As regular readers of this blog know, I read (or at least scan) reports from a lot of different media. In the process, I increasingly find myself muttering things like “these people are insane!”
Take a look at any rundown of the “news of the day,” and you will find conspiracy theories and behaviors bizarre enough to make Marjorie Taylor Greene look rational. (And that is saying something.)
I recently saw that the GOP in a Florida county passed a resolution “banning the. jab,.” They want to ban the COVID-19 vaccine in the state of Florida. Lest we conclude that the insanity is limited to the Sunshine State, however, U.S. News disabuses us of that comforting conclusion. Arkansas, Montana and South Carolina are the latest states to advance bills or enact laws that ban requirements based on vaccine status.
The war on vaccination joins the war on “wokeness”–and science, and health, and common sense.
The Indiana legislature is a never-never land where logic goes to die. Is the state having difficulty finding qualified teachers? Indiana’s Senate just passed a bill (patterned after Florida’s), that will allow teachers to be charged with a felony for allowing students to check out books some parents don’t want their kids to read.
Indiana sure isn’t recruiting teachers with that message…
The same lawmakers who defend that measure by chanting “parental rights” are busy passing bills divesting parents of trans kids of their right to determine their children’s medical care. (Indiana’s legislature hasn’t improved much since it passed a law changing the value of pi.)
And then–brace yourself for this one.The MAGA folks have discovered that there is no war in Ukraine. It’s all a “false flag” operation! Shades of Alex Jones!
As Josh Marshall recently reported
Since I spend time, for better or worse, swimming in the swill of right wing influencers and Trumpists, I’m often able to see things before they go fully mainstream — or rather before their existence gets picked up in mainstream media. Just over the last few days there’s been a burst of claims that something is not quite right about the Ukaine War, that the whole thing might be made up. Perhaps it’s a potemkin war. Maybe the Ukrainians are just crisis actors, as we sometimes hear claimed about the victims of mass shootings in the United States. The “questions” are characteristically vague and open-ended, designed to sow doubt without stipulating to any clearly disprovable claim.
The particular claim or question is, where are the pictures? Why isn’t there more war reporting as we’ve seen with every other war. How is it world leader after world leader is able to visit Kyiv in relative safety?
Marshall shared a post to Twitter from someone named Becker, who evidently started at Fox News and found it too mainstream. He decamped to The Blaze, TimCast, and the Rubin Report– “more explicitly white nationalist and fascist news organizations. Now he is the “Becker News CEO.” Here’s the post.
I am sick and tired of the lack of footage of the Ukraine war. I worked in cable news. I am initiated. If it bleeds, it leads. Where is the war footage? Where are the Pulitzer Prize winning photos? This smacks of a scam and the American people are fed up.
Produce the documentary evidence or STFU already. We’re not sending our sons and daughters to die over a corrupt undemocratic country’s politics without documentary evidence. We don’t give a crap about your Russian bogeymen. This is not a matter of US national security. So, put up or shut up.
Pick your chin up off the floor! As Marshall notes, in the real world where most of us live, the war in Ukraine is more than well-documented. The pictures–even the sounds–are on television, on social media, on the front pages of America’s remaining newspapers. Everywhere.
Volume doesn’t equate to quality or insight. But quite apart from the nonsense we’re discussing here, there is an avalanche of video, photography and satellite record of this conflict that really has no equal in history. Like so much else, a lot stems from the existence of the smart phone: most of the civilians and the combatants have smart phones which allow them to create high quality records of events in real time. These circulate on social networks and encrypted distribution networks like Telegram. Drones also play a role. They’re all generating video coverage whether they are surveillance drones or simply recording the final moments before they crash or detonate themselves.
Every reader of this blog can add to these examples. We’re seeing the steady growth of what the Trump Administration dubbed “alternate facts,” and you can’t reason with inhabitants of alternate realities.
I guess I’ll go polish my space laser…..
Add Idaho to your list of crazy states.
https://www.ktvb.com/article/news/local/capitol-watch/idaho-lawmakers-introduce-legislation-to-criminalize-those-who-administer-covid-vaccines-legislature/277-2436a514-e7da-4b31-9762-f9be10300075
Well, when a political entity attaches itself to the backside of a raving psychopath, what else would be expected? The great con job that “convinced” people that they had grievances that could only be assuaged by electing someone – and others – who would fight for their “rights”. IRONY ALERT: None of them did.
The media has given coverage to the worst politicians, but not enough to those who elected them. Why doesn’t the media travel more often into the backwoods of Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Florida, et.al. on a daily basis and show the rational world how truly damaged and, ultimately, irrational these people are.
THAT documentary would surely stimulate the increase in school funding.
Just Wow.
Indiana legislators don’t want qualified teachers, they want teachers who will indoctrinate in the non-public vouchered school systems. And regarding the comment about Ukraine being corrupt and undemocratic, what does that make Russia? I’ve always gotten that there’s no cure for stupid, but evidently there’s also no cure for blatant, boundless, willful ignorance. As the melting Wicked Witch said, “What a world, what a world…”
Because tone doesn’t always come through in type, the following statement is sarcasm.
I’ve always wonder, do they make special kosher space lasers, or are they just normal space lasers that just happened to be owned by Jews.
I say again: Look at who elects these morons. Have you ever listened to Louis Gohmert attempt to speak? That tells you all you ever want to know about Texas voters. Then, there’s Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick and the felon Ken Paxton as Texas’ AG. You can’t make this up.
These voters clearly suffer from some sort of delusion and are so self-absorbed with their own misery that they can’t see the truth and facts. And there are SO many of them. The Fox News viewership tells us how many and what they’re made of.
I’m glad I’m old.
I took a look at Senate Bill 12. It looks like it creates a process by which a parent can complain about a book is inappropriate and a process by which the ultimate decision can be appealed. The second part of the bill doesn’t create a new crime that material or a performance which is harmful to children is being distributed by a school – that was already a crime. Rather, what it does is remove the legal defense schools have that the allegedly harmful material or performance has educational value.
The Ukraine conspiracy nonsense is being peddled in the right-wing media system, but was not something introduced in the Indiana legislature.
The 50s were very comfortable times for conservatives. They were before LBJ thought to make the final run to realize the aspirations of the Constitution and close the gaps between the words and our actions and let freedom ring. They were also times before we found out all of the knowledge that separates these times from those. In fact, they were back when the rural areas of the country were ruled, yes, ruled by white, Christian, apparently heterosexual, authoritarian, gun-owning men while the urban areas were jungles of immigrants.
God and farmers were very happy back then.
Complaining, ranting, agonizing, satirizing…those people and their “news”…What a waste of energy! When will “we” find some leaders who are willing to take on the march to autocracy and explain to the complacent (and busy having fun) 40% that they are the “good Germans” of today?
First, “The Indiana legislature is a never-never land where logic goes to die” is a wonderful line. Well done, I wish I had said that.
Second, this madness is beyond belief. I tremble to write that because, as soon as I do, I fear what will come next.
The Anti-Sheila writes, “Indiana legislators don’t want qualified teachers, they want teachers [people] who will indoctrinate in the non-public vouchered school systems.”
And will teach the kiddos to want to work for the anti-union slave drivers running Indiana (ALEC and FOX). The outcome is predictable when you look at who writes the checks. The parents who stay are already indoctrinated…those who leave want something better for their kids.
I’d take my daughter elsewhere if I didn’t have several anchors…
Meanwhile, at CPAC:
“But a glance at the convention centre ballroom revealed row upon row of empty seats. The “Make America Great Again” (Maga) movement, while vociferous as ever, appeared diminished in size. There was no doubt that former president Trump remained the big fish at the National Harbor in Maryland – but in a smaller pond.
CPAC, which bills itself as the biggest and most influential gathering of conservatives in the world, has been taking place for nearly half a century. After a pandemic-enforced move to Florida and Texas, it returned to the Washington area this week. But proximity to the capital was no guarantee of relevance. The list of Republicans who decided to stay away was as striking as those who showed up.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/05/cpac-trump-maga
Woke early as usual this morning, turned on my bedroom TV before 4:00 a.m. and flipped through channels before CNN Newsroom. Stopped for a few minutes on TCM to watch a scene from “To Be Or Not To Be” to watch the Nazi Generals salute Hitler with the required “Heil, Hitler” to which he responded “Heil, myself”. Enough of that, switched to CNN to see Trump applauding himself at CPAP prior to receiving 62% of the straw vote for another run for the presidency. If that isn’t the primary example of the insanity level of the GOP; then insanity is but a figment of the imagination of all mental health care workers. Here we go again; down that same road to perdition we traveled in 2016, the same inmates continue to run the asylum.
Oops, mea culpa…CPAC, not CPAP
JoAnn, CPAP is annoying, noisy, and full of bacteria. Maybe you were more right than you think.
The things the MAGA folks are doing don’t meet either a medical or legal definition of insanity. They do reveal an inability and or unwillingness to recognize the difference between reality and fantasy. This does meet the less specific understanding of insanity as being of unsound mind. If we attack their acts as insanity they can easily show that they are not. On the other hand, if we show that their acts are the result of unsound thinking, that shifts the debate in a way that I think is significant. That framing of the debate shifts toward providing evidence of critical thinking skills by each side and away from name calling. That debate will have no effect at all on the MAGA die hards, but it could certainly sway those who are still persuadable.
My adventure into logic > Insanity assumes there is a standard of measurement from which conduct can deviate in order to earn such label. Perhaps our complaint is not that of insanity’s results but rather the standard employed by such “insane” people. Perhaps the standard is “insane.”
Thus if one adopts the “standard” that all government by others is corrupt (as Fox and MAGAs bombard us with daily), then given such understanding if genuine the resulting means of cleaning up such corruption cannot be said to be “insane” if within constitutional bounds.
Trouble is, the “bounds” are to be decided in courtrooms and not by street mobs, and the constitution, enabling legislation, and civil order demand that Trump live with such distinction.
seems Indy has the same legislature as NoDak, it only hires yes people. the ones who count down instead of up. be thankful at least you have snowplows after dark. and if your lucky here in the rural areas folks get out after 3 days of snow choked roads. (last time 5 days)our legislature is a total waste of time,the status quo is prime. any of the general fund gets swept up and invested in wall streets greed. and best of all,the oil tax only gets tagged after the barrel reaches $70 on whatever market they use at the time. hense,we give away our oil.
any one i seen at CPAC was exclusive,invited and too far out. looking at the money spent on clothing alone said they are well to do,and want trumps billionaire status tattooed on their forehead. most of the speeches were about the other sides faults(in their own perception).
on the whole,it looked like a free for all on American democracy being not in their own favor.
any credible voice was the announcer who got the names right. and maybe a course credit for watching from liberty univ.
Becker: the bad part is–some braindead idiots will parrot that obvious nonsense. jeez.
Todd:
being it wasnt in a red trash state,(where wages suck) could be the lack of interest and funds.
all mouth and no show.
Right on Jack!
I’m just wondering how many times history has to repeat itself before anybody wises up? And, I think if that were to be a possibility, it would have happened by now!
The same thing happens over and over and over and over again, and somehow everyone expects a different outcome? But isn’t that in of itself insanity?
Look at a portrait of all of those standing around who signed the declaration of Independence, and all of those who wrote the Constitution! Who were they? They were all of the movers and shakers, all wealthy white landowners most of who owned slaves. Now you want to get to originalist? Well, there’s your originalist right there!
Certain groups only scream originalist when they’re talking about the second amendment or voting rights, but if you actually read the Constitution, what they claim it says and what it actually does say are two different things.
This is like rot, but not like a dead fish rot, it’s like a slower gangerness infection which causes sepsis, a very slow and painful death. With gangrene, the rot is in the living organism until it takes over and kills it.
So if you have a gangrenous arm, it needs to be amputated or the entire organism dies. So there’s your roadmap. Too bad no one really seems to have the capacity on how to read a road map anymore, lol!
You know, these folks used to get shut up in attics and were whispered about in polite society. Now, they are society!!! (At least in Congress.)
‘Fraid so, Kathy! And as prize-winning author Rick Bragg said, “We’d just bring ‘em downstairs for special occasions like Thanksgiving or Christmas” [or Hanukkah].
Indiana’s legislature wants to remove as a legal defense using instructional materials that have ‘educational’ value. Why else would a school exist except for education?
Insanity can be defined as detachment from reality, and no matter how loudly they proclaim their version of reality, as in the world of “Alternate facts,” detachment is detachment, and these folks are truly insane.
Vernon Turner, I am glad I am old too!
Because reality is so sad- esoteric humor
Dan – the space lasers here are just owned by Jews – ET has a kosher space laser in the Pisces constellation which has fins and scales, and one in the Taurus constellation which chews its cud and has split hooves 8)>
Sorry – it’s late and I couldn’t resist.