Alt-Right Incels at Deep State Daily Stormer Site Celebrate Buffalo …

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Guest post by Alt-Right Exposed

Right on cue, the Deep State Alt Right movement has been activated in order to conflate President Trump and Republicans with racism, and hatred of women, ahead of the mid term elections.

Andrew Weev Auernheimer, webmaster of the Deep State Neo-Nazi Daily Stormer website, publicly praised the cowardly mass shooting and terrorist attack, by one of his followers, against innocent Black Americans in Buffalo, New York on March 14th.

On the Poast social media platform, WeevstatedViolence works. Terrorism works., and They have launched open war against us, and occasionally there are a few heroes that are willing to respond in kind. I support anyone that kills Democrats.

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In numerous articles on the Daily Stormer, and on their Gamer Uprising forum, posters have been celebrating the attack, and calling for more violence.

Andrew Weev Auernheimer is a convicted computer hacker, who was sent to prison after being caught stealing and doxxing over 100,000 iPad users.

Mysteriously, Weev was suddenly released by Obamas Justice Department, after serving only 13 months of a 41 month sentence. As soon as he left federal prison, Auernheimer immediately started to praise convicted Oklahoma City terrorist Timothy McVeigh, and he publicly called for statues to be erected of terrorists who attacked the United States government.

Weevthen fled to Ukraine, where he suddenly had someone tattoo a swastika on his chest, and started Sieg Heiling, while attempting to align himself with Donald Trump, during Trumps 2016 presidential election campaign.

This is all eerily reminiscent of Alt-Right leaderRichard Spencersuddenly doing Sieg Heils and praising President Trump right around the same time.

It has long been considered common knowledge on right wing message boards that Andrew Weev Auernheimer cut some sort of a deal with the feds, to get out of jail early in order to infiltrate, disrupt and neutralize the right wing.

Weev, who is of of Jewish descent, according to his ownmother, ingratiated himself to Neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin, editor of a site called Total Fascism, which was later became the Daily Stormer. Anglin allowed Weev to become the webmaster of the site, despite his ethnicity and his early release from federal prison.

Weev and Andrew Anglin registered the Daily Stormer in Russia, in order to conflate Trump and conservatism with Russia, during the 2016 election. If these two were not taking orders directly from Adam Schiff, it is hard to tell how they would act any differently.

The alleged Buffalo shooter, 18-year-old Payton S. Gendron, was an avid reader, and a huge fan of the Daily Stormer. Gendron promoted and praised the site by name in his manifesto, while describing himself as a Neo-Nazi, a white supremacist, and an incel. All of these buzzwords are constantly being bandied about on the Daily Stormer and on their forum.

Gendron also shared a lot of Daily Stormer memes on a Discord channel which has long been considered an FBI honeypot on 4chan.

Weev and Anglin recently switched the sites domain to a registrar in Communist China, but the CCP dumped them after the Buffalo shooting. It seems that promoting terrorism is a bit much for even the Chinese Communist Party to stomach, at least publicly.

The site is now only accessible on the Tor network, which is park of the Deep Web, or Dark Net, where drugs and child pornography are routinely trafficked.

The official Daily Stormer forum, Gamer Uprising, is still up and running on the regular Internet. A whois search of Gamer Uprising indicates that the forum is registered in Tonga, and is hosted in the state of Washington, on the notorious vanwa.tech.

It turns out that vanwa.tech is being kept online by a shady Russian company calledDDoS-Guard, which is the host of the official website of the terrorist groupHamas. Vanwa also hosts the8chanforum, where the Buffalo shooter just happened to post and hang out on. Just a coincidence, we are sure.

For most of the existence of the site, Anglin advocated Neo-Nazism, and called for the extermination of Jews, and the ethnic cleansing of all non-whites. As soon as Weev became involved, the site took an even darker turn, if that is possible, in which they started calling for the kidnapping, rape, torture, and murder of women and teenage girls, in addition to committing terrorism against all minorities.

Timeandagain, have documented how the Daily Stormer started promoting the Incel movement in the past.

The incel, or involuntary celibate movement is composed of losers who hate and demean women, because they lack proper hygiene and basic social skills. Most of them are addicted to pornography, so they do not have the courage to approach women without coming across as creepy.

Due to being constantly rejected by normal women, the incels become bitter and lash out at women, often threatening to rape them. Some, like Elliot Rodger, who is often praised on the Daily Stormer,murderedtwo people, all because of his inability to approach women.

In one recentarticle, Andrew Anglin celebrated the stabbing death of a 13 year old Florida cheerleader, Trystin Bailey, in 2021. While the rest of the world reeled back in horror at this gruesome, cowardly murder, Weev and Andrew Anglin celebrated it.

If all of this activity were confined to the Dark Web, that would be one thing. However, the incel movement that Weev and Andrew Anglin started, is beginning to become popular, even among young influencers on the right, who should know better.

The Daily Stormer is promoting and endorsing Donald Trump again, in order to, once again, conflate support for Trump with racism, terrorism, and hatred and violence against women. The exact same people did the exact same thing during the first year of President Trumps term, when they encouraged the attack on Charlottesville.

These incels and Neo-Nazis are not conservatives.

They are not traditional.

They hate Christianity and everything that the West stands for.

They are not part of our culture.

They are not American, and most importantly, they will not replace us.

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Alt-Right Incels at Deep State Daily Stormer Site Celebrate Buffalo ...

Alt Right Journalist Whos Lost Every Lawsuit Over Banned Accounts …

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from the failboat-sets-sail-again dept

Laura Loomer still thinks she can sue her way back onto Facebook and Twitter. In support of her argument, she brings arguments that failed in the DC Appeals Court as well as a bill for $124k in legal fees for failing to show that having your account reported is some sort of legally actionable conspiracy involving big tech companies.

For this latest failed effort, she has retained the services of John Pierce, co-founder of a law firm that saw plenty of lawyers jump ship once it became clear Pierce was willing to turn his litigators into laughingstocks by representing Rudy Giuliani and participating in Tulsi Gabbards performative lawsuits.

Laura Loomer has lobbed her latest sueball into the federal court system and her timing could not have been worse. Her lawsuit against Twitter, Facebook, and their founders was filed in the Northern District of California (where most lawsuits against Twitter and Facebook tend to end up) just four days before this same court dismissed Donald Trumps lawsuit [PDF] alleging his banning by Twitter violated his First Amendment rights.

Trump will get a chance to amend his complaint, but despite all the arguments made in an attempt to bypass both the First Amendment rights of Twitter (as well as its Section 230 immunity), the courts opinion suggests a rewritten complaint will meet the same demise.

Plaintiffs main claim is that defendants have censor[ed] plaintiffs Twitter accounts in violation of their right to free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution Plaintiffs are not starting from a position of strength. Twitter is a private company, and the First Amendment applies only to governmental abridgements of speech, and not to alleged abridgements by private companies.

Loomers lawsuit [PDF] isnt any better. In fact, its probably worse. But it is 133 pages long! And (of course), it claims the banning of her social media accounts is the RICO.

The lawsuit wastes most of its pages saying things that are evidence of nothing. It quotes several news reports about social media moderating efforts, pointing out whats already been made clear: its imperfect and it often causes collateral damage. What the 133 pages fails to show how sucking at an impossible job is a conspiracy against Loomer in particular, which is what she needs to support her RICO claims.

The lawsuit begins with the stupidest of opening salvos: direct quotes from Floridas social media law, which was determined to be unconstitutional and blocked by a federal judge last year. It also quotes Justice Clarence Thomas idiotic concurrence in which he made some really dumb statements about the First Amendment and Section 230 immunity. To be sure, these are not winning arguments. A blocked law and a concurrence are not exactly the precedent needed to overturn decades of case law to the contrary.

It doesnt get any better from there. Theres nothing in this lawsuit that supports a conspiracy claim. And whats in it ranges from direct quotes of news articles to unsourced claims thrown in there just because.

For instance, Loomers lawsuit quotes an authoritarians George Soros conspiracy theory as though thats evidence of anything.

On or about May 16, 2020, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn and the Hungarian Government called Defendant Facebooks oversight board not some neutral expert body, but a Soros Oversight Board intended to placate the billionaire activist because three of its four co-chairs include Catalina Botero Marino, a board member of the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights, funded by Open Society Foundations Soross flagship NGO and Helle Thorning-Schmidt, former Prime Minister of Denmark, who is unequivocally and vocally anti- Trump and serves alongside Soros and his son Alexander as trustee of another NGO, and a Columbia University professor Jamal Greene who served as an aide to Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) during Justice Kavanaughs 2018 confirmation Hearings.

Or this claim, which comes with no supporting footnote or citation. Nor does it provide any guesses as to how this information might violate Facebook policy.

Defendant Facebook allows instructions on how to perform back-alley abortions on its platform.

Loomers arguments dont start to coalesce until were almost 90 pages into the suit. Even then, theres nothing to them. According to Loomer, she relied on Mark Zuckerbergs October 2019 statement that he didnt think its right for tech companies to censor politicians in a democracy. This statement was delivered five months after Facebook had permanently banned Loomer. Loomer somehow felt this meant she would have no problems with Facebook as long as she presented herself as a politician in a democracy.

In reliance upon Defendant Facebooks promised access to its networks, Plaintiffs Candidate Loomer and Loomer Campaign raised money and committed significant time and effort in preparation for acting on Defendant Facebooks fraudulent representation of such promised access to its network.

On or about November 11, 2019, Loomer Campaign attempted to set up its official campaign page for Candidate Loomer as a candidate rather than a private citizen.

On November 12, 2019, Defendant Facebook banned the Laura Loomer forCongress page, the official campaign page for Candidate Loomer, from its platform, and subsequently deleted all messages and correspondence with the campaign.

On page 94, the RICO predicates begin. At least Loomer and her lawyer have saved the court the trouble of having to ask for these, but theres still nothing here. The interference with commerce by threats or violence is nothing more than noting that Facebook, Google, and Twitter hold a considerable amount of market share and all deploy terms of service that allow them to remove accounts for nearly any imaginable reason. No threats or violence are listed.

The Interstate and Foreign Transportation in Aid of Racketeering Enterprises section lists a bunch of content moderation stuff that happened to other people. Fraud by Wire, Radio, or Television consists mostly of Loomer reciting the law verbatim before suggesting Facebook and Procter & Gamble schemed to deny her use of Facebook or its ad platform. Most of the fraud alluded to traces back to Zuckerberg saying Facebook would allow politicians and political candidates to say whatever they wanted before deciding that the platform would actually moderate these entities.

Theres also something in here about providing material support for terrorism (because terrorists use the internet), which has never been a winning argument in court. And theres some truly hilarious stuff about Advocating Overthrow of Government which includes nothing about the use of social media by Trump supporters to coordinate the raid on the US Capitol building, but does contain a whole lot of handwringing about groups like Abolish ICE and other anti-law enforcement groups.

All of this somehow culminates in Loomer demanding [re-reads Prayer for Relief several times] more than $10 billion in damages. To be fair, the ridiculousness of the damage demand is commensurate with the ridiculousness of the lawsuit. Its litigation word soup that will rally the base but do nothing for Loomer but cost her more money. Whatevers not covered by the First Amendment will be immunized by Section 230. Theres no RICO here because, well, its never RICO. This is stupid, performative bullshit being pushed by a stupid, performative journalist and litigated by a stupid, performative lawyer. A dismissal is all but inevitable.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, conspiracy, content moderation, john pierce, laura loomer, mark zuckerberg, rico, section 230, terms of serviceCompanies: facebook, twitter

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Alt Right Journalist Whos Lost Every Lawsuit Over Banned Accounts ...

Racist Great Replacement Conspiracy Went From Alt-Right to Mainstream

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The belief that immigrants arrive in the United States with the intent to "steal" has been ubiquitous in right-wing politics for decades: Immigrants have been accused of stealing jobs, stealing tax dollars, and stealing benefits. But lately, some of the GOP's most stalwart voices have drummed up a more explicit accusation that immigrants are here to steal the very essence of America and replace it with something foreign an idea plucked directly from far right wing media.

This week, Fox News' Tucker Carlson, who frequently promotes white supremacist talking points, made an adamant declaration during the Fox News Primetime show that Democrats were using immigration as part of a plan to "replace the current electorate, the voters now casting ballots, with new people, more obedient voters from the Third World" and that no one should "sit back and take that." It was the most explicit endorsement of the "great replacement" theory in Carlson's long history of white nationalism, and the segment drew an immediate backlash, including a statement from the Anti-Defamation League calling for Fox News to fire Carlson.

In the face of public backlash and advertiser boycotts Fox has encouraged advertisers to move their money from the opinion shows to Fox's other programming, branding their non-primetime and "news" shows as "safe" from the public relations nightmare of their "opinion" shows. Carlson's raving about great replacement took place not on his own show but on Fox News Primetime, where several companies that had previously pulled or refused to run ads on Tucker Carlson Tonight, aired ads that very same night.

The following night, Carlson doubled down on his remarks as white nationalists celebrated the broadcast and endorsement of their long held conspiracy theories on the most-watched cable news channel in the country.

The white nationalist "great replacement" conspiracy theory was popularized by French writer Renaud Camus in his 2012 book Le Grand Remplacement. Often intermingled with a "white genocide" conspiracy theory, it proposes that a variety of factors, such as an influx of nonwhite immigrants, multiculturalism, and falling birthrates among white Europeans, will result in white populations losing their position as the dominant demographic.

The conspiracy theory creates a dangerous dynamic in which believers view immigrants and nonwhite citizens as an existential threat to their communities. And the theory is not a purely academic endeavor; it seeks to mobilize believers into action against their supposed "replacement." This mobilization manifests itself in various ways, including political activism against immigration, efforts to encourage white women to have more children to bolster demographic growth, and, in an extreme form, deadly violence against immigrants and communities of color.

The theory has reared its head in violent outbursts such as the murder of 51 people at the Al Noor mosque and Linwood Islamic Center in Christchurch, New Zealand, the killing of more than 20 mostly Hispanic shoppers in El Paso, Texas, and the screams of angry young men who shouted "Jews will not replace us; you will not replace us" at the August 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where antiracist demonstrator Heather Heyer was murdered by neo-Nazi James Fields Jr. Field's online behavior before Unite the Right indictes support for Nazi ideology and white racial purity. There is a clear link between the rhetoric broadcast to viewers via mainstream shows like Tucker Carlson Tonight and the beliefs espoused by mass shooters motivated by the theory; in some cases, the language overlaps with striking parallels.

Elements of the "great replacement" conspiracy theory have also recently appeared in the statements of prominent conservative politicians. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) recently appeared on Fox News' Justice with Judge Jeanine and said that Black Lives Matter protests were part of "an attempted cultural genocide going on in America right now." Gaetz claimed that "the left wants us to be ashamed of America so that they can replace America," a message he later repeated on Twitter:

It's no coincidence that Gaetz echoed the "great replacement" talking points on Fox, as the network has played a role in promoting the conspiracy theory to American conservative audiences for years.

Fox News is home to a near-constant stream of claims that America is being subjected to an immigrant "invasion." Hosts and contributors including Brian Kilmeade, Stuart Varney, Pete Hegseth, Tomi Lahren, and Mike Huckabee have repeatedly fear mongered about a supposed "invasion" of the United States' southern border by migrants seeking asylum.

The vitriolic talking point has become ubiquitous in Fox's lineup; a Media Matters study last year found that Fox made over 70 on-air references to an "invasion" by migrants over the seven months leading up to the El Paso mass shooting, in which the perpetrator said he was responding to a "Hispanic invasion of Texas."

In addition to the open racism of its "invasion" talking point, Fox News regularly pushes the claim that Americans are being replaced by immigrants in order to benefit Democrats at the ballot box. On The Ingraham Angle, host Laura Ingraham warned in 2018 that Democrats "want to replace you, the American voters, with newly amnestied citizens and an ever-increasing number of chain migrants." This May, Ingraham boosted an article from the white nationalist website VDare that attempted to link immigration to coronavirus hotspots.

Carlson tried to alarm audiences in July 2018 by saying that "Latin American countries are changing election outcomes here by forcing demographic change on this country." In January 2020, he declared that the "long-term agenda of refugee resettlement is to bring in future Democratic voters, obviously."

With the entrance of a new administration, Carlson and Fox have doubled down on hysterical claims and misinformation around immigration, particularly at the southern border.

This year Carlson has claimed the immigrants currently in America "devalue your political power as a voter" and "subvert democracy itself." He declared asylum-seekers "a human tragedy for everyone involved and a tragedy for those of us who live here," warning that immigration will "change your country forever, possibly for the worse." Carlson regularly tells viewers that allowing immigrants to settle in the United States is a way to "punish" the people who already live here.

And the rhetoric isn't limited to Carlson. The replacement theory is now a staple in right-wing media's coverage of immigration.

Fox host Jeanine Pirro got to the crux of the "great replacement" theory last August when she claimed: "It is a plot to remake America, to replace American citizens with illegals who will vote for the Democrats."

And this sort of racist conspiracy theorizing extends beyond Fox.

Following the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Ingraham broadcast an unhinged rant claiming immigrants were the real insurrectionists.

Podcast host Bill O'Reilly warned that undocumented immigration would cause "traditional America to vanish."

Conservative writer David Horowitz accused the left of waging a "war on America's sovereignty" through immigration.

Longtime conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh stated in 2018 that immigration from Latin America was intended to "dilute and eventually eliminate or erase what is known as the distinct or unique American culture. ... This is why people call this an invasion."

On Sean Hannity's radio show, Bill O'Reilly warned that undocumented immigration will cause "traditional America to vanish"

Far-right author Ann Coulter titled her 2015 anti-immigration book Adios America: The Left's Plan to Turn Our Country Into a Third World Hellhole.

Radio host Michael Savage said America was "being invaded by a far more virile people" and called for Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), a US citizen, to be deported "for what she's done in this country." The Daily Wire's Michael Knowles accused the left of attempting to "radically change American culture" through immigration in order to "flood this country with people who will -- are more likely to support them politically."

As the language of "great replacement" has become commonplace throughout right-wing media, the rhetoric has also made the leap from commentators to policymakers. President Donald Trump himself retweeted proponents of the theory even before the 2016 election, and in 2018 he directed Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to investigate the baseless conspiracy theory that genocide is being committed against white farmers in South Africa -- a policy that originated in a segment on Carlson's prime-time Fox News show.

Last November, a trove of emails leaked to the Southern Poverty Law Center revealed the extent of White House adviser Stephen Miller's sympathies for white nationalism. Miller repeatedly spoke of immigration in a way that would be recognizable to proponents of the great replacement theory, often referring to demographic changes in the context of immigration.

In one email to former Breitbart Editor Katie McHugh, Miller lamented the effects of the Hart-Celler Act, which eliminated race-based immigration quotas, writing that in modern politics "immigration is something that we can only vote to have more of immigration 'reform' is a moral imperative but it's impossible, evil, racist to reverse immigration."

From Carlson's nightly broadcasts to Matt Gaetz's national stage to the local politics of Florida's state Senate, conservative figures are now cheering on policies using language evoking the "great replacement" conspiracy theory, and their promotion of these talking points as an electoral issue means the hawkish anti-immigrant rhetoric that used to live primarily in fringe conservative media spaces is now a staple of conservative politics.

Allowing immigration policy, and our national discourse surrounding race relations, to be shaped by white nationalistnativist conspiracy theories that have already proved deadly both in the United States and abroad endangers the well-being of everyone in the United States. Right wing media and the conservative establishments' failure to stamp out racist, conspiratorial rhetoric from their midst has emboldened bad actors and legitimized a hateful ideology couched in white supremacy.

Nikki is a researcher at Media Matters for America, she can be found on Twitter @NikkiMcR.

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Racist Great Replacement Conspiracy Went From Alt-Right to Mainstream

Twitter investors sue Elon Musk for failing to promptly disclose stake

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Elon Musk's Twitter profile displayed on a computer screen and Twitter logo displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on April 9, 2022.

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

A group of Twitter shareholders are suing Elon Musk for allegedly failing to disclose he had bought a significant stake in the social media company in the right timeframe.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO revealed on April 4 that he had amassed a 9.2% stake inTwitter, leading shares to soar as investors viewed the move as a vote of confidence.

But his disclosure may have been too late.

Federal trade laws dictate that investors must inform the Securities and Exchange Commission within 10 days when they take a more than 5% stake in a company.

Musk, who started buying Twitter stock in January, allegedly hit this milestone on March 14, meaning he should have informed the SEC by March 24.

A representative for Musk, the richest person in the world, did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment.

The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in New York by law firm Block & Leviton on behalf of several Twitter shareholders, alleges that Musk was able to buy up more Twitter stock at a deflated price in theperiod between passing the 5% threshold and publicly disclosing his stake.

Half a dozen legal and securities experts have told The Washington Post that the delay may have helped Musk to net $156 million.

Twitter's stock popped 27% on Apr. 4 after it was disclosed that Musk had amassed his 9.2% stake, worth almost $3 billion.

The class action case has been filed on behalf of investors who claim they lost out on potential gains they could have realized had Musk disclosed his shareholding earlier.

"What seems crystal clear is that Elon Musk missed the applicable 10-day filing deadline under Sections 13(d) and 13(g) of the Securities Act of 1933 to report 5% ownership in a public company," Alon Kapen, a corporate transaction lawyer with Farrell Fritz, said in a statement shared with CNBC.

"That gave him an extra 10 days in which to buy additional shares (he increased his ownership during that time by an extra 4.1%) before the per share price spike that occurred when he finally announced his holdings on April 4," Kapen added.

After the disclosure of his Twitter stake, Musk revealed that he also intended to take a seat on the board of the company. However, for reasons that have not been announced, he has decided not to take the seat.

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Twitter investors sue Elon Musk for failing to promptly disclose stake

‘They Have So Much Power Over The White House’ – Elon Musk Explains About One Particular Group – Yahoo Finance

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In a recent interview, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO, Elon Musk said about the UAW: They have so much power over the whitehouse, they can exclude Tesla from an EV (Electric Vehicle) summit. The referenced EV summit was held in August of 2021, where President Joe Biden discussed the promising future of Electric Vehicles.

While President Biden has now referenced Tesla when discussing the future of EVs, that wasnt always the case. President Biden lauded the likes of Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) and General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) for being American made and the future of the county.

Related: Elon Musk Recommends Investing In 'Physical Things' - Here Are 3 Physical Assets That Perform Well During High Inflation

Knowing what we know now, the praise feels especially tone def and exclusive, given the recent reports from cars.com, citing Tesla, as the most American made manufacturer, who landed more cars in the top ten of American Made Models than any other manufacturer.

Musk has also said in an interview that In case that wasnt enough, then you have President Biden with Mary Barra at a subsequent event, congratulating Mary for having led the EV revolution. Musk continued I believe it was in the same quarter that GM delivered 26 Electric Vehicles, and Tesla delivered 300,000.

Musk confronted some of the perceived slights in a reply to a tweet from President Biden, in January of this year.

Musk is part billionaire, part twitter troll, but 100% competitive. He understands business, and is looking for respect. Love him or hate him, he and his companies have significantly altered our present, and will heavily imprint our future.

Build back better is still a moniker that President Biden belives in and is actively attempting to push forward. Seemingly, all EV manufacturers stand to benefit from any future bills, laws, etc., with Tesla, once again, leading the pack.

Read Next: Jeff Bezos Says Inflation 'Most Hurts The Least Affluent' Which May Be Why These Assets Are Performing Better Than Ever

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Photo: Courtesy of Tesla Owners Club Belgium on Flickr

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'They Have So Much Power Over The White House' - Elon Musk Explains About One Particular Group - Yahoo Finance

Elon Musk’s Twitter chaos is consuming SpaceX too – The Verge

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Its always fun to check in with SpaceX, Elon Musks least dysfunctional company oh wait, whats this? The workers at SpaceX are upset?

Last week, as first reported by The Verge, a group of SpaceX workers wrote a letter to Musk about his tweets. Elons behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks, the letter states. As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX every Tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company. It is critical to make clear to our teams and to our potential talent pool that his messaging does not reflect our work, our mission, or our values.

The plan was to hand-deliver signatures of those who agreed with the letter to SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell, who effectively runs the company. Sure, Musks title is CEO, but hes largely a spokesmodel (although I suppose hes probably also taken on the project of berating the Starship engineers to go faster). Shotwells been working in aerospace since 1988, when Musk was still in college. Musk might be the ideas guy, but SpaceX is Shotwells show.

Subscribe to The Verge's limited-run newsletter occasionally revived when there's Too Much Elon News. (And right now, there is Too Much Elon News.)

This is obvious if you think about it even a little. Consider Tesla, which is the focus of most of Musks attention: constantly in crisis mode, incapable of meeting deadlines, and currently pretending that its manufacturing a Westworld knockoff robot. SpaceX is not like this! Its also plagued by delays, but it manages to fulfill its government contracts. Theres much less drama around SpaceX, which can only mean Musk isnt running it. Someone whos competent at basic management is and thats Shotwell.

But even Shotwell cant prevent Musks chaos from hitting SpaceX, especially now that hes threatening to take over a major social media company. Thus, the letter, which led to SpaceX firing five people.

Shotwell wrote an email delivered to the entire company that had an actual audience of one her boss noting that SpaceX had a lot of work to do and characterizing the letter as interfering with SpaceX employees ability to focus on and do their work. No mention was made of the actual issues raised by the employees, such as the allegations that the companys no asshole policy isnt real, and neither is its zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy. Nor was any mention made of Musks bid for Twitter, which is what prompted this cycle of Musk shitposting activity, which, in turn, created a distraction that interfered with SpaceX employees ability to focus on their work.

The zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy is a particular issue for SpaceX since SpaceX reportedly paid $250,000 to a flight attendant who says Musk exposed his penis to her and offered to buy her a horse if she gave him an erotic massage. This does not seem like a zero-tolerance policy for sexual harassment; it seems like a zero-tolerance policy for complaints about sexual harassment.

And, besides, Shotwell doesnt think the case uncovered by Business Insider is real: I believe the allegations to be false; not because I work for Elon, but because I have worked closely with him for 20 years and never seen nor heard anything resembling these allegations, Shotwell wrote in a separate email that was also sent to the whole company. Anyone who knows Elon like I do, knows he would never conduct or condone this alleged inappropriate behavior.

A company paying out for its CEOs bad behavior is consistent with an unenforced zero-tolerance sexual harassment policy. Five former workers also alleged last year that SpaceX doesnt take sexual harassment seriously. A former mission integration engineer also posted an essay where she described being groped during her internship and persistent sexual advances during the rest of her career there. I reported each incident of sexual harassment I experienced to HR, and nothing was done, wrote Ashley Kosak, the former employee, in her essay. I was told that matters of this nature were too private to openly discuss with the perpetrators.

Anyway, back to this recent letter. I dont know if these now-fired employees are going to take their case to the National Labor Relations Board, though some experts The Verge spoke to last week suggested their firing was illegal. Musk has already had run-ins with the NLRB, which slapped him on the wrist for anti-union activity at Tesla. As part of its judgment against Musk, he was ordered to delete a tweet. It is still live.

Indeed, one service Elon Musk has provided for America is demonstrating exactly how sclerotic our legal and administrative state actually is. I have been waiting with some interest for NASA to say literally anything about this dust-up. I suppose if I wait long enough, NASA will say this is not appropriate behavior just like it did with the Joe Rogan weed thing, where Musk hit a blunt on Rogans popular podcast. After an investigation following said blunt-hitting, NASA rewarded SpaceX with a bonus $5 million for employee education.

I got impatient, waiting for NASA, so I emailed the agency to ask for an interview about how it plans to handle all of this. Spokesperson Joshua Finch told me that hed try to get me a written response but didnt think hed be able to meet my deadline. Indeed, he didnt. Heres what he sent me after publication, in its entirety:

NASA takes seriously any allegations of harassment and is fully committed to providing a safe working environment. NASA contractors are responsible for adhering to workplace safety and health clauses in accordance with applicable contracts. Consistent with the Federal Acquisition Regulation, NASA generally is not involved in contractor decisions to hire/terminate employees.

This is kind of an awkward area for NASA, because NASA is also a boys club. According to a memoir by Lori Garver, the second-in-command during the Obama administration, Garver was called an ugly whore, a motherfucking bitch, and a cunt; told I need to get laid, and asked if Im on my period or going through menopause when her co-workers disagreed with her.

More to the point, though, SpaceX is the only US company that offers a ride to the International Space Station. SpaceX and Boeing both made deals with NASA as part of the Commercial Crew Program; at the time, NASA was relying on Russian rockets to ferry its astronauts. Boeings competing Starliner, which has been beset by delays, has not yet carried people; it only just managed to complete an uncrewed test.

Its not just NASA that relies on SpaceX. Its also the US military, though, unlike NASA, the military has options. Just last weekend, SpaceX launched a communications satellite called Globalstar-2, but satellite trackers believe the mission also carried covert payloads, which may or may not be related to the US military.

The Twitter acquisition is occupying less than 5 percent of his time, Musk has claimed. Given how public that 5 percent of his time is, it has an outsized effect on his other companies. Shotwell now has to manage SpaceX through her boss increasingly erratic public behavior. But this underlines her actual problem: shes not really the CEO of SpaceX even though she is, in many ways, functionally indistinguishable from most CEOs. One difference? When the actual CEO makes a mess, shes the one who has to clean it up.

Update June 27th, at 12PM ET: Adds NASA statement.

Originally posted here:

Elon Musk's Twitter chaos is consuming SpaceX too - The Verge

The possible two reasons Elon Musk hasn’t tweeted in nearly a week – Marca English

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When the new deal to buy Twitter was announced, Elon Musk began tweeting several times on a daily basis. His tweets ranged a variety of topics from economics, to technology, politics and a lot of memes. Knowing he could potentially buy the platform, he became increasingly more active with his 100+ million followers, which represents 43% of all users in the platform.

However, this drastically changed last Friday for some mysterious reason and we are going to analyze Musk's actions. Over the full week, the Tesla CEO hasn't made a single tweet about anything. His last response to a tweet was a meme where he compares himself to Marvel's The Hulk. As far as single tweets go, he posted another meme where he mocks the gas prices in America.

The most obvious reason Elon Musk hasn't tweeted in a full week is because he is probably negotiating the deal to buy the company. There was probably a clause in the contract that prevents him from making any publication about anything while he is closing the $44 billion deal.

After this negotiation period is finished, we will probably see him return more active than ever on the platform. But there is another hidden reason Elon Musk is probably silent, it has to do with the Roe v. Wade ruling overturn from last week. Musk has a direct interest in this decision over women's rights, he's been talking about it for many years.

What does appear interesting for the world is Elon Musk's set tweet at the very top of his profile. He has been talking about dropping fertility rates since the '1970s for many years. In his view, the biggest issue in the world is the lack of babies being born. Although he hasn't mentioned the word abortion once, last week's Supreme Court decision to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case ruling lines up directy with what Musk has been talking about for years.

Everything is clear now, Elon Musk has always been in favor of life because he thinks more babies need to be born in order to preserve human civilization. When he gets to tweet again, watch how he sides with the Republicans on this issue as he's done it on so many more things.

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The possible two reasons Elon Musk hasn't tweeted in nearly a week - Marca English

Where Is Elon Musk? – TheStreet

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Where is Elon Musk?

The CEO of Tesla (TSLA) - Get Tesla Inc. Reporthas disappeared from social media since June 21, the date of his last tweets. This date also marks his last recorded presence on social networks.

Normally two events could have caught his attention if we rely on his recent history on social media.

Musk has just taken an important step on Twitter, his favorite communication channel. In fact, the Tech tycoon now has 100 million followers, which makes him the sixth most influential and followed personality in the world on the microblogging website. He is also the only CEO to have so many followers.

The five people in front of him are former President Barack Obama, musicians Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Rihanna and Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo. It's a safe bet that Musk will continue his ascent in this ranking.

If his fans and admirers celebrate this achievement, Musk remains silent.

The other event is the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on June 24. Roe v. Wade has been the landmark case for abortion rights since 1973, when the court ruled on a 7-2 vote that women had the constitutional right to an abortion.

Musk has accustomed us in recent months to intervening on all subjects with the idea of expanding his influence beyond the sole circles of tech and business. He took sides in the ultra polarizing debate on gun control. He did not hesitate to let it be known that his candidate for the 2024 presidential election would be Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

So far Musk hasn't said anything on abortion yet. But it is important to mention that in recent months the CEO of Tesla has encouraged people to have children as a response to the reduction in the world's population, "the biggest single threat to civilization right now," according to him.

Since his June 21 tweets, the Tesla CEO seems to have decided to finally become a normal or classic boss. He gave an interview last Saturday to CleanTechnicas Johnna Crider at the companys Gigafactory in Austin, Texas. It's for Criders podcast, Getting Stoned, according to posts posted by the podcaster who promises to broadcast this exchange "soon."

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Apart from this interview, Musk seems to have disappeared. But this intended or undesired disappearance came as people begin to express a "Musk fatigue."

Employees of his rocket company SpaceX recently wrote an open letter in which they denounced his media omnipresence. They were then fired. This decision has somewhat damaged the image of defender of free speech that Musk claims and that he put forward as one of the arguments for which he wants to acquire Twitter as TheStreet's Rob Lenihan reported.

"Elons behavior in the public sphere is a frequent source of distraction and embarrassment for us, particularly in recent weeks, the employees wrote. As our CEO and most prominent spokesperson, Elon is seen as the face of SpaceX every tweet that Elon sends is a de facto public statement by the company.

A few days later, it was revealed by celebrity news site TheBlast that one of his seven children, who has become transgender, wanted to change their name to cut all ties with their father.

"I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form," Musk's transgender daughter said in a petition.Born Xavier Alexander Musk, she asks to be called Vivian Jenna Wilson so that her name matches her gender

Wilson is the maiden name of her mother, divorced from Elon Musk in 2008.

The request was filed in April in a court in Santa Monica, Calif.

The billionaire has in the past written posts on Twitter criticizing the fact that transgender or non-binary people ask to be identified by specific pronouns, including this tweet dating from December 2020:

"I absolutely support trans, but all these pronouns are an esthetic nightmare."

And DeSantis, his favorite candidate for 2024, recently signed legislation, known by Don't Say Gay law, to restrict discussions of homosexuality and trans issues in Florida's public schools.

The richest man in the world had a total of eight children: six with Justine Musk, born Wilson in the 2000s, one of whom died a few weeks after birth, and, more recently, two with musician Grimes.

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Where Is Elon Musk? - TheStreet

What Is Elon Musk’s Accent? – We Got This Covered

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NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MAY 02:Elon Musk attends The 2022 Met Gala Celebrating "In America: An Anthology of Fashion" at The Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 02, 2022 in New York City. (Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)

When you think about Elon Musk, what comes to mind? Is it his mind boggling wealth? His intelligence? How about his penchant for dating beautiful women? All those things are true, but one thing that keeps coming up again and again is Musks accent.

Its a little Canadian? A touch of Afrikaans? Maybe some American slang thrown in? Its hard to tell, but with a little digging we find out that the answers been right in front of us the whole time. However, in order to understand Musks accent, we need to understand where hes from. Lets dig in.

Musk was born on June 28, 1971 in Pretoria, South Africa. His father was native South African and his mother was Canadian. He left South Africa in 1988 after he procured a Canadian passport, because he didnt want to support the countrys policy of apartheid by joining the military.

He was 17 when he moved to Canada and 30 when he moved to the United States. When he was a child, he attended private school. Musk has admitted in the past that his father had no faith in his son and told him he wasnt going to amount to anything.

When the young Musk moved to Canada, his father told him he would be back in a few months. Musk has called his father evil and his father answered this claims by telling The Daily Mail that his son simply needed to grow up.

He needs to get over himself. Im not going to hit back. Im going to wait until he comes to his senses. Hes having a tantrum, like a spoilt child. He cant have what he wants and now I am apparently an evil monster.

Musks tri-country upbringing definitely affected the way he speaks. His accent is a mix of English South African mixed with Canadian and American English elements. Thats why it sounds so unique to everyone its a mix of three different dialects.

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What Is Elon Musk's Accent? - We Got This Covered

Can you solve it? Are you smart enough to work for Elon Musk? – The Guardian

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In the early years of rocket company SpaceX, CEO Elon Musk liked to set job applicants the following problem:

Youre standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk one mile south, one mile west and one mile north. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?

The most common response was the North Pole, which is a correct answer. Indeed, the question is an old chestnut. (The earliest known reference to a version of this puzzle is 1821.)

According to Musks biographer Ashlee Vance, however, Musk would then ask: Where else could it be?

That is todays first puzzle: where else could it be?

The shape of the Earth (and Mars, fwiw) leads to many other excellent puzzles. Here are three of them:

1. One direction

You are standing on the surface of the Earth. You head north and travel for ten miles in a straight line. After a quick stop, you again head north and travel another ten miles in a straight line. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?

2. Squaring the circle

You are standing on the surface of the Earth. You walk ten miles north, ten miles west, ten miles south and then ten miles east. You end up exactly where you started. Where are you?

(Note: this is not a trick question. Since the Earth is spherical, almost all starting points will not get you back to where you started.)

If you think you have an answer, I will Elon Musk it right back at ya: where else could it be?

3. Brain Fogg

In the Jules Verne story Around the World in Eighty Days, Phileas Fogg leaves London on October 2, 1872. He travels via Egypt, India, Japan, the US and his final leg is across the Atlantic. As the books title indicates, the trip takes him 80 days. What day did he arrive back in London?

(Note: the eightieth day after October 2 is December 21.)

Clarification for pedantic astronomers, geographers and physicists: assume the Earth is a perfect sphere.

Ill be back at 5pm UK with the answers.

UPDATE: Solutions are now posted here.

Meanwhile NO SPOILERS. Please instead discuss the shape of the world.

I set a puzzle here every two weeks on a Monday. Im always on the look-out for great puzzles. If you would like to suggest one, email me.

Im the author of several books of puzzles, and also the childrens book series Football School. The latest instalment, The Greatest Ever Quiz Book, is just out.

I give school talks about maths and puzzles (online and in person). If your school is interested please get in touch.

Sources: 1) Adapted from a puzzle by David Singmaster, 2) Murray S Klamkin, Mathematics Magazine 1958/9

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Can you solve it? Are you smart enough to work for Elon Musk? - The Guardian

Take note, Elon Musk: this company is quietly dominating the EV race – Business Standard

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Pipe down for a second Elon, the hottest things in the auto industry the most electric electrics now come from Hyundai Motor Co. and Kia Corp.

Earlier this year, the South Korean carmakers rolled out two new battery-powered cars the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and its sibling, the Kia EV6 which promptly tore up the sales charts, passing the Nissan Leaf, Chevrolet Bolt and every other electric vehicle on the market not made by Tesla. In the US this year through May, Hyundai and Kia sold 21,467 of these two machines, besting even the white-hot Ford Mustang Mach-E, which was snapped up by 15,718 drivers.

From an EV perspective, theyre really just kind of cleaning the floor, said Edmunds analyst Joseph Yoon. I honestly dont know if any dealers around me have any in stock.

Tesla still sells far more cars, but it took the company a decade to deliver as many electric vehicles as Hyundai and Kia have managed in a few short months. Even Musk has been impressed.

Granted, Hyundai is no startup. And the design of the current hits started about six years ago, according to Steve Kosowski, manager of long range strategy at Kia America. At the time, the Chevrolet Bolt had just hit the market and Kia considered a car similar in size and scope. Ultimately, Kosowski and company green lit something far larger, sportier and swankier at a slightly higher price.

The thinking was, with the platform we have and the market understanding we have, lets put together a really bold, breakthrough proposition, he recalls. Were going to make a statement that Kia is here.

The timing was favorable. EV adoption is picking up in the US, thanks to a surge in both climate concern and gasoline prices. And though theres a run on battery-powered vehicles, there still arent many to choose from. Of the 30 or so models for sale on the US market, only a handful can be had for less than $45,000 and most of those are relatively small, dated cars like the Nissan Leaf.

The Ioniq 5 and EV6 both offer the cargo space of a small SUV, the size and shape of vehicle that has taken over US garages of late. Both cars ride on the same modular platform, incorporate the same motors and batteries and post similar speed specifications. They are tricked out with screens and charge at some of the fastest rates in the industry, adding almost 16 miles of range in a minute under ideal conditions. They also offer a couple features that are novel in the space: pedals to adjust regenerative braking and bi-directional power (yes, you can run power tools or charge another EV with one of these machines).

Starting around $40,000, they are drawing buyers with smaller budgets who otherwise may have bought a starter sedan, says Yoon at Edmunds. And yet, they are plush enough inside to pull from the top of the market as well, as drivers trade in luxury cars with internal combustion engines.

These two cars have come in kind of at the right price and the right size for a lot of buyers, Yoon said. And I think theres a level of inherent trust with a big manufacturer getting in the game with a mainstream.

Emad Zia and his wife had only been planning to dip our toes in the EV market when Hyundais new cars launched this winter. The two are fond of sporty cars preferably with a stick shift but wanted something bigger than the Volkswagen Golf R and Mazda Miata in their Dallas garage. They settled on the Ioniq 5 purely based on photos and speed specs, then ordered an EV6 when they couldnt find the Hyundai anywhere close to the sticker price.

Were used to having I dont want to say underdogs but unique cars, Emad Zia explained. And the looks and uniqueness of this car just doesnt get old.

So far, roughly three in four EV6 buyers were previously driving a car from another brand, according to Kia, and only one in 10 has previously owned a plug-in vehicle. The current waitlist for the EV6 is about six months long and the average transaction price is a few thousand dollars above the sticker price, according to Bloomberg Intelligence, which suggests most buyers are willing to pay a premium.

Our dealers are reporting that these cars are sold within hours, said Eric Watson, vice president of sales at Kia America Inc.

Kosowski said the new Hyundai products are capitalizing, in part, on Tesla fatigue, as the first-mover sedans and SUVs become ubiquitous even beyond coastal states. Also, Hyundai owners are sticking with what they know of those trading in a Hyundai or Kia recently, about 60% stayed with the brand, according to Edmunds.

Hyundai plans to launch a new battery-powered car every year for the rest of the decade and is spending $16.5 billion to boost EV production in South Korea. By 2030, the automaker wants to claim 12% of the global EV market, some 3.2 million cars and trucks.

They definitely have a leg up, Yoon says. Toyota and Subaru will have to see if they can catch them.

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Take note, Elon Musk: this company is quietly dominating the EV race - Business Standard

Why did Elon Musk pin a tweet about birth rate in the US after the overturn of Roe vs Wade? – AS USA

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Many companies in the US have been quick to announce their support for access to abortion by offering to pay workers the associated cost of having to leave a state for the procedure. One of these companies is Tesla which recently moved its headquarters to Texas, a state that is expected to ban abortions in the coming weeks.

Despite this, company CEO Elon Musk has not made any statement about the Supreme Court ruling, nor the decision by his company to help those needing medical care. Instead, he has this tweet pinned to the top of his profile.

The tweet has garnered a lot of attention, with many people attempting to read the subtext behind what it could mean. Discussion surrounding fertility rates have long been considered a racist dog-whistle, which is what will be explored here.

Musk recently suggested that he may vote for Republican Ron DeSantis if he were to run in the 2024 presidential election. It is unsurprising for a businessman to want to vote for a party that is extremely pro-business. However, it is some of DeSantis other beliefs that could give some cause for concern that one of the worlds richest people is supporting his candidacy. DeSantis, currently the governor of Florida, comes from the Trumpian wing of the Republican party, a faction which has staked its claim to popular support by its embracing of far-right ideas.

The Republican party has made anti-immigration rhetoric a key part of its electoral platform. Migration and fertility rates are very much linked when it comes to the conservative discourse on both matters which has been reflected in conservative media coverage. Fox News, a key conservative media outlet, has hosts like Tucker Carlson discussing thinly-veiled claims of a replacement of white Americans by immigrants. This is called the great replacement.

This specific right-wing idea has long held sway in the far-right in the US. It provided an excuse to keep segregation, to stop a mixing of white and Black Americans for the fear that whites could lose their racial majority.

And its not just TV hosts discussing this, the discourse is bleeding into the political sphere. Republican Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania said in a House Foreign Affairs committee hearing last year that immigrants were being used to purposely replace native, in this context meaning white, Americans.

For many Americans, what seems to be happening or what they believe right now is were replacing native-born Americans to permanently transform the landscape of this very nation, said Rep. Perry.

This all links back to the discourse on abortion. In what has later been called a mistake, Illinois Republican Mary Miller told a crowd at a rally alongside Donald Trump that the Supreme Court abortion ruling was a victory for white life, which was received with roaring applause.

So with this tweet Elon Musk finds himself amongst company that is openly supporting a right-wing myth. Tesla have announced that they will be financially supporting workers who want to go to other states for abortions, though it seems their CEO is not greatly enthused by this.

Past two years have been a demographic disaster, Musk replied to his pinned tweet. Findings from the 2020 census found a decline in the nations white population for the first time, as well as further diversity in American youth. Perhaps these are the demographic disasters Musk means.

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Why did Elon Musk pin a tweet about birth rate in the US after the overturn of Roe vs Wade? - AS USA

Hume’s Fork Explained – Fact / Myth

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Understanding Humes Fork

Humes fork describes how we refer to Kants critique of Hume, who separated knowledge into two types: facts based on ideasand facts based on experience.[1][2][3]

The general concept is that Hume asserts there are two distinct classes of knowledge, 1. rational (knowledge based on thoughts and ideas) and 2. empirical (knowledge based on experience in the material world), and that only the empirical can tell us useful things about the world (that we can only learn useful things about the world through experience). Meanwhile, Kant offers a rebuttal by attempting to prove that pure reason can tell us about the world (that we can learn useful things about the world based on ideasalone).

In other words, Hume says we can only know about the world through experiences in the physical world, and Kant says we can know about the world through ideas too.

Thus, Kant thinks both prongs of this two pronged fork of ideas and experience are useful, and Hume thinks only one prong is useful mostly everything else discussed below is a summary of Kants complex thoughts on Humes argument for experience-based empirical knowledge.

Before we explain everything in further detail, itll be helpful to introduce some more terms used by Kant and Hume when discussing this topic.

Humes Fork can be understood by comparing the following two prongs (dont worry if you dont understand the terms below yet; the point of this page is to explain them):

TIP: Humes fork = a two-pronged fork in which the two prongs (rationalism and empiricism) never touch; or a fork in the road that never crosses. Kant crosses Humes fork by combining terms from each prong (specifically by proving the existence of a synthetic, necessary, a priori judgement/statement). See the story of how Hume inspired Kant(for more background on Hume and Kant), or see our page that focuses onthe a priori/a posteriori, the analytic/synthetic, and the necessary/contingentspecifically.

To understand all the terms we just used, it helps to know that they can be described by the following distinctions (where in each case one term relates to the rational and the other the empirical):

What do a priori and a posteriori mean? a priori means prior to experience (pureformal imagination and reason; rationalization not based on experience), anda posteriori means after experience (concepts we get from observation via our senses; based on empirical experience).

An example of thedifferencebetween ideas andexperience: All bachelors are unmarried (idea) vs. the bachelor is sitting in the chair (experience). We know the bachelor is in the chair because we see him sitting there (we can verify this with our senses, we dont need to rationalize it). We only know allbachelors aremarried because they arebachelors (we cant go around confirming each of the worlds bachelors is unmarried via our senses, we must rationalize it). We know all bachelors are married islogicallytrue, because it is necessary for the sentence to be true, but it tells us nothing specifically about our world (it is a fact about an idea, not a fact about the world). It is redundant, what Hume calls atautology.

To get Kants Critique of Pure Reason (which is really a justification for using both empiricismand rationalism) it helps to understand a basic theory of knowledge(the general name for an epistemological theory of purereason, empiricism, ethics, metaphysics and such; what this theory is actually pointing at and the major focus of Hume and Kant).

In lieu of that, the following descriptions of Humes and Kants arguments will suffice:

Despite Kants rationaliststance, after being awoken from his dogmatic slumber by HumesEnquiry, Kant abandons pure reason only for a slightly more nuanced epistemological theory (which mashes up pure reason and empiricism to show how they relate).

In other words, Kantsuccessfully synthesizes Humes ideas with his own in his masterworka Critique of Pure Reason, thus crossing Humes fork, by saying (paraphrasing), although all knowledge begins with the senses, we can use our experiences to inform our reason, and vice versa; We cant rely on our senses alone, but nor can we rely on pure rationalization.

Thus we can say, Kant crosses Humes fork by provingthat we can create a confirmable [via testing] synthetic a priori, a propositionthat is necessarilytrue and not dependent on itself, yetcant be proven viadirect empirical evidence (it can only be proven indirectly).

An example of a synthetic a priori that is necessarily true, and is provable indirectly (and therefore is objective), isE=mc2.

E=mc2is a rationalized idea, that is necessarily and objectively true (for observable physical bodies in spacetime) and not dependent on itself, yet cant be confirmed with direct experience (we can only confirm it indirectly via experiment).

GENERAL NOTE: Not every example we use on this page was given by Kant. When Kants example is clear and makes sense for a modern reader, we use it. When it is complex, or not directly said in his work, we opt for other examples.

TIP: Kant proves that synthetic a priori judgements are possible early on in his Critique, pointing to mathematics (ex. 7 + 5 =12), geometry (a straight line between two points is the shortest), physics (F=ma), and metaphysics (God gave men free-will) as examples of synthetic a priori. The main question he then seeks to answer is, how are a priori synthetic judgements possible? Here we can note that since metaphysics, in its dealing with freedom, God, and the will, deals with the unknowable a priori, the key to figuring out the limits of our knowledge and the usefulness of rationalism is found not in metaphysical concepts like free-will but in more practical fields in which the physical and logical intersect like mathematics (including geometry) and physics. This is why Kant focuses on space and time as examples rather concepts such as free-will and morality. Still, make no mistake, Hume and Kant are both speaking to a bigger picture which includes pure metaphysics, ontology, theology, and other such areas of inquiry.

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. Humes Enquiry.

TIP: As noted above, in his critique, Kant uses space and time as examples of useful a priori (offering geometry as an example of applying rational ideas about objects extended in space to the empiricalworld). With this in mind, we might also consider the concept of spacetime as a useful synthetic a priori concept, even though it is not confirmable directly with the senses. Kants justifications are complex and examples are sparse, but generally we can say he is pointing to the idea that rational laws like Newtons laws of physics are examples of useful a priori that tell us about the world. In this respect, proving synthetic propositions a priori useful isnt just about proving the usefulness of volumes of divinity or school metaphysics (from the theological to the moral metaphysics) it is about proving the usefulness of theoretical physics equations like those of Newton.[4][5][6]

TIP: Hume and Kant are hardly the only ones having this debate. Locke is a famous empiricist. Plato and Aristotle have the argument indirectly. And liberalism vs. conservatism,realism vs. idealism, and the general left-right argumentis essentially this same general argument. Each philosopher simply presents different ways to understand the underlying truisms of logic and reason.

TIP: The title of the book Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austin (1811), is a reference to the argument over passionand reason. Metaphorically speaking,passion is historicallyassociated with the female, and reason with the male.

To understand Humes fork, as presented by Kant in hisaCritique of Pure Reason, and named later by scholars, we need to define some terms that Kant used and/or coined:

The three basic distinctions we are working with (as noted above) are:

The terms used in those distinctions can be defined in terms of propositions (logical statements) like this:

This gives us four possibilities:

Furthermore, to round out this Kantian theory of knowledge, we can also define:

With all of that in mind, the main point here is that we can create: A necessarysynthetic a priori proposition that is not contingent or tautologicallike F=ma (thus crossing Humes fork). This type of judgement has both empirical and logical qualities and is a type of transcendental aesthetic.

What does transcendental mean in Kantian terms?An important but complex concept of Kant is the transcendental. Essentially each part of our discussion gets a transcendental, which generally describes where one category (like a priori, the rational, the logic) transcends into another (like a posteriori, the physical, the aesthetic). Important for our conversation is the Transcendental Aesthetic, which describes the a priori of empirical things (like space, time, geometry) from a physical perspective. Meanwhile, to flesh out the picture, Transcendental Logic describes the aspect of logic that relates to the empirical (like the categorizing of relations between objects) from a pure formal a priori perspective. A synthetic a priori like F=ma speaks to the transcendental aesthetic when we focus on the actual forces in the empirical world, and to transcendental logic in the way we speak about the proposition and categorize it. Learn moreKants Transcendental.

Phenomena and noumena: Kant also considers other terms likephenomena and noumena. Phenomena are the appearances and properties of things; that which constitutes what we can experience and sense. Meanwhile, noumena are posited objects or events that exist without sense or perception (that which, in theory, constitutes reality). In other words, the properties and effects of a thing that we can sense directly are phenomena, and the rest is noumena. All synthetic a priori judgements that tell us about the world are rationalizations about phenomena (like F=ma which describes the phenomena of force, mass, and acceleration). Understood loosely, 1. noumena is of the rational and phenomena is of the empirical, and 2.noumena is the thing-in-itself and phenomena is the effects (the manifestations of those things that can be perceived via the physical senses). TIP: See Platos theory of the forms(a theory of a noumenal world; as a metaphor at least) for more on different ways to understand noumena. NOTE: Empirically speaking, an object is a collection of properties (ex. a photon isnt a widget with properties as far as we know; the only way to describe a photon is to describe its properties, its phenomena). From this perspective there is only phenomena in the physical world and noumena is just a metaphysical idea (at best describing a collection of properties; directly observable or not). With that said, loosely speaking, it helps to understand that we can have useful knowledge of an object beyond what we can sense about an object directly. Still, the takeaway is the noumenal world may exist, but it is completely unknowable through human sensation and therefore it is a purely metaphysical concept.[7][8]

TIP: As you can see a from the above, some terms are very similar, this is because all these terms speak to different aspects of what we can know. All of logic is a bit like that, sometimes we are talking about the process of thought, sometimes about the product. Sometimes about a judgement, sometimes about a term. A justification that relies on experience (a posteriori), and a statement that is true based on observation (synthetic) can use some of the same exact examples (as they are both speaking about an empirical judgement). Likewise, we can consider synthetic a priori terms, judgements, and categories (not just judgements/propositions/statements). Despite this, each term speaks to a different aspect of thought and has a slightly different meaning. In other words, many terms are similar, but they have specific meaning, and need to be considered on their own merit and in context.

NOTE: Humes fork is all about concepts pertaining to the validity of a single proposition. Meanwhile, propositional logic deals with the argument form which pertains to the validity of a argument consisting of multiple propositions. Logic can be thought of as a three step process, where first we consider terms/concepts, next we consider single logical propositions (what we are doing here), and then we move on to considering reasoned arguments consisting of multiple propositions. See a page on propositional logic and reasoning for the next step.

Below is a table that illustrates the above concepts and their relations.

Remember Kants goal was to prove Humes idea that pure rationalization tells us nothing about the world wrong, by proving the existence of anecessary synthetica priori (a statement not based on experience, that cant be shown to be true by its terms alone, but is necessarily true).

Ex. All bachelors are unmarried

Ex. The man is sitting in the chair

Ex. All bachelors are unmarried

Ex. All bachelors are unmarried. We cant personally ask every bachelor in the world if they are unmarried (does not rely on experience), but we know they are because a bachelor is by definition necessarily unmarried (the statement is tautological or redundant rationalized a priori).

TIP: Pure tautological reason. Logical.

F=ma

TIP: F=ma is necessarily true and not tautological, yet only indirect evidence can prove it (we cannot observe force, mass, and acceleration acting on bodies extended in space and time directly).

TIP: Although some statements can be contingent in this class. This class also contains statements that are necessarily true, but not tautological, andcant be proven by direct empirical evidence (they instead require testing and indirect evidence to prove). A sort of mix of pure reason and empiricism that crosses Humes fork and to which induction and deduction apply.

TIP: Transcendental(a mix of logic and empiricism).

Ex. the man is sitting in the chair

TIP: Produces a contradiction and can be ignored. There are noAnalytic a posteriori statements.

TIP: Some would argue that there are analytic a posteriori and they are needed forhypothetical judgements.

Ex. The man is sitting in a chair. I can confirm the man is sitting in the chair by looking (of course the truth of this statement is contingent on the man actually being in the chair in this case; it is conditional).

TIP: Pure empiricism. Empirical.

TIP:a priori anda posteriori are two key terms in Kantian philosophy. Kant coins their modern usage, but he borrowed them fromLatin translations of Euclids Elementsfrom about 300BC. In other words, Kant famously gave names to epistemological concepts, but he did so methodically (whether he borrowed the terms or coined them). The first step to understanding Kant is internalizingthe terms he introduces, after that one just needs to follow his arguments.[9]

HINT: a priori kind of sounds like pure, it is pure formal rationalism. A posteriori, is the other one.

With everything so far covered, lets now return to the two prong fork and discuss how to cross it.

First, for reference, here is an illustration of Humes Fork again for a visual:

To cross Humes fork is to show that we can make useful judgements that involve using a mix of terms from both categories.

The most useful mix is the one covered above, where we show that asynthetica priorithat is nottautological or contingent, but necessarilyand objectively true isnt just possible to create, but is actually useful.

However, other mixes like contingent synthetic a priori (a priori that depend on more information, like God gave man free-will, synthetic a priori terms are useful, or there are 11 dimensions of spacetime) are also useful.

The bottomline is that this whole practice shows us that using a mix of reason and empiricism tells us more about the world than empiricism alone.

To summarize, Kants crossing of Humes fork can be understood like this (my quotes below are meant for educational purposes, they never specifically said these things, their arguments are more complex and in different books):

For more reading, see:A Priori and A Posteriori.

TIP: As noted above, Kants analysis of the epistemologicalconcepts discussed on this page starts in his earlier works likeThe Groundwork of the Metaphysic of MoralsandThe Metaphysics of Moralswhere he first properly lays down hisKantian ethics.In these texts he is giving names to fundamental dualities and concepts in an effort to better shed light on human understanding, just like he does in Critique. A main theory of his earlier works isthat, in the realm of metaphysics and morals, pure reason can be used to know some truths (while other truthsrequire the crossing of reason and empirical evidence). Hume counters this (albeitnot talking directly to Kant), saying no human understanding can be gleaned from pure reason alone, and then Kant counters Hume in his Critique of Pure Reasonsaying yes it can. Thisconfirms forus two things 1. an earnest exploration of these concepts requires reading multiple works of Hume and Kant 2. While bothKant and Hume care about science and politics, both are moreinterested in metaphysics and morality than justifying or debunking Newtonian physics.

TIP: Kant, like the Greeks, embraced the idea of a threefold division of philosophy into logic, physics, and ethics in his Groundwork. Kant starts the text by acceptingthat physics and ethics require a crossing of reason and empirical evidence, but rejected the idea for metaphysical morals and logic. Hume rejected the idea that any knowledge that wasnt grounded in the empirical was knowledge at all. Kant ultimately tried to showthat the fork could be crossed in all these realms allowing us to accept NewtonsF=ma and hisCategorical Imperative. Generally we can say that Kant asserts that even pure metaphysical a priori can be useful knowledge, as long as it can trace a path back to the empirical (this being the concept of the transcendental).

Synthetic a priori examples (examples of crossing Humes fork):

As noted above, in his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant generally points to mathematics (ex. 7 + 5 =12), geometry (a straight line between two points is the shortest), physics (F=ma), and metaphysics (God gave men free-will) to show synthetic propositions a priori possible (again, some of these are my examples).

Specifically, Kant tells us we should focus on mathematics (including geometry) and physics. Thus, Kant zeroes in on the a priori concepts/terms of space and time to justify his ideas about synthetic propositions a priori.

While he spends a lot of time describing every aspect of the general concept, he does not spend a lot of time offering concrete examples of synthetic a priori statements (see: why some of these examples are mine).

With that in mind, good examples of crossing Humes fork (AKA of not only synthetic a priori statements, but necessary and objective synthetic a priori) can be found inNewtons laws(Kant gives a nod to the Laws of Motion as containing synthetic a priori and gives a similarexample of every event has a cause in hisbook).

Lets take the second law, the one we use an example above, which can be represented as F=ma(Force equals mass time acceleration in an inertialframe).

F=ma is synthetic, as the predicate concept is not contained in its subject concept (nothing about forceinherently equals mass time acceleration). But also,these concept are (by most measures) a priori because force, mass, and acceleration cant be experienced directly (they are relations and effects of physical bodies in spacetime, represented by values in an equation, but they are not themselves tangible things).

Or, if we want to make the case for the empirical qualities of mass, force, and acceleration (denoting their transcendental aesthetic or mixed qualities), we can still say at least that the general rule F=ma is nota posteriori. After-all, we cant confirm a Newtons second law on a far off planet, we have to use our reason to know it is true.

Newtons third law also works in this respect. His third law states: when one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

One cant set about testing every object, just asone cant confirm every bachelor, yet again we can use experiments to know this theory is true.

All this to say, pure ideas can tell us a lot about the empirical world, but only if we can find that place where facts about ideas transcends to world of ideas and begins to tell us facts about the world (a place that differs by subject).

Kants examples of space and time as synthetic a priori: Kant crosses forks by using space and time in his book. Considering spacetime (the theoretical construct which speaks to real phenomena) is most certainly of the synthetic a priori class, I would say he got it fairly right in his first attempt (although some will be skeptical of this). For Kant, according to the book Understanding Kant, First, time is not empirical as neither coexistence nor succession have ever come within human perception (1929, p. 74). Second, time is a pure intuition because it is a necessary component of all intuitions (1929, p. 74). Third, time has only one dimension and this knowledge is not gained through experience, therefore time is a priori (1929, p. 75). Finally, different times are all part of one and the same time there are no separate or individual times (1929, p. 75).The thing to get here is that space and time are pure a priori (they arent tangible things), but yet they can tell us useful things about the empirical a posteriori world (in this vein, other statements that contain objective synthetic a priori knowledge include mass and energy are equivalent and time is relative to frame of reference; both of these statements are examples that concern what Kant calls the transcendental aesthetic). Consider the following Kant quotes from Section II. Of Time below as well:

Thus our conception of time explains the possibility of so much synthetical knowledge a priori, as is exhibited in the general doctrine of motion, which is not a little fruitful.

Time and space are, therefore, two sources of knowledge, from which, a priori, various synthetical cognitions can be drawn. Of this we find a striking example in the cognitions of space and its relations, which form the foundation of pure mathematics. They are the two pure forms of all intuitions, and thereby make synthetical propositions a priori possible.

We have now completely before us one part of the solution of the grand general problem of transcendental philosophy, namely, the question: How are synthetical propositions a priori possible? That is to say, we have shown that we are in possession of pure a priori intuitions, namely, space and time, in which we find, when in a judgement a priori we pass out beyond the given conception, something which is not discoverable in that conception, but is certainly found a priori in the intuition which corresponds to the conception, and can be united synthetically with it. But the judgements which these pure intuitions enable us to make, never reach farther than to objects of the senses, and are valid only for objects of possible experience.

Kant onSECTION II. Of Time.

Using a Synthetic a priori to Cross forks:Equations like Newtons F=ma or EinsteinsE=mc2arePure Reason (Pure Logic; a Priori) despite being both necessarily true (valid statements / very strong theories) and not tautological (not purely analytic). Yet we cant confirm theytell us anything about the world until we test and confirm themvia experiment and actually physically cross forks (we have to not only create a Synthetic a priori, but prove it is true empirically via testing). Even though we cant reach out and touch their forms directly, we confirmthoseequations are true, as they canhelp usto predict what we will observe with perfect accuracy (and thus we can treat them as scientific theories). Thus equations like these are good examples ofa synthetic a priori. The complex part is dealing withSynthetic a priori that cant be proven, such as is the case with Moral Philosophy

Trying to Crosstheforks of MoralPhilosophy: On this page we are mainly dealing with crossing the forks of natural philosophy (AKA natural science), in other words,we are just showing you how the empirical and logical forks can cross. However, both Kant and Hume apply theirtheories to morality and ethics(they are, so to speak, also seeing if they can cross the more etherealforks of ethics and metaphysics). Hume says morality is purely informed by the senses (that ALL knowledge that can tell us useful facts is empirical period); Kant says we can have useful knowledge of the empirical, logical, ethical, and metaphysical, despite the more obvious benefits of the empirical. It stands to reason, ifwe can cross the forks of natural philosophy, why cant we cross the forks of moralphilosophy? A main goal of Kant is to figure out if we can create a confirmable metaphysical synthetic a priori. Long story short, Kantbelieves that we can have facts about pure philosophy, but that we cant create a provable metaphysic synthetic a priori. In other words, we can have true facts about metaphysics and they can be very useful, but we cant prove it empirically (as by its nature there is a sub-category of metaphysics that is a priori). Learn about crossing forks and human understanding in terms of the physical, logical, ethical, and metaphysical.[10]

TIP: Confused? The following article contains an excellent analysis of the synthetic a priori The Importance of the Synthetic A Priori in Kants First Critique.

The above summary of Kants argument was gleaned from theover 1,000 pagesof his work.

The gist is that Kantattempted to provethat we can use facts about ideas to prove facts about the world. That Pure Reason can be used toprove theexistence of asynthetic a priori, crossing the tongs ofHumes Fork, and thus saving Newtons laws and science itself in the process.[11]

Thus we can conclude, Kantrebutted Hume in an effort to show thatknowledge canbe foundinboththe necessaryandcontingent (concerning reality), the a priorianda posteriori (concerning knowledge), and the analyticandsynthetic(concerning language); In short, useful human knowledge can be foundin both reason and empirical sensory evidence, and each form of human understanding can tell us about the other.

TIP: Think about the scientific method.We have ideas and define experiments; we do experiments and come up with more ideas; rinse and repeat. Weformulate theories and we test a hypothesis based on theoretical mathematics or ideas. Modern science IS the crossing of Humes fork.

TIP: We credit Kant with saving science, but Hume also saved science. Before Hume (in the Age of Reason) empiricism was starting to be abandoned for Pure Reason(Newton doesnt always offer proofs for instance). Long story short, Hume and Kant are both sages and both important. KantsaCritique of Pure Reasonexemplifies akey moment in history (andit is largely a testament to Humes importance as well as Kants).

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Hume's Fork Explained - Fact / Myth

Is it time for the dream of North Sydney Bears’ long-awaited return to finally become a reality? | Sam Perry – The Guardian

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Ill never forget the first time the Bears caused me pain. It was a wet, Autumnal day in May 1994. I was eight, Norths were first. Newcastle, and Andrew Johns, then 19, beat us at home. I trudged in the rain with my Mum, Dad, and four uncles, back to the pub Percys across Miller Street. The loss was evidently too much for me, and I began to cry.

Norths were formidable in the 1990s, regularly bettering storied opponents like Canberra, Manly and Brisbane, upon whom the folklore of 90s rugby league has been built. But they never won that premiership, they strategically blundered with Super League, and they fizzled into insolvency, enduring the humiliation of what former president David Hill described as the sacrilegious merger with Manly before the expulsion of the Bears by the Forces of Darkness.

Rugby league historian Andrew Moore once suggested that the Northern Eagles joint venture may well have established a record for being the least loved football club in sporting history. He also pointed out, that only a few years earlier, outside the one-city teams then only Newcastle and Brisbane in 1991 and 1994 Norths were the competitions largest-drawing team. Poker machine money enabled the first-grade roster some glitz, and though the Curse of the Cammeraygal continued to thwart their premiership hopes, the Bears were nevertheless one of the heavyweight teams of that decade. Their subsequent, rapid demise was not organic, and hundreds of thousands of Bears people are still out there, wandering.

Some fans will tell you the Bears are a relic of the past. But it looks like Australian Rugby League Commission chairman Peter Vlandys disagrees. He recently told The Daily Telegraph: Wherever I go every third person asks me when are you bringing back the Bears?.

Speaking specifically about the proposed 18th team in the NRL, Vlandys went on to say: One thing Ive learned in rugby league is that the Bears have an extremely popular brand. However, theres already enough Sydney teams so doing it with an area like Perth makes sense. Youre getting the best of both. A great brand and a new supporter base.

For those who wish to see the Bears return to the top grade, it is hard to conceive of a comment more inviting. For two wilderness-riven decades, Bears hopefuls have been scoffed at, cast as hopeless, foolish tragics, and blind to the realities of economic rationalism in the 21st century. At a private event some years ago, a former senior administrator in the NRL laughed in the face of a Bears official explicating the case for a return on the Central Coast in a ground the club built, underwritten by John Singleton, coached by Wayne Bennett. It didnt matter: the Bears were done, their cards were marked.

And yet the Bears dont seem to go away.

This is the point where opponents will suggest that the partner should go it alone. Forge their own identity. However, no such sentiment appears to exist in Perth. Twice the Bears have adorned the back page of the West Australian, and ahead of Perths hosting of the State of Origin on Sunday, Bears chairman Daniel Dickson will be in the city to meet a West Australian government group to further explore the partnership.

Dickson will later be joined in a box by Australian comedian Jim Jeffries, an avid Bears man, who once said my big dream in life is that Ill make enough money that Ill buy the Bears back into the NRL. Ill do a Russell Crowe and bring them back Though daddy-money would be nice, Dickson says that should the Bears be green-lit for the 18th licence, the money is good. There are three individual investors lined up, he says, Vlandys knows who they are, hes met them, and theyre ready to step up to the block.

Commercial viability. NRL support. West Australian desire. Unprecedented goodwill. Is it time to dream? The only comments appearing to temper matters are those from Dickson himself. The Bears are not in agreement with anyone, Dickson told SENZ Breakfast Radio recently. We just want to make sure that geographically we feel we are the team of the people, and we can take that to the people where the game needs to go. Whether wise brinkmanship, 4D chess, or just playing hard to get, it is fair to say that Dickson thinks in the abstract about location, and is keeping his options open.

Its never easy, is it? Victory may be close, but the Bears do know how to make it hard. It reminds me of my dads response to my tears after that loss to Newcastle in 1994.

Dont worry mate, he consoled me, gently putting a fatherly arm around me as I tried to hide my flood of tears from my uncles. We used to cry when the Bears won a game! Guttural laughter from my uncles. A historic quote for the family. He was introducing me to the dry, gallows humour that accompanied any seasoned observer of the Bears. A coping mechanism, probably.

These are the ties that bind. There are hundreds of thousands of Bears people, just like me, who will invoke the same, mechanised caution at the prospect of a miracle: a return to first grade, footy at Bear Park, even just once a year, in the red and black. Weve been burnt before, but were still here, and still hoping.

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Is it time for the dream of North Sydney Bears' long-awaited return to finally become a reality? | Sam Perry - The Guardian

Richard West: Time for the USA to consider partition? – GazetteNET

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Published: 6/28/2022 1:22:50 PM

Modified: 6/28/2022 1:20:15 PM

In 1860, when Abraham Lincoln won the White House, the southern states correctly concluded that their decadeslong ability to control the national political agenda had ended. They seceded from the union and formed the Confederate States of America. The northern states asserted that the primacy of the union prevented secession and so war commenced. It was long, bloody, and costly.

Today we face a similar political crisis. Millions of Americans believe that the national political agenda no longer expresses their values. To prevent another long, costly, and bloody Civil War, the people of the United States of America should seriously consider partition.

How would this work? The USA would partition into three nation-states. The United States of the Atlantic would be comprised of the states north of the Potomac and the Ohio and east of the Mississippi. The United States of the Pacific would be comprised of Washington, Oregon, California, and Hawaii. The United States of the Mississippi would consist of all of the southern and plains states, as well as Alaska.

The United States would continue to exist as an economic and military entity, much like the European Union and NATO. Free trade and the free movement of citizens between each nation-state would continue unhindered. If someone from Massachusetts wanted to move to Florida, no legal obstacles would stand in his or her way. If a company in Massachusetts wanted to send its product to California, no commercial obstacles would stand in its way.

Each nation-state however would elect its own form of government, presumably similar to our current model, with independent executive, legislative, and judicial branches. The nation-states would elect their own representatives in the manner they chose, and they would enact and uphold their own laws as they saw fit. Laws governing rights and liberties would be reserved for the nation-states to determine for themselves. Laws governing business and labor practices, taxes, education, property rights, environment standards, everything governing daily life within their borders would be similarly determined.

I understand that the broad outlines of such a proposal just scratch the surface of how much work would be involved in making partition a reality. But I think we can all agree that as a nation we are nearing a breaking point. We cannot afford another civil war. Now is the time to think creatively about how to avoid it.

Richard West

Northampton

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Richard West: Time for the USA to consider partition? - GazetteNET

Daughters of the American Revolution Honor Veterans in Old Dallas Cemetery – The Mena Star

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Daughters of the American Revolution Honor Veterans in Old Dallas Cemetery

James K. Polk Chapter, National Society Daughters of the American Revolution, recently honored 44 veterans in the historic Old Dallas Cemetery. New U. S. flags were placed at the graves of veterans representing the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

The chapter was excited to locate old records that led to the discovery of veteran number 44. An old publication, Memories of Old Dallas by Bonsell and Petrasek shed light on Sergeant Richard Uncle Dick Henry Davis of the 4th Arkansas Infantry, Confederate States of America. According to Fold 3 records, Davis was mustered into the War Between the States in August 1861. He was wounded in the arm while in battle at Murfreesboro, TN, also known as the Battle of Stones River. Richard Davis was extremely fortunate. The battle at Stones River claimed 23,000 casualties, and it was the second bloodiest battle fought west of the Appalachians during the Civil War. Five years after the Civil War, the 1870 U.S. Census reveals Davis is married with two small children and living on a farm in the Old Dallas community near where the airport is located. The Civil War made a huge impact on this rural Arkansas man. The article by Bonsell and Petrasek stated, as a relic of his service in the Confederate Army, Uncle Dick always carried his buggy whip in rifle position.

DAR members, HODARS (husbands of Daughters of the American Revolution) and members grandchildren all worked side by side to make sure every known veteran in the Old Dallas Cemetery was honored.

Daughters of the American Revolution is a nonprofit, nonpolitical volunteer womens service organization dedicated to preserving American history, promoting patriotism, and securing Americas future through better education. Any woman, regardless of race, religion, or ethnic background, who can prove their lineal decent from patriots of the American Revolution is eligible to join. For more information, contact Registrar Carolyn Hanna at carolynhanna220@gmail.com

Photos: by Brenda Cunningham and Deonna Williams

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Daughters of the American Revolution Honor Veterans in Old Dallas Cemetery - The Mena Star

The Fourth of July History and Meaning You Never Knew – Oprah Mag

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Today, the Fourth of July is best known for its red, white, and blue adornment and drinks, fireworks, and of course, family barbecues. The holiday is revered as a summertime staple, but before you break out the sparklers and sunscreen, lets reflect on Americas history, shall we? After all, its through historical knowledge and personal introspection that we can develop a greater sense of empathy and gain an understanding of others unique experiences. Education and awareness provide individuals with the distinct ability to discern whether past mistakes are presently being repeated, a significant element that is vital for societal progression.

To take you on a journey back to primary school history class, the Fourth of July commemorates the day the United States gained independence from Great Britain in 1776. The delegates of the Continental Congress voted to declare the sovereignty of the 13 colonies on July 2nd, when it approved a resolution submitted by delegate Richard Henry Lee of Virginia.

After voting, the Continental Congress drafted a document, aka the Declaration of Independence, explaining the colonies newfound independence to the public, which was approved on July 4th in Philadelphia. However, historians have long disputed the date of its signing, and many believe it wasnt signed by all delegates until August 2nd, 1776.

Few colonists desired complete autonomy from Great Britain when the Revolutionary War broke out in April 1775, so what prompted the 13 notorious colonies to earn their independence? Introducing the origin story of the United States of America.

The first colony was founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607, and 12 more were subsequently established. The colonies were part of Great Britain, which increased taxes for colonists on things they bought and used daily, like tea.

The Stamp Act of 1765 put a charge on papers and official documents in the American colonies but not in England and was another example of the unjust taxation.

Furthermore, the colonists' needs werent represented in the British government, evident by the fact that Parliament was elected by people living in England. This led to the notorious rallying cry No taxation without representation. Tensions heightened and eventually a war commenced, known today as the American Revolution.

The fight for the colonies independence ceased when Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin signed the Declaration of Independence on the day it was adopted, July 4th, 1776.

There were 56 signatures of the Declaration of Independence, the document that announced the separation of the 13 North American British colonies from Great Britain. It states that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, according to National Archives.

Years after the Declaration of Independence was drafted, three founding fathers and former presidents, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and James Monroe, died on July 4th. Jefferson and Adams passed on the 50th anniversary of the country in 1826 and Monroe in 1831.

Although the United States gained its independence on July 4th, 1776, it wasnt until June 19th, 1865, that true liberation was felt within the United States of America by all. On this day, the last enslaved people gained their freedom after federal troops arrived in Texas to enforce the decree that all slaves be freed.

The troops arrived two and a half years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln, who freed the slaves of the Confederate statethough because Southerners saw themselves as their own nation state, it didnt have a resolute impact.

While the Fourth of July became a federal holiday in the United States in 1941, Juneteenth did not become a federal holiday until June 17th, 2021. Today, Juneteenth and the Fourth of July are celebrated as symbols of liberation, autonomy, and freedom, recognized indispensably.

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The Fourth of July History and Meaning You Never Knew - Oprah Mag

Is American democracy already lost? Half of us think so but the future remains unwritten – Salon

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The American people understand that their democracy and their society are in deep trouble.But they do not agree on who or what is the cause of the problem, and do not share a common understanding of basic facts. To make matters worse there is a kind of sinister synergy between America's democracy crisis and other serious problems facing the country, which risks creating a state of collective paralysis.

During his prepared comments before the House Jan. 6 committee last Thursday, retired judgeJ. Michael Luttig, a lifelong conservative Republican who advised former Vice President Mike Pence before and during Donald Trump's coup attempt, issued this dire warning:

A stake was driven through the heart of American democracy on Jan. 6, 2021, and our democracy today is on a knife's edge.

America was at war on that fateful day, but not against a foreign power. She was at war against herself. We Americans were at war with each other over our democracy.

Jan. 6 was but the next, foreseeable battle in a war that had been raging in America for years, though that day was the most consequential battle of that war even to date. In fact, Jan. 6 was a separate war unto itself, a war for America's democracy, a war irresponsibly instigated and prosecuted by the former president, his political party allies, and his supporters. Both wars are raging to this day. America is now the stake in these unholy wars. America is adrift. We pray that it is only for this fleeting moment that she has lost her way, until we Americans can once again come to our senses.

In response to a question from committee chairman Bennie Thompson about the danger to the republic still represented by Trump and his supporters, Luttig elaborated further:

Almost two years after that fateful day Donald Trumpand his allies and supporters are a clear and present danger to American democracy.

That's not because of what happened on Jan. 6. It is because, to this very day, the former president and his allies and supporters pledge that in the presidential election of 2024, if the former president or his anointed successor as the Republican party presidential candidate were to lose that election, they would attempt to overturn that 2024 election in the same way that they attempted to overturn the 2020 election, but succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020.

If there are any reasonable and intelligent Americans who continue to doubt that this country is in the midst of an existential crisis, facing the dangers of Trumpism and a growing white supremacist authoritarian movement, Luttig's words should shock them back into reality.

A new Yahoo News/YouGov poll adds even more weight to Luttig's warnings about American democracy as it teeters on the precipice of irrecoverable disaster. The lead finding is that more than half of those surveyed, across the political spectrum 55% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans believe it is "likely" that the United States will "cease to be a democracy in the future."

RELATED:Global forecaster on "another bad year for democracy": Is the world near a dire tipping point?

Further findings in that poll are arguably even more troubling given the events of Jan. 6 and the Republican-fascist movement's increasing embrace of violence and terrorism:

This new poll also demonstrates that negative partisanship and other forms of extreme political polarization now appear to be permanent features of American political life.Andrew Romano summarizes this at Yahoo News:

When asked to choose the phrase that best "describes most people on the other side of the political aisle from you," a majority of Republicans pick extreme negatives such as "out of touch with reality" (30%), a "threat to America" (25%), "immoral" (8%) and a "threat to me personally" (4%). A tiny fraction select more sympathetic phrases such as "well-meaning" (4%) or "not that different from me" (6%).

The results among Democrats are nearly identical, with negatives such as "out of touch with reality" (27%), a "threat to America" (23%), "immoral" (7%) and a "threat to me personally" (4%) vastly outnumbering positives such as "well-meaning" (7%) or "not that different from me" (5%).

These findings offer further evidence that the U.S. in the Age of Trump and beyond is what political scientists call an "anocracy," a system that combines features of dictatorship and democracy. The coup against democracy and the rule of law did not end when Trump's insurrectionists left the Capitol on Jan. 6. The Republican-fascists and the larger white right continue to advance a strategy whose ultimate goal is a Christian fascist plutocracy, one modeled on a system of competitive authoritarianism in which political parties still exist and elections occur, but where outcomes are manipulated as in Russia, Hungary or Turkey.

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This dystopia made real will be a combination of such books and films as "The Handmaid's Tale," "Atlas Shrugged," "Brazil," "Idiocracy," "Robocop," "CSA: The Confederate States of America" and "1984."

Donald Trump and his acolytes continue to threaten political violence against their "enemies," meaning liberals and progressives, nonwhite people, Muslims, immigrants, LGBTQ people and any other groups or individuals they deem insufficiently "American" and not part of the MAGA faithful.

The Republican Party, its propaganda machine and other opinion leaders continue to amplify Trump's Big Lie and its inherent conclusion that further violence may be necessary to return Trump (or a successor) to the White House and, more generally, to prevent Democrats from winning or holding power by any means necessary.

The core tenets of the "great replacement" conspiracy theory which a white supremacist terrorist recently claimed as the motive for murdering 10 Black people last month at a Buffalo supermarket have been embraced by a majority of Republicans, and an even larger majority of Trump followers.

National security experts on terrorism and armed conflict have continued to warn that Trump's coup attempt and the Capitol attack are further evidence that the U.S. may face a period of sustained right-wing violent insurgency. Robert Pape, director of the University of Chicago Project on Security and Threats, has estimated that more than 20 million Americansbelieve that using political violence to return Trump to power is justified.

In a widely read December 2021 essay in the Globe and Mail, Canadian political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon offered a memorably grim prognosis of America's future. He predicted that "American democracy could collapse" by 2025 that is, following the next presidential election and that by 2030, the U.S. "could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship":

We mustn't dismiss these possibilities just because they seem ludicrous or too horrible to imagine. In 2014, the suggestion that Donald Trump would become president would also have struck nearly everyone as absurd. But today we live in a world where the absurd regularly becomes real and the horrible commonplace.

Mr. Trump's electoral loss has energized the Republican base and further radicalized young party members. Even without their concerted efforts to torque the machinery of the electoral system, Republicans will probably take control of both the House of Representatives and Senate this coming November, because the incumbent party generally fares poorly in mid-term elections. Republicans could easily score a massive victory, with voters ground down by the pandemic, angry about inflation, and tired of President Joe Biden bumbling from one crisis to another. Voters who identify as Independents are already migrating toward Republican candidates.

Once Republicans control Congress, Democrats will lose control of the national political agenda, giving Mr. Trump a clear shot at recapturing the presidency in 2024. And once in office, he will have only two objectives: vindication and vengeance.

Homer-Dixon then drew the this parallel between the current state of the U.S. and the collapse of the Weimar Republic in the early 1930s:

The situation in Germany in the 1920s and early 1930s was of course sui generis; in particular, the country had experienced staggering traumas defeat in war, internal revolution and hyperinflation while the country's commitment to liberal democracy was weakly rooted in its culture. But as I read a history of the doomed republic this past summer, I tallied no fewer than five unnerving parallels with the current U.S. situation.

America's future stability is so much in doubt that even global rivals or enemies are concerned about the destructive forces unleashed by the Age of Trump. In a series of phone calls before and after the 2020 election, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sought to reassure his Chinese counterpart, saying, "The American government is stable and everything is going to be OK. ... Everything's fine. But democracy can be sloppy sometimes."

An ambush is always disorienting, and intentionally so, but the best option is always to fight back. That's where we are right now.

This situation is undeniably bewildering, and deliberately so. But for pro-democracy Americans, inaction is not an option. That will inevitably lead to defeat. In military terms, a successful ambush is almost always disorienting, but the best option is always to fight back, not hunker down. The Republican-fascists and their allies want the American people to feel so confused and overwhelmed by their unending attack on democracy, the rule of law, the common good and basic human decency that they essentially turn away, close their eyes and surrender.In essence, the Republican-fascist movement is using their own version of a political "shock and awe" strategy here at home against the American people.

The Lincoln Project recently offered this evaluation of America's democracy crisis:

After three [Jan. 6 committee] hearings we know for certain the nation is at one of the most dangerous moments in its history. These revelations will not change the true MAGA believers mind but will cause them to double and triple down on the "Big Lie" making them more dangerous and perhaps more violent. Every single American needs to decide if they are the side of the seditionists who tried to tear down a free and fair election, or do they support our Republic and its democratic principles?

In short, the American people must act with deliberate purpose and speed if they hope to save their democracy and society. Voting is of course necessary, but by itself is insufficient. "Hashtag activism," with its "likes" and "shares" and memes, is for the most part symbolic or performative politics that accomplishes little or nothing in the long run, and may actually be counterproductive if people mistake it for real action. In the long-term struggle, substantive movement-building and organizing will be required to defeat fascism in America and around the world.

Voting is necessary, but not sufficient. "Hashtag activism" accomplishes little or nothing, and may even be counterproductive. What we need is movement-building.

Supporters of democracy must engage in grassroots organizing. They need to join, establish, and grow a range of civil society organizations. They must raise and donate money in effective ways, not by giving it to doomed Democratic candidates in hopeless races. Ultimately, they must be willing to engage in corporeal politics, including general strikes, street protests, civil disobedience and other forms of direct action where they can confront the Republican-fascists and their allies with overwhelming numbers.

Right now, almost all the momentum is with the Republican-fascists and their broad-spectrum attack on American democracy and society. They are in revolutionary mode, and they are are winning. They will press onward to total victory, unless and until they are stopped. This will require people of conscience to take a personal inventory and ask themselves, "How much am I willing to sacrifice to save my country, my family and future generations from this nightmare?" The future of American democracy and society largely hinges on how many of us can answer that question honorably and rise to the challenge.

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Hate In America: The Many Faces Of White Supremacy – Black America Web

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America was built on white supremacy and time after time its ideologies get Black people killed, injured, or traumatizedall because of lies.

When Payton Gendron, a self-proclaimed white supremacist, killed 10 Black people at a supermarket in Buffalo, he believed was helping to prevent the elimination of the white race.

In his manifesto, the boy wrote that his motivation for the attack was to prevent Black people from replacing white people and eliminating the white race and to inspire others to commit similar racially-motivated attacks.

Gendron was motivated by an idea called the great replacement theory. The deceitful conspiracy theory states that nonwhites are being brought to the U.S. to replace white voters and sway elections and other liberal political agendas. Those who believe this malarkey believe an influx of people of color will be the catalyst to the extinction of the white race.

Nothing blinds you more than hate and fearthe two traits that best describe white supremacy. To understand the concept better, lets dive into the meaning, history, and movement that is still a terror to Black and brown people all over the country.

White supremacy is the belief that white people constitute a superior race and should therefore dominate society, typically to the exclusion or detriment of other racial and ethnic groups, in particular Black or Jewish people.

America was founded on white supremacy ideologies. Article I of the Constitution called Black slaves three-fifths of a person. Article IV made it legal for runaway slaves to be hunted down and returned to their masters. This idea that Blacks were inferior to whites, therefore could be owned, was ingrained in many Americans. Slavery made white supremacy legal and mainstream. Even the white people who didnt own slaves had peers who did.

After The Emancipation Proclamation and the end of slavery, white supremacy changed from keeping slaves in check to terrorizing Black people. Southern leaders and white militant groups used extreme violence to keep Blacks in check. One of the most famous hate groups of the time was the Klu-Klux-Klan. The first KKK was established in 1865 in the wake of the Civil War. Their sole purpose was to violently oppose the Reconstruction era and make sure Black people were not afforded the same civil rights as their white counterparts. One of their most popular tactics was voter suppression, which is still used by Republicans to keep Black voters from the polls.

The second version of the Klan was formed in Georiga in 1915 but flourished after 1920. D. W. Griffiths silent film, The Birth Of A Nation, helped propel white supremacist ideologies, as well as stoke white fear that Blacks were violent and dangerous. This version of the Klan was also a Protestant nativist movement that attached heavily to their religious beliefs. Not only were they anti-black, but they also hated Catholics and Jews.

The third iteration of the Klan was formed to oppose the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 60s. White supremacists believed that the end of segregation would mean the end of their supremacy. Unlike other iterations, this Klan worked from within the government. Many white hoods of the 1950s were also the mayors, the sheriffs in their day jobs, and terrorists at night and violence was their modus operandi. Blacks were beaten, bombed, and or killed just for trying to exercise their right to vote.

White supremacists believed that if Blacks voted, their way of life would eventually be no more. Support for the group would dwindle after The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But the hateful idea of white supremacy would continue to morph and change to fit the times.

Over time the truth will come to light, and the term white supremacy began to develop a negative connotation. Its believers needed a more family-friendly word to describe their disgusting hateinsert the White Nationalist.

You can put lipstick on a pig, but its still a pig. White nationalism and white supremacy are the same things.

The Southern Poverty Law Center defines White nationalism as groups that espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies, often focusing on the alleged inferiority of nonwhites.

Former President Donald Trump was the symbol for white nationalists. He helped bring the idea from the fringe right to the White House, with his racist language and rhetoric on imagination. White nationalists believed Trump would finally put their grievances to the forefront of American culture, which is something white supremacists yearned for greatly.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were 155 white nationalist groups in 2019. Although that number has dropped in the last few years, their violence has not.

From Dylan Roof to Charlottesville, to Payton Gendron, white supremacy had been a stain on America that it has not been able to wash out. Conservative politicians have hijacked the nastiest parts of human nature and used them to manipulate the minds of many Americans.

Alt-Right

The Alternative Right, commonly known as the alt-right, is a set of far-right ideologies, groups, and individuals whose core belief is that white identity is under attack by multicultural forces using political correctness and social justice to undermine white people and their civilization.

Christian Identity

Christian Identity is an antisemitic, racist theology that rose to a position of commanding influence on the racist right in the 1980s. Christian in name only, asserts that white people, not Jewish people, are the true Israelites favored by God in the Bible.

Racist Skinhead

Racist skinheads have long been among the most violent-minded elements of the white power movement. Often referred to as the shock troops of the hoped-for white revolution, this movement flourished during the 1980s, 1990s, and the mid-2000s.

Neo-Confederate

Neo-Confederacy is a reactionary, revisionist branch of American white nationalism typified by its predilection for symbols of the Confederate States of America, typically paired with a strong belief in the validity of the failed doctrines of nullification and secession.

Neo-Nazi

Neo-Nazi groups share a hatred for Jews and a love for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. While they also hate other minorities, gays, lesbians, and even sometimes Christians, they perceive the Jew as their cardinal enemy.

Knights of the Ku Klux Klan

National Vanguard

EURO

Blood & Honour

Aryan Nations

Brotherhood of Klans

Proud Boys

Patriot Front

CLICK HERE to read more about White Supremacy groups in America.

SEE ALSO:

Buffalo Shooter Could Face Death Penalty After Hate Crime Charge For Racist Mass Shooting

OP-ED: Groups Like The Proud Boys Want To Build A White Nation Regardless Of Sedition Charges

Hate In America: The Many Faces Of White Supremacywas originally published onnewsone.com

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Abolishing the death penalty and capitalism WW commentary – Workers World

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By Workers World Houston bureau

To understand the systemic cruelty and deep inequalities that persist in the criminal injustice system in the U.S., one need look no further than the death penalty.

2011 Texas march to end the death penalty

The death penalty evolved from the rope to the chair to the needle. On this continent, it evolved directly from Indigenous genocide and enslavement of African people on stolen Indigenous lands. The death penalty persists, despite not deterring crime and despite the racist legal system getting fatal verdicts wrong so often. In practice, it is racist and anti-poor. Those without the capital, get the capital punishment.

The state of Texas has executed more people in the modern era than the next six U.S. states combined. The state has lynched 574 people since 1982.

The state that has executed the second largest number of people in the modern era is Virginia, with 113 executions. In 2020 Virginia was the first former Confederate state to abolish the death penalty, which is a big deal, as legal lynchings have historically been concentrated in the South, coinciding with a history of enslavement and genocide at the hands of colonizers.

Currently, there are 23 states with no death penalty, three with governor-imposed moratoriums and 24 states that have the death penalty. Public support for capital punishment is down, thanks in great part to activists all over the world, collectively fighting its inhumanity for decades.

Positive movement against the death penalty

Despite the SCOTUS ruling on May 17 denying two Arizona death row prisoners, David Ramirez and Barry Jones, the right to appeal ineffective counsel in federal court there is still quite a bit of positive movement against the death penalty, particularly in Texas.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center: [I]n Harris County, prosecutors are challenging Houston Judge Natalia Cornelios refusal to schedule an execution date for death row prisoner Arthur Brown in order to provide a new lawyer in time to investigate whether he is ineligible for the death penalty because of intellectual disability. In Nueces County, the Texas Attorney Generals Office has intervened in county proceedings to oppose District Attorney Mark Gonzalezs motion to withdraw a death warrant scheduling the execution of John Henry Ramirez for October 5, 2022. . . .

Gonzalez, a former defense attorney, was elected in 2016 on a platform of criminal justice reform. In response to an application filed by his office, the Nueces County District Court issued an order on April 12, 2022, setting an execution date for Ramirez. Two days later, citing his firm belief that the death penalty is unethical and should not be imposed on Mr. Ramirez or any other person while he is Nueces County District Attorney, Gonzalez filed a motion to withdraw the death warrant. (Deathpenaltyinfo.org, May 27)

Delia Perez Meyer, who has a brother on Texas death row, said at a rally in Harlingen, Texas, to free death row prisoner Melissa Lucio: This system is so flawed. Theres tampering of evidence; theres withholding of evidence; theres collusion. A lot of terrible things go on in death row cases. Executions are wrong and archaic. It doesnt matter if a person is innocent or guilty, no one should be executed. (Workers World, Feb. 9, 2022)

In reference to Lucios case, state representative Jeff Leach staunch Republican supporter of the death penalty recently said he supported a moratorium on capital punishment, due to his faith in the system carrying out these executions fairly being shaky. This is unheard of in the world of Texas politics and indicative of the changing tide of public faith in the so-called justice system on our way to abolition. (Inside Texas Politics, wfaa.com, April 29)

On the way to abolition

The death penalty itself is part of the legacy of enslavement we contend with abolishing. From the rope to the chair to the needle and methods such as death by lethal injection, firing squad and the gas chamber, still legal to use in places like South Carolina and Arizona the capitalist state has many methods with which to kill the poor and oppressed.

Much like in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, there are hundreds of thousands of human beings imprisoned in the U.S. serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Mumia calls this slow death row, because unsanitary conditions and extreme medical neglect behind bars often prove to be as lethal as an official execution date just slower.

Before Americas era of mass incarceration took hold in the early 1970s, the number of individuals in prison was less than 200,000. Today, its 1.4 million; and more than 200,000 people are serving life sentences one out of every seven in prison. More people are sentenced to life in prison in America than there were people in prison serving any sentence in 1970. (sentencingproject.org, Feb. 17, 2021, tinyurl.com/y3ehjbfu)

If we include the number of all members of the working class being held captive in prisons, jails and detention centers, that would bring the total number under carceral control to 1.9 million people in the U.S. (prisonpolicy.org, March 14)

In tandem with capitalist cages, we live in a country where over a million people have perished from a deadly respiratory virus, many dying within prisons. We live in a world where capitalist legislators are comfortable with massacres through gun violence against children in school, against people of color shopping for groceries or at worship. We live in a world where the U.S. spends billions of dollars for war in Ukraine but has no plan to feed a populace struggling in a new era of mass poverty.

We live in a world where the minimum federal wage is only double the price of a gallon of gas, and where many cannot afford to even drive to work if they dont live nearby. We live in a world where as Angela Davis says we have the freedom to starve rather than have our human needs met.

Capitalism, as it has been for so many members of the working class throughout history, is much like a death sentence. Capitalism is racist, anti-poor and ableist in the way it operates and is an enemy of all the oppressed. As we work to abolish the death penalty, the abolition of capitalism is next on the horizon.

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