Stephan: The Magas, willing peasants in the service of a small group of rich White billionaires gets its marching orders from the rightwing media establishment led by Fox and its disinformation specialists. At one level it is laughable. At another, it purveys a daily poison that is slowly toxifying American society with its lies and propaganda. The effects can be objectively measured.
Sean Hannity, Fox’s most popular propagandist
Donald Trump wants to go after social media because Twitter pointed out one of his lies. And, in fact, social media has done a lot of damage to America and the American body politic, with the most visible example being its help in putting Donald Trump in the White House in 2016.
But even more concerning should be Fox News and right wing hate radio. A new study out of Columbia university finds that when people in any particular ZIP Code experience a 1% increase in Fox News viewership, it “reduces the propensity to stay at home by 8.9 percentage points compared to the pre-pandemic average.”
In other words, one of the reasons that so many people have died in America right now is because conservative media has been repeatedly and consistently promoting the idea that this virus is a Democratic hoax or a “bad flu.“
Right wing media has gone from being the fringe home of crackpots and paranoids to a major influence in American culture and politics.
Stephan: And here is further data demonstrating the proof of the process I described in the previous article. This is not a political or partisan statement. it is objectively verifiable.
The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, found that a 1% increase in Fox News viewership in a zip code “reduces the propensity to stay at home by 8.9 percentage points compared to the pre-pandemic average.”
“We show that exposure to Fox News has led to substantially lower compliance with social distancing regulations,” said lead researcher Dr. Andrey Simonov, a professor at Columbia Business School.
The researchers used a “quasi-experimental” method, using social distancing data aggregated by the geospatial data firm SafeGraph. The company, which collected 45 million anonymized GPS pings from 45 anonymized mobile devices, […]
Stephan: As I have said several times, at the present time I think New Zealand is the most interesting nation on earth, and its prime minister Jacinda Ardern the most interesting politician. Why? Because under her leadership New Zealand has committed itself to fostering wellbeing at every level as its first priority. How New Zealand has dealt with the Covid-19 pandemic as compared to the nightmare failure of the United States under Trump illustrates this difference very clearly.
New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern
To learn how New Zealand has largely eliminated COVID-19, we continue our extended interview with Michael Baker, an epidemiologist who is a member of the New Zealand Ministry of Health’s Technical Advisory Group and advising the government on its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. He describes how the country’s response compares to the government actions in the United States and worldwide.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The Quarantine Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González, as we bring you Part 2 of our discussion of New Zealand.
Yes, much of the world is looking at New Zealand as a beacon of hope. It just hasn’t just flattened the curve of the coronavirus, but apparently squashed it. New Zealand began its lockdown early, went hard with widespread testing. What did all of this entail, and what can we learn? Is it just that it’s a small nation of 5 million? Or does it have a lot to teach much larger nations in the world that are dealing with massive infection and death rates, like the United States?
Definition of insurrection: an act or instance of revolting against civil authority or an established government. Donald Trump, the President of the United States openly supports civil insurrection. That would be grounds for impeachment if we had a Congress, particularly a Senate, that was a functioning entity working on behalf of the wellbeing of Americans, and the American democracy.
As I read the news of the Pandemic, and the crisis going on because of racist police in Minneapolis, I find myself thinking: If Mitch McConnell and the other Republican senators had had the integrity to do their duty and convict Trump and Pence, and remove them from office would 100,000 Americans have died from the Covid-19 virus? Would Minneapolis be on fire? Would the rest of the world now hold us in such contempt? What do you think?
A screenshot of the video retweeted by President Donald Trump in which Otero County, New Mexico Commissioner and Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin says, “The only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”
President Donald Trump early Thursday boosted a comment from the founder of the group Cowboys for Trump that “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat.”
In his midnight tweet, the president responded to a video clip of Otero County, New Mexico Commissioner and Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin making the remark, tweeting from his phone: “Thank you Cowboys. See you in New Mexico!”
According to the Sante Fe New Mexican, Griffin’s comment came in a speech that took place at a rally at church in the city of Truth or Consequences.
After the “dead Democrat” remark was met with cheers, Griffin couched the comment, adding, “I don’t say that in the physical sense.”
“I say that in the political sense because because the Democrat agenda and policy is anti-American right now,” he claimed. “Our country is coming to a place if you love or hate America.”
Stephan: Thanks to the incompetence of Trump and Pompeo, America's position in the world is evaporating, with geopolitical implications no one can fully predict. If Trump and Pence had been removed from office would this be happening? I don't think so. But it is and the world is realigning, and we will have to live with that reality.
Duterte (R) visits Xi in Beijing. Credit: Ng Han Guan-Pool/Getty
When the Philippines needed resources to fight its coronavirus outbreak, it turned not to its American allies, but to China.
Why it matters: The Philippines was a U.S. colony for half a century and is America’s oldest military ally in Asia. But the Southeast Asian nation is drifting further from the U.S. and toward America’s superpower rival.
Driving the news: While the U.S. has blamed Beijing for the pandemic, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has defended China and thanked Beijing heartily for sending medical equipment and personnel.
“President Xi Jinping, for all of his goodness to us, wrote me a letter and said that he is willing to help. All we have to do is to ask,” Duterte gushed in March.
The U.S. also sent help, but Duterte hardly acknowledged it.
Duterte has long touted China as the primary investor in the Philippines, and he pushed for a more “independent” foreign policy — summed up as, “less America, more China.”
