Category Archives: Politically Incorrect

The Hole in the Wall of the World

Believe nothing you hear and no more than half of what you see. toilet stall in Hitlers bunker suite

O, theres a hole in the wall of the worldwhere antlered conspiracy theoristsconvene to wonder who what where and why like newspaper conspiracy fearistswho get Deep Throated by the FBI,one unknits the record the other purled.

Where did Roger gets the stones to call formartial law so soon after his pardon,like a whistledog foaming and rabidand so anxious to show us his hard-on the kind of guy whod blow up the DavidHotel and blame it all on Sir Balfour?

And now we hear that Enrique Tarrio,the chicken chokin Aladdin singinProud Boy informant, was no KKK(Roger Stones bud? oy, my ears are ringin)but rainbow burnin head of GayGayGay (*)straight out some alt-right South Beach barrio.

A conspiracy theorist might wonderwhy the feds ignored mamas proudest boywhen he called to say the insurrectionwould be vile, loud and could well destroythe shiny uribus plenum sectionon the Hill, another intel blunder.

Even Tarrio, polishing his lampuntil the genie came out with a whooshto grant his wish, knew something was not rightwhen they drew slow police response no dooshfrom the left he knew had Blacks come to fightthe jackboots would have been there to stamp, stamp.

But not so a conspiracy fearistwhod have seen the same events and exclaimedwe need new domestic terrorism lawsto stop the few, the proud mentally maimedwho come dressed as Injuns and Trumpian squawsand mad extras out of Mommie Dearest.

Glad grads of the Leni Riefenstahl school,who dole out the Gods eye view, and get laidby their sources, and fluff up their careersat the expense of freedom, over paidparts of the problem who toy with our fears,roll for the latest presidential Fool.

O, theres a hole in the wall of the worldwhere our illusions are seeping awayand evolutions come to a standstill,and human consciousness is held at bayby theorists and fearists fighting untilone unknits the record the other purled.

(*) No actual feelings were hurt during the making of this stanza, as Enrique Tarrio says he is opposed to Politically Correct people and gays. The suggestion is that because the Proud Boys got their name from a mamas boy song (Proud of Your Boy) from the musical Aladdin and it is said, by politically incorrect people (and incorrectly so, if Im correct), that only men who are gay like musicals. Or pretend to be gay, in order to advance their careers a gold at the end of the rainbow kind of thing. Tsk-tsk.

Excerpt from:
The Hole in the Wall of the World - CounterPunch.org - CounterPunch

(February 2, 2021 / JNS) President Joe Bidens foreign policy and national security team reflects a resurgence of the U.S. State Departments worldview. To avoid past mistakes, an examination of this worldview and its track record is thus in order.

In 1948, the State Department-led Washingtons opposition to the recognition of the newly established Jewish state, contending that Israel would be helpless against the expected Arab military assault, would be pro-Soviet, would undermine U.S.-Arab relations, destabilize the Middle East, threaten the U.S. oil supply and cause severe long-term damage to U.S. interests. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Lovett claimed that recognizing the Jewish state prematurely would be buying a pig in a poke.

During the 1950s, the United States courted Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, considering him a potential ally and extending non-military aid. Meanwhile, Egypt evolved into a key ally of the USSR, supporting anti-Western elements in Africa, intensifying anti-U.S. sentiments among Arabs and attempting to topple every single pro-U.S. Arab regime.

In 1978-79, the United States betrayed the pro-U.S. shah of Iran, while embracing Ayatollah Khomeini, including intelligence sharing during the initial months of the Khomeini regime, under the assumption that he was controllable and seeking freedom, democracy and positive ties with Washington.

Subscribe to The JNS Daily Syndicateby email and never missour top stories

In 1980-1990, the United States collaborated with Saddam Hussein, including intelligence-sharing, supplying dual-use systems and extending $5 billion loan guarantees. The assumption was that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This policy was perceived by Saddam as a green light to invade Kuwait, as documented by the July 25, 1990 meeting between Saddam and the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, eight days before the invasion, when she asserted (reflecting the position of the State Department) that an invasion of Kuwait was an inter-Arab issue.

Between 1993 and 2000, the U.S. administration hailed PLO chairman Yasser Arafat as a messenger of peace, worthy of the Nobel peace prize and annual U.S. foreign aid, ignoring his annihilationist ambitions, as reflected by his 1959 and 1964 Fatah and PLO charters, hate-education system and intensified terrorism.

In 2009, the United States embraced the anti-U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, ignoring its terrorist nature and defining it as a political, secular entity. Thus, the United States turned a cold shoulder toward pro-U.S. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, paving the road for the Muslim Brotherhood ascension to power in 2012-13, a blow to all pro-U.S. Arab countries.

Until the eruption of the 2011 civil war in Syria, the State Department considered Syrian President Bashar Assad a reformer and a potential moderate due to his background as an ophthalmologist in London and his marriage to a British woman. Similarly, his father, Hafez Assad (the butcher from Damascus) was regarded as a man of his word, a credible negotiator, justifying Israels giveaway of the strategically critical Golan Heights.

In 2011, the State Department was a key engine behind the U.S.-led NATO military offensive which toppled Libyan dictator Moammar Qaddafi, notwithstanding his dismantling of Libyas nuclear infrastructure, fervent war on Islamic terrorism and providing the U.S. with unique counter-terror intelligence. The toppling of Qaddafi transformed Libya into a platform of civil war and global Islamic terrorism.

In 2011, the Washington, D.C., foreign policy and national security establishment welcomed the tectonic eruption of violence on the Arab street as a march toward democracy, peaceful-coexistence, Facebook and youth revolutionsan Arab Spring.

However, in reality, it was a ruthless Arab Tsunami, exposing endemic intra-Arab and intra-Muslim terrorism, subversion and violent power strugglestribal, ethnic, religious, ideological, local and regional.

In 2015, irrespective of Irans fanatical, repressive and megalomaniacal ideology and systematic perpetration of war and terrorism, the architects of the Iran nuclear accord provided Irans ayatollahs with a $150 billion bonanza. They were guided by the assumption that the ayatollahs were credible partners for negotiation, amenable to peaceful coexistence and influence-sharing with their Arab Sunni neighbors. Moreover, the United States disappointed most Iranians by renouncing a military (regime-change) option against the ruthless and lawless regime in Tehran.

In view of this track record, which highlights a systematic gap between Middle East reality and State Department policyPresident Bidens Middle East team may benefit from the studies of the late professor Elie Kedourie (London School of Economics and Political Science), an iconic Middle East historian whose politically-incorrect books and articles have been vindicated by history.

According to Kedourie (The Chatham House Version): One of the simplest and yet most effective means known to mankind of keeping in touch with reality is to contrast what people say with what they do. Alien conventions and unfamiliar speech add to the confusion. All too often assumptions are not tested on the pulse of experience, they remain mere abstract doctrines, and men are taken up and praised for what they say rather than for what they are.

In 2021, 10 years following the eruption of the Arab tsunamiand contrary to the expectations of the State Departmentthe Arab street is still dominated by its intrinsic 1,400-year-old instability, unpredictability, violent intolerance and despotism. Nor has the tsunami reached its peak.

Such a policy failure can be attributedif one employs professor Kedouries theoriesto successive and cumulative manifestations of illusion, misjudgment, maladroitness and failure (ibid, p. ix).

Will President Bidens foreign policy and national security team, dealing with Irans ayatollahs and the Middle East at largeepicenters of global proliferation of ballistic and nuclear technologies, as well as Islamic terrorismlearn from critical past errors, or repeat them?

At stake is regional and global stability, including the national and homeland security of the United States.

Yoram Ettinger is a former ambassador and head of Second Thought: A U.S.-Israel Initiative.

This article was first published by The Ettinger Report.

See more here:
Will Biden avoid the mistakes of the past? - JNS.org

Dr. Daniel Sutter has been the Charles G. Koch Professor of Economics with the Manuel H. Johnson Center for Political Economy in Troy Universitys Sorrell College of Business since 2011. He's also a contributor to Heartland's blog, the Freedom Pub.

Americans have always been able to achieve based their talents and efforts. Yet several conservatives now argue that liberal policies have entrenched an elite class. The COVID-19 policy response provides some support for this argument.

I have always found economic class analyses unhelpful. Class theorists see society composed of groups, not individuals. Modern economics begins analysis with the individual. We explain group action based on the beliefs, incentives, and actions of individual members.

Karl Marx assumed that ones place in the economy determined ones views and goals. Yet this ignores the differences amongst people. Any given workplace will include persons at different points in life with different backgrounds and life goals. They are unlikely to all think the same. Even capitalists differ significantly and include limousine liberals advocating for more taxes and spending.

What is the conservative argument that America now has a class elite? F.H. Buckley offers one argument in Republican Workers Party concerning a highly educated liberal new class. The dominant class goes to the best schools, obtaining the best credentials. Professor Buckley writes,

The New Class isnt composed of the super-wealthy, the top 0.1 percent of earners Rather, its the rest of the top 10 percent, the professionals earning more than $200,000 a year, whose toast always falls butter side up and who pass on their advantages to their children. They are adept in the hyper-technical rules and ever-changing Newspeak employed to exclude the backward, the eccentric, the politically incorrect.

America has long exhibited cultural differences, and as Charles Murray observes in Coming Apart the differences are growing. Yet for differences to harden into a distinct governing class, there must be barriers to joining. I am unconvinced. Consider J.D. Vance, author of Hillbilly Elegy, which describes the personal element of social relations. Mr. Vance escaped his upbringing and went to Yale Law School.

COVID-19 policy responses have seemingly reflected these alleged class distinctions. Urbanized blue states New York, Massachusetts, Illinois, and California instituted the most punishing lockdowns and have yet to fully reopen. Rural red states like North and South Dakota never issued stay-at-home orders. Higher paying jobs have been more likely to allow remote working while lower income jobs require in-person work or have been lost with business closures.

A recent survey from Morning Consult documents this disparate impact. Participants were asked in December 2020 if they were better or worse off than in 2019 on seven dimensions: mental health, personal finances, job security, take-home pay, physical health, personal life, and work-life balance. A score was tallied by subtracting the percentage reporting worse from the percentage reporting better. Positive scores signal improvement, negative scores deterioration.

Overall Americans are worse off on all seven dimensions, with women faring worse than men on each dimension. Impacts by education and income are most revealing. Americans without a college degree had negative scores on each component, while persons with post-graduate degrees had positive scores on each. Persons with incomes less than $50,000 are worse off across the board while those earning over $100,000 improved on every dimension except mental health.

I have personally been struck by the disparities since last March when the nations most prestigious universities were the first to move classes online. Online education requires a functioning power grid. Elite professors planned to protect themselves while relying on other Americans to face exposure to operate power plants, pick up the garbage, and deliver goods ordered online.

Our personal response to COVID-19 depends on fundamental life values like self-preservation and facing lifes risks. I respect people and would never denigrate anyones choices. Lockdowns, however, have imposed some persons most desired course of action (Professor Buckleys New Class) on all of us, harming millions. It certainly raises the possibility of a governing elite class.

[Originslly posted on YellowHammerNews]

Is America Now a Class-Based Society? was last modified: February 2nd, 2021 by Daniel Sutter

See the rest here:
Is America Now a Class-Based Society? | The Freedom Pub - Somewhat Reasonable - Heartland Institute

Really! I do feel for the farmersand Punjab, which is usually perceived through standard clichs balle balle, bhangra, butter chicken and Baisakhi while the states myriad problems lie unresolved. Now, the Punjab issue has hit the headlines, particularly after the violence that took place on Indias 72nd Republic Day. But so many days later, citizens are still in the dark. So far, we have theories, accusations, anger and frustration. But no credible answers. Who does one believe? Which version is the more authentic one? Was there just one villain or several or none? The rogue tractor what was that act of craziness all about? And the guy who clambered up a pole to hoist the Nishan Sahib flag who put him up to it? Too many contrary theories floating around, and as it generally happens, you believe the one that suits your thinking and politics.

A Sikh friend from Chandigarh was so anguished by what happened, she called to say, Sikhs stand for valour and bravery. How can they be rioting? Precisely!

There is one thing though that everybody agrees on the storming of the Red Fort is unforgivable and the biggest blot on the farmers protests. We are unlikely to ever forget that deeply disturbing and highly shocking act that severely marred January 26 a day one associates with national pride, triumph and celebration. Ironically, all those glued to the one news channel that had monopoly rights over the telecast of the parade had no clue what was going on simultaneously not so far away from Rajpath. Doordarshan was dutifully showing them inspiring visuals of energetic schoolchildren dancing and singing lustily, or focusing on the awesome Air Force display in which women pilots (Bhawana Kanth and Swati Rathore) thrilled the cheering crowds.

But less than ten kilometres away, utter mayhem had been unleashed! And heres the thing nobody knew! Nobody, that is, but a couple of insiders, who had apparently tipped off media colleagues. By the time images started to flash on different screens, disbelief and horror rapidly replaced the euphoria of watching the grand march past.

Nothing made sense where did the tractors suddenly come from? Who diverted the route of the protest? Why did nobody report this movement of tractors to authorities?

There is something thats definitely black in the lentils. The real story of Punjabs abject decline from being one of the most prosperous states of India to its present pathetic low is being buried under staged and politically instigated acts of defiance. Punjab has been reduced to Haryanas poor cousin. A report says the average Haryanvi is 1.5 times richer than the average Punjabi. Battling drug abuse, rising unemployment and a loss of morale, Punjab is in denial. Chief minister Amarinder Singh, for all his bombast and machismo, has not been able to haul his state out of the ditch.

The revolting turn of events on Republic Day, allegedly led by a publicity-seeking actor called Deep Sidhu, shows how easy it is to stir up trouble and manipulate optics. It is important to know who is behind this treacherous act. Those anti-national rowdies were not acting alone. They showed unusual gumption and daring when they stormed police barricades. Could they have done so without the tacit support of someone very powerful, someone, whod handle the messy aftermath?

There will always be conflicting versions about which group did what. We may never know. But at least, let us not abandon our own common sense and damn the wrong people. There was a method behind the madness. It was well orchestrated by shrewd tacticians playing for high stakes. But who? And if it was really and truly nothing but a few enraged farmers taking their protest to the next level on their own, let us pay equal attention to the reason for that rage. Why did the government not consult farmers unions and state governments before pushing the contentious farm laws through Parliament via a voice vote? It was this high-handedness that upped the rancour meter.

Our intelligence agencies have a lot of explaining to do in this case its incredible that nobody was aware of the movement of tractors. Tractors! Not tricycles. Not much bheja required for spotting these lumbering vehicles moving towards one of the most protected, high risk sites in the capital. Yet it happened! Hmmm ajeeb kahani. Very ajeeb, indeed! Thousands of policemen, anti-riot squads, and CPRF could not prevent a few hundred rioters from barging into the Red Fort! Socho bhi aisa ho sakta hai?

Views expressed above are the author's own.

END OF ARTICLE

See original here:
Republic Day violence: Theres definitely black in the lentils - The Times of India Blog

MADISON, Wis. More than 37,000 absentee ballots were counted from Wisconsin voters who returned an application form ahead of the November presidential election, a mailing that was a compromise by the politically divided state elections commission.

Democrats wanted to send the mailing to all registered voters, whether they had requested an absentee ballot or not. Republicans on the commission ultimately prevailed in sending the mailing only to 2.6 million people who did not already have an absentee ballot application on file.

It's impossible to know whether the 37,481 people who returned the application form and later cast an absentee ballot would have done so had they not received the mailing. Wisconsin voters do not register by party, so it's also impossible to know how many of those voters were Republicans or Democrats.

However, Democrats were more aggressive in promoting absentee voting for Joe Biden while former President Donald Trump and his allies argued against absentee voting, saying before the election that voting by mail was rife with fraud.

Biden won Wisconsin by fewer than 21,000 votes.

After Trump's loss, he argued unsuccessfully for tossing more than 238,000 absentee ballots that he said were illegally cast in Milwaukee and Dane counties in a failed attempt to overturn Biden's win. Trump's arguments were rejected by the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the U.S. Supreme Court. Trump did not single out absentee ballots returned using the application form sent by the Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Some people who received the informational mailing contacted the elections commission to complain, saying they didn't agree with voters being told how to vote absentee, the commission said in a report prepared for its Wednesday meeting. However, many other calls were supportive, the commission said.

"For many, the mailing provided a source of trusted information about election procedures in an overwhelming and changing environment," the report said.

In Wisconsin, nearly 2 million people voted absentee in the November election, driven by concerns over the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. That was roughly 60% of the total turnout of almost 3.3 million voters.

While far exceeding the historical average, the total absentee votes cast did not reach the level it did in the April primary early in the pandemic when almost 75% of voters cast ballots absentee.

Of those who voted absentee in November, nearly 41% returned their ballot by mail while 19% returned their ballot at the polls before Election Day, the elections commission said.

The mailer with the absentee ballot application was sent Sept. 1. During the first week after it was sent, more than 25,000 voters registered online and more than 47,000 requested an absentee ballot, the report said.

Ultimately, 40,686 applications using the form from the mailing were approved with absentee ballots sent. Of those, 37,481 were returned and counted, the report said.

Also, of the 2.6 million mailings, 231,533 were returned as undeliverable. The commission explains in its report that this is partly due to the fact that the commission directed that the letter not be forwarded. There are several reasons why the Postal Service can't deliver mail to an address, including if a person had moved, the address is not an exact match or incorrect.

Of the undelivered letters, 41% of the voters did not participate in the presidential election, the report said. The majority, 57%, did vote. Of that group of 132,293 voters, more than 100,000 of them registered at a new address before voting, the report said.

___

Follow Scott Bauer on Twitter: https://twitter.com/sbauerAP

Read the original:
More than 37000 Wisconsin absentee ballots tied to mailing - Minneapolis Star Tribune

The cult of QAnon is at a crossroads. Adherents of the conspiracy theory/new religious movement convinced themselves that Donald Trump was poised to purge the cannibal pedophile cabal and its traitorous enablers in a cleansing burst of political violence. But with Joe Biden in the White House, and Capitol rioters facing charges for their insurrection of January 6, prophecy has apparently failed. QAnon has been banished from major social media platforms. You can't even sell Q merch on Etsy anymore. True believers are struggling to make sense of it all. Q himself has fallen silent. It has been over a month since his last dispatch to the faithful.

In just three years, QAnon has exploded from an anonymous post on 4chan to a household word. The FBI has declared QAnon a domestic terrorist threat and the QAnon ideology has been the impetus for numerous terrorist attacks, not even counting the major role played by QAnon adherents in the assault on the US Capitol. QAnon has fractured families and destroyed lives. Astonishingly, we still don't know who Q is.

The enduring mystery of Q's identity has led to speculation about QAnon being an influence operation, (aka a psyop). Which raises the question of who's supposedly running this operation. QAnon's critics typically blame Russia or an alliance of Russia and Trump's inner circle. Disillusioned former QAnon sympathizers including Trump advisor Steve Bannon have also embraced a version of the psyop theory, claiming that QAnon was a deep state hoax designed to fool patriots.

Whatever role Russia may have played in promoting this conspiracy theory, the real problem is that there's a huge market in the United States for conspiracy theories that promise the violent overthrow of democracy.

Influence operations are typically military- or intelligence-led efforts to shape how a population thinks or feels without resorting to physical force.

Russian intelligence operates within the vast QAnon ecosystem but QAnon is a home-grown phenomenon, deeply rooted in American prejudices and preoccupations. QAnon and its forerunner Pizzagate were forged on 4Chan, a crucible of both the Alt-Right and American conspiracy culture. Understanding the racist, ultranationalist, conspiratorial culture of /pol is key to understanding the likely origins of QAnon. It's also important to understand how contemporary conspiracy theorizing incorporates and elaborates on older conspiratorial themes.

Many of the central tenets of QAnon are retreads of the antisemitic hoax tract, "The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion," which purports to be the minutes of a criminal conspiracy of rabbis to take over the world. The Protocols, in turn, recycles the ancient antisemitic superstition known as blood libel, the notion that Jews are harvesting the blood of Christian children.

Q asserts that the Houses of Rothschild and Soros are "puppet masters" covertly manipulating historical events. (Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene notoriously speculated that a space laser from "Rothschild, Inc" might have caused the Camp fire in California. Video of Greene berating a Parkland shooting survivor as a pawn of George Soros resurfaced recently.) Many of the QAnon faithful have their own take on blood libel, with the cannibal pedophiles being said to harvest a molecule known as adrenochrome from the blood of their child victims.

Ironically, the Protocols were commissioned by the head of the Russian secret police in the late 19th or early 20th century. The goal was to set back the cause of liberalism by convincing Czar Nicholas the II that the rise of capitalism in Russia was a conspiracy by Jews and the Freemasons. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was created by Russian conservatives to fool their own ruler, but the impact of the document was much broader. The forgery became the Ur-text of global conspiracy culture. Henry Ford's newspaper published the Protocols in 1920. The Nazis cited the Protocols to justify the Holocaust. The influence of the Protocols can even be seen in Dan Brown's bestselling Da Vinci Code novels.

In 2017, Vladimir Putin's personal confessor was hyping the idea that Czar Nicholas and his family were ritually murdered by Jews. (In fact, the deposed Nicholas and his family were assassinated by Bolsheviks shortly after the Revolution of 1917. The leader of the death squad was commended by Lenin for his work.)

QAnon sprang from the primordial soup of 4chan's Politically Incorrect board, aka /pol. 4chan is an anonymous imageboard where anyone can post almost anything. 4chan is often described as the birthplace of the Alt Right. Users are known as "anons."

"Q" is short for "Q Clearance Patriot." Q purports to be a high-ranking US intelligence official leaking details of Donald Trump's campaign against his enemies in the deep state. Q's revelations began in late October of 2017. The researcher who posts as Q Origins on Twitter has published his findings on the investigative news site Bellingcat.

Some have speculated that various pro-Russian themes in Q's body of work are evidence that the QAnon phenomenon was a Russian influence operation, but this argument ignores the fact that Vladimir Putin's Russia is organically popular in the Alt Right and /pol. Q and his message board disciples may admire Putin's brand of hyper-masculine authoritarianism without being Russian agents.

In order to understand the origins of QAnon, it is necessary to understand the imageboard tradition of LARPing. "In the 4Chan context, a LARP is when you pose as a big insider," explains the anonymous author of the Q Origins Project.

There's a long history of imageboard anons pretending to be high-ranking national security officials who, for inexplicable reasons, have decided to divulge highly classified information to one of the web's most notorious cesspools. In imageboard culture, LARPing is like spinning ghost stories around the digital campfire. Most people know it's fake, but it's fun to pretend that it might be real. Before Q, posters with names like FBIAnon and MegaAnon acquired followings as LARPers, often exploring themes that would later be featured in Q drops. LARPers will often entertain their followers with puzzles and cryptic predictions--a style that is familiar to anyone who has read Q drops. Followers become invested in decoding the riddles. A LARPer may gain respect if their predictions seem to come true.

The anonymous researcher behind the Q Origins project has painstakingly reconstructed the pre-history of QAnon. He notes that, like other LARPers before him, Q constructs his pronouncements out of conspiracy theories that are already popular on /pol.

"They love them a conspiracy theory and Q built on that. He stitches together the various LARPs and just creates this Frankenstein that very quickly explodes off of /pol."

The first major proselytizers for Q were two /pol moderators and a YouTuber named Tracy Diaz. Within weeks, they started spreading Q content to YouTube and other social media platforms.

There is evidence that trolls from the Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency helped to disseminate the forerunner conspiracy to QAnon, Pizzagate. The breakout Q drop of 2017 continues the Pizzagate narrative of the year before. We're told that Hillary Clinton is going to be arrested.

If Pizzagate is the Old Testament, QAnon is the New Testament. Pizzagate diagnosed the cannibal pedophile problem and Q framed Donald Trump as the solution. Q is the prophet, the self-proclaimed intelligence insider who reveals the "truths" the OPs of /pol expected to hear: Donald Trump is the messiah who is going to usher in a golden age through a spasm of apocalyptic violence.

Russia hacked the Democratic National Committee in order to sabotage Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. One of their prizes was a trove of personal emails by Hillary Clinton's campaign chair, John Podesta.

The basic tenets of the Pizzagate conspiracy gelled on 4Chan's /pol board on or about November 3, 2016, as users combed through Podesta's hacked emails. They fixated on banal emails chronicling Podesta's social life, which included references to DC restaurants like Comet Ping Pong as well as to home cooking. The anons decided that words like "cheese pizza" were actually code for "child porn." This collective world-building exercise eventually decreed that Podesta and Clinton were part of a network of pedophiles enslaving children in the (non-existent) basement of Comet Ping Pong.

The Trump campaign, like the Republican community at large, were enthusiastic consumers and distributors of lurid anti-Clinton conspiracies. Trump campaign luminaries like Gen. Michael Flynn and right-wing media outlets like Breitbart and InfoWars furiously amplified Pizzagate content. This content was discussed by anons on 4chan's /pol, reworked and elaborated into their conspiratorial worldview, including the next round of LARPs.

We know that accounts linked to the Internet Research Agency, the notorious Kremlin-linked troll farm, hyped Pizzagate and QAnon. Russian state-controlled media like Sputnik and RT have also given sympathetic coverage to these narratives, in keeping with Russia's well-known strategy of amplifying existing rifts within the United States. Russian disinformation takes many forms, including amplifying content created by others. It's easier and often more effective to amplify an American voice rather than to try to imitate one.

The researcher behind the Q Origins Project cautions against putting too much weight on the theory that QAnon was created by Russians. We don't know exactly who Q is, but the researcher's investigations have convinced him that Q is primarily a domestic phenomenon. Q's writings show a deep familiarity with U.S. evangelical culture, he notes. The researcher observes that Q has an uncanny knack for distilling only those elements of /pol culture that would be acceptable on Fox News. Unlike his fellow chan anons, who have no compunctions about racial slurs, Q works just clean enough to be mainstream. In the researcher's opinion, navigating the subtleties of U.S. racial politics would be very difficult for someone who wasn't raised in the United States. Q also has a deep familiarity with US pop culture, particularly Hollywood movies. The famous "Where We Go One We Go All" slogan is from a 1996 Jeff Bridges sailing movie called White Squall, not the kind of material you'd expect an IRA troll to be familiar with. The researcher points out that the time stamps on the Q drops suggest that the author is working on West Coast time.

Whatever role Russia may have played in promoting this conspiracy theory, the real problem is that there's a huge market in the United States for conspiracy theories that promise the violent overthrow of democracy.

It's comforting to tell ourselves that QAnon is an exogenous phenomenon foisted upon us by a demonic Other. But that only distracts from the deeper rifts in our society that allow QAnon to flourish and thrive.

Read the original:
The truth about Russia's role in pushing the QAnon canon of conspiracies - Raw Story

Ben Stiller is known for directing, as well as being the face in front of the camera - but which are his best directorial efforts?

Ben Stiller is one of a handful of famous actors who directs his own films from time to time. His big break as an actor came in the 1998 comedyThere's Something About Mary,but before that he had directed several projects, including two feature films. He's also directed himself on occasion, doing his films' heavy lifting behind and in front of the camera.

RELATED: Top 10 Ben Stiller Cameos

From goofball comedies to dramatic miniseries, from micro-budget indies and canceled TV series to massive box-office hits, Stiller has amassed an eclecticbody of work as a director. Here are all of his major directorial projects, ranked according to IMDb.

Aspopular as the originalZoolanderis, questions remained as to whether or not it had the cache to warrant a sequel 15 years after its release. Stiller directed the first film, and returned for the second, hoping to defy the odds and bring Derek Zoolander and co. back with a bang.

To put things mildly, it didn't quite work out. The film was a failure with critics and audiences alike, hence its meager 4.7 IMDb rating and 22% Rotten Tomatoes Score. It's considered an unnecessary and uninspired sequel that's overly derivative of the original, and not nearly as funny.

Ben Stiller directed this 1996 dark comedy which featured Jim Carrey at the height of his popularity. Between 1994 and 1995, Carrey had starred in 5 major films: twoAce Venturamovies,The Mask, Dumb and Dumber,andBatman Forever.

RELATED: Jim Carrey's Dramatic Roles Ranked (According To Rotten Tomatoes)

InThe Cable Guy,audiences were a bit thrown by the darkness of the material, and Carrey's character in particular, who begins the movie as an awkward but affable loner, and ends up a crazed stalker.This left an awkward taste in viewers' mouths, as they were so accustomed to loving Carrey's characters at the time. Nonetheless, the movie has its defenders to this day.

Stiller directed, co-wrote, and starred in the title role in this 2001 comedy about a fashion model who's brainwashed into committing an international crime after his career takes a turn for the worse. Unapologetically silly but also genuinely funny,Zoolanderwas a modest hit at the box office, and gained a significant following on DVD in subsequent years.

The ensemble cast is great, including Owen Wilson, Will Ferrell, and Ben's father, Jerry Stiller, and as zany as the script is, the story is fast-paced andentertaining throughout.

Link:
Every Project Ben Stiller Has Directed, Ranked According To IMDb - Screen Rant

Its always good for consumers to have options, right? And indeed, the United States should soon have three Covid-19 vaccines being injected into peoples arms, with more potentially on the way in the coming months, accelerating the race to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people as quickly as possible.

But all vaccines are not equal, and increasingly, health authorities and providers will be dealing with shots with varying attributes: different storage requirements, efficacy, dosing regimens, and manufacturing platforms. That, plus the possibility of a pickier public who may want a certain shot over another, could complicate an already-messy rollout. But the different features also open the door to greater access beyond just more supply a more convenient one-shot vaccine will likely soon be available.

The main point, experts stress, is how remarkable it is the U.S. has multiple Covid-19 vaccines just a year into the pandemic. All the immunizations that regulators authorize will have been shown to be safe and effective, so you should get whichever one you have the opportunity to get, they say.

advertisement

In the event that you have the choice to get vaccinated, Id encourage you to take the vaccine that youre given, John Brooks, the chief medical officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions Covid-19 response, said at a briefing Friday.

Johnson & Johnson, which on Friday reported its vaccine was 66% effective in preventing moderate to severe disease and 85% effective in preventing severe Covid-19 in clinical trials, plans to file for emergency use authorization with the Food and Drug Administration in early February. Presuming regulators move quickly, health authorities will have the advantage of a third shot to distribute with millions more in supply.

advertisement

Unlike the two-dose mRNA vaccines already authorized from Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, the J&J vaccine requires only one dose. It is also cheap, and can be kept in normal refrigerators, making it easier to store and transport than the mRNA vaccines, which have to be kept at subzero temperatures, sometimes in special freezers that smaller clinics might not have.

Thats going to be huge for rural populations, Alan Morgan, the CEO of the National Rural Health Association, said about J&Js shot.

Similarly, it could now be easier for vaccine campaigns to go out into communities instead of requiring people to come to hospitals to get vaccinated, which could reach people who dont have access to health care or who are mistrustful of health institutions but may listen to community leaders. Polling data, for example, have shown that people of color, who have faced historic and ongoing mistreatment by medical providers, are less likely to get Covid-19 vaccines as quickly as other people. Plus, early vaccine distribution data show disproportionately low numbers of Black and Latino adults have received shots.

Its easier to bring the vaccine to hard-to-reach areas, Mitchel Rothholz, chief of staff of the American Pharmacists Association, said about J&Js vaccine.

Some people, however, may want to pick their vaccine as if it were a piece of produce they could squeeze to find the choicest option. Clinical trial results or reports about side effects could steer what people want.

Its difficult to compare clinical trials of different products against each other. The pandemic has also changed: J&Js trial occurred as at least one variant that appears to have some impact on vaccine efficacy was circulating, while the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech trials were completed before variants of concern started transmitting widely. Without clinical data to evaluate each vaccine against the newer strains, its difficult to determine if the existing Covid-19 vaccines could be less effective against variants of the virus.

Still, some people might remember the headlines of Modernas and Pfizers product offering greater than 90% effectiveness against Covid-19 and question J&Js announcement of 66% effectiveness.

Public health officials were quick to tout J&Js data as a strong result, particularly given that regulators initially said a vaccine would only have to be 50% effective to be authorized. A vaccine thats 66% effective is an incredibly powerful tool in fighting respiratory viruses, they stressed. We would be celebrating a seasonal influenza vaccine with 60% efficacy, Jay Butler, the deputy director for infectious diseases at the CDC, told reporters.

In the U.S. arm of the clinical trial, J&Js vaccine was 72% effective, which, in the absence of the mRNA data, one would have said this was an absolutely spectacular result, Anthony Fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at a separate White House briefing. Whats more, the immunization was 85% effective at preventing severe disease and, in the trial, all hospitalizations and deaths occurred among people who got the placebo. None of the vaccinated people diagnosed with Covid-19 got sick enough to need hospital care.

If it comes to getting my family members vaccinated, and all thats available is J&J or Novavax, Id tell them to take it, said Robert Hancock, president of the Texas College of Emergency Physicians.

Novavax is another vaccine maker that, on Thursday reported that its vaccine was 90% effective in one trial in the United Kingdom, but 49% effective in another trial in South Africa, likely because of the B.1.351 variant circulating in that country, which appears to evade some aspects of the immune response. The company has not said when it might apply to the FDA for authorization.

The differing efficacy levels among vaccines could also complicate the logistical advantages J&Js shot provides. If states started allocating J&Js shot only to rural areas, there may be concerns that thats inequitable, said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials. People in rural areas might feel like theyre getting short shrift.

Julie Swann, the head of the department of industrial and systems engineering at North Carolina State University, who advised the CDC during the H1N1 pandemic, agreed. She said providers should start surveying their communities to see whether people have a preference for which vaccines they receive. It would be a real mistake to distribute J&J solely based on infrastructure, she said.

Eventually, as more vaccines get authorized, health officials could recommend that certain people, based on age or other risk factors for more severe Covid-19, are prioritized for certain shots. Perhaps the mRNA vaccines could be reserved for people who are most vulnerable to the coronavirus, suggested Swann, while the J&J vaccine could be deployed to more general populations.

For now, federal health officials havent issued guidelines for who should get which vaccines.

Another question looms for the vaccine drive: the variants. It appears that B.1.351 has some impact on at least some of the vaccines, though experts note that immunizations dont work like light switches that are either on or off. Rather, people vaccinated may be less defended from getting infected against B.1.351 than other forms of the coronavirus, but the vaccines could still protect them from getting severe Covid-19.

For now, health authorities and companies say the emergence of B.1.351 and other variants serves as a signal they need to be ready to adapt vaccine designs if and when a form of the virus emerges that could significantly escape the immune protection conferred by vaccines. Some vaccine makers have started studying booster shots engineered specifically against B.1.351, and federal health authorities said Friday they are reviewing contingency plans to tweak the vaccines if needed.

We will continue to see the evolution of mutants, Fauci said. We, as a government, the companies, all of us that are in this together will have to be nimble to be able to adjust readily to make versions of the vaccine specifically directed towards whichever mutation is actually prevalent at any given time.

The variants add pressure to the vaccine campaigns in other ways. B.1.351 and other variants that have been confirmed in the United States appear to be more infectious than earlier forms of the virus, which means a higher proportion of the population will need to be vaccinated to drag down the U.S. epidemic. If more people get vaccinated and cases decrease, that lowers the chance of even more nefarious variants popping up.

The sooner we can get people immunized, the better chance we have that this will not keep happening with more and more variants emerging because theres such a large population of viruses, Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, told reporters Friday.

Rachel Cohrs and Matthew Herper contributed reporting.

Read more from the original source:
More Covid-19 vaccines bring choices and complications to rollout - STAT

Theres no better way to assess a recruiting class than waiting to see how it actually performed. Its time once again to review how college footballs highest-rated recruiting classes from four years ago panned out. This year, were re-ranking the best recruiting classes of 2017.

During this four-year period, 16 programs that inked top-25 classes on signing day in 2017 have made head coaching changes. More than one-fourth of the top 100 recruits in this class have transferred. Which programs managed to overcome all that volatility and find success thanks to this recruiting cycle?

Weve made this a signing day tradition at The Athletic with our re-ranks of the class of 2014, class of 2015 and class of 2016. The annual goal of this project is to recognize the programs and coaching staffs that have done the best job of identifying great players, developing them, retaining them and winning with them. This year, six programs are making repeat...

Here is the original post:
College football recruiting rankings: Grading the Class of 2017 - The Athletic

The Yukon Rendezvous Festival found itself enveloped in controversy today after announcing whats appearing to be a very unpopular name change.

By Tim Giilck on January 29, 2021

The Yukon Rendezvous Festival found itself enveloped in controversy today after announcing whats appearing to be a very unpopular name change.

Festival organizers dropped the traditional Sourdough out of the name earlier this week.

They said it had some negative connotations to some people.

By this morning, the proverbial excrement had truly hit the fan on social media over the issue.

A member of one group on Facebook, the Yukon Helpers Network, had posted that threats were being made against the festivals organizers and the building.

Members of the festival team were difficult to reach and would offer only this as a comment to the Star:

At this stage while we would prefer that you would not publish an article, we understand if you chose to go ahead without our comment, said Saskrita Shrestha, the festivals executive director.

Other, long-term Rendezvous supporters such as Gordie Ryder are outraged at the change.

In an interview with the Star, Ryder said he couldnt believe what is happening.

Is it true? he asked a reporter in sheer disbelief. I didnt know about it, and no one was consulted.

I certainly am upset about it.

Ryder said the Sourdough name for the festival dates back at least to the 1950s, and harkens to the rich history, heritage and tradition of the Yukon.

He said he was walking across the road to talk to them about this today.

Another long-time supporter, who didnt wish to be identified, had harsher words.

Its our tradition, our heritage, he fumed. Why change it? Its been there forever.

They need to give their heads a shake, he added. They did it without consultation; they did it without getting anyones opinion.

They should all resign.

Festival organizers sent out a notice on May 12, 2020, that contained a link to a survey about rebranding the festival.

Many people involved in supporting the festival, however, may not have paid much attention to it in the middle of the pandemic.

More than 400 comments on the issue on a Facebook page called My Life in the Yukon had piled up by mid-morning today.

You have ruined the uniqueness of our Rendezvous, Lynn Bartsch wrote. This is very important for Yukon! You have lost my support.

Sandra Lynn wrote, Put Sourdough back into the name. I have yet to speak to anyone that approves of the change. This word is part of our history and tradition....

Will there still be Can Can dancers? I would think that would be more offensive to some people than bread.

As a former Yukoner of 22 years, I have many fond memories of the Sourdough Rendezvous, Bonnie Simenson wrote.

If people feel that some events are not inclusive, dont go. Dropping part of the festivals name just seems silly.

Jack Laitinen wrote, until I get a lucid, coherent, reasoned explanation, I want Sourdough to stay.

It didnt take long for a petition against the name change to show up on the Change.org website.

Initiated by Matthew Janiga, the petition had nearly 1,000 signatures by 11:30 this morning.

Some things that have been done in this country were awful and should be rectified, he said about the petition.

However, I dont believe this is one of them.Yukon Sourdough Rendezvous has been a Yukon tradition for 57 years. Its been enjoyed by people from all around the world and of different nationalities. If its not broke, it doesnt need fixing.

I figured Id pass this petition on to the Yukon Rendezvous society. If that doesnt work, then I guess Ill be bringing it to the City of Whitehorse or maybe a minister. Well see how it goes.

In a letter sent to the Star, T.Z. Rogan had a different perspective.

She wrote, Lets start this off with stating that I was born right here in the Yukon. I have celebrated Rendezvous every single year of my life with the exception of the years I was outside the territory going to school.

I grew up with the shufflers, the Cabane Sucre, the chainsaw chucking and all of the zaniness that accompanies our winter festival.

In 2017 I ran for, and was crowned Rendezvous Queen. I have volunteered in countless years, performed at, and was an eager participant in all that I could be a part of every year.

And I am disgusted. As I am typing this, there are posts all over the internet, some with over 400 comments attacking Rendezvous for their decision to rebrand the festival, removing the word sourdough from their organization.

Over 90 per cent of the comments are angry, hateful, and nasty. The few of us who speak up are attacked personally.

And this morning I found out that because of the behaviour of these people, Rendezvous not only took down their Facebook page, but closed their offices to work from home and protect their staff from the overwhelming amount of cyber bullying and threats to their staff they are receiving.

I am so disappointed in my community today, Rogan said.

Originally posted here:
'You have ruined the uniqueness of our Rendezvous' - Whitehorse Star