Lost someone to Fox News? Science says they may be addicted to anger

Linda Rodriguez McRobbie has an article in the Boston Globe under the above heading.  It is a long article but it is mainly an account of how anger works physiologically.  No evidence at all is offered to justify the claim that Fox news listeners are particularly angry.

She has just one case study of a man who became more angry after listening to Rush Limnaugh.  But you can "prove" anything from one case

I reproduce below her few paragraohs that have some possible relevance to her contention. In the third paragraph she makes  a case that Americans are angrier than they were but quite overlooks that all the anger may be coming from Leftist hatred of Donald J. Trump.

The lack of self-insight among Leftists is truly crashing. Amid the daily outbursts of fury from the Leftist media at everything the President says or does, the mentally blind Ms McRobbie overlooks all that and in a perfect display of projection says that it is CONSERVATIVES who are characterized by anger.

Conservatives direct reasoned arguments and some mockery at Leftists but that constitutes "hate" appparently.  NO criticism of Leftism is allowed. Linda's article proves only how heavily she is beset by the usual Leftist defence mechanisms of projection, compartmentalization and denial.  But I suppose that I am being "angry" in saying that.


While all partisan news outlets follow the emotionally exploitative playbook, Sobieraj says, right-wing outlets have so far deployed it with more success — talk radio is around 90 percent conservative. Rage disrupts logical thought, reducing complex issues to black and white answers: build the wall, lock her up, make it great. However, the polemical nature of right-wing rhetoric may be pushing people on the left to react accordingly.

When anger addicts find a medium that resonates with them, they may not recognize how emotionally affected they are by the fiery rhetoric. “It doesn’t sound like outrage when you agree with it,” says Sobieraj. “It sounds like someone truth-telling and so it feels great — that’s why this content is successful.”

Inundated by extreme viewpoints designed to stoke emotions, Americans may be feeling more threatened, and therefore, more irate. A 2016 Esquire/NBC survey found that half of all Americans were angrier than they had been the year before; 31 percent of respondents were enraged by something in the news a few times a day, while 37 percent were angry once a day. Meanwhile, acts of road rage involving firearms have more than doubled since 2014, according to The Trace.

More HERE

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Israeli army poised to invade as air strikes continue

US President Donald Trump has tweeted out an ominous threat to Gaza militants after they launched a deadly rocket attack on Israel.

Gaza militants fired hundreds of rockets into southern Israel on Sunday, killing at least four Israelis and bringing life to a standstill across the region in the bloodiest fighting since a 2014 war.

At least 66 other people have been wounded.

As Israel pounded Gaza with air strikes, the Palestinian death toll rose to 23, including two pregnant women and two babies.

Spokesman for the Israeli army, Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricu, said it had struck over 250 sites in Gaza, according to the Independent.

The bloodshed marked the first Israeli fatalities from rocket fire since the 2014 war.

With Palestinian militants threatening to send rockets deeper into Israel and Israeli reinforcements massing near the Gaza frontier, the fighting showed no signs of slowing down.

US President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind Israel, warning militants of the “misery” they would endure if they continued their attack.

“Once again, Israel faces a barrage of deadly rocket attacks by terrorist groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad. We support Israel 100% in its defence of its citizens,” President Trump tweeted.

“To the Gazan people — these terrorist acts against Israel will bring you nothing but more misery. END the violence and work towards peace — it can happen!”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spent most of the day huddled with his Security Cabinet. Late Sunday, the Cabinet instructed the army to “continue its attacks and to stand by” for further orders.

Israel also claimed to have killed a Hamas commander involved in transferring Iranian funds to the group.

Israel and Hamas, an Islamic militant group that seeks Israel’s destruction, have fought three wars since Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from Western-backed Palestinian forces in 2007.

They have fought numerous smaller battles, most recently two rounds in March.

While lulls in fighting used to last for months or even years, these flare-ups have grown increasingly frequent as a desperate Hamas, weakened by a crippling Egyptian-Israeli blockade imposed 12 years ago, seeks to put pressure on Israel to ease the closure.

The blockade has ravaged Gaza’s economy, and a year of Hamas-led protests along the Israeli frontier has yielded no tangible benefits.

In March, Hamas faced several days of street protests over the dire conditions.

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said in a statement late Sunday that the militant group was “not interested in a new war.” He signalled readiness to “return to the state of calm” if Israel stopped its attacks “and immediately starts implementing understandings about a dignified life.”

With little to lose, Hamas appears to be trying to step up pressure on Netanyahu at a time when the Israeli leader is vulnerable on several fronts.

Fresh off an election victory, Netanyahu is now engaged in negotiations with his hard-line political partners on forming a governing coalition.

If fighting drags on, the normally cautious Netanyahu could be weakened in his negotiations as his partners push for a tougher response.

Meanwhile, Israel said it was suspending fuel deliveries to Gaza. Diesel, including Qatari-donated fuel for Gaza’s only power plant, had continued to enter despite the escalation. Gaza’s lone power station said it was turning off one of its three turbines, worsening chronic power shortages.

Later this week, Israel marks Memorial Day, one of the most solemn days of the year, and its festive Independence Day.

Next week, Israel is to host the Eurovision song contest. Prolonged fighting could overshadow these important occasions and deter foreign tourists.

The arrival of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins Monday, does not seem to be deterring Hamas.

But the group is also taking a big risk if it pushes too hard. During the 50-day war in 2014, Israel killed over 2,200 Palestinians, over half of them civilians, according to U.N. tallies, and caused widespread damage to homes and infrastructure.

While Hamas is eager to burnish its credentials as a resistance group, the Gazan public has little stomach for another devastating war.

“Hamas is the change seeker,” said retired Brig. Gen. Assaf Orion, a former head of the Israeli military general staff’s strategic division. “Hamas needs to make its calculus, balancing its hope for improvement against its fear of escalation.”

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Israelis have “every right to defend themselves.” He expressed hope that the recent ceasefire could be restored.

Previous rounds of fighting have all ended in informal Egyptian-mediated truces in which Israel pledged to ease the blockade while militants promised to halt rocket fire.

On Friday, two Israeli soldiers were wounded by snipers from Islamic Jihad, a smaller Iranian-backed militant group that often cooperates with Hamas but sometimes acts independently. Israel responded by killing two Palestinian militants, leading to intense rocket barrages and retaliatory Israeli air strikes beginning Saturday.

By Sunday, the Israeli military said militants had fired over 600 rockets, with the vast majority falling in open areas or intercepted by the Iron Dome rocket- defence system. But more than 30 rockets managed to strike urban areas, the army said.

The Israeli military said it struck 250 targets in Gaza, including weapons storage, attack tunnels and rocket launching and production facilities. It also deployed tanks and infantry forces to the Gaza frontier, and put another brigade on standby.

“We have been given orders to prepare for a number of days of fighting under current conditions,” said Lt. Colonel Jonathan Conricus, a military spokesman. Palestinian medical officials reported 23 dead, including at least eight militants hit in targeted air strikes. At least four civilians, including two pregnant women and two babies, were also among the dead.

SOURCE 

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US deploying forces in bold warning to Iran

The United States is deploying a carrier strike group and a bomber task force to the Middle East to send a clear message to Iran that any attack on US interests or its allies will be met with “unrelenting force”, US national security adviser John Bolton says.

Amid rising tensions between the United States and Iran, Bolton said the decision was “in response to a number of troubling and escalatory indications and warnings”.

“The United States is not seeking war with the Iranian regime, but we are fully prepared to respond to any attack, whether by proxy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or regular Iranian forces,” Bolton said in a statement. It marked the latest in a series of moves by President Donald Trump’s administration against Iran in recent weeks.

Washington has said it will stop waivers for countries buying Iranian oil, in an attempt to reduce Iran’s oil exports to zero. It has also blacklisted Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.

The Trump administration’s efforts to impose political and economic isolation on Tehran began last year when it unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal it and other world powers negotiated with Iran in 2015.

“The United States is deploying the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group and a bomber task force to the US Central Command region to send a clear and unmistakeable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” Bolton said.

Bolton, who has spearheaded an increasingly hawkish US policy on Iran, did not provide any other details.

A US official said the forces “have been ordered to the region as a deterrence to what has been seen as potential preparations by Iranian forces and its proxies that may indicate possible attacks on U.S. forces in the region.” The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the United States was not expecting any imminent attack on U.S. forces.

SOURCE 

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US Economy Add 263,000 New Jobs: Unemployment Hits 50-year Low

The U.S economy added 263,000 jobs in April, the Labor Department reported Friday, blowing past expectations.

The unemployment rate also dropped 0.2 percentage points to 3.6 percent, the lowest jobless rate since 1969, driven in part by a 0.2-point decline in the labor force participation rate to 62.8 percent.

SOURCE 

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So-Called "Experts" Are Wrong Again on the Trump Economy

Remember a few months back, when the so-called experts in the room warned us that the partial government shutdown would ruin the economy? Boy, were they wrong.

The markets were supposed to falter and economic growth was bound to slow, with President Trump’s “Libertarian Experiment” resulting in a recession. Fast forward a few months later, and we find that the only “problem” with these predictions was that U.S. GDP instead grew 3.2 percent.

This is not the first time that the talking heads and respected economists have totally missed the mark when trying to make predictions about the Trump economy. How many times will it take before the likes of Paul Krugman admit that they have been wrong all along? I’m not holding my breath.

Friday’s report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis indicates that U.S. GDP grew 3.2 percent in quarter one of 2019, compared to the forecasted 2.1 percent. To put it in the president’s vernacular, this is “[h]uge,” especially when you take into account that the partial government shutdown was supposed to be a massive drag on economic growth.

The superb quarter one GDP numbers tell us that a few things are at play. For starters, the Keynesian system of government transfers and dabbling in the economy isn’t the real driver of economic growth. But because most talking heads do not subscribe to supply-side theory, we see how they could be so concerned with how a partially functioning government would negatively impact the economy. Contrary to their assertions, government spending isn’t necessary for economic growth, as proven by quarter one’s GDP growth.

Instead, free market policies that involve cutting taxes and red tape are shown to work much better. A “hands-off” approach to economic policy means that even when Washington can’t get its act together, everyday Americans continue to prosper. This should be a no-brainer. American workers and small business owners seem to understand it, so why can’t the Beltway insiders? This is the sort of perilous hubris that contributed to President Trump’s election in the first place, and will likely tee-up his re-election in 2020.

Apparently, the U.S. economy will grow at a robust pace even in the midst of a government shutdown, which if you live within the Beltway bubble was supposedly akin to living in a dystopian parallel universe. Obviously the rest of America, especially those pesky fly-over states, paid no heed to the doom and gloom predictions. Main Street America continues to thrive, unemployment remains low and consumer confidence remains at an all time high.

Thanks to Mr. Trump and the GOP’s pro-growth agenda, and despite the partial government shutdown, Americans from every demographic are finding success in today’s economy. With more than 2.6 million African-American-owned businesses in the United States today, the past two years have been a boon for African-American entrepreneurship like never before. This is the result of free market approaches, initiatives and platforms that come not from government, but from individuals.

At the same time, the past two years have been extremely good for women in the workforce and the economy. More than half of the jobs created since January 2018 have gone to women, and women’s unemployment is down to 3.8 percent. Pro-growth economic policies have benefited Americans of all stripes more than any government program ever could. The narrative that pro-growth policies only benefit the wealthy and advantaged is collapsing, fast.

Democrats and their friends in the media would do well to recognize that hands-off, pro-growth policies, rather than big government and identity politics, are the keys to enabling all Americans to prosper. The dire predictions made by pundits during the government shutdown have not come to pass and we have instead continued to see robust economic growth. Friday’s report should serve as a reminder not to trust everything that’s been written or said, especially if it’s “expert opinion.”

SOURCE 

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