Views from Crestmont Drive

• Government plots to suppress vaccines, and the effects of climate change;
• With my speculation about conservative motivations;
• Heather Cox Richardson on how, despite concerns for the budget, conservatives are willing to spend millions and millions to deport people they don’t like;
• Trump’s deflection from the Epstein case is like the Barbra Streisand Effect;
• Another aspect of the conservative mindset is the veneration of the Confederacy;
• As predicted: war against UCLA;
• A mid-decade census? What is the point?
• And how Republicans think if they’ve won by 51%, they have license to rewrite the rules (i.e. gerrymander) so they’ll never lose again. I don’t think that’s how the system is supposed to work.

I was saying yesterday how for years conservative conspiracy theorists have floated imaginary evidence, or misunderstood real evidence, to impugn the government, or Democrats, with plots against them — claims of reality that don’t synch with the way they think the world works, or should work. In the Trump era, however, actual conspiracy theories and plots are plain as day, and the conservatives are just fine with them — because they’re in the support of their own worldview, which is driven by anti-scientific, religious mythology.

Here’s a quote first:

There’s a weird little trick to living longer. It’s one that influencers won’t tell you; after all, there’s no way to earn a commission on it. It can be found tucked in the back of CVS, or even at any regular old doctor’s office. It’s expensive, but you may very well be able to get it for free. The government increasingly—staggeringly, stupefyingly—doesn’t want you to know about it.

It’s this:

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