…where to begin?
…clearly there’s different kinds of waiting…& arguably the nature of the thing being awaited alters the character of the wait…good & bad can equally be anticipated…but one might be eagerly so while the other reluctantly…unless you get mixed up enough to be in a camp eagerly anticipating something bad you’re wedded to claiming is a good thing
…define who you are? …there’s a concept
On Tuesday morning, West Virginians could obtain elective abortions in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.
By 5 p.m., the state legislature had voted to ban nearly all abortions from the moment a fertilized egg implants in the uterus. The governor has not yet signed the bill into law, but has indicated he will do so.
[…]
The state’s only abortion clinic, in Charleston, W.Va., announced on its website Wednesday morning that it would no longer perform the procedure.
[…]
[T]he West Virginia bill initially stalled in July over disagreements between lawmakers over criminal penalties for doctors and a heated debate over what exceptions to include. Ultimately, lawmakers settled on exceptions for victims of rape and incest as long as they report the assault and seek an abortion before eight weeks of pregnancy for adults and 14 weeks for children.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/09/14/west-virginia-abortion-ban/
…now…I know some people are hard of reading…& that’s its own pile of problems
The night before Kansans were set to vote on a historic statewide referendum last month, voters saw a lie about how to vote pop up on their phone. A blast of old-fashioned text messages falsely told them that a “yes” vote protected abortion access in their state, when the opposite was true — a yes vote would cut abortion protections from the state’s constitution.
The messaging effort and referendum both failed. But the campaign shows how easily a bad actor can leverage text messages — which still rely on the same basic technology from when they were developed in the 1990s — to spread disinformation with few consequences. And while there’s now a cottage industry and federal agencies that target election disinformation when it’s on social media, there’s no comparable effort for texts.
[…]
In many ways, it’s harder to spread overt election disinformation on American social media platforms than ever before. Since the 2016 election, when Russia’s “troll factory” ran unchecked, Facebook and Twitter started taking the issue more seriously, hiring teams that routinely remove that kind of content, taking down coordinated accounts pushing misinformation and preemptively informing users about basic civic matters like how and where to vote. They’re aided by the FBI, which in 2017 spun up a dedicated unit, the Foreign Influence Task Force, that tips them to foreign online propaganda.
…how well that’s going might be up for debate…but I’ll try to come back to that part
But there is no company or regulatory agency that monitors the contents of all of the billions of text messages that are sent every day. American phone carriers employ some anti-spam measures, but they’re clearly limited: More Americans are filing complaints about spam and scam text messages with the Federal Trade Commission this year than ever before, an agency spokesperson told NBC News, and 2022 is likely to be the first year where they outpace complaints about phone calls.
[…]
Darren Linvill, a Clemson University professor who studies disinformation, said while there’s been substantial data-based research of disinformation on social media from academia and third-party social analytics companies, there’s never been any way to comparably study text messages.
“What are you going to do with text messages? There’s no tool to collect it all, and nor should there be, necessarily,” Linvill said.
“This is an underappreciated tactic, and I feel like it’s becoming more popular than in the past,” he said. “It’s really hard to measure.”
Federal restrictions on political text messages were loosened right before the 2020 election. One of the last major acts of the FCC during the Trump administration was to make it easier for political campaigns to send text messages, even to numbers on the do not call list, provided each message was sent by a person and not an automated system.
[…]
“I don’t think people are breaking that rule. I really don’t,” [Kevin] Bingle [founder of Right Digital, a conservative digital political outreach company in Ohio] said. “The way they get around it is they have a warehouse or just a team of people who are sitting there with iPads.”
[…]
It’s not clear whether political groups that spread text message disinformation will face any consequences. In the Kansas case, messages were delivered through Twilio, a San Francisco company that dominates the American bulk text-messaging market. A Washington Post investigation found that they came through an anti-abortion activist, Tim Huelskamp, who had used a Nevada digital campaign company, Alliance Forge, to send them. Neither Huelskamp nor Alliance Forge responded to requests for comment from NBC News, but Huelskamp told the Kansas Reflector that there was “no evidence” he was behind the texts.
[…]
A Twilio spokesperson declined to comment on the record about the threat of its customers spreading political disinformation. But while Twilio had disabled the numbers used to spam Kansas after receiving complaints, the company, like the major phone carriers, doesn’t make a habit of pre-screening texts before they’re sent out. According to its policy, it depends on its customers to follow all relevant rules and regulations.
To date, there’s no evidence of a foreign country masterminding a large text message campaign against Americans, but Ukraine has accused Russia of repeatedly sending batch text messages to its citizens since the start of the invasion to spread panic and urge them to defect.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/disinformation-text-message-problem
…from a certain point of view…when it comes to exerting leverage…it’s arguably cheap at the price
Russia has spent more than $300 million in a global campaign to influence foreign political events, according to a newly declassified U.S. intelligence review.
…for context…back in june WaPo noted that in the first 100 days of putin’s costly series of mis-steps in ukraine russia’s receipts for fossil fuel exports averaged out at around $1billion per day…so…$300million isn’t even 1/3 of one of those days…& look at the return on that investment…shit…only a fraction of it was even spent on the US
Moscow has covertly funded political parties, officials and politicians in at least two dozen nations across four continents since 2014, the U.S. said Tuesday, as the Kremlin’s role in other countries’ affairs comes under greater scrutiny after its invasion of Ukraine.
President Joe Biden’s administration is sharing details of the review with 110 countries as part of its campaign to expose Russia’s actions by making them public.
[…]
“What Russia is doing around the world in terms of its election meddling is also an assault on sovereignty, is an effort to chip away at the ability of people around the world to choose the governments that they see best fit, to represent them to represent their interests, to represent their values,” State Department Spokesperson Ned Price said Tuesday, without going into details on the intelligence assessment.
[…]
The review also found Russia is expected to continue the covert financing of foreign political parties and candidates in the coming months as President Vladimir Putin attempts to both maintain his global influence in the wake of the war in Ukraine and undermine international sanctions, a senior administration official said Tuesday on a call with reporters.
[…]
Russia has long been accused of — and always denied — interference in foreign affairs. A federal grand jury indictment in 2018 found that a group of Russian disinformation actors had a monthly budget of $1.2 million to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election and fuel what it called “information warfare.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/russia-spent-millions-secretly-interfering-foreign-politics-us-intel
…it’s something of a bull market
In my three-decade career with Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, China was never seen as a major threat.
If we lost sleep at night, it was over more immediate challenges such as Soviet expansionism and transnational terrorism. China’s halting emergence from the chaotic Mao Zedong era and its international isolation after Chinese soldiers crushed pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989 made it seem like an insular backwater.
It’s a different picture today. China has acquired global economic and diplomatic influence, enabling covert operations that extend well beyond traditional intelligence gathering, are growing in scale and threaten to overwhelm Western security agencies.
…& if it can overwhelm those folks…it’s a safe bet there’s a good chunk of the wider population it could sweep through like…well…something virulent
The U.S. and British intelligence chiefs — the F.B.I. director, Christopher Wray, and the MI5 director general, Ken McCallum — signaled rising concern over this with an unprecedented joint news conference in July to warn of, as Mr. Wray put it, a “breathtaking” Chinese effort to steal technology and economic intelligence and to influence foreign politics in Beijing’s favor. The pace was quickening, they said, with the number of MI5 investigations into suspected Chinese activity having increased sevenfold since 2018.
[…] China can best be described as an intelligence state. The party views the business of acquiring and protecting secrets as an all-of-nation undertaking, to the point that rewards are offered to citizens for identifying possible spies and even schoolchildren are taught to recognize threats.
[…]
The last state intelligence threat of comparable magnitude was posed by the Soviets. But the Soviet Union was isolated and impoverished. China’s successful economy, on the other hand, is a key engine of global growth, vastly increasing Beijing’s reach.
Barely visible on the world stage 30 years ago, China’s intelligence agencies are now powerful and well resourced. They are adept at exploiting the vulnerabilities of open societies and growing dependence on China’s economy to collect vast volumes of intelligence and data. Much of this takes place in the cyber domain, such as the 2015 hack of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, in which sensitive data on millions of federal employees was stolen. Chinese intelligence operatives also are present in state-owned enterprises, state media organizations and embassies and consulates. China’s consulate in Houston was closed by the Trump administration in 2020 after it served as a national hub for collecting high-tech intelligence.
[…] The wider China challenge comes from organizations and actors engaged in activities that may not conform to normal concepts of espionage.
Much of this is organized by the United Front Work Department, a party organization that seeks to co-opt well-placed members of Chinese diaspora communities — and whose scope has been expanded under Mr. Xi. China also endeavors to entice other Western citizens. A textbook case, exposed this year, involved a British politician whose office received substantial funding from an ethnic Chinese lawyer who thereby gained access to the British political establishment. One Chinese approach is to patiently cultivate relationships with politicians at the city or community level who show potential to rise to even higher office. Another is known as elite capture, in which influential Western corporate or government figures are offered lucrative sinecures or business opportunities in return for advocating policies that jibe with Chinese interests.
…&…not for nothing…but as someone who tends to think that the patriot act is pretty much in keeping with that leeroy jenkins meme…I’d tend to have the odd concern that the remedy could be a lot like the disease from the patients’ point of view…though that is, perhaps, a conversation for another day
New and more effective legislation that is attuned to the changing dynamics is vital. Britain is taking a step in the right direction. It looks set to enact a national security bill that would broaden the definition of espionage and take measures to create, as the Home Office put it, “a more challenging operating environment” for those acting as agents for foreign interests. Australia enacted similar legislation in 2018 to curb foreign covert political influence after concerns emerged over Chinese activity.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/opinion/international-world/china-espionage.html
…don’t get me wrong…a threat is a threat…& deserves to be recognized as such
Three Iranians have been charged with trying to extort hundreds of thousands of dollars from organizations in the United States, Europe, Iran and Israel, including a domestic violence shelter, by hacking in to their computer systems, US officials said on Wednesday.
Other targets included local US governments, regional utilities in Mississippi and Indiana, accounting firms and a state lawyers’ association, according to charges filed by the justice department.
While the criminal charges do not say whether the alleged hackers worked for the Iranian government, a separate US treasury department statement said the hackers were affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an Iranian intelligence and security force.
And just last week, the US imposed sanctions on Iran’s ministry of intelligence and its minister, accusing them of being tied to a disruptive July cyber-attack on Albania and engaging in other cyber activities against the US and its allies.
A senior official said on Wednesday that Iran’s government does not discourage residents from engaging in hacking, as long as it is directed outside the country.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/14/us-hacking-iran-extortion-sheme-computer-systems
…but because you can identify foreign ones
For years, China has served as a convenient rhetorical touchstone for the climate-minded on both left and right — often described as a bad actor and unreliable partner by climate and energy nationalists, and by agitated environmentalists as an example of what could be done, climatewise, given a political structure without so many troublesome veto points. These contradictory depictions have always depended much more on casual stereotype than genuine insight. But like any useful talking point, they are also built on something real. China is not just the world’s largest climate polluter but is responsible now for about half of all global coal use and almost a third of all global carbon emissions — a growing share, and more than twice the American contribution. (Though on a per-capita basis, the United States is still doing much worse.)
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/14/opinion/environment/china-climate-change-heat-drought.html
[…annoyingly that one seems to be behind a particularly persistent paywall…but makes some points about the shifting landscape of villains & champions at the nation state level where this stuff is concerned…though, again, that’s arguably another conversation]
…that doesn’t mean they’re aren’t plenty to be found domestically
Republican-led legislatures have passed anti-protest laws drafted by an extreme-right corporate lobbying group in a third of all American states since 2018, as part of a backlash against Indigenous communities and environmentalists opposing fossil fuel projects, new research has found.
The American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec) helped draft legislation criminalizing grassroots protests against pipelines, gas terminals and other oil and gas expansion projects in 24 states, under the guise of protecting critical infrastructure.
[…]
The laws were passed in 17 Republican-controlled states, including Oklahoma, North and South Dakota, Kansas, West Virginia and Indiana, where protesters now face up to 10 years in prison and million-dollar fines, according to a new report from the non-profit Climate Cabinet.
The anti-protest bills, which were rolled out in response to the success of mostly Indigenous-led campaigns slowing down fossil-fuel infrastructure projects, have used intentionally vague language to create a chilling effect on free speech and assembly – both constitutionally protected rights, according to the report Critical Infrastructure Laws: A Threat to Protest & the Planet.
[…]
Fossil fuel expansion projects halted by Indigenous-led campaigns represent the carbon equivalent of 12% of annual US and Canadian pollution, or 779m metric tons of greenhouse gases, according to data gathered by the Indigenous Environmental Network and Oil Change International.
The report comes as the White House and Congress negotiate the final terms of a controversial permitting side deal with the Democratic West Virginia senator Joe Manchin, which could make it harder to legally challenge new pipelines and other fossil fuel infrastructure.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/14/rightwing-lobbyists-at-heart-of-anti-protest-bills-in-republican-states
…it’s a matter of perspective, you might say
…perspective can make all the difference
It’s strange for us to imagine the person who wants to step inside a hurricane simulator and watch animations of destruction. It’s hard to fathom a communal trauma — one shared by the 3.3 million people who lived in Puerto Rico when Maria struck — functioning as amusement. But I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that the game exists — and is a moneymaker.
…I mean…I can imagine there being some potential utility to being able to get people to “experience” a disaster first hand without actually being subject to it…it might get some things across to them about how important they might think it is to avoid having to do it for real…or give real thought to what they’d want available if that no longer seems like a plausible option…but the amusement thing is a fair point
The latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was described by António Guterres, the U.N. secretary general, as a “code red for humanity.” Why is such a declaration, about such an enormous crisis, not enough to impel more people to act?
George Marshall, co-founder of Climate Outreach and author of “Don’t Even Think About It: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Ignore Climate Change,” argues that although the science has long been clear, scholarship isn’t enough to persuade people to take it seriously — because scientific data “does not galvanize our emotional brain into action.”
Paul Slovic, president of Decision Research, has suggested it’s difficult to motivate people because many can’t conceive of how climate change will affect their lives. “The question is often ‘Do I feel vulnerable?’ ” he told Time in 2018. “For the most part, we don’t, and that shapes our behavior.”
Climate disaster isn’t a game. When will the U.S. stop playing? [WaPo]
…so…what does shape that behavior? …to what compass is the wisdom of crowds beholden? …some like to talk about “the rational actor“…& they tend to lean into the idea of acting in one’s own self-interest…but…voters don’t appear to be that logical
Why do millions of Americans on both the right and the left ignore their own economic self-interest when they choose which political party to support?
Partisan prioritization of cultural and racial issues has, to a notable extent, superseded the economic conflicts that once characterized the nation’s politics, leading to what scholars call a “dematerialization” of American electoral competition.
[…]
The idea that moral values are, in that sense, luxury goods, Enke, Wu and Polborn [economists at Harvard] write[ in their April paper], “is not new but has appeared in different terminology across the social sciences, such as in Abraham Maslow’s (1943) ‘hierarchy of needs’, the influential ‘postmaterialism’ literature initiated by Ronald Inglehart (1997, 2020), or the argument that modernization increases demand for democracy (Seymour Martin Lipset, 1959).”
[…]
In support of their argument, Bonomi, Gennaioli and Tabellini cite the work of David Autor and of Italo Colantone and Piero Stanig to “show that, both in the U.S. and in Europe, losses from international trade foster support for right-wing and conservative parties.”
Their analysis reveals how economic issues mesh with cultural issues in ways that make it difficult to define whether the economic framework creates the moral framework or vice versa.
In an email, Gennaioli noted that their paper “helps explain important real-world phenomena that cannot be understood under the conventional rational choice theory,” which then leads to the question: Why do voters adopt seemingly irrational positions?
Why Aren’t You Voting in Your Financial Self-Interest? [NYT]
…& sometimes the question can come down to “why aren’t you voting?”
Bipartisan legislation aimed at preventing attempts to steal elections and another attack on the Capitol is sitting on the shelf, and as the clock ticks on the current Democratic-controlled Congress it remains unclear when a vote will take place, or what the proposals will ultimately look like.
[…]
The momentum is there, and it has generated optimism. As with most pursuits in the current Congress, the key question is how far Republicans are willing to go, as their support is needed to gain 60 votes to defeat a guaranteed filibuster.
[…]
One reason for the delay is the calendar. Congress is racing to avert a government shutdown before Sept. 30, when the current fiscal year ends. That’s when leaders of both parties expect to adjourn so members can go home and campaign in their districts. And Schumer has also guaranteed a vote on legislation to protect same-sex marriage, which could further eat up time and cause a contentious debate.
The second reason is that the proposals aren’t ready for prime time. Senate Rules Committee Chair Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., indicated at a recent hearing that she wants changes, which are still being negotiated. Her committee is likely to mark up the bills before a full Senate vote.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/senate-grapples-election-reform-legislation-time-runs-short
…meanwhile…back in the cheap seats
Supporters of former president Donald Trump have swamped local election offices across the nation in recent weeks with a coordinated campaign of requests for 2020 voting records, in some cases paralyzing preparations for the fall election season.
In nearly two dozen states and scores of counties, election officials are fielding what many describe as an unprecedented wave of public records requests in the final weeks of summer, one they say may be intended to hinder their work and weaken an already strained system. The avalanche of sometimes identically worded requests has forced some to dedicate days to the process of responding even as they scurry to finalize polling locations, mail out absentee ballots and prepare for early voting in October, officials said.
In Wisconsin, one recent request asks for 34 different types of documents. In North Carolina, hundreds of requests came in at state and local offices on one day alone. In Kentucky, officials don’t recognize the technical-sounding documents they’re being asked to produce – and when they seek clarification, the requesters say they don’t know, either.
The use of mass records requests by the former president’s supporters effectively weaponizes laws aimed at promoting principles of a democratic system – that the government should be transparent and accountable. Public records requests are a key feature of that system, used by regular citizens, journalists and others. In interviews, officials emphasized that they are trying to follow the law and fulfill the requests, but they also believe the system is being abused.
[…]
The latest flood of requests began immediately after Lindell, a prominent Trump ally, exhorted his followers at a mid-August gathering in Springfield, Mo., to obtain copies of what’s known as “cast vote records” from every election office in the country. Lindell live-streamed his “Moment of Truth” summit on his own social media platforms and got a boost of viewership from former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon, who broadcast his podcast from the event on both days.
[…]
“The only way to look at it is as a denial-of-service attack on local government,” said Matt Crane, who leads the Colorado County Clerks Association, using the term for an intentional bombardment of a computer network for the purpose of shutting it down. “The irony is, if Lindell wanted the cast vote records, he could have just put in a request to get them. They don’t do that. They put out this call to action for people to do it, and they know it’s going to inundate these offices, especially medium and small offices who are understaffed and overwhelmed already. They know exactly what they’re doing.”
Trump backers flood election offices with requests as 2022 vote nears [WaPo]
…so much for “they know not what they do”
Candidates who deny the results of the 2020 election have advanced to November ballots in statewide races for positions that will oversee, defend or certify elections in more than half of the states, according to a nonpartisan group tracking the races.
In the races in 27 states for governor, attorney general and secretary of state, at least one election-denying candidate will be on the ballot who has echoed former President Donald Trump‘s continuing false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, according to a report to be published by States United Action, which has closely tracked the progress of election deniers throughout the 2022 primary season.
NBC News obtained the report ahead of its release this week.
Many of the general election contests will be competitive races in critical battleground states – among them Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Michigan – whose outcomes could have enormous impacts on the results of the next presidential election in those states.
[…]
In three states – Arizona, Michigan and Alabama – election deniers are set to appear on general election ballots in races for all three jobs. The first two are among the states where President Joe Biden eked out his narrowest victories in 2020.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/election-deniers-advanced-november-ballots-27-states-report-finds
…so…yeah…context is doubtless up there with perspective…but when it comes to making a living from professionally missing the point…some people are in a league of their own
In addition to granting new political hope to Democrats, the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade has clarified the ground of public argument about abortion. As abortion-rights supporters have pressed their sudden political momentum, three pro-choice arguments have loomed particularly large: an argument about abortion in life-threatening circumstances; an argument about the unique physical costs of pregnancy in general; and an argument for the virtues of the Roe-era cultural status quo.
Each merits its own analysis, so this will be the first of a series of columns taking each in turn. (Notably, none are really arguments about the question of when life, personhood or human rights begin; they all tend to present reasons that, even if the unborn child did have a moral claim on us, some other interest necessarily overrides it. So I’ll try to address them on those terms rather than just rehashing the debate about whether unborn human beings are also human persons.)
…I’m sure you’ll agree that’s very big of ross…he’s prepared…over the course of a series of columns, no less…to put aside the debate about when a person becomes a person in favor of a robust interrogation of the interests of one person as weighed against those of the person without whom they wouldn’t have any in the first place…which…as a man born & bred…I’m sure he has all the necessary insight to view from a position of objectivity…I mean…there couldn’t possibly be something in the news that appears to wholly undercut his attempt to suggest that it’s better to have anti-abotion laws & simply opt not to enforce them when it would be cruel…despite which he bravely soldiers on to suggest that conceding that broad latitude exists at the level of those directly providing medical care in fact
[…]has implications well beyond medical exceptions: that once you’ve conceded gray areas in some cases, once you’ve deferred to women and doctors in the hardest situations, you don’t have a reasonable way to draw a line and forbid abortion anywhere.
…so close, you painstakingly oblivious moral bankrupt…& yet so very fucking far
But I don’t think this argument makes sense. Consider another debate where the stakes are life-or-death and there are pro-life and pro-choice sides: assisted suicide and euthanasia. Some of the issues at play at the end of life are obviously different from the issues surrounding abortion. But the ways in which they overlap are useful for thinking about whether it’s possible to allow for difficult cases and gray areas within a general restriction, a default ban.
…really? …you don’t think that argument makes sense…well…while there are any number of people more qualified than I to retort…you can fuck all the way off with that shit for a start…& take that euthanasia bullshit with it…as it happens…though curiously enough our hero makes no mention of it herein…in the UK laws about assisted suicide are actually a pretty good example of a thing that is formally illegal so as to allow prosecution of anyone trying to force an elderly person into an early grave for their own enrichment…while not being prosecuted in cases where, for example, a spouse of many decades travels with the terminally ill object of their lifetime’s affections to a place where they can help them find a release from their suffering on their own terms & timetable…but…leaving aside the part where his argument that something similar holds in the face of the insane vindictiveness of anti-abortion legislation in state after state…even if you accept this piss poor bit of argument at face value in a way it entirely fails to deserve
And the fact that even most liberals seem to accept that balance with end-of-life issues implies that the same balance could exist with abortion – or at least that the existence of medical emergencies, and the legal gray areas they create, doesn’t generalize in any way to a near-univeral right to take an unborn life.
Unless, that is, you could establish that an unwanted pregnancy is by its very nature a kind of physical emergency – another argument that’s circulated since the fall of Roe, and one that a future column in this series will take up.
What Conflicted Americans Fear Most From an Abortion Ban [NYT]
…lindsay graham wanted a bill to “define who we are”…& if he had his way the tiniest sliver of potential human being would deserve the full panolopy of rights…which is weird…since by presuming that even well before crossing any landmark that might confer the status of viability he’s perfectly happy to join such intellectual giants as the man getting paid for a series of anti-abortion apologia in a national newspaper in a blithe assumption that those rights entirely eclipse those of a human being who’s so far past the viable boundary as to be in a position to produce another generation
…I don’t want to get all zen & the art of motorcycle maintenance…but isn’t that the logical equivalent of throwing the baby out before you’ve even bothered pouring the bathwater?
[…sorry for the delay this morning…you would not believe how slowly this laptop is responding today…it’s like trying to reason with a republican…well…maybe a little short of that since I think I’ve just about got there…but the tunes might take a moment]
…speaking of having to wait…I know some folks might think I err on the side of unwarranted patience with, say, the DoJ…&…well…those folks might be on to something…but when it comes to waiting patiently for something that may not amount to much in the end…it has recently been drawn to my attention that the brits may in fact be in a league of their own
What China is doing is no different than what the Russians/Sovs did during the cold war where they once co-opting well meaning but horribly naive (stupid, craven or just fucking corrupt) Lefties.
Instead it’s now the wingnuts turn. I would not be surprised if various parties who suddenly got a funding boost out of nowhere were Putin funded (including Canadian ones.)
AGAIN, this is why Citizens United is so fucking dangerous for the United States but Scalia and gang were so fucking short sighted (or indirectly fed with Putin bucks to ignore these issues… Ginni come on down!)
…as a tactic the fundamentals are anything but new…but between the decades-long efforts to “dumb things down” to a point where an electorate will swallow even the most trivially-debunkable nonsense to the point of equally insane acts on behalf of “their team” on the one hand…& the exponential increase in speed, volume & penetration afforded by the compound interest of the online media ecosystem…the acuteness of the problem might be in proportion to its apparent return on investment
…useful idiots were ever in abundant supply…but their ability to subsist on an exclusive diet of bullshit they mainline with more enthusiasm than de quincey had for opium…that part feels like a more recent development?
both in the U.S. and in Europe, losses from international trade foster support for right-wing and conservative parties.
In the US those trade losses were ushered in by the Conservative party. Although Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law it was Ronald Reagan’s baby. He campaigned on it. And the people it hurt voted for him. He went after the unions and they voted for him again. Then wailed and gnashed their teeth when they closed the mills and factories. And they’re obstinately voting MAGA today for God and the economy, as if they aren’t one and the same to the GOP, in spite of widening financial inequality that impacts them, their children, and grandchildren.
So, I guess my question is, why did they support the GOP’s efforts, against their own financial interest in the first place? Racism certainly played a part, the Iran hostage crisis was no doubt a factor. But knowing how much a certain segment of our society is motivated by getting their slice of the American Dream apple pie it still baffles me that they are willing to sacrifice themselves for hatred of BIPOC. Was it the rise of evangelical churches here? After widespread mocking of Jimmy Carter’s faith, a man who truly seems to walk his Christian talk, they see the likes of Marjorie Taylor Green, and trump as leading them to prosperity and heaven?
That’s where we are, but I still don’t completely understand how we got here.
All of the above.
A friend of mine is still really good friends with a now known racist and jackass in high school (in part because the racist helped out in difficult times which I kinda understand but not really.) Anyway, this guy grew up in a union household (autoworker) and spent time working in the government so he hates unions and the government despite the fact that he takes small business credits from a government (he hates welfare) and received social subsidies in the past yet continues to rant about low taxes and small government.
In his case, he’s a selfish (VERY entitled white) shithead who can’t see beyond his own selfish ass.
…these government-hating types all seem to think they’re ron swanson
…but…well…that’s why parks & rec is such a masterful bit of satire
It is. Ron Swanson is truly parody.
…I realize it’s at best cold comfort…but that same mechanism produced pretty analogous results in the UK where the same bloc of voters who kept maggie in power while she took to the idea of hobbling the unions much the way kathy bates did in misery…more or less directly birthed the turkeys who voted so happily for all their brexit christmases to come at once
…I think completely understanding it might break me based upon the effect my partial understanding of either tends to impact my impression of the world before me…but…to return to the potential comedy to be wrung from patiently waiting in line…somehow I’m reminded of who was at the end of the queue for auditions in the commitments?
In Marxist thought it’s pretty well accepted that the ruling classes will use all kinds of divide-and-conquer strategies to foment in-fighting among the working class and the poor. The rhetoric around “welfare reform” is probably the best example. This keeps the proletariat from focusing on the real issue, exploitation through wage labor.
Additionally, I think that people identifying with the ruling class more than their own class is a form of Stockholm Syndrome.
…according to snopes it really was LBJ who summed it up pretty succinctly
…the stockholm syndrome parallel sounds to me like it’s on the money, too
The Queue is a thing of wonder and probably right now visible from space.
https://www.timeout.com/london/news/how-long-is-the-queue-to-see-the-queen-lying-in-state-and-wheres-the-end-of-the-line-091422
Even this article dedicated to tracking The Queue can’t keep up. It is not not 3.1 miles long; right now it is 4.4 miles. The Queue is starting to move and if you joined it at the 3.1-mile mark it will be another 30 hours before you will reach the coffin.
Right now provisions were made for 7.5-mile-long Queue, but there are fears that may not be enough and there are calls for extending it to 10 miles.
Finally, I read about a FAQ about The Queue and one was “Is there are FastPass, like at Disney?” Sadly, there is not.
…I believe there is, however, a sanctioned queue-jumping option intended for those who are disabled…on the basis that they would be unable to endure The Queue
…they (& as I understand it potentially a +1 on a “carer” ticket) can apply for a timeslot & matching wristband at some sort of kiosk in the vicinity of the original tate gallery (aka tate britain these days) & at the appointed time join a much shorter line pretty much at the head of The Queue
…which is fair enough…but I can 100% cast-iron guarantee that there is no shortage of people who’ve cast an eye over that bit & come to a few snap judgements about whether or not in practice that’s been a properly applied bending of the rules…though I fear that way madness lies?
Douthat: I’m not going to argue about when life begins, I’m just going to talk about balancing the needs of some lives against the needs of other lives.
Me: Umm, that means you’re implicitly stating that life begins at conception. Because if a fetus isn’t a “person” then your need to balance it against a living human being is unnecessary.
I mean, not a bad gambit to take, really. “I’m just going to accept that every fetus is a person and go from there.” Totally sidestep the primary issue.
…to borrow from that nice graphic the informationisbeautiful lot put together…we could debate whether it constitutes a false dilemma, an effort to supress evidence or an ad hoc rescue
…but it’s indubitably…or in-douthat-ably, as the case may be…a fallacious gambit, any which way you examine the thing
It only matters whether “life” begins at conception if you have bought into the conceit that humans are more cosmically special than other species. We’re not.
Of course, that leaves me having to explain why we have various moral and legal prohibitions against killing each other, and the best I can do without thinking too much is that man is a pack animal, and you don’t see wolves killing each other at random, because a certain level of cooperation is necessary for survival. So why doesn’t a fetus deserve the same cooperation? Because it’s not a person? Fucked if I know.
…I can think of a number of flippant responses…bill hicks’ contention that “you’re not a person ’til you’re in the phone book” being perhaps one that has past its time
…but by way of a serious response I wouldn’t pretend it’s an easy question…I would however see a situation in which one life remains necessarily dependent on another…in an arrangement one-sided enough to have pretty distinct parallels with relationships we routinely describe as parasitical…over which it makes no logical sense (to me) to award rights to the one doing the depending greater weight than the self-same rights as applied to the life upon which its successful birth is contingent outside the terrifying prospect of a scenario in which at most one of those lives can be saved where the survival of both is the desperately desired outcome
…that latter nightmare scenario being pretty close to the only time I’d expect the decision to pass out of the hands of the mother & into those of a man
…but…I have some odd ideas about some stuff so that opinion may not be worth much?
I agree with you, we ain’t special. You don’t really have to explain prohibitions against murder, though. While there are discrepancies which I shall enumerate, in general one person murdering another person is against the rules.
What needs to be explained is why all fetuses are worthy of protection, but ALSO:
While the laws against murder are applied differently, the laws themselves are largely universal. But if we universally accept that fetuses are people and must not be harmed under any circumstances, then we need to also address the situations above.
Republicans are the only ones staking out a position they can’t defend except by fiat: I SAY SO.
One of my favorite rationales is the appeal from “innocent lives.” From Christians. Who literally believe as a matter of doctrine that no one is innocent.
I never understood why people even believe life begins at conception.
If you said life begins at implantation, I’d still hate it but I understand where the idea comes from.
Millions of “lives” have been flushed down toilets and thrown away in tampons and pads because implantation didn’t happen.
There’s no scientific basis. It’s just a handy dividing line that not coincidentally plays right into the religious right’s fascist hands. As I noted above, if they actually cared about lives, they’d start with the ones that are already outside the womb.
The weaponizing of the migrants continues.
Yesterday two planeloads were sent (by Florida Gov. DeSantis) to Martha’s Vineyard. Today two busloads were dropped off at Kamala Harris’s official residence at the Naval Observatory (by Texas Gov. Abbott.) They must have seen news reports about what Port Authority looks like on a good day and realized adding 30 migrants at a time to the scrum is like adding a teaspoon of water to Lake Michigan. Although apparently the recent arrivals, I think we’re up to about 11,000, have brought the city to its knees and to the brink of financial ruin. This, a city of over 8 million, with an estimated undocumented population of 500,000.
“I think you’re an asshole, so I’m going to egg your house.”
That’s all these people are to them. Eggs.
US rail system owners and unions have negotiated a labor deal and it now goes to members for a vote, which would prevent a giant strike.
It would have made a huge mess of the supply chain in the US and internationally, worsened inflation, and given the GOP a big cudgel against Biden and unions.
This has flown under the radar with all the other news but is kind of interesting. Anyone remember Donald Sterling being forced to sell the LA Clippers because of some racist comments he made? The Phoenix NBA owner is an even bigger piece of shit but is just being suspended for 1 year. I bet that the players and advertisers in that area will force him to sell as this story gets more traction. It’s sad that Chris Paul was on both the teams this happened to and would love to hear what he has to say about it.
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/34584665/phoenix-suns-owner-robert-sarver-suspended-year-fined-10-million-investigation-finds-conduct-clearly-violated-workplace-standards
Today is Prince Hazza’s birthday! He is 38.
I worried for them when their Netflix deals fell through and they were living at other people’s houses. The Queen dying has provided a timely non taxable windfall. I can rest easy now.
Did you hear about the conspiracy theory that Megs was taping her walkabout with Wills and Cath while she greeted the grieving hordes? For some NetFlix purpose?
https://www.newsweek.com/meghan-markle-accused-using-hidden-recording-device-wild-conspiracy-theory-1742823