Tracker

The absolute worst mass-murdered was Genghis Khan. He and his hordes killed some 40 million people with good old fashioned spears, swords and arrows. It is. estimated that his victims were about 11% of the population of Asia and actually is reflected in the carbon records of that era. Only time and distance stopped his Mongols from rolling right over Europe as well. He was also a prolific breeder- I seem to recall that almost 10% of the population of east Asia are related to him. Makes me wonder when he had time to do all that pillaging.

There are several things going on here that prevent Republicans from believing that Biden legitimately won the election: first, is the "filter bubble" effect — the news conservatives trust tells them that Biden did not win legitimately and the news that they don't trust tells them that he did. It's easy to ignore the news that they distrust, they may never even hear the correct facts. Second, the "illusory truth" effect, which says that if something is repeated enough that people will believe it. Conservatives have heard since 2016 that Democrats cheat at elections, that they can't be trusted and Trump could only lose if they cheat. Third, the "self-sealing" nature of conspiracy in general. Once a conspiracy takes hold it can never be disproven. Fourth, motivated reasoning. Conservatives want to believe that they won, so that means that Biden had to cheat. Fifth, the issue falls into what persuasion theorists call the "latitude of rejection." When people have their minds made up about something, then they aren't open to persuasion — especially if they have their minds made up against something.

This is a shock- that a PC would have a conscience and a backbone.

Emails Reveal Cops Fanned Flames as FBI Debunked Antifa Hoax On Sept. 11, 2020, the same day the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a statement dismissing rumors that leftist activists were starting wildfires in Oregon, a sheriff in Washington state sent a very different message to other members of law enforcement. “One of the methods Antifa is using to start fires, is to take a mason jar with tinder placed inside the jar, put it in brush with the lid open, so the hot sun light will create a slow start which allows them to be out of the area before the smoke appears [sic],” Klickitat County Sheriff Bob Songer wrote in an email to officials throughout the state. The email, obtained by the government transparency group Property Of The People and reviewed by The Daily Beast, came as wildfires and misinformation swept the Pacific Northwest. Rumors like these, which falsely accused anti-fascists or Black Lives Matter activists of starting the wildfires after a summer of rage over racist police violence, were not without consequence. On at least one occasion, a family was attacked during a camping trip by Washingtonians who wrongly believed their converted camper-bus to be an “antifa” transport vehicle. Songer’s email blasted the bus-owner as “antifa/BLM,” months after their harrowing story made national news. Emails Reveal Cops Fanned Flames as FBI Debunked Antifa Hoax | Usa today news (usa-today-news.com)

Trump's DOJ attempted to seize records of WaPo journalist over report Russian leaks: report The Trump-led U.S. Department of Justice attempted to seize communication records for three Washington Post by way of legal action as a response to their reports on Russian interference, unsealed court documents reveal. According to Axios, the latest report is a critical piece of information because the court order was filed just one day before U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr announced his departure. The publication notes that the court order sought to obtain details about classified information included in a number of Washington Post articles written by Adam Entous, Greg Miller and Ellen Nakashima. The Trump administration wanted to find key details about the leaked information in the three articles, per the publication. Those items are as follows: "One article from May 2017 on conversations President Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner had with Sergey Kislyak, then Russia's ambassador to the U.S. A June 2017 report on how the Obama administration dealt with U.S. election interference by Russia's government. A July 2017 piece on discussions between Kislyak and then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, who went on to become the Trump administration's first attorney general." Trump's DOJ attempted to seize records of WaPo journalist over report Russian leaks: report - Alternet.org

Apparently the aim was to deny girls access to the papilloma-preventing vaccination that would immunize them from this sexually-transmitted cancer. As we all know, once young people are protected against sexually-transmitted infections, they go completely wild and have orgies all over the place. This is such a noble cause that if a "few" die of COVID, it is an acceptable collateral damage.

Tennessee Health Officials Halt All Vaccine Outreach for Kids After Pressure From GOP ‘ Though coronavirus cases are soaring and the state lags the country in vaccinations, Republicans are pushing the state's health department to pull back. Jack Guez/Getty The Tennessee Health Department is stopping all vaccine-related outreach to minors amid pressure from Republicans in the state and rising coronavirus cases. The halted education efforts concern not only the COVID-19 vaccine, which the state has struggled to roll out, but all preventatives aimed at people under 18 for diseases like the flu or HPV. People over the age of 12 are eligible for coronavirus vaccines. If the agency does distribute information about vaccines, Health Commissioner Dr. Lisa Piercey informed staff to remove the department’s logo from any materials, the Tennessean reports. Tennessee Health Officials Halt All Vaccine Outreach for Kids After Pressure From GOP (thedailybeast.com)

Federal Judge Dismisses Roy Moore Lawsuit Against Sacha Baron Cohen A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by Roy Moore against comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, who ridiculed the former Alabama Chief Justice on his 2018 Showtime series “Who Is America?” U.S. District Judge John Cronan of the Southern District of New York granted summary judgment in favor of the comedian and dismissed Moore’s suit with prejudice so it cannot be refiled, according to AL.com. Showtime Networks Inc. and its parent company CBS Corporation were also granted summary judgment. The failed Alabama Senate candidate filed the suit in September 2018, accusing the comedian of defaming him by calling him a pedophile and a sex offender. Moore also alleged fraud in the court filing on the grounds that Baron Cohen tricked him and his wife into flying to Washington to accept a nonexistent award for his support of Israel. Moore, who lost a 2017 special election to Democrat Doug Jones after being accused of sexually assaulting multiple teenage girls, said Baron Cohen mocked him during the TV segment using a “device supposedly invented by the Israeli Army to detect pedophiles.” Federal Judge Dismisses Roy Moore Lawsuit Against Sacha Baron Cohen | HuffPost

The paucity of reports coming out of training camp is disappointing and annoying. Even the Free Press articles are really thin on details.

I have mixed feelings about this, but if increased revenue will allow teams to field better players and become more financially viable so that we don't stagger from one crisis of ownership to another, I think I can live with it. It might even bring a higher profile to the league and get more butts in seats. Everything costs something.

GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn tweets swastika to attack Black Lives Matter, deletes after criticism Freshman Rep. Madison Cawthorn, R-N.C., tweeted a picture of neo-Nazis last week, only to delete it days later following criticism on Twitter. The controversy, first reported by The Asheville Citizen-Times, centers on a tweet Cawthorn posted on July 9 in an attack on Black Lives Matter members who claimed that flying the American flag is an expression of racism. "The American flag symbolizes unity, patriotism, independence, pride, and love for our country. BLM continues to expose their radical hatred of this country," Cawthorn wrote in response. Contained within his tweet, however, was a link to a New York Post article whose thumbnail featured neo-Nazis from the National Socialist Movement – a far-right white supremacist organization – marching on the ground of the Capitol building in 2008. GOP Rep. Madison Cawthorn tweets swastika to attack Black Lives Matter, deletes after criticism | Salon.com (Republicans have given up all pretense of not being Nazis)

Watch: MSNBC produces stunning video exposing Trump's 'bonkers' lies about the Capitol riot Fox News' Maria Bartiromo has been drawing a great deal of criticism for her Sunday, July 11 interview with former President Donald Trump, who described the January 6 insurrection as a "lovefest" comprised of "peaceful people." Bartiromo is being slammed as reckless and irresponsible for encouraging Trump to promote such nonsense on her show. But one cable news pundit who clearly isn't promoting that description of the January 6 attack is MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan, who aired graphic video showing that the Capitol insurrection was hardly a "lovefest." An incredulous Hasan, on his Sunday-night show, tore Trump's comments to pieces, telling viewers, "Lovefest? I'm sorry, that's bonkers!" Hasan then aired graphic January 6 images showing just how violent the assault on the U.S. Capitol Building was, while Trump is heard saying — on Bartiromo's show — "There was such love at that rally. And they were peaceful people. These were great people. The crowd was unbelievable, and I mentioned the word 'love.' The love in the air — I've never seen anything like it." While images of the Capitol rioters attacking police officers aired on Hasan's show, Trump could be heard telling Bartiromo, "And frankly, the doors were open, but there was also a lovefest between the police — the Capitol Police — and the people that walked down to the Capitol. People who walked with no guns, with no nothing. And they're tremendous — in many cases, tremendous people." The "tremendous people" Trump referred to on Bartiromo's show could be heard chanting, "Hang Mike Pence, hang Mike Pence." On January 6, some of the insurrectionists set up a hangman's gallows outside the U.S. Capitol Building, showing their intention to lynch the former vice president if they got ahold of him." Watch: MSNBC produces stunning video exposing Trump's 'bonkers' lies about the Capitol riot - Alternet.org

There are people out there who are very clever in hiding their foibles.

Looks like a real find- fast, quick, good balance and hands. I especially like his lack of showboating after a TD. Hope there are no "personal conduct issues".

Two days in a row with declining numbers! No mention of any deaths, either.

According to the Freep, our punting is in good hands with Legghio- he was seen hanging punts with very good distance and placement.

Furious Trump demanded leaker who revealed he fled to his bunker during protests be executed: report According to Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender's bombshell book, "Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost, a furious Donald Trump demanded that officials in his government find out who leaked the story that he fled to his bunker during the George Floyd protests in D.C. and wanted them tried for treason and then executed. As the report notes, Trump, his wife Melania and son Barron were escorted to the bunker -- news of which quickly made it to the press, which caused the president to blow up. Bender reports the former president, "held a tense meeting with top military, law enforcement and West Wing advisers, in which he aired grievances over the leak." According to his book, "Trump boiled over about the bunker story as soon as they arrived and shouted at them to smoke out whoever had leaked it. It was the most upset some aides had ever seen the president," with Bender reporting Trump yelled, "Whoever did that, they should be charged with treason! They should be executed!" Furious Trump demanded leaker who revealed he fled to his bunker during protests be executed: report - Alternet.org

Could genocide really happen here? Leading scholar says America is on "high alert" Alexander Laban Hinton on his new book, Trump's snake metaphor and the rising danger of white-power movements Even the title of Alexander Laban Hinton's new book provides a chilling summary of the current danger facing this nation: "It Can Happen Here: White Power and the Rising Threat of Genocide in the U.S." Hinton is one of the world's leading authorities on genocide and atrocity crimes. He is the author of 12 books on the subject and directs the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at Rutgers University. He testified as an expert witness, at the trial of Nuon Chea, who was prime minister of Cambodia during the genocidal tyranny of the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s. With sober analysis and in assiduous detail, Hinton explores the ways the United States is "simmering at a low boil," and evinces every risk indicator for widespread mass atrocity crimes. White supremacist organizations and armed militias are mobilized for political action, the Republican Party has declared war on multiracial democracy and right-wing voters have become increasingly radical and hostile, falling into the personality cult of Donald Trump and the apocalyptic cult of QAnon. As historian Timothy Snyder, philosopher Jason Stanley and former Republican insider Mike Lofgren have also warned, the U.S. is teetering at the edge of fascism. With "It Can Happen Here," Hinton brings his knowledge and experience to bear on a dynamic history of the Trump administration — taking his readers inside his classroom, to white power rallies and to his own testimony at the Chea trial. One of the book's strengths is its accessibility. Written with literary style rather than in dry academic prose, it makes for fascinating, albeit deeply disturbing, reading. Could genocide really happen here? Leading scholar says America is on "high alert" | Salon.com (The entire article is well worth the read)

See what happens when you live too close to the Saskatchewan border?

I'm afraid that when you spout quotations from Donald Trump and Fox News, you are leaving yourself wide open to all manner of sarcasm, not to mention the questioning of your intelligence.

Bombers head coach Mike O’Shea offered this brief update after practice: “He had an appointment he had to get to.”

Historian Annette Gordon-Reed: Jan. 6 was a "turning point" in American history Pulitzer-winning Harvard historian on the battle for the past and the fragile state of American democracy: In the past six months, since the events of Jan. 6, I have been meditating a great deal on William Faulkner's wisdom and warning: "The past is never dead. It's not even past." American history is a puzzle, full of contradictions and complexity. But some people, instead of studying this history so as to make better decisions in the present and future, choose to take a hammer to the puzzle. They smash it and then hammer the pieces back together so as to fit their self-serving lies and distortions. Consider the moral panic created by the white right against "critical race theory." Of course, as deployed by right-wing propagandists, "critical race theory" possesses little if any resemblance to the epistemological framework of the same name. For the white right it's a term that means everything and nothing, a convenient vessel into which they can pour white rage, white fear, white victimology and white supremacy in an ongoing attack on multiracial American democracy. Writing at the Atlantic, historian Ibram X. Kendi summarizes this: The United States is not in the midst of a "culture war" over race and racism. The animating force of our current conflict is not our differing values, beliefs, moral codes, or practices. The American people aren't divided. The American people are being divided. Republican operatives have buried the actual definition of critical race theory: "a way of looking at law's role platforming, facilitating, producing, and even insulating racial inequality in our country," as the law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, who helped coin the term, recently defined it. Instead, the attacks on critical race theory are based on made-up definitions and descriptors. … Right-wing hysteria about "critical race theory" is not happening in a vacuum. It is part of a much larger project by the Jim Crow Republicans, neofascists and the broader white right to legitimize a new type of American apartheid in which nonwhites — especially Black people — do not have equal rights with white "conservatives" and others loyal to their cause. This crisis of democracy has forced questions of history and public memory to the forefront of America's struggle against neofascism and authoritarianism. In an essay for the New York Times, historian Timothy Snyder warns of the threat to democracy posed by Republican attempts to whitewash American history — quite literally — through Orwellian laws that ban the teaching of "critical race theory": "This spring, memory laws arrived in America. Republican state legislators proposed dozens of bills designed to guide and control American understanding of the past. As of this writing, five states (Idaho, Iowa, Tennessee, Texas and Oklahoma) have passed laws that direct and restrict discussions of history in classrooms. The Department of Education of a sixth (Florida) has passed guidelines with the same effect. Another 12 state legislatures are still considering memory laws. … Democracy requires individual responsibility, which is impossible without critical history. It thrives in a spirit of self-awareness and self-correction. Authoritarianism, on the other hand, is infantilizing: We should not have to feel any negative emotions; difficult subjects should be kept from us. Our memory laws amount to therapy, a talking cure. In the laws' portrayal of the world, the words of white people have the magic power to dissolve the historical consequences of slavery, lynchings and voter suppression. Racism is over when white people say so. We start by saying we are not racists. Yes, that felt nice. And now we should make sure that no one says anything that might upset us. The fight against racism becomes the search for a language that makes white people feel good. The laws themselves model the desired rhetoric. We are just trying to be fair. We behave neutrally. We are innocent."