February 25, 2021

Rush Limbaugh's legacy of ashes

On edit: link fixed


Rush Limbaugh’s legacy of ashes
By Jeffrey C. Billman @jeffreybillman


(Detroit Metro Times) Before Rush Limbaugh's body was cold, Republican officials and thought leaders tripped over themselves to eulogize "an icon, patriot, and [an] American hero" and "a giant of the conservative movement."

One after another, they lamented his passing last Wednesday like he was John Stuart Mill rather than a college dropout who got rich convincing mediocre white men that "commie-libs" and "feminazis" and affirmative action were holding them down. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pledged to order his state's flags flown at half-staff to honor Limbaugh — "an absolute legend" and "friend of mine" — in defiance of the state's flag protocol. Donald Trump emerged from his Mar-a-Lago humiliation hole, making the right-wing cable rounds to praise the race-baiting, misogynistic radio provocateur — whom he'd ostentatiously awarded a Presidential Medal of Honor during the 2020 State of the Union address — and renew his complaints about the "stolen" election.

These tributes acknowledged a simple reality: His influence might have waned over the last few years, but no one in a generation had shaped the Republican Party like Rush.

....(snip)....

This is Limbaugh's legacy. Not just because he amplified Trump's election-fraud bullshit and compared the Jan. 6 rioters to the 1776 revolutionaries. But because he molded a tribal party bound by grievance, convinced that inconvenient facts are Liberal Media misinformation, and so anchored to a demagogue that the second-highest-ranking House Republican won't admit that Joe Biden didn't steal the election. ..............(more)

https://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/rush-limbaughs-legacy-of-ashes/Content?oid=26515037#.YDezCwsymws.link

February 25, 2021

Fox News' COVID denialism now threatens U.S. vaccine rollout -- but its roots are deeper

Fox News' COVID denialism now threatens U.S. vaccine rollout — but its roots are deeper
Beyond Fox News or Trump, the GOP has a bone-deep antipathy to any collective attempt to extend a helping hand

By HEATHER DIGBY PARTON
FEBRUARY 24, 2021 2:30PM


(Salon) One of the great challenges for public health officials during the COVID pandemic has been establishing trust among the public, particularly racial minorities who have a long history of both exploitation and neglect by the medical establishment and the government. In recent months there has been a lot of discussion about how to get past vaccine hesitancy in this population with efforts at outreach and communication aimed directly at these communities. And thank goodness, after all, Black and brown Americans have been hit the hardest of all demographic groups aside from elderly residents of nursing homes. There has been an unconscionable number of deaths and serious illnesses in these communities so it's vital to get them the latest information, delivered by trusted messengers, as well as easy access to the vaccines.

The good news is that the vaccination program is quickly picking up steam, with Black and Hispanic vaccine skepticism specifically falling substantially over the past few months. There, of course, must be continuing efforts to get the word out and get vaccines in some of the hard-to-reach areas to encourage even more participation, but it now appears that a new group has arisen as the real barrier to achieving herd immunity: white Republicans.

https://twitter.com/DrewLinzer/status/1364336878313295873?s=20

....(snip)....

The hosts of Fox News followed up their coverage of the memorial with their same COVID disinformation they've fed their viewers from the beginning. And they did this even after issuing a statement the same day insisting that they have always given accurate scientific information during the crisis. As Media Matters reported, on the night that America observed the horror of half a million COVID deaths, Laura Ingraham was insulting the head scientist at the National Institute of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, as an "ancient medical bureaucrat with a fancy title spewing lies or unprovable accusations." Ingraham took issue with Collins calling masks a "life-saving medical device." She later featured former Trump adviser Dr. Scott Atlas, a man with no expertise in epidemiology, who agreed with her about the uselessness of masks.

....(snip)....

When the pandemic hit and state governments and public health officials tried to marshall the people to work together to prevent the spread of the disease, once again the right-wing inexplicably rose up in protest, some even storming their statehouses, carrying guns, demanding they be "freed" from any requirement to follow measures designed to save lives. Today, they make up the largest group of vaccine resisters which, like rejecting Obamacare, will end up hurting themselves the most. ............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/02/24/fox-news-covid-denialism-now-threatens-us-vaccine-rollout--but-its-roots-are-deeper/

February 24, 2021

States with the largest share of their land designated farmland.

No reason for posting this except that it's statistical trivia that I find fascinating.




https://www.mathscinotes.com/2017/08/us-farmland-by-state/

February 24, 2021

Manhattan DA subpoenas Bannon financial records - report

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance, has subpoenaed financial records related to Steve Bannon’s crowd-funding US-Mexico border wall effort, signaling that its criminal investigation into the one time chief strategist for the former US president, Donald Trump, is making progress, sources familiar with the matter have told CNN.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/feb/24/joe-biden-covid-coronavirus-capitol-riot-donald-trump-live-updates?page=with:block-6036a71d8f08614ccf1057e6#block-6036a71d8f08614ccf1057e6

February 24, 2021

Two-Thirds of New York City's Arts and Culture Jobs Are Gone

(Bloomberg) -- New York City’s museums, sports arenas and entertainment venues are slowing coming back to life. But the sector has contracted dramatically under the pressure of the global pandemic, according to a report from the state Comptroller’s Office.

Jobs in arts, entertainment and recreation fell by 66% in 2020 from a year ago, the largest decline among the city’s economic sectors, erasing a decade of gains in what was one of New York’s most vibrant industries, the report said. The business district that includes Chelsea and midtown Manhattan was the hardest-hit area of the city, accounting for 46% of all jobs in the sector.

“The COVID-19 outbreak has had a profound and negative impact on the industry,” Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said Wednesday in a statement. “It has forced facilities to close, thrust thousands into unemployment and pushed businesses to the brink of collapse.” ....................(more)

Read more at: https://www.bloombergquint.com/onweb/two-thirds-of-new-york-city-s-arts-and-culture-jobs-are-gone

February 24, 2021

GOP is still gaslighting about the Capitol riot: Trump's allies claim coup and QAnon never happened

GOP is still gaslighting about the Capitol riot: Trump's allies claim coup and QAnon never happened
After the riot comes the gaslighting

By AMANDA MARCOTTE
FEBRUARY 24, 2021 6:07PM


(Salon) Donald Trump's insurrection failed. While historians will likely debate for decades how close he really came to succeeding, one thing is for certain: His failure has put his most prominent defenders in a tough spot. Instead of lining up to sing the praises of President-for-Life Donald Trump, which is where they want to be, his sycophants are stuck trying to make excuses for, minimize, or deflect attention from Trump's failure.

First, they tried to minimize Trump's responsibility for the insurrection. That tactic fell apart after an impeachment trial where the prosecutors made such an airtight case for Trump's guilt that even people who voted to acquit him pretended it was on a legal technicality, rather than try to argue for his innocence. Now, some folks on the right are trying a new tactic, one you might call the "go big or go home" strategy. Trump's loudest defenders are now outright denying that the nation saw what we all clearly saw on January 6.

During a Tuesday hearing about the security failures that led to the Capitol riot, Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin unleashed a bunch of conspiracy theories denying that all those people waving Trump flags while chanting "no Trump, no peace" were, in fact, there for Trump.

....(snip)....

The word "gaslighting" gets thrown around a lot, but this is very much the definition of the word. It comes from the psychology of abuse, and refers to the way an abuser might, for instance, beat his wife and then pretend the next day it didn't happen, calling her hysterical if she insists it did. Gaslighting isn't just lying. It's denying an obvious truth, and insisting that anyone who disagrees is crazy or is making stuff up. It was a favorite tactic of Trump's, who kicked off his presidency by gaslighting the nation about the size of his inauguration crowd. And now it's being used by his allies, to argue that the evidence of our own eyes and ears isn't real. ...............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/02/24/gop-is-still-gaslighting-about-the-capitol-riot-trumps-allies-claim-coup-and-qanon-never-happened/

February 24, 2021

Florida man accused of possessing child pornography, sexual contact with dogs

TAMARAC, Fla. — A Florida man is accused of possessing more than 1,700 child pornography photographs and videos and of having sexual contact with two of his dogs, authorities said.

Robert Joseph Glaros, 27, of Tamarac, was arrested Wednesday and charged with 10 counts of possession of child pornography, one charge of compiling child pornography with a computer and two charges of engaging in sexual contact with animals, according to Broward County online booking records.

The Internet Crimes Against Children task force received a tip from Google in August, the Sun-Sentinel reported. Investigators found the photographs and videos in Glaros’ cloud storage account, the newspaper reported.

Two of the videos showed two of Glaros’ eight dogs “licking him in a sexual manner,” according to an arrest report. ............(more)

https://www.kiro7.com/news/trending/florida-man-accused-possessing-child-pornography-sexual-contact-with-dogs/X7WZD6M3EBAILIMSOWDKZPC76Q/

February 24, 2021

Texas Proves We Live in a Culture of Toxic Individualism

Texas Proves We Live in a Culture of Toxic Individualism
There’s only one solution.

Jessica Wildfire
Feb 18 · 6 min read


....(snip)....

It gets worse every year.

We’re finding it harder to go anywhere without running into toxic individualism, whether it’s aggressive drivers or jerks who answer their phones in movie theaters. Asking someone to endure the slightest inconvenience sends them into a blind rage.

....(snip)....

Toxic Individualism Has Corrupted our Politics.

It’d be one thing if toxic individualism remained at the level of Karens and Todds yelling at cashiers.

It hasn’t.

Toxic individualism has reached the highest levels of our government. We’ve managed to get rid of the worst one, but we’ve still got a long way to go. The Texas snow storm serves as a disturbing example. On the one hand, we’ve got senators like Ted Cruz jetting off on a vacation to Cancun of all places while their constituents battle freezing homes.

On the other hand, we’ve got Texas mayors like Tim Boyd, who tells his own citizens they’re “lazy” for wanting heat and electricity. He goes on to declare that in a snow storm that’s left millions completely exposed to the elements, “the strong will survive and the weak will parish.” ............(more)

https://theapeiron.co.uk/texas-proves-we-live-in-a-culture-of-toxic-individualism-f25b0bfb3360

February 24, 2021

The GOP's Ayn Rand death cult: Trump's party is literally killing the American people

The GOP's Ayn Rand death cult: Trump's party is literally killing the American people
Imagining themselves as virile heroes from Ayn Rand's terrible books, Republicans have become the pro-death party

By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA
FEBRUARY 24, 2021 11:00AM


(Salon) Behold! Death rides upon a pale horse — and Death is a Republican.

The coronavirus pandemic has now killed more than 500,000 people in the United States. This is roughly equivalent to the cumulative number of Americans lost in World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars. These deaths from the coronavirus were largely preventable.

Instead, at almost every opportunity Donald Trump and his regime, through willful negligence if not outright sabotage and negligent homicide, made decisions which caused more deaths, not fewer, from the pandemic.

....(snip)....

While Republicans and the right market themselves as being "pro-life," in reality their policies could more fairly be described as pro-death. These dire outcomes rest on the following foundation.

Neoliberalism or "gangster capitalism." Every part of society is to be financialized and subjected to the forces of the market. There is no innate value to human life and human dignity. "Democracy" is but a tool for the market and the moneyed classes to gain more control over society through a process that superficially legitimizes their authority and rule. In this sociopathic worldview, there are "makers and takers," "productive" people as compared to those deemed to be "parasites" and "surplus" human beings. Social democracy is to be destroyed and ultimately replaced by "market forces" and some version of "managed democracy" or "competitive authoritarianism". ............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2021/02/24/the-gops-ayn-rand-death-cult-trumps-party-is-literally-killing-the-american-people/

February 24, 2021

Evangelical Leaders Condemn 'Radicalized Christian Nationalism'

(NPR) A coalition of evangelical Christian leaders is condemning the role of "radicalized Christian nationalism" in feeding the political extremism that led to the violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 by supporters of former President Donald Trump.

In an open letter, more than 100 pastors, ministry and seminary leaders, and other prominent evangelicals express concern about the growing "radicalization" they're seeing, particularly among white evangelicals.

The letter notes that some members of the mob that stormed the Capitol carried Christian symbols and signs that read, "Jesus Saves," and that one of the rioters stood on the Senate rostrum and led a Christian prayer. The letter calls on other Christian leaders to take a public stand against racism, Christian nationalism, conspiracy theories and political extremism.

The letter reads, in part:



...........(more)

https://www.npr.org/2021/02/24/970685909/evangelical-leaders-condemn-radicalized-christian-nationalism