Trump supporters charge into a rally after their moronic leader tested positive for coronavirus.
“CNN reporter Gary Tuchman interviewed a number of Trump supporters at a Florida rally and had them explain the different reasons why they refuse to wear a mask — even after the president was infected and hospitalized to treat his coronavirus diagnosis.
During Anderson Cooper‘s Monday night show, he aired a report from the packed and non-socially distanced campaign rally in Sanford, Florida, where Tuchman talked with a number of maskless Trump supporters about their very public choice not to follow CDC guidelines.
“If you thought that people would be more careful at rallies after hearing that Donald Trump had coronavirus and there was a super spreading event at the White House, you would be incorrect,” Tuchman said, leading off. “About 90% of people did not have masks. Every one had their temperatures checked and they were given hand sanitizer, and they were given masks and there were no mandate to wear them. Most of those masks were put in pockets and never came out again.”
“As Bolivia gears up for a do-over election on May 3, the country remains in unrest following the Nov. 10 military-backed coup against incumbent President Evo Morales. A quick recap: Morales claimed victory in October’s election, but the opposition protested about what it called electoral fraud. A Nov. 10 report from the Organization of American States (OAS) noted election irregularities, which “leads the technical audit team to question the integrity of the results of the election on October 20.” Police then joined the protests and Morales sought asylum in Mexico. The military-installed government charged Morales with sedition and terrorism. A European Union monitoring report noted that some 40 former electoral officials have been arrested and face criminal charges of sedition and subversion, and 35 people have died in the post-electoral conflict. The highest-polling presidential candidate, a member of Morales’s Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS-IPSP) party, has received a summons from prosecutors for undisclosed crimes, a move some analysts suspect was aimed to keep him off the ballot.”
“As more people realize Christopher Columbus’ legacy of genocide and slavery, a growing number of municipalities are moving away from Columbus Day and celebrating Indigenous Peoples Day instead. Furious at this evolution, Fox host Tucker Carlson has railed against Indigenous Peoples Day and in favor of Columbus Day. In doing so, his racist arguments are ripped from white supremacist Jared Taylor.”
The shock of Donald Trump winning the election hasn’t even passed yet, and apparently some think the solution is to run Hillary freaking Clinton again in 2020.
New research suggests people can become addicted to the feel-good brain chemicals brought on by religious experiences. Ana Kasparian and John Iadarola, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.
“Although religious experience impacts more than 5.8 billion people worldwide, our understanding of the brain networks involved remains obscure. In a study published today in the journal Social Neuroscience, researchers at the University of Utah School of Medicine report that religious and spiritual experiences activate reward circuits in the brain — the same that are associated with feelings of love and drug-induced euphoric states.
Researchers used fMRI to image the brain’s electrical activity while spiritual feelings were evoked in participants inside the scanner. 19 young devout Mormons, 12 males and 7 females, who were all former full-time missionaries, were chosen because of the intensity of their routine religious experience—known as “feeling the spirit.” A key part of being Mormon involves identifying this experience in oneself and teaching this ability to new converts. Followers of the faith make decisions based on these feelings and view them as a way to communicate with God. This made them the ideal choice for a study aimed at uncovering the specific neural circuits involved with religious experience.
To trigger these religious feelings, participants were given four tasks over the course of an hour while their brains were scanned. The exercises were designed to emulate the Mormon religious experience, and included prayer, scripture study, audiovisual presentations of religious music with images of Biblical scenes and other strongly religious content, and quotes from church leaders. To make sure only the images of brain states associated with intense religious experience were captured, participants were intermittently asked to give subjective ratings, with responses to “Are you feeling the spirit?” ranging from “not feeling” to “very strongly feeling.”
The tasks were highly effective, as many participants were actually brought to tears during the session. Detailed first-person assessments showed that feelings of inner peace and physical sensations of warmth were common. Overall, the feelings evoked were described as similar to those experienced during a typical intense worship service.”
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