Politics & Stuff

[Vesper 28,795]

Why some QAnon believers think JFK Jr is still alive – and about to become vice president

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/qanon-jfk-jr-alive-trump-b1995594.html

[Vesper 28,795]

Jordan Klepper vs. Trump Supporters | The Daily Show

 

[Fernando 6,455]

11 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Why some QAnon believers think JFK Jr is still alive – and about to become vice president

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/qanon-jfk-jr-alive-trump-b1995594.html

To me QAnon are Russian propaganda. Not even worth the time listening, and those that do are blind. 

[Vesper 28,795]

9 minutes ago, Fernando said:

To me QAnon are Russian propaganda. Not even worth the time listening, and those that do are blind. 

A Quarter of Republicans Believe Central Views of QAnon Conspiracy Movement

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-02-24/a-quarter-of-republicans-believe-central-views-of-qanon-conspiracy-movement

[Vesper 28,795]

Do Republicans really believe Trump won the 2020 election? Our research suggests that they do.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/01/07/republicans-big-lie-trump/

All credible evidence tells us that the 2020 election was very secure. Experts on both sides of the political aisle, and even President Donald Trump’s own Justice Department, have confirmed that 2020 was a free and fair election. Even a Republican-sponsored audit of Arizona’s results found no evidence of fraud or malfeasance.

Nevertheless, the vast majority of Republican voters say they agree with Trump’s unsubstantiated claims that the election was stolen. In our most recent University of Massachusetts at Amherst poll, fielded online Dec. 14-20 by YouGov among a nationally representative sample of the U.S. voting-age population, only 21 percent of Republicans say Joe Biden’s victory was legitimate. This is nearly identical to what we found in our April poll, in which just 19 percent of Republicans said Biden was legitimately elected. Other universities, media outlets and polling firms have found nearly identical results.

How could the “big lie” campaign convince so many Republicans that Trump won an election he so clearly lost? Some observers wonder whether these beliefs are genuine or just an example of expressive responding, a term social scientists use to mean respondents are using a survey item to register a feeling rather than express a real belief. In this case, it would mean that these Republicans, upset about Biden winning, say his victory was not legitimate even though they know deep down that it was.

What does the evidence tell us?

While it is difficult to firmly establish what respondents truly believe, clues suggest this is a genuine belief. One piece of evidence is that the result is nearly identical in phone surveys and online surveys. When people respond to phone surveys, those responses are often biased by what social scientists call “social desirability,” in which respondents say what they think makes them look good — even if that is not what they actually believe. Web-based surveys are known to reduce social desirability bias.

Other survey responses appear consistent with a true belief that the election was stolen. In our December UMass Poll, we asked those who said Biden’s presidential victory was illegitimate to select all the reasons they believed so from a list of conspiracy theories floated by those pushing the “big lie.” As you can see below, fully 83 percent say that “fraudulent ballots supporting Joe Biden were counted by election officials”; 81 percent that officials counted “absentee ballots from deceased people”; 76 percent tell us that “non-citizens and other ineligible voters were allowed to vote for Joe Biden”; 69 percent that the victory was illegitimate because “some states changed election rules in ways they should not have”; and 65 percent that election officials destroyed ballots supporting Trump.

In other words, not only do they say that Biden’s victory was not legitimate, but they endorse several (though not all) specific theories about how fraud was perpetrated.

Further, Republicans in our UMass Poll say they would be more likely to vote for 2022 GOP congressional candidates who questioned Biden’s victory and less likely to vote for those who concede that Biden won. Using a conjoint experiment, an approach likely to reduce social desirability bias and expressive response, political scientists Vin Arceneaux and Rory Truex found that Republicans do indeed reward and punish candidates in this way.

How we did further research

To further explore how genuinely Republicans believe the “big lie,” we embedded a list experiment in our December UMass Poll. A list experiment is a technique scholars use to reduce social desirability bias and expressive responding, and it lets us see what percentage of respondents select an item without having to tell us so directly. This way they neither have to tell a pollster something embarrassing or feel the reward of telling a pollster something that expresses a feeling rather than a belief.

In our study, we divided respondents into two groups. We asked all of them: “How many of the following do you believe? Don’t tell us which ones. Just how many.” However, the control group was asked about four statements, while the other group was asked those four, with the addition of this: “Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election was legitimate.” You can see all five statements in the survey image below.

Since the lists are otherwise identical, we can see what percentage selected the additional sentence by comparing the control group’s average number with the second group’s average number.

Only 28 percent of Republicans believe that Biden was legitimately elected. That’s what we find when we subtract the average number of statements the Republicans in the control group claim to believe (1.80) from the average number of items the Republicans in the experimental group claim to believe (2.08), giving us 0.28. That’s 28 percent.

That’s almost identical to the percentage of Republicans in our survey (27 percent) who, when asked directly, either told us that Biden’s victory was legitimate (21 percent) or selected “I’m not sure” (6 percent).

Apparently, Republicans are reporting a genuine belief that Biden’s election was illegitimate. If anything, a few Republicans may, for social desirability reasons, be using the “I’m not sure” option to hide their true belief that the election was stolen.

Republican respondents consistently tell pollsters that they doubt the legitimacy of Biden’s election. Apparently, that’s a genuinely held belief.

Read more TMC analysis of Jan. 6:

Some say the U.S. is heading for civil war. History suggests something colder.

Would Americans ever support a coup? 40 percent now say yes.

‘MAGA’ voters are angry at efforts to build a full, equal, multiethnic U.S. democracy.

Are U.S. companies punishing Republicans for Jan. 6? Here’s what our research finds.

[Vesper 28,795]

Trump’s own officials say 2020 was America’s most secure election in history

Homeland Security put out a statement with state and local officials that countered the president’s fraud claims.

https://www.vox.com/2020/11/13/21563825/2020-elections-most-secure-dhs-cisa-krebs

 

The Times Called Officials in Every State: No Evidence of Voter Fraud

The president and his allies have baselessly claimed that rampant voter fraud stole victory from him. Officials contacted by The Times said that there were no irregularities that affected the outcome.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/10/us/politics/voting-fraud.html

 

https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2021/jan/08/joe-biden/joe-biden-right-more-60-trumps-election-lawsuits-l/

snip

 

Failed lawsuits from Trump and his supporters

Marc Elias, a lawyer who has filed and defended cases on behalf of Democrats, keeps a tally on the outcome of the election cases.

"It is 63 losses by Trump and his allies," Elias told PolitiFact the morning of Jan. 8, 2021. "We treat each case separately — so if there is a federal case and a state case, we treat them as two cases. We only ever count a case one time — so if there is an appeal or remand, we do not treat that as a separate loss."

The one case where Trump found success didn’t involve an allegation about fraud. The case centered on reducing the amount of time Pennsylvania voters had to fix errors on their mail-in ballots. The matter involved a small number of ballots that didn’t change the outcome.

snip

 

Not even close in the Electoral College (306 to 232) and a huge crushing loss for Trump in the popular vote, by over 7 million votes.

As of today 14/03/2022, it is still only that one win for Trump. (and that was zero to do with fraud). Over 100 losses, all state controlling election officials (many Republicans themselves) in all 50 states say it was legit and the most secure in American history, and yet around 80% of Repubs think that Biden stole it.

It's The RW Big Lie

#brainwashed 

Edited March 14, 2022 by Vesper

[Fernando 6,455]

35 minutes ago, Vesper said:

A Quarter of Republicans Believe Central Views of QAnon Conspiracy Movement

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-02-24/a-quarter-of-republicans-believe-central-views-of-qanon-conspiracy-movement

They are Russian, that's what they love to do. Send misinformation. 

The government should do a background check of those that run that place. 

Or they can just be people that want the spotlight as Alex Jones publicly stated:

InfoWars' Alex Jones Is a 'Performance Artist,' His Lawyer Says in Divorce Hearing
During a heated divorce proceeding, Alex Jones's lawyer insisted the bombastic radio jock who spins conspiracy theories is just 'playing a character.'

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-fake-news-infowars-alex-jones-performance-artist-n747491

[Vesper 28,795]

49 minutes ago, Fernando said:

They are Russian, that's what they love to do. Send misinformation. 

The government should do a background check of those that run that place. 

Or they can just be people that want the spotlight as Alex Jones publicly stated:

InfoWars' Alex Jones Is a 'Performance Artist,' His Lawyer Says in Divorce Hearing
During a heated divorce proceeding, Alex Jones's lawyer insisted the bombastic radio jock who spins conspiracy theories is just 'playing a character.'

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-fake-news-infowars-alex-jones-performance-artist-n747491

I have never seen concrete proof QAnon is a Russian op

and Russian op or not, tens of millions of RWers in the US alone by into its idiocy

and the vast majority of all Republicans buy into the Big Lie about 2020

the yanks are fucked, headed for a crackup of the union by 2035 to 2040 or so at the latest, maybe sooner

[Vesper 28,795]

just wow

😿

 

[Vesper 28,795]

#Ukraine: A open top BMW 6 series with a NSV 12,7x108 heavy machine gun mounted - is not something you see everyday.

 

 

[Vesper 28,795]

Chile couples' joy as first same-sex marriages held

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-60690266

Consuelo Morales Aros, 38, and her partner Pabla Heuser Amaya are overjoyed.

The two women, who have been together for 16 years, were among the first to tie the knot in Chile on Thursday after a landmark law came into effect allowing same-sex marriages.

Same-sex couples have been able to enter into civil unions in the overwhelmingly Catholic country since 2015.

But while being in a civil union meant that same-sex couples had more legal benefits than before, those benefits fell short of those afforded to married couples, especially in relation to children and their care.

Consuelo says she and Pabla are getting married for the sake of their two-year-old daughter Josefa.

"It was our dream that we both be her parents," says Consuelo, explaining that they had Josefa through reciprocal in vitro fertilisation. Consuelo supplied the egg and Pabla had the embryo implanted and carried the pregnancy.

But until now, only the woman who gave birth - in this case Pabla - was legally recognised as the child's biological mother.

For Consuelo, this meant that she did not have any legal say in Josefa's medical care. And if she had separated from Pabla, she would not have had any legal rights when it came to Josefa's custody or upbringing.

Getting married will allow the two women to register Josefa as not just Pabla's daughter, but also Consuelo's.

Pabla says she is thrilled that their daughter "will finally have the two mothers she deserves instead of just one".

Surprise turn

Chile's LGBT community had long pushed for the legalisation of same-sex marriages, but a bill to that effect languished in Congress for four years.

Introduced by the left-wing President Michelle Bachelet in 2017, the bill was finally pushed through by her right-wing successor, Sebastian Piñera, in December 2021 - much to the shock of some of Mr Piñera's party colleagues and the Catholic Church.

Three months on, it has finally come into effect.

Javier Silva and his partner Jaime Nazar were the first to get married under the new law after "getting lucky" when the appointments opened up and they got the first slot.

Like Consuelo and Pabla, they too want to get full legal status as parents.

The couple have two children, 20-month-old Clemente and four-month-old Lola María.

Jaime is the biological father of Clemente and Javier is the biological father of Lola María. Both children were born to a surrogate mother in Colombia.

The couple say they are relieved that they will now be able to be legally recognised as the parents of both Clemente and Lola María.

Javier explains that under the old rules, he would have had no legal rights to Clemente if Jaime had died. All rights would have automatically gone to Jaime's parents as Clemente's next of kin.

While Javier and Jaime say they were always going to choose surrogacy, they are happy that the new law will make things easier for same-sex couples looking to adopt.

Until now, only one of the two individuals in a same-sex partnership could adopt and hold parental legal rights and responsibilities.

Javier also thinks that same-sex couples were not looked upon favourably. "Same-sex couples are always at the back of the line when it comes to adoption."

According to Isabel Amor, there are hundreds of same-sex couples who want to have their children legally recognised.

Ms Amor, the executive director of the LGBT rights group Fundación Iguales, says that her organisation is in touch with around 300 families but that there are probably many more who will eventually benefit from the change.

She says that by passing the bill, lawmakers finally caught up with the reality of what many Chileans wanted.

"This law allows us to show a new kind of family unit," she says.

[Vesper 28,795]

[Vesper 28,795]

[Vesper 28,795]

[Vesper 28,795]

When Russia sanctioned Canada, it barred leaders from all major federal parties, including conservative leaders.

But when Russia sanctioned the U.S., it barred Democratic leaders only. It didn’t name a single GOP leader. The signal couldn’t be clearer.

 

[Vesper 28,795]

Biggest ÚS Oil Giants Made 'Eye-Popping' $205 Billion in Profits in 2021: Report

Now, fossil fuel giants are trying to "cash in on inflation and the crisis in Ukraine," said one critic.

 

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/03/15/biggest-oil-giants-made-eye-popping-205-billion-profits-2021-report

[Vesper 28,795]

 

In advancing HB2779, a bill modelled after the Texas abortion law, Tennessee Rep. Rebecca Alexander (Republican) says that it would be permissible for any family member of a rapist to sue the victim of rape for proceeding with an abortion. The bill is moving forward to full committee.

 

 

[Vesper 28,795]

President Zelensky shows the United States Congress a video of his nation being destroyed by Vladimir Putin's forces, and tells America: "Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace."