Man Of Jackistan: Reason and Truth's Time and Place

Trump Approval Rating Rises Amid Coronavirus Crisis Rant #19 ( Opinion ) Originally March 24, 2020 Donald Trump ignored intelligence reports from multiple agencies in the months of January and February that warned of the coronavirus imminently infecting America, doing great damage to the economy and public health. The president publicly refuted the severity of the virus, famously called it a "Democratic hoax," and to this day despite having declared a national emergency continues to give bad advice about the illness, for example by claiming that chloroquine is a viable cure for COVID-19. And now, the president has begun flirting with the idea of reeling back the emergency measures meant to flatten the curve of the rapidly spreading coronavirus. It doesn't stop there, either. Here's a link to a video which very effectively displays some more examples of how he has totally mismanaged the crisis thus far. And yet, the president's approval rating has r...

Black People and Conspiracy Theories, Plus Speculation About Biden's VP Pick and the Future of Trumpism Rant #17 ( Opinion ) Originally March 22, 2020; Posted March 23, 2020 Lately, I've thought a lot about something that confuses me. It seems that a lot of Black people  believe in conspiracy theories like New World Order, Illuminati, population control--a whole bunch of them.  Maybe that's a coincidence, and only overwhelmingly endemic among the Black people that I know. But it makes sense. As a White man, I can only speculate. On the one hand, I can totally see the roots of skepticism and distrust in the system: slavery, "separate but equal" segregation, Blacks being denied mortgages and credit through red-lining, the Tuskegee experiment, police profiling; there is a long history of this government and its elites quite literally conspiring to make life difficult for Blacks. What boggles my mind more than just a proclivity for belief in conspiracy theori...

Insulting CNN To Shift The Center Rant #9 ( Opinion ) Originally March 8, 2020; Posted March 10, 2020 Why is CNN the scapegoat of the right, rather than MSNBC, which has more clearly liberal commentators? I'll tell you why: by attacking a fairly neutral news station as "liberal," it makes right wing nutjobs who oppose basic facts and Democrats look a little less crazy to people who pay less attention to politics. The public starts to believe this bullshit narrative about CNN marking the epitome of the far left. First of all, let's clarify some semantics here. Terms like "media," "mainstream media" and "the liberal media" get tossed around a lot, often interchangeably. Media is really just any medium of communication: TV, newspapers, even this website all technically comprise the media. CNN and Fox News both equally fall under the label of 'media.' Those two would also make up the "mainstream media," ...

Ukrainian Chess Champion Found Dead In Russia My Take Originally March 6, 2020 A Ukrainian chess champion and his girlfriend were found dead in Moscow today. The 27 year old and his 18 year old girlfriend--also very skilled at chess--died from an overdose of nitrous oxide, aka "laughing gas." Authorities say they do not suspect foul play. So, a random drug overdose or a well-played Russian assassination? The GRU is known for its usage of poisons to make murders look like other causes of death. Nitrous oxide rarely causes fatal overdoses: I just did a brief search and did the math, and 470,000 Brits did the drug over the previous year. Yet over the course of 6 years (2006-12), it caused or was a part of 17 deaths. So, 0.0006% of anybody doing nitrous in a given year will die because of it (based off of the UK data).  So to OD while in Moscow just seems a little strange...Oh, and let's not forget, Russia and Ukraine are currently engaged in a war.  On t...

"I'm Too Smart To Be Interfered With By The Russians" Rant #5 ( Opinion ) Originally February 25, 2020 This week, news broke that the Russian GRU (its CIA-like agency) had been caught meddling in the Democratic primaries, promoting candidate Bernie Sanders while smearing the others in an attempt to ultimately have the Vermont Senator win the nomination. Meanwhile, their preference for having President Trump remain in office has not changed. It is likely that they believe Trump will have the least trouble defeating Bernie Sanders, and thus want to help him get to the general election. While they have deployed some enhanced technology this time, their tactics remain largely unchanged from their successful 2016 game plan.  Some will deny any involvement by the Russians in our electoral discourse. Trump and his literalist base will defend his assertion that not only did the GRU not get involved in the 2016 election, but Ukraine and Hillary Clinton supporters fram...

The Vaccine-Autism Link...Or Lack Thereof Originally composed August 4, 2018 Editor's Note: The anti-vaxxer quandary will not go untouched, as I intend to devote a future article, possibly more, to dissecting the bizarre phenomenon. For now, this article explains the origins of the misconception and clarifies reality. All too often, many people-and smart ones, at that-speak as if factually about the link between vaccines and autism, citing a causal effect of the former on the development of the latter. In fact, 18% of Americans believe this link to exist, according to  a 2011 poll cited by  Time .  Meanwhile, virtually every major scientific organization has openly rejected this presumption. Googling "vaccine and autism" will quickly reveal this unified position among organizations ranging from: the federal government's Center for Disease Control (CDC); news outlets like  Discover Magazine , the  Washington Post , and  TIME ; online healthcare publi...