The Origin Of All Political Power Is In The Barrel Of A Gun

thesenecaeffect | The Monastic order of the Templars (Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Salomonici), was founded in 1119 as a military force to defend the Christian holdings in the Holy Land. In time, the order evolved into a financial structure: the Templars became bankers and they developed a sophisticated money transfer system that helped pilgrims and warriors to move to and from the Holy Land and to transfer money from Europe to Palestine and back. They have been termed "the first multinational corporation" in history. 

As you may imagine, the Templars were rich, despite the term "pauperes" (poor fellows) in their name. They had land, castles, palaces, and, of course, plenty of gold and silver. The problem was that, with the loss of the last lands controlled by the Christian crusaders in the Holy Land, at the end of the 13th century, they had become useless: no more crusades, no need of a banking system to finance them. 

At that point, the Templars attracted the attention of the king of France, Phillip IV, in dire need of money, as kings normally are. In 1307, he ordered the arrest of all Templars and the confiscation of their properties.  Most of the leaders were burned at the stake after that they had confessed under torture all sorts of evil misbehaviors: spit on the cross, deny Christ, engage in indecent kissing, worship the devil, and other niceties. 

As exterminations go, this one didn't involve large numbers: we read of 54 executions in France in 1310. Probably there were more in other countries, but the total cannot be higher than a few hundred. Nevertheless, it had a big impact: it is said that the fame of Friday the 13th as an unlucky day originates from the date of the arrest of the Templars: Friday, October 13, 1307.

The question is, of course, can it happen again? How about our class of hyper-rich, the "100 billion dollar club," that includes well-known names such as Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and a few more? They are clearly going to become trillionaires in the near future. But a house full of gold is hard to defend, as we read in the Tao Te Ching. Could our Internet barons follow the destiny that long ago befell another class of financial tycoons, the Templars?

As usual, the key to the future is in the past. Examining the destiny of the Templars, we may understand the factors that may lead to the extermination of a powerful (but not enough) financial guild. 

First of all, why were the Templars exterminated? I argued in previous posts (one, two, and three) that certain categories of people can be exterminated and their possessions confiscated when they are 1) wealthy, 2) clearly identifiable, and 3) militarily weak, The Templars clearly satisfied the first two rules but not necessarily the third: after all, they were a military order. Yet, when the King of France descended on them, they didn't even try a military reaction. It may be that the prowess of the Templar Knights was much overrated: they were more like a private police force for a financial organization, not a real military force. But it may also be that it was exactly the presence of this force that hastened their downfall. Sometimes, a little military power may be worse than none at all, since it invites a decapitation strike. This is probably what happened to the Templars, exterminated just to make sure that they would not become a threat. 

The story of the Templars is just an example of a power struggle that has very ancient origins. One of the earliest written texts we have was written by the Sumerian priestess Enheduanna who complained with the Goddess that her temple had been desecrated by a local warlord. Enheduanna does not say if the warlord was after the temple's money, but we know that, at that time, temples were also banks, a tradition that remained unchanged for millennia. For instance, as late as during the first century AD, we have the record of a local leader who raided the temple of Jerusalem and attacked the resident bankers, most likely in order to finance an armed insurrection against the Roman governor. 

Temples and warlords remained in an uneasy relationship with each other during the Roman Empire, but a few centuries later, raiding Pagan temples became the normal way to finance the Roman armies, a tradition started by Emperor Constantine 1st ("The Great") during the early 4th century AD. Less than a century later, Emperor Theodosius 1st ("The Great") was the last emperor who still could find Pagan temples to raid for their gold and silver. Then, no more temples, and no more Roman Empire.

Elite Capture: If You Believe Marc Benioff Is A Good Guy - Why Is San Francisco So Squalid?

NPR  |  Benioff's outspokenness is part of his brand. He frequently and forcefully weighs in on controversial issues, including gun policy, human rights, climate change, and politics more broadly.

He is an evangelist for changing the way companies do business, a defender of what's called "stakeholder capitalism," or the belief that corporations should look beyond just the interests of its employees or shareholders and customers.

"We need a new capitalism that is more fair, more equitable, more sustainable," he told CNBC. "Capitalism that values not just all shareholders, but all stakeholders."

Benioff defines "stakeholder" more broadly than most of his contemporaries.

In a recent interview with NPR, Benioff said the planet is a Salesforce stakeholder, and so is the homeless community in San Francisco, where his company has its headquarters, and where his family has lived for four generations.

It's a kind of advocacy few other CEOs have engaged in, according to Benioff.

"When I first started, I don't think there were a lot of CEOs who were willing to speak out and really take positions outside of, maybe, their product," he told NPR.

But that's starting to change — slowly.

In 2015, when Indiana passed a law that would have made it easier for business owners to deny services to same-sex couples because of religious beliefs, Benioff was joined by other CEOs, including Apple's Tim Cook and organizations like NCAA in denouncing the law.

That forced then-Governor Mike Pence to amend the law.

Last year, in a moment that seemed to represent a turning point for corporate America, executives widely condemned the killing of George Floyd, and many pledged to address racial inequality both within their companies and in society at large.

However, many company executives continue to stay away from hot-button issues.

 

 

Is Fuck You Money A Prerequisite For Freedom Of Speech, Freedom Of Choice, and Moral Bravery?

Chappelle IS The GOAT - AND - The GOAT Is Unapologetically Black! Accept No Substitutes...,

slate |  Dave Chappelle is getting plenty of heat for his latest Netflix special, The Closer. Chappelle’s 72-minute bit is squarely aimed at setting the record straight after being widely criticized for his previous specials in which he belittles trans people, gay people, and survivors of sexual violence. He says this is his intention right at the start. We should take him at his word. His routine—controversial as it is—accomplished exactly what he set out to do.

What that accomplishment reveals is not that he isn’t funny (he is). It’s not just that he is punching down (he is) or that his jokes haven’t aged well (they haven’t). His latest special confirms once and for all Chappelle was never the progressive darling many thought him to be. In 2019, when Chappelle won the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Jon Stewart called him the “Black Bourdain,” a nod to the widely loved chef and documentarian whose work explored the intricacies of the human condition.

That characterization is somewhat understandable. The beauty, and ultimate demise, of Chappelle’s Show was that he deftly and publicly explored the trials and tribulations of Black life. At the time, his comedy was provocative, novel, even revelatory. It makes sense we expected the same nuance with respect to other oppressed groups. But ultimately we were just projecting onto him something that wasn’t actually reflected in his work. We expected an intersectional analysis where none existed.

The line that runs through all of Chappelle’s comedy is that anti-Blackness is the Final Boss of all oppressions. Everyone else’s pain and suffering isn’t as bad by comparison, and therefore doesn’t deserve the level of outrage and attention it currently gets in progressive circles. Consider one of his opening jokes in The Closer. “I’d like to start by addressing the LGBTQ community directly,” he says with a smirk. “I want every member in that community to know that I come in peace, and I hope to negotiate the release of DaBaby.” Chappelle acknowledges that DaBaby made “a very egregious mistake” when he made disparaging comments about people living with HIV/AIDS while onstage at a concert in Miami in July. But then the joke takes a turn.

 

White People Can Joke About Things Black People Can't...,

zora |  Dave Chapelle addressed the primarily white attempts to cancel Black celebrities for offending the LGBTQ community, even as White pockets in those communities "punch down" at Black people. That being said, Dave Chapelle made some pretty shocking statements about sex and gender politics. For example, "Sex is assigned at birth" and "Gender refers to how someone self-identifies." So, in that respect, I think it's wrong for the trans community to insist that he is inherently transphobic in identifying these distinctions (which we use in the medical community). It’s not our differences that are problematic — it’s the way people treat us for them that is problematic. These accusations only close the door to a conversation we need to have.

All I ask of your community, with all humility: Will you please stop punching down on my people? (Dave Chapelle)

White people often refer to Black people as racist for talking about race, and it seems that now White people are calling Dave Chapelle transphobic for discussing the trans community. Yet, he never made a statement diminishing their lives, their worth in the community, or their plight. People need to wake up and realize we can't live in a race-neutral society just because folks don't want to talk about race, and we can't live in a gender-neutral society because folks feel uneasy about the conversation. Instead, we need to embrace our differences and fight against the ignorant messaging out there.

I can’t help but see the irony here because as a Millenial, I’m old enough to remember when White people made a movie called “Team America” in which the characters sang the song “Everybody Has Aids.” At the time, no one accused them of being homophobic which is why I raised an eye-brow when DaBaby’s statements about HIV/AIDS were automatically assumed homophobic.

Society is shifting and I believe it’s doing so for the better. But, I’m seeing a lot of ignorance being labeled as cruelty and that actually serves to diminish the point that marginalized folks are making. In other words, “don’t cry wolf because when the real hateful person comes along, everyone will tune out.” They will be effectively desensitized to the violence that we experience for being Black, gay, disabled, or just different.

America is an odd show to watch. Somehow, White people can joke about things Black people can't. When we do it, we're homophobic, and when they do it, everyone laughs. I think that there is a double standard here, and that's what Dave Chapelle was trying to bring to the forefront. Too bad the loudest voices on this issue want us to believe that Dave Chapelle hates gay people.

Chapelle can joke about Whiteness, Blackness, conservativism, progressivism, poverty, crime, but not the gay community. That makes no sense to me. So, while many people are jumping on the bandwagon to cancel or punish Dave Chapelle, I'm not on board because he never said anything hateful about the community. He only exposed his bias towards heteronormativity, which could provide an opportunity for his continued education and growth. Sadly, White folks are just out to cancel him.

Roxanne Gay Isn't Relevant To Any Black Person I've Ever Met (Or Would Care To Meet)

NYTimes |  Mr. Chappelle spends much of “The Closer,” his latest comedy special for Netflix, cleverly deflecting criticism. The set is a 72-minute display of the comedian’s own brittleness. The self-proclaimed “GOAT” (greatest of all time) of stand-up delivers five or six lucid moments of brilliance, surrounded by a joyless tirade of incoherent and seething rage, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia.

If there is brilliance in “The Closer,” it’s that Mr. Chappelle makes obvious but elegant rhetorical moves that frame any objections to his work as unreasonable. He’s just being “brutally honest.” He’s just saying the quiet part out loud. He’s just stating “facts.” He’s just making us think. But when an entire comedy set is designed as a series of strategic moves to say whatever you want and insulate yourself from valid criticism, I’m not sure you’re really making comedy.

Throughout the special, Mr. Chappelle is singularly fixated on the L.G.B.T.Q. community, as he has been in recent years. He reaches for every low-hanging piece of fruit and munches on it gratuitously. Many of Mr. Chappelle’s rants are extraordinarily dated, the kind of comedy you might expect from a conservative boomer, agog at the idea of homosexuality. At times, his voice lowers to a hoarse whisper, preparing us for a grand stroke of wisdom — but it never comes. Every once in a while, he remarks that, oh, boy, he’s in trouble now, like a mischievous little boy who just can’t help himself.

Somewhere, buried in the nonsense, is an interesting and accurate observation about the white gay community conveniently being able to claim whiteness at will. There’s a compelling observation about the relatively significant progress the L.G.B.T.Q. community has made, while progress toward racial equity has been much slower. But in these formulations, there are no gay Black people. Mr. Chappelle pits people from different marginalized groups against one another, callously suggesting that trans people are performing the gender equivalent of blackface.

In the next breath, Mr. Chappelle says something about how a Black gay person would never exhibit the behaviors to which he objects, an assertion many would dispute. The poet Saeed Jones, for example, wrote in GQ that watching “The Closer” felt like a betrayal: “I felt like I’d just been stabbed by someone I once admired and now he was demanding that I stop bleeding.”

Later in the show, Mr. Chappelle offers rambling thoughts on feminism using a Webster’s Dictionary definition, further exemplifying how limited his reading is. He makes a tired, tired joke about how he thought “feminist” meant “frumpy dyke” — and hey, I get it. If I were on his radar, he would consider me a frumpy dyke, or worse. (Some may consider that estimation accurate. Fortunately my wife doesn’t.) Then in another of those rare moments of lucidity, Mr. Chappelle talks about mainstream feminism’s historical racism. Just when you’re thinking he is going to right the ship, he starts ranting incoherently about #MeToo. I couldn’t tell you what his point was there.

This is a faded simulacrum of the once-great comedian, who now uses his significant platform to air grievances against the great many people he holds in contempt, while deftly avoiding any accountability. If we don’t like his routine, the message is, we are the problem, not him.

"In Our Country, You Can Shoot And Kill A N-gga But You Better Not Hurt A Gay Person’s Feelings."

GQ  |  In the show’s opening minutes, under the auspices of updating the audience on his pandemic experience — he got the Johnson & Johnson vaccine: “Give me the third best option! I’ll have what the homeless people are having!” — Chappelle makes it clear that, in addition to being entertaining, he’s out to test our limits because, it becomes increasingly clear, he believes we need to have our limits tested. A few breaths after likening his immune system fighting coronavirus to Black people violently beating up Asian-Americans, Chappelle surveys the gasping audience and says “It’s gonna get worse than that. Hang in there; it’s gonna get way worse.”

And then it does. Discussing DaBaby, for example, Chappelle opines “In our country, you can shoot and kill a n-gga but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings." Never mind that DaBaby’s onstage comments about AIDS at the Rolling Loud festival were truly out of pocket, or that the apology that followed was late and lackluster, or that DaBaby eventually took the apology back.

By the time Chappelle declares that “gender is a fact” and that he’s “Team TERF” in solidarity with J.K. Rowling, I turned my television off because I wasn’t having fun anymore. And part of freedom as I experience it is that I don’t owe Dave Chappelle any of my time.

Maybe you watch comedy specials to endure them, but I watch them to have a good time, and I stop watching them when that’s no longer the case. Chappelle argues this makes me "too sensitive, too brittle"; I just think I have better things to do than watch a standup set that could just as well have been a Fox News special. As a gay Black man, even when I’m watching a comedy special, my identity is inconveniently present. It’s so annoying; I asked my queerness to chill in the other room so I could watch "The Closer" in peace, but no such luck.

 

My Trust In Biden And My Trust In Goo - I Loves Both Like A Rock In My Shoe....,

WaPo |  For generations we’ve had vaccine mandates, particularly for childhood diseases, in every state plus D.C. Few thought to call this tyranny because communities have a duty to maintain public health, and individuals have a duty to reasonably accommodate the common good — even if this means allowing your child to be injected with a substance carrying a minuscule risk of harm.

So there can be no objection rooted in principle to vaccine mandates, unless you want to question them all the way down to measles, mumps and rubella. The problem must be covid-19 in particular.

If the coronavirus vaccines are risky, experimental concoctions with frequent side effects, then government and business mandates are social coercion run amok. We might as well mandate vaping.

But if these vaccines are carefully tested and encourage greater immunity to a deadly disease, with minimal risk of side effects, then the “heroism” of vaccine resisters takes on a different connotation: It means resisters are less courageous and more selfish than your average 6-year-old getting a second MMR dose. Perhaps vaccine mandates should be modified to include lollipops for whingeing malcontents.

So which view is correct? If only there were empirical means, some scientific method, to test the matter. If only there had been three phases of clinical trials, involving tens of thousands of volunteers, demonstrating the drugs to be safe and effective. If only the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration were constantly monitoring safety concerns about the vaccines. If only we could estimate the number of covid deaths that might have been prevented if vaccine uptake were higher.

To break the suspense — we do live in such a world. “From June through September 2021,” concluded a recent Peterson-KFF report, “approximately 90,000 covid-19 deaths among adults likely would have been prevented with vaccination.” So the matter is simple: Who is making vaccination more likely to take place, and who is not?

In this light, it’s hard to blame the small group of workers who have been misled into believing that liberty is the right to infect your neighbors with a deadly pathogen. The main fault lies with the media outlets that spotlight and elevate such people, and with political figures who seek their political dreams by encouraging lethal ignorance.

Eugene Robinson Makes A Responsible Negroe Attack On Kyrie Irving

WaPo  |  Kyrie Irving is a thrillingly talented basketball player, a former Rookie of the Year, a seven-time All-Star and a gold medalist for Team USA. But I look forward to not watching him work his magic this season — as long as he refuses to do the right thing and get vaccinated against the coronavirus.

This isn’t the first time Irving has courted controversy. But the skepticism he and other holdouts have propagated and the wishy-washy stances even some of their vaccinated colleagues have taken, are worth addressing seriously — and not just for what they say about the fight against the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. The best way to show respect for athletes as political actors and philanthropists is to push back when they’re wrong — especially when the stakes are this high.

Irving plays for the Brooklyn Nets, and the city of New York mandates that Nets players be vaccinated before they can play in their home arenas. Irving is the only stubbornly unvaccinated Net. Since he would have to sit out roughly half the team’s schedule, Nets management has wisely decided it’s best he not play at all.

A performative iconoclast, Irving posted an I’m-the-victim justification on Instagram Live. “It’s bigger than the game,” he said. “I came into the season thinking I was just going to be able to play ball. . . . Why are you putting it on me?”

Cue the violins.

I don’t respect his “choice” at all. As for why we’re “putting it on” him, we are battling together to defeat a highly infectious virus that has killed more than 720,000 Americans. We have a trio of safe and effective vaccines that slow the spread of the virus and confer miraculous protection against serious illness and death. Irving’s choice threatens not just his own health but also, should he be infected, that of his fellow players, his coaches and trainers, the referees who call the games, and the fans who come to see the Nets play.

Irving clearly understands the privileges that come with his stardom, including the ability to get millions of people to listen to whatever he has to say. A few years ago, he drew worldwide attention by claiming, with a straight face, that he believed the world is flat. “I do research on both sides,” he said in 2017. “I’m not against anyone that thinks the Earth is round. I’m not against anyone that thinks it’s flat. I just love hearing the debate.”

He later apologized. “At the time, I was, like, huge into conspiracies,” he said. “And everybody’s been there.”

That’s precisely the problem. Far too many Americans are “huge into conspiracies,” and it is deeply irresponsible for famous athletes to encourage them to go down the anti-vaccine rabbit hole.

Why Doesn't Political And Corporate Management Want To Discuss NeoVaccinoid Mandates?

WaPo  |  Even as the coronavirus has ravaged the rank and file of law enforcement agencies across the country, police labor leaders have threatened to go to court and called for defiance from union members. The response to the coronavirus has tragically been politicized — starting with the absurd demonization of masks — but the refusal of these police unions to abide by vaccine mandates, recognized by other unions including those representing teachers as a vital tool to safeguard public health, represents a new low.

Covid-19 has been the No. 1 killer of law enforcement officers in 2020 and 2021. According to the Officer Down Memorial Page, which tracks the on-duty deaths of police officers in the United States, more than 470 have died as a result of contracting the virus in the line of duty since the start of the pandemic. That is more than four times as many officers who have died from gunfire. Among the covid-19 fatalities: Louisiana Police Lt. DeMarcus Dunn, 36, who died the day before his wedding; Edgardo Acosta-Feliciano, 48, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer who leaves behind a wife, a daughter and two sons; Michael Weiskopf, 52, a traffic homicide investigator for the St. Petersburg police remembered for his kindness in dealing with people involved in serious crashes. None had been vaccinated.

“If this was cops getting shot on the streets of America today at this number, there would be outrage,” Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told the New York Times. “This is an issue that begs for leadership and putting politics aside. And that’s exactly the opposite of what’s happening right now.” So on the same day that the former head of Chicago’s police union died from covid-19, Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara — who once compared the city’s vaccine requirements to Nazi Germany — urged his members not to comply with the mayor’s order to submit proof of vaccination. Brandon Judd, president of the union that represents border patrol agents said he is saddened by the rise in deaths — five agents died of covid-19 in September alone — but he insists vaccines are a personal choice.

It should be expected that organizations whose purpose is the protection of the health, safety and welfare of its members would actually try to live up to those ideals. And that a profession whose motto is to protect and serve would recognize the danger that is posed to the public by officers who refuse to get vaccinated against a deadly virus.

Kyrie Irving Speaks On His Mandate Stance - Stephen A. Smith Coons....,

theathletic |  Kyrie Irving believes he is fighting for something bigger than basketball — and the unintended consequences are that his mission is conflicting with his career and his franchise, the Brooklyn Nets.

Irving remains ineligible to play in NBA home games at Barclays Center in Brooklyn because he has not fulfilled New York City’s COVID-19 vaccine requirement, and the Nets announced Tuesday that Irving will not play or practice with the team until he is eligible to be a full participant. The Athletic has learned through multiple sources what has been behind his stance and decision to not take the vaccine, reasoning which has not been made public to date.

Nets general manager Sean Marks acknowledged Tuesday that Irving is not vaccinated for COVID-19. The All-NBA star and the Nets had received some good news on Friday when New York City Hall ruled that the team’s practice facility, HSS Training Center, is a public office building — clearing Irving to return to practice on Sunday. But as of now, Irving has no plans to be vaccinated, sources say. Within the franchise and the players in the locker room, it is understood that Irving’s decision is what it is.

Coonius McCoonibus Got So Much Things To Say...,

Damn right I said this S&&@ about Kyrie Irving. And I meant every damn word. Nobody’s backing up pic.twitter.com/3gtE2N5tF3

— Stephen A Smith (@stephenasmith) October 13, 2021

All this has left the Nets to account for how to handle the unprecedented situation and led to a bevy of questions: Is Irving anti-vax and what is really behind his choice? Will City Hall change the vaccine mandate? How will the Nets handle having Irving banished from the team instead of in and out of the lineup and available for road games and home practices?

Multiple sources with direct knowledge of Irving’s decision have told The Athletic that Irving is not anti-vaccine and that his stance is that he is upset that people are losing their jobs due to vaccine mandates. It’s a stance that Irving has explained to close teammates. To him, this is about a grander fight than the one on the court and Irving is challenging a perceived control of society and people’s livelihood, according to sources with knowledge of Irving’s mindset. It is a decision that he believes he is capable to make given his current life dynamics. “Kyrie wants to be a voice for the voiceless,” one source said.

However, the nation’s top doctors and scientists have cleared the vaccine as safe and effective. The Center for Disease Control (CDC), American Medical Association (AMA) and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) state clearly that COVID-19 vaccines are effective at helping protect against severe disease and death, including from variants of the virus, while also being safe. In fact, multiple studies showed that 99 percent of people who are in intensive care units in hospitals are unvaccinated. Sources say 96 percent of NBA players are currently vaccinated. More than 3.75 billion people worldwide have received a vaccine dose. To be clear, Irving’s stance is not believed to be anti-science, according to sources.

Irving has made more than $160 million over his NBA contracts and has a massive Nike shoe endorsement deal, so those who know Irving understand he is not driven right now by money, nor cares for inheriting more, but rather the stand for larger issues in his mind that need his support. He’s a seven-time All-Star, two-time All-NBA member and former Rookie of the Year who now stands to lose over $200 million by deciding to use his platform to stand up for his stance of each and every person being able to decide for themselves on whether they should take the vaccine without impacts on job statuses. However, the fact of the matter is there are consequences for being unvaccinated in some industries and municipalities. Just as Irving wants to stick with his principle belief on the matter, policies and requirements are subject to local and federal governments.

Joe Rogan Easily Gets The Rear Naked Choke On Lying Dr. Sanjay Gupta

CTH |  These three video segments are a case-study in deconstructing and confronting the fallacies of the illogical leftist mind.  Gupta went from having a high opinion of his own intellectual self, to being a puddle of moonbat mush under the microphone.  ENJOY.

♦ First segment.  Joe Rogan points out the fallacy of fear behind COVID {Direct Rumble Link}.  Statistics and research show unvaccinated children are not at risk of death from COVID. In fact, they are far less at risk than vaccinated adults. So why all the focus on jabbing a population that is not at risk?

♦ Second segment.  Joe Rogan confronts Gupta about his own network CNN lying about Ivermectin and calling it a “horse dewormer”.   {Direct Rumble Link}

♦ Third Segment.  Joe Rogan confronts Sanjay Gupta over the Wuhan Lab as the epicenter of the SARS-CoV-2 breakout.  Rogan challenges Gupta to explain why gain of function research was taking place and why the National Institute of Health has lied about it. {Direct Rumble Link}

The entire interview is available on Spotify HERE

 

Sanjay Gupta Equivocating: Here Is A Headline: Joe Rogan Agreed To Get Vaccinated

CNN |  In today's highly segmented media world, most of the people who watch and listen to me every day on CNN have already received and accepted the message about the utility of vaccines, the importance of masks and how we can all work together to put an end to this pandemic. So I realized that if I was serious about trying to communicate public health, I needed to go to a less comfortable place. I needed to go into the lion's den and accept an invitation to sit down with Joe Rogan for more than three hours.

I don't think I have ever had a conversation that long with anyone. Seriously -- think about that. We sat in a windowless podcast booth with two sets of headphones and microphones, and a few feet between us. Not a single interruption. No cellphones. No distractions. No bathroom breaks.

 

At a time when there is a desire for shorter, crisper content -- responding to abbreviated human attention spans -- one of the most popular podcasts in the country features conversations that last exceptionally long and go particularly deep.

 

Many friends cautioned me against accepting Joe's invitation. "There is little room for reasonable conversations anymore," one person told me. "He is a brawler and doesn't play fair," another warned. In fact, when I told Joe early in the podcast that I didn't agree with his apparent views on vaccines against Covid, ivermectin and many things in between, part of me thought the MMA, former Taekwondo champion might hurtle himself across the table and throttle my neck. But, instead he smiled, and off we went.

 

OK, I am embellishing here, but Joe Rogan is the one guy in the country I wanted to exchange views with in a real dialogue -- one that could potentially be among the most important conversations of this entire pandemic. After listening to his podcasts for a while now, I wanted to know: Was Joe simply a sower of doubt, a creator of chaos? Or was there something more? Was he asking questions that begged to be asked, fueled by necessary suspicion and skepticism?

 

It wasn't what Joe Rogan thinks that most interested me, it was how he thinks. That is what I really wanted to understand.

 

Truth is, I have always been a naturally skeptical person myself. One of my personal heroes, the physicist Edwin Hubble, said a scientist has a "healthy skepticism, suspended judgment and disciplined imagination, not only about other people's ideas but also about their own."

 

 

 

 

MatterDaddy KarenWaffen Twitter Celebrates Fallout From The NeoVaccinoid Mandate

holy fucking shit, vaccine mandates are causing teachers who don't believe in science to quit, nurses who don't believe in medicine to quit, and cops who don't believe in public safety to quit. I'm failing to see the downside to this...,

folks: I hate tweet thieves and I hate it even more when the tweet thief turns out to be me. I have no memory of seeing @mbeisen's tweet but clearly I must have, and then regurgitated it as my own. UGH. folks, please retweet the hell out of the original: https://t.co/CBTmfH9JDe

— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) October 13, 2021

Lesko Brandon Using Your Employers Power To Mandate Jabs And Terminate For Cause If You Refuse

marketwatch |   “Typically, an employee who is terminated for failing to comply with company policies is not eligible for unemployment benefits, which would include refusing to comply with a company’s COVID-19 prevention policies, masking requirements or vaccine requirements,” Ackels told MarketWatch.

But an employee who has proof of a medical exemption or religious objection to receiving a COVID-19 vaccine may still be eligible to collect unemployment benefits if fired, said Rebecca Dixon, executive director at the National Employment Law Project, a nonprofit that advocates for worker’s rights.

Otherwise, refusing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, if your employer requires one, “is akin to an employee’s refusal to submit to permissible drug tests or participate in safety trainings,” said Ronald Zambrano, employment law chair at West Coast Trial Lawyers, a Los Angeles–based law firm. That is, such an employee, when terminated, would not qualify for unemployment benefits, Zambrano said.

Ultimately, “this could lead to tens of thousands of people across the United States without work or access to unemployment benefits because they refuse to get vaccinated,” Zambrano said.

What if employees quit because they don’t want to get vaccinated?

Quitting over refusal to get vaccinated when an employer requires it appears unlikely to improve one’s chances of securing unemployment payments.

“If you quit because of the mandate then you’d have to have good cause attributable to the employer in order to collect unemployment benefits,” Dixon said. “Good cause is usually viewed from that of a reasonable person. Given the overwhelming evidence of the safety of the vaccine, it’s likely that good cause would not be found” in the case of a person who quits a job because of a vaccine mandate.

That said, state workforce departments can update “eligibility requirements such that, depending on the circumstances, employees fired for refusing to get the COVID-19 vaccine could be eligible for unemployment benefits,” Ackels said.

The Department of Labor didn’t respond to MarketWatch’s request for comment.

The Texas Workforce Commission, noting that “[e]very unemployment insurance claim is reviewed on a case by case basis” and that “what happens in an unemployment claim is dependent upon the individual facts,” said that an employee “may be eligible for benefits if you were fired for reasons other than misconduct.”

The commission, while noting that most people who quit jobs are deemed ineligible for unemployment compensation, observed that it is possible to qualify if it is demonstrated that they quit “for good cause connected with the work.”

Officials at the commission did not indicate whether any individuals fired from a job for refusing to be vaccinated had qualified for unemployment benefits or whether any employer have been charged, as the commission suggested was possible.

Lesko Brandon Needs To Start Punishing Citizens Who Question Or Disobey His Mandates!

MIT |  By some lights, it seems curious how authoritarian leaders can sustain their public support while limiting liberties for citizens. Yes, it can be hard to overthrow an entrenched leader; that does not mean people have to like their ruling autocrats. And yet, many do.

After all, authoritarian China consistently polls better on measures of trust and confidence in government than many democratic countries, including the U.S. And elected leaders from Africa to East Asia and Europe have seen their popularity rise after rolling back civil rights recently. What explains this phenomenon?

“Successful authoritarians do not take public support and the durability of their systems for granted,” says MIT political scientist Lily Tsai, who has spent years studying autocratic regimes. “They know they have to constantly work hard to make sure there is support and voluntary cooperation.”

The specific way many autocrats achieve this, Tsai believes, is by investing heavily in “retributive justice,” the high-profile use of punishment against people who have run afoul of values shared by leaders and their supporters. Such punishments, it seems, signal to the public that its leaders are maintaining a social order based upon core moral values, even as they restrict certain liberties.   

“It’s an important strategy for mobilizing public support that unfortunately we don’t always acknowledge,” Tsai says. “Successful authoritarians understand that people need to feel there is a stable social and moral order, arguably before anything else, and they have to consciously and continuously produce it.”

Now Tsai, the Ford Professor of Political Science and chair of the MIT faculty, has examined this idea at length a new book, “When People Want Punishment,” published by Cambridge University Press. In it, she explores how retributive justice functions, and seeks to shift our understanding of how authoritarians prosper — an especially urgent question while many have gained traction around the globe. Fist tap Dale.

Biden Should Force NeoVaccinoidation On Americans Whether We Want It Or Not!!!

theweek |  President Biden is in trouble. As my colleague Damon Linker writes, his approval numbers have been steadily declining for months, now hovering in the low 40s in some surveys. Without some upward movement, that will spell disaster for the Democrats in the upcoming midterms.

There is one straightforward policy Biden can undertake, completely on his own initiative, to turn this around: vaccine mandates. Strict policies to force vaccine-resistant populations to get their shots would do more than anything else under Biden's direct control to improve the condition of the country — and his own polling numbers.

Now, there are no doubt many reasons Biden's approval is down. The shrieking tantrum from the mainstream media over the American empire being humiliated in Afghanistan plays a part, as does the general tendency for presidential approval to decline following inauguration. The relentless drumbeat of conservative propaganda takes its toll as well.

But the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is surely the largest part. Political science has shown for years that the incumbent party in the White House tends to be blamed for bad things that happen on its watch — even if that assignment of blame makes little sense. That's what's happening here. 

As long as the pandemic continues, it will play hell with the economic recovery. Unemployment is relatively low, but recent jobs numbers have been weak, and supply chains are badly snarled up across the globe. That, coupled with the worst mass casualty event in a century — more people have died of COVID-19 this year than in 2020 — is surely sandbagging presidential popularity.

What's more, Biden did promise to end the pandemic. "I'll immediately put in place a national strategy that will position our country to finally get ahead of this virus and get back our lives," he said in a campaign speech last year. So even if it's not exactly his fault things are still bad, he still appears to be breaking his word. Early this summer, it appeared life was finally going back to normal after an absolutely horrible year — as it finally is in Western Europe, thanks to super-high vaccination rates. Instead, we got sucked right back down into the pandemic sandpit.

Southwest Airlines Widespread Cancellations Blamed On NeoVaccinoid Mandate

NYTimes | Southwest Airlines canceled more than 1,000 flights on Sunday and just over 800 on Saturday, wreaking havoc on weekend travel plans for thousands of passengers.

The airline had canceled 24 percent of all scheduled flights on Saturday, according to FlightAware, a tracking service. By noon on Sunday, Southwest had already canceled 28 percent of flights scheduled for the day, with hundreds more flights delayed.

“We experienced weather challenges in our Florida airports at the beginning of the weekend, challenges that were compounded by unexpected air traffic control issues in the same region, triggering delays and prompting significant cancellations,” the airline said in a statement on Sunday. “We’ve continued diligent work throughout the weekend to reset our operation with a focus on getting aircraft and crews repositioned to take care of our customers.”

Southwest added that recovering from the disruption was more difficult than usual because it is operating fewer flights than before the pandemic, complicating efforts to reschedule passengers.

“We know the frustration flight cancellations are creating for our customers and employees and we apologize, and we again thank everyone for patience as we work first to be safe, and second to be as quick as possible in solving disrupted plans.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement on Sunday that it had briefly suffered an air traffic control staffing shortage, but that the issue had long since been resolved.

“Flight delays and cancellations occurred for a few hours Friday afternoon due to widespread severe weather, military training and limited staffing in one area of the Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center,” the agency said. “Some airlines continue to experience scheduling challenges due to aircraft and crews being out of place.”

Indeed, the weekend disruption appeared to be limited to Southwest. American Airlines had the second highest number of cancellations among U.S. carriers on Sunday, with fewer than 70 flights — about 2 percent of those scheduled for the day — affected.

Southwest suffered similar widespread disruptions over several days in June, which it attributed to technological problems, both internally and with a third-party weather data supplier. The delays prevented crews from reaching flights they were scheduled to work, exacerbating the problem.

Hundreds Of Thousands Of U.S. Troops Have Not Complied With Cornpop's NeoVaccinoid Mandate

WaPo  |  Hundreds of thousands of U.S. service members remain unvaccinated or only partially vaccinated against the coronavirus as the Pentagon’s first compliance deadlines near, with lopsided rates across the individual services and a spike in deaths among military reservists illustrating how political division over the shots has seeped into a nonpartisan force with unambiguous orders.

Overall, the military’s vaccination rate has climbed since August, when Defense Department leaders, acting on a directive from President Biden, informed the nation’s 2.1 million troops that immunization would become mandatory, exemptions would be rare and those who refuse would be punished. Yet troops’ response has been scattershot, according to data assessed by The Washington Post.

For instance, 90 percent of the active-duty Navy is fully vaccinated, whereas just 72 percent of the Marine Corps is, the data shows, even though both services share a Nov. 28 deadline. In the Air Force, more than 60,000 personnel have just three weeks to meet the Defense Department’s most ambitious deadline.

Deaths attributed to covid-19 have soared in parts of the force as some services struggle to inoculate their troops. In September, more military personnel died of coronavirus infections than in all of 2020. None of those who died were fully vaccinated, Pentagon spokesman Maj. Charlie Dietz said.

Military officials explain the variance in vaccination rates, in part, by pointing to the staggered deadlines each of the services set for personnel to comply while expressing optimism that, as those dates approach, numbers will quickly rise and a vast majority of troops will carry out their orders. Thousands of troops already have begun their two-shot regimens, like in the Navy, where 98 percent of active-duty sailors have received at least one dose, officials said.

But other services are not on such a steady path, and critics say the large gaps between vaccination deadlines jeopardize how ready the military can be in a moment of crisis. They point specifically to the reserves and National Guard, which over the past two years have been called upon in numerous emergencies — at home and overseas — and yet large numbers of their personnel have so far refused to get vaccinated.

“The Army’s policy is incentivizing inaction until the latest possible date,” said Katherine L. Kuzminski, a military policy expert at the Washington think tank Center for a New American Security, citing plans that require Army Reserve and National Guard personnel to be fully vaccinated more than eight months from now. Coronavirus vaccines have been widely available since the spring. 

L.A. Firefighters File Intent To Sue Over The City's NeoVaccinoid Mandate

NYTimes  |  Vaccine hesitancy among police officers in the United States has been one of the themes of pandemic news this year, but in some places, firefighters are joining the resistance.

This week, hundreds of firefighters in Los Angeles filed a notice of intent to sue the city over its vaccine mandate, saying an Oct. 20 deadline to get vaccinated is “extreme and outrageous.”

The notice, filed on Thursday, said each of the 871 firefighters would seek $2.5 million each if the lawsuit is filed — for a projected total of over $2.1 billion. A lawyer representing the group said that the city would have 45 days to evaluate the notice and that he expected to file the suit immediately after that period.

Firefighters in Spokane, Wash., joined state workers in a lawsuit over statewide vaccine mandates, according to KXLY-TV. In Orange County, Fla., a group of firefighters upset by a vaccine mandate sued the county, WFTV reported.

The International Association of Fire Fighters’ statement on vaccines offers no support for rejecting vaccine mandates. Instead, it notes the extreme importance of vaccination for “fire fighters and medical emergency personnel who work in confined and uncontrolled environments while treating or transporting patients or interacting with the public.” The statement lists the few options available for exemptions, and lists some of the financial penalties and job losses that defying mandates could incur.

Kevin McBride, the lawyer representing the Los Angeles firefighters, said in an interview that his clients did not trust the available vaccines and could be fired for defying the city’s vaccine mandate.

All three vaccines used in the United States are highly effective at preventing serious illness, hospitalization and death from Covid-19, and serious side effects, like a strong allergic reaction, are extremely rare.

Mr. McBride said the Los Angeles authorities had rejected his offer of a “middle ground” in which weekly testing would substitute for getting the shot. The mandate passed by the Los Angeles City Council in August did not include an option for regular testing.

As of Thursday, about 64 percent of members of the Los Angeles Fire Department were fully vaccinated, according to a spokeswoman, Cheryl Getuiza, and about 1,200 members had not had a single shot. Since the pandemic began, two members have died, and 1,070 have been infected, she said.

Los Angeles is also experiencing vaccine hesitancy among its law-enforcement agents. The firefighters’ notice of intent to sue was filed on the same day that the Los Angeles County sheriff, Alex Villanueva, said he would not enforce the vaccine mandate at his department, which employs some 18,000 people.