‘Get Armed While You Can’
Far-Right Midterm Rhetoric Has Experts Alarmed
A dangerous narrative is brewing online, particularly in corners where “Big Lie” conspiracies about the 2020 election remain gospel. Those communities have seized on some recent polls forecasting GOP wins in the November midterms, to assert that a “red wave” is all but inevitable. Some have made vague threats about “taking action”—including “taking up arms” if things don’t go their way. As reported by VICE News, this narrative is coupled with the presumption that the only way Democrats could win in hotly contested races or maintain control of the House and Senate is if they commit election fraud—baseless claims that are being amplified by influential MAGA figures. And the prospect of yet another election being “stolen” is fueling threats of violence from the right. “I just know that they're going to engage in massive election fraud,” Infowars’ Alex Jones said on an episode this week. “They [Democrats] know there’s a landslide that you’ve been predicting that we see all the evidence from. They’ve done the math. They’re desperate. They know they’re losing.” In actuality, the momentum is likely to favor Democrats, not MAGA-Republicans, whose dangerous rhetoric fans the flames of distrust and division. Regardless, SITE Intel, which tracks international terrorist activity, recently put out a memo warning that “ultranationalist users on Telegram” (e.g. MAGA-Republicans) were hinting at violent action if Democrats “steal votes again”…
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvmpma/midterms-violence-rhetoric-politics
Arizona GOP candidate arrested for allegedly masturbating in truck near preschool.
A GOP candidate running for an Arizona college district’s governing board was arrested on a charge of public sexual indecency after an officer allegedly caught him masturbating in his truck near a preschool. As reported by Huffington Post, Randy Kaufman was arrested Oct. 4 , and suspended his campaign yesterday, following media reports of his arrest. “I’m sorry,” Kaufman said, according to the report. “I fucked up. I’m really stressed.” Kaufman, who told police he worked as an officer with the Arizona Department of Corrections for 27 years, said he didn’t know there was a preschool just feet away, according to the report. In a Facebook post from May, Kaufman said he wanted “our children protected [from] the progressive left.” Yup, that’s who they need protection from, obviously…
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/arizona-gop-candidate-arrested-allegedly-masturbating-truck
How TikTok ate the Internet
If you have not used TikTok, you are rapidly becoming the global exception. In five years, the app, once written off as a silly dance-video fad, has become one of the most prominent, discussed, distrusted, technically sophisticated and geopolitically complicated juggernauts on the Internet — a phenomenon that has secured an unrivaled grasp on culture and everyday life and intensified the conflict between the world’s biggest superpowers. As reported by the Washington Post, Two-thirds of American teens use the app, and 1 in 6 say they watch it “almost constantly,” a Pew Research Center survey found; usage of Facebook among the same group has been cut in half since 2015. A report this summer by the parental-control tool Qustodio found that TikTok was both the most-used social media app for children and the one parents were most likely to block. And while half of TikTok’s U.S. audience is younger than 25, the app is winning grown-ups’ attention, too; the industry analyst eMarketer expects its over-65 audience will increase this year by nearly 15 percent. “We’re not talking about a dance app,” said Abbie Richards, a researcher who studies disinformation on TikTok, where she has half a million followers. “We’re talking about a platform that’s shaping how a whole generation is learning to perceive the world”…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/interactive/2022/tiktok-popularity/
The Climate Economy is about to explode
Late last month, analysts at the investment bank Credit Suisse published a research note about America’s new climate law that went nearly unnoticed. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the bank argued, is even more important than has been recognized so far: The IRA “will have a profound effect across industries in the next decade and beyond” and could ultimately shape the direction of the American economy, the bank said. As reported in the Atlantic, three main takeaways are:
Many of the IRA’s most important provisions, such as its incentives for electric vehicles and zero-carbon electricity, are “uncapped” tax credits. That means that as long as you meet their terms, the government will award them: There’s no budget or limit written into the law that restricts how much the government can spend.
The U.S. is “poised to become the world’s leading energy provider.” The IRA could further enhance its advantage in all forms of energy production, giving it a “competitive advantage in low-cost clean electricity and hydrogen production, infrastructure, geologic storage, and human capital. By 2029, U.S. solar and wind could be the cheapest in the world at less than $5 per megawatt-hour.”
While the bill passed with not even a single Republican vote, the bank concludes that the GOP is relatively unlikely to repeal the law, even if they take the White House in 2024. That’s because it would hurt their own voters most: “Republican-leaning states are likely to see the most investment, job, and economic benefits from the IRA.”
There’s much encouraging news in this article regarding the economic opportunities linked to climate change adaptation. It’s a bright spot worth taking notice of…
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2022/10/inflation-reduction-act-climate-economy
GOP’s ‘Big Lie’ candidates featured in “unsparing” video
A Republican group opposed to Donald Trump is calling out some of his favorite 2022 midterm candidates by name, specifically, for embracing his “big lie” about the 2020 election. As reported by Huffington Post, The Republican Accountability Project says: "The GOP is the Big Lie Party" and its video seeks to underscore this with a collage of real-life examples. As The Washington Post reported earlier this month, a majority of GOP candidates around the nation question or deny the 2020 election results, aligning themselves with discredited conspiracy theories to win favor from the Trump and his supporters. Earlier this year, the Republican Accountability Project released a series of ads hitting Trump’s biggest enablers within the GOP. The group also put up billboards in House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) district, telling him to stop lying about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol…
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-big-lie-party-video
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