The Commentariat -- July 6, 2021
Late Morning Update:
Lauren Lumpkin & Nick Anderson of the Washington Post: "Journalists Nikole Hannah-Jones and Ta-Nehisi Coates are joining Howard University's faculty, school officials announced Tuesday in a major recruiting victory for the private institution in the nation's capital. It was a simultaneous setback for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to lose Hannah-Jones after a long and remarkably contentious effort to recruit her. The surprising development came less than a week after trustees for UNC-Chapel Hill voted to award tenure to Hannah-Jones. Initially, the public university hired her as a professor without the job-protection status. But its board of trustees approved tenure for her on Wednesday, after faculty members and students at Chapel Hill protested that she had been mistreated." A Huffington Post story is here.
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Paul Krugman of the New York Times: "At this point..., we have enough data in hand to declare that the economy is booming. In fact, it's booming so strongly that Republicans have pivoted from claiming (falsely) that we're experiencing the worst job performance in decades to lauding the employment numbers and giving credit to ... Trump's
Kevin Sullivan & Mary Jordan of the Washington Post: "On Wednesday, the Carters will be married 75 years, the longest in presidential history. Jimmy, 96, and Rosalynn, 93, will mark the occasion in the town where they met nearly a century ago.... Three days later, family, friends and Carter administration officials will travel to Plains for an anniversary party in the local high school auditorium.... Jimmy is also the longest-living president in history."
News from the GQP:
Catie Edmondson of the New York Times: Paul "Gosar, a five-term Republican and dentist from Prescott, Ariz., emerged this year as a vociferous backer of the 'Stop the Steal' movement that falsely claimed that ... Donald J. Trump won the 2020 election and spearheaded the rally in Washington on Jan. 6 that led to the deadly Capitol riot. But Mr. Gosar's ties to racists like [Nick] Fuentes and America First, as well as similar far-right fringe organizations and activists, have been less scrutinized. A review of public comments and social media posts suggests that in Mr. Gosar, they have found an ally and advocate in Congress. His unapologetic association with them is perhaps the most vivid example of the Republican Party's growing acceptance of extremism, which has become apparent as more lawmakers espouse and amplify conspiracy theories and far-right ideologies that figure prominently in the belief systems of fringe groups.... Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida appeared at an event last year where security was handled by the Proud Boys, a far-right militia with more than a dozen members who have been charged in the Capitol riot. Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado has come under scrutiny for her ties to members of the Three Percenters, a radical militia group. And before she was elected to Congress, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia endorsed executing Democratic lawmakers, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi." ~~~
~~~ Marie: This story is a big deal in that it's at least a temporary abandonment of both-siderism, the Times' go-to stance on national politics.
David Badash of the New Civil Rights Movement reports on a very strange speech about God & Jesus & all, which Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert (QR) made to celebrate Independence Day. ~~~
~~~ Here Badash reports on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's (QR-Georgia) Independence Day speech. One thing we find out is that apparently only white, straight, right-wing Christians pay taxes in the USA. MB: Does that mean I can stop paying taxes? And there's this: ~~~
~~~ Q "News" (I Guess). David Gilbert of Vice: "Two major QAnon influencers were given official press credentials to the latest Trump rally held in Sarasota, Florida over the weekend, signaling a new level of acceptance of the QAnon conspiracy theory by the former president and his team."
Rachel Lerman & Gerrit De Vynck of the Washington Post: "A hacking group that experts said was behind the sprawling ransomware attack that hit hours before the beginning of the July Fourth holiday weekend is demanding $70 million to unlock the thousands of businesses affected by the hack. REvil, the same Russian-language group that was behind the attack on meat processor JBS, posted the demand on a dark-Web site associated with the group. The group wants the funds in bitcoin, a popular cryptocurrency, and said if it receives the money it will publish a 'decryptor key,' or a computer code that will unlock the victims' files." The NBC News story is here.
Gregory Schneider of the Washington Post (July 1): "A.E. Dick Howard was a confident young college professor, only 34, when he got the assignment of a lifetime: Oversee the writing of a new constitution for Virginia. Hope was hard to come by that year -- 1968 -- with cities in upheaval over the assassinations of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. But Howard's task amounted to a stroke against the darkest forces of society. The document he helped create repudiated a Virginia constitution adopted in 1902 with the stated purpose of disenfranchising Black people, which it did with bureaucratic efficiency for decades. The new constitution went into effect on July 1, 1971, finally bringing the modern era to the state where American slavery originated. And so Thursday mark[ed] 50 years since African Americans had their basic rights recognized and safeguarded in Virginia."
The Pandemic, Ctd.
The New York Times' live updates of Covid-19 developments Tuesday are here.
Beyond the Beltway
Florida. Michael LaForgia, et al., of the New York Times: "Florida's high-rise building regulations have long been among the strictest in the nation. But after parts of Champlain Towers South tumbled down on June 24, killing at least 24 people and leaving 121 unaccounted for, evidence has mounted that those rules have been enforced unevenly by local governments, and sometimes not at all. Miami-Dade County officials said last week that they were prioritizing reviews of 24 multistory buildings that either had failed major structural or electrical inspections required after 40 years or had not submitted the reports in the first place. But the county's own records show that 17 of those cases had been open for a year or more. Two cases were against properties owned by the county itself. The oldest case had sat unresolved since 2008." (Also linked yesterday.)
Texas. Jason Stanford, co-author of Forget the Alamo, in a Washington Post op-ed: "As The Post noted in its review of our book, we 'challenge the traditional view' of the Alamo saga, one popularized by Disney and John Wayne and cemented by politicians in the Texas school curriculum.... More than 20 states have introduced or passed legislation that attempts to prescribe how racial matters can be taught. In Texas last month, Abbott signed into law an act establishing a committee called the 1836 Project (get it?) to 'promote patriotic education.'... If Texans were tough enough to fight at the Alamo, they should be tough enough to talk about why." The WashPo's review of the book, by H.W. Brands. MB: The Party of Racists really is belligerent in its fear of even talking about racism.
News Ledes
Weather Channel: "Tropical Storm Elsa is tracking northward through the Gulf of Mexico and will bring heavy rain, strong winds gusts, storm surge and isolated tornadoes to Florida through Wednesday. Elsa will then spread some of its impacts up the Southeast and mid-Atlantic coasts into late week." ~~~
~~~ Weather Channel Update: "Elsa has regained hurricane strength and will scrape Florida's west coast, including parts of the Tampa-St. Petersburg metro, through early Wednesday with storm surge, high winds, flooding rain and isolated tornadoes."
The New York Times is liveblogging developments today in the Surfside, Florida, condominium collapse.
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Reader Comments (6)
No wonder they’re stupid…
It’s no surprise that Faux News traffics in dangerous right-wing lies and conspiracies, but until you spend even a short amount of time actually watching it, you really have no idea how truly toxic it is, and can fully appreciate the parlous effect of such insidious claptrap on the millions who consume this evil shit on a daily, even hourly basis.
The gym I go to, like pretty much all gyms these days, has a line of big screen TVs running 24/7 so I get to see firsthand the Q alerts spewed out to frighten, outrage, and incite viewers of this incredible bilge. And it’s not just at gyms and health clubs. Fox is on (it’s like a law) everywhere there’s a TV. The doctor’s office, bars, restaurants, hospitals, auto repair shop waiting areas, daycare facilities, department stores. Walk into the electronics departments of Walmart, Target, Best Buy, and you’ll see walls of video screens playing Fox nonstop.
And here’s what you see: Democrats hate America. Liberals have no respect for the flag. Horrible teachers’ unions are all in on critical race theory lies, you see Ron Johnson lecturing on the Jan. 6 insurrection. It wasn’t anything of the kind. It was good people visiting the Capitol. What’s wrong with that? You see Fauci portrayed as Josef Mengele, Kamala Harris attacked as being an idiot. Anything Joe Biden says is reported with snarky quotation marks: “Biden claims “independence” from COVID coming soon”. And it’s always “Biden”, almost never (at least that I’ve seen) President Biden. But they make sure to refer to “President Trump” on a regular basis.
It’s pretty hard to laugh this off as right-wing derangement. Fox is supposed to be the mainstream outlet for winger news, supposedly different from the out and out loony toon crap on OAN and Newsmax, but Jesus, if this is mainstream, I shudder to think what those other nuts are selling.
This is dangerous because it’s so prevalent, and they never stop. They never miss a chance to lie about Democrats and spread completely fabricated, barking mad bullshit about Republicans and their Qanon supporters.
And this is just over the July 4th weekend.
No wonder we have tens of millions who believe the election was stolen, that they shouldn’t get vaccinated, that Joe Biden has tunnels under the White House for transporting child sex slaves.
And, as I say, I’m basing all this on just a few hours of what I see while working out. I have to say, brothers and sisters, that I truly fear for our country. And Democrats STILL don’t seem to be taking this crap seriously. The electoral earth is being salted, daily, hourly, with the seeds of insurrection and hatred. Going forward, any election they lose will be deemed stolen and any violence perpetrated thereafter by the loons will be considered justified.
This is bad.
@Akhilleus: Whenever I walk into a place of business -- including doctors' offices -- that are playing Fox "News" exclusively, I ask them to change to CNN or something else. When the reception person tells me she doesn't have the authority to do that, I say, "I understand. Get me the person who does. Right away."
If it's a business that you can't avoid patronizing and they won't change the channel, let them know how offensive it is that they blare out untruthful, right-wing propaganda. I had to shop at Publix when I lived in Florida, and they refused to sell union-picked tomatoes because they cost a few cents more. I didn't buy the tomatoes of course, but very time I went into Publix, I sought out a manager & told him how horrible it was that they were exploiting poor Hispanic workers in the nearby town of Immokalee. I may not have been alone in calling them out. After about 6 weeks of my harassing them, my Publix started selling union-picked tomatoes.
Call it CAT (Critical Alamo Theory).
Doesn't take much to get the Right's dander up, does it? But then, if dander is all you have....?
Enjoyed the Brands' review. Hadn't realized he'd written so many biographies. Read two of them with pleasure, the ones on Roosevelt and Grant and now know there are many more in store. As we've all heard and said, so many books, so little time.
And this on CRT from the current Times op-ed on the subject.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/05/opinion/anti-critical-race-theory-laws-are-un-american.html?
"Un-American? Maybe not.
There are many Americas and the attempts to ban discussions and teaching of CRT certainly belong in many of them.
They belong in the America of Jim Crow, of the Know Nothing Party, of Simon Legree's America, in the America of anti-Chinese immigration laws, of the only good Indian is a dead Indian, and in the America so frightened of Karl Marx that it blacklisted and fired hundreds of teachers and writers who thought just maybe capitalism had a few faults back there in the midst of last century's Depression, and of an America that went on thirty years later to mount a "Better Dead than Red" propaganda campaign in its 1960's schools.
Now we have the America of today's Republican Party, which has America's (and in many instances its own) long tradition of fear, ignorance and downright insanity wrapped in a neat bundle.
Like the song says, for that party, banning CRT from the classroom just comes naturally."
Hope you all had a pleasant Fourth.
Ken,
Your post brought up a couple of thoughts. First (largely tangential, I know) books. More specifically bookstores. Down here in Red Country, there are few bookstores. My regular haunt is a used bookstore, but occasionally I venture into the only big mainstream bookstore, Barnes & Noble. There are huge differences but some similarities.
First, the used bookstore personnel are almost all, to a person, book people. They know what you mean when ask for something a bit out of the way. I may ask for a book by Djuna Barnes and they may not have it, but at least they know who she is. At B&N I’ll get a strange look and a question about how maybe I’m pronouncing the name wrong. So there’s that. But I’m more concerned with how both stores (especially B&N) serve as bellwethers of the culture at large.
When I first moved here, 15 years ago, B&N had a respectable, if not remarkable, philosophy section, probably about 70 feet of shelf space. Granted, there were a fair number of pseudo or secondary philosophy books (“Star Wars and Philosophy”) and the basic sorts of “Ten Philosophers You Should Know” sorts of offerings. Over the last ten years this section has shrunken dramatically. There are now less than 15 feet of books on philosophy, and if you count actual books by philosophers, Plato, Schopenhauer, Hume, etc., less than five feet.
You know what section hasn’t diminished? Religion. Specifically Christianity. There are now two entire rows of nothing but Bibles. Over 200 feet of shelf space. Then another full row of books about Christianity.
In the used bookstore the philosophy section is tiny. The Christian section, two full aisles. Of course this reflects the local environment. The used bookstore also has substantial sections on history and science, and unlike B&N, the history sections are not liberally (ha-ha) infested with books by wingnut revisionist “historians” published by Regnery, almost all of which can be immediately recognized because they all have “patriot”, “patriotism”, or “patriotic” in the titles.
The other thought was about CRT. As has been pointed out before, I truly believe that not a single R or Faux screamer, yelling about CRT could tell you what it is. It’s just another in the long line of shibboleths for wingers to whip each other up with. And for that matter, no elementary schools are, or will be, teaching actual critical race theory, which is a much more advanced critical methodology for examining the historical and contemporary place that race plays in organizing social and political constructs. Teaching about how race played a role in American history, slavery, Jim Crow laws, etc., is not the same as teaching CRT. That teaching might be informed by CRT, but it’s not the same thing. As I’ve said before, it’s like complaining that teaching young drivers about traffic signs is the same as teaching a master class in semiotics.
It’s all scarified noise from the racists.
But the larger point is that the growing influence of white, right-wing religious and racist minorities (often the same people) continues to warp political, social, educational, and cultural discourse.
And this is not to say that these people can’t share their views on such things. The problem is that they try to eliminate any other views that don’t square with their thinking.
And it’s getting worse all the time. Fear, hatred, and ignorance work their magic.
@Ak, I've long asked myself - If there is only one word of god, why are there so many different bibles, muchless religions?
Eye-opening op-ed in the WaPo:
Much was news to me.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/07/06/jamal-khashoggi-egypt-saudi-arabia-biden-mbs-full-story/
Transparency still has its limits.