“It’s tempting to use the analogy of rats fleeing a sinking ship to describe the growing number of Republican elected officials starting to speak out against Donald Trump. But that's really not fair to rats, who tend not to be complicit in driving ships to the bottom of the sea.”
Dan Rather
Article by Phillip Bump.
Trump brought data from the Fox News universe to a debate centered in reality
"Trump has at his disposal decades of experience in battling public health crises and aggregated data that could provide an accurate sense of how the country's effort to contain the virus is faring. But that's not the sort of thing in which Trump immerses himself, preferring the friendlier and more supportive universe of Fox punditry.
(Instead) On Thursday, he brought that world with him to battle a reality-based journalist. It didn't work very well."
From David Folkenflik, NPR News:
Analysis: Questionable 'N.Y. Post' Scoop Driven By Ex-Hannity Produced And Giuliani
Article about the New England Journal of Medicine and 2 other trusted scientific journals by Bill Chappell on NPR
In Rare Step, Esteemed Medical Journal Urges Voters To Oust Trump
It is the first time the prestigious medical journal has taken a stance on a U.S. presidential election since it was founded in 1812:
"When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent," reads the editorial signed by nearly three dozen of the journal's editors. "We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs."
This was posted earlier this year, but I'm going to go ahead and call it evergreen.
This is mesmerizing.
Celui qui tombe (The one who falls) by Yoann Bourgeois
From NPR's David Folkenflik:
You Literally Can't Believe The Facts Tucker Carlson Tells You. So Say Fox's Lawyer
"She wrote: "Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson's reputation, any reasonable viewer 'arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism' about the statement he makes.""
How Conspiracy Theories Are Shaping The 2020 Election by Charlotte Alter, TIME Magazine
"The facts that should anchor a sense of shared reality are meaningless to them; the news developments that might ordinarily inform their vote fall on deaf ears. They will not be swayed by data on coronavirus deaths, they won’t be persuaded by job losses or stock market gains, and they won’t care if Trump called America’s fallen soldiers “losers” or “suckers,” as the Atlantic reported, because they won’t believe it. They are impervious to messaging, advertising or data. They aren’t just infected with conspiracy; they appear to be inoculated against reality."
From NPR (Although to be honest it should read “Fails”, as in still does not take it seriously):
Former DHS Official: White House Failed To Take Far-Right Extremism Seriously
"If you had a very clear voice at the top, from the president, from other senior leaders in the Republican Party, denouncing this and warning conservatives — warning Republicans — that these groups are trying to recruit you based on things that might sound like a typical conservative belief, but behind it is this insidious, ugly, evil thing, if we had more clear voices talking about it — it would somewhat inoculate people from that recruitment and that radicalization," she says. "But instead, we have the opposite effect. We have the president not only pretty much refusing to condemn, but throwing fuel on the fire, creating opportunities for more recruitment through his rhetoric."
The morning rundown from The NY Times is below. This is just a few days in the Trump/GOP-fueled dumpster fire.
A telling sign of how far the GOP have fallen is the “None cared to comment”. “No comment”, and/or “I haven’t seen the President’s tweet”, and/or “I don’t have time to discuss” and/or “Look over there!” is the mantra of a party that doesn’t care how low Trump sinks while taking America down with him.
Also, in other news demonstrating the abject failure of the administration in dealing with the coronavirus and how little regard Trump has for American lives over his ego:
Good morning. Russia is interfering in the election again. New York City delayed the start of school. And Trump has a new torrent of false claims. |
Trump, unbound |
|
President Trump breaks so many of the normal rules of politics that it can sometimes be hard to know when his tweets and comments are truly newsworthy. Even by his standards, though, the past several days have stood out. Consider: |
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Biden has taken a very different approach to the unrest in Kenosha, Portland and elsewhere. He has told no apparent untruths, and he has criticized violence from both the political left and right — even though many liberals, whose votes Biden needs, are uncomfortable with any criticism of people on their side of the debate. |
G.O.P. reaction. The Times tried to reach about a dozen leading congressional Republicans and ask for their reaction to Trump’s claims. “None cared to comment,” Mark Leibovich writes. Senator Mitt Romney offered one of the few public responses, calling the president’s comments “simply jaw-dropping.” |
Russia adds to the misinformation. A group backed by the Kremlin is again trying to meddle in the U.S. presidential election and push voters toward Trump, Facebook and Twitter said yesterday. |
So at least that’s over. Trump alone made at least 20 false or misleading statements in a speech at the circus at the White House last night, and let’s face it - it was a circus. Aside from the serial lying and hypocrisy, Trump and the Republicans who support him would have you believe that they’re not currently in power - that he hasn’t been president for the last 3 1/2 years, or that they haven’t controlled the senate for the last 5 years. They would have you believe that Joe Biden is a far-left extremist who will destroy the country if elected - that there would be rioting, massive deaths from coronavirus, and much worse
But we already have rioting, massive (preventable) deaths from coronavirus, and much, much worse, all of which have happened on Trump and the Republicans watch. They promise of “I alone can fix it” if re-elected is bullshit. If we had a competent leader and a responsible governing body they would have already strived to “fix it” or better yet prevent “it” or mitigate it in the first place.
Obviously the Trump they’re trying so desperately to sell is not the same Trump that Americans have seen with their own eyes, heard with their own ears, during his term and before. The real Trump presents himself to us daily, yet he and his supporters (and Fox and OAN and other propaganda outlets) continue to tell us not to believe what we see and hear, but to believe what they tell us to believe. Now they want us to believe that only Trump can save America - from the Trump’s America that it currently is.
We’ve gone far beyond mere politics.
7 Takeaways from the Republican National Convention, from NPR
Here’s a summary related to coronavirus and a single paragraph sums it up:
In addition, you also had the scheduled speaker Mary Ann Mendoza who was pulled from the lineup at the last moment for posting earlier in the day a QAnon-laced anti-Semitic conspiracy theory that Jews were plotting to take over the world. Meanwhile, Qanon supporter and GOP congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene proudly posted the invite she received from Trump to attend his acceptance speech on Thursday.
This is worth a watch. Good summation starting at 2:30; good observation of the upcoming RNC beginning at 4:15.
As the president all but endorses the internet-driven conspiracy theory, it is shifting from the fringes of the internet to become an offline political movement.
"Late last month, as the Texas Republican Party was shifting into campaign mode, it unveiled a new slogan, lifting a rallying cry straight from a once-unthinkable source: the internet-driven conspiracy theory known as QAnon.
The new catchphrase, “We Are the Storm,” is an unsubtle cue to a group that the F.B.I. has labeled a potential domestic terrorist threat. It is instantly recognizable among QAnon adherents, signaling what they claim is a coming conflagration between President Trump and what they allege, falsely, is a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophile Democrats who seek to dominate America and the world.
The slogan can be found all over social media posts by QAnon followers, and now, too, in emails from the Texas Republican Party and on the T-shirts, hats and sweatshirts that it sells. It has even worked its way into the party’s text message system — a recent email from the party urged readers to “Text STORM2020” for updates.
The Texas Republicans are an unusually visible example of the Republican Party’s dalliance with QAnon, but they are hardly unique...
...Chief among the party’s QAnon promoters is Mr. Trump himself. Since the theory first emerged three years ago, he has employed a wink-and-nod approach to the conspiracy theory, retweeting its followers but conspicuously ignoring questions about it. Yet with the election drawing ever closer and Mr. Trump’s failure to manage the Covid-19 pandemic harming his re-election prospects, the White House and some Trump allies appear to have taken to openly courting believers."...
Please read the full article which offers more details by Matthew Rosenberg and Maggie Haberman
Just to be clear about this insane conspiracy cult, see below and more from this article.
After congratulating two primary winners who support QAnon theories, Trump was asked about it this week and said the following: “I don’t know much about the movement, other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate...I have heard that it is gaining in popularity."
He adds "Trump adds that QAnon believers are people who "love our country" and he's heard they don't like what's going on in Portland."
Then, when told that QAnon believes he's saving the world from a secret satanic cult of cannibals and pedophiles. He says, "Well, I haven't heard that. But uh, is that supposed to be a bad thing? Or a good thing? If I can help save the world from problems..."
QAnon is the umbrella term for a sprawling set of internet conspiracy theories that allege, falsely, that the world is run by a cabal of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who are plotting against Mr. Trump while operating a global child sex-trafficking ring.
QAnon followers believe that this clique includes top Democrats including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and George Soros, as well as a number of entertainers and Hollywood celebrities like Oprah Winfrey, Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres and religious figures including Pope Francis and the Dalai Lama. Many of them also believe that, in addition to molesting children, members of this group kill and eat their victims in order to extract a life-extending chemical from their blood.
According to QAnon lore, Mr. Trump was recruited by top military generals to run for president in 2016 in order to break up this criminal conspiracy, end its control of politics and the media, and bring its members to justice.
Not by a long shot. Since it began, QAnon has incorporated elements of many other conspiracy theory communities, including claims about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the existence of U.F.O.s, and the 9/11 “truther” movement.
"It’s extraordinary how many people close to President Trump have become felons. Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates, Michael Flynn, Roger Stone
Now Steve Bannon has been arrested and charged in a fundraising scheme."
