How US conservatives learned to stop worrying and love Russia

What I find astonishing is how opinions in the US towards Russia among self-styled conservatives has shifted dramatically over the recent past. During the Cold War, and even for some years after, it used to be that right-wingers were vehemently anti-Russia in their attitudes, since it was the largest component of the Soviet Union and thus emblematic of godless Communism. It was seen as directly opposite to the capitalist Christian values that they espoused, and demonization of Russia was rampant. It was the left and liberals who tried to tamp down this feeling, seeing it as dangerously inflammatory in a nuclear age when a military conflict between the two nations had to be avoided.

But how times have changed. Nowadays the right-wing is not only not hostile to Russia, they seem to be positively supportive and enamored of its president Vladimir Putin. We even had serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) make the astonishing statement that he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to any NATO country that did not meet its NATO obligations, though it was clear that he did not understand the nature of those obligations, speaking as if it consisted of dues to be paid (like the membership in his golf clubs) rather than what it really is, a commitment by each nation to spend a specific proportion of their GDP on their own defense forces.
[Read more…]

When conservatives let their guard down

The annual meeting of CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) was held last week. It used to be the gathering where conservatives would have discussions about how to advance their policy goals in public life. These used to concern economics, foreign policy, and major social issues. But in the age when it seems like every conservative seeks to please serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT), wonky panel discussions on weighty matters have given way to feeding red meat to the attendees on whatever things that SSAT chooses to rant about. Add to this, the multiple sexual assault allegations made against the CPAC chair Matt Schlapp that led to a $9 million lawsuit against him has cast a cloud over the organization.

Carlton Huffman, a Republican staffer on Herschel Walker’s US senate campaign, initially accused Schlapp of sexually assaulting him last year. Huffman had been assigned to drive Schlapp to campaign events in the Atlanta area and alleged Schlapp fondled him without his consent during a car ride in October 2022.

According to new reporting, based on court documents obtained by The Washington Post, Schlapp was also accused of sexual misconduct twice before – first in 2017 and then in early 2022. The updated court filing alleges the incidents were reported to staffers of the American Conservative Union, which hosts the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, but “no action was taken against Schlapp,” according to The Post.

[Read more…]

The death of Alexei Navalny shows how unchecked power leads to reckless actions

It is a cliche that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and we have seen that play out repeatedly in the political sphere where leaders who arrogate to themselves increasing amounts of power at the expense of counterbalancing democratic institutions become more and more reckless and abusive.

We see this in the case of Russian leader Vladimir Putin who over the years has increasingly undermined Russian democracy and consolidated power in his own hands. Whatever historical reasons he might have given for thinking that Ukraine was actually part of Russia, his invasion of that country was reckless and has not gone well, resulting in a large number of deaths and injuries and destruction, with no end in sight. Although reliable numbers are hard to obtain, it is quite possible that there are a substantial number of Russians who support the invasion, since the move symbolizes the creation of a greater Russia and nationalists tend to favor actions that seem to enhance the power and reach of their country.

The repeated sudden deaths of people who oppose Putin have also become so common that official denials of lack of complicity are highly disingenuous. But the death in captivity on February 16th of dissident Alexei Navalny could well be a bridge too far. Here was a young and healthy man, a vocal critic of Putin, who dies suddenly with no official word on the cause of death or even an autopsy, as far as I know. While the authorities initially refused to hand over the body to his mother, they finally conceded and a funeral was held. I do not know why the family did not arrange for an independent autopsy before the burial.

The recklessness of Putin can be seen by comparing the Navalny case with that of Nelson Mandela. Mandela was a prisoner of the apartheid regime on South Africa for decades. I read that the South African government was fearful that if Mandela died in captivity, that would create a major uproar locally and internationally and so they made every effort to make sure that he was not in danger even as they refused to release him. But Navalny seemed to have received no similar consideration. Whether his death will galvanize opposition to Putin’s stranglehold on power remains to be seen.

Haley exposes Trump’s weakness

Nikki Haley lost to serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) in the South Carolina primary by a margin of 60-40%. Some observers had expected that although she had vowed before the election to stay in the race whatever the outcome, that was jus bravado to keep her supporters motivated to still come out and vote for her. But after her loss, Haley gave a speech where she vowed to continue, promising to make big ad buys in Michigan that voted on February 27 (where she lost again by a margin of 68-27%) and in the many Super Tuesday states that vote on March 5th. Oddly enough, the more she loses, the more she seems to be enjoying being in the race and needling SSAT, which must be greatly infuriating him.

The media are portraying South Carolina as a big win for SSAT but I don’t see it that way. Sure winning by 20% points is pretty convincing in a normal race but not when you consider that as the former president, SSAT is like an incumbent with all the advantages that it brings. Furthermore, pretty much every member of the state Republican establishment, including its elected representatives, endorsed SSAT. Senator Tim Scott was particularly obsequious in his support for SSAT despite Haley having initially appointed him to that position. The only factor going for Haley was that she had once been the governor of that state, which would undoubtedly have helped her by giving her a lot of name recognition and familiarity with voters.
[Read more…]

Nikki Haley is not a moderate

Today is the day of the South Carolina Republican primary where Nikki Haley is expected to lose handily to serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT).

The Daily Show‘s Desi Lydic says that the media is describing Haley as a moderate when she is as extreme, and on some issues even more so, than SSAT. She even boasts of the fact that she is so conservative.

So. why is the media so quick to label her a moderate? Lydic says that nowadays to acquire the label of moderate in the Republican party is to merely acknowledge the obvious, that Joe Biden won the 2020 election. Of course, that does not make you a moderate. It only means that you are not delusional.

Trump’s vice-presidential shortlist

It has long been standard practice for presidential candidates to provide teasers about who they might pick to be their running mates. This gives them the chance to pander to various constituencies by suggesting that the final choice might represent them, while also encouraging those who think they have a shot at it to stay loyal and support them.

Serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT) has followed that pattern. He has said that there are at least six people on his list: Sen. Tim Scott, Rep. Byron Donalds, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, Gov. Kristi Noem, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Ron DeSantis. There are two Black men (Scott, Donalds), two women (Gabbard, Noem), two Asians (Ramaswamy, Gabbard), one white man (DeSantis), and one white woman (Noem). There is no Hispanic person, surprisingly, considering how large that voting bloc is, unless one of them also has that heritage that I am not aware of.
[Read more…]

The Raelian cult

In 1974, a 28-year old Frenchman Claude Vorilhon said that while on a hike by himself in a remote area, an alien spaceship landed near him and an extraterrestrial being emerged from it and conversed with him. The aliens were like us physically but much more advanced technologically and were called the Elohim. On another occasion, they took him to their home planet which he said was idyllic and that he was able to mingle with other prophets like Jesus, Moses, Buddha, and Muhammad. He said that the Elohim were wonderful people and had mastered DNA technology and used that to create all the living things on Earth. They appointed Vorilhon as their ambassador on Earth and gave him the name Rael. They told him to prepare the people on Earth for when they would return and reveal themselves to everyone.

I wrote about this weird story in my book The Great Paradox of Science (p.191-193).

Raelians argue that Darwin’s theory of evolution and descent with modification (using the mechanism of random mutation and natural selection) is wrong because life on Earth is too complex to have evolved that way and must have been designed. This same argument is also advanced by theists but for Raelians their designer is not a god. Instead it is a race of extraterrestrials. According to Raelians, on a distant planet there live a highly advanced alien community called the Elohim that long ago had reached an advanced stage of scientific and technical knowledge and developed powerful biological engineering techniques that enabled them to make living cells and to tinker and modify them. They were naturally fearful about letting loose these experimental organisms into their own environment because of the harm they could do, so they looked for a planet that they could use as a laboratory to field test their genetic engineering, to create a home for all their creations so that they could safely see what worked and what didn’t. They chose Earth to use as their vast laboratory. They took the then lifeless planet and set about building life on it. Starting with simple cells, they proceeded to create seeds, grasses and other vegetation and progressed to plankton, small fish, then larger fish, then dinosaurs, sea and land creatures, herbivores and carnivores before they tackled the big project, creating beings like themselves. Thus came homo sapiens. This, according to Raelians, is how the Earth became populated with all the life forms we see around us.

Most people, if they had heard of the Raelian mythology at all, did not take this fanciful scenario seriously but treated it as good, clean, fun.

But not everyone laughed. Vorilhon was able to get quite a bit of media attention for this fanciful tale and and while some interlocutors expressed skepticism, enough viewers were attracted by this bizarre story to join up with Vorilhon and set up a commune, calling themselves Raelians. The cult bought a large piece of land that they called Eden that had a large house with a swimming pool.
[Read more…]

Don’t blame me, blame the bot!

The increased sophistication of AI systems has enabled an entirely new way of not accepting responsibility for one’s actions. One can say that one was a victim of a malicious AI attack that mimicked you either in video or voice and proving otherwise would be hard.

But there is another kind of excuse that is evidenced in this case.

Canada’s largest airline has been ordered to pay compensation after its chatbot gave a customer inaccurate information, misleading him into buying a full-price ticket.

Air Canada came under further criticism for later attempting to distance itself from the error by claiming that the bot was “responsible for its own actions”.
…

In 2022, Jake Moffatt contacted Air Canada to determine which documents were needed to qualify for a bereavement fare, and if refunds could be granted retroactively.

According to Moffat’s screenshot of a conversation with the chatbot, the British Columbia resident was told he could apply for the refund “within 90 days of the date your ticket was issued” by completing an online form.

Moffatt then booked tickets to and from Toronto to attend the funeral of a family member. But when he applied for a refund, Air Canada said bereavement rates did not apply to completed travel and pointed to the bereavement section of the company’s website.

[Read more…]

Parents who abuse children

One never really knows what goes on inside other people’s homes and families. I have lived long enough to learn that families that seem to live serene, if not idyllic, lives can harbor some unpleasant secrets. Because of that, I try not to be too judgmental when I hear that families have troubles because one can never know what stresses people might be experiencing that cause them to behave in ways that are not seen by others.

But the thing that I find hardest to understand is when parents abuse their children. It seems like such a perverse distortion of the basic impulse among mammals to take care of their children until that they can go out alone and make their way in the adult world.

The case of Ruby Franke is striking.in the cruelty to her children on display. She and her business partner Jodi Hildebrandt gave parenting advice on a popular YouTube channel using her children as props. There are many such sites that use children this way, raising concerns that the children’s privacy is being invaded by their parents without their consent.
[Read more…]

How figleaves are replacing dogwhistles to hide ugly sentiments

Overtly racist sentiments tend to be viewed negatively. Even racists tend to shy away from them because they know that they will elicit a negative reaction in many people. who might be reachable with softer language. So for a long time, racists would use what we have come to call ‘dogwhistles’, language that is code for what they feel they cannot say openly.

Jennifer Saul says that people are still using that term to explain racist sentiments when the rhetoric has shifted to the extent that the racism is much more overt, so that it is fairly obvious. She points to the example of how with serial sex abuser Donald Trump (SSAT), racist sentiments became much less subtle.

With Donald Trump on the political scene in the US, the racism became much less subtle, with the candidate and then president calling Mexicans ‘rapists’, advocating a ban on Muslims entering the US, and using phrases like ‘shithole countries’.

Clearly these racist sentiments did not do him much harm and may well have helped him with his supporters. So why did so many of his listeners not see that his words clearly showed that he was being racist?
[Read more…]