Flying to Washington state tomorrow

Should I worry?

It’s no secret that Washington state has a white nationalist problem. Among the rugged mountains and towering pines are neo-Nazi groups and one of the largest chapters of a violent white supremacist organization. But there’s one group that has been increasingly and alarmingly connected to these extremists: Washington state’s GOP.

The latest example is a pro-Nazi blogger Greyson Arnold’s affiliation with the state party. According to Federal Election Commission records reviewed by The Daily Beast, the Washington State GOP paid Arnold $821.87 on July 15 for “payroll.”

Arnold runs the far-right Telegram account “Pure Politics,” which traffics in Jan. 6 conspiracy theories, praise of controversial lawmakers, and anti-COVID-containment sentiments. It also has more than 12,000 followers who frequently comment with racist and antisemitic language.

But Arnold himself has said plenty of distressing things. As CNN reported last year, Arnold has advocated shooting refugees, killing undocumented immigrants, and has posted praise for Nazi Germany. He actually once said Adolf Hitler was “a complicated historical figure which many people misunderstand.”

Nah, I’m not going to worry any more than usual, because the Republican party is pro-fascist everywhere. It should not be at all surprising anymore that Republicans are finding common cause with Nazis.

Also, I grew up there. I knew people who were exceedingly deplorable; I had good friends of Japanese descent who could tell stories about how their families were mistreated in WWII; I’ve been reading David Neiwert for years (his blog has gone quiet, unfortunately, but he’s now a staff writer for Daily Kos). It’s a great state with some ugly veins of authoritarianism running through it. Also, being dependent on a single major employer, Boeing, for so long, now supplanted by places like Amazon and Microsoft, really enabled a lot of pro-business Republican types.

It’s the ignorance that kills

Here’s a novel definition of transgender people…although it’s not at all novel in the sense that it’s desperate flailing about trying to find an anatomical basis for discrimination. When all else fails, invent a criterion.

Pakistan’s progressive transgender laws are currently under attack. As legislators and clerics oppose the country’s Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act four years after it was passed, one senator wants to change how the measure defines transgender persons. Fawzia Arshad, a senator from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI) says transgender people should be defined as those who “keep one hole for urination.”

Arshad’s bill reflects a trend of escalating dissent and misinformation campaigns against the country’s transgender laws, in an effort to bring it in line with their understanding of Islamic teachings on gender and sex. While Arshad’s awkwardly-worded proposal has bemused many, making some wonder if she knows the difference between a vagina and a urethra, there’s also a larger concern over the direction this movement is taking.

Confusing. By this definition, I am transgender. So is my wife. So is everyone, including Fawzia Arshad, unless she has an unfortunate medical condition.

Isn’t it terrible that the most ignorant people are also the most confident about their mistaken beliefs?

Violent spasms are never a healthy symptom

That’s what we’re seeing in Ukraine — senseless, vicious attacks on civilian centers to pointlessly satisfy Russian honor.

Tragic and terrible. Also tragic and terrible: take a moment to pity the Russian mothers whose children are dying and rotting in Ukrainian fields. No one wins. It’s all a stupid waste of life.

They’re all liars

Last week, Elon Musk tweeted (you know, the usual forum for high-level diplomacy) a “peace plan” for Ukraine that was simply total surrender and concession to all of Putin’s demands and then some. Then it was revealed that Musk had had a recent phone call with Putin, which I could believe — he’s not a very bright guy, and simply parrots whatever the last person who spoke to him said. Now he denies the phone call, and I can believe that, too. Musk is the kind of ego-driven guy who would claim to have inside info on the plans of powerful people.

Elon Musk has denied the claim he spoke to Vladimir Putin before tweeting a peace plan for the war in Ukraine.

The Tesla CEO’s peace suggestion included Ukrainian territory being handed over to Russia.

Eurasia Group subscribers were sent a report in which Ian Bremmer wrote that Mr Musk told him that the Russian president was “prepared to negotiate” if the Crimean peninsula remained in Russian hands, Vice reported.

Other conditions included that Ukraine retains permanent neutrality and that Ukraine recognises the Russian annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia.

Mr Bremmer reports that Mr Musk said that Mr Putin told him that these targets would be reached “no matter what”.

Basically, I can shrug and believe he said things that have little basis in reality, because he is a glad-handing liar. Once you accept that, you can understand the motivation behind all the noise that comes out of his mouth.

I’ll also easily believe that Putin is a liar. The people who have the most experience with Russian neighborliness will tell you that.

Baltic leaders have long argued that Western sanctions adopted in 2014 after Putin illegally annexed Crimea showed the West’s lack of resolve in confronting the Russian president over his land grab. European leaders seemed to think the Baltics were so traumatized by Soviet occupation that they could not be objective.

“Jokingly, you know, we call this ‘West-splaining,’” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said. The West’s message, he said, was that “after 50 years of occupation, it’s understandable that you would have trust issues with a country that occupied you.”

“For us in the Baltics, it all boils down to this notion of appeasement: that basically we can appease Russia,” Landsbergis continued. “For us, it was always very clear, black and white. If a country is eager to cross another country’s border, they’re an aggressor and they will do that again, if they’re not stopped. And they have not been stopped.”

“That notion is quite pervasive, this notion of peaceful settlement with an aggressor,” he added. “I’m really hopeful that it’s now waning.”

Don’t trust imperialist countries. It’s that simple.

I think Central and South America are all clear on that, too.

You’ll never rope me into the grift this way

Oh boy, I get email.

I’m reaching out one last time about featuring your brand in influencer-generated gift guides for the upcoming holiday shopping season.

I have 20 fabulous influencers who are doing holiday gift guides and they have a combined reach of over 3 million consumers who are eager to hear about your brand.

I’m running a special where I will feature your brand in all 20 gift guides for $4,000. It’s a one-time fee and it covers the influencers’ fees.

Gift guides are the most impactful way to get the word out about your brand to consumers who are looking for gifting ideas. This is the 4th year that I’ve run this campaign because every year, my clients get fantastic results.

Spaces in these gift guides are filling up fast and I don’t want you to miss this great opportunity!

Please feel free to reply to this email if you have any questions and/or if you would like to be part of this campaign.

Look, you’ll never persuade me with a tease that features the words “brand” and “influencer”. That’s a great way to get me running in the opposite direction.

I notice also that I am expected to cough up $4,000 to be mentioned in these “gift guides” from 20 different “influencers” who have almost certainly never even heard of me, while the “influencers” are getting paid. Seems a little unfair? I think I’ll pass.

Racists are still upset about the Little Mermaid

You want to see some raging, flaming, over-the-top, old-school racism? No, you don’t, but I’m gonna show it to you anyway.

OK, I hear you wondering…who the heck is Jared Taylor? Here’s what Amazon has to say.

Jared Taylor has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Yale University and a master’s degree in international economics from l’Institut d’ Etudes Politiques de Paris.

He has worked as an international lending office for a major New York bank and as a consultant to companies doing business in Japan. For three years he was the West Coast Editor of PC (Personal Computing) Magazine, and has published articles and essays in the following publications:

Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Washington Star, San Francisco Chronicle, Boston Globe, National Review, Chronicles.

Since 1994, Jared Taylor has been the president of New Century Foundation, which publishes the American Renaissance website (AmRen.com).

Amazon used to sell all of his books, but in March, 2019, it banned the following titles written or edited by Jared Taylor:

A Race Against Time: Racial Heresies for the 21st Century, 2003, New Century Books, 331 pp.

White Identity: Racial Consciousness in the 21st Century, 2011, New Century Books, 344 pp.

Face to Face With Race, 2014, New Century Books, 211 pp.

If We Do Nothing: Essays and Reviews from 25 Years of White Advocacy, 2017, New Century Books, 254 pp.

Jared Taylor lives with his family in northern Virginia near Washington, DC.

It starts off fairly normally (I had no idea he was an editor for PC Magazine), and then gets around to mentioning the New Century Foundation — a prominent funding source for all kinds of hate — and the American Renaissance, where Michelle Malkin and Pat Buchanan are still welcome contributors.

I know — I didn’t know Pat Buchanan was still alive. He is.

And then we get around to his racist books, which Amazon has banned. Cancel culture! But they really are terrible, stupid books as the video above shows.

Jared Taylor still gets invited to give talks. The latest was at ASU, where he was invited by the College Republicans. Republicans don’t mind associating with notorious racists, I guess.

He’s comically racist. He thinks the white race is going to miscegenate ourselves into extinction because…

There are just too darned many mixed-race couples in TV ads! Yeah, he seems like the kind of guy who sits up late watching Fox News and getting mad at all the pharmaceutical commercials because they’re just not white enough.

These people actually exist. It shocks me every time.

Another reason to regret an upcoming flight

I’m going to have to get on an airplane this weekend. I’m not happy about it, and Sun Country (which had the cheapest, low budget flight to Seattle) is not reassuring me.

Masks are now optional for all passengers and crew members onboard Sun Country flights within the United States. For international flights, masks are optional for Sun Country customers and employees, except where required by applicable governments for international travel. Please continue to bring a mask with you as required for international travel.
At Sun Country Airlines, safety is our number one priority, and we remain committed to maintaining a clean, healthy environment on board.

Why do they do this? They announce safety is our number one priority, while stripping all the health safety requirements from the flight. Isn’t it obvious that safety is not their number one priority? Is anyone fooled by this double-speak?

I’ll be wearing an N95 the whole way there and back.

Y’all know he’s just an ugly-minded ol’ bigot, right?

Being a terrible human being hasn’t been an obstacle to making good, or even just interesting, music. Kanye West is just a Jerry Lee Lewis for the 21st century. But making popular music shouldn’t be a defense against repudiation. Kanye West is finding that out.

The rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, sent an Instagram post Friday suggesting fellow musician Sean “Diddy” Combs was controlled by Jewish people — a common antisemitic trope. Within hours, Instagram had removed the post and locked his account.

That sent Ye to Twitter, where he was publicly welcomed back by Elon Musk, who may soon take ownership of the company. Within hours, however, Ye had posted a separate antisemitic tweet that he would go “death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” Twitter, like Instagram, was quick to block the post and lock his account.

Unforgivable. That is Nazi shit, and it doesn’t matter that it’s coming out of a black man’s mouth. Actually, it may matter a great deal: conservative free-speech warriors are using it as an excuse to lay the groundwork for permitting antisemites and racists to freely promote their rotten ideas. They want to be able to shriek antisemitic jargon on the internet; they want to normalize it so that newspapers can freely post editorials blaming a Jewish cabal for every problem; they want it to get so familiar that they can sneak debates about “the Jewish question” into school rooms. That’s the future we should dread.

But a conservative-led movement to rein in what some see as “censorship” by Silicon Valley giants is poised to alter how they approach such decisions. Between a growing field of state laws that seek to restrict content moderation and Elon Musk’s determination to loosen Twitter’s policies, posts such as Ye’s could soon become more prevalent online.

A law passed by Texas last year, which could become a model for other Republican-led states if upheld by the courts, prohibits large online platforms from censoring users or limiting their posts based on the political views they express. Legal experts told The Washington Post that such laws would make it much riskier for social media companies such as Meta, which owns Instagram, and Twitter to moderate even blatantly antisemitic posts such as Ye’s.

And Musk has said that one of his goals for Twitter, should he complete a $44 billion deal to purchase the company and take it private, is to provide a forum for legal speech of all kinds. “If the citizens want something banned, then pass a law to do so, otherwise it should be allowed,” he tweeted in May.

I guess death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE is a kind of political statement, but it’s also something much more. It’s hate speech. It’s a threat of violence against people for the crime of being born to a certain set of parents. It’s a promise of cultural annihilation, the eradication of a people’s traditions and ideas. What’s also disturbing is that conservatives seem perfectly willing to equate those kinds of eliminationist views with their own political philosophy.

Offensive posts are nothing new on social media, of course. But the largest platforms, including Meta, Twitter, Google’s YouTube and ByteDance’s TikTok, have become much more active in recent years in developing and enforcing rules that restrict posts deemed threatening or hateful toward other users or groups of people. Those efforts have at times drawn backlash from prominent conservatives, from former president Donald Trump to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to Musk, who argue tech companies have gone too far in suppressing conservative voices.

So, telling people that they can’t go around threatening to murder other people is “suppressing conservative voices”? That’s a confession. Apparently, killing people who are different in some way has now become a conservative value.

I’m all in favor of suppressing conservatives then, just as I’m in favor of suppressing the KKK.