For many Americans, Thanksgiving was a day spent with family and friends eating too much food. For others, our national feasting day is a reminder of the tragic history of colonization in the “new world.” For still others, Thanksgiving is a day of service, focused on giving the poor sustenance; all-too-often these acts of largesse are an excuse for self-glorification.
The segment of the population addicted to fight or flight hormones spent Thursday blaming President Biden for what now appears to be a couple trapped in a malfunctioning car. Some eyewitness accounts estimated the Bentley’s velocity to be 100 mph as it neared the Rainbow Bridge, launching into the air and exploding near a Border Control checkpoint.
Given that Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel days of the year, and potential reverberations from the conflicts in Gaza/Israel have a lot of people on edge, it was a perfect opportunity to spew lies framed as news by the right’s propaganda apparatus.
Fox News, which had on the spot correspondent Alexis McAdams to give credibility to their spin, went into full panic mode early in the afternoon. After all, border security is the issue Republicans are able to raise that doesn’t involve an unpopular stance or a candidate facing 91 charges in criminal courts.
McAdams initial reporting dramatically declared that there had been an “attempted terrorist attack” on a bridge at the US-Canada border by a “car full of explosives” at a checkpoint.
Suddenly, conspiracy-addled social media silos were flooded with “information” all inferring that the explosion was caused by political weak/wokeness and open borders typical of the current administration.
Fox News brought on a succession of tough-talking guests, each seemingly trying to outdo the other with speculation and (un)informed analysis. Iran’s Kahmenei, Hezbollah’s leadership, a couple of car thieves, the possibility of a second vehicle, and a Palestinian lone wolf were all casually tossed into the (mis)information stream.
Fox ultimately got nearly everything wrong, including the direction the car was (into Canada) going. As authorities ruled out the terrorist attack story, Fox went so far as to blame their incendiary reporting on the Biden administration’s handling of the border.
McAdams went on air, blaming her sources for bad initial information while refusing to accept any responsibility herself for the significant error.
Meanwhile, editors at that network were busy cleaning up coverage on their website. In the real world newsroom post publication corrections are noted for the public. This didn’t happen at Fox, keeping the misinformation freeway clear on social media channels.
TPUSA’s head grifter, Charlie Kirk, speculated that the real target was the “Macy’s Parade tomorrow.”(It had already finished when the accident occurred.) Another posting accused President Biden of being on vacation and therefore unable to respond. Yet another claimed an Iranian passport was found near the scene. And Donald Trump, Jr wondered aloud if Democrats would ever understand that it wasn’t a great idea to import terrorists.
Host Dana Perino unironically announced an upcoming segment on “liberal leaders know what they think is best when it comes to fighting misinformation.”
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Trump’s Threats Du Jour
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Friday’s Food for Thought
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Exploding wild pig population on western Canadian prairie threatens to invade US Via ABC News
An exploding population of hard-to-eradicate “super pigs” in Canada is threatening to spill south of the border, and northern states like Minnesota, North Dakota and Montana are taking steps to stop the invasion.
In Canada, the wild pigs roaming Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba pose a new threat. They are often crossbreeds that combine the survival skills of wild Eurasian boar with the size and high fertility of domestic swine to create a “super pig” that's spreading out of control.
Ryan Brook, a professor at the University of Saskatchewan and one of Canada's leading authorities on the problem, calls feral swine, “the most invasive animal on the planet" and “an ecological train wreck.”
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US coal power plants killed at least 460,000 people in past 20 years – report Via The Guardian
“Air pollution from coal is much more harmful than we thought, and we’ve been treating it like it’s just another air pollutant,” said the lead author, Lucas Henneman, an assistant professor in the Sid and Reva Dewberry department of civil, environmental and infrastructure engineering at George Mason University. “This type of evidence is important to policymakers like EPA [the US Environmental Protection Agency] as they identify cost-effective solutions for cleaning up the country’s air, like requiring emissions controls or encouraging renewables.”
Henneman led a group of researchers who used publicly available data to track air pollution – and its health effects – from the 480 US coal power plants that operated at some point between 1999 and 2020. A model was used to track the wind direction and reach of the toxins from each power station. Annual exposure levels were then connected with more than 650m Medicare health records that covered most people over age 65 in the US.
The coal plants associated with most deaths were located east of the Mississippi River in industrialized states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, where power stations were historically constructed close to population hubs. But every region had at least one plant linked to 600 deaths, while 10 were associated with more than 5,000 deaths across the study period.
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GOP's long-term plan to kill public schools in America might be succeeding Via Daily Kos
Not long ago, everyone agreed that public education was a value in this nation, much like the notion of a democracy. Yet just like with Republicans shifting attitudes toward democracy, more prominent Republicans are now openly disparaging the entire concept of public schools. Laura Ingraham claimed that “a lot of people are saying it's time to defund government education or at least defund it by giving vouchers to parents.” Fox’s Greg Gutfeld similarly declared that private school vouchers are needed because public schools are “a destructive system” and described teachers as “KKK with summers off.”
Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida has called public schools “a cesspool of Marxist indoctrination.” Donald Trump declared, “public schools have been taken over by the radical left maniacs.” And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia called them taxpayer-funded indoctrination centers that need to end, which is a bit ironic since she is the poster child for the necessity of funding public education.
Although Republicans have long held a disdain for public schools, only recently have they openly advocated for ending them. Like libraries, they are arguing that giving taxpayer money to educate people is a socialist concept. Thankfully, we have had a public school system for centuries, which makes it hard to destroy. However, the GOP has opened up a new front by starving public schools for funds while diverting the resources to charter schools, private institutions, and homeschooling without any of the standards that public schools must adhere to. After all, the biggest threat to their party is critical thinking and an educated populace.
Thanks Doug. Incisive piece about Fox News.