Scientific, Peer-Reviewed Study: Conservative-Only News Consumers Ill Informed, Believe COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories

No surprise there.

There’s a reason why Fox News is monikered Faux Noize.

The Republican party is NO LONGER the “Grand” Old Party.

It’s NOT the “party of Lincoln,” and hasn’t been for quite some time.

Since circa 1964, it’s been the party of the Ku Klux Klan, the John Birch Society, libertarians, and other radical elements. And, it was seriously ushered in during the Reagan administration when in his first inaugural address, the B-movie actor and longtime GE mouthpiece said in part that, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”

It’s easy to understand that if “government is the problem,” the solution to that problem is elimination of it. And that is anarchy. And yet, in his carefully crafted address, that was precisely what he was intimating – the abolition of government. For in his next sentence, he said, “From time to time we’ve been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule…”

It’s not difficult to see that his slashing of the Top Personal Income Tax bracket for the wealthiest Americans from 70% to 50%, and then to 28%, in conjunction with reductions in Capital Gains tax rates, and the “Paris Hilton Tax Cuts,” also monikered as the “Death Tax,” which is properly known as the Estate Tax, which only wealthy Americans have ever paid, was purposely designed to eliminate government, rather than to refine its operations, increase efficiency, or reduce fraud, waste, and abuse at any level.

When he said, “It is time to check and reverse the growth of government, which shows signs of having grown beyond the consent of the governed,” it could not have been made any more clear that his was a “starve the monster” approach to an alleged, though imaginary, and non-existing problem, that government was too big and the “monster” was the government.” And that was despite what he said in that same address that “Now, so there will be no misunderstanding, it’s not my intention to do away with government,”
because it couldn’t have been made more clear what his ultimate objectives were.

He again clearly identified government as being an evil monster when he said, “It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government.” Hardly anyone could have done a better job of setting up a Straw Man Argument, for afterward, he beat that government straw man to a pulp.

Again, it is beyond the scope of the pale to imagine that a more populous nation would need fewer laws, or fewer people to efficiently and effectively conduct operations to provide for the demands and needs of more people. For that would be an inversely proportional relationship, that somehow a larger (more populous) nation, with more inventions, more businesses, more works of art, science, and other forms of creativity, would need fewer laws to govern their behavior and operations, and at some point in time, would eventually disappear.

The contradictions in his speech were blatant, and his intentions were fully uncloaked. Bluntly stating that “It is my intention to curb the size and influence of the Federal establishment,” he set about using his skills as an actor reassuring the people in a grandfatherly way that he had their best interests at heart, despite what he said otherwise.

The notion of “self-rule” is one which is emphasized by the ultra-radical group headquartered in Auburn, Alabama known as the Mises Institute, which promotes a heterodox economic world view, which includes anti-government sentiment, and the belief in the idea of anarchy – a world without government – and a “free market only” solution to everything as a one-size-fits-all solution to all problems.

Again, while Reagan was a B-movie actor, he was an actor nevertheless, and in his years on the stump for General Electric nationwide, he honed his public persuasion speeches to a fine edge, and was able to parlay that into a run for the White House which he won twice being monikered as the “Great Communicator.” But the language he used, while delivered quite well, was “dog whistle” language for anti-governmental radicals, all whom he welcomed into the GOP’s “Big Tent.”

The ground had earlier been ploughed at the 1964 Republican National Convention at Cow Palace in Daly City, CA (immediately adjacent and SOUTH of San Francisco) when then-NY Governor Nelson Rockefeller was granted 5 minutes to address the delegates to request adoption of language in the official party platform which would “repudiate here and now any doctrinaire, militant minority, whether Communist, Ku Klux Klan or Bircher which would subvert this party to purposes alien to the very basic tenets which gave this party birth.”

He was booed for over 16 minutes.

The language was simple, and read as follows:

Is a college education ~really~ all it’s cracked up to be… anymore? Or, why has tuition increased 300% in 30 years?

College costs expose the false meritocracy of the American dream

The cost of an education in America has risen so much that only the wealthy and indebted can attend. The system doesn’t work

Post by Chris Arnade Photography.

Chris Arnade received his PhD in physics from Johns Hopkins University in 1992. He spent the next 20 years working as a trader on Wall Street. He left trading in 2012 to focus on photography. His “Faces of Addiction” series explores addiction in the south Bronx neighbourhood in New York City. Follow him on Twitter: @Chris_arnade

Chris Arnade

theguardian.com, Wednesday 18 June 2014 07.30 EDT

As a college student, Chris Arnade picked Florida watermelons to pay for school. His daughter can’t do the same.
Photograph: Alamy

When I entered Wall Street in 1993 with a PhD, I was an anomaly. One of my bosses was a failed baseball player, another a frustrated jazz musician. One of the guys running one of the most profitable businesses, in both my firm and all of Wall Street, was a former elevator repairman. Their college degrees – if they even had them – were from all sorts of schools, not simply the Ivy leagues.

By the time I left Wall Street a few years ago, the only people being hired were the “play it safe kids”. The ones with degrees from Princetons and Harvards. You know, the ones who had organized a soup kitchen in eighth grade (meaning, really their parents had) to load their resumes. The ones who had gone to the state science fair (meaning their parents or nannies had spent many weekends and nights helping with a science project).

 Few of these hires where rags-to-riches stories. Most had parents very much like those already working on Wall Street – wealthy and dedicated to getting their children whatever they needed, regardless of cost. Many were in fact the children of Wall Street parents.

It is not just Wall Street. Most of the best paying jobs now require a college degree, or post-college degree, and still rarely hire from state schools. They want Ivy schools, or similar. That feels safe.

This is a problem. Businesses have abdicated their primary role in hiring, handing it over to colleges, which have gladly accepted that role, and now charge a shit-load for it. Want a job kid? Pay $60,000 a year for four years. Then maybe pay for another two to get a MBA.

Yet, those best schools do not teach kids anything radically different from what the average colleges do. They do not prepare them better for the day-to-day work of Wall Street. Those finance skills are learned with experience and instinct after two years of training – on the job.

Rather, a prestigious education is a badge given to students who can follow the established rules, run through the maze, jump through hoops, color between the lines, and sit quietly. It shows that they really, really want to be a grown-up. For that, they pay $60,000 per year.

It has become a test. Are you part of the meritocracy?

It also has become a barrier of entry to professionalism – a very costly barrier of entry.

A rigid system of ‘feeder’ schools is in place for parents who want their children to attend schools like Harvard, which have a reputation for then ‘feeding’ major Wall Street firms. Photograph: Porter Gifford/Corbis

Small town Alabama man makes good with Harvard education & Oxford scholarship

From Waterloo to Harvard to Oxford, Dowdy stresses the importance of college preparation

By Tom Smith, 9/27/12

Jamin Dowdy, a graduate of Waterloo and Harvard, talks with students in Adina Stone’s classes at Covenant Christian School in Tuscumbia about the importance of a college education and academic testing. (Jim Hannon/TimesDaily)

Jamin Dowdy hasn’t decided if he will settle on law or education as a profession once he finishes his studies.

What he does know and what he is trying to stress to high school students is the importance of getting a head start in preparing for college. Dowdy, 22, a 2008 graduate of Waterloo High School, finished at Harvard University in May with a degree in political philosophy.

This afternoon, he leaves from Huntsville International Airport for England, where he will attend Oxford University for a year, studying the connection between math and philosophy as the winner of the Harlech Scholarship.

While preparing for scholarships in high school, Dowdy realized

UAH Professor Killer Amy Bishop Pleads Guilty

The reader should understand: The cost of trying capital cases – cases in which the penalty is, or may be death – are EXCEEDINGLY more expensive than any other case, simply because of the numerous levels of mandatory appeals. Thus, by pleading guilty, and spending the rest her natural life behind bars – without the possibility of parole, and being given humane healthcare – the District Attorney, Amy Bishop and her defense attorneys have saved Madison County, Huntsville, and the State of Alabama many MILLIONS of tax dollars.

That is true, even given that she may live perhaps another 40 years – though that is highly unlikely, simply because incarceration exacts a physical toll upon a person’s life, shortening it by many years. Estimating a cost of $20,000/year (which includes the total cost of employees to guard & manage the system, cost of operations, etc.), and supposing she lives another 40 years (which is less likely, than not) the total flat-line cost would be $800,000.

A 2004 report entitled “State Prison Expenditures, 2001” by James B. Stephan, Statistician for the Bureau of Justice Statistics, Office of Justice Programs, of the Department of Justice, found that the cost of food and medical expenses, food service & utilities cost per prisoner in Alabama was $1776. Alabama’s Average Annual Operating Cost per prisoner was $8128 – THE lowest of 50 states. Other components of cost – employee cost, salaries, wages, benefits, supplies, maintenance, contractual services, and other aspects of facility operation, etc. – account for nearly 96% of all operating costs. According to the report, of all states, Alabama has the HIGHEST per-prisoner cost of utilities as a percentage of operating expenditure, at 5.7%. Perhaps it’s time to rethink solar, wind and other sources of renewable energy?

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Sep 11, 3:15 PM EDT

Ex-prof pleads guilty to killing Ala. colleagues

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (AP) — An ex-professor pleaded guilty Tuesday to fatally shooting three colleagues and wounding three others at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, court officials said.

Amy Bishop, 47, pleaded guilty to one count of capital murder involving two or more people and three counts of attempted murder. She had earlier pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Amy Bishop pleads guilty to murder and attempted murder in Madison County.

Prosecutors were seeking the death penalty against the Harvard-educated Bishop and it was not immediately clear if they would drop the penalty as part of the plea deal. Sentencing will be after arguments are heard at a hearing on Sept. 24.

Prosecutors say

From Homeless to Harvard: North Carolina teen gets Ivy League full ride scholarship

To read of this story causes several emotions and thoughts to arise within me.

One, is of sorrow and pity.

Another, is of relief that the community pitched in to assist.

Another is of joy that she is on a trajectory for success.

Yet another is of frustration that these scenarios exist… and do so largely without others’ knowledge.

Even another is of a tinge of anger, for the injustice.

While another is of pride for her resolute attitude and dogged determination.

On the whole, however, it is a “happy ending” to an otherwise difficult, even horrifically tragic story. And it is precisely those kind of success stories we so love to hear. The stories of those whom have overcome adversity – to have excelled despite the most severe adversity, even affliction – is the type of success story, the proverbial Horatio Alger story, that we Americans and all people, love to hear.

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From scrubbing floors to Ivy League: Homeless student to go to dream college

By Vivian Kuo, CNN

updated 9:14 AM EDT, Fri June 8, 2012

Lawndale, North Carolina (CNN) — It’s before sunrise, and the janitor at Burns High School has already been down the length of a hallway, cleaning and sweeping classrooms before the day begins.

This particular janitor is painstakingly methodical, even as she administers a mental quiz on an upcoming test. Her name is Dawn Loggins, a straight-A senior at the very school she cleans.

On this day, she maneuvers a long-handled push broom between rows of desks. She stops to pick up a hardened, chewed piece of gum. “This annoys me, because there’s a trash can right here,” she says.

The worst, she says, is snuff cans in urinals. “It’s just rude and pointless.”

With her long, straight dark blonde hair and black-rimmed glasses, Dawn looks a bit like Avril Lavigne. But her life is a far cry from that of a privileged pop star.

She was homeless at the start of the school year, abandoned by her drug-abusing parents. The teachers and others in town pitched in — donating clothes and providing medical and dental care. She got the janitorial job through a school workforce assistance program.

She’s grateful for the work. But it’s where she’s going next, beyond the walls of Burns, that excites her most. She applied to four colleges within North Carolina and one dream university. She’ll graduate soon before heading off, leaving her dust pan behind.

Dawn Loggins is working as a janitor to make ends meet.

For now, there’s

“It wasn’t me. I wan’t there.” -Amy “Wile E. Coyote” Bishop

“It wasn’t me.”

That’s the asinine claim being made by Dr. Amy Bishop, PhD (Harvard) – sometimes also known as Amy “Wile E. Coyote” Bishop – the former UAH Biology professor whom shot and killed three of her former colleagues, and seriously wounding three others.

No doubt, she’s working on a multiple personality disorder defense.

Crazy like a fox?
Huntsville Police Department Investigator David Gray testified about his 2-hour interview with Bishop, and reported that

Bomb Making Materials found in Amy Bishop-Anderson’s home

Friday afternoon, 12 March 2010, Huntsville Police Department officials executed a search warrant on the McDowling Drive house of Amy Bishop and her husband Jim Anderson.

Neighborhood residents watched in shocked horror as they heard

Amy Bishop’s new book: “How I cooked my goose”; alternate working titles: “My mom lies for me, too!” -OR- “Shit! I missed her!”

Sometimes, it’s difficult to have an effective title, or headline to a new entry, so I decided to have a bit’o fun with this one.

The readers will remember that at age 19 Amy Bishop killed her 18-year old brother Seth with a pump shotgun, to which I referred in previous entries  – the most recent one being entitled “Amy Bishop’s Attorney Bryan Stevens – Can’t Read? Sure – just like Amy Bishop can’t shoot.”

The then-19-year-old Miss Bishop shot and killed her 18-year-old brother Seth, in the kitchen of their Braintree, MA home, after first “accidentally” discharging the same firearm in her bedroom upstairs, which blast her mother said she did not hear.

Following is Braintree Police Officer Charles N. Solimini’s recollection of the incident:

UAH Professor Amy Bishop, PhD & Psycho Bitch… the Shit hits the Fan!

This story just keeps getting weirder and freakier.

First, she goes apeshit and shoots six, killing three colleagues.

Then, it’s discovered she killed her own brother with a 12 gauge shotgun when she was 19 and he 18… but she was never charged because then-District Attorney William Delahunt (now Massachusetts’ 10th district Representative) decided not to file charges.

Now, revelations that she and her husband were suspects in

Amy Bishop, PhD… A Natural Born Killer?

Disturbing news is emerging in the tragic case of University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) Assistant Biology Professor Amy Bishop, PhD whom is accused of shooting 6 and killing three colleagues at Shelby Science Building on the 3d floor during a faculty meeting, after she apparently was denied tenure, but not at that meeting.

During her apprehension, which was videotaped by teevee news reporters, Bishop, whom is a mother of four children, all whom are staying with relatives, could be heard saying, “It didn’t happen. There’s no way… they are still alive.”

Huntsville, AL police say Bishop used a

UAH Professor Amy Bishop, PhD (Harvard) charged with capital murder

UAH Assistant Professor of Biology, Dr. Amy Bishop was taken into custody outside the Shelby Center for Science and Technology on the UAH campus Friday afternoon. She is charged with capital murder.

She is accused of shooting and killing

UAH Mass Shooting kills 3

As I write, details are emerging, this event being less than two hours ago.

Apparently, a female faculty