Category: Abuse

Peace & Justice History for 9/9:

September 9, 1862
Minnesota Governor Alexander Ramsey declared that “The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.”
The previous month the Dakota, or Santee, Sioux, long burdened by treaty violations and late or unfair payments from Indian agents, killed four settlers and decided to attack settlers throughout the Minnesota River valley. The number killed was estimated between 300 and 800, until 9/11 the largest civilian death toll in the U.S. The number of Indian deaths was not recorded.
September 9, 1944
Religious conscientious objector Corbett Bishop was arrested after walking out of a Civilian Public Service Camp. During subsequent trials and imprisonments, he refused any type of cooperation with the government until he was released 193 days later.
 
“I’m not going to cooperate in any way, shape or form.
I was carried in here.If you hold me, you’ll have to carry me out.War is wrong. I don’t want any part of it.” – Corbett Bishop, 1906-1961
September 9, 1963
Students at Chu Van An boys’ high school in Saigon tore down the government flag and raised a Buddhist flag to protest the corrupt Diem regime in South Vietnam; 1,000 were arrested.
September 9, 1971
The Attica (New York) State Penitentiary revolt began. The interracial revolt was led by blacks but featured cooperation between prisoners of different racial and ethnic backgrounds.

It was finally brutally suppressed by the state five days later, upon orders from Governor Nelson Rockefeller who refused to become directly involved. 29 prisoners and 10 guards were shot and killed by attacking state troopers in the bloodiest prison confrontation in U.S. history.

The prisoners had been demanding improvements in their living and working conditions at the increasingly overcrowded facility.
September 9, 1980
Eight activists from the Atlantic Life Community were arrested after hammering the nose cones of two missiles at the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania. 
Read about Plowshares 8
 
The Plowshares 8 (in alphabetical order):
Daniel Berrigan, Philip Berrigan, Dean Hammer, Carl Kabat, Elmer Maas, Anne Montgomery, Molly Rush, and John Schuchardt.

This action would become the first of an international movement of dozens of “Plowshares” anti-nuclear direct actions.
 A chronology of Plowshares actions 
September 9, 1997
Sinn Fein (pronounced shin fayn), the Irish Republican Army’s allied political party, formally renounced violence by accepting the principles put forward by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell (D-Maine) who was mediating the talks between the Irish Republicans and the British Unionists on Northern Ireland’s future.
Senator George Mitchell
The Mitchell Principles:
• To democratic and exclusively peaceful means of resolving political issues;
• To the total disarmament of all paramilitary organisations;
• To agree that such disarmament must be verifiable to the satisfaction of an independent commission;
• To renounce for themselves, and to oppose any effort by others, to use force, or threaten to use force, to influence the course or the outcome of all-party negotiations;
• To agree to abide by the terms of any agreement reached in all-party negotiations and to resort to democratic and exclusively peaceful methods in trying to alter any aspect of that outcome with which they may disagree; and,
• To urge that “punishment” killings and beatings stop and to take effective steps to prevent such actions.

https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistoryseptember.htm#september9

Trump deputy campaign manager identified in Arlington National Cemetery dustup

September 5, 20246:47 PM ET By Stephen Fowler, Quil Lawrence, Tom Bowman

One of two staffers involved in the altercation at Arlington National Cemetery is a deputy campaign manager for Donald Trump’s reelection bid, NPR has learned. The former president insisted this week the incident did not happen, highlighting a growing disconnect between the messaging of the candidate and his campaign. NPR is identifying both staffers after the campaign’s conflicting responses to the incident last week outside Section 60 of the cemetery, where many casualties of Iraq and Afghanistan are buried.

The two staffers, according to a source with knowledge of the incident, are deputy campaign manager Justin Caporale and Michel Picard, a member of Trump’s advance team.

Caporale is a one time aide to former first lady Melania Trump who left the White House to work for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis before returning to the Trump campaign. He was also listed as the on-site contact and project manager for the Women for America First rally in Washington, D.C. on Jan. 6, 2021 where Trump urged the crowd to “stop the steal” before some of them stormed the U.S. Capitol.

After Trump participated in a wreath laying ceremony on the third anniversary of the deadly bombing at Abbey Gate in Afghanistan that killed 13 U.S. service members, Trump visited Section 60 at the invitation of some family members and friends of the fallen soldiers.

ANC rules, that had been made clear to the Trump campaign in advance, say that only an official Arlington photographer can take pictures or film in Section 60. When an ANC employee tried to enforce the rules, she was verbally abused by the two Trump campaign operatives, according to a source with knowledge of the incident. Picard then pushed her out of the way according to two Pentagon officials. (snip-More)

https://www.npr.org/2024/09/05/nx-s1-5101991/trump-campaign-arlington-national-cemetery-staff-debate

Why are ‘fact checks’ vouching for Trump’s lies?

Losing the framing battle

L O L G O P

https://www.theframelab.org/why-are-fact-checks-vouching-trumps-lies/

Let’s hope 2024 will be the year that “both sides” fact-checking as a journalistic genre grows up. 

The comically bad “fact-checking” that came out of the Democratic National Convention should be a wake-up call for anyone who cares about the truth.

Example: Kamala Harris received a “Mostly False” when she said that, through Project 2025, Donald Trump “plans to create a national anti-abortion coordinator and force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions.” Politifact explained that “Project 2025 doesn’t mention a ‘national anti-abortion coordinator.’ The document calls for a ‘pro-life politically appointed Senior Coordinator of the Office of Women, Children, and Families.’”

That’s like saying it’s untrue to suggest a diner serves ketchup when it merely offers catsup.

Trump’s Firehose of Falsehoods

These attempts to parse “tomato” from “tomah-to” might make some sense in a reality that didn’t include Donald Trump, whose complete rejection of the truth thrives when the press falls into the trap of suggesting “both sides” as equally flawed. The perennial GOP nominee lies about everything from hurricane warnings to his historically bad jobs record. 

His lies – including his flood of falsehoods about the 2020 election that led to the end of America’s tradition of a peaceful transfer of power – define him.

Even the idea that Trump can be fact-checked helps Trump. It falsely suggests there are times when he might be constrained by the truth when he, like all authoritarians, is “cognitively irresponsible,” says rhetoric scholar Jennifer Mercieca. He uses his words almost solely to reject the idea that he’s accountable to anyone or democracy itself.

The combination of Trump’s firehose of falsehoods and the media’s agenda to appear even-handed has always yielded toxic slop. But “fact checkers’” do accidentally reveal two truths:

  1. As Dr. George Lakoff has explained for years, accepting someone else’s framing spreads that framing, even if you’re debunking it.

The whole fact-check genre could be called “Don’t Think of this Thing I Think is Wrong.” Whether it’s Richard Nixon saying, “I am not a crook,” or the AP telling us that JD Vance didn’t technically mate with furniture, the idea you’re trying to dispel is spread far more than it can ever be debunked. A fact check tends to be the opposite of a truth sandwich, which Dr. Lakoff proposed to minimize the spread of blatant lies.

  1. The press still has no idea how to treat Trump, one of the worst liars in American history.

Many of the worst fact checks – like the suggestion Trump doesn’t want to repeal Obamacare – rely on Trump’s constant contradictions of himself, often in the same sentence. This loads in the presumption that Trump uses language the way typical politicians do instead of as a super salesman/demagogue. 

Lakoff categorized Trump’s tweets to make it easier to analyze Trump’s linguistic vandalism:

Trump is also an expert in paralipsis, which Mercieca describes as his way of asserting something without taking responsibility for saying it himself. It’s his game of “I’m not saying/I’m just saying.” He does this by retweeting particular noxious notions or images he’s trying to spread or framing his assertions with “many people are saying.” It’s a repulsive hack that renders fact-checks useless.

Fact checks in the Trump era have begun to operate a bit like the “Community Notes” scam on Elon Musk’s version of Twitter. Sure, you occasionally get a gem that exposes an obvious scam – like a faked Trump rally photo or a Republican bragging about an infrastructure program he opposed. But think about where those notes don’t appear. They’re never on Elon’s tweets, which are saturated with right-wing propaganda, AI-generated disinformation, and neo-Nazi conspiracy theorizing. So, in essence, they’re vouching for every lie he spreads.

Can Fact Checks be fixed?

Donald Trump depends on journalism’s failed conventions to continue to normalize his unprecedented attack on American freedoms. That’s why editors must pursue multiple strategies to ensure they don’t mislead anyone into thinking Trump’s dishonesty is comparable to his opponent’s or any relevant American political figure. 

We need information to debunk lies, yet there should be a greater sense of responsibility when dealing with blatant untruths. That starts with recognizing that lies change brains, even when debunked. They are like toxic spilloff or nuclear waste that must be tracked, contained and cleaned up as much as possible. The best way to do that is to lead with the truth whenever possible, the exact thing Trump is trying to bury with his lies.

Readers also need a sense of Trump’s lies’ unprecedented scope, recurrence and purpose. One strategy is to annotate a typical rally speech with facts and reality checks. Then, compare it to a typical Harris speech. Another is to track his most-repeated lies. And, as Dr. Lakoff has suggested for decades, journalists should also analyze the rhetoric’s frames to give voters a sense of the information war being waged for their brains. 

The problem with all of these strategies is that the press would be required to do something that they seem to do their best to avoid: Call out Trump’s lies directly. The best we can hope for is a “falsely claims” in a headline or two, which is better than nothing. 

Fact checkers should stop pretending they are the be-all and end-all of determining a fact’s value. Since their jobs do not seem to depend on their reputations or track records, they should bring in experts whose careers depend on accuracy to take on Trump’s most repeated lies.

Publications that care about the truth need to show they understand the seriousness of this moment. Democracy and journalism face an unprecedented attack from Trump and MAGA that threatens the future of these two pillars of a free society.

Cowering to Trump will, at best, buy you more opportunities to cower to Trump, who will never be satisfied – not until he can imprison anyone who displeases him by suggesting he alone isn’t in charge of deciding what is true. 

My day shoe shopping plus some news

I forgot to shut off the A/C in the room.  Let me know if it causes too much background noise.  Also we had a thunderstorm during this recording, so you might hear some of it.   Hugs.  Scottie

My morning, my day trying to find sneakers, a few news articles such as Kennedy and chem trails, red states block methane regulations, Israeli settlers attack Palestinians and kill them, steal their homes / land, and think genocide is not a problem.

My feelings and upset 9-3-2024

I am raw and upset. My childhood abuse memories and feelings are washing all over me and I am struggling to deal with everything today.

 

Palestinian villages see increase in illegal settler attacks

Palestinian villages in the West Bank are seeing an increase in illegal settler attacks since October 7, 2023, the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Some of the settlers are attacking farms and killing livestock. NBC News’ Hala Gorani has more on the increase in violence.

Israeli settlers accused of using cover of war to build more settlements

Violence has flared in the Occupied West Bank. At least five Palestinians, including two children, have been killed in an Israeli air strike on a refugee camp, and one Palestinian man was shot dead in an attack by Israeli settlers near Bethlehem. 

Western Media BURIES Sickening Israeli Abuse of Palestinian

Messed up doesn’t even begin to sum this up.

Israel Invades West Bank – Declares Will Be Treated Like Gaza

When Israel threatens to turn the West Bank into the new Gaza, believe them.

Got a Republican State Legislature? Watch out carefully for this…

This is an opinion piece that contains news, and cites. Also, all Republicans are not Magas, but they’re still Republicans. This is important.

Lawmakers plan brazen power grab, pushing aside Kansas voters and Gov. Laura Kelly

Snippet (it’s not a long piece, and it’s full of info.)

Let’s be clear about what Kansas Republican legislative leaders are doing with their planned overhaul of budgeting: They are launching a personal and political power grab against Gov. Laura Kelly.

They have never accepted or respected her mandate. Despite Kelly winning a second term and having two years left to go, they have continually attempted to usurp the executive branch’s authority. They have tried a constitutional amendment and prohibiting her ability to negotiate Medicaid contracts. Now they’re going after her yearly state budget proposal.

Usually, the Legislature begins its yearly budget process with a proposal from the governor. Her office submits it when lawmakers arrive for the annual session, in January. Now an interim committee wants to start the process earlier, as soon as October of the previous year.

In this new process, the governor’s budget would be a suggestion, not a starting point.

And never mind that it’s a direct attack on Kelly. House Speaker Dan Hawkins, R-Wichita, assured the audience that these changes had nothing to do with the governor.

“This process has nothing to do with the governor,” he said at the meeting earlier this month, according to Kansas Reflector reporter Tim Carpenter. “If you’re going to focus on the governor, probably not the wisest thing to do, because this process has happened over time with many, many different governors.”

He was contradicted by Senate President Ty Masterson, R-Andover, who let the proverbial cat out of the figurative bag.

“You’ll have a Republican governor, for example, or somebody you trust, and you trust the administration to build the budgets, and then you kind of rubber stamp stuff,” Masterson said. “And, then, you switch, and you have (the) opposition party and then there’s all that same power.”

Oh. So it’s like that, then.

(snip-More; also a vid of the sausage becoming sausage)