In recent years, the Christian right has become an increasingly powerful force in American politics.
The belief that God has called on conservative Christians to rule over society has extended into all levels of government,
from school boards to the White House.
Many pundits call this movement #Christian #nationalism.
But while it may seem like a phenomenon born out of our current political moment,
it represents the culmination of various movements with roots that trace back decades.
The more extreme elements didn’t just materialize a few years ago. They’ve been there from the start.
https://projects.propublica.org/christian-nationalism-origins/
In 2022, Republicans managed to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives... just barely.
In 2024, Democrats are in a strong position to flip the House blue again;
we only need to net a half dozen seats to do it!
On this page you can donate to up to ~50 Democratic candidates running in districts rated as competitive by Cook Political Report or as a Red to Blue seat by the DCCC
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/houseblue24
How did the far right win in Austria? To understand, look to its global networks
"We will kick upwards and clamp down on those who don’t mean well for us”, said #Herbert #Kickl in May 2023.
Under Kickl’s leadership, the Austrian Freedom party ( #FPÖ ) has scored its biggest election victory since it was founded in 1956 by #Anton #Reinthaller, an Austrian Nazi who had served as a lieutenant general in the SS.
Not only is the FPÖ now more popular than ever, it is also at the height of its radicalism.
The FPÖ’s victory in Sunday’s national elections is being celebrated by far-right movements and influencers across Europe.
No wonder: it demonstrates how successful they have been at normalising and internationalising their extreme ideologies, conspiracy myths and policy proposals.
Many of the FPÖ’s ideas have been inspired by #Generation #Identity, a pan-European white nativist movement that has its roots in France and is particularly strong in Austria.
In a post-election livestream to his followers, the movement’s Austrian leader, #Martin #Sellner, celebrated the FPÖ win as “a dream result” .
He has been one of the most influential proponents of the term “#remigration” (the policy of mass deportation of people with a migration background),
which had its first spike on social media following a 2014 extreme-right meet-up in France.
Ten years later, the FPÖ is far from the only far-right political party that has embraced the concept.
Germany’s #AfD party used “remigration” as part of its campaigns for regional elections in Saxony and Thuringia on 1 September,
-- and #Donald #Trump recently called for “remigration” in a post about “illegal migrants” on X.
Even though Sellner communicated with and received a donation from the @Christchurch #shooter who later killed 51 people in two consecutive mosque attacks in New Zealand in 2019,
Kickl has since described the identitarian movement as “a project worthy of support”, which should be viewed as an “NGO from the right”.
A year before the Christchurch attack, Sellner wrote to me in a direct message on Twitter:
“I don’t think that my videos and speeches incite violence. The anger is there in any case and I think it has its material basis.”
#Immigration is only one of the FPÖ’s controversial campaign topics.
#Covid conspiracy myths,
#climate change denial,
#anti-#feminism and
#anti-#LGBTQ+ discourse are other features of the party’s branding.
The FPÖ member of parliament #Michael #Gruber recently shared an election campaign video on Instagram that showed him throwing a rainbow flag in a bin with the tagline “Cleaning up for Austria”.
With Kickl using dog whistles such as “climate communism” and “WHO dictatorship”,
the FPÖ has been able to expand its support base among conspiracy theorists and Covid deniers.
What does Kickl mean by kicking upwards, for example?
He promised to become an FPÖ chancellor “who won’t bow down to the EU, Nato and the WHO”.
In a new year’s speech he spoke ofhis long “wanted list”, which includes centrist politicians whom he refers to as “politicians of the system” (#Systempolitiker ) and whom he accuses of “treason against the people” (#Volksverrat ) – two terms known for their use by #Adolf #Hitler.
A key to FPÖ’s success has been the growing landscape of alternative, hyper-biased and conspiratorial news outlets that have formed around the party and its sympathisers.
In the run-up to the election, a series of false claims spread in a chain reaction across these alternative media websites and social media channels such as Telegram.
Reports, for example, were circulated claiming that the “deep state” wanted to steal the FPÖ’s victory
or that centrist parties were planning to reintroduce mandatory vaccinations after the elections.
#AUF1, a particularly influential new rightwing channel, has aired ideas of “vaccine mass extermination” and a “deadly transhumanist agenda”.
The channel was the first outlet to feature an appearance by Kickl on Sunday night after the election victory.
The FPÖ’s historic victory not only poses a risk to Austria’s minorities, independent media outlets, scientific community and democratic institutions,
-- it also has the potential to significantly strengthen the far right in Europe and internationally.
#Alice #Weidel of the German AfD,
#Marine #Le #Pen of the French National Rally
and #Geert #Wilders of the Dutch Freedom party
all enthusiastically congratulated the FPÖ.
“The Netherlands, Hungary, Belgium, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, France, Spain, Czech Republic and today Austria! We are winning! Times are changing,” commented Wilders on X.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/30/austria-far-right-win-global-election-freedom-party?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
The American Legislative Exchange Council, a major force behind harmful legislation enacted at the state level, is celebrating its 50th anniversary with an Oct. 4 gala in Washington, D.C.
ALEC, founded in 1973 by right-wing political operative Paul “We Don’t Want Everyone to Vote” Weyrich, is a key part of the massive political infrastructure that corporations and right-wing foundations began building after the distribution of what is known as the “Powell Memo” – a warning from future Supreme Court Justice Lewis Powell that leftist ideology hostile to the free market was infesting America’s colleges and other institutions and a call for corporate America to fight back by creating its own institutions.
People For the American Way documented these political investments in “Buying a Movement: Right Wing Foundations and American Politics,” published in 1996, which noted that ALEC’s executive director had declared, “This is the infrastructure that will reclaim the states for our movement.”
Many of the organizations created in answer to Powell’s call, including ALEC and the Heritage Foundation, are now preparing to flex their political muscles in an all-out war on the federal agencies that protect American workers, consumers, communities, and the environment to be carried out by the next Republican president.
#powellmemo #wayrich #alec #heritagefoundation #rightwing
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-american-legislative-exchange-council-50-years-of-making-america-less-fair-less-safe-less-democratic/
Seniors could save over $1,800 in annual fees taken from their Social Security checks if the government redirected what it spends subsidizing Medicare Advantage plans to instead reduce premium costs.
Under the current arrangement, “traditional” Medicare pays about $12,000 a year to private Medicare Advantage insurers for every patient whose care they “manage.”
Medicare Advantage insurers — which include UnitedHealth Group, Humana, Cigna, and Blue Cross Blue Shield — are profiting at the expense of ordinary seniors, 40 percent of whom are completely dependent on their Social Security benefits, which average about $1,600 per month after Medicare premiums are taken out.
“Insurers are quietly plundering the Medicare trust fund for their own profits and compromising the health of senior citizens and [people with] disabilities,” said Ed Weisbart, a family medicine physician who is the secretary of Physicians for a National Healthcare Program (PNHP), a single-payer advocacy group that produced the report.
https://jacobin.com/2023/10/medicare-advantage-140-billion-scam-senior-health-care/
North Carolina Republicans create a "secret police force"
North Carolina’s new $30 billion state budget contains a provision that gives extraordinary investigative powers to a partisan oversight committee co-chaired by Senate Leader Phil Berger (R) and House Speaker Tim Moore (R).
The Joint Legislative Committee on Government Operations — or Gov Ops for short — is empowered to seize “any document or system of record” from anyone who works in or with state and local government during its investigations.
The rule applies to contractors, subcontractors, and any other non-state entity “receiving, directly and indirectly, public funds,” including charities and state universities.
Moreover, Gov Ops staff will be authorized to enter “any building or facility” owned or leased by a state or non-state entity *without a judicial warrant*.
👉This includes the private residences of subcontractors and contractors who run businesses out of their homes, lawmakers say.
Alarmingly, public employees under investigation will be required to keep all communication and requests “confidential.” 👉 They cannot alert their supervisor of the investigation nor consult with legal counsel.
Violating this rule “shall be grounds for disciplinary action, including dismissal,” the law reads.
Those who refuse to cooperate face jail time and fines of up to $1,000.
In the event that Gov Ops searches a person’s home, these rules mean that the person
👉 1) must keep the entry a secret,
👉 2) cannot seek outside help (unless necessary for fulfilling the request, the law says), and
👉 3) could face criminal charges if Gov Ops deems them uncooperative
https://popular.info/p/north-carolina-republicans-create
The University of Pennsylvania, where Kariko was on track for a professorship, decided to pull the plug on her when her grant rejections piled up.
"I was up for promotion, and then they just demoted me and expected that I would walk out the door," she told AFP in an interview from her home in Philadelphia in December 2020.
Kariko didn't yet have a green card and needed a job to renew her visa. She also knew she wouldn't be able to put her daughter through college without the hefty staff discount.
She decided to persist as a lower-rung researcher, scraping by on a meager salary.
It was a low point in her life and career, but "I just thought...you know, the (lab) bench is here, I just have to do better experiments," she said.
Now, her pioneering work—which paved the way for the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines—has won her the Nobel Prize in Medicine.
#NobelPrize #medicine #nobel #mrna #Kariko
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-10-katalin-kariko-scientific-maverick-paved.html
The Association of Internet Researchers has decided that we will ramp down our use of Twitter, effective immediately.
Instead, we are shifting our activity to Mastodon, where for a few months we have been running our very own server. 👏👍
This means that we will not be tweeting during the #AoIR2023 conference. Instead, we will be posting on AoIR’s Mastodon instance (https://aoir.social).
Membership of this instance is a benefit of AoIR membership. AoIR members have recently been sent an invite link; if you are not a member of AoIR, why not join and also get access to our online community?
https://aoir.org/aoir2023onmastodon/
1836: A teenage girl with blue-grey eyes and an oceanic mind is bent over an astronomy book, preparing to revolutionize our understanding of the planet.
No university anywhere in the world would admit her.
No scientific society would grant her membership.
Still, Eunice Newton Foote would go on to become the first scientist to link atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to rising planetary temperature https://www.themarginalian.org/2023/09/12/eunice-newton-foote/
The world looked very different 500 years ago. As you view these images, imagine the smell of salty air and smoked peppers. Imagine the sound of people speaking Nahuatl, a canoe gliding through the canals, and birds chirping in the trees. Imagine the warmth of the sun on your skin. The people around you are dressed in white cotton and work their fields, cook, trade, and practice their craft in the shade of trees and awnings
https://tenochtitlan.thomaskole.nl/index.htmlhttps://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/111/033/528/399/039/041/original/31b9b60e0ee4eef7.jpeg
Alito: Recusing From Cases Involving Friends Would “Disrupt” Supreme Court’s Work
Justice Samuel Alito refused Friday to recuse himself from an upcoming Supreme Court case, even though one of the attorneys in the suit published fawning profiles of him in The Wall Street Journal.
The reason? Recusing from cases that involve longtime colleagues would “disrupt” the Supreme Court’s work, Alito argued. 😂
https://newrepublic.com/post/175466/alito-refuse-recuse-case-disrupt-supreme-court-work-wsj
FAA orders SpaceX to keep Starship grounded, take corrective action
The corrective actions include: “redesigns of vehicle hardware to prevent leaks and fires, redesign of the launch pad to increase its robustness, incorporation of additional reviews in the design process, additional analysis and testing of safety critical systems and components including the Autonomous Flight Safety System, and the application of additional change control practices.”
In order for SpaceX to resume Starship launches at its facility in Boca Chica, Texas, the company will need to “implement all corrective actions that impact public safety,” as determined by the FAA, and to apply for and receive a “license modification from the FAA” that addresses all of its safety, and other environmental regulatory requirements.
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/09/08/faa-starship-grounded-corrective-action.html
Proud Boys are GOP's 'neo-fascist foot soldiers' — and have GOP's full support
The Proud Boys may have seen their leaders sentenced to hard time, but they still hold a great deal of power in some corners of the Republican Party — and GOP leadership seems content for them to effectively be serving as a militant wing.
This is what various groups like the KKK were back in the 1920s. They were an armed part, a violent part of of a political faction.
https://www.rawstory.com/proud-boys-gop-2665058802/
What Saved The 'Miracle House' In Lahaina?
During renovations, Millikin installed a commercial-grade steel roof, something that definitely would have provided better protection from flying embers than shingles. At first, Millikin thought this might have made the biggest difference in why his home was spared.
But Michael Wara, the director of the Climate and Energy Policy Program at the Stanford Wood Institute for the Environment, said it was likely the Millikins’ decision to dig out the existing landscaping directly surrounding the house and replace it with river stones that made the biggest difference.
“What folks in the wildfire business call the zone zero or the #ember #ignition #zone, is kind of a key factor in whether homes do or do not burn down,” Wara said.
Having nothing combustible in the 5 feet directly around a house is enormously important.
https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/08/what-saved-the-miracle-house-in-lahaina/
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