in all my infinite wisdom

Category: Truth Page 1 of 2

Living the Golden Rule

“…thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”, Leviticus 19:18

article borrowed from https://zenhabits.net/18-practical-tips-for-living-the-golden-rule. Author Leo Babauta

One of the few rules I try to live my life by, and fail every day trying, is the Golden Rule.

I love the simplicity of the Golden Rule, its tendency to make I interact with happier … and its tendency to make me happier as well.

It’s true: the rule of treating others as you would want to be treated in their place will ultimately lead to your own happiness.

Let’s say that you apply the Golden Rule in all of your interactions with other people, and you help your neighbors, you treat your family with kindness, you go the extra mile for your co-workers, you help a stranger in need.

Now, those actions will undoubtedly be good for the people you help and are kind to … but you’ll also notice a strange thing. People will treat you better too, certainly. Beyond that, though, you will find a growing satisfaction in yourself, a belief in yourself, a knowledge that you are a good person, and a trust in yourself.

Those are not small dividends. They are huge. And for that reason — not even considering that our world will be a better place if more people live by this rule — I recommend you make the Golden Rule a focus of your actions, and try to live by it to the extent that you can.

I will admit that there are strong arguments against the Golden Rule, that there are exceptions and logic arguments that the Golden Rule, taken to extremes, falls apart. I’m not concerned about that stuff. The truth is, on a day-to-day basis, living by the Golden Rule will make you a better person, will make those around you happier, and will make the community you live in a better place.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some practical tips for living the Golden Rule in your daily life:

  1. Practice empathy. Make it a habit to try to place yourself in the shoes of another person. Any person. Loved ones, co-workers, people you meet on the street. Really try to understand, to the extent that you can, what it is like to be them, what they are going through, and why they do what they do.
  2. Practice compassion. Once you can understand another person, and feel what they’re going through, learn to want to end their suffering. And when you can, take even a small action to somehow ease their suffering in some way.
  3. How would you want to be treated? The Golden Rule doesn’t really mean that you should treat someone else exactly as you’d want them to treat you … it means that you should try to imagine how they want to be treated, and do that. So when you put yourself in their shoes, ask yourself how you think they want to be treated. Ask yourself how you would want to be treated if you were in their situation. John F. Kennedy did that during the controversial days of de-segregation in the 1960s, asking white Americans to imagine being looked down upon and treated badly based only on the color of their skin. He asked them to imagine how they would want to be treated if they were in that situation, and act accordingly towards the blacks.
  4. Be friendly. When in doubt, follow this tip. It’s usually safe to be friendly towards others. Of course, there are times when others just don’t want someone acting friendly towards them, and you should be sensitive to that. You should also be friendly within the bounds of appropriateness. But who doesn’t like to feel welcome and wanted?
  5. Be helpful. This is probably one of the weaknesses of our society. Sure, there are many people who go out of their way to be helpful, and I applaud them. But in general there is a tendency to keep to yourself, and to ignore the problems of others. Don’t be blind to the needs and troubles of others. Look to help even before you’re asked.
  6. Be courteous in traffic. Another weakness of our society. There are few times when we are as selfish as when we’re driving. We don’t want to give up the right of way, we cut people off, we honk and curse. Perhaps it’s the isolation of the automobile. We certainly don’t act that rude in person, most of the time. So try to be courteous in traffic.
  7. Listen to others. Another weakness: we all want to talk, but very few of us want to listen. And yet, we all want to be listened to. So take the time to actually listen to another person, rather than just wait your turn to talk. It’ll also go a long way to helping you understand others.
  8. Overcome prejudice. We all have our prejudices, whether it’s based on skin color, attractiveness, height, age, gender … it’s human nature, I guess. But try to see each person as an individual human being, with different backgrounds and needs, and dreams. And try to see the commonalities between you and that person, despite your differences.
  9. Stop criticism. We all have a tendency to criticize others, whether it’s people we know or people we see on television. However, ask yourself if you would like to be criticized in that person’s situation. The answer is almost always “no”. So hold back your criticism, and instead learn to interact with others in a positive way.
  10. Don’t control others. It’s also rare that people want to be controlled. Trust me. So don’t do it. This is a difficult thing, especially if we are conditioned to control people. But when you get the urge to control, put yourself in that person’s shoes. You would want freedom and autonomy and trust, wouldn’t you? Give that to others then.
  11. Be a child. The urge to control and criticize is especially strong when we are adults dealing with children. In some cases, it’s necessary, of course: you don’t want the child to hurt himself, for example. But in most cases, it’s not. Put yourself in the shoes of that child. Remember what it was like to be a child, and to be criticized and controlled. You probably didn’t like it. How would you want to be treated if you were that child?
  12. Send yourself a reminder. Email yourself a daily reminder (use Google Calendar or memotome.com, for example) to live your life by the Golden Rule, so you don’t forget.
  13. Tie a string to your finger. Or give yourself some other reminder throughout the day so that you don’t forget to follow the Golden Rule in all interactions with others. Perhaps a fake golden ring on your keychain? A tattoo? 🙂
  14. Post it on your wall or make it your home page. The Golden Rule makes a great mantra, and a great poster.
  15. Rise above retaliation. We have a tendency to strike back when we’re treated badly. This is natural. Resist that urge. The Golden Rule isn’t about retaliation. It’s about treating others well, despite how they treat you. Does that mean you should be a doormat? No … you have to assert your rights, of course, but you can do so in a way where you still treat others well and don’t strike back just because they treated you badly first. Remember Jesus’ wise (but difficult to follow) advice: turn the other cheek.
  16. Be the change. Gandhi famously told us to be the change we want to see in the world. Well, we often think of that quote as applying to grand changes, such as poverty and racism and violence. Well, sure, it does apply to those things … but it also applies on a much smaller scale: to all the small interactions between people. Do you want people to treat each other with more compassion and kindness? Then let it start with you. Even if the world doesn’t change, at least you have.
  17. Notice how it makes you feel. Notice how your actions affect others, especially when you start to treat them with kindness, compassion, respect, trust, love. But also notice the change in yourself. Do you feel better about yourself? Happier? More secure? More willing to trust others, now that you trust yourself? These changes come slowly and in small increments, but if you pay attention, you’ll see them.
  18. Say a prayer. There is a prayer on the Golden Rule, attributed to Eusebius of Caesarea, that would be worth saying once a day. It includes the following lines, among others: “May I gain no victory that harms me or my opponent.
    May I reconcile friends who are mad at each other.
    May I, insofar as I can, give all necessary
    help to my friends and to all who are in need.
    May I never fail a friend in trouble.”
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Dear Trump Supporters

Written by Lachlan

Trump’s taxes have finally been leaked. And wouldn’t you know it, he’s a total fake. He’s not a billionaire. He’s 421 million dollars in debt and is about to get foreclosed on. I pay more taxes than Donald Trump and so do you. Because he’s losing so much money, he’s paid zero in federal taxes 10 of the last 15 years. Two of the years he did pay it was less than 1,000 bucks. He’s been living off credit and hot air. It was all a scam. Just like his college, just like is charity, and just like his political career.

You were so easy for him to scam. He knew you’d be impressed with of all of his boasting. He knew you’d never spot the difference. He knew he’d win you over by taking advantage of your ignorance, your fears, your insecurity, your racism, and your ethnocentrism. You were like shooting fish in a barrel for him. He’s convinced you the real news is fake, and the fake news is real. He has you cheering for authoritarianism over democracy. He has you scared and fearful of your neighbors but not of COVID-19. He actually convinced you that he is a Christian.

As a former top aide to Vice President Pence just revealed, he thinks you are “disgusting”. He’s not just a fraud, he’s a criminal. He’s everything he convinced you that Hillary Clinton was four years ago. He’s the one who deserves to be in prison and soon he likely will be. He’s not a Republican and he’s not a Democrat. He’s not a conservative and he’s not a liberal. He’s human trash looking for suckers to take advantage of. And my goodness did he ever find a willing group of suckers. You should be ashamed of yourself. I know people who voted for him in 2016 and quickly realized they made a mistake. But not you, not you. You dug in. You doubled down.

You embraced Russian style propaganda over the American free press. You embraced conspiracy theories over science and reality. He’s lied to you over 22,000 times since taking office and you never batted an eye. He’s made a fool of this nation. I imagine Trump and his propaganda news outlets will attempt to continue the scam, at least for another six weeks.

I also imagine some of you, through some unimaginable mental gymnastics, will continue to allow yourself to get scammed. But Trump is going down on November 3 and the American justice system will come after him and his cronies. I may be nice to you on the street but do know that you absolutely let this country down. You allowed our republic to get damaged in ways never seen. In the process you exposed some incredibly ugly things about yourself I just can’t forget. Thanks for reading!

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QAnon is a prank started by a couple of 4Chan guys as a social experiment.

The target; baby boomer Trump supporters. The prank has worked and most of those taken in are deluded, gullible, weak-minded, lack common sense, and look ridiculous.

QAnon Is A Fake, Decoy Imitation Of A Healthy Revolutionary Impulse

Thursday, 20 August 2020, 4:25 pm
Opinion: Caitlin Johnstone via www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL1905/S00134/how-you-can-be-100-certain-that-qanon-is-bullshit.htm

Today the US president moved from tacit endorsement and evading questions on the toxic QAnon psyop to directly endorsing and supporting it, telling reporters “I don’t know much about the movement other than I understand they like me very much, which I appreciate,” and saying they’re just people who love their country and don’t like seeing what’s happening in places like Portland, Chicago, and New York City.

Asked about the driving theory behind QAnon that Trump is waging a covert war against a satanic pedopheliac baby-eating deep state, Trump endorsed the idea but reframed it by saying that he’s leading a fight against “a radical left philosophy”.

“If I can help save the world from problems, I’m willing to do it. I’m willing to put myself out there,” Trump said in response to the query. “And we are actually. We’re saving the world from a radical left philosophy that will destroy this country, and when this country is gone, the rest of the world would follow.”

Of course Trump did not claim to be fighting any satanic pedovores, because he is doing nothing of the sort. Nor is he fighting the deep state; despite all the virulent narrative spin he’s been a fairly conventional Republican president in terms of policy and behavior in all the usual depraved and disgusting ways, and has done nothing of note to stand against the unelected power establishment known as the deep state. He absolutely has been brutalizing protesters in places like Portland and attacking socialism in places like Venezuela and Bolivia, though, so he can indeed safely admit to that.

The disingenuous nature of Trump’s endorsement hasn’t done anything to dampen the excitement and enthusiasm of QAnoners online, though.

He basically confirmed the movement. We, together with the US military, are the saviors of mankind.

What an incredible time to be alive. pic.twitter.com/O5O6rt5TAE

— Sokrates (@Sokrates_17) August 19, 2020

I write against QAnon periodically for the exact same reason I write against the plutocratic media: it’s an obvious propaganda construct designed to manufacture support for the status quo among people who otherwise would not support it. It presents itself as an exciting movement where the little guy is finally rising up and throwing off the chains of the tyrannical forces which have been exploiting and oppressing us, yet in reality all it’s doing is telling a discontented sector of the population to relax and “trust the plan” and put all their faith in the leader of the US government.

And that’s exactly what makes QAnon so uniquely toxic. It’s not just that it gets people believing false things which confuse and alienate them, it’s that it’s a fake, decoy imitation of what a healthy revolutionary impulse would look like. It sells people on important truths that they already intuitively know on some level, like the untrustworthiness of the mass media, that the official elected US government aren’t really the ones calling the shots, and we need a great awakening. It takes those vital, truthful, healthy revolutionary impulses, then twists them around into support for the United States president and the agendas of the Republican Party.

And now literally any time I speak out against Trump doing something self-evidently horrible like orchestrating the extradition of Julian Assange or assassinating Iran’s top military official, I get QAnon adherents in the comments section telling me to “relax” and “trust the plan” because this is actually a brilliant strategic maneuver against the deep state. Any argument against any longstanding evil Fox News Republican agenda that Trump advances has a widely promulgated explanation for why it’s actually good and beneficial among the QAnon crowd.

A healthy impulse to fight the power is twisted into support for the most unconscionable aspects of the ruling power establishment. You see healthy impulses twisted and corrupted like this all the time, all across the political spectrum. The healthy impulse to fight racism and bigotry is twisted into support for the warmongering, oppressive and exploitative Democratic Party which is nothing but destructive toward the populations it pretends to protect. The healthy impulse to defend the helpless and fight tyranny is railroaded into support for acts of regime change “humanitarian” interventionism.

How You Can Be 100% Certain That QAnon Is Bullshit

“Here are three reasons you can be absolute, 100 percent certain that it’s bullshit:” #QAnon#WWG1WGA#Q#MAGAhttps://t.co/qAxdiItXFO

(@caitoz) May 26, 2019

Caitlin Johnstone

The fact that people need to be deceived by their healthy impulses in this way is a good sign; it means we’re generally good people with a generally healthy sense of which way to push. If we were intrinsically wicked and unwise their propaganda wouldn’t hook us by telling us to fight tyranny, defend children and tell the truth–it would hook us using our cowardice, our hatred, our greed, our sadism. People are basically good, and propagandists use that goodness to trick us.

But good will and good intentions aren’t enough, unfortunately. Even intelligence, by itself, isn’t enough to save us from being propagandized; some fairly intelligent people have fallen for propaganda operations like QAnon and Russiagate. If you want to have a clear perspective on what’s really going on in the world you’ve got to have an unwavering devotion to knowing what’s true that goes right down into your guts.

Most people don’t have this. Most people do not have truth as a foremost priority. They probably think they do, but they don’t. When it comes right down to it, most people are more invested in finding ways to defend their preexisting biases than in learning what’s objectively true. If they’ve got a special hatred for Democrats, the confirmation biases that will give them leave them susceptible to the QAnon psyop. If they’ve got a special hatred for Trump, they’re susceptible to believing he’s controlled by some kind of Russian government conspiracy. There are any number of other directions such biases can carry someone.

Only by a humble devotion to truth that is willing to sacrifice any worldview or ideology to the uncompromising fire of objective reality can skillfully navigate through a world that is saturated with disinformation and propaganda. Sincerely put truth first in all things while doing your best to find out what’s actually going on in our world, and eventually, you’re guaranteed to free yourself from any perceptual distortion.

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Trump has repeatedly claimed he’s “the least racist person.” His history suggests otherwise.

Donald Trump’s long history of racism, from the 1970s to 2020

Trump has repeatedly claimed he’s “the least racist person.” His history suggests otherwise.

By German Lopez 

If you ask President Donald Trump, he isn’t racist. To the contrary, he’s repeatedly said that he’s “the least racist person that you’ve ever encountered.”

Trump’s actual record, however, tells a very different story.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly made explicitly racist and otherwise bigoted remarks, from calling Mexican immigrants criminals and rapists, to proposing a ban on all Muslims entering the US, to suggesting a judge should recuse himself from a case solely because of the judge’s Mexican heritage.
The trend has continued into his presidency. From stereotyping a Black reporter to pandering to white supremacists after they held a violent rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, to making a joke about the Trail of Tears, Trump hasn’t stopped with racist acts after his 2016 election.
Most recently, Trump has called the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus the “Chinese virus” and “kung flu” — racist terms that tap into the kind of xenophobia that he latched onto during his 2016 presidential campaign; Trump’s own adviser, Kellyanne Conway, previously called “kung flu” a “highly offensive” term. And Trump insinuated that Sen. Kamala Harris, who’s Black, “doesn’t meet the requirements” to run for vice president — a repeat of the birther conspiracy theory that he perpetuated about former President Barack Obama.

This is nothing new for Trump. In fact, the very first time Trump appeared in the pages of the New York Times, back in the 1970s, was when the US Department of Justice sued him for racial discrimination. Since then, he has repeatedly appeared in newspaper pages across the world as he inspired more similar controversies.
This long history is important. It would be one thing if Trump misspoke one or two times. But when you take all of his actions and comments together, a clear pattern emerges — one that suggests that bigotry is not just political opportunism on Trump’s part but a real element of his personality, character, and career.

Trump has a long history of racist controversies

Here’s a breakdown of Trump’s history, taken largely from Dara Lind’s list for Vox and an op-ed by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times:

1973: The US Department of Justice — under the Nixon administration, out of all administrations — sued the Trump Management Corporation for violating the Fair Housing Act. Federal officials found evidence that Trump had refused to rent to Black tenants and lied to Black applicants about whether apartments were available, among other accusations. Trump said the federal government was trying to get him to rent to welfare recipients. In the aftermath, he signed an agreement in 1975 agreeing not to discriminate to renters of color without admitting to previous discrimination.

1980s: Kip Brown, a former employee at Trump’s Castle, accused another one of Trump’s businesses of discrimination. “When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor,” Brown said. “It was the eighties, I was a teenager, but I remember it: They put us all in the back.”

1989: In a controversial case that’s been characterized as a modern-day lynching, four Black teenagers and one Latino teenager — the “Central Park Five” — were accused of attacking and raping a jogger in New York City. Trump immediately took charge in the case, running an ad in local papers demanding, “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY. BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” The teens’ convictions were later vacated after they spent seven to 13 years in prison, and the city paid $41 million in a settlement to the teens. But Trump in October 2016 said he still believes they’re guilty, despite the DNA evidence to the contrary.

1991: A book by John O’Donnell, former president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, quoted Trump’s criticism of a Black accountant: “Black guys counting my money! I hate it. The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day. … I think that the guy is lazy. And it’s probably not his fault, because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.” Trump later said in a 1997 Playboy interview that “the stuff O’Donnell wrote about me is probably true.”

1992: The Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino had to pay a $200,000 fine because it transferred Black and women dealers off tables to accommodate a big-time gambler’s prejudices.

1993: In congressional testimony, Trump said that some Native American reservations operating casinos shouldn’t be allowed because “they don’t look like Indians to me.”

2000: In opposition to a casino proposed by the St. Regis Mohawk tribe, which he saw as a financial threat to his casinos in Atlantic City, Trump secretly ran a series of ads suggesting the tribe had a “record of criminal activity [that] is well documented.”

2004: In season two of The Apprentice, Trump fired Kevin Allen, a Black contestant, for being overeducated. “You’re an unbelievably talented guy in terms of education, and you haven’t done anything,” Trump said on the show. “At some point you have to say, ‘That’s enough.’”

2005: Trump publicly pitched what was essentially The Apprentice: White People vs. Black People. He said he “wasn’t particularly happy” with the most recent season of his show, so he was considering “an idea that is fairly controversial — creating a team of successful African Americans versus a team of successful whites. Whether people like that idea or not, it is somewhat reflective of our very vicious world.”

2010: In 2010, there was a huge national controversy over the “Ground Zero Mosque” — a proposal to build a Muslim community center in Lower Manhattan, near the site of the 9/11 attacks. Trump opposed the project, calling it “insensitive,” and offered to buy out one of the investors in the project. On The Late Show With David Letterman, Trump argued, referring to Muslims, “Well, somebody’s blowing us up. Somebody’s blowing up buildings, and somebody’s doing lots of bad stuff.”

2011: Trump played a big role in pushing false rumors that Obama — the country’s first Black president — was not born in the US. He claimed to send investigators to Hawaii to look into Obama’s birth certificate. Obama later released his birth certificate, calling Trump a “carnival barker.” The research has found a strong correlation between birtherism, as the conspiracy theory is called, and racism. But Trump has reportedly continued pushing this conspiracy theory in private.

2011: While Trump suggested that Obama wasn’t born in the US, he also argued that maybe Obama wasn’t a good enough student to have gotten into Columbia or Harvard Law School, and demanded Obama release his university transcripts. Trump claimed, “I heard he was a terrible student. Terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia and then to Harvard?”

For many people, none of these incidents, individually, may be damning: One of these alone might suggest that Trump is simply a bad speaker and perhaps racially insensitive (“politically incorrect,” as he would put it), but not overtly racist.

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Donald Trump is an almost perfect living, breathing example of the Dunning-Kruger effect

When stupid people think they’re smart, they do maximum damage. That’s where we are with Trump and the pandemic

article by CHAUNCEY DEVEGA for Salon Magazine

The Dunning-Kruger effect is a term that describes a psychological phenomenon in which stupid people do not know that they are in fact stupid.

Writing at Pacific Standard, psychologist David Dunning — one of the social psychologists who first documented this type of cognitive bias — describes it in more detail:

In many areas of life, incompetent people do not recognize  —  scratch that, cannot recognize  —  just how incompetent they are, a phenomenon that has come to be known as the Dunning-Kruger effect. Logic itself almost demands this lack of self-insight: For poor performers to recognize their ineptitude would require them to possess the very expertise they lack. To know how skilled or unskilled you are at using the rules of grammar, for instance, you must have a good working knowledge of those rules, an impossibility among the incompetent. Poor performers  —  and we are all poor performers at some things  —  fail to see the flaws in their thinking or the answers they lack. What’s curious is that, in many cases, incompetence does not leave people disoriented, perplexed, or cautious. Instead, the incompetent are often blessed with an inappropriate confidence, buoyed by something that feels to them like knowledge.

The Dunning-Kruger effect manifests in the form of the drunk at the bar who weighs in on every conversation with unwanted advice, the online troll who monopolizes comment sections, or the person who reads one book (or perhaps the introduction) and then acts like an authority on the subject.

Visionary science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov signaled to the Dunning-Kruger effect with his famous observation in 1980: “There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”  

Donald Trump is the Dunning-Kruger president of the United States.

But he is also something much worse than that. Donald Trump is an almost perfect living, breathing example of the Dunning-Kruger effect: a president in a time of plague whose ignorance and stupidity are amplified through apparent and obvious mental illness as well as cruelty, compulsive lying, grand immorality, corruption and evil.

Americans have already died because of Trump’s false claims about the novel coronavirus pandemic. Many more will die in the weeks and months ahead.

At Tuesday’s coronavirus White House “briefing” (another version of Trump’s ego-stroking carnival political rallies) he made another “expert” suggestion about how to defeat the novel coronavirus pandemic: Wear scarves instead of masks for protection.

In fact, scarves offer no protection against the coronavirus.

Several weeks ago, Donald Trump visited the headquarters of the Centers for Disease Control where he made this astonishing claim: 

You know, my uncle was a great person. He was at MIT. He taught at MIT for, I think, like a record number of years. He was a great super genius. Dr. John Trump. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this? ‘ Maybe I have a natural ability. Maybe I should have done that instead of running for president.

Apparently, Trump believes he knows more than some of the best trained and experienced doctors and medical researchers in the world.

Trump also believes himself to be an expert on the types of medical equipment needed to fight the novel coronavirus. He has suggested that governors in New York, New Jersey, Michigan and elsewhere are intentionally exaggerating the number of ventilators needed in hospitals to care for victims of the pandemic.

On multiple occasions, Donald Trump has claimed that there is no ventilator shortage in New York. According to him, ventilators and other medical equipment being stolen by doctors, nurses and other medical staff who are selling them, bringing them home for personal use or perhaps even hoarding the equipment in private.

Donald Trump claims to have magical powers. He has repeatedly said that the novel coronavirus will disappear at some future date which only he can predict.

Trump has said he was the first person to label the novel coronavirus a “pandemic.” And because he believes himself to be an expert on all things, Trump can pivot without pause, apprehension or doubt from claiming that the novel coronavirus was a “hoax” to embracing the view that it is a dire threat that could kill hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans.

Trump is also an epidemiologist or virologist, at least in his mind. Last week he said, “You can call it a germ, you can call it a flu, you can call it a virus, you know you can call it many different names. I’m not sure anybody even knows what it is.”

Medical professionals know what the novel coronavirus is and have been warning the Trump administration about the threat for months.

Most likely for partisan reasons and also because of racism (Trump’s immense disdain for Barack Obama), Trump’s administration also ignored the step-by-step suggestions for fighting a pandemic outlined by the National Security Council in 2016.

Donald Trump has evidently made decisions about which Americans should live and which should die based on their perceived partisan loyalty.

The Dunning-Kruger president is an expert in so many things that it is difficult to keep track of them all. Writing at MSNBC, Steven Benen made a valiant effort at cataloguing Trump’s claims to preternatural expertise:

About a year ago, for example, Trump was reflecting on technology measures that have been deployed along the U.S./Mexico border, and he assured the public, “I’m a professional at technology.”

What kind of technology? He didn’t say, but we can probably assume he meant every possible kind.

As we discussed at the time, Trump has also claimed to be the world’s foremost authority on everything from terrorism to campaign finance, the judicial system to infrastructure, trade to renewable energy. NowThis prepared a video montage on the subject a while back, and it was amazing to see the many subjects on which the president considers himself a world-class expert.

A belief in their inherent intelligence and great skill in all things is a common trait among authoritarians and other demagogues such as Donald Trump. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to national legend, could shoot guns better than a trained sniper at age three. At age eight, he was a daredevil truck driver. Adolf Hitler and his acolytes also made claims to greatness and superhuman abilities.

Trump’s embrace of stupidity and ignorance reflects much deeper problems in the United States generally, and the Republican Party and the conservative movement in particular. 

Today’s Republican Party and conservative movement possess a deep disdain and hostility towards true experts and qualified, proven professionals. Such people are slurred as being “elitists” or not “real Americans,” and are suspected of being liberal Democrats who belong to a “deep state” cabal working against Donald Trump and his army of real Americans, with the goal of enslaving them to “political correctness.”

Many of Trump’s strongest supporters are Christian nationalists who aim to overturn the Constitution and destroy secular, science-based, empirical reality and society. Such people believe in magic, and are the most stalwart, influential and loyal members of Trump’s political death cult.

Historian and political scientist Richard Hofstadter famously warned that Republicans and other conservatives had succumbed to the allure and power of anti-intellectualism. Hofstadter’s “Anti-Intellectualism in American Life” was written in 1963.

Writing in 1947, Albert Camus reflected on Nazism and authoritarianism through the metaphor of misery and suffering caused by a plague:

The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened. People are more often good than bad, though in fact that is not the question. But they are more or less ignorant and this is what one calls vice or virtue, the most appalling vice being the ignorance that thinks it knows everything and which consequently authorizes itself to kill. The murderer’s soul is blind, and there is no true goodness or fine love without the greatest possible degree of clear-sightedness.

Some 70 years later, Camus’ warnings resonate in the age of Donald Trump.

People such as Donald Trump are all too common among humanity. Unfortunately, some of them rise to great prominence during the most dangerous and troubled times — times when their ignorance and hubris has the power to kill hundreds, thousands or even millions of people. Such a time is now.

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Trump Court Docs

The following information was taken/borrowed directly from http://thememoryhole2.org/blog/doe-v-trump 
Russ at AltGov2.org [FOIA / anti-secrecy]
Credit to Russ Kick.
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Update: On Nov 4, 2016, “Jane Doe” told her lawyers to withdraw her lawsuit. (Around this time, the Daily Mail of London became the only media outlet to get photos and a face-to-face interview with her.) There is currently no active lawsuit.

A woman whose identity is being protected has filed a civil lawsuit against Donald Trump and billionaire Jeffrey Epstein (a convicted sex offender) accusing them of raping her in 1994, when she was thirteen years old. The mainstream media have been almost unanimously silent about this.

The lawsuit has gone through three iterations:
• the original suit, Katie Johnson v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein, filed in California in April 2016
Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein, filed in New York in June 2016
• the second Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein, filed in New York at the end of September 2016

By posting these documents (retrieved through Pacer, a site run by the federal court system), we’re not commenting on the merits of the suit. The fact is that the process is in motion: the lawsuit has been filed, a prominent lawyer is representing Jane Doe, summonses have been issued, and US District Judge Ronnie Abrams has scheduled a pretrial conference of counsel for all parties.

Trump’s attorneys have vehemently denied the accusations of the previous lawsuits, and regarding the current one, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s campaign said the claims are “categorically false, frivolous, and sanctionable.”

Documents in the second Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein

1Complaint and related documents Filed & Entered: 9/30/2016

2Statement of RelatednessFiled & Entered: 9/30/2016

3Civil Cover SheetFiled & Entered: 10/03/2016

4Complaint [corrected] Filed & Entered: 10/03/2016

4-1 – Attachment: Declaration in Support of Plaintiff’s Request for a Protective Order [Jane Doe] 

4-2 – Attachment: Declaration in Support of Plaintiff’s Request for Protective Order [Tiffany Doe] 

4-3 – Attachment: Declaration in Support of Plaintiff’s Request for Protective Order [Joan Doe] 

5Order for Initial Pretrial ConferenceFiled 10/04/2016, Entered 10/05/2016

6Request for Issuance of Summons [Trump] Filed & Entered: 10/07/2016

7Request for Issuance of Summons [Epstein] Filed & Entered: 10/07/2016

8Motion for Admission Pro Hac ViceFiled & Entered: 10/10/2016

9Affidavit in Support of Motion (Certificate of Good Standing)Filed & Entered: 10/10/2016

10Summons Issued [Trump] Filed & Entered: 10/12/2016

11Summons Issued [Epstein] Filed & Entered: 10/12/2016

12 – Motion to Appear Pro Hac Vice [corrected] Filed & Entered:  10/18/2016; Terminated:10/19/2016

12-1 -Attachment: Exhibit [Supreme Court of Florida Certificate of Good Standing]

12-2 – Attachment: Text of Proposed Order

13Full docket text for document 13: ORDER granting [12] Motion for James Cheney Mason to Appear Pro Hac Vice (HEREBY ORDERED by Judge Ronnie Abrams)(Text Only Order) (Abrams, Ronnie)” Filed & Entered:  10/19/2016

14 – Motion and Order to Appear Pro Hac Vice Filed & Entered:  11/01/2016; Terminated:11/01/2016

14-1 – Certification of Evan Goldman

15 – Notice of Voluntary DismissalFiled & Entered: 11/04/2016


Documents in the first Jane Doe v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein

1ComplaintFiled & Entered 06/20/2016

1-1 – Attachment: Declaration in Support of Plaintiff’s Request for Protective Order [Jane Doe] Filed & Entered 06/20/2016

1-2 – Attachment: Declaration in Support of Plaintiff’s Request for Protective Order [Tiffany Doe] Filed & Entered 06/20/2016

2Civil Cover SheetFiled & Entered 06/20/2016

3 Request for Issuance of Summons [Trump] Filed & Entered 06/20/2016

4 –  Request for Issuance of Summons [Epstein] Filed & Entered 06/20/2016

5Summons Issued [Trump] Filed & Entered 06/21/2016

6Summons Issued [Epstein] Filed & Entered 06/21/2016

7Order for Initial Pretrial Conference Filed & Entered 06/30/2016

8Order for Initial Pretrial Conference Filed & Entered 08/25/2016

9Notice of Voluntary DismissalFiled & Entered 09/16/2016

Documents in Katie Johnson v. Donald J. Trump and Jeffrey E. Epstein

1Complaint – (Discovery) Filed: 04/26/2016 & Entered: 04/27/2016

2Certificate and Notice of Interested PartiesFiled: 04/26/2016 & Entered: 04/27/2016

3Request to Proceed In Forma Pauperis with Declaration in Support (CV-60)Filed: 04/26/2016 & Entered: 04/27/2016 & Terminated: 05/02/2016

4Notice of Assignment to United States Judges (CV-18)Filed: 04/26/2016 & Entered: 04/27/2016

5Notice to Parties of Court-Directed ADR Program (ADR-8)Filed: 04/26/2016 & Entered: 04/27/2016

6Order on Request to Proceed In Forma Pauperis with Declaration in Support (CV-60)Filed & Entered: 05/02/2016

7Mail ReturnedFiled: 05/09/2016 & Entered: 05/10/2016

8Mail ReturnedFiled: 05/09/2016 & Entered: 05/13/2016

Related articles:

Trump’s 13-year-old ‘rape victim’ dramatically DROPS her case

Lawsuit Charges Donald Trump with Raping a 13-Year-Old Girl [Thorough Snopes overview of the situation]

The Donald Trump underage rape accusation explained

Why The New Child Rape Case Filed Against Donald Trump Should Not Be Ignored [By lawyer and NBC legal analyst Lisa Bloom]

Video Puts Spotlight on Donald Trump’s History of Lewd Comments [Under a misleading headline, the Wall Street Journal relates all three public accusations of sexual assault toward Trump, becoming the first member of the corporate media to report on the Jane Doe lawsuit.]

Trump Rape Accusers Turn On Each Other

The Billionaire Pedophile Who Could Bring Down Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton

Related: Bill Clinton is also buddies with Epstein and often flew around the world with him on his private jet, nicknamed “Lolita Express”:

Flight Logs Put Clinton, Dershowitz on Pedophile Billionaire’s Sex Jet

Flight logs show Bill Clinton flew on sex offender’s jet much more than previously known

Billionaire sex offender Epstein once claimed he co-founded Clinton Foundation

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Horse Racing Cruelty

source PETA

They weigh more than 1,000 pounds, are supported by ankles the size of a human’s, and are whipped and forced to run around tracks that are often made of hard-packed dirt at speeds of more than 30 miles per hour while carrying people on their backs. Racehorses are the victims of a multibillion-dollar industry that is rife with drug abuse, injuries, and race fixing, and many horses’ careers end at the slaughterhouse.

Racing to the Grave

Horses begin training or are already racing when their skeletal systems are still growing and are unprepared to handle the pressures of competition racing on a hard track at high speeds. One study on injuries at racetracks concluded that one horse in every 22 races suffered an injury that prevented him or her from finishing a race, while another estimated that 3 thoroughbreds die every day in North America because of catastrophic injuries during races.

Strained tendons or hairline fractures can be tough for veterinarians to diagnose, and the damage may go from minor to irreversible at the next race or workout. Horses do not handle surgery well, and many are euthanized or sold at auction to save the owners further veterinary fees and other expenses for horses who can’t race again.

When popular racehorse Barbaro suffered a shattered ankle at the beginning of the 2006 Preakness, his owners spared no expense for his medical needs, but as The New York Times reported, “[M]any in the business have noted that had Barbaro not been the winner of the Kentucky Derby, he might have been destroyed after being injured.”

Drugs and Deception

Trainers and veterinarians keep injured horses racing when they should be recovering by giving them a variety of legal drugs to mask pain and control inflammation. This leads to breakdowns because horses are able to run when, without the drugs, the pain would otherwise prevent them from trying.

Illegal drugs are also widely used. “There are trainers pumping horses full of illegal drugs every day,” says a former Churchill Downs public relations director. “With so much money on the line, people will do anything to make their horses run faster.” One trainer was suspended for using a drug similar to Ecstasy in five horses, and another has been kicked off racetracks for using clenbuterol and, in one case, for having the leg of a euthanized horse cut off “for research.” A New York veterinarian and a trainer faced felony charges when the body of a missing racehorse turned up at a farm and authorities determined that her death had been caused by the injection of a “performance-enhancing drug.”

Even the ‘Winners’ Lose

When they stop winning races or become injured, few racehorses are retired to pastures, because owners don’t want to pay for a horse who doesn’t bring in any money. Many end up in slaughterhouses in Canada, Mexico, or Japan, where they are turned into dog food and glue. Their flesh is also exported to countries such as France and Japan, where it is considered a delicacy.

Most horses who are sent to those facilities endure days of transport in cramped trailers where there is no access to water or food and injuries are common. Horses are subject to the same slaughter method as cows, but since horses are generally not accustomed to being herded, once together, they tend to thrash about in order to avoid being shot by the captive-bolt gun, which is supposed to render them unconscious before their throats are cut.

What You Can Do

Help end the cruelty:

  • As long as the suffering continues, refuse to patronize existing tracks and lobby against the construction of new tracks.
  • Support PETA’s efforts to ensure that racing regulations are reformed and enforced. While horse racing can never be entirely safe for the animals, a zero-tolerance drug policy, turf (grass) tracks only, a ban on whipping, competitive racing only after their third birthdays, and other reforms would make a world of difference to the horses.
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Nature Doesn’t Need People

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Is Glyphosate Killing Your Dog?

source: GMOs revealed

One suspect is the widespread use of Roundup. Studies show that glyphosate (the active ingredient in Roundup) is found in the bodies of 93% of all humans tested. It’s everywhere…in our food, in the air, in the water.

The amount of glyphosate found in a dog’s body is a full 5,000 percent more than that found in humans. Why are dogs exposed to so much more than humans?

Even if you don’t apply Roundup to your yard, the chances are good that your dog is exposed to it every time you take him for a walk. Public parks, schools, and fields are often treated liberally with herbicides, and dogs pick it up on their paws as they run through it.

The chemicals from the grass leach into your pet’s body, and are licked off as the dog cleans itself. Not only that, but many brands of dog food contain soy, corn, wheat, and other ingredients that have been grown with Roundup.

The Lance family employed a yard-care company that applied Roundup to their grass once a month. The yard was weed-free and looked terrific, but they have been left not only with the pain of losing their canine companions but also with the painful question… did glyphosate kill their dogs?

They have discontinued the use of Roundup on their property and, when they are ready for a new dog, they plan to do things differently. But it won’t bring back what they’ve lost, and they are understandably upset that they didn’t know the risks that glyphosate posed to their pets.

How can you protect your dog?

First of all, avoid treating your own grass with chemicals. Keeping your yard safe by using natural and organic weed and pest control not only protects your animals but your family as well!

Second, consider protecting your dog’s paws with breathable, anti-slip dog shoes when you’re walking in areas that use chemicals. Remove the shoes immediately when you get home to prevent your dog from licking them. Or, wash her paws carefully when you come home from a walk.

Finally, buy grain-free, organic dog food. It may cost more, but between a dog’s increased exposure to glyphosate in public places and the poor quality of many brands of dog food, it’s worth it to protect your fur baby’s health.

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SAY NO TO Spay and Neuter AND YES TO Tubal Ligation and Vasectomies

Push for Tubal Ligation and Vasectomies versus Spay and Neuter Here is why:

Find out more about this issue

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