Stephan: I am publishing this report not because it is weird, although it is, or because it is Roger Stone particularly. What stands out for me, and should alarm all Americans capable of rational thought, is that this is the common language of the world of MAGAt christofascism believed by millions. Given that 34% of Americans have IQs between 98 and 85 (78 is considered retarded), 23% are functionally illiterate, and 27% have overactive right amygdalas, one can see the physiological basis for what amounts to a new medievalism in which conspiracies, and fantasies not facts are what shape the MAGAt world.
MAGAt Roger Stone
Long-time Donald Trump confidant and informal adviser Roger Stone insists he has witnessed a momentous phenomenon: A “demon portal” above President Joe Biden’s White House.
It’s “swirling like a cauldron,” he claimed in an interview earlier this week with conservative radio host Eric Metaxas — who pointed out that the observation by his guest “sounds insane.”
The portal — apparently a direct connection to hell and Satan — was first spotted months ago and even captured on film, according to Stone. “It’s still there,” he declared.
“I think that…a portal, a demonic portal, opened above the White House around the time that the Bidens moved in,” Stone said. “This was brought to my attention by a Christian who lives in north Florida who sent me a bunch of photos, a bunch of documents and also a bunch of notations from the Bible about portals.”
Stone said he was initially skeptical. But he has examined photos of the spot and scrutinized “live cam where you can actually see it in real-time, and there does appear […]
Annie Waldman, Aliyya Swaby, Anna Clark, and Nicole Santa Cruz, Reporters - ProPublica
Stephan: Twenty-three percent of Americans are basically functionally illiterate, and struggle to read and write. This group, of course, if they are White, overwhelmingly votes for Republicans, so this illiteracy has a strong political correlation with powerful effects on the health of our democracy. As with so many issues of social wellbeing, the United States is the outlier, in a negative way, compared with the rest of the developed world's democracies. Now add to that the reality that the Republican Party is doing everything it can to turn public schools into indoctrination, not educational institutions. And, of course, this is happening mostly in Red states, although California has some serious literacy problems, and that impacts the Great Schism Trend that is tearing the United States apart. We are a very sick and dysfunctional country.
Student makes reading progress during a one-on-one tutoring session through Literacy Mid-South. Applicants often face a monthslong waitlist.
In Amite County, Mississippi, where a third of adults struggle to read, evidence of America’s silent literacy crisis is everywhere.
It’s in a storefront on Main Street, in the fading mill town of Gloster, where 80-year-old Lillie Jackson helps people read their mail. “They can’t comprehend their bills,” she said. “So many of them are ashamed that they haven’t finished grade school.” She longs for the day she can retire, but she doesn’t want to abandon her neighbors. “That’s the only reason I really stay open,” she said.
It’s in the Greentree Lumber mill, where dozens of residents cut Southern yellow pine into boards, but supervisors — who must be able to page through machine guides and safety manuals — are recruited from other counties. “We’re going to have demand for jobs with no people to supply them,” mill accountant Pam Whittington said.
And it’s in the local high school, in a district where a fifth of students drop out, one of […]
Stephan: This is what the culture war of facts vs fantasy looks like in public education. In my view, it is a war between education and indoctrination. And indoctrination instead of educating kids to think and be fact-based over a relatively short time always degrades the intellectual quality of the culture in which it is practiced, and destroys democracy. Seen through the prism of the Great Schism Trend, this story also tells us that we are becoming two nations, which is why I think power is devolving to the states. It is also going to cause people to leave Red states, where indoctrination is the purpose. Just as they are going to leave Red states because of Dobbs, and healthcare generally.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis won his reelection in a landslide and made education — including the opposition of critical race theory — a priority issue. Credit: Daniel A. Varela / AP
Republicans spent big this year to elect scores of candidates who vowed to remake the American public education system — an effort that’s inspiring conservatives to do more in 2023.
Some of the GOP’s investments paid off quickly: Newly-elected school board officials in charge of South Carolina’s fourth-largest school system voted to fire their superintendent, replace the board’s chair and approve a resolution barring the teaching of critical race theory to more than 37,000 students.
Superintendents in two Florida counties were ousted after conservative-backed candidates were sworn into office. Board members in the Dallas-area suburb of Keller, Texas, approved bids to allow for armed school staff and ban school library books that discuss gender fluidity. It’s enough change to keep conservative organizations focused on these local races going into next year.
Fifteen states and the District of Columbia held state school board or education superintendent elections this […]
Stephan: It amazes me that nothing seems to awaken Americans from their obsessive gun psychosis even a child firearm death rate that is nearly 4 and a half times that of the next six developed nations... combined. Over the decade of the Viet Nam War -- war over a decade, do you get that -- 58,220 Americans were killed. Nearly 40,000 Americans will die by gun fire this single year alone.
The hard data shows the death of children and teenagers in the United States to be unlike that of any other developed nation.
LaVonte’e Williams couldn’t read yet, but he loved the Bible. His grandfather even called him Preacher. In August, a day after his baptism, he accidentally shot himself at a park and died at just 5 years old.
Juan Carlos Robles-Corona Jr. had mastered viral TikTok dances. He would perform them at an Auntie Anne’s, where he and his mother worked. In April, he was shot to death near his school in an unsolved killing. He was 15 years old.
Angellyh Yambo prided herself on befriending people considered “annoying or strange.” She drew elaborate sketches on her iPad and liked watching horror movies. In April, a few months after her Sweet 16 birthday, she was killed by a stray bullet while walking outside after school.
LaVonte’e, Juan Carlos and Angellyh were just three of the thousands of children killed or injured by gun violence this year in the U.S. The New York Times Magazine devoted […]
AMANDA CARPENTER , Political Columnist - The Bulwark
Stephan: Political affiliation, whether you are a Democrat or a Republican, has emerged as a defined risk factor for COVID-19. The evidence is clear and unimpeachable, there is a link between political affiliation, vaccination, and death. Republican-leaning counties have lower vaccination rates and higher COVID-19 death rates than Democrat-leaning counties. Covid has shown that large blocs of people can be manipulated through disinformation, to the point where they will put their lives at risk. Also that individuals in one party are willing to use that disinformation, however murderous, to attain and sustain political power.
FLorida Christofacist Republican Governor Ron DeSantis.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s record handling the COVID-19 pandemic is nuanced. After initially locking down the state’s businesses and schools and installing highway checkpoints to monitor travel, he was among the first governors to lift restrictions on businesses—and even went so far as to forbid local governments from fining people for violating masking or social-distancing rules. He worked hard to make vaccines readily available but didn’t support vaccine mandates or vaccine passports. Taking this whole picture into account, DeSantis could tell a compelling story about balancing individual liberty and public health, about tough decisions and real leadership.
But DeSantis has decided to screw all that.
As he seeks to elevate his profile further and distinguish himself from potential 2024 presidential rivals, DeSantis is sucking up to the anti-vax crowd and styling himself as a crusader against what he calls the “biomedical security state.” And, like most of DeSantis’s political stunts, his overtures to the fringe are pretty cringey.
On Tuesday, as the state legislature was embroiled in a complex debate about skyrocketing home-insurance rates, DeSantis […]
