The Right's Assault on Facts, Data, and Reality

[goldenvalley]

The Black Robe Regiment?  The KKK got the corner on the white robe market.

[LFC]

I hate the MSM for amplifying the bullshit on this issue.

[goldenvalley]

Nov 5, 2022 17:52:51 GMT LFC said:

I hate the MSM for amplifying the bullshit on this issue.

Statistics will never cure people of fear.  They hear about a shooting in Chicago and even though they live nowhere near the city the interpretation is violent crime is worse.  Add that to the theft of catalytic converters in suburban neighborhoods and we have a horrible increase in crime. Everyone knows that!  

[LFC]

Oct 31, 2022 18:33:17 GMT LFC said:

Scratch the surface of a right-wing victim story, find a steaming pile of shit. Bold of lies mine.

Oct 31, 2022 18:36:23 GMT LFC said:

More details. It's becoming clearer and clearer that Rubio and his racist are creating alternative facts for political gain. Gee, how very, very Republican.

Rubio and his little minion lied. This story sounded like Republican bullshit right out of the gate. Sure enough.

No doubt it will come as a great surprise to you. But Marco Rubio’s story of a Rubio canvasser (who turned out to be a notorious white supremacist) who was viciously beaten over his political beliefs continues to fall apart. Cellphone videos of the incident have now emerged (seemingly from the assailants’ defense attorneys) which undermine the political attack storyline and actually show one of the assailants (just before the attack) telling Christopher Monzon to go about his business and keep canvassing.

It appears that the brawl was triggered by one of the assailants thinking Monzon was looking too closely at his girlfriend. The big picture looks to be one of a group of young violent idiots thumping their chests and things spinning out of control.

No one should think the assailants here are somehow the good guys. Both have lengthy criminal records, including for assault and violent conduct. (So does Monzon for that matter, though his criminal record seems like connected to his political activism – assault, incitement to riot, etc.) The relevant point is that this incident does not seem related to politics at all. So it should be adjudicated like every other violent assault – not whipped up into a fake story by the likes of Marco Rubio.

Even Monzon’s dad, who played a role in getting the political attack ball rolling, seems to concede now that politics didn’t have anything to do with it. He just thinks the assailants should be held criminally accountable. And on that front he’s entirely right.

[LFC]

Oh, Ted. You've got a little bit of Putin's spooge on that pathetic thing you call a beard.

[LFC]

Oh, Elon. You really have been sucked into the fever swamp.

Far from learning any lessons from the intense backlash he sparked for promoting a Paul Pelosi conspiracy theory, Elon Musk pushed radical new allegations this week about the fall of crypto exchange FTX, money laundering, and the Democrats.

In this week’s episode of political podcast Fever Dreams, hosts Will Sommer and Kelly Weill discuss how just two weeks on from the Pelosi controversy, the Twitter CEO jumped on a vague and unverified theory that is being used to explain why the “red wave” failed to materialize on Election Day.

As right-wing pundits began digging into the life of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is also one of the biggest donors to the Democratic Party, unverified claims began percolating alleging the FTX exchange laundered money for the Dems.

Responding to a tweet linking family members and friends to the World Economic Forum, Musk replied, “a question worth asking,” suggesting the unverified claims are sufficient evidence to warrant investigation.

Sommer described the theory as “even dumber” than another conspiracy theory about FTX laundering money for the Democrats through Ukraine.

“For me, this makes ‘Pizzagate’ look like string theory, right? There’s truly nothing here.”

Weill agrees, explaining that “this is one of these cool corkboard conspiracy theories where they find anybody who attended the same college within five generations of each other and really tie them all together in a bulletproof conspiracy plot.”

[LFC]

Ohio Republicans do a 180 on parents' input on education the instant they lose the state school board. What a shocker.

When Black voters began to register & vote in big numbers in the 60s, those clinging to Jim Crow came up w a trick: Strip powers away from the offices that those voters had an impact on

That exact maneuver is happening right now in Ohio

[LFC]

This Floriduh teacher is going full metal snowflake. She's clearly a racist, posting a Confederate flag and belonging to the Daughters of the Confederacy, but her "best friend is a black woman." Uh, huh.

[Bact PhD]

Dec 21, 2022 21:30:34 GMT LFC said:

This Floriduh teacher is going full metal snowflake. She's clearly a racist, posting a Confederate flag and belonging to the Daughters of the Confederacy, but her "best friend is a black woman." Uh, huh.

Escambia County…might as well be Alabama. ‘Nuff said.

[andydp]

Excellent column by Paul Krugman.  Woke, MAGA, modern wars, Russian stupidity.

Ukraine can teach us about power

And one important strain of MAGAism was and is the belief that wokeness is making America militarily weak. Back in 2021, Sen. Ted Cruz famously shared a video comparing Russian military ads, which feature manly men doing manly things, with a U.S. ad telling the story of a female recruit raised by two mothers. “Perhaps a weak, emasculated military is not the best idea,” Cruz declared.

Remarkably, the idea that wokeness makes us weak has persisted despite the failures of the decidedly un-woke Russian military in Ukraine. Sen. Tom Cotton, (R-I should know better) who has published a book titled “Only the Strong: Reversing the Left’s Plot to Sabotage American Power,” recently declared that “soldiers join the army to kill the bad guys — not to learn to speak like they’re in a faculty lounge.”

OK, there are so many things wrong with this worldview that it’s hard to know where to begin. National power in the modern world has far more to do with economic strength than it does with military might and also reflects “soft power” — the influence of a country’s values and culture. Even when it comes to military prowess, modern wars don’t involve much hand-to-hand combat among guys with bulging muscles. What they involve, mainly, are strategic duels using long-range weapons, aided by a lot of technology. And winning such duels surely depends in part on having leadership that is smart and well-informed — that is, an officer corps that has indeed learned to speak as if it’s in a faculty lounge.



digital.olivesoftware.com/olive/odn/albanytimesunion/default.aspx

[LFC]

Jan 9, 2023 13:16:31 GMT andydp said:

And one important strain of MAGAism was and is the belief that wokeness is making America militarily weak. Back in 2021, Sen. Ted Cruz famously shared a video comparing Russian military ads, which feature manly men doing manly things, with a U.S. ad telling the story of a female recruit raised by two mothers. “Perhaps a weak, emasculated military is not the best idea,” Cruz declared.

There is a staggering amount of fascination with homoerotic fantasies on the right. Tucker Carlson's "documentary" was rather eye opening ... about Tucker. If he was outed one day I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. Ditto for a number of others, including Cruz.

[pnwguy]

Jan 9, 2023 15:46:20 GMT LFC said:

Jan 9, 2023 13:16:31 GMT andydp said:

And one important strain of MAGAism was and is the belief that wokeness is making America militarily weak. Back in 2021, Sen. Ted Cruz famously shared a video comparing Russian military ads, which feature manly men doing manly things, with a U.S. ad telling the story of a female recruit raised by two mothers. “Perhaps a weak, emasculated military is not the best idea,” Cruz declared.

There is a staggering amount of fascination with homoerotic fantasies on the right. Tucker Carlson's "documentary" was rather eye opening ... about Tucker. If he was outed one day I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. Ditto for a number of others, including Cruz.

So then Donald Trump can someday call Ted Cruz’s husband ugly?

[pnwguy]

More revealing facts about what a HELLHOLE these SOCIALIST countries are and what they do to their people.

Enslaved by Happiness


Good thing we have the GOP Freedom Caucus looking out to protect the US from this.  These poor people feel intimidated to suppress their feelings of greatness and superiority, just like white people do here.

[LFC]

Studies are finding that gas stoves create an unhealthy amounts of NO₂, CO, and fine particulates. I suspect this is becoming more of a hazard as homes get more energy efficient with less fresh air drafts. The Consumer Product Safety Commission is looking into this and the right-wingnuts are, as totally expected, melting down. AOC had a nice reply to Rep. Ronny Jordan (R-TX):

In case you don't remember who Ronny Jordan is he was the White House physician who was abusing pills and alcohol on the job and was accused by many of creating a toxic work environment. So a nasty, drugged out drunk in a position that was over his head. Sounds like a model Republican. I created this one in his honor.

[LFC]

Sometimes accepting that reality part is really, really hard.

[LFC]

Follow-up ouch!

[LFC]

I suppose this could just as easily go into the white supremacy thread. The poster really sums up how sick this is in very few words.

[LFC]

Cheezes, she should have just kept her mouth shut. She's got a big, fat target on her forehead now.

[LFC]

DeStainist is now the right-wing champion of their culture wars, attacking things that don't matter as the righteous spittle flies from his sociopathic lips. This time his target is the NHL who wants more diversity in hiring i.e. they're looking for the best people across the board and know they're not tapping certain groups.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is squaring off with an unlikely opponent: the NHL.

In the latest battle of the culture wars, the NHL—where gloves-off fighting still brings just a five-minute penalty, where the player base is 93 percent white, and until the hiring of Mike Grier by the San Jose Sharks earlier this month there had yet to be a Black general manager in the history of the sport—has somehow become the new epitome of woke culture gone awry.

Over the weekend, the DeSantis administration got the NHL to fold on a local hiring event aimed at diversifying the league’s workforce ahead of its annual All-Star Game. (The All-Star Game and Skills Competition is set for the first weekend of February in Sunrise, Florida—a suburb a little under an hour north of Miami—home to the Florida Panthers.)

How DeSantis ended up dropping the gloves with America’s fourth most popular sport ahead of an event ostensibly designed to draw tourists to the state and Floridians into the NHL’s front office jobs is the result of a wash, rinse and repeat approach to corporate efforts to brand themselves as inclusive.

As one GOP strategist put it, DeSantis has found another way to “raise his profile as a fighter as well as raise money.” But as another Republican campaign veteran told The Daily Beast, this isn’t a risk-free strategy for the Florida governor and rumored 2024 contender; it could mark the beginning of a “strategy that works until it doesn’t.”

“I've been in these rooms where political consultants get together, they try and say, ‘Well, what can we do to appeal to white voters without being just super-blatantly racist?’” said Stuart Stevens, the former George W. Bush, John McCain and Mitt Romney presidential strategist.

Stevens said he has a “contrary view” on DeSantis’ playbook, with the NHL dustup being the clearest example yet of how “Republicans are losing culture wars at an exponential speed.”

He's also attacked a Black Studies course in his bid to "whitewash" education in Florida. To be sure I haven't seen the syllabus but with DeSatanist in the mix what are the odds that he's not full of shit?

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has rejected a College Board request to approve an African-American Studies course in his state on the grounds that the course violates state law, according to a report. The Advanced Placement (AP) program, of which a pilot has been launched, was reportedly rejected by DeSantis’ administration in a letter to the College Board from the Florida Department of Education’s Office of Articulation. The rejection letter dated Jan. 12 said “as presented, the content of this course is inexplicably contrary to Florida law and significantly lacks educational value,” according to National Review. The letter reportedly added: “in the future, should College Board be willing to come back to the table with lawful, historically accurate content, FDOE will always be willing to reopen the discussion. DeSantis’ controversial “Stop W.O.K.E. Act,” signed into law last April, aimed in part to combat the teaching of critical race theory in Florida.

Meanwhile Mike Suckabee prostates himself (no, that's not a Freudian Slip) for money like he did with Trump. What a vile, little sycophant. But at least he's, you know, "a man of God(tm)".

Donald Trump is not much of a reader, but a new children’s book published by former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee may grab his attention.

The book, The Kids Guide to Ron DeSantis, has become available only by mail order in recent days, with the first copies not expected to reach customers for several weeks. But an online ad conveys its gist.

“Help your kids learn about Ron DeSantis and why he may be our next Commander-in-Chief!” Huckabee announces.

The ad copy poses the question, “Next stop: The White House?”

Back in the lead-up to the 2020 election, Huckabee’s firm published The Kids Guide to President Trump, a glowing account of his alleged “greatest achievements.”

That gushing tribute was followed by The Kids Guide to Joe Biden, a tepid effort that was obligatory for a company with a stated goal of educating kids.

The new Ron DeSantis edition, at least from the glimpses afforded by the ads, appears to be in the vein of the Trump tome.

Suckabee publishing children's books feels like grooming.

[LFC]

Always the f***ing victims, especially when they aren't being enabled in spewing their lies.

The Federal Election Commission (FEC) has rejected a Republican National Committee (RNC) complaint claiming that Google violated US law by using Gmail's spam filter on Republican campaign emails. Republicans had claimed Gmail's spam filtering amounted to "illegal in-kind contributions made by Google to Biden For President and other Democrat candidates."

But an FEC decision last week, which Google provided to Ars today, said the commission found "no reason to believe" that Google made prohibited in-kind corporate contributions. The FEC, an independent agency of the US government, also found no evidence that the Biden for President campaign committee knowingly accepted illegal in-kind contributions in the form of spam filtering preference.

The FEC told Google in a letter that it has "closed its file in this matter" and that documents related to the case will be placed on the public record within 30 days.

"The Commission's bipartisan decision to dismiss this complaint reaffirms that Gmail does not filter emails for political purposes," Google said in a statement. "We'll continue to invest in our Gmail industry-leading spam filters because, as the FEC notes, they're important to protecting people's inboxes from receiving unwanted, unsolicited, or dangerous messages."

[LFC]

"My name is Marco and I'm a douchebag." ("Hi, Marco.") The look on his face is pretty sweet. I actually do love how Jonathan Karl just dropped the fact that 3 Chinese balloons crossed U.S. airspace under Trump in his lap at the end without allowing him to lie about it.

[goldenvalley]

Feb 6, 2023 16:10:54 GMT LFC said:

"My name is Marco and I'm a douchebag." ("Hi, Marco.") The look on his face is pretty sweet. I actually do love how Jonathan Karl just dropped the fact that 3 Chinese balloons crossed U.S. airspace under Trump in his lap at the end without allowing him to lie about it.

And if the Biden Administration publically explained everything about the why and how of dealing with the balloon, these yahoos would be squawking that he revealed sensitive military and intelligence information to the Chinese (and maybe Russians).  And they'd still post stupid tweets showing them aiming the weapons to show how tough they are.  

[LFC]

Feb 6, 2023 18:00:23 GMT goldenvalley said:

And if the Biden Administration publically explained everything about the why and how of dealing with the balloon, these yahoos would be squawking that he revealed sensitive military and intelligence information to the Chinese (and maybe Russians).  And they'd still post stupid tweets showing them aiming the weapons to show how tough they are.  

The aggravating thing is that the Biden Administration has explained so much of this and kept the media folks informed and they STILL report mostly on Republican screeching ... yet again. Republicans? Facts have never been their friends so it wouldn't matter to them.

[jackd]

I'm  wondering why they decided to shoot it down. Apparently it occurred on at least three prior occasions during the Trump administration with no violent action taken against the balloons. Is that because no action was needed and everything was under control and useful to American Intelligence and military officials? I note goldenvalley's point but it would seem a general statement of "it's all under control" together with offering a briefing to the House and Senate intelligence committees coupled with release of the information about the prior incidents (which, hilariously, Trump denies) really ought to satisfy all but the screamers who would scream under any set of circumstances.

[goldenvalley]

Feb 6, 2023 22:58:31 GMT jackd said:

I'm  wondering why they decided to shoot it down. Apparently it occurred on at least three prior occasions during the Trump administration with no violent action taken against the balloons. Is that because no action was needed and everything was under control and useful to American Intelligence and military officials? I note goldenvalley's point but it would seem a general statement of "it's all under control" together with offering a briefing to the House and Senate intelligence committees coupled with release of the information about the prior incidents (which, hilariously, Trump denies) really ought to satisfy all but the screamers who would scream under any set of circumstances.

I'm guessing but I think it was a combination of wanting to shut up the screamers a bit and also because they wanted to see the hardware the balloon was toting.