RationalWiki:What is going on in the blogosphere?/July 2016

July 2016
Snopes can't cope: there are so many conspiracy theories popping up, David Mikkelson says "the bilge keeps coming faster than you can pump." Why Russia's Communist party is resurging. Obama is set to send billions in aid to Israel as it prospers. How Netenyahu is crushing Israel's free press. The Munich shooter was a Neo-nazi, no wonder the media has moved on. The media narrative that détente with Russia is treacherous is McCarthyite. Glenn Greenwald talks Brexit, Trump, and info leaks. Meet Moxie Marlinspike, the anarchist bringing encrytion to us all, The Curious Rise of Scientology in Taiwan. Fire Ants Are Being Laced with Homosexual Chemtrails to Bite Christians And Convert Them To Homosexuality The 1 percent's useful idiots. Taking back control. Clinton writes off the Left. (The American Conservative) 5 reasons almost everyone was wrong about Trump. (Cracked) How the other half protests. What happened to the pink tide in South America?

"Banning the box" may actually hurt POC. The world is addicted to debt. Neoliberalism is a political project. Trump: Tribune Of Poor White People (The American Conservative) [http://www.orchestratedpulse.com/2016/07/we-are-the-left/ We Are the Left? Yeah, Right…] How Alex Jones uses people's fear of the government to sell dietary supplements. An inside look at Reddit's alt-right community. Air conditioning is a human right. I have seen both worlds, and the naturopathic one is terrifying.In particular, comments section. Police shootings bring into spotlight the 2006 FBI report about white supremacists infiltrating law enforcement. [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/22/police-reform-speeding-tickets-higher-fines-for-wealthy Want police reform? Charge rich people more for speeding tickets] The LED Quandry: Why there's no such thing as built to last. Here's why Blue Lives Matter is a racist hate group. The pharmaceutical industry has become a major health hazard to the American people. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpyCl1Qm6Xs Renowned hacktivist "Phineas Fisher" gives an interview to Vice about the complicated relationship between law enforcement around the world and hackers... as a puppet.] It's Official: Hillary Clinton Is Running Against Vladimir Putin Ending the violence. The Shadow Over Cleveland: Donald Trump as Supernatural Horror. A semi-tongue-in-cheek but also-completely-serious argument for Trump-as-eldritch-abomination by way of Harry G. Frankfurt's On Bullshit and the horror philosophy of S. T. Joshi and Thomas Ligotti. Stephen Colbert on the word "trumpiness". Hello, nation! (YouTube link) Melani's speech reveals how vapid political speeches are. Rudy Giuliani's history of racist rants. (Cato) Drug users are being slaughtered right now and no one cares. (Cracked) What happened in Turkey? [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/19/revenge-against-elites-americas-wake-up The world is taking its revenge against elites. When will America's wake up?] "Sixty years ago, the Republican Party was advocating for civil rights and gender equality, a stronger welfare state, and environmental protection. This is the story of the Republican Party that once was."

Roger Ailes, Bullshit Mountain CEO and Chairman, is set to be ousted as a result of an internal probe into sexual harassment allegations made against him. No news yet whether or not Carrie Fisher will reprise her role. Why Japan (National Review) and South Korea may be slipping from liberal democracies into fascist dictatorships.

Three bystanders who filmed and shared videos of killings by cops say they've been targeted by police ever since. Report confirms UK media's bias against Jeremy Corbyn Karen Armstrong, Lawrence Krauss, and Greg Epstein discuss whether religion is responsible for violence. Anti-Semitic Trump supporters go after David Harris Gershon, here are his thoughts on the matter. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2016/07/15/how-western-media-would-cover-baton-rouge-if-it-happened-overseas/? How Western media would cover Baton Rouge if it happened overseas.] [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/16/obama-black-lives-matter-doesnt-ensure-they-do? Obama says Black Lives Matter. But he doesn't ensure they do.] [https://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php/articles/8030 Is My Intolerance of Your Intolerance Intolerant?] How Islamists and their allies among the Western left smear their critics as Muslimophobes. How technology disrupted the truth. "But from both a strategic and moral perspective, the worst thing that could be done in response to the horror of incidents like Nice would be to give ISIS what it says it wants: polarization and communal hatred." "Far-right parties hostile to minorities are growing in popularity in Europe, while in the United States, polls show significant public support for once-unthinkable measures like banning non-citizen Muslims from the country." Obama has failed victims of racism and police brutality. Dear #WeAreTheLeft, you are not the Left. The near certainty of anti-police violence. Gun Deaths: Putting gun-related fatalities in the news into perspective. A neuroscientist explains the unconscious racial biases behind deadly police shootings. The Clintonite Democrats are now to the right of Bush on Palestinian rights. How AIPAC is using black leaders to erase Palestinian suffering from the DNC platform. The religious cult secretly running Japan. Barret Brown writes about his life in federal prison. [https://medium.com/@jencoates/i-am-a-transwoman-i-am-in-the-closet-i-am-not-coming-out-4c2dd1907e42#.lmu0ylqvf I Am A Transwoman. I Am In The Closet. I Am Not Coming Out.] Legalizing certain illegal jobs: a way to end police harassment. From Reason. A lovely analysis of the politicians behind the Brexit - "one Etonian backstabbing another" Economist William K. Black explains how white collar crime kills and maims more people than blue collar crime. Despite rampant comparisons, 2016 is nowhere near as bad as 1968. [http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/07/10/opinion/sunday/what-white-america-fails-to-see.html? Death in Black and White.] It’s more than just the killings and the racism, it’s the extortion too. Abu Zabaydah describes his years of torture by the CIA. America: a very class-divided society - the example of "white trash". The Chilcolt Report reveals two things: Iraqi lives don't matter and that Western aggression causes terrorism. Why modern America scares me: By an internment camp survivor. The Dallas PD's decision to use a remote control device to deliver lethal force raises serious legal quetions on a new era of policing. After Dallas shooting, it's not Us vs. the Cops Why Marwan Barghouti may be the Palestinian Nelson Mandela. Here are 8 white people who pointed guns at police officers who didn't get killed. Inside the deadly world of private prisoner transport. Jimmy Dore catches an awkward tweet by Elizabeth Warren. Oops! Sarah Lyall of the New York Times on the Brexit aftermath: British Politics Gives a Sense of Government by Old School Chums You know those cheap roadside narcotics tests -- the ones where a cop puts a mysterious white substance in a plastic blister pack and it changes color if it's cocaine or opioid? It turns out that they may be no more accurate than if the cop and the accused had instead played rock-paper-scissors to determine the outcome. Clinton’s Emails, GamerGate, and How the Word “Corruption” Became Meaningless Everything the British media have misreported about the EU since 1992 Economic Theorists: The high priests of Capitalism. Liberals need to stop writing off non–college educated workers. How the U.S. military promotes its weapons arsenal to the public. Beware the ‘empathy-washing’ of self-proclaimed caring capitalists. The coup against Corbyn was planned to stop him calling for Blair’s head after Chilcot. Inside the Kuweires air base in Syria after its 2-year siege. [http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/opinion/sunday/the-terrorists-the-saudis-cultivate-in-peaceful-countries.html? The terrorists the Saudis cultivate in peaceful countries.] Policing the police. (Documentary by PBS) Confessions of a former internet troll: "Trolling as an impulse has always been largely the domain of white men. They — we — are all anxious." Poe's Law and the Brock Turner case. The right-wing populism that drove Brexit can only be fought with a genuinely radical alternative. Ending the racist prison system begins with telling the truth about its injustices. When prosecutors withhold information, innocent people go to prison — or worse. (Video by Reason) Corporate fraud demands criminal time. Arresting America: Are your police really protecting you? An alternative to the madness of proving police injustice. Netanyahu’s bloody incitement. Chinese mining companies have effectively taken over Bitcoin, leading to the American libertarians backing it for ideological reasons begging them ineffectually for their desired changes. Unscrupulous actors motivated by short-term profit dominating a market in the absence of regulation? Say it ain't so! When your joke online petition goes nuts: I have accidentally founded an independence movement.