Stop the Idiocracy: 2021

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

The United States shatters the one-day record for new COVID infections, while a beleaguered and corrupted CDC stirs confusion and chaos

AP Photo/David Goldman

We are getting to the point where lay people of all stripes can see something is seriously wrong at the CDC, and heads may have to roll. Pressure from Republican politicians, big business, angry and impatient citizens, and perhaps the current administration appear to be driving the agency’s decision-making. We live in a country where everything – including vital health care and national security policy – is subject to the court of public opinion and profit-making. The individuals who comprise the CDC are by no means immune to being corrupted – no human being truly is, and it is that corruption that is likely the major factor driving widespread confusion about ever-shifting protocols. Not to mention giving comfort of sorts to anti-vaxxers and conspiracy theorists. Federal health officials are not politicians or celebrities – they do not need to gladhand and kiss babies, so to speak – but they do need allies among the general public at a time when large numbers of citizens adamantly refuse vaccination, wearing a mask, and practicing social distancing. Do not make those of us who have been following the rules and defending agencies such as the CDC throughout the pandemic feel as though we’ve wasted our time doing so.

AP - ‘U.S. health officials’ decision to shorten the recommended COVID-19 isolation and quarantine period from 10 days to five is drawing criticism from some medical experts and could create more confusion and fear among Americans’

CNBC – Dr. Anthony Fauci: CDC reducing Covid isolation time guidelines will ‘get people back to jobs’

The Hill - ‘The U.S. on Tuesday set a single-day record of new COVID-19 infections, with 441,278 new cases’

NYT - U.S. caseloads surpass the winter pandemic peak of early 2021

CNBC – CDC declares Omicron variant comprises 58.6% of U.S. cases, while Delta has stuck around with 41.1% of all cases

MarketWatch - Senator Richard Blumenthal calls on the CDC to temporarily shut down the cruise industry once more as cases abroad ships surge

Thursday, December 23, 2021

U.S. records its lowest population growth in the nation’s history during the pandemic; Deaths outnumber births in more than two dozen states

AFP via Getty Images

AP - US population growth at lowest rate in pandemic’s first year

In the long run, fewer mouths to feed and fewer people to cause problems in the United States would be a net positive for the planet, though will likely be offset by the uncontrolled and unacceptable levels of population growth in places like India, Africa, and other poverty-stricken backwaters of the world. There is a (very humane) reason we spade and neuter our cats and dogs, and necessity demands we will soon have no recourse but to apply the same to humans. Make no mistake, there are going to be some severe issues that result from lower birth rates in the U.S. – some are already present – but overpopulation will eventually lead to humankind’s demise. -

U.S. population growth dipped to its lowest rate since the nation’s founding during the first year of the pandemic as the coronavirus curtailed immigration, delayed pregnancies and killed hundreds of thousands of U.S. residents, according to figures released Tuesday.
The United States grew by only 0.1%, with an additional 392,665 added to the U.S. population from July 2020 to July 2021, bringing the nation’s count to 331.8 million people, according to population estimates released by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The U.S. has been experiencing slow population growth for years but the pandemic exacerbated that trend. This past year was the first time since 1937 that the nation’s population grew by less than 1 million people. (Read more)

Japanese inventor unveils ‘the TV screen you can taste.’ Is this really the future we want?

Reuters

A television that emits artificial smells and flavors, and requires one to roll their tongue over to experience. Wonderful idea during a pandemic (/s.) How about we finally figure out the basics, like maintaining vital infrastructure and preventing our health care systems from total collapse? Humankind keeps moving backward as technology moves forward, and a lick-able television is an accurate representation of this stupidest timeline. (Read more from the BBC)

Some encouraging news concerning the severity of Omicron, but the overall outlook is bleak

AFP

Authorities in the United Kingdom report that the Omicron variant appears to cause up to 70% fewer hospitalizations than the previous Delta variant of COVID, and global financial markets expressed a little bit of relief on Thursday. Still, the rate of transmission is higher than with previous strains, and the number of new infections continues to soar, while events are canceled or scaled back. A new daily record of nearly 120,000 infections was set in the UK, while new research suggests a booster shot only offers ten weeks of maximum protection against the Omicron variant. In other words, I would say this is no time to let our guard down, but people already let their guard down some time back. Thus, why new variants continue to emerge, and we’re likely to be stuck in this cycle of death for years to come. The only silver lining may be that potentially better treatments are here.

Tuesday, December 21, 2021

President Biden announces plan to combat the Omicron variant, but experts warn that only more restrictive measures unacceptable to the belligerent American public could successfully contain the spread

Samuel Corum/Getty Images

It’s going to be a long, cold winter, and many will fall ill and some will die. Millions have decided that their individual ‘freedumb’ is more important than stopping the spread of this deadly plague. Lo and behold, when the Omicron variant wipes out potentially hundreds of thousands of Americans, those same people – and eager mainstream media outlets – will point the finger of blame at President Biden and other leaders. Anti-vaxxers will never take responsibility for their choices. The New York Times -

Even as President Biden on Tuesday outlined new plans for battling the highly contagious Omicron variant, public health experts warned that the measures would not be sufficient to prevent a grim rise in infections and hospitalizations over the next few weeks.
The administration’s strategy includes doubling down on vaccination campaigns and propping up hospitals as they confront a large influx of patients. Federal officials will direct resources, including Army doctors, to support health care systems and distribute rapid tests to Americans.
But Mr. Biden explicitly ruled out lockdowns and other harsh measures of the kind put in place as the pandemic first unfolded in early 2020. In interviews on Tuesday, some scientists argued that the variant’s rapid spread requires more vigorous mitigation measures.
Some expressed frustration and alarm about what they described as a timid public health response, and bemoaned the apparent lack of will among politicians and society at large for more aggressive steps. (Read more)

One step closer to war: Putin points the finger of blame at the U.S. and allies over Ukraine crisis, portrays himself and Russia as victims

Mikhail Tereshchenko, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP

Hoping the national populist Vladimir Putin Fan Club in the United States are paying attention, and perhaps reconsidering their support. Not my holding my breath on that, though. -

MOSCOW (AP) — The Russian president on Tuesday reiterated his demand for guarantees from the U.S. and its allies that NATO will not expand eastwards, blaming the West for “tensions that are building up in Europe.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s speech at a meeting with Russia’s top military brass came just days after Moscow submitted draft security documents demanding that NATO deny membership to Ukraine and other former Soviet countries and roll back the alliance’s military deployments in Central and Eastern Europe.
The demands — contained in a proposed Russia-U.S. security treaty and a security agreement between Moscow and NATO — were drafted amid soaring tensions over a Russian troop buildup near Ukraine that has stoked fears of a possible invasion. Russia has denied it has plans to attack its neighbor but pressed for legal guarantees that would rule out NATO expansion and weapons deployment there.
Putin charged Tuesday that if U.S. and NATO missile systems appear in Ukraine, it will take those missiles only minutes to reach Moscow.
“For us, it is the most serious challenge — a challenge to our security,” he said, adding that this is why the Kremlin needs “long-term, legally binding guarantees” from the West, as opposed to “verbal assurances, words and promises” that Moscow can’t trust.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington is working with its European allies to address what he called “Russian aggression” with diplomacy but said President Joe Biden opposes the kind of guarantees sought by Putin. (Read more)

Sunday, December 19, 2021

Americans in their 40s, 50s, and 60s suffer worse ‘depression and worse memory recall than older Americans did when they were the same age,’ a phenomenon not seen in better-educated countries

Alamy

Well, I’m 43, and have had the misfortune of spending my entire life in this rotting cesspool. And I’m not a happy man. Nor am I even able to recall what my name is half the time, and that is only somewhat of an exaggeration. I suppose I am not the only one beyond frustrated with all the noise, gaslighting, and degradation we must endure for the ‘privilege’ of being an American. Via Arizona State University -

Middle-aged adults in the United States today experience worse mental health than older generations of Americans and also their European and Asian peers.
To understand what is happening with middle-aged American adults, a research team led by Arizona State University scientists compared middle age across different cultures and periods of time.
The study examined how physical and mental health in midlife changed over time and in different countries. American adults currently in their 40s, 50s and early 60s have more symptoms of depression and worse memory recall than older Americans did when they were the same age. This pattern was found in Australian middle-aged adults but not in those living in Germany, South Korea or Mexico.
Years of education was associated with better mental health in midlife, but the strength of this buffering effect has waned for Americans currently in their 40s, 50s and 60s relative to older American generations and to middle-aged adults in Australia, Germany, South Korea and Mexico.
This work was published on Dec. 16 in American Psychologist. (Read more)

New York Times report: ‘Most of the World’s Vaccines Likely Won’t Prevent Infection From Omicron’

Sergey Ponomarev/NYT

Incredibly disheartening, and anti-vaxxers are likely having a field day with this report. But it’s been known all through the course of the pandemic that if not enough people took the necessary precautions, then the virus would mutate. Omicron is the end result of widespread belligerence, and ultimately the blame belongs to all the ordinary people demanding that they are ‘done with COVID.’ Guess what, we’ll never be ‘done with COVID’ now, fools. -

A growing body of preliminary research suggests the Covid vaccines used in most of the world offer almost no defense against becoming infected by the highly contagious Omicron variant.
All vaccines still seem to provide a significant degree of protection against serious illness from Omicron, which is the most crucial goal. But only the Pfizer and Moderna shots, when reinforced by a booster, appear to have initial success at stopping infections, and these vaccines are unavailable in most of the world.
The other shots — including those from AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson and vaccines manufactured in China and Russia — do little to nothing to stop the spread of Omicron, early research shows. And because most countries have built their inoculation programs around these vaccines, the gap could have a profound impact on the course of the pandemic.
A global surge of infections in a world where billions of people remain unvaccinated not only threatens the health of vulnerable individuals but also increases the opportunity for the emergence of yet more variants. The disparity in the ability of countries to weather the pandemic will almost certainly deepen. And the news about limited vaccine efficacy against Omicron infection could depress demand for vaccination throughout the developing world, where many people are already hesitant or preoccupied with other health problems.
Most evidence so far is based on laboratory experiments, which do not capture the full range of the body’s immune response, and not from tracking the effect on real-world populations. The results are striking, however. (Read more)

Expert on global political instability: United States ‘closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe,’ ‘no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy’

Jose Luis Magana/AP

Yours truly recommends that one immediately blocks all nutjobs and obvious trolls on social media, before they are given the opportunity to bother one (or worse.) Never mind trying to set anybody straight, or taking pleasure in fighting with them, for civil war is coming and it is time to protect ourselves from the malevolent and stupid. That means the Trump supporters, the anti-vaxxers, the religious zealots, the conspiracy theorists, the far-left ‘woke’ mob, those overly obsessed with pop culture, and who else am I missing? Anybody spouting dangerous rhetoric – and pure stupidity is dangerous – must be avoided at all costs. We don’t have time to fool around anymore. Via Dana Milbank -

If you know people still in denial about the crisis of American democracy, kindly remove their heads from the sand long enough to receive this message: A startling new finding by one of the nation’s top authorities on foreign civil wars says we are on the cusp of our own.
Barbara F. Walter, a political science professor at the University of California at San Diego, serves on a CIA advisory panel called the Political Instability Task Force that monitors countries around the world and predicts which of them are most at risk of deteriorating into violence. By law, the task force can’t assess what’s happening within the United States, but Walter, a longtime friend who has spent her career studying conflicts in Syria, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Rwanda, Angola, Nicaragua and elsewhere, applied the predictive techniques herself to this country.
Her bottom line: “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe.” She lays out the argument in detail in her must-read book, “How Civil Wars Start,” out in January. “No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline, or headed toward war,” she writes. But, “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America — the same way you’d look at events in Ukraine or the Ivory Coast or Venezuela — you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”
Indeed, the United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency — the “pre-insurgency” and “incipient conflict” phases — and only time will tell whether the final phase, “open insurgency,” began with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump supporters on Jan. 6.
Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump, in fact, that the United States no longer technically qualifies as a democracy. Citing the Center for Systemic Peace’s “Polity” data set — the one the CIA task force has found to be most helpful in predicting instability and violence — Walter writes that the United States is now an “anocracy,” somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state. (Read more)

Saturday, December 18, 2021

Grifters laugh all the way to the bank even as they are exposed: ‘Anti-5G’ necklaces found to contain radioactivity

RIVM

The conspiracy theory industry is thriving in these stupid times, and with such an eager customer base it barely even needs the pretense of begin anything but a shameless scam. Anybody on the national populist right can make any insane claim whatsoever, or market whatever junk, and an army of willing little Fascists will be there to defend the lie and demand others believe the lie. The hard resistance to vaccinations, and their devotion to history’s most obvious and blatant conman, proves they are willing to harm themselves in their zeal to hurt others. So why should anybody be surprised they’re buying radioactive ‘anti-5G’ bracelets? From the BBC -

Necklaces and accessories claiming to "protect" people from 5G mobile networks have been found to be radioactive.

The Dutch authority for nuclear safety and radiation protection (ANVS) issued a warning about ten products it found gave off harmful ionising radiation.

It urged people not to use the products, which could cause harm with long-term wear.

There is no evidence that 5G networks are harmful to health.

The World Health Organization says 5G mobile networks are safe, and not fundamentally different from existing 3G and 4G signals.

Mobile networks use non-ionising radio waves that do not damage DNA.

Despite this, there have been attacks on transmitters by people who believe they are harmful. (Read more)

Thursday, December 9, 2021

Criminals Steve Bannon and Matt Gaetz vow to employ '4,000 shock troops' to take over government agencies if Trump returns to power

AP/REX/Shutterstock

Steve Bannon has been criminally indicted, and Rep. Matt Gaetz is under federal investigation, yet here they are talking openly about using ‘4,000 shock troops’ to overthrow various agencies of the U.S. government if Trump is returned to power. Fascism has already won the battle; Germany found out the hard way, from the 1920s through to the 1940s, that tolerating the presence of Nazis only led to them winning over hearts and minds, and eventually seizing absolute power. Hitler got a mere slap on the wrist for the Beer Hall Putsch (a year in prison), and right now it doesn’t appear as if Trump and company will ever face appropriate justice for their crimes. The old cliché really does hold true: Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. America is doomed, and doomed furthermore to go down in history as the stupidest, most short-sighted nation and people in world history.

Tuesday, December 7, 2021

Amazon’s servers go down, and half of the Internet with it

Igor Golovniov/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

I do not pretend to know exactly how servers and networks operate, but these sorts of outages are becoming more common and having a more widespread effect on peoples’ lives. The ‘Internet of things’ is a bad idea and needs to be reevaluated. -

Problems with some Amazon Web Services cloud servers are causing slow loading or failures for significant chunks of the internet. Amazon’s widespread network of data centers powers many of the things you interact with online, including this website, so as we’ve seen in previous AWS outage incidents, any problem has massive rippling effects. People started noticing problems at around 10:45AM ET, and just after 6PM ET the AWS Status showed “Many services have already recovered, however we are working towards full recovery across services.”
While some affected services that rely on AWS have been restored, the internet is still a bit slower and more unsteady than usual. The most important app impacted by the outage might be the ones that Amazon employees use. CNBC points out Reddit posts from Amazon Flex, warehouse, and delivery workers who say the apps that keep track of packages, tell them where to go, and generally keep your items on time went down, too. (Read more)

Monday, December 6, 2021

Rest in Peace, Medina Spirit

New York Times – Medina Spirit, an embattled Kentucky Derby winner, dies during a workout

Am deeply disturbed by this, to the point I can’t even find the words. The sport of horse racing is in a lot of trouble, that’s literally all I can say.

Sunday, December 5, 2021

Russia and the USA - ‘The diminishing quality of … human capital’

Getty Images

‘(A)cclimatization to deteriorating conditions as the new normal.’ Vladimir Putin has stagnated Russia’s economy and society. Meanwhile in America, we have millions demanding much the same sort of anachronistic, paternalistic, and nationalistic garbage, and a political establishment that is delivering it for them. Any sense of balance has all but disappeared. And the results of our stagnation are just as sobering – or more, in the long run – as they are in Mother Russia. Two former world powers that now lay, slowly dying, and each by their own hand. This is a very long report by the Carnegie Moscow Center, but well worth reading.

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

What a stupid a**hole: Trump calls outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker ‘selfish’ for not seeking a third term

I am disappointed that Charlie Baker – who has been an excellent governor by any standard, and the single-most popular governor in the nation during his time, google it - is not seeking re-election. But Trump is a loon and should shut his big mouth. -

BOSTON (CBS) – Former President Donald Trump released a statement after Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker announced he would not be seeking a third term.
“RINO Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker has announced that, because I didn’t endorse him and he is incapable of getting the Republican nomination, he will not be running for reelection,” Trump said in the statement.
“He’s been very selfish, and is bad news for the Republican Party—actually, he shouldn’t even be considered a Republican. We wish him well!”
Governor Baker denied that Trump had anything to do with his decision. (Read more)

Pentecostal TV network founder Marcus Lamb – a staunch anti-vaxxer – dies from COVID-19 complications

video screen grab

Sad, and sick, that these people have allowed dogma and ideology to overwhelm their common sense. -

Marcus Lamb, the co-founder of the leading Christian TV network Daystar who railed against Covid-19 vaccines, has died of Covid-19. He was 64 years old.
Lamb, who was the chief executive of the conservative network that reaches an estimated 2 billion viewers worldwide, died on Tuesday, weeks after contracting the coronavirus.
“It’s with a heavy heart we announce that Marcus Lamb, president and founder of Daystar Television Network, went home to be with the Lord this morning,” the network announced in a tweet on Tuesday. “The family asks that their privacy be respected as they grieve this difficult loss. Please continue to lift them up in prayer.”
Under his leadership, Daystar aired repeated baseless anti-vaccine conspiracy theories and claims that vaccines were being used to take freedoms away from Christians. In July 2020, the network spent an hour of air time complaining about “censorship” around the pandemic and also gave an hour’s slot to Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has spread misinformation about the Covid vaccine.
Covid vaccines have been repeatedly found to be safe and effective at preventing severe illness from the virus. Evangelical Christians have been getting the vaccines at lower rates than the general US population, however, and several prominent Christian broadcasters have died of the virus in recent months. (Read more)

Monday, November 29, 2021

Massachusetts: Gov. Charlie Baker says the Commonwealth has been working with other states to create QR code vaccine passport

Meredith Nierman/WGBH News

Privacy and civil liberties advocates and the like are going to hate this, but it would make life easier for those who are vaccinated and would eliminate fraud, as some anti-vaxxers have been forging vaccination cards. Via WGBH -

"It's a universal standard and we've been working with a bunch of other states, there's probably 15 or 20 of them, to try to create a single QR code that can be used for all sorts of things where people may choose to require a vaccine," Baker said of the passport program.
Baker showed hosts Margery Eagan and Jim Braude his code while in the GBH’s studios in Brighton.
"It's my proof that I've been vaccinated," he said.
Last week, new Boston Mayor Michelle Wu hinted that the city may implement a vaccine mandate for indoor recreation areas.
Baker defended the availability of COVID booster shots in the state, saying Massachusetts is providing around 55,000 total vaccination shots per day, including boosters, and has administered around 1 million booster shots. Baker compared that figure to the 80,000 doses the state was outputting last spring at the height of the vaccination push with the help of mass vaccination centers. (Read more)

Washington Post report: ‘Red America has seen the highest rates of cases and deaths, and the lowest rate of vaccinations’

Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters

It’s almost as if there’s a correlation between wearing masks and getting vaccinated, and fewer people falling sick and dying. Who would have thought? (/s.) For once, I’m glad to live in a state run mostly by the Democrats. At least their party isn’t denying science and enabling covidiocy. WaPo national corespondent Philip Bump reports -

It’s worth putting a fine point on a subject I raised earlier Monday: It is red America, Donald Trump-voting America, that has seen the worst effects of the pandemic. With divergent vaccination rates, with the unvaccinated population that’s most at risk being made up of Republicans at three times the rate of Democrats, that gap is poised to grow.
If we break down monthly case and death figures by county vote in 2020, we see that Trump counties have been hardest hit by the pandemic on a per capita basis since last year. If we throw in vaccination rates, we see that it is those same counties that have been the slowest to get vaccinated. As of April of this year, the most red and most blue counties in the country began to diverge on vaccination rates. As of writing, data compiled by The Washington Post suggests that the counties that voted most strongly for President Biden are fully vaccinated at a rate 40 percent higher than the rate in the counties that voted most strongly for Trump. (Read more)

Sunday, November 28, 2021

The World Health Organization urges nations not to impose travel bans from southern Africa as new omicron variant spreads

Spencer Platt/Getty Images

It is beyond obvious now that virtually the entire world took their foot off the pedal, so to speak, far too soon. Governments caved to pressure from their restless and malevolent citizenries. Closing America’s borders is the only responsible action at this time, but the WHO appears to care more about public opinion than anything else. -

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The World Health Organization on Sunday urged countries around the world not to impose flight bans on southern African nations due to concerns over the new omicron variant.
WHO’s regional director for Africa, Matshidiso Moeti, called on countries to follow science and international health regulations in order to avoid using travel restrictions.
“Travel restrictions may play a role in slightly reducing the spread of COVID-19 but place a heavy burden on lives and livelihoods,” Moeti said in a statement. “If restrictions are implemented, they should not be unnecessarily invasive or intrusive, and should be scientifically based, according to the International Health Regulations, which is a legally binding instrument of international law recognized by over 190 nations.”
Moeti praised South Africa for following international health regulations and informing WHO as soon as its national laboratory identified the omicron variant.
“The speed and transparency of the South African and Botswana governments in informing the world of the new variant is to be commended,” said Moeti. “WHO stands with African countries which had the courage to boldly share life-saving public health information, helping protect the world against the spread of COVID-19.”
Cases of the omicron variant of the coronavirus popped up in countries on opposite sides of the world Sunday and many governments rushed to close their borders even as scientists cautioned that it’s not clear if the new variant is more alarming than other versions of the virus.
While investigations continue into the omicron variant, WHO recommends that all countries “take a risk-based and scientific approach and put in place measures which can limit its possible spread.” (Read more)

Friday, November 26, 2021

New ‘omicron’ COVID variant discovered; the United States and European Union move to restrict travel from eight nations in southern Africa as stock markets fall

AP Photo/Denis Farrell

As President Biden has noted, it is time for some of these other countries to step up their efforts to contain this plague. Notice I said ‘contain,’ because there is no hope now of actually eradicating it, thanks to those who have spent this entire pandemic whining about their freedom instead of following necessary protocol. From the AP -

The White House said the U.S. will restrict travel from South Africa and seven other countries in the region beginning Monday. It did not give details except to say the restrictions will not apply to returning U.S. citizens or permanent residents, who will continue to be required to test negative before their travel.
Medical experts, including the WHO, warned against any overreaction before the variant that originated in southern Africa was better understood. But a jittery world feared the worst nearly two years after COVID-19 emerged and triggered a pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people around the globe.
“We must move quickly and at the earliest possible moment,” British Health Secretary Sajid Javid told lawmakers.
There was no immediate indication whether the variant causes more severe disease. As with other variants, some infected people display no symptoms, South African experts said. The WHO panel drew from the Greek alphabet in naming the variant omicron, as it has done with earlier, major variants of the virus. (Read more)

Setting the record straight: ‘Russiagate’ was not a hoax, and Trump is not a victim

Brendan Smialowski /AFP /Getty Images

David Frum, the former White House speechwriter during the Bush 43 administration, is sounding the alarm about the media’s latest tactic in their campaign to revive the political career of Donald Trump: Whitewashing Russia’s (successful) efforts to gaslight the American public and elect Trump in 2016. Don’t fall for any of this bulls**t -

If Donald Trump had been supported only by people who affirmatively liked him, his attack on American democracy would never have gotten as far as it did.
Instead, at almost every turn, Trump was helped by people who had little liking for him as a human being or politician, but assessed that he could be useful for purposes of their own. The latest example: the suddenly red-hot media campaign to endorse Trump’s fantasy that he was the victim of a “Russia hoax.”
The usual suspects in the pro-Trump media ecosystem will of course endorse and repeat everything Trump says, no matter how outlandish. But it’s not pro-Trumpers who are leading the latest round of Trump-Russia denialism. This newest round of excuse-making is being sounded from more respectable quarters, in many cases by people distinguished as Trump critics. With Trump out of office—at least for the time being—they now feel free to subordinate their past concerns about him to other private quarrels with the FBI or mainstream media institutions. On high-subscription Substacks, on popular podcasts, even from within prestige media institutions, people with scant illusions about Trump the man and president are nonetheless volunteering to help him execute one of his Big Lies. (Read more)

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

AG Merrick Garland instructs U.S. attorneys to ‘prioritize prosecution of federal crimes occurring on aircraft’ as incidents involving unruly passengers explode

Getty Images

What a nation of violent and aggressively stupid jackasses we’ve become. America’s worst enemy is itself -

A woman was kicked off an Allegiant Air flight and arrested Sunday for refusing to wear a face mask, police said. As she was wheeled down the jetway in Las Vegas, police said, the woman allegedly yelled obscenities and "Let's go, Brandon" — a euphemism involving the president, reported CBS affiliate KLAS.

Katrina Alspaugh, of Las Vegas, faces one charge of violating airport rules, according to KLAS. Police said Alspaugh had earlier attempted to punch another passenger at the security checkpoint who pointed out Alspaugh was not wearing her mask.

It is one in a stream of incidents of alleged unruly behavior in the skies, and came as the hectic holiday travel season starts. A Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman said Tuesday was the sixth straight day agents screened more than 2 million passengers, the longest stretch of days topping that mark this year. Tuesday's passenger volume was 91% of its 2019 level, the agency said Wednesday.

The Federal Aviation Administration said this week it had received 5,338 reports of unruly passengers so far this year, 3,856 of which involved masks, and is requesting a total $161,823 in fines against eight passengers for alleged alcohol-related incidents. That brings the total civil penalties against passengers to at least $1.3 million in 2021.

The largest of the fines announced this week, $40,823, stems from an April incident aboard a Southwest Airlines flight from San Jose to San Diego. A passenger allegedly drank their own alcohol during the flight despite being told by a flight attendant it was prohibited, then sexually assaulted the flight attendant and smoked marijuana in the bathroom, according to a news release.

A passenger on a March flight from Fort Meyers, Florida, to Detroit that was diverted to Atlanta is accused of repeatedly taking off his face mask after crew members told him to keep it on, swearing at other passengers and accusing them of stealing, and appeared to be intoxicated, according to the release.

"This is America. This is free speech. What don't you understand?" he allegedly yelled at a crew member. (Read more)

'Fell victim to authoritarian tendencies.’ United States added to the list of ‘backsliding democracies’ for the first time

Julio Cortez/AP

The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance report is a sobering indictment of America in the 21st century. But we are hardly alone in the global march toward tyranny. It is human nature, especially in times of turmoil, to place security - and protection from ‘the other’ - above individual liberty. -

The United States for the first time was added to a list of “backsliding democracies” in a report released Monday by the Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.
“The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself, and was knocked down a significant number of steps on the democratic scale,” the International IDEA’s Global State of Democracy 2021 report said.
The study, which analyzed trends from 2020 to 2021, found that more than a quarter of the world’s population now lives in democratically backsliding countries, which International IDEA defines as nations seeing a gradual decline in the quality of their democracy.
“The world is becoming more authoritarian as nondemocratic regimes become even more brazen in their repression and many democratic governments suffer from backsliding by adopting their tactics of restricting free speech and weakening the rule of law, exacerbated by what threatens to become a ‘new normal’ of covid-19 restrictions,” the report found. “The number [of countries] moving in the direction of authoritarianism is three times the number moving toward democracy.”
International IDEA classes countries as democratic (which includes those backsliding), “hybrid,” and authoritarian, the latter two of which it considers to be nondemocratic. It bases its analysis on 50 years of democratic indicators tracked in about 160 countries.
The report found that some of “the most worrying” democratic backsliding happened in some of the world’s largest countries, including Brazil and India. It also highlighted “concerning democratic declines” in the United States and three European Union members: Hungary, Poland and Slovenia. (Read more)

Monday, November 22, 2021

A flash mob of looters, consisting of at least 80 individuals, invades northern California department store

Google Maps

If this doesn’t speak ominously as to the direction the people of this country are going in. Post-COVID, and amid all the racial, political, and economic turmoil, crime and violence is starting to explode. Seeing as Americans only want to rip each other’s heads off now, these trends will continue to spike in spite of even the best efforts made to mitigate the damage. Crazy as it seems, Americans – enough of them, at least - appear genuinely hellbent on self-destruction. -

A Nordstrom store in San Francisco was overrun by dozens of looters on Saturday night who tore through the department store, grabbing merchandise and fleeing in waiting cars.
Around 80 suspects were involved in what law enforcement is calling a smash-and-grab incident in Walnut Creek, a county east of San Francisco.
Police arrested three people in connection with the incident, per a press release from the Walnut Creek police department. San Francisco natives Dana Dawson, 30, and Joshua Underwood, 32, and 18-year-old Rodney Robinson, from Oakland, were named by the police.
"Police are investigating what was clearly a planned event, with the initial calls coming into the department about cars driving recklessly in the area shortly before 9 p.m.," read the police press release. It added that Nordstrom employees called law enforcement when around 80 people entered the store and grabbed merchandise.
"Two employees were assaulted, and one was pepper-sprayed by the suspects," said the police department. The authorities added that they managed to stop one of the getaway cars waiting outside and arrest two people — including Dawson, who was in possession of a firearm.
The police department added that the rest of the mob managed to flee the area "in cars at high speeds." There were at least ten different vehicles involved in the crime, per CNN. (Read more)

The remaining few intelligent people are heading for the exit, and Fox News becomes ever more of a national populist cesspool

Janos Kummer/Getty Images

Jonah Goldberg and Stephen F. Hayes announce they are leaving Fox News. One thing that is not acknowledged here is that their now-former network is giving its rabid audience exactly what they want. Time to start holding the rank-and-file accountable. -

Fox News still does real reporting, and there are still responsible conservatives providing valuable opinion and analysis. But the voices of the responsible are being drowned out by the irresponsible.
A case in point: Patriot Purge, a three-part series hosted by Tucker Carlson.
The special—which ran on Fox’s subscription streaming service earlier this month and was promoted on Fox News—is presented in the style of an exposé, a hard-hitting piece of investigative journalism. In reality, it is a collection of incoherent conspiracy-mongering, riddled with factual inaccuracies, half-truths, deceptive imagery, and damning omissions. And its message is clear: The U.S. government is targeting patriotic Americans in the same manner —and with the same tools—that it used to target al Qaeda.
“The domestic war on terror is here. It’s coming after half of the country,” says one protagonist. “The left is hunting the right, sticking them in Guantanamo Bay for American citizens—leaving them there to rot,” says another, over video of an individual in an orange jumpsuit being waterboarded.
This is not happening. And we think it’s dangerous to pretend it is. If a person with such a platform shares such misinformation loud enough and long enough, there are Americans who will believe—and act upon—it.
This isn’t theoretical. This is what actually happened on January 6, 2021.
Over the past five years, some of Fox’s top opinion hosts amplified the false claims and bizarre narratives of Donald Trump or offered up their own in his service. In this sense, the release of Patriot Purge wasn’t an isolated incident, it was merely the most egregious example of a longstanding trend. Patriot Purge creates an alternative history of January 6, contradicted not just by common sense, not just by the testimony and on-the-record statements of many participants, but by the reporting of the news division of Fox News itself.
Indeed, the news side of Fox routinely does what it is supposed to do: It reports the truth. COVID-19 is deadly, vaccines work, Joe Biden won Arizona, the election was not stolen, January 6 was not a Deep State-orchestrated “false flag” operation but was an assault on the Capitol as part of a broader attempt to steal an election: The people who put the “news” in Fox News have reported all of these things.
This is not the place to expound at any length on the many problems and challenges facing the country. But we sincerely believe that all people of good will and good judgment—regardless of their ideological or partisan commitments—can agree that a cavalier and even contemptuous attitude toward facts, truth-seeking, and truth-telling, lies at the heart of so much that plagues our country. (Read more)

Saturday, November 20, 2021

'U.S. intelligence officials are warning European allies of a potential Russian military incursion into Ukraine'

Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons/OSCE

Putin is on the march again -

U.S. intelligence officials are warning European allies of a potential Russian military incursion into Ukraine, with the likelihood of one increasing as the weather gets colder. An incursion is weather-dependent, but could happen in a matter of weeks, barring intervention from the West, U.S. officials briefed on the matter told CBS News.
Tens of thousands of Russian troops have amassed at the Ukraine border -- months after thousands of troops assembled at the border in the spring. But unlike last spring's buildup, which was regarded as a show of force, U.S. intelligence officials are warning that this one could be in preparation for an actual incursion into the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said on Friday the alliance was closely monitoring a "large and unusual concentration of Russian forces" near Ukraine's border.
"It is urgent that Russia shows transparency about this military build-up, de-escalates and reduces tensions," Stoltenberg said following a meeting with outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Both American and British intelligence has been shared with European stakeholders. (Read more)

Apple tracking device placed on Arkansas woman’s car without her knowledge or consent

Jacob Krol/CNN

Yet another threat to peoples’ safety and well-being to add to a growing list of such. Anybody who wants to stalk another individual can now do so without too much effort, and with minimal chance of getting caught, thanks to Apple’s AirTags. -

Although they have many beneficial applications, such as the one mentioned above, they can also be used for unwanted surveillance. Jonesboro, Arkansas’ KAIT News reported the story of an unidentified woman that turned on her iPhone in her car only to get a notice informing her that there was an AirTag somewhere nearby.
This was clearly an AirTag she had not placed herself as at the time of the event she did not even know what it was. “It popped up I have an AirTag following and I’m like, no,” said the woman. She thus came to the eerie conclusion that someone else was trying to track her.
“On my way to work and I went to hook my phone up to listen to music and then it popped up I have an AirTag following and I’m like, no,” added the woman still in shock. She proceeded to find the device taped to her trunk, put it in a bag, and bring it to the local police station for investigation.
Unfortunately, the police have no leads as of yet but Robert Sexton, a CID Detective with the Paragould Police Department, did say that this is an event that is becoming increasingly more common and that people should watch out for such incidents. In addition to being able to stick AirTags in unwanted locations, nefarious actors may also be able to hack them. Yikes! (Read more)

Friday, November 19, 2021

FDA moves to speed along convoluted approval process for COVID booster shots

AP Photo/Matt Rourke

Some states have not waited for federal regulators to finish their convoluted approval processes. It really isn’t any wonder why so much of the general public is skeptical of the FDA, CDC, etc. (and thus become vulnerable to anti-vaxxer propaganda) when these agencies have been so inept throughout the course of the pandemic -

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. regulators on Friday moved to open up COVID-19 booster shots to all adults, expanding the government’s effort to get ahead of rising coronavirus cases that experts fear could snowball into a winter surge as millions of Americans travel for the holidays.
The Food and Drug Administration’s decision stands to simplify what has been a confusing list of who’s eligible by allowing anyone 18 or older to choose either a Pfizer or Moderna booster six months after their last dose — regardless of which vaccine they had first. The move came after about a dozen states had started offering boosters to all adults.
“We heard loud and clear that people needed something simpler — and this, I think, is simple,” FDA vaccine chief Dr. Peter Marks told The Associated Press.
There’s one more step before the approach becomes official: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention must agree to expand Pfizer and Moderna boosters to even healthy young adults. Its scientific advisers were set to debate it later Friday.
If the CDC agrees, tens of millions more Americans could have three doses of protection before the new year. Anyone who got the one-dose Johnson & Johnson vaccine can already get a booster.
All three COVID-19 vaccines used in the U.S. offer strong protection against severe illness including hospitalization and death without boosters, but protection against infection can wane with time. Previously, the government had cleared boosters of Pfizer’s vaccine, as well as the similar Moderna vaccine, only for vulnerable groups including older Americans and people with chronic health problems.
But Pfizer last week asked the FDA to expand that decision to everyone, citing new data from a study of 10,000 people. Ultimately, the FDA decided there was enough evidence, from studies and real-world use of boosters, to back the expansion for both Pfizer and Moderna.
The move comes as new COVID-19 cases have climbed steadily over the last two weeks, especially in states where colder weather is driving people indoors. Some states didn’t wait for federal officials to act and opened boosters to all adults.
Marks said he understood why some governors got out ahead of the FDA.
“We’re going into a cold season, cases going up, high travel season, people indoors sharing good holiday times together,” he said. “They probably saw the specter of what could happen here, and were trying — well intentioned — to do something.”
Boosters for everyone was the Biden administration’s original goal. But in September, a panel of FDA advisers voted overwhelmingly against that idea based on the vaccines’ continued effectiveness in most age groups. Instead, they endorsed an extra Pfizer dose only for the most vulnerable. (Read more)