Category: Politics

The stupidity to which American citizenship condemns us all.

Posted on

Requiem for Truth

Not too long ago, I wrote about how Facebook’s flagship products, Facebook and WhatsApp, have been usurped by malicious actors to decimate the truth and to instigate mass action bordering on genocide. Now, as the article linked below demonstrates, we may have the first quantitative measure of how successful such disinformation campaigns are on US soil. If it is correct that 40% of Republicans are as gullible as Burmese, then it is a sad day for the USA: we were done in by our own technologies.

A survey finds a false conspiracy theory about vaccines implanting tracking microchips is popular among Fox News viewers, Republicans and Trump voters.

Source: Over 40% of Republicans wrongly believe conspiracy theory about Bill Gates and COVID-19 vaccines – CNET

Posted on

Applying a Band-Aid to a Mortal Wound

Source: WhatsApp imposes even stricter limits on message forwarding

The speed with which social media have been hijacked by malicious forces to achieve ghastly ends is disconcerting. WhatsApp alone has been used to instigate lynchings in India and possibly a genocide in Burma. It is a sign of Facebook’s profound cowardice that it is acting only when a pandemic that affects the entire world–especially Facebook’s country of incorporation, the United States–is in full effect. Even so, the measures they are taking are much too paltry compared to the challenge to be of any use or effect. The quote below from WhatsApp constitutes the epitome of cynicism, the apogee of hypocrisy: after destroying truth, aiding the incitement of genocide and empowering propaganda machines, FaceBook is making a trivial gesture that effects little change beyond the actor making the statement below.

Caveat emptor! If you are getting your news from WhatsApp or Facebook, you are likely an ignoramus.

“We believe it’s important to slow the spread of these messages down to keep WhatsApp a place for personal conversation,” the company added.

Posted on

Universal Healthcare is Risk Reduction

www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-10/germany-and-coronavirus

As the asinine, primordial debate about whether universal healthcare is “socialism” or “capitalism” continues in the United States, it is important to emphasize the fact that it reduces risk to the economy and to the live of people who create the economy. Let’s be as cynical as we can possible get. If the only purpose people serve is to be participants in the marketplace, then health care reduces the risks that contagion like COVID-19 poses to the marketplace, to the economy. Germany seems to get it. Will the US?

Posted on

Fed Rate Cuts: Beware What You Ask for

Stocks Fall When Fed Cuts Rates

Trump insisted that the Federal Reserve Bank needs to cut interest rates because Trump thinks US economy is not doing well. The Fed demurred for the longest time because no data supports Trump’s point of view. Consequently, when Fed finally gave in to the awful businessman, the market saw it as a sign that the economy is not doing well and started a huge sell off.

This is a clear case of the blind leading the the acutely sighted. (Or blind ambition overpowering clear vision.) Trump may get the failing economy he has been projecting after all.

Posted on

Darwin Awards II: Suicide by Facebook

Louisiana police officers fired over post suggesting Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez should be shot

Like it or not, the evolution of humans seems to be marked by the migration of a substantial portion of human existence into cyberspace. The Darwin awards, consequently, need to evolve–or perhaps they have–to account for the new follies therein. The two officers in this story are certainly not the first nominees or laureates of the cyber edition of Darwin awards, but perhaps this blog post can serve as the nomination that elevates them to the models to avoid during this brief period when the dire consequences of digital public stupidity persists in the public’s vanishingly brief short term memory.

Perhaps more puzzling than the fact that two police officers can’t grasp the impropriety of publicly joking about killing a politician is the fact that they target a politician who champions the cause of public servants, which is what police officers are. It is a remarkable feat of marketing that has convinced the great masses that they are better off with busted unions and underfunded pensions than they are with them. So far, only teachers have spoken up against this status quo. These cops don’t seem to have learned much from teachers.

Posted on

Degeneracy at the New York Times

Source: Opinion | Dems, Please Don’t Drive Me Away – The New York Times

If a thinking man like David Brooks is seriously claiming that the Democrats somehow need to convince him not to vote for Trump, then he is effectively confessing that he is every bit a degenerate as Trump.

I so wish the Times had let Mr. Brooks’ career die along with the Weekly Standard, the weasely “magazine” published by cronies, for cronies whence Mr. Brooks arose like so many other primitive thinkers. Instead, the Times gave Mr. Brooks a second life, and this is how he thanks the times: by publishing a veiled defense of a degenerate president.

Thank you, New York Times. Thank you for being the beacon of enlightenment.

Dave, I speak for all Democrats when I say none of us wants you in our party. Thanks to Trump, there is a very special place–complete with Big Macs and caviar–for spineless degenerates like you.

Posted on

Giuliani Justifies Being Ignored

Given how frequently Rudy Giuliani contradicts his own testimony, the amount of air time he gets is baffling. Had any witness responded so erratically to US attorney Giuliani, he would certainly have been condemned by that prosecutor. Hence, the generosity with which media outlets still permit Mr. Giuliani to lie, prevaricate, equivocate and, on occasion, insult is a mystery. Since Mr. Giuliani’s dishonesty is a certainty, perhaps it’s the entertainment value of the strained facial expressions that punctuate every bogus testimony of his is the draw. Presenting such a catastrophe of a personality as entertainment goes far in explaining why viewers are flocking to Netflix and Amazon Prime. At this rate, broadcast media’s audience will look an awful lot like the President’s constituency: extremely meek and gullible; in a word, provincial.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani backtracked on Monday from earlier comments that Trump pursued a business deal to erect a tower bearing his name in Moscow throughout 2016, saying his statements “were hypothetical and not based on conversations I had with the President.”
— Read on www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia/giuliani-backtracks-on-comments-trump-sought-moscow-deal-throughout-2016-idUSKCN1PF26A

Posted on

Only Russia Can Rescue California GOP

The poll, which is linked in the article below, looks legitimate, with most Los Angeles area television stations identified as the sponsors. An apparent new-nazi is the most popular Republican candidate in the California 2018 senate race.

It is difficult to determine whether candidate Little is benefitting from the ignorance of Republican voters in California or from their genuine malice. Either way, the California Republican Party can only hope that Russia will be unveiled as the financial backer of Little so that it can call the candidacy “fake news”. Barring such a revelation, the California Republican Party’s self destruction will be complete if this clown emerges as their candidate in the fall senate election. It is a necessary outcome to the pandering the GOP has made to the basest factions within its base, yet it is unlikely they will change their pandering.

Source: Neo-Nazi running as Republican polls second in California Senate race

Posted on

May Rick Santorum Prove His Bravery

Source: Rick Santorum: Students should learn CPR, not seek gun laws – The Washington Post

On CNN, Mr. Santorum glibly states:

“They took action to ask someone to pass a law,” he said of the demonstrators. “They didn’t take action to say, “How do I, as an individual, deal with this problem?”

I fervently and sincerely hope that Mr. Santorum gets to set an example for these young students by placing himself between the crazed gunman and the innocent students the next time a mass shooting is attempted. That will positively deal with the problem.

Posted on

Rex Tillerson, R.I.P.

Rex Tillerson built Exxon into the most valuable company on earth until it was eclipsed by Steve Jobs and Apple. Tillerson built Exxon into the most capable oil exploration and extraction outfit in the world; so capable that Putin had to grovel with you to extract Russia’s oil. You rescued Exxon from the laughing stock of the Exxon Valdez and burnished it into the most heralded name in the history of the oil industry.

You brought the negotiating skills you acquired in the process of signing colossal deals with the world’s biggest corporations, governments and despots to serving your country. You deserve so much more than a petty tweet from a man who can not grasp what you have accomplished. Though I cannot solute you for the lies you propagated about global warming for a brief part of your Exxon tenure, I salute you for your amazing business prowess and apologize to you on behalf of this rude regime. I remind you, sir, that this regime in no way represents the people of the USA, as abundantly manifested by the POTUS’s massive popular vote deficit.

A legendary career felled by a nitwit’s tweet. How incredibly sad. I’m not so sure you would have fared better were you a coal executive.