The Weekly Sift

Normally, I’m pretty well armored against the news. I watch bad things happen week after week and do my best to summarize them without letting them ruin my mood. This week was tougher. I had been softened up a little last week by the attack on Venezuela and the Trump administration’s complete disregard for Congress and its laws. And then on Wednesday, an ICE agent murdered a woman who had the audacity not to obey his commands. Our government’s instant response, without waiting for evidence to emerge, was to smear the victim as a “domestic terrorist” who bore full responsibility for her own death.

The right-wing media machine played its assigned role perfectly, repeating Noem, Trump, and Vance’s baseless claims that this video or that one backed up their self-justifying narrative. (They didn’t.) Better angles that showed what really happened were ignored.

And here’s the crushing fact: For some significant portion of the population, it worked. They’re out there repeating the regime’s narrative as if it were established fact.

So anyway, other people have covered the basic facts of the shooting reasonably well. But I feel like I have to comment on our nation’s epistemological crisis: The regime can deny things that are clearly shown on video, and make its sheep see what they are told to see. I find that deeply disturbing.

That’s the gist of the featured post: “Renee Good and Our Epistemological Crisis” should be out shortly.

That still leaves a lot for the weekly summary: Venezuela, Iran, the exaggerated “scandal” of Minnesota fraud, Grok, and a few other things. That may take me until 1 or so EST.