What Gives … ?

Posted on February 9, 2023 by jilldennison under Economic issues, education, Election 2024, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Social commentary

The media assessments of President Biden’s State of the Union Address on Tuesday night have been overwhelmingly positive (I refer to actual news media and journalists, leaving out the likes of Fox and NewsMax that I do not consider to be legitimate news venues.) More than a few have called his address the “best State of the Union ever!” The speech highlighted Biden’s accomplishments, which contrary to public opinion, have been significant, especially given the opposition from Republicans in Congress. And yet … despite his accomplishments, Biden’s approval rating remains low. Robert Reich asks (and partly answers) the question: What gives?

Why the discrepancy between what Biden has achieved and what Americans think about him?

Robert Reich

8 February 2023

My friends,

As I mentioned last night, I thought Biden’s second State of the Union address was superb. It was one of the best State of the Union speeches I’ve witnessed — and I’ve witnessed many.

Biden’s record so far has also been impressive — even though for the first two years of his presidency, the Democrats held a razor-thin congressional majority, and the Republican Party has become more traitorous and treacherous than at any time in modern American history.

Yet despite Biden’s impressive record, only 42 percent of Americans approve of his presidency. That’s barely above the 41 percent at his last State of the Union address, and a lower approval rating at this point in his presidency than any president in 75 years of polling except for Trump and Reagan (who at this point was hobbled by a deep recession).

Despite Biden’s significant achievements, fully 62 percent think he has accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing” during his presidency. Majorities believe he has made no progress on his signature initiatives — from improving the country’s infrastructure to making electric vehicles more affordable to creating jobs.

And even though jobs are being created at an almost unprecedented rate, unemployment is at its lowest since 1969, and inflation is dropping, Americans are deeply pessimistic about the economy.

So what gives? Why the discrepancy between what Biden is achieving and what Americans think?

Let me add a few thoughts of my own.

First, let me stress my belief that Joe Biden has been an exceptionally good president. The only reason I bring up his low ratings is to try to understand why, despite his achievements, most of the public doesn’t seem to share my view.

Opinion polls are notoriously inaccurate, as we’ve all witnessed in the last major elections. Yet Biden’s consistently low ratings across almost all polls — and the bizarre fact that he’s polling no better than Trump did at this point in Trump’s presidency — can’t be blamed simply on inadequate polling methods.

Many of you blame the media — both Fox News and its radical right imitators, as well as the mainstream — for minimizing Biden’s achievements and exaggerating his inadequacies.

I largely agree. Fox News and other rightwing outlets continue to poison America. As to the mainstream media, as to anyone who reads this letter knows, I’ve been deeply concerned about its “two-sides” ism and absurd attempts to draw moral equivalence between Republicans and Democrats.

That said, only a small fraction of the public is exposed to Fox News or to the New York Times or the Washington Post. The media alone can’t account for Biden’s low ratings.

I want to suggest to you three other culprits that to my mind are playing a larger role.

First is the legacy of Trump, along with the deeply cynical and angry divide he has spawned in America. Even if George Washington were president right now, some 40 percent of the public would likely despise him.

Second is social media, which has become a cauldron of ever more extremist rage. Under Elon Musk, for example, Twitter has become less of a “public square” than a hell-hole of hate. No national leader is immune to such relentless battering.

Third and perhaps most importantly is the continuing crises that most Americans find themselves in. Some two-thirds of us are living paycheck to paycheck. Almost no one has job security. Adjusted for inflation, the median wage continues to drop. COVID is receding but “long” COVID is taking a devastating toll. Fentanyl and related drug poisonings continue to rise.

Joe Biden and his administration have made important progress. Their legislative victories are important. The American Rescue Act helped millions survive the pandemic. But most Americans are still hurting. Hopefully, by the fall of 2024, the hurt won’t be nearly as bad.

Who Died Today?

Posted on December 9, 2022 by jilldennison under Bits 'n Pieces, History, Personal, Random, Social commentary

Y’know … times have changed since I was a child. (No sarcastic remarks from the peanut gallery, please 😄) I remember back in the day, my grandmother, who seemed beyond ancient to me at the time, but was younger then than I am now, would bring in her daily newspaper from the front porch and immediately open it to the obituary section to see if any of her friends had died in the past day or two. She lived in a small suburban town where pretty much everybody knew everybody else, and she worked at the only grocery store in town, so she knew more about more people than most. We used to laugh and make fun of her for her morning perusal of the obituaries with her first cup o’ coffee.

Fast forward 70 years … today most all of us have high-speed internet connections whereby we can get immediate breaking news updates as they happen, can send a message to a friend, co-worker or family member within seconds and receive a response within a few more seconds, and communications are almost instantaneous. So … we should be much better informed than back in the 1950s when television was in its pre-pubescent stage, radio in its dying throes, and the daily newspaper our main source for news … right? Right???

But … somewhere there is a disconnect. I think that maybe we’ve become so OVER-informed that it has overwhelmed us and we aren’t paying attention to the things our grandmothers prioritized. We are bombarded daily with news, political crappola, emails, videos, blogs, emails, Facebook posts, Twitter tweets, emails, and more that we are on sensory overload. Being on sensory overload, being attuned 24/7 to what is happening thousands of miles away, perhaps we are missing what is happening right in our own backyard.

What, you ask, has led me to this bit of introspection? Death. No, not mine, silly! A few weeks ago, I learned that a friend had died … in 2020. How had I not noticed that she no longer commented on my blogs or my Facebook posts? Why didn’t anybody post about her death? Well, turns out they did, but … I was busy and didn’t notice the posts. Her name was Sylvia Wright. She was born and raised in Germany, married an American soldier and moved to the U.S. She worked for the same publishing company I did, and we became friends. I shall miss Sylvia, and I feel ashamed that … I didn’t even notice she was gone … for TWO YEARS! But wait … it doesn’t end there!

This week, another friend, Carol, died. This stunned me, because she was even younger than I … really kind of brings it home when you stop and think about it. I found about Carol’s death because my daughter happened to see a post about it on Facebook (Carol’s daughter and mine are friends). As I was searching for Carol’s obituary online, I came across one for … Homer … a family friend, more a friend of my daughter’s, but I do remember many fun times when she was dating Homer and he hung out at our house most of the time. I remember the time I came home from work to find them making a mess in the kitchen … they were trying to mash potatoes, but without cooking the potatoes first! (Obviously, I failed to teach my daughter basic culinary skills!) Homer died back in August, four months ago. When Chris came home from work, I asked her when she last heard from Homer, and she replied that it had “been a few months.” And then …

Granddaughter Natasha piped up and said, “Oh, that reminds me … I was looking at something online the other day and I saw an obituary for Phil who used to babysit me when I was little … he died in 2020!” Again, two years ago. Phil worked with my daughter back when she used to manage a convenience store, and he often watched Natasha until I got off work in the evenings. He taught her to fish and to play cards … he was a part of our lives.

Back in the day before “instant communications” via the Internet, we probably would have known of the deaths of all these people shortly after they happened. Back then, people called people, and those people called other people, and by word-of-mouth, everyone knew when someone died. Today, the information is put out on the internet with millions of other bytes of information, and … lost in the shuffle of all the other bytes of information. If you go looking, you will find it, but … if you don’t, you may find out two years later that someone who was once a close friend has died.

If a celebrity or political persona halfway across the globe sneezes, we are instantly made aware, but if someone in our own backyard dies, it passes beneath our radar. Rather like that old saying, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”

I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet … there is much value in being able to stay in touch with friends & family, to be able to know the news almost “as it happens”, to be able to do my Christmas shopping without leaving the comfort of my home, and to make new friends through my blog. But there is also a downside. We are more isolated; we rely too heavily on information coming to us when perhaps we should be going in search of it. We have lost something, I think, of what makes us … human.

STOP IT!!! JUST STOP IT!!! 🛑

Posted on October 28, 2022 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Election 2022, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

Early this morning, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home was broken into and her 82-year-old husband was brutally beaten. Speaker Pelosi was in Washington at the time. This past summer, Senator Susan Collins of Maine had windows broken out in her home. Many members of Congress have received hate mail and death threats recently. As I read aloud the story about the attack on Paul Pelosi with my voice cracking and tears threatening to make a trail down my cheeks, I turned to my daughter and said, “This is NOT who we are!!!” And then, after a pause, I thought, but maybe it is now. Maybe the racism and greed and bigotry that have become such a part of this nation since its inception is turning us into monsters.

Senator Collins recently stated that “I wouldn’t be surprised if a senator or House member were killed. What started with abusive phone calls is now translating into active threats of violence and real violence.” Consider these instances …

In Seattle, a man who had sent an angry email to Representative Pramila Jayapal repeatedly showed up outside the lawmaker’s house, armed with a semiautomatic handgun and shouting threats and profanities.
In Queens, a man who had traveled across the country waited in a cafe across the street from Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s office to confront her, part of a near-constant stream of threats and harassment that has prompted the congresswoman to switch her sleeping location at times and seek protection from a 24-hour security detail.
In the months since the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which brought lawmakers and the vice president within feet of rioters threatening their lives, Republicans and Democrats have faced stalking, armed visits to their homes, vandalism and assaults.

The man who attacked Paul Pelosi had an online presence that should have thrown up red flags if anybody had been paying attention. He had posted memes and conspiracy theories on Facebook about Covid vaccines, the 2020 election and the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

And now, just hours after the attack, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin apparently thought he was being funny when he said at a rally, “Listen, I want to stop for a minute and — listen, Speaker Pelosi’s husband — they had a break in last night in their house and he was assaulted. There’s no room for violence anywhere, but we’re gonna send her back to be with him in California. That’s what we’re gonna go do. That’s what we’re gonna go do.”

It is said that the attacker entered the home screaming, “Where’s Nancy?”, and yet one Fox host claims that perhaps it was a random break-in, not necessarily intended for Speaker Pelosi.

The attacker, who I shall not name, is being charged with attempted homicide, assault with a deadly weapon, elder abuse, burglary and “several other additional felonies,” according to Police Chief William Scott.

A number of lawmakers have said they are ‘horrified’ by the attack on Mr. Pelosi, and outgoing Senator Ben Sasse said, “every single American needs to be lowering the temperature. This is increasingly obvious: Disturbed individuals easily succumb to conspiracy theories and rage — the consequences are bloody and un-American.” While I fully agree with Senator Sasse, I also hold certain members of Congress, as well as a former president and his followers, for inciting the violence that is tearing this nation apart and threatening lives of innocent people.

JUST STOP IT – EVERYONE!!! JUST STOP IT!!! BE BETTER THAN THIS!

Note to Readers: “Paul Pelosi underwent surgery at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital after sustaining a skull fracture and serious injuries to his hands and right arm. The surgery was successful, and he is expected to make a full recovery, said Drew Hammill, a spokesman for Speaker Nancy Pelosi.”

Concerning The Inconsistencies of Social Media Algorithms

Posted on October 1, 2022 by jilldennison under Humour, Law and justice, Political commentary, Re-blogs, Social commentary

I know of nobody who can make a point with humour quite as well as our friend Roger does! Today, he takes on algorithms, those mysterious bits of so-called ‘artificial intelligence’ that determine such things as who should be targeted for certain marketing scams, or who should be sent to Facebook jail. Take a look at Roger’s latest … I promise you will laugh! You might even find yourself scratching your head and saying, “Hmmmm … this sounds familiar” Thank you, Roger … great post!

Writing Despite Computers and Programmes

Red warning content disclaimer tv show background design. A responsible heading when dealing with controversial topics.

A good friend of mine (whose name is withheld to avoid them having to suffer further censure) when producing a politically themed post on a social media platform suggested certain politicians and pundits of strong and controversial views might have their perceptions improved by a bracing dive into a large natural body of water,

Jump in a lake 2

no doubt working on the basis that such a refreshing immersion would clear away their ill-humours, latent dyspepsia and possible heart damaging frenetic outlooks. The social media platform upon which this was posted (the name is withheld to spare The Well-known International company being subject To abusive or satirical comments turning up on their site) banned my friend for 12 hours for allegedly encouraging suicide.

This action puzzled me, for the actual activity is a popular one, often social groupings and bondings, all very…

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Foot-Stomping MAD!

Posted on August 14, 2022 by jilldennison under Free Press Issues, guns, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

It’s been over a year-and-a-half since thousands joined forces to attack the U.S. Capitol in a failed, but nonetheless bloody coup attempt. The violence on that day, the calls to ‘hang Mike Pence’, still makes me sick to my stomach. The fact that the attempted coup was approved of by the ‘man’ who called himself ‘president’ still gives me nightmares. Violence seems to follow Donald Trump wherever he goes, and he seems to incite a great deal of it. Since that fateful January 6^th, violence and calls for violence have increased … even more so in response to a search warrant that was executed to retrieve national security documents Trump illegally stole from us and possibly shared.

Threats of political violence and actual attacks have become a steady reality of American life such that some days I feel we’re living in Somalia instead of the United States. And the violence isn’t all political … there have been 27 school shootings so far in the first 7 ½ months of 2022! School children!!! Yes, 27! No, you haven’t heard about all of them, for the media only makes a big deal if a relatively large number of children are killed such as was the case in Uvalde, Texas in May, but in total, 83 people, mostly children, have been shot in those 27 school shootings this year. Can’t blame these directly on politics, but you can sure as hell can blame the politicians who have consistently blocked any form of gun legislation such as banning assault weapons or far more stringent background checks. So, their answer is to arm all teachers … put even more guns into the hands of people unqualified to have them!

The political violence, however, is out of control and the feeding frenzy isn’t helped by social media, certain mainstream media outlets, and the politicians who keep telling people that the ‘other’ party is the one responsible for all of our woes.

A man named Garrett Ziegler, a former aide to Donald Trump, posted the names and personal information of the FBI Agents who assisted in the execution of the search warrant to retrieve classified documents from the home of Donald Trump. He even included the social media account of one of the agent’s children! Within minutes, the families of these agents began receiving death threats. DEATH THREATS … against the families of law enforcement agents who were merely doing their jobs!

After the brutal murder of George Floyd in 2020, there were numerous Black Lives Matter protest that were, for the most part, peaceful. What little violence there was, was property damage, not lives threatened. But people were up in arms because the protests existed. Yet some of the same people who hated on Black Lives Matter protestors are the very ones cheering those who are threatening civil war, threatening to execute Merrick Garland! So … apparently they aren’t against violence at all, but are just against Black people, against LGBTQ people, and against anyone who attempts to hold the ‘man’ they have put on a pedestal accountable for his actions. And speaking of the LGBTQ community …

In late June, a former Marine stepped down as the grand marshal of a July 4^th parade in Houston after a deluge of threats that focused on her support of transgender rights. A few weeks later, the gay mayor of an Oklahoma city quit his job after what he described as a series of “threats and attacks bordering on violence.” A five-year-old girl was evicted from her kindergarten because her parents are gay. As I reported a week or so ago, a town in Michigan will shut down its library because the library refuses to ban books by LGBTQ authors or about LGBTQ people or issues!

The judge who signed the warrant to search Trump’s home for the missing classified documents is now receiving death threats, as is his family after some on social media called for a “rope around his neck”. Then Fox “News” exacerbated the situation by posting a photoshopped fake picture of the judge sprawled out with Ghislaine Maxwell giving him a foot massage. These are the kinds of things that stir the masses and get people KILLED!!!

Political violence, racial violence, school shootings … what the Sam Hell has this nation turned into??? What are we humans turning into??? Have we sold our humanity downriver, traded it for bigotry, hatred and violence???

I don’t have any answers, my friends. We can … we must … each do our part by controlling our own tempers, by shutting down any conversations where someone is speaking of or calling for a violent act, but that isn’t going to be enough to solve the problem. We can report those we see on social media outlets like Twitter and Facebook, but that still won’t solve the problem. I think the answer lies in a direction none of us particularly want to go, but that perhaps we must go, and that is to put some limitations on the 1^st Amendment right to free speech. I don’t like it anymore than you do, but as I’ve long said, every right comes with an accompanying responsibility, and the people of this nation have abused the right without accepting the responsibility. It is highly irresponsible, criminal even, to call for violence, to call for someone’s ‘execution’ just because you don’t like what he says or does. We absolutely MUST start holding social media outlets and mainstream news accountable to a higher standard than they currently observe.

And … I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me say this, but we must have some gun control laws that do something more than pay lip service!!! Ban assault weapons altogether! Deny a gun to anybody who has even a single incidence of violent behaviour. Raise the gun ownership age to 25! Yes, 25! And make gun ownership a “one strike, you’re out” thing. We have to do this!!! And we must make the punishment for any violent act so harsh that it actually serves as a deterrent! Every person who was in the Capitol on January 6^th without authorization should automatically be serving a 5-year prison sentence. Those who had weapons or harmed anyone should be in prison for 20 years, no exceptions. If the price of violence is high enough, people will think before they mouth off or worse yet, grab their guns and go on a shooting spree!

I’ve said it enough times, but I’ll keep on saying it … VIOLENCE IS NEVER THE ANSWER!!! We are truly, and this is not hyperbole, turning into a third-world nation where random shootings are becoming the norm, where even children are targets, and where nobody is quite safe anywhere anymore. Write to your Senators and Representatives and tell them that THEY have the power to make changes and they damn well better do it NOW!!! I really don’t know what more we can do, but we better start doing something.

Close The Road From Senate To Oval Office?

Posted on April 28, 2022 by jilldennison under History, Law and justice, Political commentary

There are a few conservative journalists who speak with a rational, intellectual voice and George Will is among them. He left the Republican Party in 2016, for reasons that should be obvious to us all. In his latest piece, he suggests we need a constitutional amendment to bar senators from ever running for president. I’m not sure that I agree completely with him, for if our presidents don’t come from the Senate, then where? But, he makes some valid and interesting points, and it does often seem that members of Congress spend more time campaigning for their next job than they spend doing their current job. Take a look and see what you think …

Amend the Constitution to bar senators from the presidency

By George F. Will, 27 April 2022

To conserve the reverence it needs and deserves, the Constitution should be amended rarely and reluctantly. There is, however, an amendment that would instantly improve the legislative and executive branches. It would read: “No senator or former senator shall be eligible to be president.”

Seventeen presidents were previously senators. Seven of them – Harding, Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Obama, Biden — became senators after 1913, when the 17th Amendment took the selection of senators away from state legislatures. The federal government’s growth, and the national media’s focus on Washington, has increased the prominence of senators eager for prominence, although it often is the prominence of a ship’s figurehead — decorative, not functional. As president-centric government has waxed, the Senate has waned, becoming increasingly a theater of performative behaviors by senators who are decreasingly interested in legislating, and are increasingly preoccupied with using social media for self-promotion.

In Jonathan Haidt’s recent essay for the Atlantic, “Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid,” the New York University social psychologist says social media users by the millions have become comfortable and adept at “putting on performances” for strangers. So have too many senators. Haidt says social media elicits “our most moralistic and least reflective selves,” fueling the “twitchy and explosive spread of anger.”

The Founders feared such incitements, long before social media arrived.

Politicians, and especially senators with presidential ambitions and time on their hands, use social media to practice what Alexander Hamilton deplored (in Federalist 68) as “the little arts of popularity.” Such senators, like millions of Americans, use social media to express and encourage anger about this and that. Anger, like other popular pleasures, can be addictive, particularly if it supplies the default vocabulary for social media.

Today, the gruesome possibility of a 2024 Biden-Trump rematch underscores a Hamilton misjudgment: He said in Federalist 68 there is a “constant probability” of presidents “pre-eminent for ability and virtue.” Banning senators from the presidency would increase the probability of having senators who are interested in being senators, and would increase the probability of avoiding:

Presidents who have never run anything larger than a Senate office. Who have confused striking poses — in the Capitol, on Twitter — with governing. Who have delegated legislative powers to the executive — for example, who have passed sentiment-affirmations masquerading as laws: Hurray for education and the environment; the executive branch shall fill in the details.

And who have been comfortable running the government on continuing resolutions (at existing funding levels) because Congress is incapable of budgeting. There have been 128 CRs in the previous 25 fiscal years — 41 since 2012. Why look for presidents among senators, who have made irresponsibility routine?

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee debate on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court on April 4. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)

The 328 senators of the previous 50 years have illustrated the tyranny of the bell-shaped curve: a few of them dreadful, a few excellent, most mediocre. Although Josh Hawley, Missouri’s freshman Republican, might not be worse than all the other 327, he exemplifies the worst about would-be presidents incubated in the Senate. Arriving there in January 2019, he hit the ground running — away from the Senate. Twenty-four months later, he was the principal catalyst of the attempted nullification of the presidential election preceding the one that he hopes will elevate him. Nimbly clambering aboard every passing bandwagon that can carry him to the Fox News greenroom, he treats the Senate as a mere steppingstone for his ascent to an office commensurate with his estimate of his talents.

The constitutional equilibrium of checks and balances depends on a rivalrous relationship between the executive branch and houses of Congress that are mutually jealous of their powers. “The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place,” and government will be controlled by “this policy of supplying, by opposite and rival interests, the defect of better motives” (James Madison, Federalist 51).

This institutional architecture has, however, been largely vitiated by party loyalties: Congressional members of the president’s party behave as his subservient teammates; members of the opposing party act as reflexive opposers. This changes the role of the House, whose members are generally not so telegenic and are more regimented, less than it does the role of the Senate, which degenerates into an arena of gestures, hence an incubator of would-be presidents.

One of today’s exemplary senators, Mitt Romney, surely is such partly because, his presidential ambitions retired, he nevertheless wants to be a senator. Were all persons with presidential ambitions deterred from becoming senators, this probably would improve the caliber of senators, and of presidents, and the equilibrium between the political branches.

Facebook’s ban on the Former Guy Must Remain

Posted on May 4, 2021 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Re-blogs, Social commentary

Tomorrow, Facebook will announce whether the former guy will be allowed back on. If he is, I will be closing my Facebook account on that same day, for it would show me the lack of values, lack of integrity of that outlet. Our friend Jeff over at On the Fence Voters weighs in on the topic, and I am 100% in agreement with him. Thanks, Jeff!

On The Fence Voters

Here’s hoping the Facebook Oversight Board (FOB) does the right thing tomorrow and keeps the indefinite ban on the disgraced former president. American democracy eagerly awaits the decision.

For those of you who might not know it, Facebook created the Board to weigh in on certain moderation decisions made by the company and make sure that those decisions were “made according to its stated values.” Whatever decision they reach tomorrow cannot be overruled – even by Zuckerburg himself.

The Former Guy is seeking reinstatement of his Facebook and Instagram accounts. Currently, his accounts on YouTube, Snapchat, and Twitter remain suspended. All social media giants responded when the mob of thugs tried to overthrow our government on January 6. The Former Guy’s reprehensible promulgation of the Big Lie that the election was stolen from him directly resulted in the events of that day.

The media companies did the right thing then…

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It’s Not Over Yet …

Posted on January 9, 2021 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Law and justice, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Rants, Social commentary

Three days ago, Trump supporters stormed the Capital building in Washington, destroyed public property, and caused the deaths of five people. They were a mob, they fit every definition of domestic terrorists. A few were arrested, and dozens more have since been identified and arrested, including the jerk who so proudly posed for a photo with his feet on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s desk. Many have lost their jobs, as their employers saw their pictures or were informed of their unconscionable acts. However, Wednesday was not the end, the movement has not been stopped or even slowed by the public condemnation or the relatively few arrests.

Yesterday’s headline …

According to the article …

Parler, Telegram chat rooms and the platform TheDonald.win were all used to plan and coordinate the Jan. 6 rally that turned into a riot. Posters explicitly stated their intentions to “occupy” the Capitol. QAnon conspiracy theorists and people associated with militia groups had a visible presence in Wednesday’s crowd.

“Round 2 on January 20th. This time no mercy. I don’t even care about keeping Trump in power. I care about war,” an anonymous person posted on the platform TheDonald.win, which is filled with comments posted by people who lauded those who rioted Wednesday as “heroes.”

Law enforcement is scrambling to identify those who broke into the Capitol building, and are worried about the inauguration as another target.

“There is growing concern that violent extremists are emboldened by the breach of the Capitol, which means the clock is ticking on taking down the most influential incites of violence before they act again,” said Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI assistant director and NBC News national security analyst.

The Secret Service, which is supervising security for the inauguration, could not immediately be reached for comment. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Secret Service, referred NBC News to the Secret Service.

According the National Park Service, which handles permits for rallies in D.C., there are seven First Amendment permit applications in process that overlap with the inauguration date, one of which is clearly for Trump supporters.

Over the years, I have often argued that the time has come to put some limitations on the First Amendment right to free speech. Every ‘right’ comes with an associated responsibility, in this case the responsibility to act peacefully. Those who would come to Washington to do harm, to kill and destroy, are taking their ‘right’ to free speech several steps too far and must be stopped within the next 11 days, else the eagerly anticipated inauguration day will become a bloodbath and the start of an internal war in this nation.

My first question is, if the organizers of Wednesdays riots were communicating their plans on the aforementioned websites, then the FBI and Department of Homeland Security surely knew of their plans, so why wasn’t there a heavy law enforcement presence surrounding the Capitol, rather than only a handful of Capitol Police, some of whom were actually seen helping the terrorist enter the building? This is a question that MUST be answered … immediately! Did Donald Trump somehow interfere or stop law enforcement from interrupting the plans of the terrorists? Is the leadership in our security forces as corrupt as that at the head of our government? We need to know, and somehow the plans for Joe Biden’s inauguration must be changed, must be made as secure and as private as possible.

If our own security forces have been compromised, as I believe may be the case, then who can we turn to for help? I’ve lived on this earth for 69, almost 70 years now, and I’ve learned that fear is immobilizing, better to be angry than afraid. And I am angry, but today I am also afraid. I am afraid that in less than two weeks, this nation may be shattered like the windows of the Capitol were on Wednesday. I’m afraid that our government is no longer functional, can no longer maintain a nation of law and order. In fact, it would seem that many within our government are a part of the movement that seeks to overthrow it.

There are many who must share the blame for what happened Wednesday and what may yet happen in the coming two weeks, but the time for blame and punishment will come later. Right now, it is time to work to ensure the safety of the incoming administration, of our lawmakers, and of the people of this nation.

For some time now, I have hoped that this nation could be reconciled, that the Great Divide between right and left could somehow begin to heal, but today I see no common ground to work with. In my book, those who would destroy this nation with their racist, bigoted views are not of the same species as the rest of us and I think this nation may well be beyond repair.

Discord & Dissension — Part VI — Disinformation

Posted on February 14, 2020 by jilldennison under Election 2020, Free Press Issues, Jeff & Jill's Project, Law and justice, Political commentary, Social commentary

This is the sixth installment of mine and Jeff’s project, and in case you’ve missed any of the previous posts, we will also be publishing a Table of Contents in just a few minutes that we will keep updated and link to at the end of each future post. As I mentioned last month in the introduction to the project, as situations change, we will roll with the punches and adjust our focus. The last 9 days have brought about great change … Trump was acquitted by the Senate, basically being told that whatever he chooses to do, they have his back. He turned the State of the Union address into a three-ring circus, fired a military hero and a devoted ambassador for no reason other than they did their duty by speaking the truth under oath, has interfered with the rule of law in the sentencing of Roger Stone, has proposed a budget that rewards the wealthy while punishing the disadvantaged, and who knows what tomorrow brings.

The point being that … in the hundred or so comments I answer each day, I sense your frustration, your discouragement, and believe me … Jeff and I have both been there in the past several days. But we cannot allow ourselves to focus on the negativity, cannot allow ourselves to lose hope or lose sight of the goal. If we stop fighting, then we lose automatically, without ever knowing if we might have made a difference. So, join us in picking ourselves up, dusting ourselves off, and going on to fight the good fight for just short of nine more months.

A few weeks ago, I tried to answer the question, “Where do we go from here?” I concluded that the goal is two-fold: vote Trump out of the Oval Office and begin to heal the ‘great divide’. Neither of these goals are going to be easy, folks, and the GOP and others’ propaganda machines are going to make it even harder.

The GOP, or Republican Party, has been actively working to skew the odds in their favour since before the 2016 election. The Russian interference that triggered Robert Mueller’s investigation was not, as Trump would have you believe, a ‘hoax’ nor a ‘witch hunt’, but was rather a coordinated effort on the part of Russian President Vladimir Putin to launch a propaganda machine demeaning and denigrating Hillary Clinton, while giving rise to Donald Trump. The Russian propaganda machine has not taken a break since the 2016 elections. According to FBI Director Christopher Wray …

“That is in some ways an even more challenging area, not the least because it never stopped. It happened in 2016 and it’s been continuing ever since then. It may have an uptick during an election cycle, but it’s a 24/7, 365-days-a-year threat.”

Election security bills were passed by the House of Representatives, but have since languished in the Senate, as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refuses to even bring them to the Senate floor for consideration.

But it isn’t only foreign influence that we have to worry about, for much of the propaganda comes directly from the GOP and a plethora of conservative groups. Consider this example: The day before the February 3^rd Iowa caucuses, Judicial Watch, a conservative advocacy group, put out a report claiming that “Eight Iowa counties have more voter registrations than citizens old enough to register.” It was a lie, one quickly debunked by Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, but not before the lie had been spread via Fox News’ Sean Hannity and other right-wing media sites.

Voter fraud is a recurring myth favored by right-wingers, but there are other tactics, such as finding a chink in a candidates armour, real or made up, and using it repeatedly, embellishing on it, to denigrate that candidate. Of the top candidates, we’ve already seen what Trump’s accusations against Joe Biden … accusations that have long since been debunked … have nonetheless played a role in Biden’s polling plunge. Bernie’s chink, of course, is that he is a democratic socialist, which will play well with those who do not even understand the concept of democratic socialism.

Politics has always been a dirty game … smear campaigns, mudslinging and outright lies are certainly nothing new. But, with the rise of social media, these tactics are magnified a million-fold, and every time you log onto Facebook or Twitter, you are likely to be exposed to some form of disinformation. Facebook collects data on you, based on your friends, what you post, what you comment on, and any personal data you include in your profile, and then they use that data to target what advertisements you see. My advice is to include nothing in your personal profile, and to use a strong ad blocker at all times, but especially when spending time on any social media site. There is an app called Facebook Purity that will quite effectively block any and all ads, along with other annoying things Facebook throws in your face. I highly recommend it.

While, after the fiasco that was the 2016 election, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook promised to do a better job of monitoring political ads and false accounts, he backtracked last year when he plainly said he would allow false and misleading ads to continue on the platform, arguing that his company shouldn’t be responsible for arbitrating political speech. My earliest memories are of political advertisements in newspapers and on television in the early 1950s, and more recently social media has become the platform of preference, but this year there’s yet another venue … your cell phone. Yep, folks, this year, according to Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale, texting will be at the center of Trump’s reelection strategy. I highly recommend you install a call blocking program if you don’t wish to be disturbed multiple times a day. Mine is set to block all calls that don’t come from a number on my contact list, and since my contact list includes only 4 people, I no longer get many such calls. I do, however, see a list of the ones blocked, and I notice the number has increased of late.

Besides being a major annoyance, though, the disinformation campaign, the propaganda machine, poses a significant hurdle to a fair and honest election. You are savvy enough to know, if you see an ad or what appears to be an actual news story saying that Elizabeth Warren has a harem of young males she keeps locked in the attic of her home for her personal pleasure, it’s fake. But some will believe it. Remember Pizzagate, where the rumour was spread that Hillary Clinton and John Podesta were running a human traffiking and child sex ring in the basement of a pizzeria, Comet Ping Pong? Someone believed it enough to go shoot the place up!

Remember my post from yesterday with the Founding Fathers singing a song to the tune of American Pie? Creative use of technology, wasn’t it? Well, that was harmless, but some aren’t. Take a look at this simple, doctored photo of Stacy Abrams that was used by her opponents in the Georgia 2018 gubernatorial race …

Just as social media has increased the spread of disinformation, technology has taken it to a new level. I would ask that you take just a few minutes … 8 of them, to be precise, to listen to this interview on NPR radio (there is a transcript attached, if you prefer to read the interview) with McKay Coppins, a writer for The Atlantic, about an article he published earlier this week on the topic of the GOP propaganda machine. It is very enlightening, and if you would like to read his entire article, which is lengthy, but well worth the time, you can do so here .

As Mr. Coppins said in the interview, even he found himself questioning what was real and what wasn’t, so I think it’s important … nay, crucial … for us all to be hyper-aware of the information that bombards us from all directions most every waking moment these days. If something sounds off … check it out, don’t just assume it’s correct, even if it’s from a credible source. Let’s all help stop the flow of propaganda … this election will be enough of an uphill battle, without people being manipulated.

Next week, Jeff will be back with Part VII of our project … stay tuned!

Hey! What Happened To MY Freedom Of Speech???

Posted on July 8, 2019 by jilldennison under Free Press Issues, Political commentary, Racism & Bigotry, Social commentary

Well, folks, I suppose it was only a matter of time until I was banned from Twitter, and last night it happened. I don’t get on Twitter much … once or twice a day when I receive a notification that I have a message or that my work has been re-tweeted. When I do get on, however, if I see something really annoying by either my representative in Congress, Trump, or somebody else, I am not above replying with a short, snarky tweet of my own. Well, when I got on yesterday evening to reply to a message from a friend, the first thing I saw was this tweet by Ann Coulter …

“The country has been lost. However I am determined to go down swinging by ruining soccer for as many people as possible.”

Now, you guys know that I’m not ‘into’ sports, and all I knew about soccer recently was that the U.S. Women’s team had won some big event, and that one of the team’s members is Megan Rapinoe who is a member of the LGBT community. As I said, I do not follow sports and none of it meant diddly-squat to me. Until I saw Coulter’s comment which I assumed was in reference to Ms. Rapinoe’s gender identity. Turns out that is part of it, but there’s more … I’ll get to that in a minute, but I shot off a tweet in response to her comment …

“My, but you are a stupid, bigoted woman. An outright Bimbo, by my reckoning.”

Apparently, she took umbrage, for it was less than an hour until I received this email:

I actually had a good chuckle over it. According to Twitter, if I gave them my phone number and took down the tweet, my account would only be inactive for 12 hours, after which time all would be restored. Or, if I felt that their decision was unfair, I could appeal and they would review the situation. I wrote to them and explained that a) I spoke only the truth, b) there was no threat to Ms. Coulter, and c) I did not use any vulgar language, not so much as a single “f-bomb”, which I have seen countless other people do on Twitter.

Twitter wrote back an hour or two later, saying that they had “reviewed my appeal” and concluded that I was still in the wrong and in order to restore my account, I would have to give them my phone number and then remove the tweet. Now, I will likely do that in a day or two, for I do have Twitter friends, and my posts all go to Twitter where they are often re-tweeted, but I’m leaving the tweet stand for now, for I am a stubborn wench and frankly, I’ve made worse tweets than that to Donald Trump and Warren Davidson, neither of whom attempted to take away my 1st Amendment rights!

Turns out that Coulter’s complaint about the women’s soccer team is homophobic, but it is also a result of the fact that two of the women on the team, the aforementioned Rapinoe and another team member, Ali Krieger, have said that they would not pay a visit to the White House, for the have (understandably) no respect for its occupant. Apparently, there has been a back-and-forth Twitter battle between Rapinoe and Trump, complete with name-calling. Surprise, huh?

Rapinoe has a history of civil protest, having taken a knee during the national anthem before a game, shortly after Colin Kaepernick did the same, saying …

“Being a gay American, I know what it means to look at the flag and not have it protect all of your liberties. It’s important to have white people stand in support of people of color on this. We don’t need to be the leading voice, of course, but standing in support of them is something that’s really powerful.”

Though I had never heard of Ms. Rapinoe until last week, I admire her, just as I admire Mr. Kaepernick, and much more than I admire Donald Trump. No doubt we have not heard the last of the battle between Rapinoe and other team members vs Donald Trump, which is a pathetic statement of our nation and the man who is called “president” by some.

But, I think my right to free speech has been violated by Twitter. If Ann Coulter can say that “the country has been lost” simply because a gay woman who doesn’t like Trump helped her team win the World’s Cup, and if she can threaten to “ruin soccer for as many people as possible”, why is it wrong for me to say she is stupid and bigoted, both of which are true, and call her a ‘bimbo’, which is a lot nicer than most of what she has called Ms. Rapinoe?

Is ‘freedom of speech’ now limited to only those who support Donald Trump? Will Facebook or WordPress be next to try to stifle what I have to say? Ann Coulter has, throughout her career, referred to immigrants as pedophiles, called LGBT people ‘mentally ill’, praised white supremacist Richard Spencer, calling him the white people’s answer to #BlackLivesMatter, and much more. Her right to say those things is upheld, but my right to call her a bigot and a bimbo is not? Actor Richard Belzer referred to Coulter as a ‘fascist Barbie doll’ … perhaps I should have tried that term. She has called the French “a bunch of maggots”, and said that only property owners should be allowed to vote in the U.S. And this is the woman that Twitter defends? Something is seriously mucked up in this country.