And another day of history showing us what to do, the danger R’s should be talking about, the medically inaccurate ‘fetal heartbeat,’ mass shootings, road rage, FL attacks math textbooks, scaling back food stamps, liver damage in kids, and ‘magic mushrooms’ comes to a close:
“The Republican Party is not the party of parents raising white kids. The Republican Party is not the party of parents raising girls, raising trans kids, raising kids of color, raising queer kids, raising poor kids, raising immigrant kids. The Republican Party is making it harder for all of these kids to learn about themselves and their histories. The Republican Party is stripping parents and educators of their collective ability to protect vulnerable children from being indoctrinated by—or victimized by—the scourge of white supremacy.” -- Ibram X. Kendi
Deaths
US: 1,015,451
World: 6,223,035
Cases
US: 82,316,348
World: 504,751,970
Police: More than 900 civilian bodies found in Kyiv region. The bodies of more than 900 civilians have been discovered in the region surrounding the Ukrainian capital following Russia’s withdrawal — most of them fatally shot, police said Friday, an indication that many people were “simply executed.” -- This. This is what we get with authoritarianism. And authoritarianism has been embraced by the GOP.
The One Way History Shows Trump’s Personality Cult Will End. An expert on autocracy assesses how far America has slipped away from democracy, and what it will take to get it back. Nearly two years later — after a riot, an impeachment, and a monomaniacal campaign to punish the Republicans who tried to hold him accountable — Ben-Ghiat has ample proof of her thesis. And she professes even more concern that Trump’s sway over the GOP has permanently transformed the party’s political culture. “He’s changed the party to an authoritarian party culture,” she told me. “So not only do you go after external enemies, but you go after internal enemies. You’re not allowed to have any dissent.”...She insists her urgent warnings should not be construed as fatalism. Throughout our interview she leavened her direst predictions with a pragmatic if not sunny optimism. Political violence is more likely than an actual civil war; a Republican takeover in November would be catastrophic but she remains heartened by the ability of American voters to “interrupt an autocratic personality who’s in the middle of his project;” and ballot box victories alone don’t stop autocrats but the law can. “It takes prosecution and conviction to deflate their personality cults,” Ben-Ghiat said. “That’s what it takes.”...One of the big talking points and strategy of right-wing authoritarianism, is to label democratic systems as tyrannical. Mussolini was the first to say that democracies are tyrannical, democracies are the problem. And there’s a whole century’s worth of the strategy of calling sitting Democrats, who you want to overthrow, dictators. Biden as a social dictator, [is] a phony talking point. It has so many articulations from “They’re forcing us to wear masks.” And you have people like DeSantis who are doing this very subversive thing of saying, “Florida’s the free state. You can have refuge from the dictatorship of Biden here.” And what this is designed to do is discredit the sitting democratic administration in order to create, a myth of freedom. January 6 was actually marketed as the violence [being] in the service of freedom, and you were overthrowing a dictator...[Ron DeSantis] has autocratic tendencies. What’s so interesting is he was a Reaganite and then he had clearly some kind of epiphany when Trump came on the scene. He had that campaign video that showed his house being transformed into an altar for Trump. And he got the endorsement. He has absorbed the lessons of what you need to get ahead in the GOP today. And that is to be a forceful bully, even to high school students. The way he carries himself and speaks has gotten much more aggressive. And he’s also very smartly tried to turn Florida into this refuge for all who are oppressed by Biden. He invited New York city cops and people from all over the nation who are oppressed by federal government vaccine [rules], or state mandates, [to] come to Florida and be free. And so that’s one way he’s setting up Florida to be the fiefdom of a certain politics, a certain ideology, that he clearly then wants to take national. And in fact his spokesperson, Christina Pushaw, says, “Make America Florida.”... I would say that nationally, we are a functioning democracy. That’s how we got rid of Trump. But the system has been eroded and many states are shifting, are evolving over time to a condition where votes are going to mean less. And then you get into a situation which is like what happened in Hungary where over time Viktor Orbán has developed a system where it’s almost impossible for the opposition to win...I believe it’s my job to warn people what could happen, but it’s very important — that’s why I keep bringing up the 2020 election and also the 2018 midterms — that these are recent events, and there is this energy of protest and love for democracy and freedom, real freedom, not the Republicans’ idea of freedom, that we can’t lose, because once you decide that it’s all rigged and there’s nothing you can do, then you do lose democracy. -- We are in dangerous times. Please listen to the experts. I encourage you to read the entire interview.
“Someday I hope the term "MAGA" becomes a universally regarded word of disdain & disgrace. Like fascism, Nazism.” -- Richard Signorelli (It already is in my world.)
Texts show Utah Sen. Lee’s early work to overturn election. Utah Sen. Mike Lee worked on early efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, helping push legally dubious schemes to keep then-President Donald Trump in power, before he shifted course and quickly backed away.
“The Mike Lee texts are a reminder that elected Republicans broadly lined up behind and supported the effort to end democracy and install Trump in office. Returning them to power would be a disaster for the country.” -- Aaron Rupar
The Danger More Republicans Should Be Talking About. The Republican Party is clearly not the party of parents. The Republican Party is certainly not the party of parents of color. But is the Republican Party even the party of white parents? This new branding is a myth, a great myth...The foundational assumption of this great myth is that Republican politicians care about white children. But if they did, then they would not be ignoring or downplaying or defending or bolstering the principal racial threat facing white youth today. And I am not talking about critical race theory, which Republican propagandists have quite intentionally redefined, as one admitted, remaking it into a threat, and obscuring the real threat. What are white children being indoctrinated with? What is making them uncomfortable? What is causing them to hate? White-supremacist ideology: the toxic blend of racist, sexist, ableist, homophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic, xenophobic, and anti-Semitic ideas that is harmful to all minds, especially the naive and defenseless minds of youth. Which group is the prime target of white supremacists? White youth...But the exposure to white supremacy through online video games is eclipsed by the 17 percent of 13-to-17-year-olds who encounter white-supremacist views on social media, according to the same ADL study. TikTok’s abundance of young users makes it a major recruiting ground for white supremacists. One study of TikTok videos found that almost a third “amplified white supremacy.” In addition to anti-Black views, the TikToks also spewed offensive content about Asians, queer people, migrants and refugees, women, Muslims, and Jews...The more that white kids swallow white-supremacist memes—and like and share them—the more they are introduced to troubling and extreme material. The algorithms for social-media apps and search engines enable this “‘slow roll’ process,” researchers told Insider. Just like innocently inviting a stranger into a multiplayer game or chat room, innocently liking a “funny” meme can lead children into a dangerous hole of white-supremacist ideology. While in the hole, youth may be “groomed” through direct messages that are sent en masse by white supremacists. “You see 30-somethings talking to 14-year-olds and kind of grooming them for the far-right ideology,” the far-right-extremism researcher Miro Dittrich told Insider...But how can white kids—or any kids—guard against this threat if they can’t recognize it? How can kids repel ideas of hierarchy if they haven’t been taught ideas of equality? How can kids distinguish right from wrong if they haven’t been shown what’s right and wrong? Recognizing that “an increasing number of U.S. teens are getting ‘radicalized’ online by White supremacists or other extremist groups,” an article published by the National Education Association concluded: “The best place to prevent that radicalization is U.S. classrooms.” In the classroom, kids can read a diverse assortment of books. Kids can discover and appreciate the beautiful human rainbow in all its colors and cultures. Kids can amass empathy and critical-thinking skills. Kids can learn how persistent group inequity is produced by bad rules, not bad people. Kids can see themselves in humans who don’t look like them, speak like them, love like them, worship like them, live like them. Kids can explore the complex history of racism and the interracial body of anti-racist resisters...Instead of combatting white supremacists, the Republican Party has harbored white supremacists, has mainstreamed their mantra that anti-racism is antiwhite, and has embraced a president who has called them “very fine people,” has told this growing army on national television to “stand back and stand by,” has incited them to attack the Capitol, has defended their carnage, and has urged the American people to move on from the greatest domestic terrorist threat of our time. This Republican Party is not the party of any group of parents, but the party of white supremacy. -- Now go and read the rest of it. I had to leave a lot out because it was already getting long.
Florida’s Anti-Woke Crusade Has a New Target: Math Textbooks. When vetting math books for K–12 classes, the state education commissioner rejected 41 percent of submissions because of “references to Critical Race Theory (CRT), inclusions of Common Core, and the unsolicited addition of Social Emotional Learning (SEL) in mathematics,” the state announced yesterday in a press release titled, “Florida Rejects Publishers’ Attempts to Indoctrinate Students.” The press release does not provide any examples of the offending material, but it does say that 54 of 132 submitted textbooks were rejected, including 71 percent of materials proposed for grades K–5. The materials did not comply with the state’s educational standards, which apparently emphasize real-world context for math problems and discourage “unsolicited strategies” such as “culturally responsive teaching.” — If you haven’t already done so, read the story that’s posted before this one, and the one above about the expert on autocracy. DeSantis is dangerous. Please listen to the experts. They have studied the history. They know the signs of a building authoritarian government. The GOP has embraced this form of government, and we will not be free with Republicans in charge. They are showing us and telling us what they plan to do. Please pay attention.
‘Heartbeat bills:’ Is there a so-called fetal heartbeat at six weeks of pregnancy? As states become increasingly bold in restricting access to abortion, many have drawn the line at around six weeks of pregnancy — the point at which, the laws say, a so-called fetal heartbeat can be detected. But according to experts, the term “fetal heartbeat” is misleading and medically inaccurate. “While the heart does begin to develop at around six weeks, at this point the heart as we know it does not yet exist.”
US rocked by 3 mass shootings during Easter weekend; 2 dead. The shootings in South Carolina and one in Pittsburgh, in which two minors were killed early Sunday, also left at least 31 people wounded.
A very American road rage shooting crisis. The U.S. is experiencing a huge number of road rage incidents. And the list of potential provocations are almost endless — tailgating, illegally passing on the shoulder, horn honking, cutting drivers off, yelling, flashing one’s high beams or making obscene gestures. But too often, these incidents don’t end with an epithet. Last week, a man in New Jersey was arrested after allegedly running over a woman multiple times in a suspected road rage incident. And it gets worse: In 2021, 45 people were wounded and 11 were killed in road rage shootings — in Dallas alone. Across the country, last year was one of the worst years on record for these kinds of deadly outbursts.
Shanghai turns residences into COVID isolation facilities, sparking protest. Shanghai is converting residential buildings into quarantine centres to house a mounting number of COVID-19 cases, but the move is sparking anger and protest from neighbours worried they are being put at increased risk of infection.
Josh Mandel runs Ohio GOP Senate campaign ‘through churches’. “Usually, when someone’s running for U.S. Senate or governor or Congress, they’d go to all the Republican rubber chicken dinners and clam bakes and hog roasts, stuff like that,” Mandel said in a recent interview between campaign stops. “We’re blowing up the playbook. I’m sidestepping all of the Republican Party groups and, instead, I’m running a campaign through churches.” Indeed, Mandel’s campaign is steeped in Christianity. His website features a picture of a cross and an American flag. He pledges to make decisions in Washington with “the Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other.” And he holds most of his campaign events at evangelical churches...Some critics say they’re more concerned with Mandel’s history of controversial statements. He was briefly kicked off Twitter after running a poll on which “illegals” would commit the most crimes, “Muslim Terrorists” or “Mexican Gangbangers,” and has characterized Black Lives Matter protesters as “thugs.” The Rev. Tim Ahrens, senior minister of the First Congregational Church of Columbus, said Jesus dedicated his life to caring for those who had been forsaken and forgotten, “so to use his name to further divide people is really sick.” “The problem that I have is when you literally take what is the Christian faith and turn it into a political campaign, it’s abusive of the faith,” he said. -- Christianity, by design, is authoritarian. And the GOP have embraced authoritarianism.
States scale back food stamp benefits even as prices soar. Month by month, more of the roughly 40 million Americans who get help buying groceries through the federal food stamp program are seeing their benefits plunge even as the nation struggles with the biggest increase in food costs in decades. The payments to low-income individuals and families are dropping as governors end COVID-19 disaster declarations and opt out of an ongoing federal program that made their states eligible for dramatic increases in SNAP benefits, also known as food stamps. The U.S. Department of Agriculture began offering the increased benefit in April 2020 in response to surging unemployment after the COVID-19 pandemic swept over the country. The result is that depending on the politics of a state, individuals and families in need find themselves eligible for significantly different levels of help buying food.
Rotting fruit, spoiled vegetables: How Texas just made the supply chain even worse. A weeklong protest by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott against President Biden’s recent immigration policy reached a resolution on Friday, but the gridlock it created has resulted in hundreds of millions of lost dollars and delays in shipments of everything from avocados to automobile parts that will have a longer-term impact.
Rare, severe liver damage reported in kids in U.S. and Europe. Public health officials in Europe and the United States are investigating dozens of puzzling cases of severe hepatitis in young children. Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver. The cause is often a virus, but the viruses that commonly cause the illness — hepatitis A, B, C, D and E — have been ruled out in the cases in question, leaving doctors searching for the culprit. In several cases, the illness was so severe that the children needed a liver transplant. No deaths have been reported.
Teen was forced into closet and sprayed with cleaner, GA cops say. Classmates charged. The Loganvillle High School students allegedly forced a fellow student into a bathroom closet and sprayed them with cleaning products on March 31, police said in a news release. The group is also accused of making several anti-gay remarks. Authorities said the teen had been harassed on at least two occasions between March 23 and March 31, leading to the charges. The students involved range in age from 14 to 17 years old.
5,000 under evacuation orders as New Mexico wildfire rages. Elsewhere in the U.S., crews have been battling large fires this week in Texas, Oklahoma and Colorado, where a new blaze forced evacuations Friday along the Rocky Mountain’s eastern front near Lyons about 18 miles (29 kilometers) north of Boulder.
Twitter adopts ‘poison pill’ defense in Musk takeover bid. Twitter said Friday that its board of directors has unanimously adopted a “poison pill” defense in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s proposal to buy the company for more than $43 billion and take it private. The move would allow existing Twitter shareholders — except for Musk — to buy additional shares at a discount, thereby diluting Musk’s stake in the company and making it harder for him to corral a majority of shareholder votes in favor of the acquisition. Twitter’s plan would take effect if Musk’s roughly 9% stake grows to 15% or more.
‘Magic mushrooms’ for therapy? Vets help sway conservatives. Experts say the research is promising for treating conditions ranging from PTSD to quitting smoking, but caution some serious risks remain, especially for those with certain mental health conditions. Oregon is so far the only state to legalize the therapeutic use of psilocybin, the psychedelic active ingredient in certain mushrooms. But studying them for therapy has made inroads not only in blue states like Hawaii, Connecticut and Maryland, but also GOP-led Texas, Utah and Oklahoma, which passed a study bill through the state House this year.
Mystery of why humans die around 80 may finally be solved. Humans and animals die after amassing a similar number of genetic mutations, researchers have found, suggesting the speed of DNA errors is critical in determining the lifespan of a species. There are huge variations in the lifespan of mammals in the animal kingdom, from South Asian rats, which live for just six months, to bowhead whales, which can survive for 200 years. Previously, experts have suggested that size is the key to longevity, with smaller animals burning up energy more quickly, requiring a faster cell turnover, which causes a speedier decline. But a new study from the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge suggests the speed of genetic damage could be the key to survival, with long-living animals successfully slowing down their rate of DNA mutations regardless of their size…“But the most exciting aspect of the study has to be finding that lifespan is inversely proportional to the somatic mutation rate. This suggests that somatic mutations may play a role in ageing.” — Math and science are awesome.
AMC is now letting you buy movie tickets with Dogecoin. AMC Theaters’ app will now let you buy tickets and concessions using Dogecoin and Shiba Inu, the company’s CEO Adam Aron announced via Twitter on Friday. The company added support for the cryptocurrencies through a Bitpay integration, after saying in November that it was “exploring” how to accept the coins.
Life’s short. Live, love, create, and help others.
Until next time, my friends. Stay safe and stay sane. Good night.
