October 5, 2024

The Stuttering Lede, Oct. 5th, 2024

31 days until we find out if we can stop fascism

“In solitude a dialogue always arises, because even in solitude there are always two." Hannah Arendt

Hurricane Helene

• Longtime NC journalist: “North Carolinians need help. Trump is feeding them lies.”

• Asheville resident here to say that all the government agencies are here and hard at work. FEMA, state, counties, cities, all very visible and vigorous. Don’t listen to right wing bullshit.

• The North Carolina Dept. of Public Safety has put up a Fact vs. Rumor page because many people are spreading misinformation about rescue and recovery efforts after Hurricane Helene.

• FEMA attempting to address the lies about Helene is a noble but doomed effort. Nobody who wants to believe the lies will trust the source, and the denials will just be rolled into the conspiracy theories. Check the comments on FEMA's tweet for proof. Wall to wall insanity.

• American Red Cross: “Misinformation can spread quickly after a disaster, causing confusion and distrust within communities struggling to recover. Unfortunately, we’re seeing this during our response to Hurricane Helene.”

• An unprecedented number of airplanes, helicopters, and drones swooping in to help with Hurricane Helene recovery efforts are now posing a safety hazard. There were 30 near-mid-air collisions last Saturday, a federal source says.

• Sec. Pete Buttigieg in response to Elon Musk’s propaganda: “No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn’t block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you’re encountering a problem give me a call.”

• Trump: A billion dollars was stolen from FEMA to use it for illegal migrants.. Total mismanagement. FEMA has not done the job.. One billion missing. It’s supposed to be used for hurricanes.

• Reporter: Trump is accusing the Biden Administration of using FEMA funding to support undocumented migrants.

  KJP: The Washington Post fact checker did a piece and the headline was: No, Biden did not take FEMA relief money to use on migrants— but Trump did.

• Here’s the WaPo article: “No, Biden didn’t take FEMA relief money to use on migrants — but Trump did.”

• Dolly Parton announces she's donating $1 million to Hurricane Helene flood response in East Tennessee.

Trump’s Rhetoric

• More of Trump’s rhetoric:

  • Trump: The migrants have taken over our hospitals. They've taken over our school.

  • Trump begins his event in North Carolina by vowing to restore Confederate names to renamed military facilities.

  • Trump: Our country was the richest when we used tariffs. The tariffs were put on in 1932.

  • Trump: She's a Marxist. A lot of people don't know what a Marxist is, so you could say communist. Not the same thing but it's close. She's very bad for this country. She will destroy this country.

  • Trump says he wants to cut education spending in “half.”

Elections 2024

• Reporter: Marco Rubio described today's jobs report as having fake numbers.

  President Biden: If you notice, anything MAGA Republicans don’t like, they call fake.

• Elon Musk has been funding Trump’s anti-immigrant mastermind. Uncovered donations by the Wall Street Journal reveal that Musk has spent millions to back anti-immigrant and anti-transgender initiatives.

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• Another black Nazi: Minnesota GOP Senate candidate: ‘The bad guys won in WWII.’

• Post offices in Austin, Texas were going to help register voters on Monday. Then came the threats.

Politics

• Marjorie Taylor Green argues that global warming will help keep people alive.

• Marjorie Taylor Green:

• Why the ‘Brooks Brothers riot’ of 2000 inspired Trump’s campaign operative in 2020.

• Idaho Senator (you can guess the party) tells a Native American candidate to go back to where she came from.

• Every month a new jobs report comes out and the rightists run this bullshit play again and we need to refute it again:

  — The size of the working-age native-born population is falling

  — The share of working-age native-born people with jobs is higher than it was under Trump

• Springfield OH geese killer was a 64-year-old white guy hunting illegally.

• Corey Lewandowski accuser speaks out.

• Lauren Boebert forced to refund $67,000 in anti-trans donations for Olympic boxer.

• As 19,000 striking East and Gulf Coast longshore workers represented by the International Longshoremen’s Association crimped global supply chains to win a $24 wage increase, their militancy is part of an under-reported story in logistics. Take Amazon.

Ukraine/Russia

• The United States government is doubling down on its commitment to safeguarding Ukrainian culture amid the Eastern European country’s ongoing war with Russia.

Middle East

• The whole video. Russia trained Hamas and green lighted attack of 07.10. Now Russia sends its operators to fight on the side of Hezbollah. What an amazing permanent member at the UN SC we have.

• Iran’s ballistic missile attack overwhelmed Israel’s missile defenses at some sites, independent analysts say. This suggests that a similar strike targeting infrastructure or civilian areas could have much more serious consequences.

• IDF tells Ireland to remove its peacekeepers from an outpost on the border with Lebanon as its invasion of the country continues.

Tech

• Heart of Iron game decided to go full on fascist: You can now play as the Nazis and achieve world domination!

• Another Wehraboo (this time board) game:

Misc.

• Scientists at the University of Oxford have developed the world's first ovarian cancer vaccine that could wipe the disease out, researchers have said.

• Gamechanger’ HIV prevention drug to be made available cheaply in 120 countries.

• Texas State University, and two Dutch amateur astronomers, have geolocated and chronolocated Van Gogh's Avenue of Poplars at Sunset (Populierenlaan bij zonsondergang): the Weverstraat in Nuenen, on 13 or 14 november 1884.

• Investigating possibility of using asteroid material to grow edible biomass.

• Ant agriculture begam 66 years ago.

• Stanford is holding a COVID conference with an editor of the Epoch Times. Simply abhorrent and embarrassing.

Humor