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tanglepelt · 1 year

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dc x dp snippet? idea? not too sure....

Essentially amity park is a front. The whole town was designed to recruit member for an evil group. The end game to destroy the justice league. My brain took the idea and ran with it. I may continue this. I may not.

Amity Park had always been a strange place. For as log as anyone could remember. A gimmick, a spooky town. It played its role perfectly. No one really looked into it. No one saw the mad scientist or weapons facility as odd. Who would ever think to investigate a tourist trap. The showier they were the more believable. The Fenton’s were assets at keeping tourist gullible, their driving, and obsession sold the show. Keeping the tourist distracted and money coming in. Who would notice the laser watches, they just looked normal. Any ghost attack was just a show. Any damage done and its fixed the next day as if It was planned. The town had was obviously committed to there “haunted” town.

Ghost hunters in amity just made sense. Walking around with weapons was a normal and not suspicious. Locals didn’t care and anyone else thought it was part of the gig. The bigger the dramatics the more they could get away with. With all the chaos and attacks the tourist would be distracted.

It let them track anyone who came into town. They would check in visitors with the guise of making sure they stayed in the living world. Waivers had to be signed or there was no entry permitted.

No one to see how all the kids were more observant, no one to see the the gym coach or classes, no one to see the experiments, and no one to notice the secret town meetings while the children slumbered.

The meetings discussing the children and how they’ve advanced. Who needed to be terminated, who was improving and who would soon be integrated into the loop. Every year they discussed the first-year students. It was there last chance to become incorporated or “move” after high school. They couldn’t risk any of them leaving the town unless they were in the loop.

After all of if the kids thought their schooling was normal, they’d never question it. The president challenge was harder then most. Why would an average school require flips off the bars or the ability to scale a rope to the roof if a building. The last two years of high school centered around obstacle courses, agility and parkour in gym.

An amity child leaving without being in the fold could be catastrophic. It would only take one to alert authorities for a slight inconvenience. Authorities could be paid to look the other way or easily put down. A hero however would be a headache to deal with. This town was the center of there recruiting. It was do or die.

Now the organization will admit the ghost were a welcomed surprise. A front row sear to watch the progress the kids had. They expected the jocks or even geeks to manage it the best. The seniors to take arms and manage the threat at the very least. The oddball trio was not what they had wanted or expected.

Those three were the problem students after-all. One so into technology it would be hard to keep him in line. The network was heavily blocked a monitored but using him was an issue. He had nearly bi-passed there security on accident. Imagine if he knew what was going on. Then the goth, the activist. She was too much an individual, free thought and radical views. They’d have to break her spirit. Then there was Danny Fenton.

He had promise in the beginning. Well rounded. Wasn’t so caught up in improving others as his sister. Held good grades through elementary and through middle school and was the golden candidate until the previous summer. No longer set to focus on study’s but off with his friends.

As Sam had grown falling away from their potential, she dragged Danny and Tucker with her. Both now had more individual thoughts and opinions straying from his parents. His grades had dropped even before the ghost. Just to A- or so. Attempts to steer them away from her only brought them closer.

If they couldn’t get sam in line they’d have to cut there loses. They’d lose a good potential hacker, the masons would need a new heir someone they could actually mold to gain more funds and business, and they’d lose a potential leader or scientist.

Cutting just Sam would have led to problems. They had tried. Sam was abruptly moved for a week to see what would happen. The guise a business trip. Danny and tucker given no notice. The two took matters in their hands and hunted for her. They nearly discovered the truth of the town. Only once the Fentons explained she was on a trip did they calm down. The trio were deemed lost causes. They were set to bet terminated.

Two weeks before the plan was set to eliminate them the ghost appeared, and it was them who took charge. Now the ghost was always planned, the Fenton’s had been close to opening the portal. So close to new weapons and infinite power supply. Nothing they had done activated the portal. But the problem trio when left alone somehow got it working. The power from the portal shorted the cameras in the lab and they were unable to see how.

Sam and tucker were out on the field. They were learning at a rapid pace. With them constantly fighting and winning. The three were considered candidates again. They’d still have to break the girl, it was worth the effort now. Add the fact they had a viable solution now.

The newest hero of amity park. Phantom.

Phantom himself would simple a ghost to take care of. Allowing the Fenton to play around for now. What fun was a hunt to them if they couldn’t play with there prey. Once it was time to rid themselves of the pest the Fenton’s could truly hunt.

For now, phantom was getting Sam and Tucker more suited for future missions. He could keep “his” team for now. Danny was obviously the one with the plan. He was never with them but had to be the main contact with phantom. Whenever Danny was around phantom would show to clear his messes.

The surprise reunion with Vlad confirmed their suspicion. Not to mention the Youngblood incident. Danny led his schoolmates to board the ship and free their parents. Only once the ghost shield was down did he go and contact phantom to come handle the rest.

An accident would be in order. It was only a matter of time until the trio grew stagnant and needed more focused teaching. The masons were still an asset they just would not be allowed to be a caretaker again. Jeremy and Pamela mason still were the main source of income. The two were good the schmoozing. Sam would just have to manage field work with her business persona as her “grandmother” had. The Fenton’s were non-negotiable and a necessity to the group. If the need arises, they be allowed to raise another.

The foleys would work. They were good caretakers but served no other purpose to the group. Framing phantom for there deaths should be enough to ignite a need for revenge and break the group apart. Introduce a new fourth to them after the shock wore off.

Valerie had grown as well. She would be brought into the loop soon. The red huntress would be an asset. Her original purpose no longer mattered. Valerie would be easy to recruit. All it seemed to take was some money and a reason to dislike a group. All it took for her to despise ghost was her father losing his job, one of the groups smartest moves yet.

Good thing that reason was already in motion. The anti-ecto acts were set to be announced tomorrow. The justice league would publicly denounce the acts within an hour. They had no reason to condemn an entire species that had shown no sign of aggression. Most ghost weren’t even visible to the public.

With Amitys gimmick who would believe the reports of supposed ghost destruction. Viral videos of it just to be explained through special effects. Keep the rest of the world believing the gimmick and the young in amity only seeing the disbelief.

The justice league would be the key to their own demise. Events have been ruined, the children had been infected by the ghost flu, Sam had been kidnapped by a ghost, and the constant attacks on the school. This was the wedge they needed to keep them in line. To bring them into the fold. The towns caretakers would make sure any opinions of the hero’s would be bad. The only mentions of the hero’s permitted of the hero’s online would be failures and misunderstandings.

Citizens of the infinite realm and ghost were two very different species. Not that the children would ever be allowed to know.

Soon the justice league would fall.

#danny fenton #danny phantom #dc x dp #dp x dc #dp dc crossover #dp x dc crossover #justice league #if anyone likes this idea take it an run with it #the presidential challenge in micro management made my brain think #it went hard #but like the town is odd #I’m pretty sure the only time cops are in the show is when freak show is happening #the last episode doesn’t count. cause it didn’t happen #the high schoolers are fit #like they had to do a flip off the rope or bar (my mind blanks)#sam’s grandmother is amazing #granny who can fight #i don’t have a name for the group #i blame my sleep pills and a root canal for this actually being written #y’all take care of your teeth today #it’s mentally taxing but worth it if you can do it #the Giw are meant to make the problem look like it’s being taken seriously #there is a reason they are bad at there job #no one can tell me Maddie mrs black belt isn’t purposefully not capturing phantom #Im thinking all the kids could be kidnapped. add to the drama #idk maybe some are hero’s kids #the trio won’t stand for it #Valerie won’t stand for it #she deserves to be redeemed #she could of had such a better arc after the Danni incident

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bllsbailey · 2 months

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Catherine Herridge Laid Off by CBS in 'Blood Bath' Firing of Hundreds - She Just Reported on Biden Docs

Catherine Herridge, probably the best reporter that CBS has, as well as about 20 other CBS reporters, were let go in a blood bath firing by Paramount Global, with 800 people total losing their jobs. The Washington Bureau, where they covered national security and intelligence, was hit hard.

The NY Post suggested there might be more than "just cost-cutting." They note sources said Herridge "had clashed" with CBS News president Ingrid Ciprian-Matthews.

CBS isn't talking, according to the Post.

Herridge just posted on X Monday about more damaging news to Joe Biden, noting that the House Oversight Committee wanted the transcript of the Hur interview with Joe Biden, and they expressed concerns about Biden retaining potentially sensitive documents related to specific countries involving his family’s foreign business dealings.

Herridge had previously reported a lot on the Biden family business dealings.

But it looks like she won't be following up on that — at least not with CBS.

Herridge is also heroically standing for journalistic principle.

Herridge may soon be held in contempt of court for not divulging her source for an investigative piece she penned in 2017 when she worked for Fox News and be ordered to personally pay fines that could total as much as $5,000 a day. A source close to the situation said Fox News is paying for Herridge’s legal counsel.

A couple of months ago, she had also reported on the possibility of a "Black Swan" event.

Independent Journalist Michael Shellenberger called out her layoff as "cowardly" by CBS and said, "Shame on them."

It looks like the regular liberal media is imploding between this and other media layoffs. For those who push propaganda, that's hard to bemoan — don't let the door hit you on the way out. But for someone like Herridge, who seems only concerned about doing her job, one hopes that this doesn't prevent her from doing so. Perhaps that might free her up, as it has done others like Tucker Carlson, to do as she wants without any network restrictions. We shall have to see where she lands. Hopefully, somewhere where she can keep telling the truth.

Catherine Herridge Posts Fascinating Bank Record Exposing Biden Biz Dealings, Troubling Threat From China

Happy New Year: CBS News' Catherine Herridge Has a Sobering Prediction to Start Off 2024

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five-rivers · 4 years

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Interview With a Ghost (part 3: Break)

(PART 1) (PART 2)

The call came shortly after Danny had informed Tucker of his (disastrous) interview with the police and had left to go fight a giant bird ghost that had made its way to Elmerton. That bird wouldn't know what hit it. Well, it would know that Danny hit it, presumably, but not that Danny was hitting it so hard due to repressed anxiety regarding his body and the fact the police had it.

Tucker had been, as it so happened, waiting for the call.

"Hey, Sam," he said, not bothering to so much as look at the caller ID.

"So, Danny's gotten himself into a mess."

"Yep," said Tucker. "A pretty big one. Not all his fault, though."

"He did make it worse."

"Yeah. What are we going to do about it?"

"How do you feel about breaking and entering?"

"You're going to have to be more specific," said Tucker. He rolled over on his bed to stare at the ceiling. "We do that pretty frequently."

"The city morgue. ME's office, specifically."

"There'll be guards," said Tucker, "what with the rumors and all."

"I've got the Box Ghost in my thermos. He's a good distraction."

"Transport?"

"Working on it. You'll take care of the security cameras and locks?"

"As long as they're digital," said Tucker, pulling up his data on the city cameras as they spoke. "The outside ones are, but I don't know about the insides. There might be analog machines in there. Tapes. Can't do anything to anything not on a network."

"I know, I know. Hey, maybe you could send a text to whoever's supposed to be guarding it tonight? Get them to leave?"

"Mmm. Maybe. If I could figure out who that would be."

"That could backfire, though," said Sam. "If they don't send messages like that. Sorry, I'm just thinking out loud."

Tucker pulled up a building map in another window. "I think we'll probably need more than just us, though. Remember the first time we had to move... it?"

"Yeah, but who else are we going to get to do this?"

"Jazz, maybe? She has a car, too. She can be transportation."

"Tucker, we're not looping Danny in on this. Do you really think that Jazz is going to be any more cool with this than Danny?"

"I don't know, Jazz can be pretty savage when it comes to protecting Danny."

The phone made Sam's considering hum crackle with static. "We do need transport," said Sam.

"Yeah. What were you looking into for that, anyway?"

"Ugh. Cult connections."

"Dude. Danny would not be happy if we gave his you know to a cult."

"Yeah, but he can steal it back from the cult with no guilt, unlike with the police."

"But what if he just gave it back to the police?" asked Tucker, looking up the city's purchasing records, trying to determine if they had any cameras that used tapes or that weren't internet connected in or near the morgue.

"Come on, he wouldn't do that."

"Probably not, but he does do weird stuff, sometimes. Like agree to an interview with the police and almost give away his secret identity."

"Yeah," said Sam. "You keep checking how feasible this is, and I'll call Jazz, okay?"

"Sure," said Tucker. "Talk to you later."

Jazz eased her car into the alley behind the building that housed the city morgue and ME's office.

"Stop here," said Tucker. "I can see their network."

"I can't believe I'm doing this," Jazz whispered, putting the car into park.

"You don't have to whisper," said Tucker, sitting in the passenger's seat and typing away at his mobile workstation (he insisted that it wasn't a laptop). "No one is going to hear you. Okay, yeah, I'm on their wifi. Give me a minute."

"Take your time," said Sam, who was lying down in the back seat, dressed in blacks and grays, thin gloves over her hands. "Were you guys able to sneak out okay without Danny?"

"Yeah," said Tucker.

"It was a bit trickier without him," said Jazz. She was lucky that her parents wore earplugs to sleep, and she was fairly certain Danny was out of the house entirely. Fighting a ghost, probably. She always told him to wake her up before he left, so at least one person knew where he was and could help him, but he never did.

"Okay, Jazz, you can get closer, now, then Sam can hop out and Box 'em."

"That was fast," said Jazz, starting the car forward again.

"What can I say?" said Tucker. "Pure talen-"

Something in the car started shrieking. Jazz jumped, momentarily pressing too hard on the gas, and the car lurched forward. Sam swore.

"What is that?" asked Tucker, hands over his ears.

"Who care?" shouted Sam, over the noise. "Turn it off, turn it off!"

"It's the- It's the anti-ecto alarm! I told them not to put it on my car!" She leaned across Tucker and opened the glove box. Sure enough, a sleek chrome-and-green monstrosity sat in her poor, innocent glove box, flashing screens, dials, and indicator lights at them. The car cabin lit up like a disco.

Jazz and Tucker jabbed at buttons until the thing shut up.

"Okay," said Tucker. "I think we're going to have to abort. I'm gonna bet my aunt in Chicago heard that."

Jazz blushed. "Sorry guys," she said. She was going to have words with her parents after this. What if she'd been on the highway when that thing went off? They really didn't think these things through.

"We can't abort!" protested Sam. "We need to get the thing! Before they start running tests on it!"

Jazz started backing up the car.

"Yeah, I know, but we needed stealth. We don't have that anymore. Hold up, Jazz, I need to erase my presence from their system."

Sam grumbled. "What set it off, anyway. Boxy?"

"No, it looks like this was calibrated to only go off for a class seven or above," said Tucker, peering at the alarm.

"Class seven?" repeated Jazz. "But... You don't think Danny-"

"No, he's in the suburbs, dealing with Skulker." Jazz looked over at Tucker's computer to see the Ghost Watch app icon blinking in the corner of his screen. "This is Vlad. Crap."

The door made a thunk when Sam swung it too far out and it hit a wall. Jazz winced, but rolled down her window. "What are you doing?" she hissed.

"We can't let Vlad get away with it!"

"And what are you going to do? Sam!"

"Getting back into the cameras," muttered Tucker, typing furiously.

"I'm calling Danny," said Jazz.

"Won't answer, he's fighting Skulker."

"Well, maybe he's finished!" said Jazz, dialing.

There was a flare of blue white light from up ahead and an angry shout. A glowing silhouette joined Sam's dark one. She had released the Box Ghost.

Jazz groaned. "Why did she do that now?"

"Shhh!" said Tucker. Something began to make little beeping noises. "Oh, jeez."

"What's that?"

"My ghost detector. It's tuned to Vlad." He opened his door half way. "Sam!" he shouted. "Incoming!"

She pressed herself to the side of the alley just in time to avoid a dark, horned figure swooping down on her from above. The Box Ghost was not so lucky.

"... and it's got a lower range," said Tucker, faintly.

Vlad Plasmius, rimmed in fuchsia light, floated twenty feet in the air. He had one hand around the Box Ghost's neck, the other full of neon pink fire. "Oh," he said, his voice echoing clearly in the alleyway. "It's you. What are you doing here, pest?"

"Uhhhhh," said the Box Ghost as Sam tried to make her way back to the car.

"And with Daniel's little friends no less?"

Sam broke into a run, slammed Tucker's door shut, yanked open the passenger door behind him, and slid in. Jazz wasted no time in slamming on the gas. If her car got a few scrapes, so be it.

There was a second Vlad behind them. She dropped her phone and slammed on the brakes. It was still ringing.

Smiling like a villain from a slasher movie, this second Vlad stepped intangibly into the car.

"Well, now," he said, smoothly. "What's this? Daniel's friends, but no Daniel? Whatever are the three of you doing here of all places? And at this hour?"

"What are you doing here?" asked Sam.

"No need to be rude, Samantha, dear," said Vlad. "Daniel doesn't know about your little excursion, does he? He's still across town, occupied with Skulker. You can tell him he won't have to worry anymore. I'll take good care of his body."

"Dude," said Tucker, "do you have any idea how gross that sounds?"

Vlad scowled and flicked his fingers. A ray of pink burned a quarter sized hole in the back of Tucker's headrest.

"If he had a problem with me taking it, he should have hidden it better," said Vlad. "I have no desire to have the existence of half ghosts revealed simply because Daniel hid his corpse in same park the police have their annual picnic!"

"Actually," said Tucker, "they usually have it in Marley Park. Aren't you the mayor? Shouldn't you know this?"

Vlad's scowl deepened further. "Drive safely, Jasmine." The duplicate dissolved into magenta and pink mist.

Sam sneezed. "Gross, I think I got him in my nose."

"Guys," said Tucker. "I've got alerts on the police lines, someone reported a disturbance. We really need to go."

"Vlad stole my," Danny waved his hands in the air in place of the word. "Are you serious? And you guys know, because you were going to try to steal it, and you didn't tell me?" His friends and sister looked sheepishly at the ground. "Why did you wait 'til now to tell me? I've been having anxiety attacks about it all night. I thought that the stupid ME had, I don't know, insomnia or something! It was Vlad?"

"Yeah," said Sam.

"Argh!" said Danny, starting to pace. Thank goodness his room was large enough to have a good pace in, even with three other teens in it. "I don't even want to think what he could be doing with it, but I am! What if- What if he goes full-bore Frankenstein and freaking reanimates it? What am I supposed to do then? And the police! They're going to think I did it, and there goes my credibility with the police!"

"You were on Ghost Watch fighting Skulker when it happened," offered Tucker.

"Ghosts can be in two places at once! The police know that! That's not a good enough alibi!" He put his hands on his face and groaned. "Am I going to have to break into Vlad's house? Again? He has to have a ghost shield up around it by now. And a human shield. And a ghost-human shield. I'm dead."

"You're not dead, Danny," said Jazz.

"I am dead. In ever sense of the word. Dead, I tell you, dead."

"Deep breaths," said Jazz. "You're hyperventilating."

It was true. He sat down on his bed and buried his face in his hands. "I don't even know what secret lair he's brought it to."

"Wait, you mean, you can't tell where it is?" asked Sam.

"No," said Danny. "If I could, I would have known when Vlad took it."

There was a howl from downstairs as someone rang the doorbell. Danny jumped up. "I'll get it," he said. The group bundled down the stairs, trying to keep up with him.

Before opening the door, Danny glanced out the window.

"Oh, heck, it's them."

"Them who?" asked Jazz.

"Them. The detectives!"

"Alright," said Jones, looking at the place where Phantom's body should have been but wasn't. "This is officially too big for just one team. Paterson, Collins, what were you going to do today?"

"Interview high school kids," said Collins.

"Right. You're still going to do that. I'm going to get Murphy and Madison on the break-in, talking to witnesses, but first, your opinions."

"It wasn't Phantom," said Collins. "He could have just come in and taken it, at any time, not just the middle of the night."

"And he wouldn't have needed to take out the cameras and security system," said Paterson, looking over her shoulder at the tech people set up in one corner.

"It was a human. Or a ghost who didn't want us to know who they are," finished Collins.

"Great," said Jones. "That's what I thought, too. I was hoping you'd tell me I was wrong."

"Sorry, cap," said Collins.

"Go on, get out of here," said Jones, making a shooing motion.

"Still can't believe that his name is Wesley Weston," said Collins. "Or that he has a record for trespassing and stalking a classmate and claiming that he's a ghost."

"Want to bet that the classmate in question is Fenton?" asked Paterson.

"No thanks," said Collins. "It would have been better if the victim's name hadn't been withheld." He avoided the word 'wish.'

"Yeah, yeah," said Paterson. She knocked on the door.

A balding red haired man with thick glasses opened the door. "Oh," he said. "Please tell me this isn't about Wesley again. Do I need a lawyer?"

"He didn't do anything," said Collins, quickly. "We just want to ask him a few questions."

"It's unrelated to the stalking charges, which were dropped," added Paterson.

"Great," grumbled the man. He turned. "Wesley! The police want to talk to you!"

"Well," said Collins, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "That was enlightening."

"His room belongs on a movie set," said Paterson. "Jeez Louise, we're going to have to keep an eye on that kid. He has a freaking conspiracy theory board."

"It was pretty convincing, though. The kid can talk."

"We need to confirm his data, though."

"Yeah. Talk to more witnesses. See if Fenton really does run off whenever Phantom shows up."

"Fenton?" asked Paulina Sanchez, wrinkling her nose so prettily that Paterson suspected she practiced the expression in the mirror. "What about him? I thought we were talking about Phantom. Mi amor." She leaned a little farther into the doorway. She had not let the detectives inside. "Not Fenton."

"We're investigating a number of different angles, Miss," said Collins. "Now, if you could tell us, does he seem to leave class before ghost fights break out."

"Yeah," said Paulina. "He's got some kind of sixth sense thing going on, but he's such a coward. He only ever uses it to run away. Doesn't even try to warn anyone else! I don't know how his friends stand him."

"You're talking about Phantom?" asked Sophia LaMar. "You'll want my parents. I'm only an initiate. I'll go get them." She closed the door.

"Do we run away from the cult house?" asked Paterson.

"No, it'll make us look bad."

"You know," said Paterson, "if I'd wanted a lecture on how time doesn't exist, I'd drive over to the university and sit in on a class on relativity. Not whatever that was."

"At least now we know that ghosts can time travel?" asked Collins, weakly.

"Let's hurry up and get to Fenton's house," said Paterson. "Do you think he'll even talk to us?"

"Who knows?" asked Collins.

#danny phantom #dannymay #dannymay 2020 #day 25

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patriotsnet · 3 years

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Why Is The Media Against Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-is-the-media-against-republicans/

Why Is The Media Against Republicans

Mcconnell And Co Are Playing As Dirty A Game As Possible In Their Quest To Fill Ginsburgs Seat Before The Election But You Wont Find That Story In Most News Coverage

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US Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell at a press conference at the US Capitol on September 22, 2020. McConnell said in a statement that the Senate would take up President Donald Trump’s nominee for the Supreme Court following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

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The argument against confirming Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court before the inauguration is a Republican argument. They invented it, they enacted it, and they own it. That’s because it was Republicans, not Democrats, who changed the number of Supreme Court justices from nine to eight for 10 months in 2016, when a Democratic president was in the White House. It was Republicans who argued that no Supreme Court nominee should even be considered by the Senate in an election year. And it was Republicans who promised to block the confirmation of Hillary Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees in the event that she became president while Republicans retained control of the Senate.

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And that argument is simply untenable. We do not have a legitimate third branch of government if only one party gets to choose its members.

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Vaccine Advocacy From Hannity And Mcconnell Gets The Media Off Republicans’ Backs But Won’t Shift Public Sentiment

Sean Hannity, Mitch McConnell and Tucker Carlson

Amid a rising media furor over the steady stream of vaccine disparagement from GOP politicians and Fox News talking heads, a number of prominent Republicans spoke up in favor of vaccines early this week.

On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters, “shots need to get in everybody’s arm as rapidly as possible” and asked that people “ignore all of these other voices that are giving demonstrably bad advice.” House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana, got the vaccine after months of delay and then publicly said, “there shouldn’t be any hesitancy over whether or not it’s safe and effective.” And Fox News host Sean Hannity, in a widely shared video, declared, it “absolutely makes sense for many Americans to get vaccinated.” This was treated in the press as an unequivocal endorsement, even though the use of the word “many” was clearly meant to let the Fox News viewers feel like he’s talking about other people getting vaccinated.

Is this an exciting pivot among the GOP elites? Are they abandoning the sociopathic strategy of sabotaging President Joe Biden’s anti-pandemic plan by encouraging their own followers to get sick? Are the millions of Republicans who keep telling pollsters they will never get that Democrat shot going to change their minds now?

Ha ha ha, no.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

— Matthew Gertz July 20, 2021

The Technology 202: New Report Calls Conservative Claims Of Social Media Censorship ‘a Form Of Disinformation’

with Aaron Schaffer

A new report concludes that social networks aren’t systematically biased against conservatives, directly contradicting Republican claims that social media companies are censoring them.

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Recent moves by Twitter and Facebook to suspend former president Donald Trump’s accounts in the wake of the violence at the Capitol are inflaming conservatives’ attacks on Silicon Valley. But New York University researchers today released a report stating claims of anti-conservative bias are “a form of disinformation: a falsehood with no reliable evidence to support it.”

The report found there is no trustworthy large-scale data to support these claims, and even anecdotal examples that tech companies are biased against conservatives “crumble under close examination.” The report’s authors said, for instance, the companies’ suspensions of Trump were “reasonable” given his repeated violation of their terms of service — and if anything, the companies took a hands-off approach for a long time given Trump’s position.

The report also noted several data sets underscore the prominent place conservative influencers enjoy on social media. For instance, CrowdTangle data shows that right-leaning pages dominate the list of sources providing the most engaged-with posts containing links on Facebook. Conservative commentator Dan Bongino, for instance, far out-performed most major news organizations in the run-up to the 2020 election.

In The Past The Gop Would Be Rallying Their Voters Against This Bill Their Failure To Do So Now Is Ominous

Mitch ?McConnell, Ted Cruz, Tucker Carlson and Ben Shapiro

With surprising haste for the U.S. Senate, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, just after passing a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill. And Democrats could not be more excited, as the blueprint covers a whole host of long-standing priorities, from fighting climate change to creating universal prekindergarten. The blueprint was largely written by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who released a statement calling it “the most consequential piece of legislation for working people, the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor since FDR and the New Deal of the 1930s.”

Sanders isn’t putting that much spin on the ball.

While the bill fallls short of what is really needed to deal with climate change, it is still tremendously consequential legislation that will do a great deal not just to ameliorate economic inequalities, but, in doing so, likely reduce significant gender and racial inequality. It’s also a big political win for President Joe Biden. In other words, it is everything that Republicans hate. Worse for them, it’s packed full of benefits that boost the middle class, not just the working poor. Traditionally, such programs are much harder to claw back once Republicans gain power — as they’ve discovered in previous failed attempts to dismantle Social Security and Obamacare.

Want more Amanda Marcotte on politics? Subscribe to her newsletter Standing Room Only.

But that’s not really happening here.

The Actual Reason Why Republicans And Their Media Are Discouraging People From Getting Vaccinated

Independent Media Institute

Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a CNN Medical Analyst, said last week, “A surprising amount of death will occur soon…” But why, when the deadly Delta variant is sweeping the world, are Republicans and their media warning people not to get vaccinated?

there’s always a reason

Dr. Anthony Fauci told Jake Tapper on CNN last Sunday, “I don’t have a really good reason why this is happening.”

But even if he can’t think of a reason why Republicans would trash talk vaccination and people would believe them, it’s definitely there.

Which is why it’s important to ask a couple of simple questions that all point to the actual reason why Republicans and their media are discouraging people from getting vaccinated:

1. Why did Trump get vaccinated in secret after Joe Biden won the election and his January 6th coup attempt failed?

2. Why are Fox “News” personalities discouraging people from getting vaccinated while refusing to say if they and the people they work with have been protected by vaccination?

3. Why was one of the biggest applause lines at CPAC: “They were hoping — the government was hoping — that they could sort of sucker 90% of the population into getting vaccinated and it isn’t happening!”

4. Why are Republican legislators in states around the country pushing laws that would “ban” private businesses from asking to see proof of vaccination status ?

Death is their electoral strategy.

Is there any other possible explanation?

So, what’s left?

Destroying Trust In The Media Science And Government Has Left America Vulnerable To Disaster

For America to minimize the damage from the current pandemic, the media must inform, science must innovate, and our government must administer like never before. Yet decades of politically-motivated attacks discrediting all three institutions, taken to a new level by President Trump, leave the American public in a vulnerable position.

jonmladd

Trump has consistently vilified the national media. When campaigning, he the media “absolute scum” and “totally dishonest people.” As president, he has news organizations “fake news” and “the enemy of the people” over and over. The examples are endless. Predictably, he has blamed the coronavirus crisis on the media, saying “We were very prepared. The only thing we weren’t prepared for was the media.”

Science has been another Trump target. He has gutted scientific expertise and administrative capacity in the executive branch, most notably failing to fill hundreds of vacancies in the Centers for Disease Control itself and disbanding the National Security Council’s taskforce on pandemics. During the coronavirus crisis, he has routinely disagreed with scientific experts, including, in the AP’s words, his “musing about injecting disinfectants into people .” This follows his earlier public advocacy for hydroxychloroquine as a COVID-19 treatment, also against leading scientists’ advice. Coupled with his flip-flopping on when to lift stay-at-home orders, the president has created confusion and endangered people.

Media Bias Against Conservatives Is Real And Part Of The Reason No One Trusts The News Now

Members of the media were shocked as he was supposedly revealed as incredibly anti-woman presidential candidate, perhaps even the most ever nominated by a major political party in the modern era. He had admitted that he reduced women to objects and the Democrats pounced, seeking to make him lose him the support of women and, in turn, the presidency.

I’m not talking about the media coverage of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump and the “Access Hollywood” tape, but his predecessor, Mitt Romney.

His sin? Saying that he had “binders full of women” that he was looking at appointing to key positions were he elected president. Sure, it was an awkward way of stating a fairly innocuous fact about how elected executives begin their transition efforts — with resumes of candidates for every position under the sun —- well before an election is held. Yet, the media and commentators came for Mitt Romney and they did so with guns blazing, as he was portrayed as an anti-woman extremist… for making a concerted effort to hire women to serve in his administration as governor of Massachusetts.

There Is No Liberal Media Bias In Which News Stories Political Journalists Choose To Cover

1Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL 32306, USA.

2University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA.

3Brigham Young University-Idaho, Rexburg, ID 83460, USA.

?*Corresponding author. Email: hans.hassellfsu.edu ; jh5akvirginia.edu

?† These authors contributed equally to this work.

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‘it’s Time To End This Forever War’ Biden Says Forces To Leave Afghanistan By 9/11

The enormous national anger generated by those attacks was also channeled by the administration toward the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which was conceived to prevent any recurrence of attacks on such a massive scale. Arguments over that legislation consumed Congress through much of 2002 and became the fodder for campaign ads in that year’s midterms.

The same anger was also directed toward a resolution to use force, if needed, in dealing with security threats from the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. That authorization passed Congress with bipartisan majorities in the fall of 2002, driven by administration claims that Saddam had “weapons of mass destruction.” It became law weeks before the midterm elections.

Once those elections were over, the Republicans in control of both chambers finally agreed to create an independent commission to seek answers about 9/11. Bush signed the legislation on Nov. 27, 2002.

The beginning was hobbled when the first chairman, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and vice chairman, former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell of Maine, decided not to continue. But a new chairman, former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, and vice chairman, former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, filled the breach and performed to generally laudatory reviews.

Long memories

Top House Republican Opposes Bipartisan Commission To Investigate Capitol Riot

But McCarthy replied by opposing Katko’s product, and more than 80% of the other House Republicans did too. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., initially said he was keeping an open mind but then announced that he too was opposed. This makes it highly unlikely that 10 of McConnell’s GOP colleagues will be willing to add their votes to the Democrats’ and defeat a filibuster of the bill.

Republicans have argued that two Senate committees are already looking at the events of Jan. 6, as House panels have done as well. The Justice Department is pursuing cases against hundreds of individuals who were involved. Former President Donald Trump and others have said any commission ought to also be tasked to look at street protests and violence that took place in the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd.

But with all that on the table, several Republicans have alluded to their concern about a new commission “dragging on” into 2022, the year of the next midterm elections. “A lot of our members … want to be moving forward,” said Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., the No. 2 Senate Republican toMcConnell. “Anything that gets us rehashing to 2020 elections is, I think, a day lost.”

Resistance even after 9/11

The Taliban were toppled but bin Laden escaped, and U.S. forces have been engaged there ever since. The troop numbers have declined in recent years, and President Biden has indicated that all combat troops will be out by this year’s anniversary of the 2001 attacks.

Opiniontrump And His Voters Are Drawn Together By A Shared Sense Of Defiance

Americans in general have begun to catch on: 66 percent of Americans believe that the media has a hard time separating fact from opinion and, according to a recent Gallup poll, 62 percent of the country believes that the press is biased one way or the other in their reporting.

So when CNN, NBC News, Fox News, or another outlet break a hard news story, there is a good chance that a large swathe of the public won’t view it as legitimate news.

And politicians, right and left, are taking advantage of this.

The entire ordeal is part of an ever-growing list of examples in which the media seemed to be biased, whether consciously or not, against Republicans.

Before Donald Trump, there was New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who in 2014 accused the media of “dividing us” because they asked him about some protesters who had chanted “NYPD is the KKK” and . He also accused the media of McCarthyism when they dug into the personal life of an aide of his, who reportedly had a relationship with a convicted murderer. The mayor also publicly and privately accused Bloomberg News of being biased against him, since it is owned by his predecessor. However, de Blasio is not terribly popular within his own party, so Democrats in New York did not buy what he was selling.

The Media Has Entered The Republicans Pounce Stage Of Critical Race Theory

Now that polls show a majority of Americans oppose Critical Race Theory, the Democratic Party and their scribes in the legacy media have launched a rearguard action against parents — by casting them as the aggressors. As is true every time the Left misfires or overreaches, the media ignore the offense and focus on the popular backlash in a tactic popularly known as “Republicans pounce.”

Media coverage proves that CRT has entered the “Republicans pounce” stage. Witness the words of one Politico writer, who said on Thursday, “he right is hoping to capitalize on the grassroots angst over critical race theory and excite its base voters in next year’s midterms.” Chris Hayes, who has the unenviable position of competing directly with Tucker Carlson on MSNBC, agreed Thursday night that all the Republican Party’s “rhetorical fire has moved away from the deficit and on to some random, school superintendent in Maine after his district dared to denounce white supremacy after the murder of George Floyd.”

But why are grassroots Americans so filled with “angst”? Because they are intellectually deficient and, of course, racist, according to Vox.com.

“Conservatives have launched a growing disinformation campaign around the academic concept” of CRT. “It’s an attempt to push back against progress,” wrote Vox.com reporter Fabiola Cineas. The problem is that “Republicans … want to ban anti-racist teachings and trainings in classrooms and workplaces across the country.”

Trump Continues To Push Election Falsehoods Here’s Why That Matters

Republican opposition to the commission

Rice was featured in one of the very few congressional commissions ever to receive this level of attention. Most are created and live out their mission with little notice. Indeed, Congress has created nearly 150 commissions of various kinds in just the last 30 years, roughly five a year.

Some have a highly specific purpose, such as a commemoration. Others are more administrative, such as the five-member commission overseeing the disbursement of business loans during the early months of pandemic lockdown in 2020. Others have been wide-ranging and controversial, such as the one created to investigate synthetic opioid trafficking.

In the initial weeks after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, the idea of an independent commission to probe the origins of the attack and the failures that let it happen seemed a no-brainer. It had broad support both in Congress and in public opinion polls. It still enjoys the latter, as about two-thirds of Americans indicate that they think an independent commission is needed. The idea has fared well — particularly when described as being “9/11 Commission style.”

Opiniona Guide For Frustrated Conservatives In The Age Of Trump

Conscious bias or not, such practices do not engender trust in the media amongst conservatives. They only reinforce the belief that the media seeks to defend their ideological allies on the left and persecute those on the right while claiming to be objective.

This idea that the media is made up of unselfconsciously liberal elites who don’t even recognize the biases they have against conservative policies and conservatives in general goes back decades, to when newsrooms were more or less homogenous in nearly every way. At first, conservatives fought back by founding their own magazines; after Watergate and in the midst of the Reagan administration and liberals’ contempt for him, organizations like the Media Research Center began cataloguing the myriad examples of biased coverage, both large and small.

And there was a lot to catalogue, from opinion pages heavily weighted in favor of liberals to reportage and analysis that looks a lot more like the opinion of the writers than unbiased coverage.

Despite Cries Of Censorship Conservatives Dominate Social Media

GOP-friendly voices far outweigh liberals in driving conversations on hot topics leading up to the election, a POLITICO analysis shows.

The Twitter app on a mobile phone | Matt Rourke/AP Photo

10/27/2020 01:38 PM EDT

Link Copied

Republicans have turned alleged liberal bias in Silicon Valley into a major closing theme of the election cycle, hauling tech CEOs in for virtual grillings on Capitol Hill while President Donald Trump threatens legal punishment for companies that censor his supporters.

But a POLITICO analysis of millions of social media posts shows that conservatives still rule online.

Right-wing social media influencers, conservative media outlets and other GOP supporters dominate online discussions around two of the election’s hottest issues, the Black Lives Matter movement and voter fraud, according to the review of Facebook posts, Instagram feeds, Twitter messages and conversations on two popular message boards. And their lead isn’t close.

As racial protests engulfed the nation after George Floyd’s death, users shared the most-viral right-wing social media content more than 10 times as often as the most popular liberal posts, frequently associating the Black Lives Matter movement with violence and accusing Democrats like Joe Biden of supporting riots.

Politifact Va: No Republicans Didn’t Vote To Defund The Police

Rep. Bobby Scott speaks at a 2015 criminal justice forum.

Speaker: Bobby ScottStatement: “Every Republican in Congress voted to defund the police when they voted against the American Rescue Plan.”Date: July 12Setting: Twitter

In last fall’s campaigns, Republicans thundered often inaccurate charges that Democrats wanted to defund police departments.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott, D-Va., is flipping the script and saying that all congressional Republicans voted to defund police this year when they opposed a $1.9 trillion stimulus plan.

“Every Republican in Congress voted to defund police when they voted against the American Rescue Plan,” Scott tweeted on July 12.

Scott represents Virginia’s 3rd congressional district, stretching from Norfolk and parts of Chesapeake north through Newport News and west through Franklin.

His claim, echoing a Democratic talking point, melts under scrutiny. Here’s why.

The Facts

The term “defunding police” arose after the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Many advocates say it does not mean abolishing police, but rather reallocating some of the money and the duties that have traditionally been handled by police departments.

Scott’s explanation

Barbera sent an NBC article noting that communities in at least 10 congressional districts represented by Republicans who opposed the bill are using some of its relief funds to help their police departments.

Our ruling

We rate Scott’s statement False.

Opinion:no The Media Isnt Fair It Gives Republicans A Pass

The right-wing media, willfully ignoring the press investigations into Tara Reade’s accusations, insist that former vice president Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee, has not been treated similarly to accused conservative men . They have a point, but not the one they were trying to make.

arrow-right

Let’s start with the big picture: Right-wing groups persistently engage in conduct for which Republicans are not held to account. The latter are allowed to remain silent after instances of conduct with a strong stench of white nationalism, but pay no penalty for their quietude. Right-wing demonstrators at Michigan’s statehouse this week — angrily shouting, not social distancing, misogynistic in their message, some carrying Confederate garb — were not engaged in peaceful protest. This was a mob endangering the health of police officers and others seeking to intimidate democratic government. Some protesters compared Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to Adolf Hitler and displayed Nazi symbols. Newsweek reported:

The media has adopted the approach that a pattern of sexual harassment claims over decades is not relevant because Trump has denied them, yet they want investigated the single assault claim against Biden. Biden responded in an interview and in a lengthy ; the media insists these things have to be investigated further. They do not ask Trump’s campaign why the president does not respond to questions. They do not ask Republicans about Carroll, Zervos or others.

Social Media: Is It Really Biased Against Us Republicans

Wednesday promises to be another stressful day for Facebook, Google and Twitter.

Their chief executives will be grilled by senators about whether social media companies abuse their power.

For Republicans, this is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for.

Two weeks ago, Twitter prevented people posting links to a critical New York Post investigation into Joe Biden.

It then apologised for failing to explain its reasoning before ditching a rule it had used to justify the action.

For many Republicans, this was the final straw – incontrovertible evidence that social media is biased against conservatives.

The accusation is that Silicon Valley is at its core liberal and a bad arbiter of what’s acceptable on its platforms.

In this case, Republicans like Senator Ted Cruz believed Twitter would have acted differently if the story had been about President Donald Trump.

Sobering Report Shows Hardening Attitudes Against Media

NEW YORK — The distrust many Americans feel toward the news media, caught up like much of the nation’s problems in the partisan divide, only seems to be getting worse.

That was the conclusion of a “sobering” study of attitudes toward the press conducted by Knight Foundation and Gallup and released Tuesday.

Nearly half of all Americans describe the news media as “very biased,” the survey found.

“That’s a bad thing for democracy,” said John Sands, director of learning and impact at the Knight Foundation. “Our concern is that when half of Americans have some sort of doubt about the veracity of the news they consume, it’s going to be impossible for our democracy to function.”

The study was conducted before the coronavirus lockdown and nationwide protests over the death of George Floyd.

Eight percent of respondents — the preponderance of them politically conservative — think that news media that they distrust are trying to ruin the country.

– Deal gives Atlanta company control of Anchorage TV news

The study found that 71% of Republicans have a “very” or “somewhat” unfavorable opinion of the news media, while 22% of Democrats feel the same way. Switch it around, and 54% of Democrats have a very favorable view of the media, and only 13% of Republicans feel the same way.

That divide has been documented before but only seems to be deepening, particularly among conservatives, Sands said.

In The Age Of Trump Media Bias Comes Into The Spotlight

Almost 20 years ago, after my first book, “,” came out, I made a lot of speeches, some of them to conservative organizations. The book was about liberal bias in the mainstream media. I had been a journalist at CBS News for 28 years and, so, it was a behind-the-scenes exposé about how the sausage was made, about how bias made its way into the news.

I said that despite what many conservatives think, there was no conspiracy to slant the news in a liberal direction. I said that there were no secret meetings, no secret handshakes and salutes, that anchors such as CBS’s Dan Rather never went into a room with top lieutenants, locked the door, lowered the blinds, dimmed the lights and said, “OK, how are we going to screw those Republicans today?”

It didn’t work that way, I said. Instead, bias was the result of groupthink. Put too many like-minded liberals in a newsroom and you’re going to get a liberal slant on the news.

Liberal journalists, I said, live in a comfortable liberal bubble and don’t even necessarily believe their views are liberal. Instead, they believe they are moderate, mainstream and mainly reasonable views — unlike, of course, conservative views which, to them, are none of those things.

But what I wrote and spoke about then — mainly about how there was no conspiracy to inject bias into news stories — seems no longer to be true today.

Pandering, it seems, is good for business.

Bias shows itself not only in what’s reported, but also in what’s ignored.

Florida Republicans Move Against Social Media Companies

TALLAHASSEE — Concerned that social media companies were conspiring against conservatives, Florida Republicans sent a measure Thursday to Gov. Ron DeSantis that would punish online platforms that lawmakers assert discriminate against conservative thought.

The governor had urged lawmakers to deliver the legislation to his desk as part of a broader effort to regulate Big Tech companies — in how they collect and use information they harvest from consumers and in how social media platforms treat their users.

Republicans in Florida and elsewhere have accused the companies of censoring conservative thought on social media platforms by removing posts they consider inflammatory or using algorithms to reduce the visibility of posts that go against the grain of mainstream ideas.

With the ubiquity of social media, the sites have become modern-day public squares — where people share in the most trivial of matters but also in ideas and information that often are unvetted.

In recent years, social media companies have acted more aggressively in controlling the information posted on their platforms. In some cases, the companies have moved to delete posts over what they see as questionable veracity or their potential to stoke violence.

DeSantis is a strong ally of the former president, and the Republican governor is supporting hefty financial penalties against social media platforms that suspend the accounts of political candidates.

America Hates The Republicans And They Dont Know Why

@jonathanchait

Americans harbor certain deep-rooted impressions of the two parties, which have held for generations. Democrats are compassionate and generous, but spendthrift, dovish, and indulgent of crime and prone to subsidize poor people who don’t want to work. Republicans are strong on defense and crime, but too friendly to business and the rich. What is striking about the Republican government is how little effort it has made to push against, or even steer around, the unflattering elements of its brand. President Trump and his legislative partners have leaned into every ingrained prejudice the voters hold against them. They have acted as if none of their liabilities even exist.

That is not the approach Democrats have taken in office. Bill Clinton famously fashioned himself as a “New Democrat,” angering his base on crime and welfare and declaring the era of big government over. Barack Obama did not position himself quite so overtly against his party’s brand — which had recovered in part because of Clinton’s success — but he did take care to avoid confirming political stereotypes. Obama frequently invoked the importance of parenting and personal responsibility. He did not slash the defense budget, and took pains to woo Republican support for criminal-justice reform. Obama tried repeatedly to get Republicans to compromise on a deal to reduce the budget deficit. Whatever the merits of these policies, they reflect a grasp of the party’s innate liabilities.

Placing Some News Sources On The Political Spectrum

Here are a few examples of major news sources and their so-called “bias” based on ratings from AllSides and the reported level of trust from partisan audiences from the Pew Research Center survey.

Note that much of these ratings are based on surveys of personal perceptions. Consider that these may be impacted by the hostile media effect, wherein “partisans perceive media coverage as unfairly biased against their side” . A three-decade retrospective on the hostile media effect. Mass Communication and Society, 18, 701-729. ).

The Capitol Siege: The Arrested And Their Stories

It would only be logical for that memory to inform the imagination of any Republican contemplating a similar independent commission to probe what happened on Jan. 6. The commission would likely look at various right-wing groups that were involved, including the Oath Keepers and the Proud Boys, some members of which have already been charged. The commission might also delve into the social media presence and influence of various white supremacists.

Moreover, just as the 9/11 Commission was expected to interview the current and preceding presidents, so might a new commission pursue testimony from Trump and some of his advisers, both official and otherwise, regarding their roles in the protest that wound up chasing members of Congress from both chambers into safe holding rooms underground.

House Minority Leader McCarthy was asked last week whether he would testify if a commission were created and called on him to discuss his conversations with Trump on Jan. 6.

“Sure,” McCarthy replied. “Next question.”

All this may soon be moot. If Senate Democrats are unable to secure 60 votes to overcome an expected filibuster of the House-passed bill, the measure will die and the questions to be asked will fall to existing congressional committees, federal prosecutors and the media. To some degree, all can at least claim to have the same goals and intentions as an independent commission might have.

The difference is the level of acceptance their findings are likely to have with the public.

2 notes · View notes

dreaminginthedeepsouth · 3 years

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LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

August 27, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

America is in a watershed moment. Since the 1980s, the country has focused on individualism: the idea that the expansion of the federal government after the Depression in the 1930s created a form of collectivism that we must destroy by cutting taxes and slashing regulation to leave individuals free to do as they wish.

Domestically, that ideology meant dismantling government regulation, social safety networks, and public infrastructure projects. Internationally, it meant a form of “cowboy diplomacy” in which the U.S. usually acted on its own to rebuild nations in our image.

Now, President Joe Biden appears to be trying to bring back a focus on the common good.

For all that Republicans today insist that individualism is the heart of Americanism, in fact the history of federal protection of the common good began in the 1860s with their own ancestors, led by Abraham Lincoln, who wrote: “The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves---in their separate, and individual capacities.”

The contrast between these two ideologies has been stark this week.

On the one hand are those who insist that the government cannot limit an individual’s rights by mandating either masks or vaccines, even in the face of the deadly Delta variant of the coronavirus that is, once again, taking more than 1000 American lives a day.

In New York, where Mayor Bill de Blasio has required teachers to be vaccinated, the city’s largest police union has said it will sue if a vaccine is mandated for its members.

In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday issued an executive order prohibiting any government office or any private entity receiving government funds from requiring vaccines.

In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis has also forbidden mask mandates, but today Leon County Circuit Judge John C. Cooper ruled that DeSantis’s order is unconstitutional. Cooper pointed out that in 1914 and 1939, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that individual rights take a back seat to public safety: individuals can drink alcohol, for example, but not drive drunk. DeSantis was scathing of the opinion and has vowed to appeal. Meanwhile, NBC News reported this week that information about the coronavirus in Florida, as well as Georgia, is no longer easily available on government websites.

On the other hand, as predicted, the full approval of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine by the Food and Drug Administration has prompted a flood of vaccine mandates.

The investigation into the events of January 6, when a mob stormed the U.S. Capitol to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, also showcases the tension between individualism and community.

Yesterday, after months in which Republicans, including former president Donald Trump, called for the release of the identity of the officer who shot Capitol rioter Ashli Babbitt, Capitol Police officer Lieutenant Michael Byrd, the 28-year veteran of the force who shot Babbitt, gave an interview to Lester Holt of NBC News.

Right-wing activists have called Babbitt a martyr murdered by the government, but Byrd explained that he was responsible for protecting 60 to 80 members of the House and their staffers. As rioters smashed the glass doors leading into the House chamber, Byrd repeatedly called for them to get back. When Ashli Babbitt climbed through the broken door, he shot her in the shoulder. She later died from her injuries. Byrd said he was doing his job to protect our government. “I know that day I saved countless lives,” Byrd told Holt. “I know members of Congress, as well as my fellow officers and staff, were in jeopardy and in serious danger. And that’s my job.”

The conflict between individualism and society also became clear today as the House select committee looking into the attack asked social media giants to turn over “all reviews, studies, reports, data, analyses, and communications” they had gathered about disinformation distributed by both foreign and domestic actors, as well as information about “domestic violent extremists” who participated in the attack.

Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) immediately responded that “Congress has no general power to inquire into private affairs and to compel disclosure….” He urged telecommunications companies and Facebook not to hand over any materials, calling their effort an “authoritarian undertaking.” Banks told Fox News Channel personality Tucker Carlson that Republicans should punish every lawmaker investigating the January 6 insurrection if they retake control of Congress in 2022.

Biden’s new turn is especially obvious tonight in international affairs. The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, a country we entered almost 20 years ago with a clear mission that became muddied almost immediately, has sparked Republican criticism for what many describe as a U.S. defeat.

Since he took office, Biden has insisted on shifting American foreign policy away from U.S. troops alone on the ground toward multilateral pressure using finances and technology.

After yesterday’s bombing in Kabul took the lives of 160 Afghans and 13 American military personnel, Biden warned ISIS-K: "We will hunt you down and make you pay.”

Tonight, a new warning from the State Department warning Americans at the gates of the Kabul airport to “leave immediately” came just before a spokesman for CENTCOM, the United States Central Command in the Defense Department overseeing the Middle East, announced: "U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner. The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties."

Biden’s strike on ISIS-K demonstrated the nation's over-the-horizon technologies that he hopes will replace troops. Even still, the administration continues to call for international cooperation. In a press conference today, Pentagon Press Secretary John Kirby responded to a question about U.S. control in Afghanistan by saying: “It’s not about U.S. control in the Indo-Pacific. It’s about protecting our country from threats and challenges that emanate from that part of the world. And it’s about revitalizing our network of alliances and partnerships to help our partners in the international community do the same.“

Meanwhile, this afternoon, news broke that the Taliban has asked the United States to keep a diplomatic presence in the country even after it ends its military mission. The Taliban continues to hope for international recognition, in part to claw back some of the aid that western countries—especially the U.S.—will no longer provide, as well as to try to get the country’s billions in assets unfrozen.

A continued diplomatic presence in Afghanistan would make it easier to continue to get allies and U.S. citizens out of the country, but State Department spokesman Ned Price said the idea is a nonstarter unless a future Afghan government protects the rights of its citizens, including its women, and refuses to harbor terrorists. Price also emphasized that the U.S. would not make this decision without consulting allies. “This is not just a discussion the United States will have to decide for itself.… We are coordinating with our international partners, again to share ideas, to ensure that we are sending the appropriate signals and messages to the Taliban,” he said.

Evacuations from Afghanistan continue. Since August 14, they have topped 110,000, with 12,500 people in the last 24 hours.

Perhaps the news story that best illustrates the tension today between individualism and using the government to help everyone is about a natural disaster. Hurricane Ida, which formed in the Caribbean yesterday, is barreling toward the U.S. Gulf Coast. When it hit western Cuba today, it was a Category 1 storm, but meteorologists expect it to pick up speed as it crosses the warm gulf, becoming a Category 4 storm by the time it hits the U.S. coastline. The area from Louisiana to Florida is in the storm’s path. New Orleans could see winds of up to 110 miles an hour and a storm surge of as much as 11 feet. Louisiana officials issued evacuation orders today.

The storm is expected to hit Sunday evening, exactly 16 years after Hurricane Katrina did. But this time, there is another complication: this is the very part of the country suffering terribly right now from coronavirus. Standing firm on individual rights, only about 40% of Louisiana’s population has been vaccinated, and hospitals are already stretched thin.

Today, President Biden declared an emergency in Louisiana, ordering federal assistance from the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the region ahead of the storm, trying to head off a catastrophe. The federal government will also help to pay the costs of the emergency.

—-

Notes:

https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/pentagon-officials-hank-taylor-john-kirby-press-briefing-transcript-august-27-afghanistan-update

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/27/weather/tropical-storm-ida-friday/index.html

https://apnews.com/article/health-louisiana-coronavirus-pandemic-1a2264b5a43033ed70fe9790c2e89437

NYPD story is from the New York Post, but a citation from them always stops the delivery of lots of letters, so I’m going to suggest people look for it themselves.

https://gov.texas.gov/uploads/files/press/EO-GA-39_prohibiting_vaccine_mandates_and_vaccine_passports_IMAGE_08-25-2021.pdf

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/08/27/president-joseph-r-biden-jr-approves-louisiana-emergency-declaration-2/

://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/27/afghanistan-kabul-taliban-live-updates/#link-KFQMWZKFSNH4DBBMK2VAJMAZF4

Meredith Lee @meredithlleeCENTCOM: "U.S. military forces conducted an over-the-horizon counterterrorism operation today against an ISIS-K planner. The unmanned airstrike occurred in the Nangahar Province of Afghanistan. Initial indications are that we killed the target. We know of no civilian casualties."

78 Retweets151 Likes

August 28th 2021

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2021/08/27/afghanistan-live-updates-taliban-kabul-news/5611093001/

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/ncna1277715

https://apnews.com/article/lifestyle-health-education-florida-coronavirus-pandemic-1908088a0b5c5b02d89fd7e007822408

Ryan Struyk @ryanstruykThe United States is now reporting 1,194 new coronavirus deaths per day, the highest seven-day average since March 19, according to data from @CNN and Johns Hopkins University.

246 Retweets677 Likes

August 27th 2021

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/officer-who-shot-ashli-babbitt-during-capitol-riot-breaks-silence-n1277736

Jim Banks @RepJimBanksRead my letter to 1/6 Chair @BennieGThompson about his norm shattering decision to spy on his colleagues. @ATT @Verizon @TMobile @Facebook @Twitter @FCC

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August 27th 2021

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https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/27/politics/us-military-airstrike-isis-k-planner-afghanistan/index.html

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#letters from an american #heather cox richardson #political #capital riots #Federal Government #US History

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theliberaltony · 5 years

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via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to a weekly collaboration between FiveThirtyEight and ABC News. With 5,000 people seemingly thinking about challenging President Trump in 2020 — Democrats and even some Republicans — we’re keeping tabs on the field as it develops. Each week, we’ll run through what the potential candidates are up to — who’s getting closer to officially jumping in the ring and who’s getting further away.

The Democratic presidential field seems like it’s close to being set. And while the candidates try to differentiate themselves on issues like health care, climate change, education and whether President Trump should be impeached, Joe Biden continues to lead in polls.

Here’s the weekly roundup.

May 17-23, 2019

Michael Bennet (D) The Colorado senator released his plan to combat climate change Monday. It sets a 2050 goal for the U.S. to reach net-zero emissions, calls for the expansion of zero-emission energy options for American households and businesses, and — among other initiatives — includes a pledge to host a global climate summit in the first 100 days of a Bennet presidency.

Next Thursday, Bennet will take part in a CNN town hall in Atlanta.

Joe Biden (D) At a campaign rally in Philadelphia last weekend, Biden defended his bipartisan outlook on governance, pitching his experience of working across the aisle and arguing that it isn’t too late to unite Americans across the political spectrum.

Biden brought in over $2 million through a pair of fundraising events in Miami and Orlando this week, showing a willingness to engage with big-money donors from which much of the Democratic field has shied away.

The former vice president’s campaign took part in a back and forth with North Korea after an opinion piece that was posted on the website of KCNA — the North Korean news agency — said Biden was “misbehaving” and criticized him as someone “who likes to stick his nose into other people’s business and is a poor excuse for a politician.”

Biden’s campaign responded, saying that “it’s no surprise North Korea would prefer that Donald Trump remain in the White House.”

Cory Booker (D) The New Jersey senator issued a plan to “protect reproductive rights” Wednesday in which he pledged to create a “White House Office of Reproductive Freedom” if he is elected. It would coordinate the advancement of “abortion rights and access to reproductive health care” across his administration.

Booker was scheduled to take part in an MSNBC town hall in Iowa on Thursday, but it was rescheduled so that he could remain in Washington for Senate votes. He’ll still travel throughout the Hawkeye State this weekend.

Steve Bullock (D) Bullock’s first week as a presidential candidate included an NPR interview in which he played up his ability to win over voters in his red home state of Montana.

“I’m probably the only one in the race that actually won in a Trump state,” he said. “I mean, I got reelected in 2016. Donald Trump took Montana by 20 points. I won by 4. Twenty-five to 30 percent of my voters voted for Donald Trump.”

After spending three days in Iowa last week, the Montana governor returns to the state next Tuesday for four events.

Pete Buttigieg (D) Buttigieg garnered headlines for his performance in a Fox News town hall last weekend, renewing the debate over whether it is beneficial for Democratic candidates to appear on the news network that is often criticized for its conservative bent.

During his appearance, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, took aim at a pair of the network’s right-wing commentators, arguing that Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham were “not always there in good faith,” pointing specifically to their views on the ongoing immigration policy debate.

After stops in Florida, New York and Washington, D.C., this week, Buttigieg will campaign over the weekend in New Hampshire, with events in Londonderry, Exeter and Keene on Friday and Saturday.

Julian Castro (D) As the Democratic field railed against abortion restrictions passed by legislatures in several states, Castro promised to appoint “an entirely pro-choice cabinet,” saying that the issue transcends any one executive branch department.

Castro appeared on “Late Night with Seth Meyers” and responded to criticism that either he or Beto O’Rourke could make a greater political impact by challenging Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn next year. “I think Beto would be a great Senate candidate,” he joked.

Bill de Blasio (D) A Quinnipiac University poll had some bad news for the New York City mayor. It showed de Blasio with a net favorability rating (favorable rating minus unfavorable rating) of -37 percentage points among voters overall.

Last Friday, de Blasio made his first campaign stop in Iowa, where he toured an ethanol plant with former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. During the visit, he lashed out at Trump, saying: “Time and again, when there’s an opportunity to help the biofuels industry grow and to create jobs in places like rural Iowa, the Trump administration has favored big petroleum companies, and that has to end.”

John Delaney (D) The former Maryland congressman rolled out a climate action plan with a $4 trillion proposal on Thursday. The central aspect of his plan is a fee on carbon emissions that he says will reduce them by 90 percent by 2050.

“We have to act on climate, and we have to act now,” Delaney said in a statement. “We need a real plan to hit our goals, and we have to listen to actual scientists. This is a real plan that all Americans can support. It is full of new ideas and massive investments in innovation that will both deal with climate change and create jobs in the heartland and all across our country.”

Delaney, however, is not among the slate of Democratic contenders backing the Green New Deal.

Tulsi Gabbard (D) Gabbard, an Iraq War veteran, continued to push her campaign’s focus on foreign policy. In an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week,” Gabbard said Trump is “leading us down this dangerous path towards a war in Iran.”

She further cautioned that a war in Iran “would actually undermine our national security, cost us countless American lives, cost civilian lives across the region, exacerbate the refugee crisis in Europe and it would actually make us less safe by strengthening terrorist groups” like ISIS and al-Qaida.

“As president, I will end these counterproductive and wasteful regime-change wars, work to end this new cold war and nuclear arms race, recognizing how wasteful and costly these are,” she said.

Kirsten Gillibrand (D) Gillibrand unveiled a plan on Wednesday termed the “Family Bill of Rights” to invest heavily in maternal and child health, paid family leave and universal prekindergarten. This proposal is part of Gillibrand’s focus on women, children and families. She is also working to position herself as the most outspoken proponent of abortion rights within the Democratic field.

On Tuesday, she spoke at a rally with other Democrats to protest the new abortion restrictions that states such as Alabama and Georgia have passed. Later in an interview with NPR, she said, “I think President Trump and these very extreme Republican legislators around the country, they are taking this country in a direction that it does not want to go.” She added, “I believe that if President Trump wants a war with America’s women, it’s a war he will have and it is one he will lose.”

Kamala Harris (D) The California senator rolled out a bill to address racial discrepancies in maternal health care, calling for investment in training to reduce bias among health professionals and the early identification of high-risk pregnancies.

On “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Wednesday, Harris accused Trump of holding the nation’s infrastructure “hostage.” Earlier in the day, the president abruptly ended a White House meeting on the issue with Democratic leaders in response to the party’s efforts to continue investigating him.

John Hickenlooper (D) The former Colorado governor pushed back against calls for candidates like him to run for the Senate instead of the presidency, telling Stephanopoulos on “This Week” that he’d be a “difficult candidate as a senator.”

“I’ve spent my whole life putting teams together both as an entrepreneur in the private sector, but also as a mayor and as a governor,” Hickenlooper said. “And by building those teams, we’ve been able to bring people together and do the big progressive things that people said couldn’t be done.”

“That’s the only way we’re going to … be able to bring some common sense to Washington,” he added.

Jay Inslee (D) The Washington governor’s push for a 2020 debate focused on climate change picked up steam this week, with Elizabeth Warren adding her support. “Yes! We need to do everything we can to save our planet,” Warren tweeted.

in April, Inslee wrote: “We have barely a decade to defeat climate change. And whether we shrink to this challenge, or rise to it, is the central question of our time — and it deserves a full DNC debate.”

Amy Klobuchar (D) Klobuchar, who’s attempted to position herself as a moderating voice in the Democratic field, joined demonstrators on the steps of the Supreme Court this week to protest anti-abortion bills that have passed in states like Alabama.

The Minnesota senator said: “I think one of the things I’ve seen in my state is that there are people that hold their own individual beliefs. … But they don’t believe that that means you put those beliefs on other people. And that is exactly what this president has done.”

Seth Moulton (D) Moulton, an Iraq War veteran, announced a plan this week to encourage young Americans to serve their country. Speaking on ABC’s “This Week,” the Massachusetts representative called the proposal “the kind of forward-looking policy that I think we need to meet the challenges of a changing world, to address climate change, to bring broadband to rural communities and to say to America we need a common mission.”

Beto O’Rourke (D) O’Rourke continued his campaign reboot. He appeared on CNN for a town hall, in which he called for impeachment proceedings against Trump. “We should begin impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump — not something that I take lightly,” he said.

Tim Ryan (D) Ryan, who was once against abortion but flipped his stance a few years ago, called for bipartisan solutions to address women’s reproductive rights this week.

“I met women for the first time in my life that had an abortion,” Ryan said at a protest on the Supreme Court steps on Tuesday. “I met women who had to deal with very difficult, complicated circumstances in their pregnancies. And over time, because of the courage of the women who came into my office and who wanted to help craft legislation, I changed my position.”

Bernie Sanders (D) The Vermont senator rolled out a comprehensive education plan that would halt federal funding for charter school expansion, set a teacher pay floor at $60,000, and provide universal free lunches, among other investments.

At a South Carolina event announcing the plan, Sanders drew a connection between education reform and social injustice, noting that changes to public education in recent decades have disproportionately affected African Americans and increased school segregation.

In a CNN interview on Wednesday, Sanders expressed his strongest support yet for an impeachment inquiry, saying that if Trump “continues to not understand the Constitution of the United States” and blocks further subpoenas of staffers and former aides, “it may well be time for an impeachment inquiry to begin.”

Eric Swalwell (D) On the steps of the Supreme Court on Tuesday, the California representative joined seven other 2020 Democratic hopefuls and protesters to speak out against abortion bills that have recently passed at the state level.

Swalwell also appeared on the liberal podcast “Pod Save America” and argued that Democrats shouldn’t dismiss Trump voters, speaking about his parents’ support for the president.

Elizabeth Warren (D) Warren continued to introduce policy proposals. This time, she offered up a platform aimed at protecting women’s reproductive rights. Warren’s plan would “block states from interfering in the ability of a health care provider to provide medical care, including abortion services,” according to her policy rollout.

The senator had a viral moment when she responded to a Twitter user who asked her for relationship advice. “DM me and let’s figure this out,” Warren replied.

The senator apparently went on to call a number of Twitter users asking for advice. “Guess who’s crying and shaking and just talked to Elizabeth Warren on the phone?!?!?” one user tweeted.

Bill Weld (R) Still the sole Republican challenging Trump in the Republican primary, Weld revved up his attacks on the president. “I celebrate that America has always been a melting pot,” Weld said at a speaking event. “It seems he would prefer an Aryan nation.”

Speaking to ABC News after the event, Weld said: “It’s not just that I’m feeling more like going on the attack; it’s also that the president is moving to a deeper level of irresponsibility.”

Marianne Williamson (D) The spiritual adviser and author made her case for the presidency on ABC News’s “The Briefing Room,” arguing that she’s not running just to “elevate a conversation.”

“It’s important that I absolutely be prepared to win and that I make the effort to win,” Williamson told ABC News Senior Washington Reporter Devin Dwyer. “I’m not here just to elevate a conversation. We need to elevate this country”

Andrew Yang (D) Yang was the subject of a Politico Magazine profile that examined his candidacy and ability — thus far — to gain a relatively substantial following through non-traditional media interviews while pushing his universal basic income plan and cautioning about the economic dangers of automation.

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Adam Kelsey #Will Steakin and Sruthi Palaniappan

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giftofshewbread · 3 years

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God Warned Us

By Daymond Duck Published on: May 23, 2021

Our government is in a spiritual war.

Globalists are determined to transform America.

America once knew God, but our leaders now ignore and exclude Him.

Godless people are running our nation.

Christian ministries are being banned by social media.

God answers prayer, but less than half of U.S. citizens are Christian, and many are not praying.

Our leaders openly champion the anti-Biblical agenda of abortionists and gays.

Our freedom of speech and religion are at stake.

Our economy is being destroyed.

Our border with Mexico is wide open.

Deceit is rampant.

The Great Reset wants to seize our property and make our children wards of the state.

Globalists, including Pres. Biden, Pope Francis and others are pushing for a world government, forced vaccinations, and more.

America is threatened as never before in our history.

Israel is threatened and maligned.

God’s prophets warned us that many of these things would happen, and serious students of Bible prophecy are not surprised.

Here are more events that are moving us down the prophetic road:

One, on May 11, 2021, the Biden administration repeated its support for the two-state solution, and White House Press Sec. Jen Psaki said, “That is the only way to ensure the just and lasting peace.”

That belief comes from the pits of Hell because the Bible says God will drag the nations into the Battle of Armageddon for doing that (Joel 3:2).

That is one war that is not going to turn out the way world leaders think.

Two, on May 12, 2021, Hamas issued an ultimatum to Israel: Withdraw from the Al-Aqsa Mosque (they falsely claim that this includes the entire Temple Mount) and Sheikh Jarrah (a community near East Jerusalem) by 6 pm or hundreds of more rockets will be fired into Israel.

Israel did not respond.

On May 14, 2021, it was reported that Hamas was trying to convince Palestinians (and Muslims in other places) that they are the “Defender of Jerusalem” (The teaching that Jerusalem belongs to Muslims is a lie).

On May 15, 2021, it was reported that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) are calling this conflict “The Al-Quds Swords War (Al-Quds is the Muslim name for Jerusalem).

The struggle for Jerusalem will continue until Jesus returns to defeat Israel’s enemies at the Battle of Armageddon.

Three, on May 12, 2021, the UN’s Middle East Peace Envoy warned that the uprising in Israel could escalate into a full-scale war, and the UN Security Council held its second emergency meeting in three days to deal with the situation.

Wars and rumors of wars are a sign of the end of the age.

Violence has now broken out between Arab and Jewish citizens in dozens of communities.

Four, on May 13, 2021, Hamas started firing more powerful rockets with a longer range into Israel, and it was reported that they have been trying (without success) to hit the offshore rig in Israel’s Tamar gas field.

Five, on May 13, 2021, Israel’s military announced that its ground troops were invading Gaza.

An hour or so later, Israel’s military announced that they had not started an invasion but were putting troops and weapons in place in case they wanted to start one.

These announcements were contradictory and confusing, but reporters hopped on the story and sent out word that the invasion was underway.

Shortly after that (early Friday morning), 160 Israeli planes dropped 450 bombs containing more than 80 tons of explosives on several kilometers of known terrorist tunnels in Gaza (One tunnel ran under a major street in Gaza City).

Israel’s military said the first announcement that the invasion had started was a ploy because they knew all the terrorists would rush into the tunnels, and they wanted to give them time to gather underground to hide.

Then Israel dropped all those bombs to bury alive as many as possible.

No one knows how many were buried, but Israel believes it was a large number.

On May 14, 2021, it was reported that Hamas leaders are deeply shocked at how many Hamas leaders have been killed, and they suspect that Israel may have hacked into their secret communication system (It has also been reported that the Senior Commander of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group was killed).

On May 15, 2021, the IDF said, “No Hamas officer may feel safe, over or underground.”

On May 16, 2021, the IDF dropped 110 bombs that were designed to destroy tunnels on the network of terrorist tunnels.

On May 16, 2021, Israel destroyed the homes of 9 terrorist commanders (weapons were stored in some of those homes).

On May 18, 2021, the IDF estimated that it has destroyed 130 km (about 80 miles) of terrorist tunnels in Gaza.

Six, on May 13, 2021, terrorists in Lebanon fired 3 rockets toward Israel that landed in the Mediterranean Sea and did not hit anything.

Demonstrators in Lebanon started marching toward Israel while waving Palestinian flags.

When some of them crossed the border, Israeli tanks fired warning shots, and the demonstrators went back into Lebanon.

On May 17, 2021, terrorists in Lebanon fired 6 more rockets toward Israel, but they fell short.

Hezbollah has more than 200,000 rockets ready to fire at Israel.

Israel has warned Lebanon and Hezbollah that Israel will destroy Lebanon if Hezbollah attacks Israel.

On May 17, 2021, Jordan recalled its ambassador to Israel and expelled Israel’s ambassador to Jordan.

Jordan sent a message to UN Sec. Gen. Guterres saying Israel provoked her enemies into starting this war.

For whatever it is worth, some (not all) prophecy teachers believe there will be an end-of-the-age war called the “Psalm 83 War.”

Psalm 83 is an imprecatory prayer by a prophet and priest named Asaph (II Chron. 29:30), asking God to deal with Israel’s enemies at a time of great danger to Israel.

Those that believe a Psa. 83 war contend that several Psalms are prophetic (Psa. 2, 16, 21, and many more), prayers can be prophetic, and God will answer Asaph’s prophetic prayer.

The list of Israel’s enemies in Psa. 83 includes the Philistines (Palestinians in Gaza and Jordan), Moab (an area in Jordan), Ammon (a city in Jordan), with the inhabitants of Tyre (a city in Lebanon that is under the control of Hezbollah; Psa. 83:7).

83:1 says, “Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.”

83:2 says, “For, lo, thine enemies (God’s enemies) make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.”

83:3 says, “They (God’s enemies) have taken crafty counsel against thy

people (Israel), and consulted against thy hidden ones.”

83:4 says, God’s enemies will say, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation (let us destroy Israel); that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.”

83:5 says, “For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee” (the Muslims have gotten together and conspired against Jehovah).

83:11-12 says, “Make their nobles (leaders) like Oreb, and like Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zebah, and as Zalmunna: Who said, Let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession” (Let us, Israel, kill the leaders of God’s enemies because those leaders are saying, “Let us seize the holy places of Israel).

83:18 calls for the destruction of Israel’s enemies “That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth” (Destroy Israel’s enemies so people will know that God’s name is Jehovah and He rules over the whole earth).

Most Bible prophecy teachers that believe Psa. 83 is about an end-of-the-age war believe it will take place just prior to the Battle of Gog and Magog (Ezek. 38-39).

They believe this could also lead to the destruction of Damascus in one night (Isa. 17), and on May 14, 2021, at least 3 rockets were launched into Israel from Syria.

On May 18, 2021, a drone was sent from Syria into Israel, but Israel shot it down.

Seven, concerning world government: on May 13, 2021, it was reported that a Suffolk County, NY College Professor warned in an interview with Tucker Carlson of Fox News that schools are teaching Anti-American globalist theory instead of the U.S. Constitution.

Instead of educating our students, they are brainwashing them with the idea that Americans must do what is best for the world, not what is best for America.

Eight, on May 17, 2021, it was reported that Directors of Microsoft wanted Bill Gates removed as a Director for an inappropriate relationship with a female Microsoft employee.

It has also been reported that Gates had a relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein.

This immoral globalist wants to tell everyone on earth how they should live, force everyone to be vaccinated, reduce the population of the earth, etc.

With globalists like Gates influencing the whole world, how can anyone doubt that a godless man called the Antichrist will be empowered to rule over it?

Nine, on May 12, 2012, it was reported that some people that have taken a Covid vaccination are saying a magnet will stick to their injection wound, and videos have appeared on social media allegedly showing it happening.

Magnets will stick to metal, but not flesh.

This is causing people to suspect that at least some so-called vaccines contain a nanochip for tracking purposes.

Some scientists dismiss this as a conspiracy theory, but many who say that work for, or are employed by, companies with ties to the government.

A nanochip in the jab could be dangerous because of the globalist desire to force people to be vaccinated.

On May 16, 2021, it was reported that FDA inspectors ordered 15 million doses of Johnson and Johnson’s Covid vaccine to be trashed because of contaminants.

Ten, more on Covid:

On May 15, 2021, it was reported that 40-50 percent of Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Center for Disease Control (CDC) employees have not taken the vaccine.

Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), said it is about the same in that organization.

Eleven, more on Covid:

On May 17, 2021, Pres. Biden said, “those who are not vaccinated will end up paying the price,” whatever that means.

The Democrats and some Republicans say a woman has a Constitutional right to choose what to do with her own body.

It looks like they say she has a Constitutional right to choose, if she wants to abort (kill) her baby, but she does not have a Constitutional right to choose if she wants to refuse to be vaccinated.

Perhaps they should be sued for denying women their Constitutional right to choose what to do with their own body.

For your information, as of May 17, 2021, almost one million people have signed a LifeSiteNews petition rejecting mandatory Covid vaccinations (the number of people that will “end up paying the price” may not be small).

Twelve, concerning hyper-inflation and an economic collapse: on May 12, 2021, it was reported that federal taxes, federal spending, and the federal debt have set records in the first seven months (Oct. through Apr.) of the 2021 fiscal year.

Thirteen, concerning persecution: on May 18, 2021, it was reported that Canada has now arrested 3 pastors for holding church services that violate orders (not wearing a mask, not social distancing, not locking down, or whatever).

Finally, if you want to be rapture ready and go to heaven, you must be born again (John 3:3). God loves you, and if you have not done so, sincerely admit that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus is the virgin-born, sinless Son of God, who died for the sins of the world, was buried, and raised from the dead; ask Him to forgive your sins, cleanse you, come into your heart and be your Saviour; then tell someone that you have done this.

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msclaritea · 3 years

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“Some critics argued that living in a million-dollar home was at odds with her social justice mission. Vallejo for Social Justice, a movement that describes itself as 'Abolition + Socialist collective in the struggle for liberation, self-determination, & poor, working class solidarity,' said it was an ill-judged flaunting of wealth.

'We're talking generational wealth off of the deaths & struggle of Black folks here,' they tweeted. 'Justice Teams Network & BLM founder paid $1.4 million dollars for a home. 'This past week we bought a cot for our unhoused Black elder friend to keep him off the ground.

'One LGBTQ activist described BLM as 'a racket'. Jason Whitlock, a sports journalist, tweeted that: 'She had a lot of options on where to live. She chose one of the whitest places in California. She'll have her pick of white cops and white people to complain about. That's a choice, bro.'

Author and activist Andy Ngo tweeted: 'Cullors identifies as a communist & advocates for the abolishment of capitalism.'

Paul Joseph Watson, a British YouTube host, said she chose to live in 'one of the whitest areas of California'. Another Twitter user called Cullors a 'fraud' an said her brand of 'Marxism' apparently included buying a $1.4 million house.

Tucker Carlson on Friday night told his Fox News viewers that Twitter had even begun taking down reference to the property. Carlson noted that Whitlock posted on Twitter a link to the original story about the property, on the celebrity property blog The Dirt. 'He posted this on Twitter. Just made the obvious point. What? What happened? His account has been locked by Twitter,' said Carlson. 'This was a news story on real estate blog. He posted it. Lots of other people posted it. But when Jason Whitlock, who is an extremely effective voice for reason, who speaks clearly and honestly and is, therefore, a threat. They shut him down. Amazing, on many levels.'

Cullors founded BLM with Alicia Garza and Opal Tometi in 2013, in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, who killed Trayvon Martin.It is unclear if Cullors is paid by the group, which is currently cleft by deep divisions over leadership and funding.”

Coalition For Community Control Over Policing

How long until folks stop gaslighting victims of #BLMLA? Anyone who speaks out about being assaulted, about the compromises that deliberately hurt/sabotage grassroots' work is projected as "divisive", "cointelpro", "in their ego", or a "distraction". Lisa Simpson is an outspoken Mother who didn't ask to be in this club. She was exploited and robbed for funeral funds. Assaulted last year for trying to approach "leadership" to talk. I was assaulted late last year by the same "security" in front of my daughter. Yesterday, Ms. Lisa Simpson, Mother of Richard Risher, was assaulted a second time. How long does an organization get to weaponize State violence and paint Mothers as "in pain/anguish" to neutralize their voices and the way they're being exploited? How long does an organization get to patronize the very folks they claim to represent? There are multiple men they prop up, who have been threatening and physically abusive to women in the movement. Ms Lisa Simpson was, again, surrounded, denigrated w/ her family, a woman ran up to physically assault her. I've had their Comrades post my home address and ask Black Los Angeles to come neutralize us; threaten to call CPS and have the State come kidnap my kids. Something, as a former foster care youth, that I don't take lightly. I've been painted as antagonistic and violent for meeting threats to my children head on. Been sexually denigrated, endlessly, at our protests and event pages, by their orbit of misogynists. Anyone who speaks out is marked for assault and abuse. How long are folks going to trash the poor working class oppressed Black folks and grassroots for using common sense? Everything that isn't worship is "from the State". There's a sociopathic and parasitic leader, who sanctions violence against Black Mothers, disabled Mothers, and as long as the silver-tongue production about Black death continues, most are happy to turn a blind eye to the relentless assaults, slander, and abuse leveled against the very folks #BLMLA claims to represent. How is the trajectory of your healing impacted by being robbed and relentlessly assaulted for speaking out about an organization that exploited you?

https://eurweb.com/2021/04/04/monday-la-press-conference-set-by-lisa-simpson-a-mother-ripped-off-by-blm/?fbclid=IwAR30pGdznagIhRxtN_Nds2I4-lpF9Jq6kR5R2HmFwkRuy2MPnxWQaR-NOZM

I hate seeing this because it happens quite frequently to people who have already been victimized; that of being taken in by what I dub ‘Disaster Activism’. I warned people over a year ago, that while supporting Black Lives Matter was important, to please NOT send money to the actual BLM organization, because of what I had witnessed for myself being reported on Twitter; that Pre-George Floyd, they weren’t really doing much except showing up to incidents, declaring support, collecting donations, then disappearing. They were doing nothing before. Post-George Floyd, simply because they had the right slogan, they collected a lot of money. Now, because BLM were never a solid organization in the first place, they are experiencing in-fighting and just a hot mess. BLMLA was engaged in the past with aggressively harassing politicians and vandalizing their homes. The ONE thing people can do to help in this moment, is to stay on their asses, and demand that they clean house and uphold their promises about supporting victims of Police Brutality. We cannot allow wannabe grifters to slow the movement of Progress.

#Patrisse Cullors #So called Marxist #BLMLA #spending money on expensive homes instead of supporting victims of Police Brutality #Republicans are not the only people who take advantage of their own #They do not own Black Lives Matter #Tell Warner Bros to drop Patrisse Cullors

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orbemnews · 3 years

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Unemployment Scammer Spills Secrets: Illinois Easy Target Because 'They Don’t Verify Anything' By Dorothy Tucker CHICAGO (CBS) — You’ve heard a lot about fraud in the state’s unemployment system, but you’ve never heard this: A scammer spills his secrets — how he steals your taxpayer dollars, leaving those desperately needing benefits stuck in limbo. CBS 2 Investigator Dorothy Tucker went inside the scheme and uncovers why Illinois is a favorite target. Cynthia Sawaneh couldn’t believe what CBS 2 showed her on her computer. The information she was looking at usually lurks in the shadows, meant for criminals who are aiming to make millions, targeting taxpayers like Sawaneh. “This is really scary. Oh my God,” she said after reading the words on the screen. “They got my money.” The CBS 2 Investigators showed Sawaneh a 19-page guide. It’s a how-to on filing fraudulent unemployment claims. “It’s like any other step-by-step tutorial,” said Crane Hassold, who is the Senior Director of Threat Research at Agari, a business email security firm. “It walks you through exactly what questions to answer.” Before Agari, Hassold worked in the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit, investigating national security threats and serial criminals, like those scamming unemployment systems across the country, including here in Illinois. “They’ve adapted their tactics,” he said. His job at Agari is to cultivate a network of sources, willing to sell their scamming secrets. “We’ve been able to build those sources over the past year or so,” he said. As a result of the connections made, Hassold knows their tactics and the tutorial well. “It’s a lot of screenshots and very brief descriptions of how you should fill out the information,” he said. The tutorial for Illinois describes which section to leave blank, when to click next and where to answer “no.” It also describes how to fill out the phone number — just find the area code and the rest can be “rubbish”. “What’s really surprising is how open a lot of these cybercriminals are to share how they do what they do,” said Hassold. The scammers are also telling Hassold and his team how they get their hands on the money. “Once a claim has actually been filed and everything’s processing, it provides the user with an opportunity to change that direct deposit method,” said Hassold. Translation: it makes it easy for the thief to steer stolen funds to an accessible account. We’re not telling you where or how to find the tutorials, but we will say it took us less than 24 hours to get an offer to buy one. All it took was a series of text messages with someone with a tutorial to sell and pictures to prove it. The asking price? $50 in bitcoin or cash. “It’s completely disgusting that this exists,” said Ofer Eckstein who is a partner at Personnel Planners, a third-party vendor helping clients process unemployment claims. Describing the amount of fraud right now, he said, “It’s terrible.” His clients feel the pain. Personnel Planners has 1,200 across the state representing school districts, healthcare facilities and restaurants. His clients employ about 200,000 people. “Over 50% of the claims that we receive in our office are fraudulent claims,” Eckstein said. Before the pandemic he said it was “Less than 1%.” The bogus claims Eckstein sees are just a fraction of the fraud. The Illinois Department of Employment Security reported, between March 2020 and January 2021, it had stopped close to one million fraudulent claims. Cynthia Sawaneh’s case is one of them. After her work hours cut back from 40 hours a week to just 16 hours, she applied for unemployment benefits in late October. She received one deposit, $397, before getting a letter from IDES saying, “…that my identity had been compromised. Therefore, my unemployment was ceased,” said Sawaneh. Like so many identity theft victims, she knows scammers have her personal information, “My employer, my address, my name, my date of birth,” she said. But Sawaneh has one big outstanding question. “I would really like to know how they got my information,” she asked. Here’s how. Scammers bought it, probably off the dark web. It’s the same place criminals shop for drugs, guns, fake passports and social security numbers. Paul Petefish, with Chicago’s Evolve Security, showed CBS 2 how easy it is to find those things. “Right here we have list of markets,” he said. A five-minute search turned up nearly 500 vendors. “This is somebody’s driver’s license,” said Petefish. Precious personal information for sale collected from massive data breaches in the past. Among those: The 2013 hack of three billion Yahoo accounts that exposed names, email addresses, phone numbers, birthdates, passwords as well as security questions and answers. The 2018 hack of 500 million Marriott accounts revealing customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, birthdates and gender. Hackers also got some payment card numbers and expiration dates according to the Federal Trade Commission. The 2017 hack of Equifax where the personal identifiable information of 147 million people got stolen, including their names, social security numbers, birthdates, addresses and in some cases, their driver’s license numbers. What’s the cost to buy that information now, all these years later? “This one’s $40. This one’s $8,” said Petefish. Who is buying this information and then using it to steal identities, file fake claims and slow down benefits for the jobless or underemployed who are struggling, like Sawaneh? Her unemployment benefits suddenly stopped and her identity appeared to have been compromised. She now visits food banks frequently to feed her family. “It’s things I find myself doing that I’ve never had to do before,” she said. Another first: “All my bills are behind,” said Sawaneh. Even her mortgage. “There are times that bills come in and you don’t bother to look at them because it just depresses you,” she said. She had just bought her very first home and now worries about losing it. “I never would have dreamed that I would have to go through this,” said Sawaneh. Scammers could not care less about her struggle to keep food on the table, make a dent in the growing pile of bills or keep her dream home. Many of them reside far away from the South Side of Chicago where Sawaneh lives. They live in the dark recesses of Russia, Europe, and West Africa. “A lot of the scammers are young, They’re quite highly educated,” said Crane Hassold whose sources are in Nigeria. “It’s a job. This is how they make their living,” he said. So, he pays them $150 in cryptocurrency, untraceable money, to talk. “They want to brag about the crimes that they’re committing,” said Hassold. What one scammer told him about our unemployment system will make you cringe. The scammer said: “They don’t verify anything. What they just check is, is the name and the social security number the same? Is the date of birth on the Social Security number correct? That’s the only thing we have to get right on our part. Once they have gotten those kinds of information, it is over?” And get this, scammers consider IDES an easier target than most. Why? “Primarily because of some of the restrictions that are not in place in Illinois may be in place in other states,” Hassold explained. He means better security measures like in Oklahoma, where a new identity verification tool was put in place in November. It’s a Digital ID program from IDEMIA. Oklahomans who file unemployment claims are now required to upload their driver’s license and take a selfie. The new tool uses facial recognition technology to make sure the faces match. “And this picture was taken recently and wasn’t pulled off the website or something like that,” said Shelley Zumwalt, the Executive Director at the Oklahoma Employment Security Commission (OESC). In just the first month using the new identity tool called VerifyOK, OESC saw fraud cases drop by 40%, verified and paid 100,000 legit claimants and saved taxpayers $20 million. “It helped quite a bit,” said Zumwalt. How long will it help? “This is a very difficult group of people to stay one step ahead of,” said Michele Evermore with the National Employment Law Project. She works with states to improve their unemployment systems and make them more secure. “After they figured out how to shut them out one way, the fraudsters figured out another way to get in,” she said. “Wherever there is an opportunity to make money, a lot of these scammers really jump on and try to make as much money as they can,” said Hassold. Making money at the expense of faceless victims like Sawaneh. “We don’t know them. We don’t know who they are. We don’t familiarize with them. It’s just an hustle to us over here,” said the scammer Hassold paid for his insight. What’s a hustle to the overseas scammer is harmful to people here in Illinois, like Sawaneh, waiting on benefits, trying to make ends meet and worrying about the future. “It’s been stressful to me. Many nights of no sleep. Waking up early, walking back and forth around the house. It’s a terrifying situation to live in,” she said. The question is what is IDES doing to stop scammers? We asked. The agency didn’t exactly answer that question. However, last week the agency did release a statement announcing new requirements. Now, all pandemic unemployment claimants will have to upload a paycheck stub, W-2 or some other proof of employment. Will this prevent fraud? We’ll have to wait to see. Also From CBS Chicago: Source link Orbem News #Dont #Easy #Illinois #Scammer #secrets #Spills #Target #Unemployment #verify

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melanshi · 7 years

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Hack and Attack

i haven’t written any danphan fics in so long???? hello police i need to be arrested

anyways

FoleyFest 2017 Day 1- Technology

Characters: Tucker Foley, Sam Manson, Danny Fenton, a whole bunch of Guys in White

Notes: do i know anything about security systems? short answer: no. long answer: fuck no.

His Uncle Alex gave him his first PDA for his 5th birthday. It was perhaps the best present he ever received.

“He’s five, Alex,” his father had said. “What’s he going to do with this?”

Uncle Alex had shrugged. “Something to keep him entertained. Kids these days.”

Tucker vaguely remembered him turning to him and winking.

“If you want to learn anything else about it, call me, kid. Looking at the way technology is going, it might be helpful in the future.”

“How long, Tuck?”

Tucker didn’t peel his eyes away from the computer to acknowledge Sam’s question and instead grinned. “Ten minutes tops. It’s the Guys in White’s network. It’s not something I’m unfamiliar with.”

“Can we do it under five?” Danny’s voice came through the Fenton Phones. “I don’t think I can handle holding these guys off much longer before they start to get suspicious.”

Sam nodded, fully aware that he couldn’t see her. “Just try to keep them busy, Danny. We’ll handle this.”

“Alrighty.”

Sam stuck her head into the hallway, checking for any stray Guys in White that weren’t distracted by the ghost boy outside the building. Luckily, there were none.

“Tucker? How’s it going?”

“Iffy. Seems like they figured out that someone was managing to hack through their system. This is all new.”

“Crap.”

“Exactly.”

There was a quick pause through the room, broken only by the tapping of keyboard keys.

“Actually...” Tucker bit his lip. “I could technically buy us a little time.”

“How so?” Sam asked.

“The security systems still run on the same program as they did before. I’ve hacked those before--”

“When?” That was Danny.

Tucker smirked. “If there’s anything I’ve learned from all this Team Phantom business, it’s to be prepared. And I’d love to explain but I don’t have enough time.”

“Understandable.”

“How quickly can you activate the system?”

For the first time since he sat down at the computer, Tucker turned around and flashed Sam a smile. “I’m already in. It’s just a flip of a switch now.”

“Uh, Tuck? You might want to flip that switch. Some of these guys seemed to have realized what was going on.” There was worry in Danny’s voice.

“Copy that.”

“It’s a pretty simple system,” Uncle Alex had told him, on a day he’d taken him to his work, a job as a security officer for a small telephone manufacturer. “But they make it tough to get into, which is good for us, since hackers take days to even get through the first time.”

“And what about the second time? And the third time? And the fourth time?”

“Well, hopefully there won’t be more than one time.” Uncle Alex shook his head before pulling his nephew onto his lap. “The system is activated through the cameras. You just have to pull up a camera feed.”

He gently took Tucker’s hand and guided it over to the mouse. Tucker looked up at him with wide eyes, to which Uncle Alex responded with a wink. He seemed to like winking.

“You see that little icon on the screen? The one that looks like a camera?”

“Yes.”

“Click on that one.”

“Okay.” Click.

A popup menu appeared, featuring tiny previews of each security camera, slowly and choppily moving, not like a video, but like a slideshow.

His uncle observed them all for a second, deciding which feed to use as an example before eventually instructing him to click on the third one on the top, which was dark and empty. He did what he was told.

“Okay from here, all you have to do is enter a passcode and you can choose what measure of security to take.”

“What’s the passcode?” Tucker asked, eyes wide as he stared at his uncle.

Once again Uncle Alex winked. “That’s a secret. I can’t tell you that, kiddo.”

“Okay.”

Technology had certainly progressed since that day his uncle took him to work, back in 1995, to now, in 2005. But the program was the same, just newer. And the security measures were basically the identical to the older version.

He knew the passcode. That was his little secret to keep this time.

“Sam, I need you to keep watch on the hallway in case any of them get through the defenses,” he instructed. He jabbed in a code. The men running down the hallway in Camera 12 slammed into a force field.

“Three steps ahead of you, Tuck.”

Through the reflection in the computer screen, he saw Sam kneeling in the doorway, a wrist ray around her left wrist and an ectogun held in her right hand, surveying the area.

“Danny,” he said, this time addressing the ghost causing a distraction outside the facility. “How’s it going out there?”

“Not so good. There’s a lot flooding into the building. The jig’s up, I think.”

Four Guys in White running through Camera 18 were stopped by an electric cage materializing around them.

Tucker bit his lip. “How many are still out there?”

“Uh...” he heard Danny counting under his breath from the other side of the headset. “There’s 12, I think? Maybe 13?”

Tucker took a deep breath. On Camera 7, three guys jumped behind a pile of boxes as ectoguns emerged from the walls to fire at them.

“Danny, I need you here. Leave them. If we need to, we can get them later.”

There was silence on the other end, save for the buzzing of a few stray ectoblasts, as Danny thought it over.

“Okay. I’ll be there in a flash.”

“Crap!”

Tucker took his eyes off the computer just in time to see Sam begin firing on a group of Guys in White who had come from her left.

He swiveled back to the computer and, from the camera outside the door, activated a net. It caught almost all of them easily.

“I’m here. What do you need?”

If he hadn’t known Danny for so long and hadn’t felt the chill breeze as the halfa had teleported into the room, he would have jumped. But he did know him and he did feel the breeze, so he simply nodded.

“I need you to help Sam watch the door. I have the information we need downloading onto my PDA.”

“How long until the download’s complete?”

“I don’t know. Just watch her back.”

“On it.”

Sam barely acknowledged Danny’s presence as he joined her, too invested in firing at oncoming men.

Tucker didn’t acknowledge Danny’s movement either, instead focusing on the camera. There was still no one on the right so he focused his efforts into the waves on the camera to the left.

85% DOWNLOADED

Tucker activated another electric box, capturing eleven men. Sam hit two with the wrist ray.

90% DOWNLOADED

The sound of an ectoblast buzzed through the room and Tucker and Sam instantly knew that there were men on the right now.

Tucker let Danny hit four of them and freeze three others’ feet to the ground before activating a force field, preventing the men and any stray shots from reaching the team.

95% DOWNLOADED

With the information they needed almost complete, Tucker checked that his friends had everything under control before closing the security program. He quickly but carefully began to wipe any traces that he’d been there.

DOWNLOAD COMPLETE

“CLEAR!” Tucker yelled, turning around in his chair and swiping up his PDA.

Danny and Sam looked at each other and nodded. In sync, they ducked back in the room and sprinted towards Tuck, grabbing onto him. There was a flash of green.

The Guys in White who had managed to avoid the onslaught rushed in.

Only to find no trace of anyone having ever been there.

#FoleyFest2017 #danny phantom #tucker foley #sam manson #danny fenton #mel writes #anyone who thinks tucker isn't an important member of team phantom can fucking fight me

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dweemeister · 7 years

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The Southerner (1945)

Directed by Frenchman Jean Renoir, The Southerner’s drama takes place far from the Western front as seen in Renoir’s Grand Illusion (1936, France), even further the upper-class shenanigans found in The Rules of the Game (1939, France). The setting is rural Texas, a part of the United States with no equivalent in France. With the people in The Southerner – adapted from George Sessions Perry’s 1941 novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand – occupying a space sprawling and isolated, appealed to Renoir not for the story, but the raw emotions involved and that the characters:

...attain a level of spirituality of which they themselves are unaware... all the characters [are] heroic, in which every element would brilliantly play its part, in which things and men, animals and Nature, all would come together in an immense act of homage to the divinity.

Hollywood, in its depictions of twentieth- and twenty-first century rural America, has largely dismissed that divinity of which Renoir speaks of. Leave it to an outsider to recognize that and show it in a movie. Renoir, who had fled his homeland due to the advances of Nazi Germany, found himself frustrated with Hollywood’s producer-oriented Studio System. He had been allowed unfettered freedom in France’s director-first systems, and was most comfortable in such environments. Released by United Artists (UA), The Southerner would essentially – despite the fact UA was considered a major studio – be an independent production. And before the end of his career, Renoir would note that The Southerner (his third American film) would be the only American film of his that he would be truly satisfied with.

Sam Tucker (Zachary Scott), his wife Nona (Betty Field), and his Uncle Pete (Paul E. Burns) are migrant sharecropper farmers picking cotton in Texas. The migrants are white, black, and Latino in a brief visual, sociological representation – perhaps the questions raised there can be the basis for a future movie. One day, Uncle Pete collapses from the intense heat and, knowing his heart too weak to continue, urges Sam and Nona to, “Work for yourself, grow your own crops.” Sam is inspired to do just that – securing a plot of land, taking his wife, the children Daisy (Jean Vanderwilt) and Jot (Jay Gilpin), and Granny (Beulah Bondi) to their new home to become an independent tenant farmer. It is not easy. Uncooperative neighbors (J. Carrol Naish and Norman Lloyd), being at nature’s mercy, the “Spring Sickness” (Pellagra), starvation, and other obstacles emerge in the first several months of Sam and Nona’s endeavors.

The screenplay by Hugo Butler and Renoir – with William Faulkner (yes, that Faulkner) and Nunnally Johnson uncredited – is sparse, content to allow several scenes to pass without much dialogue. What the screenwriters are most interested in is developing the requisite pathos for the audience members – regardless of their familiarity with the harshness of a farmer’s life – to empathize with the tribulations depicted onscreen. One disaster is addressed, with some respite and time for observational humor. But oftentimes that respite is fleeting, and the drama of another potential disaster requires a response. So often the Tuckers’ behavior is one of reaction to the nature surrounding them. This serves to emphasize how their survival can be dependent on the assistance of others. When a neighbor refuses to share, provide advice, or outright sabotages their efforts, the consequences can be the difference between life and death. The Tuckers’ symbiotic connection to the land – which can be extended to all farmer growing their own crops – is presented with sentiment, without sentimentality. By letting events occur with just enough dialogue, the screenwriters make the audience dread whatever crisis might be around the corner, and allows us to celebrate with the Tuckers when those crises are overcome.

Zachary Scott (1945′s Mildred Pierce) is not and was never a household name. Second choice to Joel McCrea – who dropped out after creative differences with Renoir – Scott had typically played suave, cultured supporting protagonists or villains in his career. But his appearance in The Southerner allowed him to draw upon his Texan roots, to more genuinely portray a determined young patriarch figure tasked with keeping everybody’s spirits afloat even in the most despairing hours. There’s a bit of Gary Cooper-esque fatherliness here, which Scott utilizes brilliantly for perhaps his best cinematic performance. For Betty Field (1955′s Picnic) as the mother, her character is not relegated to just being a child-rearer. She, too, must help her husband in the fields, the construction and reparations of the farmhouse, and other daily tasks. Field could have played her character as someone needing her man to get by, but that is not the case here. As Nona, Field works with Scott as a team. And though both husband and wife might have tasks considered gendered, it always feels like a relationship of equals.

Beulah Bondi (1937′s Make Way for Tomorrow) is disappointing as Granny Tucker. The character actress, forty-six years old the year of the film’s theatrical release, had the unfortunate habit of being typecasted by casting directors into elderly mother or grandmother roles. With heavy makeup, Bondi’s character is almost a cartoon figure that obfuscates The Southerner’s rich humanism. Granny’s acid-tongued insults and stubbornness might have worked in other settings, but Bondi is overacting here. Whether this was here decision or not, it is dissatisfying work from an otherwise underrated actress. For Naish and Lloyd, it is a study of opposites. Where Naish’s weathered cynicism and gradual refusal to help his neighbors seems justified due to his character’s experiences, Lloyd’s sneering, poorly-groomed, undeveloped character reminded me of Tom from Tom and Jerry when Tom is behaving out of absolute bloodlust.

Cinematographer Lucien N. Andriot had the expanse of California’s Central Valley as his backdrop. Shot in and around Madera, California (close to Fresno) and where present-day Millerton Lake is, low-angled upward shots close to the ground or downward shots from elevated positions dominate many of the work scenes found in The Southerner. We see the details of the Tuckers preparing their land for planting and the eventual harvest. Andriot’s cameras depict these granular details between humanity and earth – including the various ways humans prepare the soil and tend to it. It is reverential, in some ways, how these actions are shown.

When stereotyping rural Americans, and particularly the American farmer, dramatists, directors, writers, all sorts of creative artists call upon the concept of rugged individualism. Rugged individualism, in the American West, implies an independent streak and assumes a rigid moral correctness among individuals in their labor. Renoir is not here to deconstruct that image nor refute it. Instead, Renoir approaches that type of narrative by presenting the Tuckers’ enterprising motivations not in isolation, but made possible with the support and concern of others. Yet that network of collective support, according to Renoir, is meaningless, without the individual motivation to even make the attempt to be an independent farmer in the first place. A level of determination – maybe even a healthy dosage of arrogance – seems necessary, too. But if that arrogance extends to a self-perception of being a master of nature, that invites recklessness and a humbling from nature itself.

Initial reception in the American South was divided. Where some condemned The Southerner as portraying people in the South as ignorant rednecks (some state officials, the Ku Klux Klan), other Southerners and organizations (like the United Daughters of the Confederacy) praised the film for its respectful portrait of an intrepid family so dedicated to their land. Poor, white Americans indeed have their narratives told more often than other groups. But even then, those in Hollywood rarely make films as tender as this.

Having passed into the public domain, numerous prints of The Southerner are available, so beware of secondhand and thirdhand copies of prints (one excellent print can be accessed here). And due to direction of Jean Renoir’s career, it is easy to discount his American works. As Renoir said himself, The Southerner is no film to be ignored, and demands a viewer’s patience and emotional understanding of the characters striving and living within.

My rating: 9/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

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ldorgan · 4 years

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Fox News Executive Tries To Rein In Stars As They Cheer On Anti-Lockdown Rallies

By DAVID FOLKENFLIK • 2 HOURS AGO

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People gather outside the Ohio Statehouse in Columbus on Monday to protest the state's stay-at-home order, which is in effect until May 1.

GENE J. PUSKAR / AP

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Listening...

Originally published on April 22, 2020 6:13 pm

Updated at 4:41 p.m. ET

Fox News personalities have been cheerleading protesters across the U.S. gathering in defiance of state lockdown orders. This week, the situation became so extreme that a top executive at the network tried to rein in his stars.

Fox News President Jay Wallace sent a directive Monday urging Fox anchors to take time on the air to remind protesters to practice social distancing, according to a senior executive at Fox. She later said Wallace issued it at the behest of Fox CEO Suzanne Scott. Wallace and Scott declined to be interviewed for this story.

Public health officials say the coronavirus can spread easily when people are packed in tight quarters — including at these protests. Fox hosts have hailed the protesters for standing up for liberty and fundamental American rights, yet have rarely noted the risks involved in those very demonstrations. The hosts have, for the most part, been anchoring their shows from the safety of their own home studios.

Shortly after Wallace's guidance went out Monday, Fox host Harris Faulkner interrupted a guest who said the protesters were not opposing safety measures. Faulkner noted that the footage on the air at that very moment reflected demonstrators clustered closely together, sharing phones and cameras and failing to wear masks.

Few major media outlets have been so resolutely devoted to President Trump's fortunes than Fox News Channel. The crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has proved a test of that loyalty. And with few exceptions, Fox has passed with flying colors — in the sense that its most prominent figures have bolstered the president, even when he has taken a lurching, and at times seemingly self-defeating, approach to the crisis.

Trump's actions stand in contrast to many governors who have acted decisively to close businesses and schools to slow the spread of the virus. They generally have gotten higher marks than the president in polls on the pandemic.

Trump has called on Americans to "liberate" their states from such governors in his drive to re-open U.S. businesses, despite warnings from public health advocates. And Fox News stars have responded on air.

"They want to keep us locked in our homes. They want to keep us from our churches and synagogues. They want to make sure we don't go back to work," said Fox host Jeanine Pirro, a Trump ally.

"They're protesting in Kentucky, Ohio, North Carolina and Virginia," said Fox & Friends co-host Brian Kilmeade. "And as more states go online and get their rights back, that is going to fuel, I believe, other states to go, 'Wait a second — this is getting ridiculous!' "

"Why are you arbitrarily shutting down my places of worship, my ability to access the Second Amendment and my right to assembly in some cases?" said weekend host Pete Hegseth, whom Trump had considered for a Cabinet post. "[It] feels un-American to a lot of people." His co-host, Jillian Mele, noted that Americans who know people who have died from the disease may feel differently.

The liberal watchdog group Media Matters found that Fox News had devoted more than six hours over the past week to the protests, despite the fact that they have drawn relatively small crowds.

Columbia University media scholar Nicole Hemmer, who wrote the book Messengers of the Right, said the rallies draw upon many sources of inspiration. Gun-rights and property-rights activists have gathered, in addition to people frustrated over the weeks of seclusion. There have also been displays of racially charged and anti-Semitic sentiment.

"What Fox does is it takes this very small phenomenon and not only amplifies it, but gives it a particular political meaning," Hemmer says. "It lets people know that there are upcoming rallies — much like we saw back in the day of the Tea Party — as a way of not just throwing light on what's happening, amplifying these protests, but also encouraging them as well."

She noted President Trump himself feeds off Fox, by citing interviews and claims made on its programs. In defending their coverage Fox News officials have pointed to earlier moments when hosts alluded to the importance of people's security and taking safety measures at public protests, observations often made in passing.

For weeks, Trump touted the possible anti-coronavirus benefits of hydroxychloroquine, a drug used to combat malaria and lupus. He was following the lead of Fox News hosts and guests such as Dr. Mehmet Oz, who championed the drug too.

But initial anecdotes of successes yielded to shortages for lupus patients and widespread doubts among public health officials about its usefulness, as Fox's Laura Ingraham learned to her chagrin in an interview with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

A new analysis of patients being treated by the Veterans Health Administration found "more deaths, no benefits," in the words of the Associated Press. According to CNN, Fox News buried that development on its website in a story that quickly disappeared. A Fox News spokeswoman noted that Oz returned to its air Wednesday morning on Fox & Friends and addressed the new VA study, which has not yet been peer reviewed.

Other researchers say what Fox News does on the air has real-life consequences for its audience.

"The media can have significant effects on behavior," says Harvard graduate student Aakaash Rao, who studies how messages in the media affect public health outcomes. "If [viewers] hear suggestions from the anchors, then they'll take their suggestions into account, whether those suggestions are about hand-washing or social distancing or, you know, attending public gatherings."

Rao is part of a team of researchers that makes that case in a pointed way. In a working paper posted online this week, the researchers concluded that viewers of Fox's Sean Hannity were more likely to have contracted COVID-19 and to have died from it than viewers of his colleague Tucker Carlson. Hannity, one of the president's strongest allies, consistently downplayed the risk of coronavirus until late February, when he started to present it more seriously. Carlson put a spotlight on those perils far earlier.

The study relies on overlaying granular geographic television ratings data, county by county COVID-19 infection rates, and a survey of more than 1,000 Americans 55 years old and above. (More than half of Fox News' viewers are over the age of 65.) The study, overseen by economics professors at the University of Chicago and the University of Zurich, has not yet been peer reviewed.

"The selective cherry-picked clips of Sean Hannity's coverage used in this study are not only reckless and irresponsible, but down right factually wrong," Fox News said in a statement released through a spokeswoman. She pointed to specific instances earlier this year in which Hannity had expressed concern about the virus.

Indeed, even before Wallace's directive Monday, Fox News hosts would obliquely allude to concerns for safety of protesters. But Fox programs became much more consistent about it afterward.

Even so, prime time hosts continued to defend the protesters from criticism - including Carlson, who had sounded the alarm about the pandemic early.

"When politicians arrest people who disagree with them, what sort of moment is that?" Carlson asked Monday night.

And Fox was back in the fold.

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Katie Sowers Seized Her Chances, and Now She’s Coaching in the Super Bowl

MIAMI — Katie Sowers did not come to the Super Bowl to be a token for the N.F.L., for the San Francisco 49ers, or for the news media. She came to coach.

Sowers, an offensive assistant with the 49ers, will be the first female coach on the sidelines of a Super Bowl. She will also be the first openly gay coach at a Super Bowl. She will even be represented during commercial breaks on Sunday, featured in one of the many L.G.B.T.Q.-inclusive Super Bowl ads this year.

She is also one of four full-time female coaches who worked in the N.F.L. this season, along with Callie Brownson of the Buffalo Bills, and Lori Locust and Maral Javadifar of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Since 2015, seven full-time female coaches and 15 female coaching interns have worked in the league.

Sowers was not the first woman to coach in the N.F.L. — that was Jen Welter, who joined the Arizona Cardinals in 2015 — but in order to reach the league, Sowers needed something usually afforded only to men who have played college football: an opportunity.

That ultimately came from a fifth-grade basketball court. Sowers was coaching a girls’ team in Kansas City, Mo., and became friendly with Scott Pioli — or, as she knew him when they first met, Mia’s dad.

Pioli, whose daughter played on Sowers’s team shortly after his tenure as the general manager of the Kansas City Chiefs, saw potential in her. Sowers had played and coached in the Women’s Football Alliance and seemed to have a lot of football smarts, especially considering she was not yet 30. He realized that Sowers needed a chance prove herself.

“I knew I had a long road ahead of me if I wanted to be an N.F.L. coach,” Sowers, 33, told The Washington Post. “I didn’t have the opportunity to play on a college team. I didn’t have the opportunity to break down film. I didn’t have the opportunity to network like a lot of people did. But I was up for the challenge.”

Pioli thought of the Bill Walsh Diversity Coaching Fellowship, a program meant to increase the number of minority coaches in the N.F.L. After moving on to become the assistant G.M. in Atlanta, Pioli asked Falcons Coach Dan Quinn to consider Sowers for the 2016 class of the fellowship.

Sowers, then a high school athletic director, used vacation days to work with the Falcons at training camp. Her foot was in the door.

“Young men always get the opportunity to be around people with the decision-making power,” Pioli said. “This time, it happened for a woman.”

Sowers’s path was helped by serendipitous connections, said Sam Rapoport, senior director of diversity and inclusion for the N.F.L. Rapoport pointed to another program, the Women’s Careers in Football Forum, a two-day event held at the league’s player scouting combine in Indianapolis each February.

“A lot of firsts emerge from the program,” Rapoport said.

There are now three full-time female coaches in college football, Rapoport said, all of whom secured their first opportunity through the forum. In 2019, 55 percent of the participants were women of color.

“You don’t want to put someone in the position where they feel underqualified or not ready,” Rapoport said. “N.F.L. coaches are now asking for female candidates, and we need them.”

For all the benefits of the fellowship and forum, and for all the talk of opportunity and representation, becoming a coach in professional football — or even at a high level of the N.C.A.A. — often demands not only financial stability, but additional financial support.

Sowers confronted this issue immediately after her fellowship, when she was offered a 10-month N.F.L. internship that paid $10 an hour. She would be allowed to work only 40 hours a week. She was in her late 20s. She had a mortgage and a full-time job. She paused to weigh her options.

Pioli stepped in, paying her rent in Atlanta so she would be able to afford her mortgage, Sowers said in an interview with NPR in March.

“You have to have people believe in you,” said Mary Jo Kane, the director of the Tucker Center for Research on Girls and Women in Sport at the University of Minnesota. “Progress in women’s sports didn’t happen because on the 19th hole at some exclusive country club male athletic directors said, ‘Oh, my God, I’m so upset that women don’t have 50 percent of sport!’ That’s not how change happens.”

Female coaches and athletes, Kane continued, “are saying, ‘Just give me the opportunity, and I’ll show you what I can do.’”

Sowers did not waste time, impressing Kyle Shanahan, then the Atlanta Falcons offensive coordinator, in 2016. The next season, when he became the 49ers head coach, he hired Sowers to join him.

“It’s important for all to know that dreams are achieved by first finding someone who sees your worth and value, regardless of your gender, and takes the necessary steps to clear a path, even on the path less traveled,” Sowers wrote on Facebook in August 2017, thanking Pioli and sharing the news that she was accepting a coaching job in San Francisco. “The most important words you can ever tell someone is ‘I believe in you.’”

Now Sowers is in headlines around the world as a “first” at the Super Bowl. And as the news media swarm players asking them about their strategy, their plans and their coaching staff, Sowers’s gender and sexuality have taken a back seat to her acumen. She’s a great coach, they say. “A bulldog,” 49ers quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo said.

“The focus has been on her talent, her understanding of the game and her knowledge of the game,” Kane added. “What’s remarkable to me is how unremarkable it has been. And that is the enormous cultural shift.”

For change to keep coming, the pipeline needs to grow, Rapoport explained.

“I’m a big believer in representation, and the adage ‘You can’t be what you can’t see,’” Rapoport said. “Girls are now growing up seeing that women are coaching, so the pipeline will naturally get bigger.”

On Sunday, some 100 million viewers will see something no one has seen before: A female coach, and an openly gay coach, leading a group of football players in the biggest game of their lives.

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Why Is The Media Against Republicans

New Post has been published on https://www.patriotsnet.com/why-is-the-media-against-republicans/

Why Is The Media Against Republicans

Mcconnell And Co Are Playing As Dirty A Game As Possible In Their Quest To Fill Ginsburgs Seat Before The Election But You Wont Find That Story In Most News Coverage

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