It’s another busy day here at the CatBox. I have a representative of the senior agency that pays about 15% of WWWendy making her annual evaluation this morning. That will tie me up for at least an hour. I probably won’t recover from sproinging for at least a couple more days.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s tool me 2:48 (average 4:31). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (Vox Channel): Why you still don’t understand the Green New Deal
From Alternet: Despite all of the disproved narratives about the “white working class,” it has been repeatedly and conclusively shown that Donald Trump in fact won the White House because of racism and nativism. But sexism was a key element in Trump’s victory as well. These values, beliefs, and behaviors interact with one another. New research by University of Kansas sociologists David Smith and Eric Hanley demonstrates how a socially combustible mix of racism and sexism, in combination with anger and bullying, put the United States on a path to authoritarianism.
Writing in “The Anger Games: Who Voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 Election, and Why?”, which appeared in a recent issue of the journal Critical Sociology, Smith and Hanley summarize their new research:
We find that Trump’s supporters voted for him mainly because they share his prejudices, not because they’re financially stressed. It’s true, as exit polls showed, that voters without four-year college degrees were likelier than average to support Trump. But millions of these voters — who are often stereotyped as “the white working class” — opposed Trump because they oppose his prejudices.
The Republican Reich was not hoodwinked or economically motivated. They love Trump, because they share his evil hatred. RESIST!!
From NY Times: Democrats filed into the House chamber on Thursday — depleted and punch drunk — to vote for an overstuffed resolution condemning prejudice — and end, or so they hoped, a week of infighting that vividly illustrated the perils of policing their own speech.
“I hope this puts an end to all of this,” said Representative Robin Kelly, Democrat of Illinois, moments before the measure, which condemned anti-Semitism and virtually every other form of bigotry, passed with unanimous Democratic support.
It almost certainly will not. The measure, which began as a rebuke to Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota and a freshman lawmaker, and ended as a catchall declaration of tolerance that did not mention her by name, seemed to satisfy no one. Ultimately, the wrenching intraparty fight left unanswered a question that transcends partisan politics: In an era of shouting and provocation, how should Congress respond when its members say hateful or hurtful things?
We need to be careful here. Serious discussion in search of solutions may seem hurtful to some, but they are a necessary step toward progress. On the other hand, discussions intended only to hurt members of a group are hate speech. Hurtful need not be hateful, but hateful is wrong. RESIST!!
It’s a very busy day here in the CatBox, and I’m one hour more tired than I should be. WWWendy is due shortly.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 2:28 (average 4:36). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (SNL Channel): Weekend Update: Paul Manafort Sentenced to Prison
It’s pretty bad when it’s hard to differentiate SNL from actual news. RESIST!!
From The New Yorker: God has offered to give the people of Alabama brand new Bibles to replace the ones that Donald J. Trump signed during his visit to the state on Friday.
In a rare public statement from the famously mysterious deity, God said that He was furious at Trump “for defacing My book,” calling Trump’s signature “a wanton act of vandalism.”
“Where was Mike Pence in all of this?” God asked. “These people can’t do anything right.”
God added that He was “dumbfounded” that Trump had taken it upon himself to sign his name on a book to which he had “no relationship whatsoever.”
Amen, Andy! Amen, God! RESIST!!
From NY Times: The sharp left turn in the Democratic Party and the rise of progressive presidential candidates are unnerving moderate Democrats who increasingly fear that the party could fritter away its chances of beating President Trump in 2020 by careening over a liberal cliff.
Two months into the presidential campaign, the leading Democratic contenders have largely broken with consensus-driven politics and embraced leftist ideas on health care, taxes, the environment and Middle East policy that would fundamentally alter the economy, elements of foreign policy and ultimately remake American life.
Hillary demonstrated that a “moderate” (corporate centrist) nominee could allow Republicans to get close enough to steal the White House again. We need someone more progressive. RESIST!!
It’s a cold day here in the CatBox, still sub-freezing at night and about 10° below seasonal norms. I’m, as usual, quite busy.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:46 (average 7:10). To do it, click here. How did you do.
Short Takes:
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Trump Says Democrats Have Become ‘Anti-Israel’ And ‘Anti-Jewish’
This is from the same monster that said the Nazis chanting “Jews will not replace us!” in Charlottesville were fine people. I would hope most Democrats are anti-Butcher Bibi. RESIST!!
Magnificent as usual, Don! But it’s not just Trump. He’s a reflection of the entire Republican Reich! RESIST!!
From Alternet: Louie Gohmert says it’s “dangerous” to pass a House resolution condemning hate.
Much of the week in the news media was eaten up by arguing over whether the complaints of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) about the Israeli lobby demanding “allegiance” are anti-Semitic. There is a strong case to be made that while her comments were badly worded, they weren’t intentionally hateful, and the media uproar was out of proportion and erased legitimate contours of foreign policy debate.
For this reason, the House backed off an initial plan to condemn anti-Semitism specifically and instead held a vote on Thursday to condemn all hate — which was arguably necessary as the media focus on Omar has also led to a wave of anti-Muslim hatred directed at her.
In the end, Omar herself voted for the resolution — but in an incredible self-own, 23 Republicans didn’t. One was Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX), who absurdly claimed that condemning all hate would be “dangerous”
This is fifth in a list of five Republican outrages last week. Click through for the other four. RESIST!!
Cartoon:
Republican sheeple dance in gleeful ignorance, as the 18 wheeler of Republican policy is about to splatter them!
Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
Where do you get your news? I mean, of course, besides here. You may watch MSNBC, or maybe CNN – I assume you don’t watch Fox or Sinclair if you can help it. You may go to websites associated with print news sources, like The New York Times, The Washington Post, et al. You may even subscribe to paper versions of them. Or magazines like Time and Newsweek, and The New Yorker. Or to sources which are online only – AlterNet, Raw Story, Crooks and Liars, Wonkette if you are a fan of sarcasm and adept at translating it. Then there are reader-generated sites such as Daily Kos or Democratic Underground, at which one sometimes needs to follow up a little to be sure the author didn’t fall for a fake story (though the good ones are also good at retractions when necessary.)
Or are you one of the majority of Americans who have more trust in local news sources than in national ones (as surveys suggest)?
Across the political spectrum, according to a 2017 Pew Research Center study, local news is considered more trustworthy than other more national sources. It is perhaps for that reason that an estimated 30% of all links pushed by the Russian troll farm known as the Internet Research Agency during the 2016 presidential election were to stories on local news websites. In some cases, these Russian imposters created their own fake local news sites.
Acting on an initial tip from a reader, the staff of Snopes launched an investigation into what purported to be a “reliable” local news website, called the “Tennessee Star.” The investigation took weeks (they don’t specify how many weeks) and resulted in uncovering, not just the Tennessee Star, but a number of other “local” websites associated with “Star News Digital Media Inc.” and revealing them as right wing propaganda outlets (more accurately, as branches of the same right wing propaganda outlet.) Some are not yet launched, but the domain names have been purchased for future use.
The video points out that, of the three domains currently active,
only the Tennessee Star runs any commercial ads, and (outside of links to political groups such as the Koch-founded Americans for Prosperity or local GOP fundraisers that are clearly political in nature), we found ads for only three companies at the time of this report: car dealer Beaman Automotive Group, local furniture store chain D.T. McCall and Sons, and financial services company Advance Financial 24/7.
This is hardly consistent with the statement of co-founder Michael Patrick Leahy (in an email):
“We are in business to make a profit, and have a number of advertisers to prove it.”
Does it matter?
The owners of these businesses do nothing untoward in supporting candidates and PACs or in buying advertisements in the Tennessee Star. But because Star News Digital Media is neither a candidate nor a PAC, no limit exists on how much these families could spend in supporting the organization’s reporting, which as we have shown blurs the line between journalism and political campaigning….
Based on a Snopes analysis of link posts shared between 6 November 2018 and 5 February 2019, an estimated 30 percent of the linked material that Star News shared on Facebook from their own sites is republished from other sources. Much of this third-party content was published across multiple sites in their network, and many of the sources of that content were either directly or tangentially funded by mega-donors that provided their content for republication free of charge.
So, what’s the problem with third party content? We use quotes here at politics Plus, right? You bet. And we work hard to keep our third party quotes limited to fair use, and also to provide solid links to the original sources (unless it’s from propaganda, in which case we cite, without links, in order to avoid boosting their numbers).
These “local” sites – and their Facebook pages – avoid bylines, and they avoid crediting sources. But Snopes reporter Alex Kasprak, working with reporter Bethania Palmer and ops specialists Vinny Green and Chris Reilly, did some uncovering. Snopes made a chart of where the third party content comes from – including how much comes from where.
Kathleen Bartzen Culver, the director for the Center of Journalism Ethics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication, was also interviewed for the Snopes story. She had quite a bit to say, including
“Honestly, if you have an organization that is trying to shield the identity of people writing for it, is not straight about its funding sources, [and is] allowing people with partisan points of view to push those points of view and not be upfront about that, I don’t understand how you can call that a news organization.”
I can see how people, particularly Republican people, might tent to trust local news sources more than national or international sources. Republicans tend to be tribal, and it makes sense they would trust their neighbors – their own tribe – more than they would trust outsiders. It appears that both Russian trolls and American trolls have both figured this out, have run with it in the past, and will be running with it as far into the future as they can.
Although I lean on Snopes a fair amount, I was directed to this story through Crooks and Liars, and I think their take on it is worth sharing too:
Of course, the goal from the ratf**kers standpoint is not only to make Republicans look good. If they fail at that, at least they can say they hurt websites like Crooks and Liars, who work hard every day and transparently to hold Republicans and the media accountable. If the average reader throws up their hands because they “can’t trust anything they read online,” that does real damage to websites like ours.
But I think we (those of us who have two brain cells to rub together) can draw some guidelines from this report which may help keep us from throwing up our hands. When looking at a website purporting to provide news,
* Look for bylines.
* Look for bios on the bylined writers (they may not be on the same page as the story; some sites link to them.)
* Look for clear sources, also linked.
* Look at any advertising, and even more so on sites purporting to be local.
The big sites which have advertising contract with agencies like Google and AdSources. On them, you may be shown right wing ads (along with straight commercial ads from real for-profit businesses), but you are almost as likely to be shown left-leaning ads. (“Almost,” not “just,” because the right has more money to spend.) I have no specific source for that; it’s based on having done some reading on internet advertising, supplemented by my own experience.
Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone, anything you can do to take down these frauds would be appreciated. But whatever you do, spare some effort for educating us into knowing what we are looking at. Heaven knows we need all the help we can get.
Here is the one hundred fifty-first article in our Republicans on Parade series, featuring individuals who personify what the Republican Party has become. Today’s winner is a Republican Judge TS Ellis. He is so honored for goose-stepping by sentencing Trump’s Collusion Specialist, Paul Manafart, to far less than he deserves.
The sentencing of Paul Manafort, former chairman of President Trump’s campaign, was highly anticipated, capping a significant chapter in Robert S. Mueller III’s special counsel investigation. But it was an unlikely candidate to become the latest example of a conflict that has vexed legal professionals and activists for decades: systemic inequality in the criminal justice system.
Yet, as a federal judge handed down his sentence in jam-packed Alexandria, Va., courtroom Thursday, and observers digested the judge’s decision — 47 months — Manafort’s case was immediately perceived as a high-profile instance of the justice system working one way for a wealthy, well-connected man, while working in another, harsher, way for indigent defendants facing lesser crimes.
“Paul Manafort’s lenient 4-year sentence — far below the recommended 20 years despite extensive felonies and post-conviction obstruction — is a reminder of the blatant inequities in our justice system that we all know about, because they reoccur every week in courts across America,” said Ari Melber, a legal analyst for NBC News, in a Thursday-night tweet…. [emphasis added]
As a result, Democrats have said he should have recused himself, as this video shows.
Fortunately, in spite of Ellis’ goose-stepping, Manafart will get a fair sentence in his other trial. The Judge there us Amy Berman Jackson, an Obama appointee.
It’s another cold day here in the CatBox. I have to do some intake paperwork, that never got done when they rushed me into this building, with the Asst. Mgr. That may put me be behind schedule. Happy International Women’s Day to all, and TGIF!
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:10 (average 4:56). To do it, click here. (Technicolor kitty farts?) How did you do?
Short Takes:
From YouTube (MSNBC Channel): Jon Meacham: We May Have A President Who Is Enthralled To A Foreign Power
Fuhrer Drumpfenfarten has Putin in his pooter! RESIST!!
From The Hill: Twenty-three Republican lawmakers voted against a resolution condemning anti-Semitism and other forms of hatred on Thursday, arguing the measure was “watered down” and failed to properly condemn Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-Minn.) recent controversial remarks on U.S.-Israel relations.
The 23 Republicans included: Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mo Brooks (Ala.), Ken Buck (Colo.), Ted Budd (N.C.), Michael Burgess (Texas), Liz Cheney(Wyo.), Chris Collins (N.Y.), Mike Conaway (Texas), Rick Crawford (Ark.) and Jeff Duncan (S.C.).
The list was completed by Reps. Louie Gohmert (Texas), Paul Gosar (Ariz.), Tom Graves (Ga.), Pete King (N.Y.), Doug LaMalfa (Calif.), Thomas Massie(Ky.), Steven Palazzo (Miss.), Mike Rogers (Ala.), Chip Roy (Texas), Greg Steube (Fla.), Mark Walker (N.C.), Ted Yoho (Fla.) and Lee Zeldin (N.Y.).
Meanwhile, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who was stripped off his committee assignments for remarks he made regarding white supremacy earlier this year, voted present.
Steve King is the sleaziest Republican on the list. He’s the one trying to hide his sheet and hood. RESIST!!
From Stars and Stripes: The Pentagon is planning to tap $1 billion in leftover funds from military pay and pension accounts to help President Donald Trump pay for his long-sought border wall, a top Senate Democrat said Thursday.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., told The Associated Press, “It’s coming out of military pay and pensions. $1 billion. That’s the plan.”
Republicans do not care about our troops. They want cannon fodder. RESIST!!
Although I lean on Snopes a fair amount, I was directed to this story through 
