Hall of mirrors update open thread

by liberal japonicus

All the angles are here

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/02/facebook-owner-meta-takes-down-chinese-network-spreading-fake-covid-posts

Discuss that or something else!

Comments

[CharlesWT]

It took them long enough.

In some of the fake reports the image they used for Wilson Edwards, the fake Swiss scientist, was a stock photo that had been used in product ads including some Chinese ads IIRC.

[wj]

Think of Facebook as this generation's version of Phillip Morris. Selling a product which does massive damage, opposing any research into just how damaging it is, fighting any attempts to make it behave responsibly, and spending massively to undercut anyone (especially any politicians) who try to regulate it.

PM and the other tobacco companies kept it up for decades, and are still going strong. Facebook might, too.

[Nigel]

Remarkable change in the figures on drone strikes, if this is accurate:
https://airwars.org/conflict-data

(For the better.)
If so, then well done Biden.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Just finishing up An Ugly Truth by Sheera Frenkel and Cecelia King.

Zuckerberg and Sandberg are world-class serial liars, to everyone, including their own mothers.

Libertarian, Conservative, Liberal ... makes no difference. Once a corporation, always a juggernaut of ruthless company uber alles, including country, with all enemies to be silenced and vanguished with every justified means.

"Lean in" is one of Sandberg's empty platitudes. I turns out to he no different than the Mafia's "Lean on him".

Google 's platitudinous "Don't Be Evil" is same same. They always a hire a fucking MBA who then shows them how to at least monetize evil for a recurring revenue stream and then the corporate message becomes "Evil Is Being Done; Destroy Anyone Who Interferes."

I own Google stock, so whaddaya looking at?

That a punk, Zuckerberg, can utter the words "There's no such thing as privacy" in his dorm room and not be immediately stopped with a punch to the face and kick in the groin to at least interrupt the collossal monetization of evil is testimony to America's essential full-of-shit sociopathic arrangement of incentives and disincentives blah stfu blah.

But the genie is out of the bottle.

Kill the genie and nuke the bottle.

The Trump Evil and Facebook were made for each other.

America and now the world are the victims.

But we're so free we aren't permitted to do anything, as usual.

Hey, look over there, we're Metaverse now.

[cleek]

If so, then well done Biden.

The Week's headline "Biden nearly ended the drone war, and nobody noticed"

https://theweek.com/foreign-policy/1007579/biden-nearly-ended-the-drone-war-and-nobody-noticed

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Re-elect The President, Richard M. Nixon

https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/before-russiagate-there-was-watergate/

We Rome-burning Visigoths shall be destroyed all the way back to pre-history in the grand sweep of conservative movement pigfuckery.

All Roman Emperors shall be fully restored, in flesh and statuary.

Pinkerton has always had the snagged upturned corner of the contemptuous lip like a fascist guard dog feeling his own rabies.

I wanna fight him.

[hairshirthedonist]

I don't know if it's good or bad that nobody noticed, at least in the narrow context of how some people currently think. It's bad that people generally don't care enough to notice in the first place, but that's a much longer-term problem. It's probably good in the shorter term that we aren't hearing about how Biden's letting all the terrorists off the hook, though.

[wj]

What hsh said.

[nooneithinisinmytree]

So many mirrors in the hall, so little reflection:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/michigan-schools-shut-friday-after-sick-copycat-shooting-threats-flood-in?via=newsletter&source=CSAMedition

The school-hating vermin conservative movement is organizing this, the sick sacks of gun-loving Covid-spreading sadistic shit.

America has five minutes left.

[Donald]

Airwars is the premier site for following the civilian casualties caused by US (and Russian) air strikes. Lots of data there. And it would have been nice if the American press and politicians followed this issue more closely.

Biden has done a good thing here (with the Kabul exception). He's terrible on Yemen so far. It will be interesting to see the results of the Pentagon investigation into their bombing campaign and civilian deaths--it's been clear for years that they understate it by one or two orders of magnitude. (Anand Gopal in his own investigation found a factor of 31 difference between the number of air strikes that the military admitted had caused civilian casualties and the number that he found for the region and time that he investigated.) I don't expect much in the way of accountability.

[cleek]

I assume Biden is trying to wind it down, but not pin himself down by declaring It's Over!

[liberal japonicus]

Lawyers in the house can weigh in on this

https://news.yahoo.com/michigan-oxford-school-shooting-ethan-crumbley-parents-charged-182447458.html

[Tony P.]

IANAL, but if the phrase "responsible gun owners" comes up in any response, I will want to know how to tell them apart from Crumbleys. And if the answer is that you can only tell them apart after the fact because of the 2nd Amendment, then I will probably violate the posting rules.

--TP

[wj]

The most telling reveal, I thought, was that the kid was doing searches, from school, for sources of ammunition. The school noticed, and contacted his mother about the "inappropriate Internet search." His mother's response? An email to her son saying "You have to learn not to get caught." Oh.

Gives one some idea of the home environment that the kid was being raised in. Makes it quite clear why the DA decided to charge the parents with manslaughter as well.

[JanieM]

The whole quote is worse than that, wj. From the NYT article:

“LOL I’m not mad at you,” Jennifer Crumbley texted her son. “You have to learn not to get caught.”

Four people dead, "LOL." Let me violate the posting rules so TP has a precedent. She's a stupid vicious murderous Clickbait-loving bitch. The good old US of A, a beacon on a hill, or some shit like that.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a38424541/ron-desantis-florida-private-army/

The fascist military grade infrastructure is being put in place to murder all of us as the conservative movement steal every election in America.

[wj]

Maybe DeSantis will recruit up all the little nutball "militia" members in his state to be part of his so-called State Guard. That would at least give his successor a centralize list of the dangerous maniacs. (With luck, they would get fingerprinted and their DNA recorded on recruitment. Though they would not, of course, have to be vaccinated.)

[nous]

While we are at all this open thread shiznitz:

https://michaelhobbes.substack.com/p/students-self-censorship-lol

Hetorodox Academy, like FIRE before them, are busy spinning the issues as hard as they can to try to paint universities as propagandistic left wing institutions. It's hornswoggle. They are helping to perpetuate the problems by attacking the freedoms that make classroom discussion possible.

Here's an admission. I self-censor all the time as a college instructor because I have to think about creating a productive learning environment for everyone in my classroom. That means choosing texts that I think will challenge without alienating. And also, anyone who is concerned about the effects of self-censorship on student learning environments need to think about the effect not of tenure, but of job insecurity on faculty willingness to foster discussion in their classrooms.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-28/editorial-colleges-overreliance-on-adjunct-faculty-is-bad-for-students-instructors-and-academic-freedom

You cannot expect contingent faculty to take risks for diverse opinions if they are at risk of losing their job or losing money because they chose to promote a sense of open inquiry.

[Cleek]

Sandy Hook proved there are no responsible gun owners

[wj]

Four people dead, "LOL."

I'm hoping for "Guilty on all counts" for both parents, and for sentences served consecutively.

Not expecting, of course. But hoping. A) They richly deserve it. B) It might send a message -- not one which would be heeded, but at least the gunnuts couldn't say the weren't warned.

[liberal japonicus]

First off, I agree with the idea that those parents need to have the full weight of the law applied, so anything after this is not intending at mitigating. I like Colbert's formulation about Kenosha, something to the effect of 'I'm not a lawyer, but if this is what the law says, it ought to be changed'.

Anyway, the parents ran, and have been caught
https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2021/12/04/james-jennifer-crumbley-oxford-school-shooting-suspect/8865574002/

It may be a measure of my cynicism, but I'm surprised the parents didn't say they were being cancelled and didn't have the crew that went to bat to the Kenosha crybaby puke offer to help them with their court costs.

I'm also wondering if they will try to get the evidence of their texts thrown out, spousal communication is privileged, so wouldn't parent -child be so as well? And if it isn't, what is the theory that privileges one but not the other.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

"I'm also wondering if they will try to get the evidence of their texts thrown out, spousal communication is privileged, so wouldn't parent -child be so as well? And if it isn't, what is the theory that privileges one but not the other."

It's all part of the unwritten Constitutional privacy "penumbras" that are being ripped away.

Are we at peak judicial hypocrisy yet? No, we are not.

[JanieM]

For lj, on parent-child privilege.

[JanieM]

Also, as to the same Rittenhouse-glorifying crew coming forward to cover the parents' court costs: first of all, there's still time. But secondly, on its face and in terms of the arguments that can be made about it, this is a really different case from the Rittenhouse one. Rittenhouse's victims were, after all, evil rioters bent on destroying property and tearing the country apart. The kids Crumbley shot were ......... answering questions in English class?

Also, as to what I said last night about the mother: it's not exactly that I'd take it back, but I'm not convinced (from my armchair) that she's any healthier mentally than her son was.

[Girl from the North Country]

I'm not convinced (from my armchair) that she's any healthier mentally than her son was.

I've been wondering the exact same thing. But maybe it's because I literally cannot think of any other explanation. When I try, my brain just sputters, and stops.

[Nigel]

There does seem to be a sense amongst a not insignificant proportion of the US population that the 2nd Amendment entitles them to do almost anything they like with their guns.

[Russell]

Who the hell buys a 15 year old a 9mm pistol?

From my own personal armchair, these seem like careless, reckless, irresponsible people. Dare I say, stupid.

If your carelessness results in someone’s death, that’s involuntary manslaughter. Intent is not required. So FWIW, the charges seem reasonable to me. From my own personal armchair.

This is not a gun rights issue. It’s a holding people responsible for their careless behavior issue.

More of this please.

[JanieM]

Dare I say, stupid.

I have been thinking "stupid" all morning. Just as there are various kinds of intelligence, there are surely various kinds of stupidity. This is the kind that combines with Dunning-Kruger-based arrogance and is fanned into destructive flame by ... well, factors we know about.

[Russell]

I literally cannot think of any other explanation.

I’m happy to let the psychologists evaluate the mother’s mental health. If she’s mentally ill, that would explain a lot.

That said, plain old garden variety not giving a sh*t about how your behavior might affect other people covers a lot of ground, too.

[Nigel]

I think it might have quite a lot to do with the gun right argument, though.
The political movement to remove all restrictions around guns has fostered an anything goes mentality. That’s a long way from claiming all gun owners are irresponsible, but it’s not hard to find a myriad accounts of those who are.

This is arguably just an extreme example.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"Are we at peak judicial hypocrisy yet?"

I don't mean to advise Snarki in her area of expertise .... snark ... but may we please retire this word "hypocrisy" when we reference the behavior of the unreservedly ruthless and evil conservative movement?

It's the sincere ones you have to watch, and every colossal, fully rehearsed, and long-auditioned fucking lie all of these thieving filth told Congress, the press, and the public, and that goes for their low, sniveling, smirking apologists and willing dupes too, about the law bablahblah was thoroughly and intentionally meant to be lie after lie to further their ends by every and all means.

Did the headline when the Hindenberg blew up read "Oh, the Hypocrisy!"?

When Pearl Harbor was obliterated, did the headlines read: "Japan Declares Hypocrisy on U.S.!"?

In those old Looney Tunes, when Bugs Bunny, channeling Winston Churchill, marble-mouthed his threats of retribution to Elmer Fudd, or was it Daffy Duck, did he declare, "As you know, this means Hypocrisy?"

No, he did not.

When the Allies reached the camps in the closing days of World War II, did the some GI from Hoboken, doffing his cap and scratching his head, say. "Welp, one thing we have to admit about good ole Adolf ... the man certainly was not a Hypocrite!"

Why not? Because in all of those instances, human hypocrisy was far down the list of complaints capturing the immediate attention.

We are dealing with pure, unmitigated Evil, which in its entirety must be physically removed from the face of the Earth:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/why-tucker-carlson-defending-alex-jones/620906/

That said, I am thus far a prime, and lone example of hypocrisy on these pages, if you need a real-time example.

Because I haven't yet practiced what I'm preaching about what needs to be done.

Hold yer applause.

It's just that I'm struggling with both of my legs stuck in only one leg of my pants, which makes it difficult to reach my car keys.

Meanwhile, will Charles be along soon to counsel the Crumbleys (again, what is with the spot-on names of these people? Hi, my name is Joe Death, please vote for Trump! Coinkidink?) that maybe their intended choice of the Canadian Healthcare System seems just a mite-bit ill-considered on their crumbling freedom scale?

I understand there WOULD be a waiting list for emergency bullet wound attention north of the border, ya know, if bullets were as freely permitted to fly up 'ere like they do in the good 'Ole.

[Russell]

This is arguably just an extreme example.

I wish that were true.

The outcome is thankfully unusual. Although not unusual enough that we can’t call it an almost daily occurrence.

I’m sure gun rights folks are going to frame this as a gun rights thing. Thoughts and prayers, but we mustn’t use this as an excuse to put any limits on our precious gun rights.

I say fine, have it your way. You have the right to own and carry firearms. And what comes with that right is the burden of exercising it in a responsible way.

Fail to do that, and you will be required to bear the consequences of that.

Four dead kids. As a point in fact, there is nothing this kid or his parents can do, ever, to fully bear the consequences of that. Nothing. It is a debt they will owe forever, and the burden of it falls not just on them, but on the families and loved ones of the people this kid killed.

Rights are not license. They incur the burden of exercising them responsibly.

The sooner that sinks in, the better.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"Who the hell buys a 15 year old a 9mm pistol?"

Well, that cat is not just out ... but totally now bagless.

I chronicled here maybe five years ago my experience with my brother's 15-year old step son, whose birth Dad, a jackass, festoooned the kid with military grade weaponry, semi-automatic rifles, which in my presence the twat (not a bad kid, ya know EXCEPT) flounced around the living room aiming one of them, safety secured at Hillary Clinton on the TV one day.

Long story short, I advised my brother that I was done visiting his house unless that was fucking stopped. Next time I received an apology from the kid AND I was invited to observe the new locked gun safe in the basement.

The kid did place a small spray bottle labeled "Anti-Liberal Disinfectant" on top of the safe for my full perusing enjoyment."

So far, so good. The kid is now a fully fledged Navy Seal (he's a trained killer, at my socialist expense, motherfuckers, and could take me out with one hand; I'll show up at that fight, but from a distance, looking through a high-powered scope, just to be safe) and his occasional political bloviations make me wonder, no, I'm fucking certain, which side he would have been on at the Capitol on 1/6.

I don't think we realize how many of these louts did NOT take an oath to protect any of US, because he's a stinking conservative Trumper.

We're towelheads, kooks, and BLM to so many of them.

But, ya know, nice kid.

I'm mean, he's not a Wagner fan.

[JanieM]

The sooner that sinks in, the better.

Sorry to quibble over a phrase, but it's never going to "sink in." It's going to have to be forced on them, and the path to making that happen is going to be a long and, I'm afraid, destructive one.

[Marty]

"I say fine, have it your way. You have the right to own and carry firearms. And what comes with that right is the burden of exercising it in a responsible way."

This. They deserve no quarter.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

kooks I accept.

Gooks is what we are.

[wj]

It may be a measure of my cynicism, but I'm surprised the parents didn't say they were being cancelled and didn't have the crew that went to bat to the Kenosha crybaby puke offer to help them with their court costs.

I believe they said they ran "out of fear for their safety."

Maybe they thought that some of the parents of the kids their son shot might be the same kind of RWNJ gun nuts they are. If any of those parents are (no info on that front), possibly even a reasonable concern.

[wj]

There does seem to be a sense amongst a not insignificant proportion of the US population that the 2nd Amendment entitles them to do almost anything they like with their guns.

But only for a very narrow definition of "them." You'll never hear them argue that, for example, liberals (or, shudder, blacks) have a right to do so. Maybe because they take the 2nd Amendment's "right of the people" and define "people" to mean only and exclusively people who look and think like them.

[wj]

Rights are not license. They incur the burden of exercising them responsibly.

Demanding "rights" with no responsibilities is what children (and some teenagers) do. Being an adult is all about responsibilities.

The behavior of folks like these make it clear that, regardless of their calendar age, they are children not adults. Which is probably what they love seeing in Trump.

[bobbyp]

They deserve no quarter.

No. They deserve justice--in the traditional sense of the term. What deserves no quarter is the political movement that has birthed, fostered, and encouraged this sort of infantile nihilism, a movement consisting of reactionary wanna' be Bolsheviks. Calling them fascists is being too polite.

[wj]

Demonstrating that we have not yet cornered the market on irresponsible kooks, this from Italy:
Man uses fake arm to try to get vaccine certificate without actually getting the jab
A fake arm? Really?!?!?

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Well, my Covid vax givers ask in "which" arm would I like to receive the shot.

I point to another guy's arm at the next station as a lark.

They never specify that it must be one of MINE.

The world ends as the last Man gets a leg over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMBBhyV3sME

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The key is to fire back:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tf91U06GII8

[Nigel]

I believe they said they ran "out of fear for their safety."

So they understand, however vaguely, the concept of risk to the safety of individuals.
Which blows one hole in their potential defence.

[Hartmut]

A fake arm? Really?!?!?

I distinctly remember having heard/read such cases before. Could even be that there also was a case of this as a business idea.

[Tony P.]

I wonder what their neighbors, friends, and relatives thought of the Crumbleys before this. Friendly? Respectable? Good parents? A wholesome, traditional family? "Responsible" citizens?

For all I know, both parents had criminal records. If they did not -- if they were "law-abiding Americans" until this week -- then maybe the 2nd Amendment fetishists can explain how they know whether their next door neighbor, coworker, or golf partner is a "responsible gun owner" or (to borrow a phrase coined in these pages many gun-massacre threads ago) "a criminal who has not been caught yet".

--TP

[Girl from the North Country]

Because I haven't yet practiced what I'm preaching about what needs to be done.

Please God let this be the case forever. They also serve who only stand and comment.

[cleek]

there can be no responsible gun owners, because having a gun is an irresponsible act in itself.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

I've made sure to "bare arms" in the local pharmacy (chemist, for ye brits)

But it was the pharmacist that was doing the shooting, and I was taking the shot.

[wj]

there can be no responsible gun owners, because having a gun is an irresponsible act in itself.

A (single shot) hunting rifle? Not necessarily seeing that.

For the vast majority of guns (and the owners of the vast majority of guns), you are correct. But not for all of them.

[Tony P.]

The licensed owner a registered single-shot hunting rifle would be an actually no-air-quotes responsible gun owner, in my book. Might still be a kook or an asshole, of course.

Do gun owners who insist that licensing and registration are an infringement of their Liberty(TM) feel the same way about their cars as they do about their guns? Or do they consider their guns more essential to their Liberty(TM) than their cars? If the latter, they're not so much irresponsible as just plain morons.

--TP

[liberal japonicus]

Thanks Janie.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/12/01/victims-oxford-high-shooting-michigan/

Justin Shilling, 17

Hana St. Juliana, 14

Tate Myre, 16

Madisyn Baldwin, 17

[JanieM]

Thankd for the names, lj.

[JanieM]

Thankd -> thanks.

[wj]

Do gun owners who insist that licensing and registration are an infringement of their Liberty(TM) feel the same way about their cars as they do about their guns?

Not currently (in general). But give the ultra libertarians time to crank up on Fox**, and they will start having hysterics about that, too.

** Just requires one of Koch brothers get a ticket from a red-light camera or something and it will happen.

[CharlesWT]

Just requires one of Koch brothers get a ticket from a red-light camera or something and it will happen.

For David Koch that would be a grave occurrence...

[wj]

For David Koch that would be a grave occurrence...

Ah, yes. Forgot that. Well no doubt the Mercers can puck up the slack...

[Hartmut]

In German there are quite a number of old 'skeletons in traffic situations' jokes.

[cleek]

in case you were wondering, this was the liberals' fault.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The Crumbleys are but bit players in the juggernaut of death the state of Michigan brings to the murderous, election-stealing nest of conservative vermin who threaten my country:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/12/an-army-of-crumbleys

As the Lieutenant Gummint Rapist of Texas has pronounced: "There are more important things than living".

Let us make that so for the evil, subhuman Republican Party.

None of them deserve quarter.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Renowned On(an)cologist admits cancer spreading like wildfire through America's public schools. Demands privatizing school gunfire into private religious schools, and more spanking by the invisible Hand Of Jesus, especially for her husband and her boyfriend, who kinda like it.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/4/2067564/-Marjorie-Taylor-Greene-wonders-why-we-never-closed-schools-or-businesses-because-of-cancer

She also claims what we all suspected but was covered up by Truth: All 13 victims of and the many injured by the two local armed oncologists charged with eliminating cancer at Columbine High School were members of a secret cult of tumor-mongering cancer spreaders in that socialist school and the innocent oncologists wrongly shot themselves out of the misplaced fear that they had caught cancer too from cinematic-like blood spatters mysteriously emanating from their classmates' infected bodies in the hallways and cafeteria.

Punk fake all-American Christian murderer Franklin Graham said as much days later in the memorial service across from the high school in his "thoughts and prayers" for vengeance against all of us in the audience who he so far had not forced to live in a theocratic despotism.

I was there. I did nothing. For which I am guilty.

When I was a kid, we got paddled for coming down with cancer in school, and believe me, cancer was nipped in the bud.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

Well, there *is* a transmissible form of cancer (surprisingly!)

It's been devastating the endangered "tasmanian devils" on the island of Tasmania, spread when they bite one another on the face.

The application to the MAGA "leopards eating faces" party is clear. Chomp away, leopards!

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The conservative movement rejoices as liberal socialist RINO who faked disability to become a parasite off the taxpayer his entire life .... dies:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bob-dole-obituary-legacy-social-security-and-food-stamps-171135122.html

Came to himself late in life and too late for Bonzo and threw in with subhuman evil by endorsing Trump Devil-worship.

[cleek]

Well, there *is* a transmissible form of cancer (surprisingly!)

HPV!

which some "conservatives" are also opposed to vaccinating against.

[wj]

HPV!

which some "conservatives" are also opposed to vaccinating against.

Well, it involves sex, so of course they are twitchy about it.

[nous]

More precisely, vaccinating for HPV might reduce a young woman's mortal fear of sex, and the whole moral order is put in jeopardy if young women are not terrified into celibacy until they are safely married off to their new master.

[Hartmut]

That's why Indian conservatives were in favor of vaccinating boys but not girls against HPV.

[novakant]

"Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo".

Posted days after the school shooting in Michigan.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-59543735

Things certainly have changed since I used to go duck hunting ...

[novakant]

Wow, Bob Dole voted for and endorsed Trump twice, I thought he was the nice guy who lost gracefully and the peddled Viagra on talk shows as well as founding a free school meal program with McGovern.

What happened?

[bobbyp]

What happened?

Somebody ate his peanut butter.

[wj]

What happened?

Senile decay seems like the most likely explanation.

[CharlesWT]

One of my gripes with Dole is him pushing so hard for using ethanol as a vehicle fuel.

[Donald]

Dole and Jesse Helms supported Renamo in the late 80's, a particularly vicious guerilla group in Mozambique that was popular with some on the far right. Oddly enough, the Reagan Administration which usually supported such groups (like UNITA in Angola) did not support Renamo. Massacres usually didn't deter them.

https://www.nytimes.com/1987/08/22/opinion/us-callousness-and-mozambique-massacres.html

[wj]

One of my gripes with Dole is him pushing so hard for using ethanol as a vehicle fuel.

He was from a state where a significant part of the economy is producing corn. For which ethanol is a major market. So not surprising he acted in the interests of his constituents.

[CharlesWT]

So not surprising he acted in the interests of his constituents.

At the expense of everyone else. But, then, he was a politician.

[nous]

He was just living up to his name with all those subsidies.

[Nigel]

Cheery reading from the Atlantic.

None of this is a surprise, but alarming nonetheless.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/

Nice little democracy you had there.

[wj]

Nice little democracy you had there.

We haven't quite lost it. Yet. But the effort is certainly closer to success than ever before.

[cleek]

so strange that "conservatives", draped in eagles and jesus t-shirts, keep siding with failed insurrections.

so strange.

[wj]

A call to hit the authoritarian politicians where it hurts. In the pocketbook.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/12/06/want-push-back-against-republican-authoritarians-expose-their-donors/

Comes with concrete ideas on how to get it to happen. That is, how to organization and target boycotts of companies which donate to them. If boycotts can work in foreign affairs, then can work in domestic affairs.

[russell]

from the Atlantic piece:

Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline.

[Marty]

"Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline."

I wonder if this is meaningless statistic. I suspect that noninsurgents are more likely to come from counties where the white share of the population is declining because, well, the white share of the population is declining.

"The nation is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, but these changes have been more muted in rural counties compared with urban and suburban ones. The white share of the population fell 8 percentage points since 2000 in the suburbs, 7 points in the urban core and only 3 points in rural counties." From https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2018/05/22/demographic-and-economic-trends-in-urban-suburban-and-rural-communities/

[bobbyp]

"Other things being equal, insurgents were much more likely to come from a county where the white share of the population was in decline."

I would wager that the great plurality of the insurgents came in for their little party from metropolitan and/or suburban/exurban areas....and not so much from rural ones. Population diversifying data here.

It has been observed by others that the great waves of immigration from what were then characterized as shithole countries (Italy, Poland, Russia, etc.) during the latter 19th and earlier 20th centuries were also periods of heightened class and social strife in this great nation of ours. The immigration clampdown of the 1920's put an end to so many of these undesirables washing up on our shores.

And now they have joined their Scot-Irish/English/German brethren in the never ending circle of hateful racial resentment. Funny how that works, that those who were once outcasts could also become "true" patriots, "true" americans, and exhibit their love for this nation by demonstrating they, too, could become xenophobic assholes when it comes to today's risk takers from Africa, Latin America, and Asia.

It is ironic to see the descendants of those hard working, risk taking folks who came over in steerage now go full xenophobe based on skin color and religion. And as for black folks? Well, I guess if you can't beat white racism, you join in to show your real bona-fides.

[liberal japonicus]

No need to wonder
https://d3qi0qp55mx5f5.cloudfront.net/cpost/i/docs/americas_insurrectionists_online_2021_04_06.pdf?mtime=1617807009

[russell]

I would wager that the great plurality of the insurgents came in for their little party from metropolitan and/or suburban/exurban areas....and not so much from rural ones.

That was also finding made by the study referenced in the quote I cited.

The folks from the Jan 6 festivities were typically middle aged, white, employed, not poor, from cities and suburbs.

They were unhappy about the election and figured a riot was the best response. In some cases, more than a riot.

Draw whatever meaning you like from all of that.

It's reasonably likely that a variety of kinds of crap is going to hit the fan in 2024. If so, it is also likely to fly in more than one direction.

Trumpsters are pissed off, so are the rest of us.

[wj]

Bad news for would-be election stealers here. All would be poll workers for next year's elections are being required to submit proof of vaccination.

Not that the Trump cult looks likely to have much of an impact in California. But still, nice to see.

[Hartmut]

Serious question: How safe are vaccination certificates? In other words how easy are forged ones to obtain that would not raise eyebrows?

Over here in Germany there was a case of an anti-vaxxer working in a vaccination center using saline solution instead of vaccine on between 800 and 1500 (unwitting) people before getting caught. What are the safeguards against that in the US?
I have the nagging suspicion that a fake vax scheme (with willing participants) is mainly prevented by stupidity (talking about the scheme in public) and paranoia ('what if this fake vaccine is actually genuine? I better not take the risk.').

And lots of RWers are vaxxed but keep silent about it because it would damage their reputation in Q-land.

[cleek]

In other words how easy are forged ones to obtain that would not raise eyebrows?

i could make five before lunch.

it's an oddly-sized paper card with some boilerplate text and a few lines for the signatures of the people who administered the shots.

[Michael Cain]

i could make five before lunch.

None of which would match the public health records, assuming that we're talking fake certificates for the non-vaccinated. It's one thing to pass a forged certificate by an overworked bouncer at the door of a bar; it's another to pass it through a government agency that has access to the health records and can easily check at least a sample of the certificates.

Using a forged certificate is a felony offense. Who's going to take that chance?

[cleek]

Using a forged certificate is a felony offense. Who's going to take that chance?

people who have problems with the part of their brain that evaluates risk; people who won't get a free safe vaccine that will save their life.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=using+fake+covid+immunization+card

including health care workers.

[liberal japonicus]

Was this posted above?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59524527

[Girl from the North Country]

Yes. Lest we forget: there are many, many more potential candidates for the Darwin prize than those who complete the fateful last step.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"Using a forged certificate is a felony offense. Who's going to take that chance?"

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2021/12/6/2067884/-Gym-Jordan-says-Liberals-must-be-destroyed-because-they-re-like-Nazis-and-also-Slavery

Forging vax cards is merely another malignant weapon in the conservative movement's murder arsenal.

"It's one thing to pass a forged certificate by an overworked bouncer at the door of a bar; it's another to pass it through a government agency"

To the violent subhuman conservative, crypto-religious, crypto-libertarian movement, a government agency is an overworked bouncer in a bar to be mobbed, beaten, and left for dead, as 1/6 illustrated in technicolor.

DeSantis will use his new improved murderous shock troops on those who deviate from his Stalinist line:

https://www.tampabay.com/news/education/2021/12/06/uf-researchers-felt-pressure-to-destroy-covid-19-data-faculty-report-says/

Covid-19 is fake. The vaccines are fake.

Why not fake vaccine cards to go with?

Heck, the printing presses in the basement's of Mar-a-Lago and RNC headquarters are working overtime printing the fake cards.

It's violent worms all the way down.

[russell]

it's always remarkable to me the lengths people will go to to avoid just doing the right thing.

"doing the right thing" here doesn't necessarily mean getting vaccinated. although that definitely qualifies as one of the possible right things to do, and in fact is right at the top of the list.

but if you just don't want the vax for whatever reason, just wear a freaking mask when you have to be around other people and don't go places that require vaccination.

so much simpler than creating fake documents.

[cleek]

can't wear a mask - being visibly and petulantly defiant is a sacrament of modern Republicanism.

[Casey Leichter]

it's an oddly-sized paper card with some boilerplate text and a few lines for the signatures of the people who administered the shots.

Some cards (maybe not yours?) also have the label from the vax bottle, showing the lot and shot #s. One for each shot.

[wj]

it's an oddly-sized paper card with some boilerplate text and a few lines for the signatures of the people who administered the shots.

In California, we are going with a government issued QR code which you can display on your phone. Not impossible to fake, but at least requiring some level of technical knowledge, which filters out the anti-science types.

[wj]

Well, won't this be fun?
Canada begins human trials on inhalable COVID vaccines

Now it won't be enough to avoid the jab. You'll have to avoid even breathing. At least in any indoor venue, where the evil government (or evil big business) might be saturating the air with vaccine.

Or maybe protection against inhaling vaccine will provide a rationale for starting to wear masks.... ;-)

[cleek]

i got labels for my first two shots (at a FEMA-run site) but no label for my booster (at a local supermarket pharmacy counter).

[Hartmut]

I got the QR code by presentig my vaccination passport and the piece of paper with the labels from the vax bottle (plus my German ID card). Now we have reached the stage around here where the QR code is accepted as proof of my vaccination status but not the original documents I used to obtain it.