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welcome to reality trivia
reality is the state of things as they actually exist
july 6, 2022
Real News Today
(for previous day's articles see "what's inside" below)
comment/tweet of the day
rob reiner:
a vote for a republican is a vote to destroy democracy
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lex: southern baptists and the catholic church seem to have a lot in common when it comes to pedophilia
Philip Gunn’s connection to the Southern Baptist Convention sexual abuse scandal
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Trueblue1968@du
what is WOKE ??? It turns out, "Woke" is Republican-speak for an
John Pavlovitz @johnpavlovitz
It turns out, "Woke" is Republican-speak for anyone who gives a damn about other human beings or the planet; a dog-whistle slur against expressions of humanity that seek or to spread resources, opportunity, power, and a voice to more people.
To Republicans, Decency is “Woke”
The politics of fear is nothing new.
We’ve seen it throughout history.
It’s a well-worn playbook.
When you lack actual ideas, you need an enemy.
When you have nothing redemptive to offer, you have to create a monster to push back against.
When you are devoid of decency, you need to vilify it and somehow turn that decency into a threat.
That’s what we’re seeing right now in America.
Turn on any Fox News show monologue, read any Right-wing hack news outlet, visit any MAGA influencer’s TikTok page, or sample any Republican politician’s social media account and you’ll find their latest ubiquitous boogeyman: the “Woke Mob.”
They shoehorn the words into every televised conversation, every incendiary think piece, every pearl-clutching press conference—usually tethered to other recently-wielded phrases like “the Radical Left” and “cancel culture.” These repetitive, nonsensical word salads are designed to terrify their constituents, leverage fear in the easy-manipulated, and to misdirect them from the reality that they have no actual platform, outside of the opposition to progress, the resistance to diversity, the aversion to equity, and the evasion of justice.
It’s woke to want fair elections.
It’s woke to be anti-racist.
It’s woke to be anti-fascist.
It’s woke to trust Science.
It’s woke to wear a mask in a pandemic.
It’s woke to be the parent of a bullied child.
It’s woke to want to be addressed with the gender you identify with.
It’s woke to want a less-polluted community.
Anything that brings equity gets this label from the Right because inequity is its only goal.
---
NanceGreggs @du
After everything Cassidy testified to ...
... like Trump knowing the mob was armed, and all of the other damning things she recounted, what is the GOP focused on? Whether Chubsie-ubsie could manipulate his lard-ass to be able to reach into the front of the vehicle.
And how this pretzel logic would impact Cassidy's credibility is a total mystery, given that she was merely repeating what she'd been told by others.
That means that if the information is untrue, it's the credibility of those who relayed it that is in question, not the credibility of the person who repeated it.
It seems pretty obvious that Cassidy's testimony is unimpeachable, in light of the fact that this trivial BS is what Republicans are ranting about - while not even addressing any other aspect of what she had to say under oath.
Sometimes it's better to stay silent and be thought a fool - you know the rest. Apparently the GOP doesn't.
the illegitimate scotus!!!
excerpt: SCOTUS Justices ‘Prayed With’ Her — Then Cited Her Bosses to End Roe
A right-wing evangelical activist was caught on tape bragging that she prayed with Supreme Court justices. The court’s majority cited a legal brief that her group filed while overturning Roe v. Wade
By KARA VOGHT & TIM DICKINSON - rolling stone
7/4/2022
At an evangelical victory party in front of the Supreme Court last to celebrate the downfall of Roe v. Wade last week, a prominent Capitol Hill religious leader was caught on a hot mic making a bombshell claim: that she prays with sitting justices inside the high court. “We’re the only people who do that,” Peggy Nienaber said.
This disclosure was a serious matter on its own terms, but it also suggested a major conflict of interest. Nienaber’s ministry’s umbrella organization, Liberty Counsel, frequently brings lawsuits before the Supreme Court. In fact, the conservative majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which ended nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights, cited an amicus brief authored by Liberty Counsel in its ruling.
In other words: Sitting Supreme Court justices have prayed together with evangelical leaders whose bosses were bringing cases and arguments before the high court.
Nienaber is Liberty Counsel’s executive director of DC Ministry, as well as the vice president of Faith & Liberty, whose ministry offices sit directly behind the Supreme Court. She spoke to a livestreamer who goes by Connie IRL, seemingly unaware she was being recorded. “You actually pray with the Supreme Court justices?” the livestreamer asked. “I do,” Nienaber said. “They will pray with us, those that like us to pray with them.” She did not specify which justices prayed with her, but added with a chortle, “Some of them don’t!” The livestreamer then asked if Nienaber ministered to the justices in their homes or at her office. Neither, she said. “We actually go in there.”
Nienaber intended her comments, broadcast on YouTube, to be “totally off the record,” she says in the clip. That’s likely because such an arrangement presents a problem for the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, which not only weighed in on the Dobbs case as a friend of the court, but also litigated and won a 9-0 Supreme Court victory this May in a case centered on the public display of a religious flag.
The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment. Liberty Counsel’s founder, Mat Staver, strenuously denied that the in-person ministering to justices that Nienaber bragged about exists. “It’s entirely untrue,” Staver tells Rolling Stone. “There is just no way that has happened.” He adds: “She has prayer meetings for them, not with them.” Asked if he had an explanation for Nienaber’s direct comments to the contrary, Staver says, “I don’t.”
But the founder of the ministry, who surrendered its operations to Liberty Counsel in 2018, tells Rolling Stone that he hosted prayer sessions with conservative justices in their chambers from the late-1990s through when he left the group in the mid-2010s. Rob Schenck, who launched the ministry under the name Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, described how the organization forged ministry relationships with Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the late Antonin Scalia, saying he would pray with them inside the high court. Nienaber was Schenk’s close associate in that era, and continued with the ministry after it came under the umbrella of Liberty Counsel.
Louis Virelli is a law professor at Stetson University who wrote a book about Supreme Court recusals. He’s blunt in his assessment: “Praying with a group that filed an amicus brief with a court,” he says, “is a problem.”
In the shadow of the high court, across the street from its chambers, sits a cluster of unassuming row houses known only to the initiated as “Ministry Row.” The strip is host to evangelical political groups that have spent the past several decades pushing Beltway conservatives to embrace the religious right’s political causes — and, most of all, reverse Roe v. Wade. The street view offers few clues as to what transpires behind the painted brick facades, save for a granite slab inscribed with the Ten Commandments planted in the grassy patch before a modest cream-colored Victorian with maroon trim.
The home serves as Faith & Liberty’s headquarters. The Ten Commandments statue had been placed there by Schenck, an evangelical minister famous for orchestrating high-profile anti-abortion stunts, such as shoving an aborted fetus in a plastic container into the face of former President Bill Clinton during the 1992 campaign. Schenck had opened the ministry in the 1990s as Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, a nonprofit dedicated to ending federal abortion rights. The organization operated on a “utopian ‘trickle-up’ theory” of influence: building access “higher and higher up within the government, until we got to the top, my ultimate target — members of Congress, U.S. senators, cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices — even presidents,” Schenck wrote in his 2018 autobiography.
The group established a strong foothold in both chambers of Congress and, eventually, the White House. But Faith and Action ultimately directed its energies toward the judicial branch. “There were no pro-life groups directly approaching the judges and justices, who shaped abortion law simply by their precedent-setting decisions,” Schenck wrote. “We knew we were stuck with members of the federal bench — they were appointed for life — so why not convert them while in office?” (Schenck has since reversed course: He is now a fierce critic of evangelical politicking and says Liberty Counsel assumed Faith and Action’s operations in 2018. He says he has no knowledge of the group’s inner workings after he left.)
At first, the high court regarded Faith and Action and its peer organizations as nuisances, according to Schenck. “Justice Thomas would say to me, ‘You know those groups outside? Are they crazy or are they good people?’” Schenck recalls in an interview with Rolling Stone. When Schenck first began his approach in 1994, prayer activities on the Supreme Court’s property was considered an act of demonstration, and therefore illegal. Eventually, Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas would embrace Schenck, he says, and pray with him in various corners of the high court’s grounds — including, occasionally, in their chambers. (Chief Justice John Roberts, meanwhile, remained more guarded and skeptical of such groups’ influence.)[...
This disclosure was a serious matter on its own terms, but it also suggested a major conflict of interest. Nienaber’s ministry’s umbrella organization, Liberty Counsel, frequently brings lawsuits before the Supreme Court. In fact, the conservative majority in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, which ended nearly 50 years of federal abortion rights, cited an amicus brief authored by Liberty Counsel in its ruling.
In other words: Sitting Supreme Court justices have prayed together with evangelical leaders whose bosses were bringing cases and arguments before the high court.
Nienaber is Liberty Counsel’s executive director of DC Ministry, as well as the vice president of Faith & Liberty, whose ministry offices sit directly behind the Supreme Court. She spoke to a livestreamer who goes by Connie IRL, seemingly unaware she was being recorded. “You actually pray with the Supreme Court justices?” the livestreamer asked. “I do,” Nienaber said. “They will pray with us, those that like us to pray with them.” She did not specify which justices prayed with her, but added with a chortle, “Some of them don’t!” The livestreamer then asked if Nienaber ministered to the justices in their homes or at her office. Neither, she said. “We actually go in there.”
Nienaber intended her comments, broadcast on YouTube, to be “totally off the record,” she says in the clip. That’s likely because such an arrangement presents a problem for the Orlando-based Liberty Counsel, which not only weighed in on the Dobbs case as a friend of the court, but also litigated and won a 9-0 Supreme Court victory this May in a case centered on the public display of a religious flag.
The Supreme Court did not respond to a request for comment. Liberty Counsel’s founder, Mat Staver, strenuously denied that the in-person ministering to justices that Nienaber bragged about exists. “It’s entirely untrue,” Staver tells Rolling Stone. “There is just no way that has happened.” He adds: “She has prayer meetings for them, not with them.” Asked if he had an explanation for Nienaber’s direct comments to the contrary, Staver says, “I don’t.”
But the founder of the ministry, who surrendered its operations to Liberty Counsel in 2018, tells Rolling Stone that he hosted prayer sessions with conservative justices in their chambers from the late-1990s through when he left the group in the mid-2010s. Rob Schenck, who launched the ministry under the name Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, described how the organization forged ministry relationships with Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and the late Antonin Scalia, saying he would pray with them inside the high court. Nienaber was Schenk’s close associate in that era, and continued with the ministry after it came under the umbrella of Liberty Counsel.
Louis Virelli is a law professor at Stetson University who wrote a book about Supreme Court recusals. He’s blunt in his assessment: “Praying with a group that filed an amicus brief with a court,” he says, “is a problem.”
In the shadow of the high court, across the street from its chambers, sits a cluster of unassuming row houses known only to the initiated as “Ministry Row.” The strip is host to evangelical political groups that have spent the past several decades pushing Beltway conservatives to embrace the religious right’s political causes — and, most of all, reverse Roe v. Wade. The street view offers few clues as to what transpires behind the painted brick facades, save for a granite slab inscribed with the Ten Commandments planted in the grassy patch before a modest cream-colored Victorian with maroon trim.
The home serves as Faith & Liberty’s headquarters. The Ten Commandments statue had been placed there by Schenck, an evangelical minister famous for orchestrating high-profile anti-abortion stunts, such as shoving an aborted fetus in a plastic container into the face of former President Bill Clinton during the 1992 campaign. Schenck had opened the ministry in the 1990s as Faith and Action in the Nation’s Capital, a nonprofit dedicated to ending federal abortion rights. The organization operated on a “utopian ‘trickle-up’ theory” of influence: building access “higher and higher up within the government, until we got to the top, my ultimate target — members of Congress, U.S. senators, cabinet secretaries, Supreme Court justices — even presidents,” Schenck wrote in his 2018 autobiography.
The group established a strong foothold in both chambers of Congress and, eventually, the White House. But Faith and Action ultimately directed its energies toward the judicial branch. “There were no pro-life groups directly approaching the judges and justices, who shaped abortion law simply by their precedent-setting decisions,” Schenck wrote. “We knew we were stuck with members of the federal bench — they were appointed for life — so why not convert them while in office?” (Schenck has since reversed course: He is now a fierce critic of evangelical politicking and says Liberty Counsel assumed Faith and Action’s operations in 2018. He says he has no knowledge of the group’s inner workings after he left.)
At first, the high court regarded Faith and Action and its peer organizations as nuisances, according to Schenck. “Justice Thomas would say to me, ‘You know those groups outside? Are they crazy or are they good people?’” Schenck recalls in an interview with Rolling Stone. When Schenck first began his approach in 1994, prayer activities on the Supreme Court’s property was considered an act of demonstration, and therefore illegal. Eventually, Justices Alito, Scalia, and Thomas would embrace Schenck, he says, and pray with him in various corners of the high court’s grounds — including, occasionally, in their chambers. (Chief Justice John Roberts, meanwhile, remained more guarded and skeptical of such groups’ influence.)[...
THE FUTURE OF AMERICAN WOMEN!!!
excerpt: "White life": Fascists tell their truth
"White life" and the fascist movement: Hey, at least they're being honest
Republicans don't bother to speak in code anymore. Why should they? Their big plans for America are no mystery
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA - salon
7/6/2022
Maya Angelou famously counseled, "When people show you who they are, believe them the first time." Her wisdom remains undefeated.
If the American people — especially white people — along with the news media and political elites had heeded that wisdom, perhaps our country would not now be teetering on the edge of a fascist abyss.
The contemporary Republican Party has become the world's largest white supremacist organization, and now also explicitly supports the use of political violence and terrorism to advance the goal of ending multiracial democracy. Donald Trump's coup attempt, culminating in the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021, was the literal embodiment of those values, beliefs and goals.
The foundational premise of the Trump coup attempt and the Big Lie about the 2020 election that fueled it was that the votes of Black and brown people essentially do not count, or at least should not have equal weight with votes of white people, especially white "conservatives" in the former slave-owning Confederacy and other parts of "red state" America.
White supremacy is violence; white supremacist violence is personal, structural and institutional. It is through violence, and the threat of violence, that a society organized around maintaining white privilege across all areas of life is created, maintained, expanded, protected and enforced.
Those who fail to understand Jan. 6 as an act of white supremacist violence effectively deny the reality of what happened that day, along with its genesis, meaning and long-term implications. For today's Republican Party and the "conservative" movement, the racist "dog whistles" or "coded appeals" required by the "Southern strategy" of the '60s, '70s and '80s are now almost totally obsolete. Those things belong to an earlier moment when white supremacy had to be cloaked in plausible deniability because majority society increasingly viewed it as shameful.
As the 2022 midterms and then the 2024 presidential election draw closer, the Republican Party and the larger white right will both literally and figuratively drop their masks. They have showed us who they are; we should believe them.
During a speech at a Trump rally in Illinois two Saturdays ago, Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican who represents a district in rural southeastern Illinois, spoke in celebration of the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. "President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America," she said, "I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday."
That statement did not appear to be a gaffe or an error. Miller was reading from a prepared text and did not pause, attempt to correct herself or look embarrassed in any way. Subsequently her campaign has claimed that she intended to say "the right to life." Such a defense lacks any credibility.
For one thing, Miller's remark about "white life" fits into a larger pattern. Consider what she said at a rally on Capitol Hill in January 2021:
Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation. You know, if we win a few elections, we're still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. … Hitler was right on one thing: He said, "Whoever has the youth, has the future."
Miller belongs to the large majority of Republicans in Congress who voted to reject electoral votes from states Joe Biden had won in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack. Last Tuesday, to no one's surprise, she was renominated by Republican voters in her district in the Illinois primaries.
Claims about the need to protect "white life" by banning abortion are a key element of the racist "great replacement" conspiracy theory. Within that worldview, "white life" is uniquely sacred and white women play a special role in saving or protecting the future of the white race, which is locked in an existential struggle against Black and brown "invaders" who are trying to conquer or destroy majority Christian nations or "Western civilization" as a whole.
---
Today's "conservative" movement is now in revolutionary mode, determined to destroy the expansion of freedom, human rights and democracy that took place from Reconstruction through the New Deal, the civil rights movement, the feminist revolution, the gay pride movement and other progressive movements throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries.
At its core, fascism is always revanchist and seeks to impose an old order (which is often imaginary or invented) on a new world. That new-old world for today's Republican-fascists goes back at least to the 19th century, if not before. In a recent essay at the Daily Beast, David Rothkopf explains the role of the Supreme Court in that revolutionary political project:
History may look back at the period in which we are living and call it the Great Regression. It is a time in which on issue after issue, we are seeing decades and sometimes centuries of progress reversed.
If the term regression feels too academic, we may just as easily call it the Great Leap Backwards. If it continues at its current pace, it may end up being known as the American Dark Ages … or worse, to borrow from another historical saga, the Decline and Fall of the United States. ...
Do not call this band of reckless revisionists on the court conservatives, by the way. Nothing about what they are doing is "conservative," nor should you call them "strict constructionalists" or "originalists," as their decisions disregard legal precedent, the spirit of the Constitution, and often craft citations for their decisions from whole cloth….
These are huge regressions for American society. ... And the scariest part is that they are proof the right wing's campaign to obliterate social progress over the past four decades has thus far been scarily successful. If they are not stopped at the polls, they may someday turn back the clock so far that we and the world wonder once again whether the United States is an idea that can long survive.
The world imagined by today's Republican Party and the larger neofascist movement is a world of rules and hierarchies. White people rule over Black and brown people. Right-wing Christians will rule over other religious groups and non-believers. Men will rule over women. The rich and moneyed classes will have total power over the poor, the working class and the middle class, most likely all of those outside the top 5 percent. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans people will be virtually erased from American society, and perhaps literally disappeared. Other marginalized groups, including people with disabilities and undocumented immigrants, will face similar fates. The "rights" of property, corporations and guns will fully supersede those of human beings, the natural world and the commons. "Democracy" will exist in name only, and in practice will be what political scientists call "competitive authoritarianism" or perhaps even an outright authoritarian state adapted to fit the mold of American exceptionalism.
None of this should be a surprise to anyone. Republicans and "conservatives" have been publicly announcing and telegraphing their plans to end American democracy — and to reject pluralism and human rights more broadly — for decades. In their own fashion, they have been direct and polite: They have told us what they would do, and then they have done it.
Too many Americans — especially leading Democrats and mainstream liberals, along with the guardians of approved public discourse in the national media — have continued to tell themselves comforting lies. Republicans are "exaggerating" or being "hyperbolic" because "we are all Americans" who have "the same fundamental values". Those comforting lies were always cowardly, now they are just contemptible. In fact, the Republican-fascists and their allies told us clearly who and what they were from the beginning. The question now becomes whether it is too late for the majority of Americans to take them at their word, and use the precious time remaining to defend, preserve and rebuild our democracy.
If the American people — especially white people — along with the news media and political elites had heeded that wisdom, perhaps our country would not now be teetering on the edge of a fascist abyss.
The contemporary Republican Party has become the world's largest white supremacist organization, and now also explicitly supports the use of political violence and terrorism to advance the goal of ending multiracial democracy. Donald Trump's coup attempt, culminating in the Capitol attack of Jan. 6, 2021, was the literal embodiment of those values, beliefs and goals.
The foundational premise of the Trump coup attempt and the Big Lie about the 2020 election that fueled it was that the votes of Black and brown people essentially do not count, or at least should not have equal weight with votes of white people, especially white "conservatives" in the former slave-owning Confederacy and other parts of "red state" America.
White supremacy is violence; white supremacist violence is personal, structural and institutional. It is through violence, and the threat of violence, that a society organized around maintaining white privilege across all areas of life is created, maintained, expanded, protected and enforced.
Those who fail to understand Jan. 6 as an act of white supremacist violence effectively deny the reality of what happened that day, along with its genesis, meaning and long-term implications. For today's Republican Party and the "conservative" movement, the racist "dog whistles" or "coded appeals" required by the "Southern strategy" of the '60s, '70s and '80s are now almost totally obsolete. Those things belong to an earlier moment when white supremacy had to be cloaked in plausible deniability because majority society increasingly viewed it as shameful.
As the 2022 midterms and then the 2024 presidential election draw closer, the Republican Party and the larger white right will both literally and figuratively drop their masks. They have showed us who they are; we should believe them.
During a speech at a Trump rally in Illinois two Saturdays ago, Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican who represents a district in rural southeastern Illinois, spoke in celebration of the Supreme Court's recent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. "President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America," she said, "I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday."
That statement did not appear to be a gaffe or an error. Miller was reading from a prepared text and did not pause, attempt to correct herself or look embarrassed in any way. Subsequently her campaign has claimed that she intended to say "the right to life." Such a defense lacks any credibility.
For one thing, Miller's remark about "white life" fits into a larger pattern. Consider what she said at a rally on Capitol Hill in January 2021:
Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation. You know, if we win a few elections, we're still going to be losing, unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. … Hitler was right on one thing: He said, "Whoever has the youth, has the future."
Miller belongs to the large majority of Republicans in Congress who voted to reject electoral votes from states Joe Biden had won in the immediate aftermath of the Capitol attack. Last Tuesday, to no one's surprise, she was renominated by Republican voters in her district in the Illinois primaries.
Claims about the need to protect "white life" by banning abortion are a key element of the racist "great replacement" conspiracy theory. Within that worldview, "white life" is uniquely sacred and white women play a special role in saving or protecting the future of the white race, which is locked in an existential struggle against Black and brown "invaders" who are trying to conquer or destroy majority Christian nations or "Western civilization" as a whole.
---
Today's "conservative" movement is now in revolutionary mode, determined to destroy the expansion of freedom, human rights and democracy that took place from Reconstruction through the New Deal, the civil rights movement, the feminist revolution, the gay pride movement and other progressive movements throughout the 20th and early 21st centuries.
At its core, fascism is always revanchist and seeks to impose an old order (which is often imaginary or invented) on a new world. That new-old world for today's Republican-fascists goes back at least to the 19th century, if not before. In a recent essay at the Daily Beast, David Rothkopf explains the role of the Supreme Court in that revolutionary political project:
History may look back at the period in which we are living and call it the Great Regression. It is a time in which on issue after issue, we are seeing decades and sometimes centuries of progress reversed.
If the term regression feels too academic, we may just as easily call it the Great Leap Backwards. If it continues at its current pace, it may end up being known as the American Dark Ages … or worse, to borrow from another historical saga, the Decline and Fall of the United States. ...
Do not call this band of reckless revisionists on the court conservatives, by the way. Nothing about what they are doing is "conservative," nor should you call them "strict constructionalists" or "originalists," as their decisions disregard legal precedent, the spirit of the Constitution, and often craft citations for their decisions from whole cloth….
These are huge regressions for American society. ... And the scariest part is that they are proof the right wing's campaign to obliterate social progress over the past four decades has thus far been scarily successful. If they are not stopped at the polls, they may someday turn back the clock so far that we and the world wonder once again whether the United States is an idea that can long survive.
The world imagined by today's Republican Party and the larger neofascist movement is a world of rules and hierarchies. White people rule over Black and brown people. Right-wing Christians will rule over other religious groups and non-believers. Men will rule over women. The rich and moneyed classes will have total power over the poor, the working class and the middle class, most likely all of those outside the top 5 percent. Lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and trans people will be virtually erased from American society, and perhaps literally disappeared. Other marginalized groups, including people with disabilities and undocumented immigrants, will face similar fates. The "rights" of property, corporations and guns will fully supersede those of human beings, the natural world and the commons. "Democracy" will exist in name only, and in practice will be what political scientists call "competitive authoritarianism" or perhaps even an outright authoritarian state adapted to fit the mold of American exceptionalism.
None of this should be a surprise to anyone. Republicans and "conservatives" have been publicly announcing and telegraphing their plans to end American democracy — and to reject pluralism and human rights more broadly — for decades. In their own fashion, they have been direct and polite: They have told us what they would do, and then they have done it.
Too many Americans — especially leading Democrats and mainstream liberals, along with the guardians of approved public discourse in the national media — have continued to tell themselves comforting lies. Republicans are "exaggerating" or being "hyperbolic" because "we are all Americans" who have "the same fundamental values". Those comforting lies were always cowardly, now they are just contemptible. In fact, the Republican-fascists and their allies told us clearly who and what they were from the beginning. The question now becomes whether it is too late for the majority of Americans to take them at their word, and use the precious time remaining to defend, preserve and rebuild our democracy.
Gen. Russel Honoré: Trump's coup attempt "put us in the banana republic club"
Retired general who studied Capitol security says "our government failed" on Jan. 6, and White House was complicit
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA - salon
7/5/2022
...As I watched Jan. 6, I kept wondering if the Trump regime gave some type of stand-down order to the U.S. military and law enforcement. Is it that easy to decapitate the United States government? Help me understand what we saw that day.
It was plain to me that the White House was complicit. I watched the entire thing. I know how the United States government is supposed to respond to these scenarios. I used to work on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I'd been acting J3 [director of operations] for about a month, and prior to that I was a deputy J3 in 1999 and 2000. So I knew this game. I knew the role of the military, because my role on the Joint Chiefs of Staff was to coordinate military support to civil authorities.
I know the law. When we have a State of the Union and we finish one inauguration, guess what we do? We start the next inauguration committee. That's how much planning goes into this. After 9/11, we created the term "national special security event," and you've seen it. We use it for the Super Bowl. We use it for the inauguration. We use it for the president's State of the Union. We call this an NSSE.
And what creates an NSSE is when we have both houses of Congress in session, and we have the president at the Capitol. That event, along with the chatter on the internet and what [Steve] Bannon and Trump were saying about Jan. 6, should have triggered a national special security event. There should have been hundreds of extra police there.
Who's in charge of security at the Capitol? The Secret Service. Who declares a national special security event? Homeland Security. But on that day, where was the secretary of Homeland Security, who Trump appointed? On an overseas farewell tour. He wasn't even here in country during what should have been a significant national security event.
There is something else to take into consideration: As Jan. 6 approached, Trump gutted the Pentagon after he lost the election. He put his own people in the Pentagon. In my opinion, those three to four hours of indecision in the Pentagon [on Jan. 6] had much to do with the secretary of defense at the time, who was being complicit in order to make Trump happy by not deploying the National Guard. Approval for the national guard has to go through the secretary of defense and the secretary of the Army, because D.C. is not a state.
But as somebody who knows the Constitution, every uniformed member of the military in the Pentagon should have strapped on his or her gear and went to the Capitol. First of all, the Capitol is federal grounds. We can use any troops we have, federal or National Guard, to protect federal grounds without instituting the Posse Comitatus Act. We have a right to protect federal grounds and we have plans to do that. We have 600 Marines on standby within a few miles of the Capitol. Their only purpose is to go to the Capitol in the event there's a chemical or biological attack. That's their only purpose. They were not called.
The D.C. Guard was not called because of the indecisiveness inside the Army and the Department of Defense. There were other federal troops available. Everybody in that military complex could have been mobilized to go help protect the Capitol, because what we saw unfold was an attempted coup on the Capitol to overthrow the government. And they did it on television in broad daylight.[...]
It was plain to me that the White House was complicit. I watched the entire thing. I know how the United States government is supposed to respond to these scenarios. I used to work on the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I'd been acting J3 [director of operations] for about a month, and prior to that I was a deputy J3 in 1999 and 2000. So I knew this game. I knew the role of the military, because my role on the Joint Chiefs of Staff was to coordinate military support to civil authorities.
I know the law. When we have a State of the Union and we finish one inauguration, guess what we do? We start the next inauguration committee. That's how much planning goes into this. After 9/11, we created the term "national special security event," and you've seen it. We use it for the Super Bowl. We use it for the inauguration. We use it for the president's State of the Union. We call this an NSSE.
And what creates an NSSE is when we have both houses of Congress in session, and we have the president at the Capitol. That event, along with the chatter on the internet and what [Steve] Bannon and Trump were saying about Jan. 6, should have triggered a national special security event. There should have been hundreds of extra police there.
Who's in charge of security at the Capitol? The Secret Service. Who declares a national special security event? Homeland Security. But on that day, where was the secretary of Homeland Security, who Trump appointed? On an overseas farewell tour. He wasn't even here in country during what should have been a significant national security event.
There is something else to take into consideration: As Jan. 6 approached, Trump gutted the Pentagon after he lost the election. He put his own people in the Pentagon. In my opinion, those three to four hours of indecision in the Pentagon [on Jan. 6] had much to do with the secretary of defense at the time, who was being complicit in order to make Trump happy by not deploying the National Guard. Approval for the national guard has to go through the secretary of defense and the secretary of the Army, because D.C. is not a state.
But as somebody who knows the Constitution, every uniformed member of the military in the Pentagon should have strapped on his or her gear and went to the Capitol. First of all, the Capitol is federal grounds. We can use any troops we have, federal or National Guard, to protect federal grounds without instituting the Posse Comitatus Act. We have a right to protect federal grounds and we have plans to do that. We have 600 Marines on standby within a few miles of the Capitol. Their only purpose is to go to the Capitol in the event there's a chemical or biological attack. That's their only purpose. They were not called.
The D.C. Guard was not called because of the indecisiveness inside the Army and the Department of Defense. There were other federal troops available. Everybody in that military complex could have been mobilized to go help protect the Capitol, because what we saw unfold was an attempted coup on the Capitol to overthrow the government. And they did it on television in broad daylight.[...]
from under a rock
this is republican governance!!
THE DAILY TRASH REPORT featuring today's despicables
you cannot measure stupidity!!
'Invasion': Texas Lt. Gov. likens border crossings to attack on Pearl Harbor – 'These people are a danger to America'
Gutfeld: If Media Ignores Mass Shootings They'll Decrease
Here's another ludicrous take on stopping mass murders from a Fox News conservative, contrarian idiot.
GOP Is Coordinating With Far Right Hungarian Government to Block Corporate Taxes
BY Jake Johnson, Common Dreams
PUBLISHED July 6, 2022
News that GOP members of Congress are coordinating with the far-right Hungarian government in an attempt to block a proposed global minimum tax on multinational companies is drawing outrage from watchdog groups and Democratic lawmakers, with one U.S. senator accusing Republicans of doing “anything it takes to help their dark money corporate backers dodge taxes.”
Just ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend, the Washington Post reported that “senior Hungarian officials say they are working with Republican lawmakers in the United States to defeat a global minimum tax backed by the Biden administration, as European and American leaders struggle to enact a groundbreaking international accord targeting multinational corporations.”
The deal’s framework, agreed to by nearly 140 countries in October after years of negotiations, includes a 15% global minimum tax rate designed to stop companies from stashing profits overseas to dodge their tax obligations, a key driver of what’s been dubbed the “race to the bottom” on corporate taxation. The Tax Foundation notes that the average statutory corporate tax rate worldwide was 40.11% in 1980; in 2020, it was 23.85%.
In recent weeks, Hungary — led by autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — has raised objections to the European Union’s implementation of the minimum tax on corporations, holding up progress on the accord and prompting applause from Republican lawmakers in the U.S., which has also yet to enact the agreement. Each member of the European bloc has veto power over tax deals.
In a statement last month praising the Hungarian government’s obstruction, retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) declared that the U.S. “should be leading” the race to the bottom on corporate taxes, “not trying to prevent it.”
As the Post reported Friday, “GOP Reps. Adrian Smith (Neb.) and Mike Kelly (Pa.), top members of the House Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to the ambassador of Hungary last week commending that country for rejecting the global tax deal” and extending “an offer for a direct dialogue with congressional Republicans as you consider Hungary’s position on the global tax agreement.”
“The letter was released by Hungarian media and later confirmed by spokespeople for the lawmakers, who did not post it to their congressional websites or social media pages,” the Post noted. “Spokespeople for both lawmakers said they were not in contact with Hungarian officials beyond the letter.”
Morris Pearl, the chair of the Patriotic Millionaires — a progressive advocacy group that supports higher taxes on the rich and large corporations — said Tuesday that in their efforts to undercut the global minimum tax deal, “Republican lawmakers are siding with billionaire donors and corrupt foreign autocrats like Viktor Orbán over the American people.”
“By choosing to sabotage the United States’ ability to tax corporations effectively and conspire with foreign governments, the lawmakers working with Hungary have revealed how little they actually care about their own country,” said Pearl. “These lawmakers have chosen to do whatever it takes to keep the rich from paying their fair share, even if protecting foreign corporate wealth means undermining the wellbeing of the United States.”
“It’s fitting that news of this anti-American behavior broke on Independence Day weekend,” Pearl continued. “These are no patriots. They’ve betrayed their oaths of office, their constituents, and their country.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) tweeted Sunday that “siding with a right-wing autocrat is shameful, but that won’t stop them.”
“Money talks louder than morals,” the senator added.
While popular with the U.S. public, the Biden administration’s push to implement a minimum tax on the foreign profits of U.S.-based corporations faces long odds in Congress amid Republican obstruction and likely pushback from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), right-wing lawmakers who have objected to corporate tax hikes.
Given the present composition of Congress, the only plausible way for Democrats to advance the global minimum tax would be through budget reconciliation, an arcane process that’s exempt from the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster. Such an avenue would be blocked entirely if Republicans retake the House or the Senate in November.
“I am not surprised the Republicans are doing whatever they can to defend large multinational corporations, even if it means working against the interests of the U.S. government to work with a foreign government,” Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, told the Post. “Their patriotism evaporates when it comes to protecting tax loopholes for multinational corporations.”
Just ahead of the July 4 holiday weekend, the Washington Post reported that “senior Hungarian officials say they are working with Republican lawmakers in the United States to defeat a global minimum tax backed by the Biden administration, as European and American leaders struggle to enact a groundbreaking international accord targeting multinational corporations.”
The deal’s framework, agreed to by nearly 140 countries in October after years of negotiations, includes a 15% global minimum tax rate designed to stop companies from stashing profits overseas to dodge their tax obligations, a key driver of what’s been dubbed the “race to the bottom” on corporate taxation. The Tax Foundation notes that the average statutory corporate tax rate worldwide was 40.11% in 1980; in 2020, it was 23.85%.
In recent weeks, Hungary — led by autocratic Prime Minister Viktor Orbán — has raised objections to the European Union’s implementation of the minimum tax on corporations, holding up progress on the accord and prompting applause from Republican lawmakers in the U.S., which has also yet to enact the agreement. Each member of the European bloc has veto power over tax deals.
In a statement last month praising the Hungarian government’s obstruction, retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) declared that the U.S. “should be leading” the race to the bottom on corporate taxes, “not trying to prevent it.”
As the Post reported Friday, “GOP Reps. Adrian Smith (Neb.) and Mike Kelly (Pa.), top members of the House Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to the ambassador of Hungary last week commending that country for rejecting the global tax deal” and extending “an offer for a direct dialogue with congressional Republicans as you consider Hungary’s position on the global tax agreement.”
“The letter was released by Hungarian media and later confirmed by spokespeople for the lawmakers, who did not post it to their congressional websites or social media pages,” the Post noted. “Spokespeople for both lawmakers said they were not in contact with Hungarian officials beyond the letter.”
Morris Pearl, the chair of the Patriotic Millionaires — a progressive advocacy group that supports higher taxes on the rich and large corporations — said Tuesday that in their efforts to undercut the global minimum tax deal, “Republican lawmakers are siding with billionaire donors and corrupt foreign autocrats like Viktor Orbán over the American people.”
“By choosing to sabotage the United States’ ability to tax corporations effectively and conspire with foreign governments, the lawmakers working with Hungary have revealed how little they actually care about their own country,” said Pearl. “These lawmakers have chosen to do whatever it takes to keep the rich from paying their fair share, even if protecting foreign corporate wealth means undermining the wellbeing of the United States.”
“It’s fitting that news of this anti-American behavior broke on Independence Day weekend,” Pearl continued. “These are no patriots. They’ve betrayed their oaths of office, their constituents, and their country.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) tweeted Sunday that “siding with a right-wing autocrat is shameful, but that won’t stop them.”
“Money talks louder than morals,” the senator added.
While popular with the U.S. public, the Biden administration’s push to implement a minimum tax on the foreign profits of U.S.-based corporations faces long odds in Congress amid Republican obstruction and likely pushback from Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), right-wing lawmakers who have objected to corporate tax hikes.
Given the present composition of Congress, the only plausible way for Democrats to advance the global minimum tax would be through budget reconciliation, an arcane process that’s exempt from the Senate’s 60-vote legislative filibuster. Such an avenue would be blocked entirely if Republicans retake the House or the Senate in November.
“I am not surprised the Republicans are doing whatever they can to defend large multinational corporations, even if it means working against the interests of the U.S. government to work with a foreign government,” Frank Clemente, executive director of Americans for Tax Fairness, told the Post. “Their patriotism evaporates when it comes to protecting tax loopholes for multinational corporations.”
payback is a bitch!!
congratulations women gop voters!!!
Cheating GOP States Want Covid Funds To Cut Taxes For Rich
Nearly Two Dozen GOP States Attempting to Use Covid Relief Funds for Tax Cuts
By Common Dreams — crooks & liars
July 6, 2022
Republican leaders in nearly two dozen U.S. states are attempting—potentially in violation of federal law—to use coronavirus relief funds approved by Congress last year to finance tax cuts instead of devoting the money to combating the ongoing pandemic and its economic consequences.
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that GOP officials are working to subvert a provision in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) that bars states from using money from a $350 billion Covid-19 aid program "to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue."
Last March, just days after President Joe Biden signed the ARP into law, 13 Republican state attorneys general sued the Biden administration over that provision, decrying it as an "unconstitutional assault on state sovereignty." In the nearly year and a half since the GOP officials filed suit, numerous Republican states have moved to slash taxes—often in ways that primarily benefit rich households and profitable businesses.
Whitney Tucker and Coty Novak of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted earlier this year that Iowa—one of the states that joined the legal action against the Biden administration—replaced its "graduated personal income tax with a flat 3.9% tax while retaining credits and deductions that would allow wealthy Iowans to pay even less."
"Lawmakers in multiple states are pushing deep tax cuts as states see stronger-than-expected revenues driven largely by the federal government's robust fiscal response to the Covid-19 recession," Tucker and Novak observed. "Iowa, Mississippi, South Carolina, and West Virginia are pushing for income tax cuts that would deliver outsized gains to wealthy residents and profitable corporations."
The Post's Tony Romm reported Tuesday that "as gas prices climbed toward record highs this May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) secured a pause on the state's fuel taxes—a $200 million plan he helped pay for with a pot of federal funds awarded earlier in the pandemic."
"More than a year after Congress approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, Republicans in nearly two dozen states have ratcheted up efforts to tap some of those funds for an unrelated purpose: paying for tax cuts," Romm wrote. "The moves have threatened to siphon off aid that might otherwise help states fight the pandemic, shore up their local economies, or prepare for a potential recession."
The Biden Treasury Department has emphasized that the ARP only prohibits states from using federal funds to pay for tax cuts, not from pursuing tax cuts at all.
But as Romm pointed out, Republican attorneys general are still fighting the law, claiming that it limits their states' fiscal flexibility.
"In a flurry of court filings, many of the states argued for the ability to move money around freely—plugging federal dollars into various parts of their budgets, for example, then using the savings to pay for state tax cuts," Romm reported. "Republicans have won nearly every federal lawsuit, convincing judge after judge that the rules are unconstitutional. The Treasury Department repeatedly has appealed, but the decisions for now have left the Biden administration unable to enforce the rules in much of the country."
The Washington Post reported Tuesday that GOP officials are working to subvert a provision in the American Rescue Plan (ARP) that bars states from using money from a $350 billion Covid-19 aid program "to either directly or indirectly offset a reduction in the net tax revenue."
Last March, just days after President Joe Biden signed the ARP into law, 13 Republican state attorneys general sued the Biden administration over that provision, decrying it as an "unconstitutional assault on state sovereignty." In the nearly year and a half since the GOP officials filed suit, numerous Republican states have moved to slash taxes—often in ways that primarily benefit rich households and profitable businesses.
Whitney Tucker and Coty Novak of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities noted earlier this year that Iowa—one of the states that joined the legal action against the Biden administration—replaced its "graduated personal income tax with a flat 3.9% tax while retaining credits and deductions that would allow wealthy Iowans to pay even less."
"Lawmakers in multiple states are pushing deep tax cuts as states see stronger-than-expected revenues driven largely by the federal government's robust fiscal response to the Covid-19 recession," Tucker and Novak observed. "Iowa, Mississippi, South Carolina, and West Virginia are pushing for income tax cuts that would deliver outsized gains to wealthy residents and profitable corporations."
The Post's Tony Romm reported Tuesday that "as gas prices climbed toward record highs this May, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) secured a pause on the state's fuel taxes—a $200 million plan he helped pay for with a pot of federal funds awarded earlier in the pandemic."
"More than a year after Congress approved a $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, Republicans in nearly two dozen states have ratcheted up efforts to tap some of those funds for an unrelated purpose: paying for tax cuts," Romm wrote. "The moves have threatened to siphon off aid that might otherwise help states fight the pandemic, shore up their local economies, or prepare for a potential recession."
The Biden Treasury Department has emphasized that the ARP only prohibits states from using federal funds to pay for tax cuts, not from pursuing tax cuts at all.
But as Romm pointed out, Republican attorneys general are still fighting the law, claiming that it limits their states' fiscal flexibility.
"In a flurry of court filings, many of the states argued for the ability to move money around freely—plugging federal dollars into various parts of their budgets, for example, then using the savings to pay for state tax cuts," Romm reported. "Republicans have won nearly every federal lawsuit, convincing judge after judge that the rules are unconstitutional. The Treasury Department repeatedly has appealed, but the decisions for now have left the Biden administration unable to enforce the rules in much of the country."
Bites from Real News
*7/6/2022*
*How Foreign Private Equity Hooked New England’s Fishing Industry
Owned by a billionaire Dutch family, Blue Harvest Fisheries has emerged as a dominant force in the lucrative fishing port of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Its business model: benefit from lax antitrust rules and pass costs on to local fishermen.
*DOJ Investigating Texas’ Operation Lone Star for Alleged Civil Rights Violations Emails obtained by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune confirm that federal authorities are probing discrimination claims involving Gov. Greg Abbott’s multibillion-dollar border initiative.
*Revealed US water likely contains more ‘forever chemicals’ than EPA tests show
Guardian analysis of water samples taken in nine US locations shows test agency uses is likely missing significant levels of PFAS pollutants
*gestapo usa: Michigan Police to conduct review after officers used images of Black men as target practice
*After Roe: Defund the Democrats
Defund the Democrats: Stop giving money to the party of surrender and inaction
After their disastrous failure on abortion rights, Democrats want us to give more money and vote harder. Forget it
*Google Allowed a Sanctioned Russian Ad Company to Harvest User Data for Months The internet giant may have provided Sberbank-owned RuTarget with unique mobile phone IDs, IP addresses, location information and details about users’ interests and online activity.
*SCOTUS Has Dissolved Into A Blur Of BS, Qanon & Fundamentalist Religion Lying about religion — in the sphere of politics — ceases to be about religion and instead becomes about power. A power that has sought, repeatedly throughout history, to replace democracy
Thom Hartmann
*Christian fascism: Right here, right now
The Supreme Court is relentlessly fueling the rise of fascism: Roe v. Wade is only the most visible example
Christian fascism is right here, right now: After Roe, can we finally see it?
Guns Killed More Than 220 People Over July 4 Weekend Alone
BREAKING POINT
Alice Tecotzky
Breaking News Intern
Published Jul. 06, 2022 1:10PM ET
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
This Fourth of July weekend was defined not only by hot dogs and fireworks, but by deadly gun violence, as the Gun Violence Archive recorded a shooting in almost every state. As CBS News reported, the database, which collects information on injuries and deaths related to discharged firearms, reported that at least 220 people were killed and almost 570 were injured over the holiday weekend. Nationwide, the database recorded more than 500 shootings between Friday and Monday, at least 11 of which were mass shootings, defined as an incident in which at least four people, not including the shooter, are injured or killed.
Right-Wing Truckers’ Leader Gets Arrested While Protesting Non-Existent COVID Mandates in D.C.
HOOKED AND BOOKED
Zachary Petrizzo
Politics Reporter
Updated Jul. 06, 2022 1:00PM ET /
Published Jul. 06, 2022 12:32PM ET
DAILY BEAST CHEAT SHEET
The leader of the right-wing and COVID anti-vax 1776 Restoration Movement—formerly called The People’s Convoy—was arrested near the National Mall on Wednesday after his group came to town protesting non-existent mandates. Far-right Proud Boy member and leader David “Santa” Riddell was taken into custody for a warrant out of Maryland, D.C. Metropolitan Police officers told The Daily Beast on scene. “He was placed under arrest for the arrest warrant that he had issued for him,” D.C. Metropolitan Police assistant chief Jeffery Carroll told The Daily Beast. “We can’t allow somebody out here with an arrest warrant.” D.C. Metropolitan Police also impounded Riddell’s black big rig. The arrest follows the group’s July 4 “attack” on D.C. area highways, where they blocked traffic in upwards of three lanes in each direction on major highways.
*What's Inside*
*CORPORATE PROFITS SOARED TO HIGHEST LEVELS IN 7 DECADES LAST YEAR
CAPITALISM
*SCIENTISTS UNVEIL BIONIC ROBO-FISH TO REMOVE MICROPLASTICS FROM SEAS
CURRENTS
*REPUBLICANS, WITH AN ASSIST FROM MANCHIN, DELAY EVERYTHING IN ORDER TO DESTROY DEMOCRATIC AGENDA(SELLOUTS)
*US FOR-PROFIT HEALTH SYSTEM IS A MASS KILLER
REALITY
*HOW MEDICARE ADVANTAGE SCAMMERS GET AWAY WITH IT
CORPORATE CRIMINALS
*REPUBLICAN COUNTIES HAVE HIGHER MORTALITY RATES THAN DEMOCRATIC ONES, STUDY FINDS
REALITY
*BOEBERT PROBED OVER "ILL-GOTTEN FUNDS"
AMERIKKKANS
*GEL THAT REPAIRS HEART ATTACK DAMAGE COULD IMPROVE HEALTH OF MILLIONS
CURRENTS
*THE LATEST FOR-PROFIT “ADVANTAGE” ASSAULT ON MEDICARE EXPOSED APPARENTLY, MEDICARE
COMMENTARY
*TODAY’S ATTACKS ON ABORTION ACCESS HAVE A LONG HISTORY ROOTED IN WHITE SUPREMACY.
(RACE MATTERS)
*EXCERPT: THE LITTLE-KNOWN RACIST ORIGINS OF THE 'PRO-LIFE' ABORTION MOVEMENT
(HISTORY)
*late news of interest*
A Meditation On Practical Applications Of Stupidity
The Mystery of Anti-Vax & Anti-Mask
Kat Ignatz - DAILY KOS
Sunday August 01, 2021 · 5:00 AM PDT
...“The Basic Laws of Human Stupidity” seems as good a way as any to explain the insane situation we’re in. It’s speculative, but in my opinion, guessing is all we’ve really got right now.
In his essay, Cipolla divides human beings into four categories and builds his theory on these characteristics.
His categories are:
And he presents his theory as five laws:
Taking Cipolla’s laws and looking for correlations with anti-vax/mask behavior, you can map out anti-vax/mask actions like this:
And you could do the same matching of Cipolla’s laws with anti-vax/mask actions, and together, we could come up with a big, five-part list of parallels between Cipolla’s theory and the anti-vax/mask movement.
And it would prove nothing.
But looking at it might make you wonder, like me, if there’s anything but dangerous, illogical, and incomprehensible behavior there.
Cipolla doesn’t explain stupid people. He simply says that they exist, and they’re irrational, unpredictable, and hazardous. He states that irrational people can’t be understood by rational minds and cautions against getting involved with irrational people because it always comes with a cost that’s often a big cost.
He says the only hope is for rational people to create more gains than the losses that irrational people cause. He was an economist so his theory is all gains and losses, and another way to think about his four human traits is total gain, loss/gain, gain/loss, and total loss.
And maybe that’s the real answer here. Maybe, we shouldn’t concern ourselves with why anti-vax/maskers act like they do. Perhaps, we should simply accept them as an incredible danger to our country, states, cities, friends, families, and selves, and we should just do everything we can to do more good than they do harm.
I like Cipolla’s theory, and I find it to be a compelling model for many of the problems we’re experiencing—like, for instance, Republicans.
In this writings, Cipolla makes a point of dividing bandits into Intelligent Bandits and Stupid Bandits. Intelligent bandits cause an equal amount of loss and gain, and they get everything they take from others. Stupid bandits cause more loss than gain, and they only get part of what they cause others to lose.
When I read that, I think about how Republicans are actively working to crash the US so they can keep their wealth and power. And then I think that they’re going so far with it that they may have moved from being stupid bandits to fully stupid because it’s irrational to think they’ll keep much of anything if the country collapses.
I also start thinking about how prevalent stupid banditry is in the world—as if it’s the only way to do business. The “bigs” are especially dangerous: big agriculture, apparel, chemical, electronics, oil, pharmaceuticals, retail, etc.
We’re all losing our lives in one way or another to these dubious ventures.
But that’s my mind drifting on to a topic for another diary, and I’ll stop this one here.
In his essay, Cipolla divides human beings into four categories and builds his theory on these characteristics.
His categories are:
- Intelligent People whose actions benefit others and themselves
- Helpless People whose actions harm them but benefit others
- Bandits whose actions harm others but benefit them
- Stupid People whose actions harm others but don’t benefit them and may, in fact, harm them, too
And he presents his theory as five laws:
- Everyone always underestimates how many stupid people there are.
- Stupidity is unrelated to any other human trait.
- Stupid people cause losses to others without gain and, possibly, with losses to themselves.
- Non-stupid people always underestimate how harmful stupid people are.
- Stupid people are the most dangerous type of person.
Taking Cipolla’s laws and looking for correlations with anti-vax/mask behavior, you can map out anti-vax/mask actions like this:
- How many: 30% of the US population is hesitating, resisting, or outright refusing to get a coronavirus vaccine.
- Unrelated to other traits: Health care workers are protesting against getting vaccinated.
- No gain and possible losses: Not even the threat of death is changing anti-vax/mask behavior.
- How harmful: Who would have predicted that Missouri would end up in such terrible condition?
- Most dangerous: Anti-vax/maskers are bringing the systems we rely on for our safety and health to the brink of crashing.
And you could do the same matching of Cipolla’s laws with anti-vax/mask actions, and together, we could come up with a big, five-part list of parallels between Cipolla’s theory and the anti-vax/mask movement.
And it would prove nothing.
But looking at it might make you wonder, like me, if there’s anything but dangerous, illogical, and incomprehensible behavior there.
Cipolla doesn’t explain stupid people. He simply says that they exist, and they’re irrational, unpredictable, and hazardous. He states that irrational people can’t be understood by rational minds and cautions against getting involved with irrational people because it always comes with a cost that’s often a big cost.
He says the only hope is for rational people to create more gains than the losses that irrational people cause. He was an economist so his theory is all gains and losses, and another way to think about his four human traits is total gain, loss/gain, gain/loss, and total loss.
And maybe that’s the real answer here. Maybe, we shouldn’t concern ourselves with why anti-vax/maskers act like they do. Perhaps, we should simply accept them as an incredible danger to our country, states, cities, friends, families, and selves, and we should just do everything we can to do more good than they do harm.
I like Cipolla’s theory, and I find it to be a compelling model for many of the problems we’re experiencing—like, for instance, Republicans.
In this writings, Cipolla makes a point of dividing bandits into Intelligent Bandits and Stupid Bandits. Intelligent bandits cause an equal amount of loss and gain, and they get everything they take from others. Stupid bandits cause more loss than gain, and they only get part of what they cause others to lose.
When I read that, I think about how Republicans are actively working to crash the US so they can keep their wealth and power. And then I think that they’re going so far with it that they may have moved from being stupid bandits to fully stupid because it’s irrational to think they’ll keep much of anything if the country collapses.
I also start thinking about how prevalent stupid banditry is in the world—as if it’s the only way to do business. The “bigs” are especially dangerous: big agriculture, apparel, chemical, electronics, oil, pharmaceuticals, retail, etc.
We’re all losing our lives in one way or another to these dubious ventures.
But that’s my mind drifting on to a topic for another diary, and I’ll stop this one here.
