the face of a moral monster

Michael Knowles, the far-right pundit on the Daily Wire, has posted a defense of Trump’s mass deportations that is basically a confession of American atrocities, and excusing them because they’re American.

I don’t know if you guys are history buffs or not. Have you ever heard of the Trail of Tears? I know a lot of people don’t defend the Trail of Tears. But that was a mass deportation. That was in, what, 1830? Have you ever heard of Operation Wetback when we actually deported a ton of Mexicans, like a 100,000 or more Mexicans? You might not defend Operation Wetback, in part because of the name because it’s an offensive word. 1954. That was a mass deportation. How about the Palmer raids of all the communists? 1919, 1920, deported, because a lot of the communists were foreigners who were in America deported lots and lots of commoners — communists, rather. How about the Japanese? We always talk about Japanese internment during World War II. You know, we also deported a lot of Japanese. Again, you might say, well, that was all really terrible. OK. But it’s American, though. We sure did. I’m noticing a trend here. How about the Haitians and the Cubans that we deported after the Mariel boatlift in 1980? That was a mass deportation. You say, well, that’s wrong. It’s anti-American — again, I know. Maybe you don’t like it. Maybe you can make an argument that some of these things were unjust. But the one thing you can’t say is that it’s un-American or anti-American.

Deportation is as American as apple pie, therefore it must be good. That’s what the right is reduced to, excusing oppression because we’ve always oppressed other people. This is the language of tyranny.

I did not realize that in this time we need to explain that the Trail of Tears was injust, that the internment of citizens of Japanese descent in WWII was evil. I missed an opportunity yesterday, then — I was lecturing on Mendel, discussing the importance of institutions that easily provide agricultural/gardening stocks that were a precondition for his experiments, and I gave personal credit to Taki and Haru Nagasawa who exposed me to nursery work when I was in high school and college. That kind of work is an important foundation for science and we don’t acknowledge it often enough. I failed to mention, though, that the Nagasawas were well-respected members of the community, who had lost everything in the internments and had to rebuild their business after the war, and that American policy had done them a deep injury.

I should have hammered on that, briefly, in the class. It would have been a natural lesson given the specific subject I was trying to get across. I didn’t think it needed to be said, but apparently I’m wrong. It’s unfortunate, because some universities are kicking out professors who mention “political” topics in the classroom, and that might be my only path to retirement. In our dismal future, informed people with historical knowledge will be prohibited from disseminating that knowledge in small classrooms to a few people at a time, while blithering idiots will be free to misinform and spread hate en masse via the internet and certain television and radio channels.

We can stop arguing about the term (as we should have done long ago): Israel is committing genocide, with the enthusiastic aid of the United States.

Donald Trump has suggested large numbers of Palestinians should leave Gaza to “just clean out” the whole strip, after ordering the US military to restart shipments of 2,000lb bombs to Israel.

“Cleaning out” a whole people, driving them from their homes, and moving them into camps in another country is genocide. It’s that simple.

Couple that to the fact that he’s not sending a fleet of moving vans and a lot of prefab homes and trailers to their destination, but is instead sending 2000 pound bombs, is a huge hint that we’re not talking about a peaceful, voluntary relocation. It’s hard to get 2.3 million people to all give up their homes, much easier if we whittle the numbers down a bit. A lot.

Combine this with his hatred of DEI, his denial that trans people exist, and his inability to recognize women’s autonomy, I think it’s clear that we have a psychopath in the White House, one who has no sense of empathy and is unable to recognize the rights of other people to exist.

Time to fire the president.

A dozen large, Grade A eggs cost an average of $4.15 in the U.S. last month – a nearly 37% increase from the year before – according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s a much larger jump than the 2.5% increase of overall food prices.

The last time that average price was above $4 was two years ago, when the cost for a dozen eggs spiked to a record $4.82.

I mean, Trump’s the guy who goes from store to store and sets prices, right? Or are we now ready to dismiss that simplistic, direct connection out of hand?

In this case, there may be an indirect connection — the price is partly the result of the bird flu.

The egg industry has been impacted by a surge of bird flu cases in recent weeks. More than 13 million egg-laying hens died in December due to the virus – the most of any month last year – according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And another 3.3 million died in early January.

The losses are a big factor in higher egg prices, said Jada Thompson, a poultry economist at the University of Arkansas who researches how diseases impact markets.

“One of the hard parts is there’s this regional concentration of production,” Thompson said. “And so when a disease is going through and hitting farms in that area, it’s gonna affect multiple farms, and that’s gonna affect the supply of eggs – and that supply then will affect our prices.”

Everything is connected. Do you think censoring the NIH and putting science deniers in charge of our health might have consequences?

Just you wait until the next lockdown. They have a model plan to stop the virus in its tracks.

The virus has an extremely high fatality rate in birds, Sato said. Many birds die within a day or two — so when bird flu is confirmed on a farm, it affects the entire flock.

“Essentially, all of the birds that’s on that site will be depopulated, meaning they’ll all be put down, in order to control the virus and to make sure it’s contained in one area to not spread to other premises,” Sato said.

Man, it sure is easy to walk into the office and shred all past agreements, burn down policies that have been in place for a generation, and not bother to replace them with anything. Trump is firing people left and right and sweeping away useful programs.

U.S. President Donald Trump ‘s administration moved Tuesday to end affirmative action in federal contracting and directed that all federal diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) staff be put on paid leave and eventually be laid off.

The moves follow an executive order Trump signed on his first day ordering a sweeping dismantling of the federal government’s diversity and inclusion programs that could touch on everything from anti-bias training to funding for minority farmers and homeowners. Trump has called the programs “discrimination” and insisted on restoring strictly “merit-based” hiring.

The executive order on affirmative action revokes an order issued by U.S. president Lyndon Johnson, and curtails DEI programs by federal contractors and grant recipients.

Sure, let’s tear down all the progress made since the 1960s. Dismantle the Great Society programs, since we’re now a small, mean, nasty society. Also, don’t you dare try to preserve them by renaming them.

Agencies must also cancel any DEI-related training and end any related contracts, and federal workers are being asked to report to Trump’s Office of Personnel Management if they suspect any DEI-related program has been renamed to obfuscate its purpose within 10 days or face “adverse consequences.”

I’m at a state university, so this doesn’t affect us yet, but I know people involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at the University of Minnesota; I’ve taken DEI training on several occasions. They’re good people and it’s useful information. How can you have “merit-based” hiring if you don’t recognize the existence of policies and attitudes and social pressures that work against merit? I think that’s the problem — they don’t recognize the existence of bigotry and bias while they practice them to the maximum degree.

While they’re taking a wrecking ball to our institutions, here’s another one: the US is pulling out of the World Health Organization.

The World Health Organization regrets the announcement that the United States of America intends to withdraw from the Organization. WHO plays a crucial role in protecting the health and security of the world’s people, including Americans, by addressing the root causes of disease, building stronger health systems, and detecting, preventing and responding to health emergencies, including disease outbreaks, often in dangerous places where others cannot go. The United States was a founding member of WHO in 1948 and has participated in shaping and governing WHO’s work ever since, alongside 193 other Member States, including through its active participation in the World Health Assembly and Executive Board. For over seven decades, WHO and the USA have saved countless lives and protected Americans and all people from health threats. Together, we ended smallpox, and together we have brought polio to the brink of eradication. American institutions have contributed to and benefited from membership in WHO. With the participation of the United States and other Member States, WHO has over the past 7 years implemented the largest set of reforms in its history, to transform our accountability, cost- effectiveness, and impact in countries. This work continues. We hope the United States will reconsider and we look forward to engaging in constructive dialogue to maintain the partnership between the USA and WHO, for the benefit of the health and well- being of millions of people around the globe.

The Trump administration is listening to RFK jr, a notorious crank and quack. We’re slowly emerging from a pandemic (one could argue that it’s not at all over), one that first emerged in Asia, and here we are, tearing down connections to the rest of the world and blinding ourselves to diseases outside of our little country. It’s stupid and short-sighted.

What happens in four years (we hope)? Do we just go crawling back to these international societies, hat in hand, and beg to be let back in? These betrayals are going to permanently damage our relationship with the rest of the world; they know we can’t be trusted, so every international relationship is going to be organized with the understanding that the USA is an unreliable partner.

Bob the Angry Flower

We are so totally screwed.

If you’re curious to know what the future holds for us, here’s a demonstration by Candace Owens.

She babbles about how the moon landing and dinosaurs were all conspiracies by satanists to destroy our faith in a god, based entirely on disconnected factoids floating like rotten little raisins in the pudding of her brain. I fear that this kind of thing is what the world sees when they look at Americans.

Have any of you foreigners popping in here got any good American jokes? We’ll probably affirm them all for you.

TikTok was banned. TikTok has been restored.

It’s hard to really care anymore. No matter what he does, the MAGA fan base will praise it.

First, Charlie Kirk wanted to ban the “evil CCP-compromised app TikTok”. Now he’s giving Trump credit for not banning it.

I just don’t give a fuck anymore what these people say.