Mostly Monday Reads: Another reason to boycott the NFL
Posted: September 15, 2025 Filed under: #We are so Fucked, American Fascists | Tags: @johnbuss.bsky.social John Buss, Charlie Boy Kirk, gun violence, hate speech, NFL Political Pandering, religious hate speech, Republican Party of Hate and Bigotry 6 Comments
“Seems one of trump’s top advisors excited the frogs. This would have never happened if Biden was president.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Today, I’m going to suggest we give up on the old Greek saying “Don’t speak ill of the Dead” and replace it with “Speak honestly about the Dead.” I’ve just about had it with all the forced piety behavior surrounding the death of a person well known for his antisemitism, racism, GLBTphobia, and keeping women subservient. I’ve already printed my reaction here and on Facebook. If we are not honest about the actions and words of the dead, we start sounding like this … I’d better speak badly about Putin now because when he’s dead, I’ll be breaking some ancient Greek saying.
I’m sorry, students, if I have to, I can’t speak badly of Pol Pot since he’s dead, but we should learn about what he did in Cambodia, so we just have to avoid mentioning him.
You know, George Wallace did questionable things to black people while governor, but we mustn’t talk about him… speaking ill of the dead and all is not allowed to speak ill of the dead. So, let history forget about all that.
Yeah, let’s talk about the hypocrisy in those piety performances … sounds a lot like sick right-wing Political Correctness to me. From the Link:
“How the concept of ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’ is typically utilized is fraught with dismissal and erasure. Every time someone problematic dies, it is nearly inevitable to hear statements of “don’t speak ill of the dead,” but who does that idea serve? What benefit does it have? Certainly, if we want to learn from the past and honor those who have been harmed by people now deceased, we must speak honestly of the dead, even if being honest means speaking ill.”
So, does not speaking ill of the dead Hitler erase the Jewish community and the holocaust experience, or what? I guess that probably doesn’t apply to Stalin or Saddam Hussein, though. They’re on the official approved right-wing Slander List.
Opps, my bad … I’m so politically correct, but I must not speak ill of the dead! Or is not speaking ill some sort of contorted “political correctness” that shows your “woke” to hatred in the name of right-wing politics? I really hoped we’d seen the last of making a martyr of someone who hid behind the First Amendment to normalize hate speech. He even dropped out of college and spent time studying the career of Rush Limbaugh, whose antics included taking trips to Latin America to purchase children trafficked for sex.
The thing that pushed me over last night was reading that the NFL mandated a pre-game tribute for Kirk. It appears that only five teams ignored the order. I would like to announce that the Saints are dead to me now. I dumped my one jersey that I bought after the Hurricane Katrina season in the trash this morning. I was still wearing it up to yesterday. It’s gone where my shrimp scales and tales go. It’s gone where all of the worthless things go. It’s in my trash can.
My Saint shirt is on the way to the New Orleans Garbage Dump. It’s cotton, so it should disintegrate nicely.
This is from Heavy.com, and I still can’t believe I’m reporting on sportsball anyway. “Five NFL Teams Don’t Hold Moment of Silence for Charlie Kirk.
Among the 13 NFL home teams that held a game on Sunday, five chose not to hold a moment of silence for slain political organizer Charlie Kirk.
Just a day after he was shot on a college campus in Utah, the NFL chose to hold a moment of silence for Kirk before the “Thursday Night Football” between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
The NFL said it was a league decision not a team decision, but Sunday’s decision to hold a tribute would be left to the franchises.
“Last night’s moment was the league’s decision,” the league said in a statement Friday. “It’s up to the clubs for this Sunday’s games. There have been a variety of moments of silence and tributes in-stadium and on-air in all games or a game immediately following events that rise to a national level. Clubs also often hold moments following a tragic event that affects their community.”
The Saints team reportedly added all victims of gun violence to the tribute but did not feel the need to even show the pictures of the 168 children (ages 0-11) who were killed by gun violence, and 716 teenagers (ages 12-17) who were killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive as of September 15, 2025. Team owner Gail Benson has also been involved in the Archdiocese of New Orleans pedophile priest scandal. This scandal has been adjudicated and active since 2018, but the Archdiocese still hasn’t provided any of the compensation required by the courts.
The New Orleans Saints say they only did “minimal” public relations work on the area’s Roman Catholic sexual abuse crisis, but attorneys suing the church allege hundreds of confidential Saints emails show the team’s involvement went much further, helping to shape a list of credibly accused clergy that appears to be undercounted.
New court papers filed this week by lawyers for about two dozen men making sexual abuse claims against the Archdiocese of New Orleans gave the most detailed description yet of the emails that have rocked the NFL team and remain shielded from the public.
“This goes beyond public relations,” the attorneys wrote, accusing the Saints of issuing misleading statements saying their work for the archdiocese involved only “messaging” and handling media inquiries as part of the 2018 release of the clergy names.
Instead, they wrote, “The Saints appear to have had a hand in determining which names should or should not have been included on the pedophile list.”
It appears that some Saints Fans did not approve of the so-called tribute. This is from marca.com. “NFL fans reportedly boo during moment of silence honoring Charlie Kirk and victims of gun violence. An eyewitness report from the Saints’ game suggests a divided fan reaction, though broader video confirmation has yet to emerge.”
At the New Orleans Saints’ home game, KADN News15 sports director Will Herren reported that the team did observe a pre-game moment of silence. According to Herren, who was in attendance, “some fans booed, while others cheered” during the pause before the national anthem.
His account remains one of the few on-the-ground reports, as no widespread video evidence has yet surfaced to corroborate the extent of fan reaction. Renowned X.com account MLFootball reported the same.
Several teams, including the Jets, Cardinals, Dolphins, Saints, Steelers, Titans, Chiefs, and Cowboys, held moments of silence. Some displayed images of Kirk on stadium screens.
Others, such as the Bengals, Lions, Colts, Vikings, and Ravens, opted not to take part in the tribute.
The Saints’ game has drawn the most attention due to the reports of booing. Fans online seized on the reported boos as evidence of growing divides over how public tributes intersect with political identities.
Others argued the cheers, which Herren also noted, highlighted that not all fans reacted negatively. There are also unconfirmed reports that San Francisco 49ers fans had filled home areas of the Saints’ stadium.
Still, the lack of broad, independent video confirmation leaves uncertainty about how widespread the reaction truly was. Most social media claims of booing come from individual users and have not been backed by national outlets.
This reeks of forcing religion-specific enforced prayer when it’s not your religion or belief system. Right-wing political correctness has shown itself boldly this week. The Washington Post steps in its shit by firing Karen Attiah. This is posted on her blog, The Golden Hour. “The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced. I spoke out against hatred and violence in America — and it cost me my job.” Right-wingers only let wipipo define what hatred and violence are.
Last week, the Washington Post fired me.
The reason? Speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.
Eleven years ago, I joined the Washington Post’s Opinions department with a simple goal: to use journalism in service of people.
I believed in using the pen to remember the forgotten, question power, shine light in darkness, and defend democracy. Early in my career, late Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt told me that opinion journalism is not just about writing the world as it is, but as it should be. He told me we should use our platform to do good. That has been my north star every day.
As the founding Global Opinions editor, I created a space for courageous, diverse voices from around the world — especially those exiled for speaking the truth. I was inspired by their bravery. When my writer, Global Opinions columnist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by Saudi Arabia regime agents for his words, I fought loudly for justice for years, putting my life and safety on the line to pursue accountability and defend global press freedom. For this work, I was honored with global recognition, prestigious awards and proximity to the world’s most powerful people.
As a columnist, I used my voice to defend freedom and democracy, challenge power and reflect on culture and politics with honesty and conviction.
Now, I am the one being silenced – for doing my job.
On Bluesky, in the aftermath of the horrific shootings in Utah and Colorado, I condemned America’s acceptance of political violence and criticized its ritualized responses — the hollow, cliched calls for “thoughts and prayers” and “this is not who we are” that normalize gun violence and absolve white perpetrators especially, while nothing is done to curb deaths.
I expressed sadness and fear for America.
Do not ever forget that Charlie Kirk used his First Amendment rights to spread hatred and bigotry. This is from The Guardian. “Charlie Kirk in his own words: ‘prowling Blacks’ and ‘the great replacement strategy’. The far-right commentator didn’t pull his punches when discussing his bigoted views on current events.”
Charlie Kirk in his own words: ‘prowling Blacks’ and ‘the great replacement strategy’
The far-right commentator didn’t pull his punches when discussing his bigoted views on current events
Charlie Kirk, the far-right commentator and ally of Donald Trump, was killed on Wednesday doing what he was known for throughout his career – making incendiary and often racist and sexist comments to large audiences.
If it was current and controversial in US politics, chances are that Kirk was talking about it. On his podcasts, and on the podcasts of friends and adversaries, and especially on college campuses, where he would go to debate students, Kirk spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with Trump and the Maga movement. Accountable to no one but his audience, he did not shy away in his rhetoric from bigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping.
Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.
On race
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023
<snip>
On gender, feminism and reproductive rights
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024
On gun violence
I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023
On immigration
America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025
The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024
The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024
This huge compilation of quotes was provided by Chris Stein. There are pages more of it on things like Islam, debate, and religion. Charlie Boy had no respect for the U.S. Constitution.
There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022
This man was a hero only to the vast White Nationalist Basket of Deplorables. I have one more to share, which specifically focuses on his bigotry against Black Americans. This was written by Vernellia Randal at Race, Racism, and the Law. Charlie Kirk, White Supremacist, Dead at 31.”
Charlie Kirk built himself into the face of a conservative youth movement through Turning Point USA (TPUSA). Behind the branding of “patriotism” and “freedom,” the record shows a pattern of rhetoric, organizational culture, and alliances that echoed white supremacist and Christian nationalist ideologies. The Southern Poverty Law Center documented how TPUSA repeatedly framed immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and racial justice advocates as existential threats to “white Christian America,” warning followers that their families, religion, and entire way of life were under attack. In later years, Kirk openly embraced Christian nationalist language, claiming that liberty was only possible with a Christian population—a narrative tying freedom to demographic dominance, a cornerstone of supremacist logic (SPLC).
On race, Kirk was blunt and dismissive. He denied the existence of systemic racism, called white privilege a “racist idea,” and vilified critical race theory as dangerous indoctrination. In one speech, he called George Floyd a “scumbag,” showing open contempt for a man whose death triggered a national reckoning on race and policing (WHYY). These rhetorical choices were not accidental—they functioned as a political strategy to delegitimize Black pain and deny the realities of structural racism in America.
Inside TPUSA, the culture reflected the same hostility. A New Yorker investigation described the workplace as “difficult … and rife with tension, some of it racial.” One African American staffer reported being the only person of color when hired in 2014, only to be fired on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The organization’s then–national field director, Crystal Clanton, was exposed for texting, “I hate black people. … End of story.” TPUSA claimed it acted after the texts surfaced, but the damage was undeniable—the rot reached the top (New Yorker).
Kirk’s movement also courted or tolerated figures openly tied to the far right. Political Research Associates documented cases where TPUSA chapters hosted or aligned with Nick Fuentes and his white nationalist followers. Kirk’s allies relied on antisemitic tropes, praising authoritarianism in Israel while denouncing “liberal Jews” in the United States (PRA). TPUSA severed ties when public exposure threatened its reputation, but the repeated associations revealed how far Kirk was willing to go in pursuit of influence.
The mainstream press tracked this trajectory. The Guardian reported that Kirk’s rhetoric increasingly mirrored white supremacist and authoritarian themes, while campus watchdog groups chronicled repeated incidents of racist, homophobic, and transphobic speech at TPUSA events (Guardian; AAUP). This was not about “a few bad apples.” It was a culture, nurtured by leadership, that normalized bigotry and dressed it up as “truth-telling.”
The evidence remains overwhelming: Kirk and TPUSA did not need to wear hoods or wave Confederate flags to advance the logic of white supremacy. By denying systemic racism, vilifying movements for justice, and legitimizing extremists, Kirk and his organization reinforced the architecture of racial dominance in America. That was the through line of his political project. He positioned himself as a defender of liberty, but the liberty he envisioned was conditional—anchored in whiteness, Christianity, and exclusion. His legacy is not simply conservatism. It is a record of advancing ideas and practices that aligned with white supremacy, even if he never wore the label himself.
The deepest irony of Kirk’s legacy came in the manner of his death. In 2023, he declared that “it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” framing gun deaths as a tragic but acceptable price for liberty (Wikipedia). Two years later, he was killed by gunfire at one of his own public events (AP News). His own words came back in the most devastating way, embodying the very cost he had justified. For critics, this was not just irony but a brutal illustration of how the normalization of preventable violence eventually consumes even its defenders. For supporters, his death was framed as tragic but consistent with the risks of freedom. Yet the broader truth remains: when a society accepts death as the “price” of a constitutional right, it abandons any serious effort to build policies that protect life alongside liberty. Kirk’s fate exposed the hollowness of his argument. He did not just preach the acceptance of gun deaths as a cost of freedom—he became that cost.
I’ve spent enough time on the literal white-washing of Charlie Boy. I’m likely to the point where I may be testing my University’s Academic Freedom and Diversity policies. I just cannot sit aside while someone so vile and dangerous is being sanctified to rile up a base needed for the midterms. Tolerance only works so far for me. You may have different political views, but hatred of others is not a political view. It’s a sign there’s something seriously evil working inside your brain. This one was a cold-hearted snake. I don’t care if you’re dead or alive. The truth about you shall set the rest of us free.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Friday Reads: WTF is Wrong with this Country?
Posted: September 12, 2025 Filed under: "Der Fuehrer's Face", hate speech, Killings | Tags: "Der Fuehrer's Face", Charlie Kirk, die by the gun, Gently Weep, gun violence, hate speech, Live by the gun, You reap what you sow 8 Comments
“The idolization of Charlie Kirk is gross.” John Buss, re@peat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I have to admit that when I first read my undergrad psychology textbook, and when we hit the unit on personality disorders, I really had never heard the term “sociopath”. I read it and recognized my father-in-law right there in the definition.
When Doctor Daughter had her rotation and classes in psych, she was told by her professor that the perfect example of a narcissist was good ol’ Yam Tits. Evidently, the “reality show” he had at the time–which I never bothered to watch–was chock-full of examples good enough for med students to use as examples for diagnosis. This day and age I get to experience all that human toxicity constantly.
When I was getting my teaching certificate in the 1970s, we were part of the first generation of teachers who had to know all kinds of disabilities and emotional and mental issues so we could identify students with possible issues and suggest they see the school psychologists. We had the duty to report any signs of abuse, also. That’s the point at which I started working more diligently towards my terminal degree. Little did I know that the same problems invaded all levels of education.
There was a shooter recently in the library at the campus where I taught for years. Just yesterday, there were lockdowns and shooter alerts at many campuses, including all historically Black colleges, the Naval Academy, and UMass Boston. That includes Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where evidently one sociopath took out another. The AP reports, “A list of all deadly shootings on college campuses in the USA.” Thankfully, several of the ones yesterday–specifically UMass Boston and the Naval Academy–were false alarms. The shooting at a high school in Colorado was real and has been conveniently ignored by the majority of the media. The one at FSU yesterday was real and deadly.
The latest deadly shooting on a college campus in the U.S. unfolded Thursday at Florida State University, where two people were killed and at least six others were wounded.
Frightened students, faculty and parents there for a tour took cover and waited in classrooms, offices and dorms across the university in Tallahassee after it issued an active shooter alert. Some crammed into a freight elevator after hearing gunshots outside the student union.
The gun used in the shooting belonged to the 20-year-old suspect’s mother, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for 18 years, authorities said. They described the gun as her former service weapon.
The gunman, believed to be a student at the university, was shot and wounded by officers and was taken into custody, according to authorities. The two people who died were not students.
Florida State’s main library was the site of another shooting in 2014, when a 31-year-old gunman wounded three people before he was shot and killed by police.
Experts say mass shootings on college campuses, although rare, are often on the minds of students today because they grew up participating in active shooter drills in elementary and high school.
It was only natural that one sociopath with a gun would eventually shoot another sociopath who viciously spread hate throughout the internet and the country. Here are some of Charlie Kirk’s “Greatest Hits.” He basically hated everyone who wasn’t a cis White Christian Male in the mode of his form of Christianity. There are two historical concepts of historical justice that come to mind. The first one is Karma. The second is “You reap what you sow.” The third one is a morphed version of an older one. “Live by the gun, die by the gun.” Of course, I support free speech. Of course, I abhor gun violence and all kinds of killing.
It doesn’t take much in the way of brains, though, to determine that when you basically dare the world to argue with your hate speech, you’re going to attract some unwanted attention. It’s kind of like the old male stereotype that if you wear provocative clothing and show up in the wrong place, you deserve to be raped. If a lot of sick men believe this about women, then a lot of sick men are going to be violent in the face of taunting, also. There are a lot of lone white male shooters out there just willing to go on a hunt. Charlie Boy enabled them with weapons and hate speech.
Here are some of Charlie Boy’s greatest hits. There are many more. I’m also pretty sure that I wonder if a little girl is better off under a father who tells her she should be a slave to a husband and would force her to carry the product of a rape to term at 10 years old.
The victims of mass shootings in this country–including children and the elderly worshipping in their holy place–basically become numbers unless their grief-stricken relatives force us to remember them by asking the media and the public to listen to their stories and the acts of violence that ended their lives. Why aren’t they victims of political assassination whose ends are covered relentlessly on the internet and TV? What about the details of the other folks this week who lost their lives to gun violence? I found this article on The Verge that contains a lot of good questions as we investigate Charlie Boy’s shooter, whose own family turned him in.
The fatal shooting of Kirk on Wednesday led to an intense manhunt across Utah, though it encountered numerous complications along the way. Several leads, publicly teased by FBI Director Kash Patel, quickly petered out. Leaked documents from law enforcement published by MAGA influencers led to false narratives about how markings on the bullet indicated that the shooter was in favor of “transgender ideology.”
It was nearly impossible to divorce politics and internet misinformation from Kirk’s death, however. The 31-year-old was a powerful figure in the MAGA movement, as the founder and leader of the right-wing college group Turning Point USA, and a prominent podcaster and MAGA influencer himself, famous for appearing on college campuses to confront liberal students. President Donald Trump credited Kirk and TPUSA as a factor in his return to office, and frequently relied on him as an emissary to youth voters.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s death, his allies in the MAGA movement, including lawmakers and influencers, promised swift retribution against the left should the killer share their ideology. The themes of Helldivers 2 could have an ideological meaning, albeit not necessarily a straightforward one. But ultimately, the messages on the shooter’s bullet casings can best be described as bizarre and extremely online.
The writings on the bullet were clever, cruel, and spot on.
It’s not hard to see where the “antifascist” conclusion came from on two of the other bullets: “Bella ciao” is an Italian song adopted by partisans and resistance fighters while Italy was governed by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Cox said in response to a question during the conference that the “hey fascist” message “speaks for itself.” Three downward-slanting arrows are a symbol used by both historical and contemporary antifascists.
But the full arrow sequence was quickly recognized as something else: a combo from Helldivers 2 for calling the Eagle 500kg Bomb stratagem. The world of Helldivers — which evokes Robert Heinlein’s book Starship Troopers and the subsequent movie — concerns fascism thematically; developer Arrowhead has characterized it as a satire where players fight for a fascist state.
As for the use of “Bella ciao,” the song has no obvious connection but given its historical significance, unsurprisingly does appear in a Helldivers 2 mod, as well as in at least one other video game, a World War II-themed strategy game called Hearts of Iron IV.
There is no doubt that Charlie Boy was a fascist. He’s left a trail that would reach the sun. However, we do have free speech; fascists can speak as they wish. But what happens when that talk reaches into vile hate speech and suggests things like “Gay people should be stoned to death”? We need to have a huge conversation on the fine line between exercising your right to free speech and making suggestions that crazy white men with guns will act on.
This is my very short post today with its very short questions. While this shooter used a slightly modified long gun typically used for hunting, do we really need military style weapons floating around a society where we can identify so many personality disorders and severe mental illnesses? Germany has basically outlawed anything NAZI-related. If that’s going too far, what’s the point at which we hold public figures accountable for out-and-out hate speech and suggestions that might provoke action? Also, shouldn’t there be some point at which giving a Presidential Medal of Honor to someone who dedicated their career to hate speech should be universally condemned? When is saying don’t speak ill of the dead too passive? Can we celebrate the death of Hitler while ignoring the fact that NAZIs are among us? What happened to the only good NAZI is a dead NAZI? Is that just rhetoric or going to far? I sure wouldn’t shoot aNAZI even though my father bombed them, but I sure would spit in their face and then meditate on the nature of karma.
My fellow Americans, we need to have a good, long talk and stop all this fawning over your basic bully and start discussing how the fuck we’ve lost our way so badly.
Don’t forget we have a Department of War now. Don’t forget the mission of ICE now. We’re in this deep and for some time. My guitar and I gently weep.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Finally Friday Reads: Tweet Musk, Ye, Trump then Delete
Posted: December 2, 2022 Filed under: just because | Tags: 11th Circuit appeals court, degenerate art, hate speech, Musk, Trump, Ye 14 CommentsGood Day Sky Dancers!
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner – Seated Girl (Fränzi Fehrmann), 1910, altered 1920
The votes may have shown the country is trying to be normal again, but the headlines also show how deep the crazy runs in today’s Republican Party. One of the House committee takeovers that I’m most anxiety-ridden about is the House Judiciary Committee. Some of the deepest crazy reside there, and it will be a spectacle once their sham hearings start. This is from NBC’s Amanda Terkel and Garrett Haake. “House Judiciary Republicans delete ‘Kanye. Elon. Trump.’ tweet as rapper praises Hitler. Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee had tweeted in apparent support of Ye on Oct. 6. The tweet was removed Thursday.” It seems Godwin’s Law and Reductio ad Hitlerum may need a revisit. You don’t have to infer it’s NAZIish anymore when the policy and speech include casual praise of Hitler.
Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee deleted their Oct. 6 tweet that appeared to support Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, after months of controversy over his antisemitic remarks.
“Kanye. Elon. Trump,” read the tweet, which held up Ye alongside Elon Musk, the new owner of Twitter, who has been bringing back right-wing figures who were once banned, and former President Donald Trump.
The tweet was deleted Thursday as Ye was launching a lengthy antisemitic tirade on the show hosted on Infowars by conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, who is known for promoting falsehoods around events like the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012.
“I love Jewish people, but I also love Nazis,” Ye said on the show Thursday. He also repeatedly expressed his admiration for Adolf Hitler.
House Judiciary Committee Republicans did not immediately reply to a request for comment about the deleted tweet. The GOP, currently in the minority, won control of the House in November’s midterm elections.
Türkisches Café, August Macke, 1914
Even Alex Jones denounced Hitler on the InforWars broadcast as he filed for bankruptcy for his Sandy Hook fines. Musk’s Twitter responded to as reported by NPR. Every time I hear this shit, all I can think is my Dad bombed NAZIs to get them out of France and Belgium and to ensure the Allies could defeat the regime and ensure the allied armies on the ground could safely set free those held in concentration camps.
In an appearance on conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’ show, Ye – the rapper formerly known as Kanye West – doubled down on a series of antisemitic comments he’s made in recent months. Ye appeared on the show alongside Nick Fuentes, the white-nationalist internet personality. The pair had dinner with former President Donald Trump last week.
Hours later, Twitter CEO Elon Musk announced that Ye’s Twitter account was suspended. The move came after the rapper reportedly posted on Twitter an image of a swastika depicted inside a Star of David.
On Jones’ show Thursday, Ye’s statements were among his most brazen. “I see good things about Hitler,” Ye said during the nearly 3-hour interview. Later, he veered into Holocaust denialism.
“This was a mask-off moment, to hear Ye just outright say that he admires Hitler,” said Megan Squire, deputy director of data analytics at the Southern Poverty Law Center. Often extremists talk around the subject of Nazism, she said, couching true beliefs in cloaked language in order to avoid being banned from mainstream platforms. Pushing the boundaries, said Squire, provides a permission structure to other far right voices.
The recent string of antisemitic comments began in October, when Ye posted “I’m going death con 3 on JEWISH PEOPLE.” The tweet has since been deleted. Ye then spoke out on a number of podcasts and interview shows, repeating his talking points and promoting his run for president in 2024.
Before decamping to fringe channels that specialize in extremist rhetoric, Ye made an appearance in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson. He used the occasion to air his anti-abortion stance and grievances with the fashion industry. But soon after, Vice News revealed that show producers cut Ye’s references to his beliefs that align with the Black Hebrew Israelites.
Women’s Pavilion, Paul Klee, 1921
Sorry, Republicans, you own this Troika of hate. Musk. Ye. Trump.
Trump’s legal problems worsened as the 11th circuit shut down Judge Loose Cannon and her Special Master concession to Trump. This is from the New York Times. “Appeals Court Scraps Special Master Review in Trump Documents Case. The panel’s decision removed a major obstacle to the Justice Department’s investigation into Mr. Trump’s handling of sensitive government documents.”
A federal appeals court on Thursday removed a major obstacle to the criminal investigation into former President Donald J. Trump’s hoarding of government documents, ending an outside review of thousands of records the F.B.I. seized from his home and freeing the Justice Department to use them in its inquiry.
In a unanimous but unsigned 21-page ruling, a three-member panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta shut down a lawsuit brought by Mr. Trump that has, for nearly three months, slowed the inquiry into whether he illegally kept national security records at his Mar-a-Lago residence and obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve them.
The appeals court was sharply critical of the decision in September by Judge Aileen M. Cannon, a Trump appointee who sits in the Southern District of Florida, to intervene in the case. The court said Judge Cannon never had legitimate jurisdiction to order the review or bar investigators from using the files, and that there was no justification for treating Mr. Trump differently from any other target of a search warrant.
“It is indeed extraordinary for a warrant to be executed at the home of a former president — but not in a way that affects our legal analysis or otherwise gives the judiciary license to interfere in an ongoing investigation,” the court wrote.
The judges’ findings are consistent with what legal experts have been saying since the Trump lawyers went Judge-shopping and came up with an eager interloper. Here’s the kicker.
Limits on when courts can interfere with a criminal investigation “apply no matter who the government is investigating,” it added. “To create a special exception here would defy our nation’s foundational principle that our law applies ‘to all, without regard to numbers, wealth or rank.’”
The panel included two judges appointed by Trump.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, German, Self-Portrait with Cat, 1920.
Well, there’s Ye. There’s Trump. And now, let’s do Musk. “Hate Speech’s Rise on Twitter Is Unprecedented, Researchers Find. Problematic content and formerly barred accounts have increased sharply in the short time since Elon Musk took over, researchers said.” This is also from The New York Times.
Before Elon Musk bought Twitter, slurs against Black Americans showed up on the social media service an average of 1,282 times a day. After the billionaire became Twitter’s owner, they jumped to 3,876 times a day.
Slurs against gay men appeared on Twitter 2,506 times a day on average before Mr. Musk took over. Afterward, their use rose to 3,964 times a day.
And antisemitic posts referring to Jews or Judaism soared more than 61 percent in the two weeks after Mr. Musk acquired the site.
These findings — from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, the Anti-Defamation League and other groups that study online platforms — provide the most comprehensive picture to date of how conversations on Twitter have changed since Mr. Musk completed his $44 billion deal for the company in late October. While the numbers are relatively small, researchers said the increases were atypically high.
The shift in speech is just the tip of a set of changes on the service under Mr. Musk. Accounts that Twitter used to regularly remove — such as those that identify as part of the Islamic State, which were banned after the U.S. government classified ISIS as a terror group — have come roaring back. Accounts associated with QAnon, a vast far-right conspiracy theory, have paid for and received verified status on Twitter, giving them a sheen of legitimacy.
These changes are alarming, researchers said, adding that they had never seen such a sharp increase in hate speech, problematic content and formerly banned accounts in such a short period on a mainstream social media platform.
“Elon Musk sent up the Bat Signal to every kind of racist, misogynist and homophobe that Twitter was open for business,” said Imran Ahmed, the chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate. “They have reacted accordingly.”
Young Woman with a Red Fan, Max Pechstein, 1910
CNN Prognosticators are getting some encouraging Poll results in the Warnock/Walker race. “CNN Poll: Warnock holds a narrow edge over Walker in final undecided Senate contest.” Walker is not fit for the Senate, but his treatment of women makes him an unacceptable choice. Our Georgia Sky Dancers are voting in even the most desperate situations, like long lines and illness.
In the final undecided Senate contest of 2022, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia holds a narrow lead over Republican challenger Herschel Walker among those likely to vote in a runoff election Tuesday, according to a new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS.
The survey shows that Walker faces widespread questions about his honesty and suffers from a negative favorability rating, while nearly half of those who back him say their vote is more about opposition to Warnock than support for Walker. Voters’ modestly more positive views of Warnock and a firmly committed base of supporters appear to boost the incumbent in the new poll.
Overall, 52% of likely voters say they plan to support Warnock in Tuesday’s runoff and 48% pick Walker. Partisans on both sides are deeply entrenched, with nearly all Democrats (99%) behind Warnock and 95% of Republicans backing Walker. Independents break in Warnock’s favor, 61% to 36%, but make up a relatively small slice of likely voters, 17%, compared with 24% in a CNN exit poll of voters in the first round of this contest last month. (Warnock finished narrowly ahead of Walker in November but without the majority of the vote needed to avoid a runoff.)
Franz Marc, Dog Lying in the Snow,1910-1911
This is also from CNN. “Woman alleges to Daily Beast that Herschel Walker was violent with her in 2005.”
An ex-girlfriend of Herschel Walker, the Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, has come forward in The Daily Beast to allege that the former football star was violent and threatening toward her during an incident that took place in 2005.
Cheryl Parsa, a Dallas resident, told the news outlet she had a five-year relationship with Walker from 2004 to 2009. She alleges that in 2005, after she found Walker with another woman, he got angry, and, according to her account, placed his hands on her chest and neck and also swung his fist at her. She told The Daily Beast that she thought he was “going to beat me” and that she fled.
This endless Republican parade of wife-beaters, child sex traffickers, racists, mass shooters, anti-semites, and just crazy people is emotional torture. They light their torches, set fires, then ignore the resulting damage. I have decreased my daily exposure to the news, which isn’t good in a democracy.
I have one last read to share from the Washington Post. “THE ABORTION DIARIES: Pregnant and desperate in post-Roe America. Three women face unexpected pregnancies in states with abortion bans.” It’s written and compiled by Caroline Kitchener.
It’s a moment of panic that has played out again and again for people in more than a dozen states since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in June.
Once they find out they’re pregnant, there isn’t much time to act. The closest open abortion clinics that once offered next-day appointments are now often fully booked three, four, even five weeks in advance. Pills purchased online can take up to a month to arrive.
Every day, the fetus gets a little bigger — and the anxiety builds.
Inpolarized, post-Roe America, the experiences that draw widespread attention are often the most harrowing: a 10-year-old rape victim forced to leave her state to end her pregnancy, or a woman denied an abortion for a fetus without a skull.
Often lost in the discussion are the more routine stories. The mother of two who can’t afford a third child. The teenager who can’t tell her parents she’s pregnant. The 25-year-old who isn’t ready to be a mom.
Over the next decade, if recent trends hold, more than a million people with unwanted pregnancies are likely to run up against an abortion ban. Some will find a way, traveling hundreds of miles or securing illegal pills through the mail. Others will resign themselves to parenthood.
The Washington Post made contact with three pregnant women who were seeking abortions while living in states with strict abortion bans. These women, reached early in their pregnancies, communicated regularly with The Post, sharing their experiences through calls, text messages and other documentation that supported their accounts. They participated on the condition that only their first names be used to protect their privacy.
Here are their stories, from the minute the two pink lines appeared.
The stories are compelling. It’s not hard to think about how voting and women’s rights were the first to fall in the Republican-packed Supreme Court. I feel so exhausted. Being under attack by a radical minority, White Christian Nationalism bloc eats everything out of one’s psyche and soul. It’s all just out there, isn’t it? At least we can’t be accused of playing race cards, jumping to Reductio ad Hitlerum, or being hysterical anymore. All you have to do is point to what they are saying out loud and doing daily. The Republican-run committees are just going to be amplifying it all. We’ll still be here even if making sense of it isn’t possible anymore. The key is still to follow truth with action.
And, yes, what would a conversation about NAZIs be without ‘degenerate’ art from the period by German painters.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Thursday Reads: I Don’t Belong in This World
Posted: December 10, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, SCOTUS, U.S. Politics | Tags: Affirmative Action, Antonin Scalia, Donald Trump, hate groups, hate speech, Islamophobia, KKK, Racism, University of Texas, value of diversity on college campuses, violence against Muslims 36 Comments
Good Morning!!
I hardly know where to begin today. Following the news these days is like going through the looking glass into an alternate reality.
So often in my life I’ve felt that I don’t belong in this world. I have that feeling today. There are so many people and events that I just don’t understand.
I’ll begin with yesterday’s Supreme Court arguments in an important case about affirmative action. Yesterday in a comment, Dakinikat posted this article from Mother Jones: Justice Scalia Suggests Blacks Belong at “Slower” Colleges.
Scalia’s comments came during arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas, a case over whether the university’s use of race in a sliver of its admissions decisions is constitutional. The University of Texas-Austin is being challenged over its use of race in admissions decisions for about 25 percent of its freshman class. About 75 percent of the students at UT-Austin are admitted through what’s known as the Top Ten Percent program, in which any student graduating within the top 10 percent of his or her class is guaranteed admission, regardless of race. The other 25 percent are admitted via a “holistic” process that takes race, and other factors, into account. It’s the “holistic” program that Abigail Fisher—who was denied admission for the university in 2008—is challenging.
The University of Texas has determined that if it excluded race as a factor, that remaining 25 percent would be almost entirely white. During the oral arguments, former US Solicitor General Greg Garre, who is representing the university, was explaining this to the justices. At that point, Scalia jumped in, questioning whether increasing the number of African Americans at the flagship university in Austin was in the black students’ best interests. He said:
There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to get them into the University of Texas, where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don’t come from schools like the University of Texas. They come from lesser schools where they do not feel that they’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.
He went on to say, “I’m just not impressed by the fact the University of Texas may have fewer [blacks]. Maybe it ought to have fewer. I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible.”
This morning some writers are claiming that Scalia’s comments weren’t racist because he was referring to studies by respected researchers and not expressing his personal opinion.
Alex Griswold at Mediaite: Media Jumps The Gun, Attacks Scalia For Perfectly Reasonable Question.
First of all, it’s worth noting that oral arguments are not an avenue for justices to share their views on the case at hand; it’s an opportunity to suss out any holes in the arguments of both parties. To that end, justices often advance arguments and theories they do not necessarily hold….
As it happens, Scalia was pretty accuratelyciting a brief filed by two members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. They point to a study showing that black scientists are much more likely to have graduated from historically black colleges, even though those schools are less academically stringent than elite universities:
With only twenty percent of total black enrollment, these schools were producing forty percent of the black students graduating with natural science degrees, according to the National Science Foundation. Those same students were frequently going on to earn Ph.D.s from non-HBCUs. The National Science Foundation reported, for example, that thirty-six percent of the blacks who earned an engineering doctorate between 1986 and 1988 received their undergraduate degree from an HBCU.
Why have HBCUs been so successful? [The authors] believed that unlike at mainstream institutions, African-American students at HBCUs were not grouped at the bottom of the class. Roughly half were in the top half of the class.
Scalia isn’t citing some crackpot theory that only these two civil rights officers are worried about, by the way. The“mismatch effect” is a pretty common critique of affirmative action in academia that’s based on pretty hard data. The most prominent book on the subject wasn’t written by cranks, it was written by UCLA and Stanford law professors.
Reading by the fireplace. Photo by Caroline Jensen.
OK, but Scalia did express a personal opinion at the end of his remarks. Furthermore, these studies apparently do not address the issue of whether diversity in the student bodies and faculty at “elite” universities is a good thing for the college experience and for society as a whole.
James Warren also defended Scalia’s remarks at Poynter: Media muddle: Was Scalia being racist?
And then there’s the question of why so many Americans love their guns more than life itself–or at least the lives of their children and fellow citizens. Many of these people are the same ones who are constantly claiming they are “pro-life.” Someone please explain to me why this makes any sense.
The Christian Science Monitor: Why are gun rights activists planning a fake mass shooting?
Two gun rights groups in Texas have planned a mock mass shooting event on Saturday in order to raise awareness about their view of the relationship between gun rights and mass shooting casualties. They believe that by increasing open carry rights, mass shootings can be reduced or even prevented.
Gun control advocates have been vocal about their desire to enact new restrictions on ownership of certain kinds of guns in the wake of two mass shootings in Colorado Springs, Colo., and San Bernardino, Calif., in less than a week. The groups hosting the mock shooting event say that it will demonstrate how the intervention of responsible gun owners can reduce the number of lives lost in a mass shooting scenario.
The two groups, Come and Take it Texas and Dontcomply.com, had originally planned to hold their event at the University of Texas but later moved the event off campus after meeting with university officials.
Sorry, but I have no clue how this exercise could relate to an actual mass shooting event.
And what about the phenomenon of Donald Trump? Why does he think it’s useful to fan the flames of racism, nativism, and Islamophobia and in the process increasing the visibility of hate groups and encouraging violent attacks on minority groups in the U.S.?
Politico: White supremacist groups see Trump bump.
The Ku Klux Klan is using Donald Trump as a talking point in its outreach efforts. Stormfront, the most prominent American white supremacist website, is upgrading its servers to najlepszy hosting. And former Louisiana Rep. David Duke reports that the businessman has given more Americans cover to speak out loud about white nationalism than at any time since his own political campaigns in the 1990s.
As hate group monitors at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League warn that Trump’s rhetoric is conducive to anti-Muslim violence, white nationalist leaders are capitalizing on his candidacy to invigorate and expand their movement.
“Demoralization has been the biggest enemy and Trump is changing all that,” said Stormfront founder Don Black, who reports additional listeners and call volume to his phone-in radio show, in addition to the site’s traffic bump. Black predicts that the white nationalist forces set in motion by Trump will be a legacy that outlives the businessman’s political career. “He’s certainly creating a movement that will continue independently of him even if he does fold at some point.”
Reading by the fire, Edward Lamson Henry.
Are Trump’s statements actually likely to energize hateful individuals to resort to violence?
According to experts at the Anti-Defamation League and the Southern Poverty Law Center who monitor hate groups and anti-Muslim sentiment, Trump’s call on Monday to halt the entrance of Muslims to the United States is driving online chatter among white supremacists and is likely to inspire violence against Muslims.
“When well-known public figures make these kind of statements in the public square, they are taken as a permission-giving by criminal elements who go out and act on their words.” said Mark Potok of the SPLC. “Is it energizing the groups? Yeah. They’re thrilled.”
Marilyn Mayo, co-director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said Trump’s proposal this week to halt the entrance of Muslims into the United States is only the latest statement to inject vigor into the racist fringe of American politics. “Since the beginning of Donald Trump’s candidacy, we’ve definitely seen that a segment of the white supremacist movement, from racist intellectuals to neo-Nazis have been energized,” she said.
Check out this piece by Steve Benen: Trump spokesperson: ‘So what? They’re Muslim.’
Katrina Pierson, a spokesperson for Donald Trump’s campaign, argued this morning on CNN that her boss’ proposed Muslim ban has merit because “never in United States history have we allowed insurgents to come across these borders.” Reminded that Trump’s policy would block lots of peaceful people who have nothing to do with violence, the spokesperson was unmoved.“So what?” Pierson replied. “They’re Muslim.”
As for public opinion, it’s too soon to gauge polling reactions, but we already have a sense of Republican voters’ general attitudes on the subject.Public Policy Polling published results yesterday on GOP voters’ attitudes in North Carolina. Among the findings:* 48% of North Carolina Republicans endorse the idea of a national database of Muslims.* 42% of North Carolina Republicans believed thousands of Middle Easterners cheered in New Jersey on 9/11.* 35% of North Carolina Republicans support shutting down American mosques.* 32% of North Carolina Republicans believe practicing Islam in the United States should be illegal.
We are certainly seeing plenty of attacks on Muslims around the country. On Tuesday I posted a story about someone leaving a pig’s head at a mosque in Philadelphia. Today, I saw this on Raw Story: Texans begin nightly smashing windows of Muslim family only six weeks after they move in.
A Muslim family in Plano, Texas fear that they may have been targeted with a hate crime after rocks smashed through their windows at least two times in the last week.
The family told KTVT that they moved to Plano six weeks ago, and that they believe that the people throwing the rocks may be sending a message about their religion.
Windows in the home have been smashed twice in the last two days. At their request, the names of the family members were not being released.
Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) spokesperson Alia Salem explained to KTVT that there had been a spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes in recent weeks.
“Right now, we’re getting multiple hate crime reports every single day,” Salem said.
Why? This is not the America I want to live in. I’d rather escape into a book, but somehow I feel compelled to stay aware of what is happening.
What stories are you following today?
Monday Reads
Posted: May 13, 2013 Filed under: morning reads, New Orleans | Tags: Climate change, Elizabeth Warren, gun violence, hate speech, mother's day shootings New Orleans, school loans 34 Comments
Good Morning!
I spent Mother’s Day napping on dad’s sofa mostly. I am such an exciting person!! I have no idea why I am so cold and so worn out but it is what it is.
Meanwhile, all hell broke loose in New Orleans. The gun violence that hit a Mother’s Day parade there was pretty much the kind of urban violence we see all too often with such easy access to guns. I wish I could say that gun violence was rare in the 7th ward. But it is not. Here’s a word from my congressman Cedric Richmond:
According to FBI data, 1,464 people were killed by firearms in New Orleans between 2008-2011. That’s 1,464 families who will never see their loved ones again. If we were to have passed the entirety of President Obama’s proposed reforms, sadly, many of those victims would probably have still been killed because violence is a pervasive and complex problem with a diverse set of causes. Economic insecurity, poor mental health treatment options, inferior education options and the scarcity of positive opportunities are all contributors, which one regulation alone cannot eliminate. That being said, if we only acted on just a few of the president’s proposals, we could decrease the supply of guns used in the homicides by reducing the supply of illegally purchased guns via universal background checks. This would decrease the use of guns in violent crime and keep a few more families from having to bury a loved one.
While I was serving as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives, I introduced an assault weapons ban bill on numerous occasions. I took on the National Rifle Association in these battles not because I have a grudge against gun owners, but because I could find no reasonable defense of having these weapons of mass destruction on our streets. As a resident of Sportsman’s Paradise, I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. However, I do not ascribe to the belief that Congress has no role in responding to the gun violence epidemic plaguing communities like New Orleans, Chicago and Detroit.
It seems that 19 people were injured with no fatalities.
A Mother’s Day second-line shooting on Frenchmen Street in the 7th Ward, on Sunday about 1:45 p.m., left 19 people injured, according to the latest NOPD numbers. Earlier Sunday afternoon, NOPD Superintendent Ronal Serpas said that about 12 people had been injured, but the toll later grew to 19, with the NOPD explaining that some victims initially hadn’t reported being injured and more people continue to come forward.
Police said 10 adult men, seven adult women, a 10-year-old boy and a 10-year-old girl were struck by bullets. Both of the 10-year-old victims had graze wounds to the body and were in good condition. A man and a woman were reported to be in surgery Sunday evening.
The shooting occurred in the 1400 block of Frenchmen Street at the intersection of North Villere Street. Immediately after the shooting police reported seeing three suspects running from the scene. One suspect was seen running on Frenchman toward North Claiborne, police said.
NOPD spokeswoman Remi Braden said many of the victims were grazed, some by bullets that ricocheted. “At this point, there are no fatalities, and most of the wounds are not life-threatening,” she said in an email.
“But all medical conditions are not known at this time as victims were rushed to nearby hospitals,” Braden continued. “Detectives are conducting interviews, retrieving any surveillance video in the area and, of course, collecting all evidence. This is an extremely unusual occurrence, and we’re confident that we will make swift arrests.”
Kevin Allman, editor of Gambit Weekly, said one of the publication’s writers, Deborah Cotton, also known as the blogger Big Red Cotton, was shot and was in stable condition after undergoing surgery.
Shannon Roberts, 32, was in the Interim LSU Hospital in New Orleans on Sunday afternoon and early evening alongside reams of other crying and fear-ridden – and at times, angry – family members whose loved ones were injured in the shooting. Roberts said she was waiting on a 21-year-old nephew who was shot in the arm and stomach, a 37-year-old niece shot in the arm, and a 39-year-old cousin shot in the back.
“All innocent bystanders got hit,” Roberts said. “When I got the call saying they were shot, I wasn’t thinking at all, I was just shivering and crying… just hoping they be all right.
Hatred evidently has a basis in geography in this country. This is an interesting twist on studying information from Twitters, locations, and 
displays of racism, homophobia, and basic hate speech.
Twitter, even more than many other social media tools, can feel disconnected from the real world. But a group of students and professors at research site Floating Sheep have built a comprehensive map of some of Twitter’s most distasteful content: the racist, homophobic, or ableist slurs that can proliferate online. Called Geography of Hate, the interactive map charts ten relatively common slurs across the continental US, either by general category or individually. Looking at the whole country, you’ll often see a mass of red or what the map’s creators call a “blue smog of hate.” Zooming in, however, patches appear over individual regions or cities; some may be predictable, while others are not.
The map builds on an earlier Floating Sheep project that showed where President Obama was referenced with racial slurs, but it’s far more comprehensive and well-constructed. Unlike many other studies, for example, the tweets weren’t collected and analyzed algorithmically — a method that could accidentally collect non-derogatory uses of these terms. Instead, the team first searched through a year’s worth of geotagged tweets for words, then had a group of students at Humboldt State University look at each one. Only tweets they found explicitly negative went on the map: a derogatory use of the word “dyke” would be added, for example, but one reclaiming the term for a gay pride parade would not. In total, the map charts about 150,000 negative, slur-filled tweets.
Here is some “Terrible News About Carbon and Climate Change”.
This past Thursday, the daily average atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, as measured by the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, passed four hundred parts per million. In some way it was a meaningless milestone. We know that CO2 is increasing; we knew this moment would come; we know that four hundred is no more different from three hundred and ninety-nine than it is from four hundred and one.
Still, the number should shake us, if not shock us. We’ve got more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any point since the Pliocene, when there were jungles in northern Canada. And the number hurdles ever upward, as ocean levels rise and extreme weather becomes routine. Three-fifty was the old target; four-fifty is the new one. But what indication is there that we’ll stop at five hundred, six hundred, or even more?
We’ve failed collectively. As Ryan Lizza explained in miserable detail in 2010, the United States government couldn’t pass a tepid, eviscerated law. Activists have failed. We’ve all failed morally: a problem created by the world’s rich will now crush the world’s poor. In a grand sense it’s also a failure of the creators, and deniers, of climate change: the Exxon-Mobils, say, or the Wall Street Journal editorial page. A victory isn’t worth much if your children and grandchildren will one day think of you with anger and shame.
How do we get out of this mess? The political system seems hopeless. Yes, government regulation has done much to relieve us of acid rain and smog. But global warming combines two intractable problems. Reducing emissions mainly benefits people who aren’t born and don’t vote. And it requires international coördination, which is hopeless, and international law, which is toothless. We should do things like build more public transportation, which helps people here and now. We should design our cities for a future with terrible weather. But solving the problem of climate change through the U.N. is like a small man with olive oil on his hands trying to pull a whale from the water.
I’ve become somewhat fascinated with charter schools given their presence in New Orleans and their supposed success. Who makes money from these things and why is that important? It has a lot to do with Real Estate Developers and Hedge Fund Managers. This is worth reading.
Studies shows that charter schools don’t typically outperform public schools and they often tend to increase racial and class segregation. So one must wonder, what exactly is motivating these school “reformers”? And why have they pushed for more and more closure — and new charter schools — at such an unprecedented rate in recent years?
Pro-charter supporters will tell you that it’s time for public institutions like our schools to start competing more like for-profit institutions. Test scores and high enrollment, then, define success. Unsuccessful schools, they say, should close just as unsuccessful businesses do. For neoliberal school reformers from today’s Arne Duncan-led Department of Education to scandal-ridden movement leader Michelle Rhee to billionaire Bill Gates, it is taken on faith that market principles are desirable in education.
But since it’s not clear that market principles are benefiting students on a large scale, it seems likely that something else is at stake. And reformers may be more than a little disingenuous in publicly ignoring that other, less high-minded thing: Profit. Critics of charter schools and school closings point out that proponents may not really be motivated by idealism, but by self-gain.
But who precisely is profiting? And how? Untangling answers to these questions is a more daunting task. Compared to public schools, charters schools are an extremely unregulated business. They contract with private companies to provide all kinds of services, from curriculum development to landscaping. Most of the regulations that bind charter schools are implemented at the state level. And unlike public institutions, the finances of charter schools are managed on a school-by-school basis. Because they are not consistently held accountable to the public for how they distribute funds, charter schools are often able to keep their business practices under wraps, and thus avoid too much scrutiny.
Here’s economist Joseph Stiglitz warning us about the crushing student debt in the U.S.
According to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, almost 13 percent of student-loan borrowers of all ages owe more than $50,000, and nearly 4 percent owe more than $100,000. These debts are beyond students’ ability to repay, (especially in our nearly jobless recovery); this is demonstrated by the fact that delinquency and default rates are soaring. Some 17 percent of student-loan borrowers were 90 days or more behind in payments at the end of 2012. When only those in repayment were counted — in other words, not including borrowers who were in loan deferment or forbearance — more than 30 percent were 90 days or more behind. For federal loans taken out in the 2009 fiscal year, three-year default rates exceeded 13 percent.
America is distinctive among advanced industrialized countries in the burden it places on students and their parents for financing higher education. America is also exceptional among comparable countries for the high cost of a college degree, including at public universities. Average tuition, and room and board, at four-year colleges is just short of $22,000 a year, up from under $9,000 (adjusted for inflation) in 1980-81.
Compare this more-than-doubling in tuition with the stagnation in median family income, which is now about $50,000, compared to $46,000 in 1980 (adjusted for inflation).
Like much else, the problem of student debt worsened during the Great Recession: tuition costs at public universities increased by 27 percent in the past five years — partly because of cutbacks — while median income shrank. In California, inflation-adjusted tuition more than doubled in public two-year community colleges (which for poorer Americans are often the key to upward mobility), and by more than 70 percent in four-year public schools, from 2007-8 to 2012-13.
With costs soaring, incomes stagnating and little help from government, it was not surprising that total student debt, around $1 trillion, surpassed total credit-card debt last year. Responsible Americans have learned how to curb their credit-card debt — many have forsaken them for debit cards, or educated themselves about usurious interest rates, fees and penalties charged by card issuers — but the challenge of controlling student debt is even more unsettling.
Curbing student debt is tantamount to curbing social and economic opportunity. College graduates earn $12,000 more per year than those without college degrees; the gap has almost tripled just since 1980. Our economy is increasingly reliant on knowledge-related industries. No matter what happens with currency wars and trade balances, the United States is not going to return to making textiles. Unemployment rates among college graduates are much lower than among those with only a high school diploma.
Who is the one person in the beltway looking for answers? Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren is looking at handing the loans over the Fed. The problem is that no one seems to be taking the bill seriously.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has just introduced a new bill, the Bank on Students Loan Fairness Act, to offer student loans at the same rates that the Federal Reserve charges big banks through its discount window lending program. At the moment, that rate is about 0.75%. The rates on federally guaranteed student loans, meanwhile, is set to double to 6.8% this summer.
“Some may say we can’t afford this proposal,” said Senator Warren as she introduced the bill. “I would remind them that the Federal Government currently makes 36 cents in profit for every dollar it lends to students . . . meanwhile, the banks pay interest that is one-ninth of the amount that students will be asked to pay. That’s just wrong. It doesn’t reflect our values.”
“Now some explain that the banks get exceptionally low interest rates because the economy is still shaky and banks need access to cheap credit to continue the recovery.” She sighed loudly. “But our students are just as important to the economic recovery as our banks, and the debt they carry poses a serious risk to that recovery.”
It’s probably true that some say banks need low interest rates to keep the economy growing. But no one except possibly a lunatic has told Elizabeth Warren that banks are getting 0.75% at the discount window as a thank you for all the hard work they’re doing helping the economy. Discount window loans are cheap for three reasons: the borrowers have assets and income that are easy to seize, the loans are quite short term, and the banks are required to put up collateral.
As you’ll have discovered with your own mortgage or car loan, the shorter the term of the loan, the lower the interest rate. You will also have discovered that loans secured by collateral, like your car loan or mortgage, carry lower interest rates than loans such as credit card expenditures, which are secured by nothing more than your heartfelt promises to pay. You may even have noticed that the more durable the collateral, the more attractive a rate your banker will extend on it.
So it is with loans to other people, and businesses. Banks get a very low rate because they’re borrowing for very short periods of time–often overnight, always less than a year. The Fed correctly figures that the bank is unlikely to go out of business by next month–and anyway, they’re putting up collateral, which is unlikely to lose all its value in such a short period of time.
Students, on the other hand, are borrowing for a decade, and the only thing they’re putting up as a guarantee is their character. How good a collateral is their character? In 2011, 9.1% of borrowers had defaulted on their student loan within the first two years of the payment period.
The interest paid by the folks who don’t default is the only thing keeping this program from hemorrhaging money. Elizabeth Warren proposes to cut that interest rate to less than the rate of inflation.
So, those are my suggestions this morning. What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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