Now that’s stolen valor

Another election fraud case by Sydney Powell and Lin Wood is going down in flames as a Michigan judge finds their affidavits of voting shenanigans in Detroit were not responsibly vetted. “There’s a duty that counsel has that when you’re submitting a sworn statement … that you have reviewed it, that you had done some minimal due diligence,” she said. They had not.

Going through the list of rejected claims, one jumped out at me.

One declaration came from a witness referred to by the lawyers in court documents only as “Spider.” In his sworn declaration, he claimed to be a former military intelligence expert who had discovered server traffic revealing that Iran and China had tampered with the election. But The Washington Post revealed in December that “Spider” was actually a 43-year-old Texas-based information technology consultant named Joshua Merritt who never worked in military intelligence.

Records show he enrolled in a training program with a military intelligence battalion but never completed the entry-level course, an Army spokeswoman told The Post. Records show that Merritt spent most of his decade in the U.S. Army as a wheeled-vehicle mechanic.

How dare he steal the honorable name of “Spider”! Can he be arrested for that?

I suspect that the more serious accusation is that he lied about his credentials and expertise. Being a “wheeled-vehicle mechanic” is an honorable job that does require considerable skill and knowledge — my father was a mechanic, too — but it probably doesn’t prepare you in military intelligence or cybersecurity, and doesn’t involve any training in cracking the information communications going on in Iran and China.

This kind of thing is all Powell and Wood have — people swearing that they saw a mysterious bag that could have held ballots, that sort of thing, and the lawyers didn’t carry out even a superficial scrutiny of the claims.

If Parker decides to discipline the lawyers, she could require them to pay the fees of their opponents in the case, the city of Detroit and Michigan state officials. But she could also go further — assessing additional monetary penalties or recommending grievance proceedings be opened that could result in banning the attorneys from practicing in Michigan or disbarring them altogether.

Yes, please.

By the way, you may have heard that one of the lawyers was weeping, and later resigned from the Wood/Powell team. This wasn’t because she was humiliated in court. She later said she wasn’t crying, she was just furious because no one was defending her hero Donald Trump as he deserved.

“Google, show me the naturalistic fallacy”

Here we go, Rob Schmitt, an announcer on Newsmax illustrating not just the naturalistic fallacy, but also diving deep to show us how conservative news networks are in a competition to represent the dumbest possible take on everything:

Obviously, I’m not a doctor. But I’ve always thought about vaccines, and I always think about just nature, and the way everything works. And I feel like a vaccination in a weird way is just generally kind of going against nature. I mean, if there is some disease out there…maybe there’s just an ebb and flow to life where something’s supposed to wipe out a certain amount of people, and that’s just kind of the way evolution goes. Vaccines kind of stand in the way of that.

Then he brings on Dr. Peter McCullogh, the latest “expert” who has been making the rounds of the conservative talking heads talk on TV about how we don’t know about the side-effects of vaccines and you don’t really need to be vaccinated and COVID-19 isn’t that dangerous, and he doesn’t push back at all on that garbage — instead he tells us that “natural immunity” is superior.

I can’t watch Fox News, so I’m sure not going to be able to avoid death by apoplexy if I started watching Newsmax or OAN. Fortunately, other people do. Here’s Sam Seder and his crew dismantling this nonsense — really, you don’t need a Ph.D. in Science to see what’s wrong with that argument, or to list a whole lot of “unnatural” things that people naturally do.

Unfortunately, pointing out the bad science doesn’t address the real problem in that “news” cast, which I think is embodied in the statement that he thinks about the way everything works. He’s got a larger model in his head of what Nature is that incorporates all these assumptions about teleology and purpose and the proper functioning of the world, and the reason he’s embracing this absurd notion of vaccines being an intrusion on nature is that that clicks with all of his priors. It’s not that he’s actually thought about vaccines in any coherent way, it’s that he’s cobbled up a way of thinking about the world from non-rigorous, ideologically anti-science institutions and authorities, that make him more comfortable with adopting a lie than with accepting an idea that would shake up his notions of how the world properly works.

He’s also driven by tribalism and fear. Schmitt also complained that it is despicable that the high and mighty Left and the media [are] ridiculing so many people for questioning vaccines, and look, he’s getting ridiculed, confirming the truth of his beliefs!

He’s also indulging in an amazing amount of projection.

It’s become so politicized, and many liberals will pump these vaccines into themselves and to their children simply to prove their loyalty to ‘science,’ ’cause that’s the in-thing to do right now.

Uh, I don’t want my children vaccinated because I’m virtue-signaling at science, or because it’s fashionable. It’s because I do have an ideological commitment to accepting the facts, and right now 99.5% of the COVID-19 related deaths are hitting the unvaccinated. That’s the brute reality that’s pounding on Rob Schmitt’s head, trying to tell him his mental model is invalid.

Well, also, there’s an emotional revulsion against the idea that a certain amount of people need to be “wiped out”, which is a sociopath’s creed.

They’ve always known

Ignorance is such a common excuse.

We didn’t know carbon dioxide could affect our climate. We didn’t know pipelines would leak. We didn’t know slaves were people. We didn’t know women could have the same aspirations as men. We didn’t know colonialism was exploitive. We didn’t know those people would be unhappy if we stole their children.

We knew all along. We just didn’t want to do anything about it.

Don’t believe those “if we had only known” people. There were other people who were telling them the truth, and they just chose to ignore them, usually because the lies were more profitable.

Tucker Carlson wants to build the Panopticon — in our schools

Yeah, he is really arguing for complete surveillance of every teacher in America to catch them if they dare to teach seditious ideas, like Critical Race Theory, because he thinks that’s what grade school teachers are actually doing. It’s nonsense. You know I’m a big fat flamingly liberal college teacher, and I don’t teach CRT because it’s way out of my discipline and an inappropriate topic for a class on genetics or cell biology, right? So why does he fear a second grade teacher who’s teaching about the times table would sneak in a lesson on racial oppression?

But this teacher lists many good points. Bring it on! For the past year and a half we’ve all been teaching under the lenses of cameras (often purchased with our own money) as we struggle to teach in spite of the pandemic, so this is nothing new. Even before the pandemic, my classes have been pretty much open — I get requests for potential student recruits to sit in, and I always say yes, and I’ve had students bring a friend into the class, and it’s not as if I’d yell “get out!” because they haven’t paid tuition, and there are always a couple of students in the front row with recorders going through the whole lecture. Does Carlson think we’re afraid of people hearing what we teach?

And who is going to review all these classes?

To be honest, I’m fascinated by the logistics of your proposal. In a world where school districts are struggling to recruit and maintain teachers, who is going to man your “citizen review boards” (setting aside the fact that public school teachers already answer to publicly elected school boards)? For instance, in my school district I sense you would need well over 500 cameras going every day. Who watches those 500 screens 10 hours a day (I want you watching my 7 am jazz band and my after school lessons)? What qualifications would these “experts” need to know what they were watching for? What happens when they catch a teacher teaching…let me get this right…”civilization ending poison?” Who do they report that to? I’m also curious who will pay for all of this incredible technology. Maybe I missed it, but can you point me to a K-12 institution where Critical Race Theory is being taught? Hell, can you define Critical Race Theory for all of us? I’m sure you’ve got answers to all of these questions.

If you think spending that much money and time on surveillance is worthwhile, though, maybe you can kick in a few bucks to help those teachers get school supplies. Or give them raises. That would be nice.

For now, though, we can just have fun with the dumbass punching bag who says stupid shit for his stupid audience on television.

Frankly, I’ve never been able to figure out, instead of dreaming up Orwellian plans to have Big Brother in all of our classrooms, why you don’t round up an army of bright young conservatives to actually step up and teach? Is it because teachers work hard, aren’t paid as much as those with similar educational backgrounds, don’t have support from our elected officials, constantly serve as punching bags for those who don’t understand public education, or is it just because it’s easier to throw rocks at a house than to build one?

Here’s the real deal Tuck, I grew up with my mom making me eat your family’s Salisbury Steaks once every couple of weeks (his family makes Swanson TV dinners) for many years. I struggle to take advice on teaching and learning from a guy who makes a steak that, on its best day, tastes like shoe leather that has been left out in a goat pasture for a few weeks. I get that Critical Race Theory is your latest attempt to scare your elderly demographic, but let’s just admit that you don’t know what you’re talking about.

With all of that being said, count me on the cameras Tucky. Like many teachers, I’m in the early stages of understanding Critical Race Theory (most of us hadn’t heard about it until you and your people started crying about it), but if you find me teaching it, have one of the Tucker Youth watching your surveillance devices let me know. If Critical Race Theory involves talking honestly about American history, I’m probably doing that sometimes. I spent much of the last six years advocating for a way for teaching to become more transparent, and in the dumbest way possible, you are joining that crusade. Let’s make this happen TV Dinner Boy.

Man, TV Dinner Boy is an ass.

A fascinating correlation

One of Biden’s declared goals was to see 70% of the population vaccinated by July. He didn’t quite make it. The states that did reach the goal are in green.

Compare that to the electoral map.

Huh. Wonder what that means.

A finer-grained analysis might be interesting. My county went for Trump; it also has a vaccination rate currently around 50%.

Ugh. Can we just throw him in jail and forget about him now?

It’s still too much Trump. There’s a slow dribble of information about just how repulsive he was as president, and I only want to hear it in the context of court transcripts during his treason trial.

The top US general repeatedly pushed back on then-President Donald Trump’s argument that the military should intervene violently in order to quell the civil unrest that erupted around the country last year. Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley often found he was the lone voice of opposition to those demands during heated Oval Office discussions, according to excerpts of a new book, obtained by CNN, from Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender.

Titled “Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost,” the book reveals new details about how Trump’s language became increasingly violent during Oval Office meetings as protests in Seattle and Portland began to receive attention from cable new outlets. The President would highlight videos that showed law enforcement getting physical with protesters and tell his administration he wanted to see more of that behavior, the excerpts show.

That’s how you’re supposed to handle these people, Trump told his top law enforcement and military officials, according to Bender. Crack their skulls!
Trump also told his team that he wanted the military to go in and beat the f–k out of the civil rights protesters, Bender writes.

Just shoot them, Trump said on multiple occasions inside the Oval Office, according to the excerpts.
When Milley and then-Attorney General William Barr would push back, Trump toned it down, but only slightly, Bender adds.

The only time I want to hear about these assholes is when they’re getting punished, like Giuliani losing his right to practice law in New York. It is extremely frustrating to read about Trump using his power to push for murder on the streets, and yet nothing is ever done.

Conservatives don’t understand the military

They dragged in a general to testify about critical race theory. They didn’t get the answer they expected.

I suspect that generals are better educated overall than senators (amused that they cut away briefly to Matt Gaetz, shaking his head in…hey, why is that corrupt Floridian still in office anyway?). The enlisted personnel are definitely more diverse than the Senate. It was a real eye-opener for me when I actually visited a couple of army bases, visiting my son, and noticing that the people working there are much more diverse than even at my liberal university.

If the right-wingers, which includes so many chickenhawks, think they can automatically get the support of the military, they better think again. This is not to say liberals do understand the military, or that the army will support the left wing, but that they’re a separate perspective that doesn’t neatly fit into our civilian categories. The best thing to do is leave them out of politics, and encourage them to continue to be independent of that role.

Gone almost a week, and nothing has changed

It was a good 5 days. I’m an internet junkie, but my laptop died a few days before my flight, and while I considered bringing along an old clunker of a netbook, I eventually decided to be strong and go mostly cold turkey and hang out with the family. I had my phone as one slender lifeline to keep in touch with Mary, and that was it. So I visited my mother, my two sisters, my two brothers, my son and his wife, my grandson, and went to the beach and went fishing. I went for walks and looked at spiders. I went to a church, once. I didn’t do much of anything, actually.

I got home early evening last night, and was finally able to shuffle some money around on the internet and make the big announcement, but then I just hit the sack and slept in until 7am. I got up this morning and finally, after that respite, plunged back into the internet and…

AAAAAAAAIAIIIEEEE.

Nothing has changed. The right wing is still ginning up a culture war, and they look even more stupid when you haven’t been desensitized by the continual barrage. I mean, look at these two idiots:

The Left’s War on Hydroxychloroquine Continues? What? Hydroxychloroquine is a dangerous drug that shows no effectiveness against the coronavirus — it was tossed out to the media by chickenshit politicians (like Ron Johnson there) as cheap snake oil to shut gullible people up. The “Left” didn’t buy it. Now we’ve got safe, effective vaccines, we lefties are happily lining up to get those while the righties are inventing conspiracy theories to avoid them. There never was a “war on hydroxychloroquine.” Johnson and every loudmouthed liar on Fox News can go gargle bleach if they want.

It only takes a little distance to see that the way these quacks operate is to tell an outrageous lie, and the first time you hear it, you think “That is the dumbest thing I ever heard.” The second, third, and fiftieth time they say it, you roll your eyes and tune it out. The hundredth time you think, “Am I gonna have to go dig into the scientific literature and read a bunch of papers?” The thousandth time you begin to have doubts and wonder, “Maybe I missed something? Should we fund another clinical trial?”, and then they’ve got you. Trust me, your first impressions were probably correct. Bullshit isn’t turned into science by a thousand Fox News morons churning it over.

Sometimes they even admit what they’re doing. Here’s Chris Rufo outlining their strategy against Critical Race Theory: they just lie about it, misrepresent it, and if they hammer it hard enough at the public, they’ll start to associate the lies with the real thing.

You just have to turn up the volume on your bullhorn and be really, really repetitive and you too can get any nonsense you want drilled into the discourse. If you can’t get on Fox News right away, there’s always Sam Harris and Joe Rogan to act as pre-amps and get you started on your program to purée everyone’s brains via mass media.

I strongly recommend the clarifying effects of watching ocean waves roll in for a while. Unfortunately, I have to warn you of the spectacular downer you will experience when you get back from the shore.