Importers often pass the costs of tariffs on to customers - manufacturers and consumers in the United States - by raising their prices.

U.S. President Donald Trump says China pays the tariffs he has imposed on $250 billion of Chinese exports to the United States.

But that is not how tariffs work. China’s government and companies in China do not pay tariffs directly. Tariffs are a tax on imports. They are paid by U.S.-registered firms to U.S. customs for the goods they import into the United States.

Importers often pass the costs of tariffs on to customers - manufacturers and consumers in the United States - by raising their prices.  U.S. business executives and economists say U.S. consumers foot much of the bill through rising prices.

Chinese suppliers do shoulder some of the cost of U.S. tariffs in indirect ways. Exporters sometimes, for instance, are forced to offer U.S. importers a discount to help defray the costs of higher U.S. duties.

But U.S.-based importers are managing the higher tax burden in a number of ways that hurt U.S. companies and customers more than China.

U.S. companies and consumers paid $3 billion a month in additional taxes because of tariffs on Chinese goods and on aluminum and steel from around the globe, according to a study by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Princeton University, and Columbia University. Companies shouldered an additional $1.4 billion in costs related to lost efficiency in 2018, the study found.

The full article is available here

Defining Socialism, Democratic Socialism, and Social Democracy

If we are going to have informed discussion about politics and political theories, using the correct terminology and understanding their definitions is essential.

Social Democracy:
Supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented economy.

The protocols and norms used to accomplish this involve a commitment to representative and participatory democracy, measures for income redistribution, regulation of the economy in the general interest, and social welfare provisions.  (Citation)

Democratic Socialism:
Advocates for political democracy alongside a socially-owned economy, with a particular emphasis on workers' self-management and democratic control of economic institutions; either within a market socialist economy or some form of a decentralized planned socialist economy.

Although most democratic socialists seek a gradual transition to socialism, democratic socialism can support either revolutionary or reformist politics as means to establish socialism. As a term, democratic socialism was popularized by social democrats who were opposed to the authoritarian socialist development in Russia and elsewhere during the 20th century.  (Citation)

Socialism:
Encompasses a range of economic and social systems characterized by social ownership of the means of production and workers' self-management of enterprise.

Social ownership can be public, collective or cooperative ownership, or citizen ownership of equity. There are many varieties of socialism and there is no single definition encapsulating all of them, but social ownership is the common element shared by its various forms.  (Citation)

Romney To Vote To Convict Trump In Senate Impeachment Trial

Debunking The Viral Right Wing "AOC and The Blind Entitled Generation" Trope - Jeff Wiersma

Like most viral right wing memes, this trope is long on misplaced indignation and shallow ideals as well as short on factual backing and nuanced understanding.

An unfortunately popular right wing trope making the rounds on social media - which claims that AOC and young people are blind to prosperity - is rife with upper middle class privilege.

It's hamstrung by a very short-term/limited concept of what should lead to enjoyment and fulfillment in today's world; namely disposable consumer items whose exploitative costs, in both human suffering and ecological degradation, are kept out of sight and mind by corporations who privatize the profits and socialize the costs to the public.

Perhaps we can forgive the author’s naïveté, as her rhetoric and talking points are indicative of someone whose views of the world at large are the result of the misinformation and propaganda that is right wing media. I can empathize with that state of misunderstanding, because that was me at one point in my life too. But that's only a reason, not an excuse, for ignorance.

Like most viral right wing memes, it's long on misplaced indignation and shallow ideals as well as short on factual basis and nuanced understanding.

Anyways ...

(1) The statistical data on the cost of living vs wages for those not in the top 1% verify that AOC is right about an entire generation being left behind. I desperately wish that wasn’t the case, since I am a part of that cohort!

(2) Further, her fear-mongering about capitalism ”being destroyed” is weak tea. She doesn’t see the distinction between aristocratic democratic capitalism and social democratic capitalism. She’d be well served to take a course in Comparative European Politics.

(3) She’s dismissive of an entire generation, as though they aren’t still bleeding out from the Great Recession, as though haven’t watched their parents’ generation sell out the earth’s climate for consumerism and fossil fuels, and as though their government’s budget hasn’t been pillaged for $6 trillion dollars worth of endless wars that are unwinnable and won’t defeat terrorism.

The screed can be viewed here

Genocide Expert: In U.S., Precursor Events Are In Motion - Brynn Tannehill

Are you worried about the United States yet? You probably should be.

I study genocide. It's been a theme in my academic endeavours for nearly 30 years. More accurately, I study the conditions in the lead up to genocide.

Whether it's acts of military aggression, bellicose leaders, assassinating journalists, putting foreign nationals in filthy over crowded camps that are black holes; the country on the verge of genocide is looking to see if they can provoke a reaction. It almost never comes.

At some point, the government determines or realizes that no one will intervene, and that there's no additional consequences to moving to the next steps: where they move to planning on how to get rid of the targeted population.

Are you worried about the United States yet? You probably should be.

Because I am very, very worried. I am not saying it will definitely happen, but the necessary conditions are there, and many of the precursor events are in motion.

The full article is available here

Several Right Wing Media Outlets Distort Facts on Australian Wild Fires - FactCheck.org

Various claims online (Prager U, Rupert Murdoch's media empire) suggest that climate change hasn’t contributed to the bushfires ravaging the East Coast of Australia, pinning the blame instead on arson.

Those claims distort the facts.

The full article is available here

The 2nd Amendment Doesn’t Give You The Right To Own A Gun - Brett Arends

The Second Amendment is an instrument of government. It’s not about hunting or gun collecting or carrying your pistol into the saloon.

In Federalist No. 29 of the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton explained at great length precisely what a “well-regulated militia” was, why the Founding Fathers thought we needed one, and why they wanted to protect it from being disarmed by the federal government.

It should be a properly constituted, ordered and drilled (“well-regulated”) military force, organized state by state, explained Hamilton. Each state militia should be a “select corps,” “well-trained” and able to perform all the “operations of an army.”

The militia needed “uniformity in … organization and discipline,” wrote Hamilton, so that it could operate like a proper army “in camp and field,” and so that it could gain the “essential … degree of proficiency in military functions.”

And although it was organized state by state, it needed to be under the explicit control of the national government. The “well-regulated militia” was under the command of the president. It was “the military arm” of the government.

The one big difference between this militia and a professional army? It shouldn’t be made up of full-time professional soldiers, said the Founding Fathers. Such soldiers could be used against the people as King George had used his mercenary Redcoats. Instead, the American republic should make up its military force from part-time volunteers drawn from regular citizens. Such men would be less likely to turn on the population.

And the creation of this “well-regulated militia,” aka the National Guard, would help safeguard the freedom of the new republic because it would make the creation of a professional, mercenary army “unnecessary,” wrote Hamilton. “This appears to me the only substitute that can be devised for a standing army, and the best possible security against it,” he wrote.

That was the point. And that was why they wanted to make sure it couldn’t be disarmed by the federal government: So a future “tyrant” couldn’t disarm the National Guard, and then use a mercenary army to impose martial law.

The full article is available here

The Rise of Skywalker Is A Let Down - Pop Matters

While The Force Awakens adequately established the franchise, Rian Johnson's poor middle film was a destabilizing effort that put too much demand on this, the final chapter. Abrams is left only to conclude his expansion venture with what is a frustrating and unremarkable experience.

The struggle of both Rian Johnson in Episode 8 and JJ Abrams in Episode 9 to answer the question of how to tell the story post-episode VI raises another pertinent issue with such film-making sagas: understanding the time and space of the story itself.

While The Force Awakens adequately established the franchise, Rian Johnson's poor middle film was a destabilizing effort that put too much demand on this, the final chapter. Unlike Abrams' earlier success, the pressure this time around is too much for him to overcome. He is left only to conclude his expansion venture with what is a frustrating and unremarkable experience.

Abrams and his writers added a new problem by reintroducing Emperor Palpatine as this trilogy's arch-villain, as he was in the previous two trilogies. In Episode VI, Return of the Jedi, Darth Vader had tossed Palpatine down a skyscraper-sized elevator shaft.  Are we to suppose it had been a soft landing? More than likely, Abrams et al. hope we won't suppose anything.

Reprisals by just about every cast member in the saga will either titillate or irritate depending on viewer disposition, especially since most of these cameos are inessential to the immediate action. As force-ghosts and SGI allows, the dead never have to remain dead; they enter a digitalized holding cell to be recycled ad infinitum for Disney's profit.

This parlor trick results in (a) whatever heroic act a character undertook in previous films being rendered utterly meaningless (b) any death of a current film's character being stripped of any poignancy because we've grown wise to the fact that this trilogy will drag them back into the story.

The full article is available here