Far-Right Trump Activist Thinks the Deep State Created the Blizzard in Iowa

Now it’s the weather that is rigging votes.

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  KIERA BUTLER

  Senior EditorMother Jones 
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A snow plow drives past a mural during a blizzard in Des Moines, Iowa on January 12, 2024. Photo by Julia Nikhinson/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images)Abaca Press/Associated Press

In Iowa this weekend, subzero temperatures and blizzard conditions are wreaking havoc on the caucuses, forcing candidates to cancel events and threatening to keep voters home.

Uncomfortable and inconvenient conditions are not especially unusual for January in Iowa—but that fact isn’t stopping far-right activist and Trump supporter Laura Loomer from insisting that they are actually part of a sinister government agenda. Here’s Loomer on X, explaining how the “Deep State” is harnessing its Queen Elsa-like powers to orchestrate the storm for nefarious political purposes:

Loomer is alluding to a conspiracy theory about the University of Alaska’s High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program, which studies the ionosphere. It alleges that the project is actually a front for a top-secret government initiative to control the weather. Proponents of this wild speculation have included former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, former Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, and Sandy Hook denialist Alex Jones.   

Paranoia about HAARP persists, despite frequent and decisive debunking by scientists. As Bob McCoy, director of the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told the AP in 2018, “No, it’s not a weapon, and it couldn’t be…the way high-frequency radios work is that the atmosphere is transparent to those signals. If we made this 10 times bigger and tried, we still couldn’t affect the weather.”

From blizzards to torrential rain, extreme weather dominates across the U.S.

JANUARY 13, 2024

Juliana Kim 

Early rush hour traffic is seen along Orchard Lake Road in West Bloomfield, Mich., shortly after the start of a winter storm Friday.

Corey Williams/AP

Powerful winter storm systems are wreaking havoc across the U.S. and will continue over the next several days.

Governors in Arkansas, Colorado, New York and Louisiana have already issued state of emergencies in light of the severe weather.

As of Saturday afternoon, some 350,000 customers were without power across several states, according to PowerOutage.us. The biggest share of outages was occurring in Michigan. But large swaths of Wisconsin, Oregon, New York and Vermont were also without electricity.

Meanwhile, more than 1,200 U.S. departing and incoming flights were canceled as of Saturday afternoon, FlightAware.com reported.

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A snowstorm in Iowa has also impacted Republican presidential candidates ahead of Monday's caucuses.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis postponed four events on Friday after campaigning in-person north of Des Moines earlier that day, according to The Associated Press. Meanwhile, both former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and former President Donald Trump pivoted their Iowa events online on Friday. In a video to Iowa voters, Trump said he will try to make it to the state by late Saturday night.

In New York, the Buffalo Bills also rescheduled their home game against the Pittsburgh Steelers from Sunday to Monday in light of the severe weather.

Dangerous floods threaten New Jersey, Pennsylvania and New York

After an evening of heavy rain across the state, New York remained under threat for coastal flooding on Saturday.

In New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, areas near the waterfront and shoreline could receive up to 2.5 feet of flooding. Roads, parking lots, cars and buildings with basements are at risk of being flooded, the National Weather Service said.

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A coastal flood warning has also been issued for parts of New Jersey, including Mercer, Gloucester, Camden and Northwestern Burlington, as well as parts of Pennsylvania including Delaware, Philadelphia and Lower Bucks.

Buildings and roads in those areas are at risk of flooding damage, forecasters say, with some roadways becoming "impassable."

Meanwhile, upstate New York and Vermont are forecast to see knee-high snow and strong winds this weekend. Across Oswego, Watertown and Lowville in New York, between 1 to 3 feet of snow is expected to accumulate. The Vermont cities of South Colton and Star Lake will likely see between 6 to 18 inches of snow.

Frost-bite temperatures approach Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi

Frigid cold air is migrating to the South, packing snow, sleet and freezing rain to Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas through Sunday.

"Unfortunately, hazardous cold weather looks to stick around going into next week, with dangerously low temperatures and wind chills persisting through at least midweek," the NWS wrote.

North and central Texas will see temperatures fall significantly below freezing, with some parts of northwest Texas bound for single digits. Montague, Cooke, Grayson, Young, Jack and Wise counties are slated for "life-threatening" cold temperatures from Saturday night to Sunday morning.

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Forecasters expect it to also be brutally cold in Arkansas through mid-week, with Saturday being the warmest day "for a while" and Tuesday bringing the coldest morning. The state may see about half a foot of snow or less this weekend. But the real danger is on Tuesday with temperatures as low as -2 Fahrenheit in parts of northern Arkansas. The NWS said to beware of frostbite and try to keep a spare generator at home.

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Similar bitter cold will frost northern Mississippi starting Sunday night through Wednesday, including Jackson and Yazoo City. The NWS says prolonged exposure to the low temperatures may result in frostbite or hypothermia. Pipes exposed to the cold may also be risk of damage.

Meanwhile, a winter storm watch will be in effect for west and middle Tennessee from late Sunday to Tuesday morning. Forecasters say Saturday is the last day Memphis will see above freezing temperatures until Thursday. The city is expected to receive between 4-6 inches of snow through Tuesday.

Snow will likely arrive in Nashville on late Sunday through Tuesday, with the heaviest snowfall occurring on Monday. In total, between 2 to 4 inches is forecast for the music city. That snow is not expected to melt until at least Thursday.

Northwest bound for heavy snow, sub-zero temperatures and avalanche threats

A winter storm watch is in effect for a majority of Oregon, southern Idaho and northern Utah. The threat of winter storm conditions has also put northern Nevada on alert.

After blizzard conditions on Friday night, Idaho will continue to experience snowfall on Saturday. Forecasters say there is a 20% chance that this storm will produce more than 10 inches of snow in Boise.

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Meanwhile, in northwest Oregon, freezing rain is forecast to intensify and affect more areas on Saturday, which could cause tree and power line damage.

Forecasters say the combination of heavy snow and strong winds may also trigger avalanches near mountains in Colorado. An avalanche watch is in effect until Monday night.

Parts of northern California are under a flood watch until Saturday night. Eureka is expected to see between 2 to 4 inches of rain in coastal plans and valleys, while 5 to 8 inches of rain in higher elevations. The downpour may produce minor flooding and mudslides.

In photos: Weather warnings cover much of Canada and the US this weekend

PUBLISHED 21 MINUTES AGO


From arctic air flowing along British Columbia's coast to extreme cold in the Prairies and storms moving through the east coast, much of Canada and the US are experiencing weather warnings this weekend.

An ice fog hangs over steaming neighbourhoods in Calgary on Saturday

.JEFF MCINTOSH/THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Ocean water floods Pear Ave. in Revere, Massachusetts as a storm batters the state.JOSEPH PREZIOSO/GETTY IMAGES
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People watch waves crash over the sea wall in Revere, Massachusetts as a third storm in a week batters the state.JOSEPH PREZIOSO/GETTY IMAGES
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Workers clear a sidewalk of snow in Des Moines, as record-breaking cold continues to complicate the Iowa caucuses with snowy weather canceling many events.JIM WATSON/GETTY IMAGES
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A stalled car sits in a flooded street in Revere, Massachusetts, amid flooding in low-lying areas and streetsJOSEPH PREZIOSO/GETTY IMAGES
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A person clears snow in The Glebe neighbourhood of Ottawa amid a winter storm warning calling for heavy snowfall.SPENCER COLBY/THE CANADIAN PRESS
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Waves crash over the sea wall flooding the road in Winthrop, Massachusetts, flooding nearby streets.JOSEPH PREZIOSO/GETTY IMAGES
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A home is surrounded by water after dangerous and damaging weather conditions caused flooding in Port Washington, New York.SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS
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Storm waves batter coastal homes as the tide rises in Winthrop, Massachusetts.JOSEPH PREZIOSO/GETTY IMAGES
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Discovery of gargantuan ring structure ‘challenges understanding of universe’

An artistic impression of what the Big Ring (shown in blue) and Giant Arc (shown in red) would look like in the sky (Stellarium/University of Central Lancashire)

SAT, 13 JAN, 2024 - 
NILIMA MARSHALL, PA SCIENCE REPORTER

Scientists have discovered a gargantuan ring-shaped structure – about 1.3 billion light-years in diameter – that they say is so big it challenges our understanding of the universe.

Dubbed the Big Ring, this ultra-large structure – with a circumference of about four billion light-years – was observed in the remote universe, around 9.2 billion light-years away.

Made up of galaxies and galaxy clusters, the diameter of the Big Ring appears to be roughly 15 times the size of the Moon in the night sky as seen from Earth.

It is the second cosmic structure of such size identified by Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) who also discovered the Giant Arc – spanning 3.3 billion light-years of space – around three years ago.

Alexia Lopez, a PhD student at the University of Central Lancashire (University of Central Lancashire)

She said: “Neither of these two ultra-large structures is easy to explain in our current understanding of the universe.

“And their ultra-large sizes, distinctive shapes, and cosmological proximity must surely be telling us something important – but what exactly?”

Ms Lopez’s findings – presented at the 243rd meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) – appear to challenge the cosmological principle, which states that on a large scale, the universe should look roughly the same everywhere.

The general consensus is that large structures are formed in the universe through a process known as gravitational instability but there is a size limit to this, which is about 1.2 billion light-years.

Anything larger than that would not have had sufficient time to form.

Ms Lopez said: “The cosmological principle assumes that the part of the universe we can see is viewed as a ‘fair sample’ of what we expect the rest of the universe to be like.

“We expect matter to be evenly distributed everywhere in space when we view the universe on a large scale, so there should be no noticeable irregularities above a certain size.

“Cosmologists calculate the current theoretical size limit of structures to be 1.2 billion light-years, yet both of these structures are much larger – the Giant Arc is almost three times bigger and the Big Ring’s circumference is comparable to the Giant Arc’s length.

The Big Ring is made up of galaxies and galaxy clusters seen in the centre of the image. The blue dots represent the background quasars or ‘spotlights’ (Alexia Lopez/University of Central Lancashire)


“From current cosmological theories we didn’t think structures on this scale were possible.


There are also similarly large structures discovered by other cosmologists – such as the Sloan Great Wall, which is around 1.5 billion light-years in length, and the South Pole Wall, which stretches 1.4 billion light-years across.

But the biggest single entity scientists have identified is a supercluster of galaxies called the Hercules-Corona Borealis Great Wall, which is about 10 billion light-years wide.

For comparison, the observable universe is approximately 93 billion light-years in diameter.

Both the Big Ring and the Giant Arc appear in the same neighbourhood, Ms Lopez said, near the constellation of Bootes the Herdsman.

While the Big Ring appears as an almost perfect ring on the sky, analysis by Ms Lopez suggests it has more of a coil shape – like a corkscrew – with its face aligned with Earth.The Big Ring and the Giant Arc, both individually and together, gives us a big cosmological mystery as we work to understand the universe and its development

Ms Lopez said: “This data we’re looking at is so far away that it has taken half the universe’s life to get to us – from a time when the universe was about 1.8 times smaller than it is now.

“The Big Ring and the Giant Arc, both individually and together, gives us a big cosmological mystery as we work to understand the universe and its development.”

Ms Lopez, along with her adviser Dr Roger Clowes, also from UCLan, and collaborator Gerard Williger from the University of Louisville, US, used a technique called the magnesium II (MgII) to make the discoveries.

It involves turning quasars – extremely energetic and luminous celestial objects found at the centres of some galaxies – into giant lamps to observe cosmic matter and galaxies in the universe that would otherwise remain unseen.

Commenting on the research, Professor Don Pollacco, of the department of physics at the University of Warwick, said a lot more research needs to be done to be certain about the discovery of these ultra-large structures.

He said: “The likelihood of this occurring is vanishingly small so the authors speculate that the two objects are actually related and form an even larger structure.

“So the question is how do you make such large structures?

Large US companies eye expansion opportunities in Turkmenistan

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Turkmenistan Materials 

13 January 2024
Aman Bakiyev

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ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, January 13. Major US companies such as John Deere, Boeing, General Electric, Visa Card International and Coca-Cola are interested in expanding their activities in Turkmenistan, Trend reports.

This was stated by the US Ambassador to Turkmenistan Matthew Klimow during an official press conference held at the residence of the embassy in Ashgabat.

He expressed hope that the Turkmenistan-US Business Council will be transformed into the US Chamber of Commerce in Turkmenistan.

Matthew Klimow confirmed that the embassy actively supports the activities of Eric Stewart, Executive Director of the US-Turkmenistan Business Council, and the efforts of the Council through the forum of business leaders of Turkmenistan and the US, and also mentioned that last December Ashgabat hosted two trade delegations from the US.

He noted that the US Embassy in Turkmenistan facilitates the establishment of contacts between US buyers interested in Turkmenistan's exports, including petrochemical products, carbamide, and fertilizers, and their Turkmen counterparts.

At the end of his speech, the Ambassador confirmed his readiness to continue working in the field of trade and commerce, building on the foundation laid by the Turkmenistan-US Business Council and the Turkmenistan-US Business Leaders Forum.

Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest and the Caspian Sea to the west. Ashgabat is the capital and largest city. It is one of the six ind... Wikipedia

 

India's foreign minister to visit Iran

S. Jaishankar's two-day trip to Iran comes amid escalating geopolitical concerns in the Red Sea.

 January 13, 2024

Jaishankar's planned visit to Iran follows a US-blamed drone attack on a ship near Indian waters a month ago. / Photo: AFP


India's foreign minister will make a two-day trip to Iran from Sunday, following Western air strikes against Yemen's Houthi over the Tehran-allied group's attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.


A government statement issued Saturday said that Jaishankar would meet his Iranian counterpart Hossein Amirabdollahian to discuss "bilateral, regional and global issues" without giving further details.


The Houthis have carried out scores of drone and missile strikes on the key international route through the Red Sea since the start of Israel's war in Gaza.


Many vessels have been rerouted from the Red Sea due to drone and missile attacks carried out by the Houthis in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

S. Jaishankar's visit also comes a month after a drone attack on a ship near Indian waters that the United States blamed on Iran.


India intensifies maritime patrols

India has significantly stepped up its own maritime patrols in the Arabian Sea to "maintain a deterrent presence" after the string of attacks on vessels.


In December, a drone attack hit the MV Chem Pluto oil tanker 370 kilometres off the coast of India, which the United States blamed on Iran - claims Tehran dubbed "worthless".


Earlier this month, India's navy said it had rescued 21 crew members from a vessel in the Arabian Sea after a hijacking distress call.


Jaishankar said Thursday he had spoken to US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken about "maritime security challenges, especially (in) the Red Sea region".

"There's Difference In The Way US Views India Today": S Jaishankar

S Jaishankar said the US recognises the importance India holds for the technology world and the enthusiasm of American businesses for India has also changed.

 January 13, 2024


"The level of how we deal with each other is more equal," S Jaishankar said.

Nagpur:

Highlighting that there is a difference in the way America views India today, External Affairs Minister (EAM) S Jaishankar said the two countries deal more equally now.

"Last June, when I went to the US with PM Modi, I felt there is a difference in the way in which America views India today. The level of how we deal with each other is more equal," the EAM said while speaking at the Manthan: Townhall meeting in Nagpur, Maharashtra, on Saturday.

Mr Jaishankar said the US recognises the importance India holds for the technology world and the enthusiasm of American businesses for India has also changed.

Speaking on India-US relations, he said: "What was a very difficult, almost negative relationship from 1947 till the next 50 years, started changing under Atal ji and the change continued thereafter. We saw the nuclear deal."

Atal Bihari Vajpayee served for three terms as the Indian Prime Minister, first for 13 days in 1996, then for 13 months from 1998 to 1999, followed by a full term from 1999 to 2004.

Meanwhile, the Indo-US nuclear agreement was initiated in July 2005, when the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited the US.

The agreement at its core, lay focus on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden recently said the friendship between the US and India is among the most consequential in the world as the two countries signed several major deals to further elevate their strategic technology partnership.

Earlier, the US said it supports India's emergence as a leading global power and a vital partner in promoting a peaceful, stable, and prosperous Indo-Pacific region.

The country said the US-India relationship is one of the most strategic and consequential of the 21st century, as per a fact sheet released by the US State Department.

The fact sheet said the United States and India have established strong defence industrial cooperation that looks at opportunities for co-development and co-production of important military capabilities for both countries, as per a US State Department fact sheet.

Earlier in 2023, the US approved a pathbreaking manufacturing licence for the co-production of GE F414 engines in India.

The United States and India launched an educational series that prepares startups and young innovators to contribute to the defence industries in both countries.

The United States and India also cooperate through the bilateral US-India Counterterrorism Joint Working Group and the Defence Policy Group, as per the fact sheet.

The two countries have a common vision to deploy clean energy at scale, as reflected in both countries' ambitious 2030 targets for climate action and clean energy.

"We are exploring avenues to increase our mineral security cooperation to ensure that we can advance our clean energy goals, including through the Minerals Security Partnership," the US State Department said.

The United States and India also collaborate through the Strategic Clean Energy Partnership and the Climate Action and Finance Mobilisation Dialogue.

With India's signing of the Artemis Accords in June, "we have established a common vision for the future of space exploration for the benefit of all humankind."

The US State Department said India, the US cooperate closely in multilateral organisations and fora, including the United Nations, G20, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)-related fora, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organisation.

"The vibrant people-to-people ties between our countries are a tremendous source of strength for the strategic partnership."

"The Indian community of over 4 million in the United States is an important driver of collaboration, innovation, and job creation in both countries," the fact sheet said.

Bill O’Reilly Is Furious As His Own Titles Get Removed After Supporting Florida Book Bans

The disgraced conservative pundit, who previously seemed indifferent to casualties of this broadly-applied law, is now naturally aghast.

By Marco Margaritoff
Jan 13, 2024,



Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly was a rather staunch supporter of Florida’s book ban laws enacted by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). That is until two of his own books were temporarily removed from the Escambia County School District — pending further investigation.

“It’s absurd. Preposterous,” the disgraced conservative pundit told Newsweek on Friday, adding that he’ll “find out exactly who made the decisions … [and] put their pictures on television and on my website … and I’m going to ask them for a detailed explanation of why they did that.”


His “Killing Jesus: A History” and “Killing Reagan: The Violent Assault That Changed a Presidency” were reportedly among 1,600 titles pulled to adhere to Florida’s HB 1069 bill. Enacted in July, it purportedly aims to restrict sexual content from being taught in schools.


The law has since been accused of massive overreach, however, after the Florida Freedom to Read Project released a list Thursday of affected titles that include “The Autobiography of Malcolm X,” dictionaries, “Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl,” and other essential works.



A spokesperson for the district told The Pensacola News Journal that O’Reilly’s books aren’t permanently banned but are under review “to ensure compliance.” O’Reilly, who appeared indifferent to prior casualties of the broadly applied law, is now naturally aghast.


“When DeSantis signed the book law, I supported the theme because there was abuse going on in Florida,” he told Newsweek. “There were far-left progressive people trying to impose an agenda on children, there’s no doubt about it.”



O'Reilly threatened to find who decided to ban his books and "put their pictures on television."
NATHAN CONGLETON/NBCUNIVERSAL/GETTY IMAGES


The former “O’Reilly Factor” host, who was forced off the air in 2017 after a New York Times report revealed that he settled a sexual harassment claim for $32 million, told Newsweek that “the state has an obligation to protect children.”

“But the wording of the law was far too nebulous … So, that law needs to be tightened up,” he added, “DeSantis needs to come out publicly and say, ‘this is insane, we’re not going to cooperate with this and we’re going to investigate the people who did it.’”

Representatives for DeSantis did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.

O’Reilly also took to X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: “This will not stand.” He presumably hasn’t noticed that most users are mocking his newfound indignation — as it only arrived after he was victimized by something he had supported.

Of course Donald Trump is a fascist. Let’s count the ways.

Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump that the United States may technically no longer even qualify as a democracy.

Commentary by Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld Saturday, January 13, 2024


President Donald Trump speaks at the the Farm Show Complex and Expo Center in Harrisburg, PAPhoto: Shutterstock

At a recent campaign rally in Waterloo, Iowa, Donald Trump argued that “illegal aliens” are “destroying the blood of our country.” He then rejected criticism that his rhetoric echoed Adolf Hitler.

“It’s crazy what’s going on. They’re ruining our country,” Trump said. “And it’s true, they’re destroying the blood of our country. That’s what they’re doing. They’re destroying our country. They don’t like it when I said that.”

The former president’s niece claims he defamed the election workers at least 23 times.

“And I’ve never read Mein Kampf,” said Trump. “Oh, Hitler said that [about destroying the blood of his country]. In a much different way.”

Yes, the difference was that Hitler said it in German.

One month earlier on the campaign trail, the former President channeled Hitler and Mussolini when he vowed: “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country that lie and steal and cheat on elections.”

The Holocaust did not begin with killing

“The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is deeply alarmed at the hateful rhetoric at a conference of white nationalists held on November 19 [2016] at the Ronald Reagan Building just blocks from the Museum… The Holocaust did not begin with killing; it began with words. The Museum calls on all American citizens, our religious and civic leaders, and the leadership of all branches of the government to confront racist thinking and divisive hateful speech…”

These words from a press release from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington DC refer to a white nationalist conference headlined by neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, who greeted attendees with a tribute to then President-elect Donald Trump. Spencer shouted, “Hail Trump! Hail victory!” from the stage before all in attendance gestured in a traditional Nazi straight-arm salute.

Once identifying as a Democrat, Donald Trump has transformed himself, at the very least, into the mouthpiece of the far-right wing of the Republican Party.

In political terms, a “strongman” is one who leads by force within an overarching authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorial regime. Sometimes the formal head of state and sometimes another political or military leader, the strongman exerts influence and control over the government more than traditional laws or constitutional mandates sanction.

On the right-wing side of the dictatorial strongman’s political spectrum, we find the philosophy and practice of “fascism.” While also deployed as an epithet by some, fascism developed as a form of radical authoritarian nationalism in early-20th-century Europe in response to liberalism and Marxism on the left.

The tenets of fascism

Political scientist Lawrence Britt enumerates 14 tenets of fascism:

1. Powerful and continuing nationalism

2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause

4. Rampant sexism

5. Supremacy of the military

6. Controlled mass media

7. Obsession with national security

8. Religion and government are intertwined

9. Corporate power is protected

10. Labor power is suppressed

11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts

12. Obsession with crime and punishment

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption

14. Fraudulent elections

While many governmental leaders and candidates for public office may push for a number of these tactics while still remaining outside the definition of “fascist,” the cumulative effect increases depending on the severity of and the degree to which they initiate these measures.

How Donald Trump measures up

Let’s look at Donald Trump and his sycophants within the current Republican Party through the lens of Lawrence Britt’s tenets of fascism:

1. Appeals to “nationalism,” presented in the guise of “popularism,” feeding on people’s fears and prejudices, which has already resulted in the segregation of people and nations from one another, and threats and dangers of violence – CHECK!

2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights, and rolling back many of the rights and protections in the name of “anti-wokeness” that minoritized peoples have tirelessly fought for over the past decades: reproductive rights, voting rights, citizenship rights, anti-torture guarantees, rights of unreasonable search and seizure, rights of assembly, disability rights, freedom of religion, marriage equality, the rights of trans people to quality healthcare and gender-affirming procedures – CHECK!


3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause by singling out already disenfranchised identity categories as the internal and external enemies of the United States: Muslims and anyone from Muslim-majority countries, Mexicans and all Latinx people, urban “thugs,” the press, Somalis, LGBTQ+ people, drag queens, George Soros (representing an alleged world Jewish financial and political conspiracy), and the ACLU. Then there’s the Democrats, Mike Pence, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Hunter Biden, etc. – CHECK!

4. Rampant sexism and toxic misogynistic utterances and allegations primarily against women of color and state prosecutors and legislators opposing the Republican Party’s political agenda, as well as credible charges of sexual harassment against Trump by numerous women – CHECK!

5. Supremacy of the military by perennially proposing exponentially high increases in the budget for the Pentagon, and, for example, under the Trump regime, employing the military for civil projects, like stationing service members on the southern border to engage in duties not directly specified for the military, and even considering instituting martial law rather than leave the White House after the new president had been inaugurated – CHECK!


6. Controlled mass media and threats to employ libel laws to sue the “crooked and lying” media (Lügenpresse, “lying press” popularized by the German Nazis to silence opposition), as well as banning books and other school curricular materials like The 1619 Project, Critical Race Theory, and banning any discussions related to the truth (presented age-appropriately) about the “hard” history of the United States, discussions of LGBTQ+ topics, or topics of gender, all in the name of “protecting parental rights” – CHECK!

7. Obsession with national security with continual cries against “Islamic jihadist terrorists” as the number one threat to our nation, rather than the real threat: Domestic terrorists aiming to bring down the so-called “Deep State” – CHECK!

8. Religion and government are intertwined through a tight network of Christian nationalists using selected passages from the Christian Testament as justification for its right-wing stances, as well as through attendance at several Christian prayer vigils and the former president’s appearances at conservative Christian conferences and universities like Liberty University, with calls to “Make America Great Again” giving the subliminal dog whistle of making America white and Protestant again – CHECK!


9. Corporate power is protected through increased deregulation of the energy and corporate business sectors with massive tax cuts and other financial incentives. “I will formulate a rule, which says that for every one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated,” Trump once declared. – CHECK!

10. Labor power is suppressed with anti-labor actions to reduce the rights of workers to organize and negotiate collective bargaining agreements; privatization of entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act; advocacy for the abolition of a national minimum wage; and other “socialist” actions – CHECK!

11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts with resentment and attacks on the political, media, and intellectual “elites” to the point of instigating scorn and harassment against the so-called Washington “liberal elite” and demands for an apology from the cast of the Broadway show, Hamilton, for voicing concerns over a Trump presidency with then-Vice President Mike Pence in attendance. – CHECK!


12. Obsession with crime and punishment with calls for “law and order” involving draconian (and possibly unconstitutional) measures of torture and surveillance against groups like Black Lives Matter and Antifa, but certainly not toward what they refer to as “the patriots” of January 6, 2021 who stormed the Capitol. And of course, certainly not toward the ongoing investigations around former President Donald Trump’s alleged payment of an adult actress with campaign funds, his large cache of classified documents he stored at his seaside Florida resort, and his possible involvement in the January 6th insurrection, which some in the Republican Party define as a “legal First Amendment protest.” – CHECK!

13. Rampant cronyism and corruption while in and out of office through using his adult children and son-in-law as close trusted political operatives who met with visiting diplomats and traveled to foreign capitals to negotiate political and business deals, plus continuously unresolved conflict-of-interest issues and “emoluments” breeches between his position as President and his worldwide business interests, with so many probes into corruption it has become a common occurrence. – CHECK!

14. Fraudulent elections assisted by the larger Republican Party and the Supreme Court by gutting the 1965 Voting Rights law, which has resulted in voter suppression campaigns effectively reducing the number of polling stations in primarily minoritized racial communities and limiting days and times for pre-election-day voting. In addition, another fascist ruler, Vladimir Putin, weighed in on Trump’s side to sway the presidential elections in 2016 and 2020 in their (Putin & Trump’s) favor. While often claiming fraud when they lose elections, no such fraud has been found in the states and in the courts to have swayed any election that they claimed was fraudulent – CHECK!

In the wake of the attack on our nation’s capital in January 2021, as well as the precipitous rise of Trump and the GOP’s extremist agenda – along with the party’s ties to right-wing paramilitary militia groups like the Proud Boys, The Three Percenters, and the Oath Keepers – we can now ask ourselves: To what extent is the United States still considered a “democracy”?

Are we headed toward civil war?

“This is democracy’s most challenging hour since Fort Sumter,” argued Historian John Meacham in 2022.

Barbara F. Walter, U.S. political scientist and Rohr Professor of International Affairs at the School of Global Policy and Strategy at the University of California, San Diego, warns in her book, How Civil Wars Start: “We are closer to civil war than any of us would like to believe… No one wants to believe that their beloved democracy is in decline or headed toward war,” but “if you were an analyst in a foreign country looking at events in America… you would go down a checklist, assessing each of the conditions that make civil war likely. And what you would find is that the United States, a democracy founded more than two centuries ago, has entered very dangerous territory.”

Indeed, the United States has already gone through what the CIA identifies as the first two phases of insurgency: 1. The “pre-insurgency” phase, and 2. The “incipient conflict” phase. Only time will tell whether the final phase is fully activated: The “open insurgency” phase has already begun with the sacking of the Capitol by Donald Trump’s supporters on January 6, 2021.


Things deteriorated so dramatically under Trump, in fact, that the United States no longer technically qualifies as a democracy. Citing the Center for Systemic Peace’s “Polity” data set – the one the CIA task force has found to be most reliable in predicting instability and violence – Walter writes that the United States is now an “anocracy,” somewhere between a democracy and an autocratic state.

U.S. democracy has received the Polity Index’s top score of 10, or close to it, for much of its history. But in the years of the Trump era, it tumbled precipitously into the anocracy zone. By the end of Trump’s presidency, the U.S. score had fallen to a 5, making the country a partial democracy for the first time since 1800.

“We are no longer the world’s oldest continuous democracy,” Walter writes. “That honor is now held by Switzerland, followed by New Zealand, and then Canada. We are no longer a peer to nations like Canada, Costa Rica, and Japan, which are all rated a +10 on the Polity index.”


Dropping five points in five years greatly increases the risk of civil war. “A partial democracy is three times as likely to experience civil war as a full democracy,” Walter states. “A country standing on this threshold – as America is now at +5 – can easily be pushed toward conflict through a combination of bad governance and increasingly undemocratic measures that further weaken its institutions.”

Others have reached similar findings. The Stockholm-based International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance put the United States on a list of “backsliding democracies” in a November 2021 report.

“The United States, the bastion of global democracy, fell victim to authoritarian tendencies itself,” the report said.

And a 2023 survey found that about 12 million adults believe violence is justified to restore Donald Trump as President of the United States.

We are on the doorstep of the “open insurgency” stage of civil conflict, and Walter writes that once countries cross that threshold, there is risk of “sustained violence as increasingly active extremists launch attacks that involve terrorism and guerrilla warfare including assassinations and ambushes.”

Benjamin Franklin was one of the nation’s “founders” who attended the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia to draft our now-famous founding document. At the age of 81, though a perennial optimist, he had no illusions and thought it impossible to expect any group of people, no matter how wise or brilliant, to create a “perfect production.”


Even “with all its faults,” however, Franklin believed that this Constitution was far superior to any alternative that could possibly emerge.

He had a warning, though. As the story is told, when departing the Constitutional Convention, a group of citizens approached Franklin and asked him what kind of government the delegates had created.

His response: “A republic, if you can keep it.”

 

This Just In: The NFL Exists to Make Money

Also: the media landscape is currently evolving.

STEVEN L. TAYLOR · SATURDAY, JANUARY 13, 2024 · 

As I am sure any even casual observer of the NFL is aware, tonight’s Wild Card matchup between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Miami Dolphins will be available exclusively* on NBC’s streaming service, Peacock. They had previously streamed an NFL game on December 22nd (a pretty entertaining Bills-Chargers matchup).**

There have been several recurring observations I keep encountering on this topic. The first, it’s a money grab! (or some version thereof). To which my brain invariably goes: no kidding. The notion that the NFL specifically, not to mention entertainment companies in general, exist for any other reason than to make money is just silly. Of course, they are going to try and find new ways to make more money.

A second one is, what is Peacock, anyway? This is not an unfair question, insofar as it is a second-tier, at best, streamer. It isn’t Netflix, Hulu, or YouTubeTV. So, I ask, what better way to make your product a household name than to attach yourself to the biggest single entertainment product in the United States? Even the annoyed people are talking about Peacock. And people will know what it is now.

I am betting that the marketing people at NBC-Universal knew exactly how with would be received.

Even headlines like this one from Slate, The TV Streaming Mess Finally Came for the NFL, have got to have those selfsame marketing people asking, “Did they spell Peacock correctly, and did that article send readers to Google to figure out how to watch the game?” Likewise the subtitle to this piece from Awful Announcing, “Despite outrage about the NFL airing a playoff game on Peacock, the league and NBC seem confident with the strategy.” Behold the outrage that has led to tons of free publicity. Heck, when was the last time I wrote about the NFL (let alone Peacock?)?

There were similar cries of “money grabs” when the NFL started showing one game a week on cable outlets back in the mid-to-late 1980s. I have heard my whole life that the NFL would soon put all of their games on pay-per-view, but of course, that would be a foolish model, since the big money is mass-based ad revenue. Indeed, the silliest thing I hear/read regularly is that the Super Bowl will soon be pay-per-view. There is no way the NFL will mess with that gold mine.

This is really about the ability of the NFL to sell off a small part of their broader stock of games to exclusive providers (that started with MNF on ABC back in 1970 and manifests these days with Thursday night football on Amazon Prime). They will not shift away from broadcast TV so long as they can get bigger audiences there, given the importance of mass advertisement revenue. After all, in the days of streaming scripted TV and DVRs the best way to get an audience to sit through commercials is live sports (it is the only time I watch commercials–that and breaking news).

tl;dr version: the NFL is out to make money and streaming is the future and we are in the sorting out stages of that future.

I will just conclude with this CBS News headline: Peacock subscriptions are 50% off ahead of the Peacock-exclusive Miami Dolphins vs. Kansas City Chiefs game.

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*It will be broadcast on convention TV in those media markets, and will be available in various ways outside the US, so “exclusively” is actually not entirely accurate.

**Yes, the NFL games led me to subscribe to Peacock. Knowing I would want to watch the games, I took their Black Friday deal, which I think was $2/month for the whole year. Plus I want to watch the Monk movie. I would note that I had previously, albeit relatively briefly, been a Peacock subscriber. I highly recommend Poker Face.

About Steven L. Taylor

Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Agencies respond to oil discharge near Venice, LA





PRESS RELEASE | Jan. 13, 2024
PHOTOS AVAILABLE: 

Editor's Note: Click on images to download high-resolution version.

NEW ORLEANS — The Coast Guard and Texas Petroleum Investment Company (TPIC) are responding to an oil spill near Venice, Louisiana.

An overflight first observed a sheen Wednesday, and the source of the spill was later identified as a TPIC crude oil pipeline.

On Thursday, TPIC secured the pipeline, organized response resources for the company’s estimated 1,008-gallon discharge through local oil spill removal organizations including Environmental Safety & Health Consulting Services Inc. and Clean Gulf Associates. An overflight by U.S. Coast Guard Air Station New Orleans aircrew reported a broken 13-mile sheen with streaks of recoverable oil Thursday.

TPIC repaired the pipeline late Thursday. After confirming successful repairs, the pipeline was brought back into operation on Friday with no further reported discharge. An overflight on Friday with a Coast Guard Sector New Orleans pollution responder onboard and a follow-on overflight today reported no oil observed.

There have been no reports of injuries, wildlife or shoreline impacts.

Mariners are encouraged to report any observations of oil to Coast Guard Sector New Orleans Command Center 

The incident is under investigation.