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The major and big difference between the liberal/progressive national Democratic Party political views of those such as two of my college professor friends and those of people such as myself is that they are more concerned with and passionate about what many call the identity politics and cultural wars issues, while I am more concerned with and passionate about the economic, bread-and-butter and kitchen-table issues of economic and financial survival of the lower and middle classes to be able to pay their bills.

I have never had the heart to tell them that perhaps their priorities are colored by the fact that they both have combined yearly incomes with their wives of over $230,000 a year, while my wife and I fall under the official federal government category of near poverty (between 100%-125% of the official poverty line).

My well-to-do friends are more concerned with and passionate about issues such as racism, inclusion, the plight of minority groups, white nationalism and the plight of illegal immigrants. They can well afford to be.

But dont misinterpret what I am saying. I also do care a lot about the identity politics and culture wars issues. I just care more about people being able to survive economically and financially.

It is hard and painful for me to listen to many of my fellow national Democrats expressing more heartfelt and passionate concern for the wellbeing of illegal immigrants while expressing a lot less concern and passion about the wellbeing of our poor, our near-poor and our senior citizens who did all of the right things in life and now are struggling just to survive and to be able to pay their bills.

Stew EpsteinRochester, New York

Originally posted here:
Letters: Its hard to hear my fellow Democrats - The Durango Herald

One of the primary tensions fueling the Republican Party is the simultaneous loathing of and desire to be part of mainstream pop culture, which they fear has fallen permanently out of their grasp. The entertainment industry generally maintains liberal stances, at least in public, and regardless of how much power the right exercises over every other area of our lives, it will continue to do so. It is infuriating to conservatives that this one center of power remains off-limits and, as a result, a disproportionate amount of conservative resentment is directed at politically powerless but outspoken liberal celebrities and the media organizations that cover them.

This anxiety has become more acute since the election of Donald Trump, who is both more unpopular with celebrities and more personally concerned with the opinions of celebrities than any president since celebrities were invented. Trumps tendency to start public feuds with fashion writers and The View cohosts was a perfect match for a Republican base that cares way too much about what Kathy Griffin thinks, and they amplify each others worst instincts. When Trump was frozen out by his old celebrity pals in 2016, which was far too late it hurt him deeply, and his supporters felt the sting of rejection seeing formerly apolitical actors and musicians come out as fanatically anti-Trump.

Conservatives frenzied response to this increase in ill will has given us some of the most exhausting news stories in recent memory, from Griffins decapitation picture to Kanye West joining the MAGAverse to former Press Secretary Sean Spicer supposedly getting cheated out of a win on Dancing with the Stars. They are scrambling to find a way back into frivolous celebrity culture, and one strategy being rolled out is the creation of a parallel media infrastructure for entertainment news and gossip that can act as a safe space for easily offended conservatives.

POPlitics, a new venture launched last month by the right-wing youth-astroturfing firm Turning Point USA, emulates the tone and subject matter of Entertainment Tonight and Extra in daily five-minute Instagram videos. Host Alex Clark, formerly a Kentucky radio DJ, promises to deliver Pop Culture Without The Propaganda, but the result is as propaganda-free as anything else under the Turning Point USA umbrella. TPUSA brings in a lot of money ($11 million in fiscal year 2017) from anonymous billionaires who have an axe to grind, and the axe must be ground to keep the money flowing, and POPlitics uses cursory mentions of Taylor Swift and Justin Bieber to introduce a predetermined set of right-wing talking points.

The degree to which these are shoehorned into episodes (there are 26 as of this writing) varies. Episode 17 is mostly a rant about Chick-Fil-A stabbing their base in the back by withdrawing donations from anti-LGBTQ charities, which is not a pop culture topic. Episode 19 consists of a list of bad things Hunter Biden did, a story about Jussie Smollett, and then a two-minute lecture about how Ariana Grande fans should prepare to go bankrupt and die of diseases if they vote for Bernie Sanders. In Episode 11, Clark interviews Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw about some things he probably doesnt get asked a lot...OR EVER, which means asking him if he likes dancing, which he does not, and what he is watching on Netflix, which is nothing, and then turning it over to him for a three-minute monologue on veterans issues. Despite being edited to feel like a regular celebrity gossip show, POPlitics still feels like a lecture. Also, if anyone were ever to recommend it out loud, everyone would just think they said politics while hiccuping.

The liberal bias of award shows holds another prominent place on the conservative list of grievances, roughly on par with poor people getting health care and gender-neutral bathrooms. Trump, who has tweeted angrily about the low, low ratings of the Academy Awards every year since 2013, has drawn even more attention to the scourge of liberal people receiving little statues by responding in kind to any celebrity who dares denounce him during an acceptance speech. Fox News opinion hosts cover every award show for the sole purpose of getting viewers hopping mad about the culture wars. Sometimes pundits contrast the wealth and status of the attendees with the plight of the average Joe, like when Tucker Carlson called the 2017 Emmys an expression of the contempt America's ruling class has for the rest of the country. Other times they criticize the concept of award shows for being self-congratulatory, such as Sean Hannity calling the 2018 Oscars the pinnacle of Hollywood self-praise. This opposition to wealth, ostentatiousness, and self-praise is highly selective; pro athletes and liberal actresses always get an earful, but there are exceptions for the president and Kanye West now that he stumps for the right.

This is the context in which the Fox News crew has established The Patriot Awards, so-dubbed the Oscars of what really matters, broadcast live from St. Petersburg, Florida for the first time last month on the FOX Nation streaming service. What really matters, in this case, is the flag, the anthem, troops, and cops. The idea of a conservative awards show has been bouncing around the MAGAsphere for a while in a rant about the 2017 Emmy Awards, Sean Hannity asked By the way, when are we going to have an awards show for carpenters and doctors that save lives and nurses and people that do plumbing and heating and make our lives better every day, and truck drivers that bring us all the food and materials we need? Do they ever get an award show, ever?

This is the kind of idea that works best on a bumper sticker. The Patriot Awards were hosted in their first year by Fox News weekend co-anchor Pete Hegseth, who sported an unnerving grin and a suit lined with the American flag. Fox anchors were the star talent here, and they did not shy away from promoting their own shows while introducing award recipients. The audience didnt seem to mind; a puff piece on the Fox News website quoted an attendee as saying I just want to see the Fox hosts in person because I see them every day and they're my family. Hegseths opening monologue was fairly on-the-nose about the purpose of the event. Hollywood has their award shows, right? Self-important types giving awards to other self-important types. The audience booed. Big trophies given to actors who play heroes on TV. Tonight we honor the real heroes. We must pause to consider that that Hegseth has spent the last year successfully lobbying the president to pardon soldiers credibly accused of war crimes to whom he has also referred to as heroes. He really, really loves people who commit war crimes.

Before the awards began, the audience was forced to stand for the National Anthem, a gesture that has taken on extra political significance for conservatives since Colin Kaepernick first took a knee in 2016. The anthem was performed by Kaya Jones, an occasional Fox News guest whose claim to fame is that she was briefly a backup singer in the Pussycat Dolls but left before they recorded their 2005 debut album. Jones resurfaced in 2016 as a popular promoter of Trump on Twitter and Instagram and became a fixture on Hannity soon after. She has benefited immensely from low standards necessitated by the deficit of conservative celebrities under 65, and particularly of young female musicians. It will probably not surprise you that her anthem rendition was off-key. Performances of such a caliber are forgivable at, say, minor league baseball games, or if you are Fergie, but less so at highly produced events where the song is specifically shoehorned in to make a point.

Physically, the Patriot Award is a flimsy-looking metal flag on a stand. What it means is harder to gauge. The categories (Patriot Award for Service to Veterans, Most Valuable Patriot, Patriot Award for First Responders, Patriot Award for the Unsung Hero, The Most Patriotic Sportsman and the Ultimate Patriot Award) are vague, and the criteria are rather broad. Award recipient Sgt. Rob Jones, a double-amputee veteran who runs marathons for charity, received a Patriot Award; this is the sort of respectable endeavor one would expect to be rewarded here, though it should be noted that Jones is currently running for Congress as a Republican.

Other recipients have not sacrificed quite so much, like a 14-year-old who went around his neighborhood pestering homeowners to fly the American flag, or a minor league hockey coach who told players to stand for the anthem or get the fuck out in a viral video. An award was presented to Mission BBQ, a Maryland-based Goldman Sachs-backed military-themed fast-casual restaurant chain founded on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 by two non-veterans that forces customers to stand for the anthem every day at noon. The focus on performative flag-and-anthem worship in an event purportedly more serious and meaningful than the Oscars and the Emmys confirms what Hegseth implies with his opening monologue that the Patriot Awards were never meant to be the high-minded and depoliticized affair they are in the ad copy. It is, after all, a Fox News broadcast.

The difference between liberal pop culture broadcasts and their explicitly conservative equivalents isnt in the amount of political content or the level of smugness or how wealthy the hosts are or how often they pander to the audience with applause lines its who the applause lines are meant for. When creating parallel versions of Entertainment Tonight and the Academy Awards, conservatives opt not only to keep in all the worst excesses of these formats, but to intensify them. The clear implication is that right-wing antipathy toward mainstream culture stems mostly from the feeling that they, and not the big Other, should be the ones relentlessly pandered to.

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The right's attempt at pop culture is hilariously wrong - The Outline

Spotlights like this one provide original commentary and analysis on pressing criminal justice issues of the day. You can read them each day in our newsletter,The Daily Appeal.

Last month, longtime public defender Chesa Boudin was elected San Franciscos next district attorney. His victory was not merely an upset over an interim incumbent with establishment support and an unlikely win for a public defender whose parents served time for felonies; it also came despite the fact that the San Francisco Police Officers Association, the citys police union, outspent Boudin in an effort to defeat him. The union pulled in cash from police unions in Los Angeles, Portland, Seattle, and New York. The San Francisco Deputy Sheriffs Association aided the effort, too,sharinga John Birch Society video calling Boudin a communist radical and a son of terrorists.

In New York State, wherelandmark criminal justicereforms are set to go into effect on Jan. 1, a familiar chorus of concern has piped up,according to the New York Times editorial board. Police Commissioner James ONeillwrotein an op-ed in May that the law would have a significant negative impact on public safety. His successor, incoming Police Commissioner Dermot Shea,expressed similar views in November. Police unions and prosecutors across the state have issued ominous warnings. The Oneida City Police Benevolent Associationwrotein a Facebook post, Think this is wrong & insane? Then tell your politicians that this needs to be repealed ASAP! Over the summer, the New York Prosecutors Training Institutereleased audioof a Nassau County assistant district attorney training prosecutors on various ways to work with the police to subvert the new law.

For decades, law enforcement could rely on fearmongering to swing elections, preventing progressives from becoming district attorneys, and keeping reform bills off the books. But now,across the country, amovement away from incarcerationhas been a rare point of consensus among Americans who can agree on little else.

These calls for criminal justice reform have led police to panic, making these sorts of campaigns against reforms more common. Just as conservatives, going back to the Nixon era, have used debates over the lawfulness of abortion, homosexuality, and pornography to portray themselves as besieged by a liberal elite, police unions, too, now claim they are on the losing side in an ideological struggle,writes Melissa Gira Grantfor the New Republic. It represents a return to the culture wars origins, she explains, which lie with policing. Provoking anxiety over law and order helped usher Nixon into the White House in 1968. Where today police unions cast Black Lives Matter activists as their persecutors, conservatives under Nixon pointed to black power activists and the anti-war left. James Davison Hunters 1991 book, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America, brought the term culture war into the broader lexicon. Hunter says he wasinspiredafter reading a news story about the arrests of clergy at an abortion protest. He frames the struggle emerging from 1960s social change as a matter less of specific issues than of progressivism versus orthodoxy more broadly.

But throughout the 1990s, many who were at odds with one another when it came to other issues, such as abortion or gay rights, were largely in agreement on defending the power of policewhether that meant uniting against Ice Ts Cop Killer song or more sweeping policy proposals,writes Grant. But the Obama years saw the start of a profound shift. In demanding accountability from police who kill, the Black Lives Matter movement highlighted the ways in which the system of policing makes such accountability nearly impossible. Leaders of the movement argued that police unionsshieldpolice from discipline for brutality. And when the officers who killed Michael Brown and Eric Garner were not indicted, activists pointed to the power held bydistrict attorneyswho rely on police to help them win convictionsin convening and persuading grand juries.

By the 2016 election, Democrats had backed off from the Clinton-era tough-on-crime consensus. Contenders in 2016 madeabolishing the death penaltypart of their platforms, Grant writes. By then, it was more common to hear that criminal justice reform was a bipartisan issuealbeit in a limited sense, with centrist overlap on a few modest reforms like creating alternatives to pre-trial detention. Many of the Democratic candidates of 2020 havepledgedunprecedentedlyprogressive criminal justice plans. And stalwart defenders of harsh law enforcement tactics such as Michael Bloomberg have been forced to walk back those decisions in order to gain any traction with the Democratic base.

Some on the right seem dedicated to stoking the flames of the culture wars. U.S. Attorney General William Barrsaidlast week that if some communities dont begin showing more respect to law enforcement, they may lose police protection. Whilegiving a speechat the Attorney Generals Award for Distinguished Service in Policing, Barr said, I think today, American people have to focus on the sacrifice and the service that is given by our law enforcement officers. And they have to start showing, more than they do, the respect and support that law enforcement deservesand if communities dont give that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need.

But even some purported leftists have played into police unions victimhood narrative in similar ways. Last week, a thin blue line flag was spotted on NYPD property. The flags, featuring a horizontal blue line surrounded by black, are closely linked toBlue Lives Matter, countermovement formed in response to Black Lives Matter,writes Jake Offenhartzfor Gothamist. Police reform groups claim that the flag denotes racism and a culture of misconduct. In recent years, the flag has appeared frequently at neo-Nazi and white supremacist rallies, including thedeadly Unite the Right rallyin Charlottesville. During a press conference, Mayor Bill de Blasio brushed off questions about whether it is appropriate for the NYPD to fly the thin blue line flag on government property. Later in the day, during the swearing in of new NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea, de Blasio left little room for police criticism. To the doubting Thomases, to the naysayers, if you doubt, then you dont truly respect the NYPD. Jeffrey Fagan, a law professor at Columbia University who specializes in police accountability and criminal law, said he was not surprised by de Blasios remarks. The mayor is still the lapdog of the police unions, Fagan said.

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Police Play The Victim When Voters Choose Reform - The Appeal

Twitter brings us glimpses of the world we might otherwise not know about. We're especially fond of the medievalists who share bizarre marginalia from illuminated manuscripts, like weird (non-white) mermaids or violent rabbits. Along similar but far less pleasant lines, yesterday a tweet brought to our attention a bizarre opinion piece at the American Conservative site, in which a dude gripes about how "postmodernism" destroyed his church. That horror was exemplified, among other things, by the time a guest sermon by a mean identity-politics black person said it was "sinful" to point out the simple fact that the slave trade brought millions of Africans to Christ.

See? Every bit as odd as medieval mermaids.

The piece was an anonymous letter to editor and columnist Rod Dreher, the conservative thought leaderer who has previously explained that liberal women are too busy masturbating to love their children, and who mourned the death of George Michael by wishing the singer had been straight. No way Dreher will one day meet him in heaven now! Dreher prefaces the lengthy letter by noting the writer gave permission to run it anonymously, and offers this semi-disclaimer:

So don't you go around saying Rod Dreher believes slavery was a real shame but at least it brought souls to Jebus. He merely ran a guest opinion insisting slavery was a real shame but it brought souls to Jebus.

We'll spare you the bulk of the letter's jeremiad against the pernicious effects of "postmodernism," mostly because the writer takes his definition of "postmodernism" from a Jordan Peterson video about "Cultural Marxism," which he quotes at length. You silly degenerates may think PoMo is a literary theory about the subjectivity of interpretation and the interplay of texts, but that's merely because you've been hypnotized by international jouissance.

Peterson explains that postmodernism is really about RAW LEFTIST POWER to destroy traditional values by calling anyone who opposes them a "racist." It's the same damp, warmed over culture wars garbage you'd expect, and now some tedious Peterson fan will show up in the comments and tell us we've got it all wrong because we've oversimplified Peterson's simplistic reductionism, and we need to go watch 57 hours of videos to really get the point.

Really, the writer just doesn't like all the liberalism seeping into his church and ruining it for normal people.

He explains that he and his wife had to abandon their former church because it got "woke." In the Before Times, while the church "had some management issues," it at least had sound doctrine:

Ah, but then the pernicious influence of postmodernism (evil woke commies) arrived!

It's not like the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. was a preacher or anything. But he's fine with the Civil Rights Movement, as long as those people aren't having civil rights out in public where children can see. He could have lived with a single sermon on history, he guesses, if only the guest speaker hadn't been so identity-political about it.

Fact check: Why yes, the Southern Baptists did split from the abolitionist northern Baptists over slavery. That is an actual history fact, and not in dispute, even if you put scare quotes around "racist."

But the dude's real conniption is over the notion that it's "racist" to be joyful that all those enslaved people were brought to Jebus. Don't get him wrong, he knows that doesn't justify slavery, he's not saying that. But "facts" are "facts":

He may not wince at racism, slavery, or genocide, but he damn well winces at having a cherished belief called problematic or racist. God's plan clearly included slavery, because God's a mysterious fucker that way, and how dare these Marxists deny that The Blacks got saved, unfortunate though all the forced labor, torture, murder, rape, and dehumanization may have been. He goes on to be Very Concerned some more:

There's a lot more, some about race (Jesus may have been swarthy but he wasn't "black," for instance -- no mention of White Santa Claus at least), and some about women, and some about esoteric theological matters, but it all comes down to a long whine about how sad it is that the Left took over his church. Somebody should remind him that only liberals care about "feelings."

We'd recommend the poor distressed fellow hole up with some nice Christian history textbooks for kids, so he can be reassured that the best thing about slavery was that it promised freedom in heaven, and also gave us some beautiful spirituals, and yes, hooray, as one book for 8th-grade homeschooled kids says, he's absolutely right about how slavery spread the word of God:

That same textbook, we should note, also argued that while the Trail of Tears was certainly a bummer for all those Native Americans sent on death marches across the continent, it had a terrific upside:

Still, sad wingnut dude does have a point, of sorts. People who think like he does no longer have a monopoly on cultural power. We bet God is just all broke up about that.

[American Conservative via "Christian Vanderbrouk" on Twitter]

Yr Wonkette is supported entirely by reader donations. Please send us money so we can give wingnuts a good kick right in the Derrida.

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Sad Wingnut Explains Slavery Saved Souls - Wonkette

A reporter caught her boyfriend cheating because of his Fitbit. Her viral story had many others sympathizing.

Fitbit and other fitness tracking devices are increasing the ways criminal investigators and even those outside criminallaw enforcement can gather information about a persons activities.

NFL Network reporter Jane Slater explained in a Dec. 5 tweet how she realized her ex-boyfriend was cheating on her after his activity levels had climbed at 4 a.m. She noticed the odd activity because the pair had synced their Fitbit accounts as a way to motivate each other, she said.

Fitness tracking devices have expanded their capabilities far beyond just counting steps, with newer models now monitoring more detailedmovement and activity, as well as GPS tracking.And outside of the realm of fitness, the devices can be used for more than catching cheating spouses.

This digital DNA is no different albeit more technical than the everyday evidence gathering involved in a crime scene investigation, explained Philip Rosenthal, a veteran private investigator and vice president of Israel-based computer forensics company Bis-Tec Technologies.

He described a crime scene in the aftermath of a burglary: Investigators atthe scene, he explained, are trying to find the evidence that would place a particular person in that office, by getting either their DNA or fingerprints or some other physical evidence to put them at the time and place inside that location. Digital forensics is no different its just that we're looking for digital DNA or fingerprints.

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In other cases often handled by police or investigators,the Fitbit or another fitness tracking device could be usedto determinewhen someones heart had stopped beating, indicating his or her likely time of death.

The data is recorded through cell towers and satellite technology, which links one person to another based on his or her locations,digital forensics expert Thomas Yohannan told FOX Business.

Movement and location are probably the biggest two things that these devices could do, Yohannan said.

Fitbit, which recently announced plans to be acquired by Google, provides some of the most accurate data out of the fitness tracking gadgets on the market, he said.

GOOGLE'S $2.1B FITBIT DEAL UNDER DOJ SCRUTINY: REPORT

The FBI used the data tracked from Mollie Tibbetts Fitbit after the 20-year-old went missing in the summer of 2018, in the hopes of learning more about where she was and whom she saw before she disappeared, CBS reported at the time.

In any criminal case, investigators can not only show a person was in this area, but they could also actually show that person was close to someone else, Yohannan said.

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The location tracking capability, however, is not unique to Fitbit, he added.

That doesn't always have to happen through just Fitbit or smartwatches, he said. You could do it also if a person has a Fitbit and another person has an ankle bracelet because they are under house arrest, you could say ... there's an interaction, just in terms of technology, between just different devices that could say here's the location of that person.

While the data does not provide any immediate solutions to a crime, it provides law enforcement an understanding of where someone was at some point in time, he said.

APPLE, FACEBOOK DEFEND ENCRYPTION UNDER GRILLING FROM SENATORS, LAW ENFORCEMENT

You have to help understand the context What time is it? All those things that law enforcement has to do in order to create the context, Yohannan said. It's not giving you a final solution. It's just giving you an understanding.

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Fitbit devices being used in criminal cases, to catch cheating spouses - Fox Business